Novella Rough Draft Done

I finished the novella last night. It came out to 148 pages. The next step is to read through it in one sitting and see how it reads. If it reads well, the plan is to go through it with a deep polish. I'll be looking at things like dialogue and prose as well as story elements like foreshadowing and plot points, etc. If it doesn't read well, the plan is to fix it so it does. Once it's all done, I'm going to put it aside for 30 days and then go through it again with fresher eyes.

Since it's set mostly on earth between the events of books one and two, it's from Deirdre's perspective. She can never go back to Yesh the way the other characters can. Filling out her story made a lot sense. The other characters can all go back and make appearances in the events of the other earth. What happened to Deirdre? She's in book 1, but how is she dealing with never being able to go back? The novella goes into that.

In other news, I've been thinking about the next project. Book 2 needs to be gone through one final time. Book 3 needs to be finished. I also need to finish the non-fiction book. I've been collecting ideas and thoughts on the side but not too much. I want a certain word count, but I don't want to keep adding and adding. I anticipate it being a lot easier to finish than a fiction book. I don't have to worry about character arcs or story arcs or plot points or any of that. Each chapter can be its own unit that can be finished and polished independently of the others. I'm leaning toward using the 30 days off from the novella to finish the non-fiction book.

I've been putting some thought into the  middle grade trilogy(80k to 90k word count tops). I'll need a story arc through the trilogy and story arcs for the books. I have some thoughts but haven't nailed it down yet. I've been thinking about a couple of old science fiction book ideas. Is time to write one of them? I've been thinking about a completely different series altogether that could be part SF and part fantasy. I'm not sure it matters which comes next. The important thing is working on making the writing as professional and polished as I can. I've been wondering if I need a publisher.

Have a great weekend.

Cancelled

I should have finished the rough draft for the novella this week, but I had too much to do in real life. On top of that, the water is out. Again. The plumber has not called back. Do they work on Fridays? I have to go do something about getting water.

The good news is that the novella is almost finished. All that's left is epilogue type things where characters ruminate over recent events.

Thus, the blog is cancelled today.

Have a great weekend.

Closing In

This was a better week on the word count for the novella, over 10k. I'm almost to the ending and should have the rough draft finished before the end of next week. That's in line with my estimate from last month. Once it's completed, the plan is to read through it and make sure it works and no glaring errors or inconsistencies crept in along the way. After that I'll start going through it polishing the prose and dialogue and characterization and all that. I'm not sure how long it will take, but it's a novella not a novel. The page count should be around 150 or so. If there are no major problems or unexpected life events, I'm guessing it'll be out in April.

Getting AoE on Barnes and Noble has become a higher priority. I put working on the novella above that, which may be a mistake. No matter how many downloads I've had, when I look at the AoE page, it's not showing the "people who read this book also read" these books section. Instead, I'm seeing 67 pages of "Sponsored products related to this item." Two sections of it. That makes AoE very hard to find without paying Amazon a sponsorship fee. My plan has been to have a small marketing budget, but Amazon charges a lot per click. If I remember correctly, the minimum is 68 cents per click. The royalty per e-book is currently $2.73. So, every four clicks without a purchase means I would have to sell one book just to break even. Also, with 67 pages of sponsored books, how will people find mine? I've got to figure something out, probably using the marketing budget somewhere besides Amazon. Nevertheless, I do plan to try sponsorship at Amazon and see if it does anything at all.

My next experiment is to get AoE on Barnes and Noble to see whether Amazon considers that to be competition and loosens up. And on Kobo and maybe on Apple. If I gained traction on another site, would Amazon increase my sales ranking, trying to get a slice of the pie? They shouldn't, but who knows.

Have a great weekend.

More Realistic Word Count

Ten thousand words a week might be a little ambitious for the novella. It doesn't leave a lot of time for everything else. Since it's set on our earth so far, I've had to look things up I wouldn't have to if it was set on the other earth. The M16 has a three-round setting. However, on television I've seen the M4 being used instead. Should I use that? Does it have a three-round setting, too? It turns out the army replaced the M16 with the M4. Aha, that explains it. Whether it has that setting depends on which version it is. The special forces version seems to be full auto with no three-burst capability, although I'm going to have to verify that. The M4 the person in the novella is using is in a special forces type context. Is it more realistic to go with the standard or special forces version? To figure it out, I need to research more. I've done enough that I can write scenes without getting the essential facts wrong. I'll have to make sure it's 100% right later, probably for the next scene that has the M4 being used.

I'm having to look up other things like maps and towns and topography and temperature data. With translocation the characters can go places. In one spot they need coats. In another they can wear tee shirts and shorts. Day temperatures. Night temperatures. Weather. It all has to be accurate enough that people who live there feel familiar with it.

I'm thinking 8k words per week might be more realistic, although I'd like to do more. I don't want to fall behind. It depends on how much I have to look up and how well I've plotted. What I really need is to get to a place where I can do this full time. It would be nice to be able to get up and have a leisurely breakfast followed by the day's writing followed by a leisurely lunch followed by the last of the day's word count and/or research. Nevertheless, it still looks like I'm on track with finishing the rough draft this month. I'm past the halfway point and have the two-thirds point in sight. I've had to fiddle with the plot some, and I may have to again.

Have a great weekend.