Writing Progress

It's an exciting thing to print out a draft for the first time.

I didn't think I was at that stage yet; I thought I was going to write up more first. Then I just felt like I needed to print it all out to be able to do more. After all, I do have a beginning, some early stages, a tiny bit of the middle, and an ending (maybe not the end end but some of the end). Time to take a step back and see what I have in order to be able to see what I need.

Having printed out said manuscript, I read through it all yesterday. Some of this I wrote months and months ago and have barely looked at since. So it's a strange sensation to suddenly see it physical--and to see that it does work toward a whole. Sometimes I've felt like I've really been letting this latest book drag. But there are pieces of it that I could only have written at certain specific times. When I was writing the beginning, for instance, I only knew the beginning; I knew nothing of the rest. Later, I started to get the pieces that I was missing.

In fact, I was missing so much that I expected, when I read through it all, to find a definite tone shift halfway through. I was expecting to find incongruence that I'd need to fix. Surprisingly, though, I didn't find much of that. Instead I just find gaps that I need to fill in more (which I already knew I'd need given that this is a complete-but-not-complete draft). I did write one scene twice--and it's quite different each time. I mean, I wrote the same scene for Black Tree two or maybe even three times because I thought I hadn't written it yet (and then I ended up not even using it; it might actually work better in this new book, though, strange enough). That scene was mostly the same each time that I wrote it. Not the case for this current one. One version is definitely better as far as theme and character go, but I do love the setting of the other version--so I might have to just keep the setting and figure out what scene is supposed to go with that setting.

And I realize that I'm missing a scene that I remember writing. I write in a couple of different notebooks (one is more for when I'm free writing, but that often turns into content that I can use) and occasionally on loose paper (I type it all up later), but I can't find that scene anywhere. So a little bit of organization is necessary, I suppose.

Anyway. It's been a while since I did a sale for Black Tree. So let's call it an Independence Day sale for 40% off paperback and hardcover copies at this link.