Genesis Earth Trilogy – Page 21 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Oh crap

Dang. I just looked at a calendar for the next two months, and it looks like I’m going to be busy.

I want to get Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home polished and ready before World Fantasy 2009, but it’s going to take a lot of work. Genesis Earth is almost there, but Bringing Stella Home is going to require a HEAVY rewrite. I’m in the middle of that now.

I’m currently about 25k words into the rewrite, with between 100k and 110k words to go (I think…could be more). I want to finish this by the last week of September / first week of October. That leaves me three working weeks in August (I’m taking off a week for vacation at Cape Cod, though I will probably write a little there as well) and five weeks in September.

But really, once school starts again, I’m not going to have much time available to write. I’ve got two capstone papers I’ll be writing, a ccouple of poli sci classes to take, and to top it all off, I’ll be taking a 400 level English class where I’ll probably be writing a DIFFERENT novel–holy cow! September is going to be a CRAZY month!

How the crap am I going to juggle all this?

Well, I figure if I write 4k minimum a day in August, I can get between 60k and 75k of Bringing Stella Home knocked out before school starts. It’s going to be tough, but it won’t be significantly more than what I’m already writing. Definitely doable.

That way, I’ll only have 35k for September, which comes to a meager 1k per day. Considering that this is revision work, which tends to go a bit quicker, I think I’ll be able to handle it.

But 65k in August…can I do that?

Well, in June, I wrote a grand total of 81k, and in July I wrote 85k. Most of the stuff in July, too, was revision work that I counted differently, excluding passages that I’d recycled from the previous draft.

Considering this, I think I can do 65k in August, even with a week’s vacation. I’ll probably even write a bit on the break, maybe 1k/day, just to keep some momentum. We’ll see.

But, just as an aside…81k? 85k?? That’s more than the novel I worked on my entire freshman year of high school! And I did that…in just a month? That’s encouraging!

Maybe I’m finally getting toward the tail end of my million crappy words. If that’s the case, maybe I’ll finally write my first good word before too long.

🙂

Genesis Earth 3.0 is finished!

That’s right! Here are the stats:

ms pages: 269
words: 74,687
file size: 525 KB
chapters: 16, prologue & epilogue
start date: 8 July 2009
end date: 25 July 2009

Wow, I finished this rewrite in seventeen days. Seventeen days! Hard to believe it’s only been that long. I hope the quality of this work went up in that time. I still feel like I need to run through and proofread it, make sure that the language flows well and the dialogue isn’t stilted.

In the process of writing this draft, I added or deleted 37,159 words from the previous draft. Going by the wordcount of the previous draft, 51.98% of the text changed.

Now I need to start submitting this book. It’s going to be kind of hard–I’m not sure whether it’s YA or not. On the one hand, the main characters are older teenagers and experience a lot of personal growth over the course of the novel. On the other hand, the (pseudo)science is a little dense, and the prose isn’t…well, it doesn’t read like most of the YA that I’ve read.

Well, I guess the only thing to do is shop it around and see who picks it up. In the meantime, I’m going to put everything I have into finishing Bringing Stella Home. The 2.0 draft of that novel is going to be AWESOME!

Genesis Earth 3.0 is almost finished!

Yeah! Only five more scenes to go!

I love revising. Every time I finish a scene, or a chapter, or a draft, I look back and think “man, this is so much better than it used to be!” Later, maybe, I look at it and say “okay, it still needs work,” but to know that I made something good into something better, that’s satisfaction!

My self-imposed deadline for this draft is this weekend. I’d like to finish it tomorrow, but if all else fails, I’ll finish it on Sunday. Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve done a lot of work to get this far, averaging about 2,200 words a day. The ending is a lot trickier to fix than the beginning, since I’m much better at beginnings and middles than at endings (not as much practice), but it’s coming along.

Yesterday, I wrote about 3,500 words in this beast. It felt so satisfying at the end of the day! Finishing up another chapter, knowing that I was right on target.

