Back to the day job, and family is back in town. So, the writing has slipped once again into sllllooooowwwww motion. Since the Big Push ended, I have logged only 5 1/2 hours on the book, enough to revise half a section. Was hoping to finish that section by Sunday (today). Not there. Still have three chapters to go.
I have 3 sections (well, 2 1/2 now) and an end-to-end proofread before this thing goes out to the first readers. If this trend continues, it will take another month, maybe even 6 weeks, to get there.
Good news: I am revising an area where I have chapter-by-chapter feedback from the Writer’s Bloc writing group, so my revisions in this section are a bit more focused and confident.
Showing posts with label Writer's Bloc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writer's Bloc. Show all posts
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Happy Anniversary
I started this book last year in July, so I am just past the 1-year mark. To celebrate, here is ZPF’s origin story:
It started innocently enough (excerpts from writing journal):
Zombies: Various thoughts
July 14, 2008 -- been on a zombie jag lately, reading some zombie stories and thinking about zombie home defense.
Ahh. Zombie home defense. Sadly, my wife does not take this as seriously as I do, so our home has many vulnerabilities--principally unprotected window wells and several ground level windows on the front porch. We also have a flimsy fence--it could keep a couple zeds out for a couple hours. After that they will probably be in the yard
Next, it evolved into this:
Zombie Proof Fence
July 20, 2008 -- still in the zombie theme
> A story making fun of the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, and of the concept--a long fence that will keep one region of Australia (or another nation) free of zombies.
Zombies remained on my brain, and I realized that human survival would be far easier if natural death did not result in zombieism. To this end:
Redactinase
July 20, 2008 -- still in the zombie theme
Redactol, redactase, redactinase, restorol, restorase -- a drug that can be used to treat the living so that they do not become zombies when they die. The problem is, if this drug is ingested by a zombie, that zombie becomes a super-zombie.
That ended up as Reverol in ZPF the book.
And the final straw:
The kid
>One of my thoughts is that zombies won’t actually win...they will be fairly easy to contain and deal with...the world will be different, but it will still function.
>Show a young kid, 4-6, working as zombie bait...luring them into a trap.
>Flash
>Kind of silly.
>Point: zombies are not that frightening.
The kid ended up being a 12 year-old refugee, but it took a few months for the character and her arc to solidify.
After this, more and more ideas popped out. As late as August 6th, I was still trying to whittle this story down to 1000 words for the Writer’s Bloc flash fiction challenge.
Then came World Con. The world science fiction convention was in Denver in 2008. So I went. And it blew my mind.
During the convention, the flash story grew into a short story outline, and about 6 pages of notes on the world. A new writer's series at the convention and chatting with several authors convinced me that I should tackle a book.
At some point in August (I did not capture the date), I set aside other projects and committed to writing this book. By September, I was passionately working on it.
Ever since, I’ve averaged 60 hours a month writing, and most of that has been on the book.
It started innocently enough (excerpts from writing journal):
Zombies: Various thoughts
July 14, 2008 -- been on a zombie jag lately, reading some zombie stories and thinking about zombie home defense.
Ahh. Zombie home defense. Sadly, my wife does not take this as seriously as I do, so our home has many vulnerabilities--principally unprotected window wells and several ground level windows on the front porch. We also have a flimsy fence--it could keep a couple zeds out for a couple hours. After that they will probably be in the yard
Next, it evolved into this:
Zombie Proof Fence
July 20, 2008 -- still in the zombie theme
> A story making fun of the movie Rabbit Proof Fence, and of the concept--a long fence that will keep one region of Australia (or another nation) free of zombies.
Zombies remained on my brain, and I realized that human survival would be far easier if natural death did not result in zombieism. To this end:
Redactinase
July 20, 2008 -- still in the zombie theme
Redactol, redactase, redactinase, restorol, restorase -- a drug that can be used to treat the living so that they do not become zombies when they die. The problem is, if this drug is ingested by a zombie, that zombie becomes a super-zombie.
That ended up as Reverol in ZPF the book.
And the final straw:
The kid
>One of my thoughts is that zombies won’t actually win...they will be fairly easy to contain and deal with...the world will be different, but it will still function.
>Show a young kid, 4-6, working as zombie bait...luring them into a trap.
>Flash
>Kind of silly.
>Point: zombies are not that frightening.
The kid ended up being a 12 year-old refugee, but it took a few months for the character and her arc to solidify.
After this, more and more ideas popped out. As late as August 6th, I was still trying to whittle this story down to 1000 words for the Writer’s Bloc flash fiction challenge.
Then came World Con. The world science fiction convention was in Denver in 2008. So I went. And it blew my mind.
During the convention, the flash story grew into a short story outline, and about 6 pages of notes on the world. A new writer's series at the convention and chatting with several authors convinced me that I should tackle a book.
At some point in August (I did not capture the date), I set aside other projects and committed to writing this book. By September, I was passionately working on it.
Ever since, I’ve averaged 60 hours a month writing, and most of that has been on the book.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Writing on life support
Well, day-job is close to killing me. 60-70 hour weeks and triple helpings of stress. My writing is on life support--some days as little as 15 minutes. I have still managed to write a little every single day, but have not done any meaningful work. I’m mostly done reading the 1st draft, a process that should have taken only 1 or 2 days, which has stretched into weeks.
The good news is that most of the book is solid, there are just a few holes to fill in and some character work to bring them out a bit more. The sad thing is that this work will take months...I am estimating about 3 months.
Did manage to write a flash-fiction story for the Writer’s Block and I think it came out well. That will be critiqued this coming week. We do this every few months... the whole group uses a writing prompt to write stories of less than 1000 words, and we critique them together, anonymously, trying to guess who wrote what. One of these flash pieces was the only the only thing I had published last year (Panel Discussion).
Anyway, I should be on to the 2nd draft next week--March 8th-- crap, I thought I’d be querying agents by March.
The good news is that most of the book is solid, there are just a few holes to fill in and some character work to bring them out a bit more. The sad thing is that this work will take months...I am estimating about 3 months.
Did manage to write a flash-fiction story for the Writer’s Block and I think it came out well. That will be critiqued this coming week. We do this every few months... the whole group uses a writing prompt to write stories of less than 1000 words, and we critique them together, anonymously, trying to guess who wrote what. One of these flash pieces was the only the only thing I had published last year (Panel Discussion).
Anyway, I should be on to the 2nd draft next week--March 8th-- crap, I thought I’d be querying agents by March.
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