May 25th, 2009 by admin
I did not get very far on Between the Stars except in concept and a few ideas. I think that book needs to simmer a bit more before I can really start writing it. Meanwhile, I have begun the (hopefully) final revision process on Looming Thunderheads. With Angie last year I created what I’ve called a “three-color-pass” version of editing/revising where I go through the manuscript three times, each time with a new color pen. The first pass is in green, and I pretty much just read the book front to back and correct typos and uneven grammar or unclear prose. I also take notes as I go through the green pass for things that I need to work on for the next pass. The next go-through, with a blue pen, is the really intensive revision, where I make broader changes, rewrite scenes or passages, add and delete, tweak character responses and scene descriptions, make sure time and place are consistent, etc. The Blue pass is the most time consuming and difficult. Although, since I have already revised Looming Thunderheads so many times, I do not expect any major overhauls. It will need a few clarifications and I still have to work on Dindriad’s arc a bit more. The final pass is in red, and that mimics the green pass in checking for readability and grammar, except that I am reading my hand-written edits and cleaning those up as well. After that, I go back to the electronic manuscript and type in all the corrections. At the last I will do an on-screen reading, this is merely to check for typos and glaring errors. That is the most difficult, because I do not like to read on the computer screen for an extended time. (Maybe a good reason to get a Kindle.) I hope to be done with these edits by August and the move to Alabama, so that as soon as we’re settled in to our new house I can start sending out queries for Looming Thunderheads and hopefully find an agent. After that, I will either begin on Baleful Deluge/Baleful Downpour or try again at Between the Stars.
Meanwhile, I am writing an essay called ‘On Fiction,’ which I hope to complete and put up on the web site in June. So far it is 5,000 words, and I expect it to be at the very least twice that. It’s a nice diversion and a good way to focus my thoughts as I work on revision.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 23rd, 2009 by admin
I finished the restructure/rewrite of Looming Thunderheads tonight. I was perched on the edge of completion for the past few days, with only a half-chapter to go, but until tonight I did not get through that last section. In any case it is complete. Now Jenny will get (have) to read it, and in a month or so I will go back and start rereading it myself (after letting it cool a bit) for error and style and readability. A few passes for that kind of revision, and it will be ready for the great agent search.
In the mean time, I have another book idea in mind that I want to test the waters of. This is a science fiction book that deals with conflict on a Generation Ship. My title for it at present is Between the Stars. I will update on that as well as further work on Looming Thunderheads as I go.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 15th, 2009 by admin
The Restructure/Rewrite of Part Three is complete. I didn’t change as much in this section beyond the fundamental reordering of the chapters. The only sections that got dramatic alteration were Dindriad’s chapters. I never was entirely happy with his development, and I always wanted to rework it. I’m not sure how it works as I’ve changed it, and I won’t really know until I go back over it later. For now I press on to the next Interlude and then Part Four afterward. I think I will wind up rewriting even less of Part Four than I did Part Three. If that is the case, then it will go much faster. At the moment, the Interlude is taking some attention, and I need to step away and reconsider it before pressing on. I will continue it tomorrow. I expect to be very near the end of the book by month’s end, if it is not in fact completed. We shall see how that turns out.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 8th, 2009 by admin
I have finished revising and at last completing Part Two of Looming Thunderheads. I didn’t change any of the action, mostly I adjusted how the characters interacted with each other and what information they shared. I adjusted Pah-Tukh’s emotional arc so that he would be in the right place when he got to that last chapter. It is not yet right, but it is closer, and that is good enough. I know that I will spend a few months after I finish this draft honing and revising in a more line-by-line manner to get a lot of those details right. As it stands, I am ready to embark on Part Three. I have been looking forward to the first chapter of Part Three for a while now, as I really like the version I had in the original draft. I think the rest of the book will go more swiftly, as most of it is already written in disparate form. I just have to put it together and add a few scenes here and there. We shall see.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 5th, 2009 by admin
Because of this, I feel that I ought to change the title of what has been until now Gathering Thunderheads. The Robert Jordan book will probably be #1 on the New York Times best seller list, and thus if I keep my title, there will no doubt be confusion and association. The publisher would probably request I change the title anyway, so I decided to change it. I’m not certain if it will stay, but at the moment I like Looming Thunderheads for this volume. It keeps a similar sense as ‘gathering thunderheads’, but ‘looming’ offers a bit more atmosphere, more of a hint of darkness and evil. The meaning of ‘Thunderheads’ must therefore change (though it has shifted in my mind already, as I have incorporated the storm imagery into the narrative) into a sense of the threats that are arrayed against the characters rather than the characters themselves, I as I had originally intended.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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March 15th, 2009 by admin
I did not finish Part Two. I drew right up to the end, the final scene, a very important climax, and suddenly it seemed that everything fell apart. The scene was just not working. Knowing what should happen, none of the characters were in the right place for it play out in the way it needed to. I was not feeling it. There was no movement and no power. I was stuck.
What I did was leave Chapter 27 incomplete and move on to the Interlude (“The Quest of the Fire Heart”), most of which is unchanged from the earlier draft. That was a good distraction, and I always liked that story. (In fact, “The Quest” was something that I had in mind for a very long time before I ever wrote it. I finally composed what is the frame of the current version in the spring of 2005 and revised it several times until bringing it into Gathering Thunderheads last year. The restructuring I talked about before has given the story more of a place in the context of the novel, as before it did seem to leap out of nowhere. That interlude is complete, so now I must embark on Part Three.
However, I think I will go back and do a heavy revision to Part Two, trying to build it up and come again to the climax and see if this time I can bring all the threads together. It desperately needs revision. I think I will spend this week on that endeavor.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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