Friday Milestone

I have just reached the seventy thousand word mark on Argiope. I might just actually finish this dang book after all! I still have a ways to go, since I figure this one will weigh in at a little over a hundred thousand words, but I'm getting there. It would really be sweet if I could finish and shelve the first draft to this at Christmas. My stated goal is sometime in January, but you know me...ever the optimist.

November is Nanowrimo month, where writers take the challenge to try and put out a fifty thousand word manuscript of any kind during the month. Somebody suggested to me that I might ought to take that challenge and use in an attempt to finish Argiope. Considering that I tried Nanowrimo last year, and accomplished getting the most spectacular case of writer's block to ever shut a word processor down, I don't think I will tempt fate by messing with it again. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

Once I get the first draft done, I'll shelve it for a month or two just to let it cool and get out of my mind. Maybe during that time I can get a short story or two done. It wouldn't hurt to get another Shades or Tales of Nur up on the kindle store. Production, production, production. That's the name of this indie game. You have to get titles up on that virtual bookshelf. The more the better. But they still have to be good too.

Then after that month or two, I'll  pull it down and give it it's first edit. This first edit will be just to find logic bombs, character problems, plot problems, etc. To go through it and figure out what works and what doesn't. After that, I will send it off to my proofreaders for the second edit. They will do a combination of the same things I did during the first edit, plus the beginnings of syntax and text editing. Then, once I'm confident I have the story right, I'll settle in for the real editing. Making sure the writing is tight, getting rid of those  pesky -ly adverbs and passive voices. Double checking the spelling, grammer, syntax, etc..

Then, hopefully, I'll have a book.