I turned in the editorial revisions for Prophets today, which means that I am officially done with it. It got a bit longer which is why all the counters moved around. Next task, is a second round of editorial edits on Lilly's Song, which are relatively minor and should only take a couple of days. Then I need to do a revision of Valentine's Night before I give it to Eleanor to shop around.Then I'll be writing new stuff. . .
No I didn't forget about them, it's just this little old thing called revision. See, when I finish a novel and turn it into an editor, it isn't really finished. Since you all saw those counters grind to a halt I've been stuck revising Lilly's Song for Bantam, and I'm currenly revising Prophets for DAW. I will also be spending the rest of this month revising Valentine's Night before I finally hand it off to Eleanor. Then I'll be doing new stuff, working on the second Apotheosis book.
My existential title crisis is over!And and the winner is: *drumroll*Lilly's SongNow we just need to decide if it's "A Wolfbreed Novel" or "A Novel of the Wolfbreed"
Well, since I finished up the Wolfbreed rewrite, I haven't done much writing. I guess I just needed to rest the old story muscle for a bit. Also, the next thing I'm working on is Heretic, the second book in the Apotheosis Trilogy. This means going straight from a rewrite of a medieval historical dark fantasy-cum-romance into a full-blown post-singular space opera. If I didn't take a bit of a break, I'd probably pull something from the cognitive whiplash. I plan to get going on that next week, but in the meantime I've been playing with the Title Scorer on Lulu.com.As any reader of this blog knows, I've been racking my brain for a title for Wolfbreed #1 now that we've decided that will be a series title. I have been playing with titles (most of which suck) and now I have at lest some objective measure of how "good" they are.Here's some examples with prospective titles I've been kicking around:
Well, I've gotten through most of the editorial rewrite of Wolfbreed #1 (Yeah, I know, but I just e-mailed Anne a bunch of title ideas) and I'm going to go over copy-editing type stuff this weekend and hopefully send out the final draft to her and Eleanor by Monday. Most all the changes were due to genre considerations. I was fortunately expecting this, as I didn't really know what genre I was writing until I finished the book. It was a horror/fantasy/historical/romance mashup, and the final rewrite was toning down a little (ok a lot) of the horror, and ramping up the romance. 90% of this was all a matter of tone and emphasis, the only events in the novel that changed were the ending and some additional scenes of backstory. Most of what I did was crank the viscera meter down from 11. (Actual critique quote from draft 1.5: "You have quite a dismemberment theme going here.")
Now that I finished the unscheduled spec novel (the first draft anyway) I am now in the throes of doing an editorial rewrite on Wolfbreed #1 (did I mention I need titles?) which will probably take me through mid-April (tax day, wheee). After that's done the plan is now to attack the second book of Apotheosis, and then Wolfbreed #2 (Did I mention, yeah, I think I did.) and then finish off Apotheosis.Since what I laid out there is about 18 months work, and a lot can happen in a year and a half, this probably only has a marginal relation to reality. But the upshot is, I'm in re-write land, so we won't have any counters moving for a month or so.
A couple of woo-hoos:First off, Anne at Bantam has given the ok to the outline I submitted for Wolfbreed #2 (titles, I need titles.) which means that I can go ahead with it as soon as I get the next DAW book out of the way. Second off, we are retiring the Valentine's Night counter, since I've just wrapped up the first draft.This is shaping up to be my most productive year writing since 1992, when I started doing this professionally. About exactly a year ago, I started writing Wolfbreed #1. I've since finished the novel, landed one helluva agent, found a new publisher, finished the first volume of the Apotheosis Trilogy for DAW, and now I've wrapped up the first draft of a third novel outside of any contractual commitments.Busy as I seem to be, my goal of finishing volume 2 for both Wolfbreed and the Apotheosis Trilogy in the next 12 months doesn't seem particularly daunting. Yea me.