Today, for some reason, I haven’t been able to get into the writing mindset, but that’s not too bad. I spent some time looking over the last three or four chapters, making spot edits, re-arranging a couple of the chapter breaks to make them more coherent, etc. Chapter organization is still a challenge for me, especially towards the end of a project. Hopefully, I’m doing it better in this draft than the last one.

Today is Pioneer Day, a holiday in Utah. I’m spending the afternoon and evening with family, so I probably won’t do much more writing today. Maybe another scene sometime tonight, but that’s okay–the way I’ve re-arranged it, the chapter I need to revise for today needs just one more scene to be complete. I’ve been working hard these past three weeks, and I’m looking forward to having a fun holiday with family. The break will probably help me to write better, anyway.

So, that’s how things are looking from here. In the meantime, I’m getting psyched up for my next big project: revising Bringing Stella Home and getting ready to start something completely new in the fall. Once Genesis Earth is finished, I’ll be able to commit more creative space to those projects. Looking forward to it!

Refocusing

If you’re a regular of this blog, you may have noticed that I took off the statusbar for Ashes of the Starry Sea 2.2. I’ve decided to discontinue that project for the foreseeable future, while I work on Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home.

It’s not that I think that Ashes doesn’t have potential, or that I can’t rewrite it. It’s just that I don’t want something good to keep me from doing my best.

Ashes, in its first incarnation, was very much a practice novel. It has potential, but it’s going to take a lot of work to get it publishable. In the meantime, I’ve got two other novels that are much better–much more workable. I don’t want them to be any worse because I’ve diverted too much attention toward something else.

When I wrote Ashes two years ago, I cringed at the thought that this was going to be just a practice novel. It was my magnum opus, the best thing I’d ever written! Well, since then, I’ve written a lot of other stuff that is much better. I’m able to let this baby sit on the back burner while I polish the better stuff.

(baby…back burner…okay, disturbing image)

In unrelated news, I had an AWESOME story idea today at Leading Edge!

Ever read the Illiad or the Odyssey? Didn’t you think that the Greek gods were just so petty, with their stupid feuds and their dumb wagers? Did it disturb you how they toyed around with humanity, ruining people’s lives just for sport?

Well, imagine this: an ancient Greek Van Helsing who slays gods instead of vampires!

Yeah, man! That’s gotta make for some interesting story material right there! The godslayer…the man who dares to challenge fate and takes up arms against the forces of the universe, slaying the immortals, overpowering the omnipotent, and outwitting the omniscient. Sounds like…like Richard Dawkins meets Sparticus. =P

Anyway, that’s the idea. What’s your take on it?

Uh oh…more projects?

That’s right. I recently formed a writing group with some friends, and decided to workshop Bringing Stella Home through it. They went through the first chapter yesterday and tore it apart. I appreciate the help a TON, but I’m going to have to start making revision to it now, so that subsequent submissions to the writing group won’t have the same issues.

So, that makes three major ongoing projects for me now: the Genesis Earth 3.0 revision draft, the Ashes of the Starry Sea 2.2 draft, and now, Bringing Stella Home 2.0. It’s going to be very hard to juggle all three, and one of them will probably fall through the cracks (probably Ashes, to be honest). However, I’m going to do my best to give them all equal time. We’ll see if I succeed.

In order to accomplish this, I’m probably going to have to make some changes to my daily routine. Right now, I work out, eat breakfast, read the Book of Mormon, and arrive on campus ready to write…at about 11:00 am. And that’s on a good day. I write until about 2:00 or 3:00 pm, then go home for lunch, take a nap, check the internet, be lazy, etc. At about 7:00 or 7:30 pm, I head back up to campus and write until about midnight.

So far, it’s been working. I’ve been averaging 4k words per day pretty regularly these past couple of weeks. However, if I’m going to work on these projects, I might have to focus and up that wordcount a bit.

