This post will be really quick, since it’s after midnight and I want to get up at seven tomorrow.
I’ve decided to work on The Phoenix of Nova Terra for my next project. Except…I’m renaming it (yet again!) to…
<drumroll, please>
Ashes of the Starry Sea.
I like this title much more than the previous one. I think that just about everyone, when they first start out, comes up with a somewhat cliche title having something to do with a phoenix.
Even though this is the first novel I ever wrote and finished, I think it has a lot of potential. People always say that your first novel is never publishable, but this one wasn’t my first attempt at writing a novel (it’s something like my sixth or seventh). Besides, when judging these things, you need to look at the work itself, not on these general rules that everyone always throws around.
The story itself is pretty decent, I think. The main things to improve are 1) the worldbuilding/research aspect, and 2) the nuts and bolts writing. To help out with that, I’ve decided to follow some of David Louis Edelmen’s revision advice and completely transcribe every word of this revision draft in a new word document. Hopefully, that level of focus will help me to improve things on the word, sentence, and paragraph levels.
At the same time, I need a very clear macro-level view of this project–after all, it’s been over a year since I finished the rough draft. To do that, I started a wikidpad file that will become the story bible for the new draft. I’ll use it to do the things I mentioned in my previous post, “Outlining for discovery writers.”
I’ll also spend the next week or so reading the most recent draft from start to finish, figuring out my revision notes. This will be hard, since I stopped ennumerating the chapters towards the beginning, but I’ll figure it out.
Gah, everything is so disorganized for this project! I’ve got revision notes for the 2.0 and 2.1 versions, files scattered everywhere, feedback from a friend of mine from the FLSR that I haven’t even looked at yet…just too much. The draft needs a TON of work, too.
If I can polish this draft to a satisfactory, presentable second draft in the next month, I’ll be happy. That’s prettymuch my goal. 140,000 words in five weeks…let’s go!
