2009 Year End

Well, 2009 was quite the year. I had plenty going on, from buying a new house to general family things, but I did manage to make some progress on my writing.

Back in January I had 4 goals for my writing:

2YN - Stay caught up with the class, start draft by year end. (The writing part of the class goes into year 2).

Fantasy to Be - My 2008 Nano. The first draft needs finishing, then start thinking of more world building in preparation for revision.

Children's book - Put together a nice edited/cleaned up digital version and start looking to sell this one somewhere. (which should be a project in and of itself as I've really only been reading up on some of the procedures for novels).

Alt Romance - This one's been hanging around for awhile now, I wrote the first draft early in 2007 and have only done minimal amounts of editing on the first few chapters. Would be nice to do an edit pass of this over 09.

And I managed two out of the four. My 2yn (the mining mystery) came along nicely, I even finished the draft. The fantasy draft is finished, and I've pondered the world some in which it takes place.

For the Children's book I still have to start looking into what I'll need to do for that. But I decided that I want to focus on my novels for 2009. I may decide to work on it come 2010, or maybe 2011.

The alternative romance still needs some character work, and I need to decide some things on it yet. I figure this will be good to set aside until I have a cleaner draft of my other two main projects. And I'm also tempted to take a trip to the Adirondacks, where a good part of the novel takes place for research purposes.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post on my 2010 goals, and possibly general writing resolutions.

First Draft Finished

Well I typed the words "The end" on my novel draft today. Yes, I actually finished the draft, I didn't simply type "the end" because I was sick of the draft. I had been tempted to do that thanks to a gap in my outline, but I stuck with it.

Now the next step I have planned is to take notes on what I know needs fixing, then to set the draft aside. I'll prep for revision early next year, maybe in February or so. My draft wrapped up with a fight scene with two characters, and I'm wondering if I've shown the one character's physical strength enough earlier in the novel for her fight action to be believable. She's a mechanic and lugs around heavy parts at times, but she spent enough time sleuthing in the draft that there might not be enough build up. And I still have to work on the whole villain arc. And the technology and layout of the station.

Status of Starting (the blog that is)

With this blog being all shiny new, I figured a good thing to post is the status of my various novel projects. That way it'll be a good spot to check back on as I make more progress.

My novels thus far come in three flavors, my science fiction related novels, my fantasy trilogy, and my stand alone mainstream novel.

The Science Fiction:
I'm working on the first draft of one of these novels. Each one will have it's own cast of characters, and conflicts, they are only related in the fact they take place in the same "world". There may be a cameo or two of one major character making a minor appearance in another book. I have various notes on the other two books, which I'm holding off writing until I finish then revise the draft of the one I'm working on.

Blurb for the current novel in progress: Federated Planetary year 309, our intrepid heroine finds herself on a distant hostile planetoid keeping the mining machinery running. A few malfunctions she can chalk up to machine wear, but when things start breaking more frequently and not on their own she can’t ignore that someone is determined to stop the machines from running. In the confines of the platform, can she find the saboteur before it’s to late?

The Fantasy:
This one is a series, which may end up with either 2 or 3 books. I know what happens in the first one, seeing as how the first draft is finished, and it leaves the main character in a place for the start of book 2. I know the general conflicts that take place after the first book, but until I plan them out more I'm not sure if it'll be two books worth or not.

Rough blurb: In a land where women are forbidden to use magic, one woman can't keep herself from wondering about the subject. What must it be like to cast spells? Stuck in a job chosen by her family can she find a way to pursue something that interests her?

After I take some time to revise my science fiction novel next year, I'm going to spend more time working with the details of this world. I'll then make notes about where book one needs to be fixed, and write the first draft of book 2, possibly starting in November.

The Mainstream:
Dubbed my "Alternate Romance" I have the first draft of this novel finished and have been working on what direction to take it for the next draft. This started out with the idea of writing a romantic novel from the man's point of view, and part way through the first draft I thought that balancing out both points of view of the two main characters would add more tension. I prefer to think of this as a "slice of life" rather than a genre romance. The relationship is part of the conflict, but it's not the whole conflict for the novel. Once the characters do resolve the relationship conflict, everything isn't all wrapped up in one neat little package. Not to knock the romance genre, but I'm not a fan of the "finding Mr. Right = everything is perfect for the heroine" formula.