Like I mentioned with Wolfbreed #1 some time ago, there's a point in every novel I've written where I feel like, "OMG what kind of garbage am I writing here?" It always happens in the last third of the book. I hit a wall where I feel everything I've written is total shit and I have to slog my way through the next few scenes no matter how excited I am about the project. However, I must still be growing as a writer, because I've just made two discoveries about this phenomenon.First, this did not happen with Prophets, and I think it must be related to the fact that it is the first book in a trilogy, and really is only the first third of a narrative and not a stand-alone book.Second, and more important, in today's "slog," I discovered a way to short-circuit the process. I skipped back into the first third of Valentine's Night and added a new scene retroconning a plot point I realized I needed for the ending. Turns out that, while it wasn't my intent, adding the scene (where my vampire RN heroine gets to set her own compound fracture in a wrecked police car) managed to re-ignite the enthusiasm that made me launch the project in the first place. Now I'm back to being excited about attacking it this weekend. Got to remember this for the next novel, it'd save me some angst.On an unrelated note, I got notes back from Anne for Wolfbreed #1 (still need titles), and with them I have the first word on when it will see print. As of right now, we're looking at Summer 2009. Mark your calender.
No, don't get too excited. But, in regards to my last weekly asshat's asshattery, an apparently otherwise intelligent blogger, in posting her own rebuttal, suffered an extreme case of foot-in-mouth disease:
[...] romance novels [...] are not "books", as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold.
You may have noticed, even before the whole Cassie Edwards flap, that I follow the blog, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books. It is, as advertised, smart, bitchy, and chock full of the kind of humor I tend to appreciate. Well, on said blog they have a feature called GS vs. STA (aka Good Shit vs. Shit to Avoid) where their readership asks the massed genius that is the Smart Bitches for genre recommendations in a particular subset of romance. Today, they posted my query, since, as an accidental romance author, I need to brush up on the genre I find myself writing in. The comment thread so far may interest SF/F fans, since there's a heavy overlap. I even got one recommendation for Poul Anderson.
It's a new year and I've revised my project counters. I have ditched the counter for The Unicorns of Hunting Valley because it seems very unlikely I'll be able to justify getting back to it any time in the near future. (As in, any time in 2008.) I've added a counter for book 2 in the Apotheosis Trilogy, which, barring catastrophe, should be done some time this upcoming year.I've also added a counter for the book two in the Wolfbreed series.Note, some title changes here. I've talked with Anne Groell at Bantam and it looks as if "Wolfbreed" will be the title for the series-- which makes sense given how I intend to follow the book up going forward.So the first book, which up to now I've been calling "Wolfbreed" will actually be printed under the title "Wolfbreed:[something else I need to think up]." I'll post here when I have a clue what the final title will be.And, if you're curious, book two is set in 14th century Poland.
At least that’s how it’s looking. With help from my kick-ass agent, Eleanor, I’ve sold Wolfbreed and a subsequent novel to Anne Groell at Bantam/Spectra for an advance a bit more than three times what DAW was giving me. Contracts are being written as we speak, and by this time next month, I will be the newest author at Bantam. Or, at least one of me will be. We haven’t talked bylines yet, though Eleanor thinks that Wolfbreed may be an S. A. Swiniarski book.We will pause this blog post for an important message:WAHOOO!!!!We now return to your regularly scheduled blog.We can add to this news the amusing wrinkle that will probably make a few friends of mine’s head ‘splode:I’ve become a romance author.Ok, it’s dark paranormal historical romance (and how deep can we subclass a genre?) but still. Now, from earlier posts you might have gathered that I was expecting this. I was. But I don’t think anyone else was. This includes Anne at Bantam who approached the subject of genre very gingerly; in her words “Some boys are scared by the label.” She obviously expected some resistance on my end. Frankly I am the last person to look down on anyone’s genre, and given the way SF has been treated historically, I think any SF writer that peers down his nose at romance writers is an arrogant twit.
By the end of the week I expect to have a big announcement.
