So many deadlines!

It’s deadline week! 🙂

I have a homework assignment due by midnight, a short story due to the editor on Wednesday, have to create a cover for that story and format the final ebook version by Sunday, have to submit the novel to the editor next Monday, and I’ve redone the cover for the Fantasy in the City bundle to work better for Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble.

Here’s the new version of the cover!

Fantasy in the City bundle cover

My goal was to make it look more urban fantasy-ish. I moved the author names to a blocked-out section at the bottom and changed the font to Cinzel and Cinzel Decorative. It looks MUCH better than the previous version!

Once I finish my homework assignment (I’m taking a class on dialog), and read the four manuscripts that have been submitted for my writing group (which meets tomorrow), I’ll work on refining the short story. This is a science fiction story – yes, I do occasionally write science fiction. 🙂 I’m not actually sure when I’ll have time to work on it, but it’s due to the editor on Wednesday, so I’ll squeeze it in. Somehow…

And on a seemingly random but actually related topic… Sometimes writers will talk about how if you write even 30 minutes or so a day that it doesn’t feel like much, but it adds up. In one of many parallels I’ve found between writing and running an alpaca farm 🙂 my friend Kathryn recently started spinning (she has alpaca) a little bit every day, even when she’s busy with other things. She took photos of her progress. Just like with writing – a little a day doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up!

2016-07-19 Dakota Ridge

Plot hole filled!

Last week one of the writers in my wonderful writing group pointed out a very important plot hole. I’d thought I’d handled one particular issue, and I had – but only sort of. (And no, I’m not going to say what it was because it wasn’t apparent that it was a hole until chapter 15, so I’d be giving something important away.) As soon as I realized this really was a problem I knew I had to resolve it, but I didn’t know how.

And then I went on vacation! 🙂

I spent four nights in Boston, walked a lot, did fun things, and was grateful that the humidity was low (low for Boston, that is), especially when the temperatures made it up into the 90s. It was nice to sleep in for a change – Rosie and Jasper are not layabouts, and will do things like squeak their toys right next to the bed if you’re taking too long to get up in the morning.

Then finally, on Saturday afternoon, I had an idea about how to fill my plot hole. I emailed my fellow writers and they liked my idea, so now I just have to put it all together and see for sure. Hooray! Not only does my new idea resolve the issue they discovered, it also takes care of something else I needed to tie in, so I’m extra excited about getting back to the manuscript!

In bundling news, the Fantasy in the City bundle is no longer available on BundleRabbit – but it is available on Kobo, Amazon, iBooks, and Barnes & Noble through October 9th. Bundle #2 is going well; 16 authors are signed up for sure so far. And it looks like I may have a short story in someone else’s bundle at some point.

Vacation was fun, but it’s really, really good to be back home with Rosie and Jasper! 🙂

2016-07-12 Dakota Ridge

Redrafting the dreaded chapter 17

Chapters 16 and 17 have been the hardest chapters of the entire book. The climax begins in chapter 16 and extends through 17, so this section is kind of important because I have to keep the tension high and make sure I’ve pulled in all the pieces that need to be resolved. These two chapters have also been challenging – particularly chapter 16 – because there’s a lot of choreography, and I have to keep track of all the logistics (who is standing where? which hand is that thing in? etc.).

I completely rewrote chapter 16 a little while ago, but had put off facing 17. After making an editing pass through the entire novel I felt ready to tackle 17.

I rewrote most of the first scene, then threw out almost everything from the second scene and wrote it from scratch. I still have a few more paragraphs to write, then I’ll work on the final scene, so I’m not out of the woods yet – but I’m a lot happier with this chapter now.

One of the most important changes was that I redid the second scene to be from a different character’s point of view. I’m really glad I did!

A year or two ago I heard a bit of writing advice that sounds obvious, but it’s the kind of thing you don’t really think of until you’re aware of it. It was: the viewpoint character should be the character that has the most at stake. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but now when I feel that a scene isn’t quite right I take a step back and consider whether or not I’m telling it from the right character’s point of view. Sometimes – like with this particular scene – just changing the viewpoint character turns a scene that was just okay into something much more engaging. I’m very happy with this change – it totally transformed that scene.

You may be thinking: this is all great, but wasn’t your novel supposed to go to the editor on July 6th? Why, yes…yes it was! Fortunately DeAnna Knippling, my wonderful editor, allowed me to push the date back to August 1st.

I spent way, way, way more time curating the Fantasy in the city bundle than I’d anticipated, and that cut into my novel-writing time. The next time I curate a bundle I’ll have a better feel for how much work it will entail, and I’ll be able to schedule around it.

Which is a very good thing, because I’m putting together another short story bundle! 🙂 This one won’t launch until October, but I’ve already put together a schedule for the different pieces I need to put together (images, sales copy, etc.), so it will go a lot more smoothly.

2016-07-07 Dakota Ridge