Posts Tagged ‘novel writing’

Winter Wolves Redone

Posted: December 8, 2011 in winter wolves, writing, writing update
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I have finally finished the re-edit of Winter Wolves.  In addition it has received a new cover as well, in keeping with the others of the series.

In addition to trying to fix up all spelling and grammatical errors that I could find, I also re-wrote the last 10,000 words.  I had never been entirely happy with the ending, given I felt it had too much in common with the ending of Tears of the Mountain.  And there was a good reason for that.  I had started work on Winter Wolves first, plotting it out and writing about half of it.  Then, as is my way, I switched projects and starts on Tears.  This time I actually stuck through to the end and finished Tears.  However I had never had an ending for Tears planned and in the end borrowed the one I had planned for Winter Wolves.  When I went back to Winter Wolves I found myself without an ending and tried to cobble one together, one that I felt had too much in common with the ending of Tears.  The re-edit gave me a chance to re-write the ending into one not so similar, and one that I fell makes more sense – at least for me.

The new versions are kicking around at Smashwords and Amazon.

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Plans For The Rest Of The Year

Posted: November 23, 2011 in Dawn of Wolves, General, winter wolves, writing, writing update
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End of the year is rapidly approaching and I still have a few things on the list that I want to see done by then, so I’d better knuckle down and get them done.

First up is to finish the re-edit/re-write of Winter Wolves. I’m down to the last 2K to go, so hopefully won’t be long. After that I need to work on a new cover for it, like the others of that series.

Secondly is to finish off Dawn of Wolves – it has been sitting there for a long while now. At 40K down, there is about 10K to go for it.

Lastly is to do another short anthology of short stories – somewhere between 3 and 5 of them. I’ve got a couple of collection in the works – just need to work out which to finish first.

Tears of the Mountain Redone

Posted: October 14, 2011 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, writing, writing update
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The re-edit of Tears of the Mountain is now done, fixing up various little grammatical and spelling errors that hadn’t been caught previously. It also now has its new cover. The edited version is now up and working on Smashwords and is currently being published on Amazon, so should be ready to go in a day or two.

Now to start on Winter Wolves.

My First Interview

Posted: March 7, 2011 in Interviews, Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves
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I had my first ever interview posted, over on Indie Book Blog.

Its actually rather a lengthy one, and doing them is harder than it seems.

I’ll need to start hunting down more if I am to get my name out there and interest in the books.

February Report

Posted: March 1, 2011 in fantasy, General, Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, writing update
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And here we are in March already – two months of the year gone.

The output was reduced a lot compared to January, only around 50-60K done, but a lot of time was spent finishing Winter Wolves, proof-reading it and publishing it on Amazon/Smashwords.

The givewaway of Winter Wolves has slowed down some, but has now hit 101 people having acquired it. No reviews yet but three people have said that they will at some stage.

Sales wise, between the two novels I managed 15 sales for the month. Not a huge amount, but it is a start. Of those 6 were of Winter Wolves, so I’ll have to calculate how much goes towards supporting my sister – that one of them was on Amazon.uk and is listed in pence makes it more challenging.

I didn’t hit all my goals – a fair way off it actually, but it was a decent month still.

Aims for March. Work on He Stands Between, Dawn of Wolves, Hammer of the Skies and a novelette for another project. Aim is to try and finish one of the first three and the novelette.

Winter Wolves Finished

Posted: February 19, 2011 in fantasy, winter wolves, writing update
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Early this morning I got to the end of the rewrite and polishing of Winter Wolves and typed ‘The End.’

Its been a long while since I started it but now it has reached its conclusion. Well, more or less. There is still work to be done; proof reading, cover design and above all formatting for both Smashwords and Amazon. Hopefully that will not take too long and people can have a rad of it.

Already working on what to do next. I have the half finished novel He Stands Between, as well as two novellas, Hammer of the Skies and Dawn of Wolves that need finishing, plus another currently secret project. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin to see which gets priority.

And at some stage I need to work on updating parts of the website.

Progress Report

Posted: February 16, 2011 in winter wolves, writing update
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I’m making good progress on the editing of Winter Wolves, having done thirteen of the twenty one chapter so far.