Wolfbreed is done, at least until someone buys it and asks for some sort of editorial revision. So I've returned to my long belated Hostile Takeover sequel. If you note the counters I've been keeping, I've removed Wolfbreed and added a counter for the sequel trilogy as a whole in addition to the book I'm working on at the moment.The really observant might notice that the word count for book one actually dropped. No, I'm not backsliding. I just realized that one of the chapters I had already completed would work a lot better as a beginning for book two. That's why the trilogy counter is higher than the book one counter, even though I usually write things in sequence.You might also notice that I'm vacillating about the overall title of the sequel trilogy. Current working title is the Apotheosis Trilogy, which is a little less of a mouthful.Also, teaser for moreau fans: One of the main characters is named Nickolai Rajasthan.
Ladies and gentlemen, Wolfbreed is complete! I finished the last scene on Friday, and I've spent the last two days running through the draft, doing tweaks and copy-editing. The second draft is officially done. (OK, if you've followed the blog and my counters it is draft 1.5)Even better news: I've come a step closer in my search for an agent. I got a positive response to a query, which means I'm sending out a copy of Wolfbreed on Monday. If she likes my writing I think I may have a new agent.
I just crossed the 70K threshold. Wolfbreed has officially crossed (my) minimum threshold for novel length. While there's still 30,000 words left to reach my initial estimate, the word-count is no longer my barometer of completion. We're at the point where the story is going to determine when it is finished. It is wrapping up a little quicker than I expected, right now we're about to reach the nadir for just about all my major characters, evil is nearly triumphant, and— needless to say— all Hell is about to break loose.
I hit the two-thirds point, and plot-wise it's all downhill from here. I also just sent out my first query letter in my renewed search for a new agent. So things are proceeding. . .I have, however, just hit the point I do in every single novel where I have pretty much convinced myself that everything I've been writing is complete crap. The only thing that gets me over that particular wall is the fact that it happens with every single effing novel. What is up with that? I can really do without the angst, but there it is, regular as clockwork. At least I've written enough to know that the feeling will pass. . .
Well, almost. I have re-written the first half of the novel with the exception of a couple of scenes I'm relocating. Interesting exercise, and using an actual historical period did a lot to open up the novel— despite the fact that the physical setting is fairly constrained, the addition of a subplot about the rivalry between Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire and Pope Gregory IX, and their twin patronage of the Teutonic Order, goes a long way toward giving a sense of the wider world. It also gave me the one teeth-gnashing villain in the book, and— surprise— he is not a German crusader. (No, not a pagan either.)
Well, its April 15 and I didn't crack 60K, I'm about 10000 words short. The good news is that I've reached 50K words, so I'm at the nominal halfway point. Even better is the fact that I've just about got the setting changed, I've only got about 10000 words left in the original draft that need to be rewritten. Which means, since I started the rewrite at 40K words, I've added 10K of new material while I've been rewriting. I'm really happy with the changes so far, the milieu is a lot richer than it would have been otherwise.
You may have noticed the Wolfbreed counter slowing down. (Only about 5000 words since the last post) This isn't because I've slacked off... I just found the proper period in which to set my story, and I'm in the midst of re-writing. I can't really put off the re-write, because of the way I work. While I've written some novels non-linearly, I'm most comfortable growing a story from the beginning, and making a discontinuous jump from one setting to the other in the middle of a draft just wouldn't work for me. Not to mention I would more than likely in that case cram exposition into the latter part of the novel that rightly belongs in the first two or three chapters. (i.e. by 40K words in, the reader better have a good feeling for the setting, or I've screwed up royally.)Oh, you're probably curious where I chose to set it; Wolfbreed is now set in the mid-13th century in the beginning of the Baltic Crusades where the Teutonic Order is busy wiping pagan Prussia off the map. Don't be embarrassed if you're unfamiliar with the period. Most medieval history in English glosses over this bloody decades-long period of history something like this; "In 1225 Conrad of Masovia requested aid from the Teutonic Knights in Prussia. By 1291, after subjugating the population and turning Prussia into a monastic state directly under the authority of the Pope, the Teutonic Knights used it as a base of operations to launch attacks against pagan Lithuania."
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