Therefore, I’m going to try to cut back on IMing while I’m writing. Usually, during the day, I’ve got gmail open on my browser and I check it from time to time. I’ve got a couple of friends with whom I usually keep a running chat for the entire day, which can be maddening when you’re trying to concentrate.

I’ve been thinking about cutting back on the IMing for the last few weeks, but thus far it hasn’t been too much of an issue. However, if I’m going to buckle down, something’s got to go. Sorry.

(Of course, it remains to be seen if I keep this resolution. Internet habits die hard.)

In unrelated news, I cooked the AWESOMEST chili today! Best chili of my life, and what’s even better, I cooked it in MASSIVE amounts! Here’s what I put in it:

corn
diced onions
ground beef
kidney beans
pinto beans
black beans
crushed tomatoes
diced jalapenos
plain yoghurt
spices

The secret ingredient was definitely the yoghurt. Adds a creamy texture, like sour cream without the unhealth stuffy. Also give it a rich and interesting flavor.

Good stuff!

Fistful of words

I’ve recently developed a taste for Ennio Morricone’s music. My writing process these days consists of me sitting down and watching this youtube clip:

After that, I’m all gunned up and ready to work!

Holy crap, today I sent out the first three chapters of Genesis Earth to the other two editors from the BYU Writers for Young Readers conference. What a rush! I spent a couple hours writing a chapter by chapter synopsis, rushed out a couple cover letters, bought $4.81 in wood pulp for both copies of the work, headed on over to the BYU Bookstore for the envelopes and all, and voila! Sent ’em off!

We’ll see what comes of them–probably more form rejections. It’s funny how when you print something off to send it out, it seems ten times worse than you remembered.

Well, I sent it out anyway. With writing, good things never happen to those who wait.

The question in my mind is now: does that synopsis count towards my daily word count goal? Because I only wrote 1,072 words in Genesis Earth 3.0 today (nothing in Ashes, sadly), but that synopsis was upwards of 2,800 words and took up a good chunk of my normal writing time. Eh, I’m counting it.

In unrelated news, I saw Star Trek the other day. Found it entertaining, but wasn’t very impressed. Too many holes that stretched the believability.

<spoilers>

For example, in the beginning, Kirk’s wife goes into labor during the evacuation and the child pops out…like, five minutes later? Or the red, fleshy monster on the ice world: no visible fat, no fur…how does that thing stay insulated in such a hostile environment? Or the Romulans drilling to the core of the world to create the black hole: why don’t they just create a black hole on the surface? Gets the job done a lot easier. Better yet, when Nero realizes that he’s gone back in time and his home world hasn’t yet been destroyed, why doesn’t he save his people instead of avenging himself on the Vulcans? Or…you get the point.

</spoilers>

I was never a big Star Trek fan growing up, though (except for Star Trek Voyager–I loved Voyager!). I can understand how the nostalgia would make a lot of people enjoy the movie. And really, it was very pretty–the graphics were great. Lots of action. It was entertaining, just…not as good as everyone makes it out to be, IMO.

I could say more, but that’s enough for tonight. Have a wonderful Sabbath!

Quick update

Haven’t been writing as much in Ashes these past few days. With my new goal, I need to be doing about 2.5k per day in that work, but things have slowed down considerably. I need to rekindle some excitement for this project.

I will finish it–I’ve made the goal, set the deadline, and determined that this will be one of the big three projects to get ready in time for World Fantasy 2009–but I’m working on the hard parts now, the long and tedius middle. The emotional roller coaster has begun, but I’ll hang on and see this out to the end.

It will probably need another extensive rewrite, however, before World Fantasy. Don’t know when I’m going to slip that in.

But even though I only got about 1,838 words of writing in today, I finished reading through Genesis Earth 2.0 today and completed the 3.0 draft revision notes! I’m WAY excited to work on this project! My goal is to complete it within the next two weeks. It will be a very hard, very intensive rewrite, but I’m psyched up and ready to do it!

