Lady Luck

Cut cut cut.

I'm editing now.

I really hate editing, but at the same time I feel this edit is perhaps the most important.  Others have constructed my story, got it to the point it had to be at.  This edit is different, it's all about voice and style, this is where I make my novel truly mine.

Except you have to imagine he's holding a flashdrive, not a ring.

I have done nearly 20% of my novel. I have finished almost every class at college (so more time to spend on the book) and I have started planning a prequel series.

I'm a lucky person. I take this "luck" to extremes. I'm almost t'av'averen (or however it is spelled, and kudos if you are geek enough to know what I mean). I am lucky enough often enough that I can come to rely on it.

People don't believe me when I say this, but it's true. Whenever I buy scratch cards I win (not big amounts, but the point is I never lose). I don't buy them often. I roll sixes on dice more than often than any other number. I went to a Fun Day today and (with my daughter, who shares my luck) won a litre bottle of vodka, a litre bottle of gin, two bottles of beer, three bottles of wine, a room spray, a bottle of water, and hair stuff. And I didn't realise until I got home that the woman gave me the wrong change. I went out with £20 and came home with £24.

Now my luck is starting to work its way through my writing. 

I have found a talented editor who will edit my novel for free.

I have found a talented artist who will do my cover art for barter (I'm helping her set up a web page and blog, she has -5 in tech savvy).

I have found a certain person with certain skills who will be able to help with certain long term plans that I'm not going to mention right now (as they are very long term; let's just say this, I'm very excited about this).

I will get my novel out this year.  For zero upfront costs.

It's exciting, and scary.  

I'm loving it. 

So I'm back,

 and I have nothing to say.  Zero. Zip. Zilch.


I think I was gone for like 2 weeks tops or something... it felt like months.  And now I'm back, with nothing to report on.  I have about a hundred blogs to read up on; I have one more crit to do at the crit place I go to (Oh my golly I need to do it in May, so not going to happen). 


I need to start editing.  I need to get back to blogging, and tweeting.  I will.  I'll blog a proper blog post this weekend, how's that?

Still not better

The doctor gave me tablets for inner ear trouble.  They make me sick.  The chemist tested me for diabetes.  I might have it.




__________________


I have to do a talk tomorrow for college (to pass communication), and I have decided to do it on e-books, and why they are a viable alternative (and why I think they will surpass print in the near future).  So after I do that, I'll post it up here. 


Hope you are all better than I am.

Have you ever been really, really drunk?

I'm kind of drunk.

Let's see... very dizzy - check.
Pounding headache - check.
Nauseous - check
can't sleep - check
spinning room when I lie down - check
keep falling over - check
blurred vision - check

I wouldn't mind except that I've felt like this for a week and a half and I don't actually drink.

The computer hurts my eyes. 

Wish I was in bed.  So glad I have docs on Thursday.

I broke my head part 3

I had a novel.  It was called the Guns of Pleasure and Death.

I

my novel.


It had the potential to be awesome.




But I got so hung up over formatting bullshit that I forgot the most important thing.



No, not me.  Yes, I am pretty important, but something more important than I am.


That's right. The story.  The story is the most important thing.  I took a story that was 50k words and I NY-ised it.  I added 9k words that I really shouldn't have.  I wrote a prologue that introduces an important item but otherwise has completely no relevance to the book.  It has none of the characters of my novel and, crucially, none of the voice.






I've never really understood people's pre-occupation with authorial voice.  My authorial voice changes depending on the needs of each story.  I write comic fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, steampunk, cyberpunk, scripts, superhero romances, horrors and YA and children's fiction.  You can't expect them all to sound the same.

So, the prologue is out, gone, down, done with, finito.  It will never work in this town again.  Actually I might title it, take the item out, and have myself a nice little Victorian ghost story.  

I also took 15k of flashbacks and wove it into the story, and it took ages for me to get every transition to seem as if  something in the full story was kicking off a flashback.

"Where is your husband?"

Flashback of husband's death.

"My husband is long dead, sir." 

I know, I know, I am awesome, right?

I can't find a picture, but my novel looked like Frankenstein.  So that's that.  

I was enslaved to the formatting ideas set down my NY.

I was determined to stretch, break and re-form, destroy my m/s to fit it in the 80k to a 120k word mark.

Was I right to do so?

I don't think I was, to be honest.  That's why I've ripped my novel apart.  

Now I have 

• a short story, a Victorian ghost story, needs only a little work
• a 15 - 20k novella that I can pre-release as a freebie
• a 50k novella that will sell for $1
• I'm working on a sequel 

And I couldn't have down any of that without breaking my head.


It's not the format (e-book, print, audio, DVD, Blu-ray, holograph, telepathically implanted straight to your reader's mind) that's important.  It's not the size.


It's the story.

It's always the story.

Nothing else ever matters... 


(PS Blogger is being a tit.  I have no idea why the formatting is so aargh here)