That is the easy part.

After finishing the rewriting I did some brainstorming, trying to nut out a few problems I was having with the plot as it sat. The brainstorming worked well, as I figured out a way to fix the problems not only to my satisfaction, but to tie it in with a short story I’ve written as well. The major issue with the new ideas is that it is going to take some major rewriting in the second half of the book – maybe even whole chapters will need to be done. That all lies ahead still.

But at the current rate I am still looking at the end of the month to have it done and up available for download around the place.

Winter Wolves: Starting the Final Edit/Polish

Posted: February 10, 2011 in fantasy, winter wolves, writing update
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I’ve finished writing Winter Wolves. Its been a long time in the coming, but it is done finally.

Now comes the next phase – the editing and polishing. It is going to need it. Some concepts and ideas changed during the writing and so I’m going to have to go back through it and fix any inconstancies that may have caused, as well as fleshing out various spots that need some more detail. The largest amount of work needs to happen in the last one third, while the first one third is almost ready to go.

The aim is to have it up and out by the end of the month. Sooner if I can manage it.

January Report

Posted: February 2, 2011 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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January has come and gone – yes already. One twelfth of the year has already flown by.

Writing wise it was a decent month. Notable points are;

130K words written – mostly rewriting old drafts but still that is progress.
70K done on rewrite of Winter Wolves novel.
10.5K done of rewrite of Dawn of Wolves novella.
Tears of the Mountain published on Smashwords/Amazon.
Halfway into the rewrite of He Stands Between.
Various notes and ideas done for other stories.

Hope I can keep up the pace for February.
Aims for February are finishing off Winter Wolves and hopefully Dawn of the Wolves, plus a short story or two. And trying to market Tears of the Mountain better.

Progress and Plans

Posted: January 14, 2011 in Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, writing update
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The year has begun and we are already a couple of weeks in so I thought it time to take stock of what has happened and what I have got planned.

Firstly I have managed to write everyday of the year so far, and not insubstantial amounts. If I am rather liberal with my definition of ‘written’ then I have written 58,000 words in 13 days. The best day was yesterday, with 9,500 words done. Of course a large chunk, read most, of those words are rewriting old drafts into newer drafts. It is much easier and faster doing it that way, but of course the rough drafts need doing first.

Some of those words are on rough drafts, of which some have already received some rewriting, which seems a rather fruitful way of doing it. Scribble up the rough draft in the morning and in the evening get stuck into a rewrite of it.

All of that has been spread over a number of projects I’m busy working on to try and finish off, ranging from novels to short stories. The quick they are done, the better.

In addition to all that, I have finished the editing and polishing for Tears of the Mountain (or at least that is the theory – I have probably missed half the errors in it.) To celebrate I have put it up on Smashwords, and plan to make it available at more places (such as Amazon), as well as pushing it around the traps – but more on that later.

So that is what has been happening. Now for what I have planned.

I do at some stage need to give the old website an overhaul, updating the statuses of various projects, stories, collections and the like to reflect changes that have happened.

Short term plans are to complete the last part of the initial book of Cara’s Choice – the rough draft is getting close to being finished – and also to finish a rewrite and update of an old novel, Winter Wolves. Winter Wolves was sitting on around 60K of its rough draft when I left it but finishing Tears of the Mountain inspired me to return to it, given it takes place in the same setting and features one of the same characters. Since I wrote it there have been a number of changes to the setting that need incorporating, as well as it needing a complete overhaul of the ending; it didn’t work at the time and works even less due to various changes. But in a day and a half I’ve done 13,000 words of the rewrite of it.

Longer term is a goal to increase output, that being a short story every two weeks, a novel/novella every two months. An audacious target I know, but if I keep up my current output then it is entirely achievable.

I even had the short list of what those projects will be;

Winter Wolves (gunpowder fantasy novel)
He Stands Between (epic fantasy novel)
Hammer of the Skies (steampunk novella)
Cara’s Choice: The Awakening (urban fantasy novella)
Primal Tales III (fantasy short story)
Nhaqosa V (fantasy short story)
Cahuac and the Fisherman (fantasy short story)

Between all that I should be busy for a while.

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