I love revising. Drafting is when you start from scratch, with nothing but your ideas to work from. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “this is crap, this is crap, THIS IS CRAP AND I SUCK AS A WRITER!” Revising, on the other hand, is when you start with something on the page; something that needs a little (or a lot) of work, but at least you have something besides the story in your head to work with. The deeper you get into it, the more you find yourself saying “it’s so much better now, it’s so much better now, IT’S SO MUCH BETTER NOW AND I AM AN AWESOME WRITER!” That’s the way it works for me, at least.

So I am very excited to start Genesis Earth 3.0 tomorrow!

In other news, I’m starting a writing group with some serious/semi-serious writer friends here in the Provo area. Gosh, this deserves its own post. More on that later.

In still other news…I totally forgot. Blegh. Need sleep.

Oh, and here’s a cool song I found. I love anime…why didn’t I study Japanese?

Oh, and I remembered what I was going to write about! I talked with an academic advisor today, and I have enough credits to finish up my Poli Sci major and graduate in April by doing an internship in Washington DC or Scotland! More on that later, for sure.

Anyway, the LRC is closing and I have to go to bed. Gnight!

Goal shift for Ashes

These past few weeks, I’ve been killing myself trying to write Ashes of the Starry Sea. I’ve made some good progress, as you can see on the sidebar. Today I broke 200 pages. Not too bad.

However, the pace has just been killing me. 4k words per day is something I can do…but 4k words per day on the same project? It’s burning me out.

What’s more, to keep up the pace, I’ll have to put all my other projects completely on hold for the month of July. That, or write MORE than 4k per day, which would be excruciatingly painful.

So I looked at my calendar tonight and figured that if I pushed back my self-imposed deadline for Ashes to the weekend before school starts, I can cut my daily wordcount in that book in half. 2k per day in Ashes–not bad. That I can do.

What’s more, with the other 2k, I’ll have enough room to work on my other projects, Genesis Earth 3.0 and Bringing Stella Home 2.0. I’m starting to get really excited for those, very motivated. For Bringing Stella Home, I’m practically chomping at the bit. I want to make that story shine!

Inshallah, juggling two projects at a time will be helpful, not harmful. During the school year, when I was juggling work, school, and writing, it didn’t work. Now, however, with writing the only major obligation, I’m hoping that two projects will help keep my creative mind fresh, if that makes sense. When I get burned out on Ashes at 2pm, I can switch to Genesis Earth and work on something that excites me. When I get burned out on that at 9pm, I’ll be excited about Ashes again. Etc etc.

Besides, if I want to be a professional writer, project juggling is an important skill I’ll need to learn. Inshallah, I’ll get it to work this time.

Wow! If all goes according to plan, I’ll have all three novels finished and polished before school starts at the end of August! July to write Genesis Earth 3.0, August to write Bringing Stella Home 2.0, and both months to finish Ashes of the Stary Sea 2.1. Yeah!

In other news, Charlie finished Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson and reviewed it on her blog. I was also reading Warbreaker, but about 200 pages in found that it just wasn’t working for me. I’ll probably finish it someday, but for now, it’s on hold.

I hate to say anything bad about it, since Brandon has been something of a mentor to me (and his Mistborn books are some of the best fantasy that I’ve read!), but I shared many of Charlie’s complaints with the book.

The biggest thing, however, was the way he fell into long, frequent info dumps about the world. Every time, I felt that it stopped the action and jolted me out of the story, like reading a college textbook. The world was okay, but the way he presented it just didn’t work for me.

That, and the way the characters acted. When Siri got carted off near the beginning to be the wife of the God king, the fact that she hardly showed any fear or anxiety about have sex with the guy just threw me out. She was just like “oh, well,” and was nervous about everything else EXCEPT for the sex part. From then on, I had believability issues with her character.

Finally, let me just say that when I write my steampunk flower novel, I want to make one of the characters a Circassian janissary. I just think it would be really cool to put a Circassian in the book, as either a good guy or a bad guy (or, more likely, a grey-area guy). If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, check out the video below:

Thank you readers

I appreciate my first readers very much, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Today I got the comments back from a longtime Quarkie friend on Genesis Earth, and she told me that, in her opinion, the book still needs a lot of work. However, she made it very clear when (and why) she was bored, when (and why) she was interested, and where (and why) she would stop reading. Thankfully, she kept reading and gave me useful feedback right up to the end.

My friend’s comments helped me to rethink several weak points of my novel. In particular, her anthropology experience helped her to pick up on some racist undertones that I didn’t intend and hadn’t realized were there. If my story would have appeared in print like that, I would have been flamed up and down the sf community! Without her feedback, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on that.

The feedback did more than point out problems, however; it helped me to rethink these problems and begin to find new, innovative solutions. Rather than getting me angered or depressed, the criticism stoked my creative engines by getting me to take a step back and rethink my story from the ground up. Though the feedback was harsh (basically, “I’d throw this book across the room at this point”) it was extremely helpful and got me more enthused than ever to write.

Receiving criticism and advice is a very delicate thing, especially for a budding writer. If you try to follow every peice of feedback you recieve, your book will inevitably tank. However, rejecting criticism is also tough because you don’t always know why you’re doing it. There is a fuzzy grey area between rejecting a comment because it’s not right for your story, and rejecting it because it rubbed your ego in the wrong way.

I don’t ever want to reject critical feedback because it hurts. After all, it’s not about me at all–it’s about the story.

Criticism is never “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” It is only “useful” or “not useful.” To pick out the useful feedback, you always have to listen to–and appreciate–every piece of feedback that you get. Only after you’ve done this can you can say (in private!) “no, this isn’t right for my work.”

In the meantime, thank everyone who takes the time and effort to read your work and comment on it. They’ve done you a huge service, and the last thing they deserve is to be attacked by an egocentric, peurile, self-righteous amateur. Honest criticism, no matter how much it hurts, is the best thing any writer can receive.

On that note, I want to thank all my first readers for helping me with my novel, Genesis Earth! I genuinely appreciate all of your comments. You’ve helped me to step back and see my work for what it is. You are helping me to make this novel a stronger, better book, and that means more to me than you know. So thank you!

Twenty percent, Writers of the Future, and the INTERN

I am now 20% finished with Ashes of the Starry Sea. Huzzah! The story is definitely picking up steam.

In related news, my seven day totals has peaked higher than it’s been in the last two weeks, up above 17,500 words. Inshallah, that number will rise to +24,000 befoore the end of the week.

In unrelated news, I’ve decided to recycle my 2009 Mayhew story for the Writers of the Future contest this quarter. I’ve got until July 1st to get it out, but I have a plan, and I don’t think it will require too much extra work. That was the thing holding me back (since, really, it’s not a story, it’s just a scene), but now I’ve got something that I think has a chance of working.

It’s funny how reading other people’s manuscripts motivates you to send your own stuff out. I mean, reading the Leading Edge slushpile, I said to myself “you know, that story you wrote two years ago could probably get a pass.” Lo and behold! With Writers of the Future, it’s definitely worth a shot. Definitely.

Oh, and as I skimmed through Genesis Earth 2.0 today, the thought occured to me that I’ve written a kickass story here (pardon the language). I mean, it’s far from perfect, and it’s not the best book ever written (not by a long shot), but it’s a lot more than a “stuff happens, the end” kind of story. Maybe I’ll even see it in print someday. And to think I almost trashed the project a year ago.

As something totally unrelated to personal news at all, check out this awesome new blog:

The straight dope on publishing from publishing’s most fearsome figure—THE INTERN.

Nice tagline!

As I read about the exploits of this publishing intern, I can’t help but think to myself, “hey, that could have been me.” Not quite sure how I feel about that, but I’m really glad to have all this time to write and work on my craft. I definitely need it.