Rose: The Fourth Draft is Finished!!!

Well, I didn’t expect this to happen today. I figured it would happen at some point this week, but I never expected to get through the last three chapters so fast (especially since one of those three is thirty-three pages long). But yeah, I finished the fourth draft of Rose, the one edited with beta reader feedback! And all in a single month. Damn. I’m kind of proud of that rate of progress.

So if you’re among the many new Followers of Fear who are hopping onto this blog recently (hi! How are you? Are you enjoying my ramblings and opinions?) and you have no idea what Rose is, it’s a novel I started writing in college as my thesis project. The story is about a woman wakes up with amnesia and starts turning into a plant creature (and that’s just Chapter One). I did two drafts of it during my senior year of college, left it alone for a year, tried to pick it up again after I got my job, found progress very slow and dropped it, picked it up again this past summer with a new plan of going about editing the story, got through the third draft in four months, had some great beta readers look at the book and give me their feedback, and then somehow edited the book in a month (still gotta toot my horn on that one).

And you know what? This has been the most challenging story I’ve ever had to work on. I know I’ve said that before, but it’s the truth. Throughout the writing and editing process, this story has mutated more than the titular character does (because how else are you going to describe what she’s going through?)! Even during the very first draft, the story went through major changes. I initially had a different direction entirely for the story, which involved a lot more elements of Japanese folklore than appears in the novel (already heavily influenced by Japanese folklore), and involved some apocalyptic elements too. Thankfully, my thesis advisor helped me see how unfocused that direction would’ve been, and how much more intimate and scarier it would be if I went in another direction. This ended up being the route the story took, and if my beta readers can be believed, it’s a good thing I did, because the novel works the way it is now.

But honestly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. So much changed with each draft, sometimes during the editing of a draft. Elements were added, subtracted, moved about, propped up and knocked down every day as the writing and editing needed. I added an entirely new plot element to the third draft to both add some length to the story and to foreshadow something that would be revealed later about one of the character. In the fourth draft, I changed the location of one minor element just so it wouldn’t seem unnecessary. I even wrote a whole new chapter for the third draft because I I needed it to do some necessary revelations about the antagonist.

Hopefully this happens to Rose very soon.

I keep thinking of those weird metal amalgams where if you add the right sort of current to it, you can change its structure (I’m pretty sure that’s a thing). Rose is very much like that: ever-changing with each new iteration, and hopefully becoming better each and every time.

Now that I’ve made that deep metaphor, I think I’ll talk about page and word counts, because I like talking about that. And while the shift from second to third draft was pretty dramatic, owing to the fact that I added about forty-thousand words of material to the story, third to fourth wasn’t that dramatic. If anything, it’s a bit smaller: the third draft was 266 pages (8.5″ x 11″, 12-point font, Times New Roman, double-spaced) and 84,677 words. The fourth draft was 264 pages and 84,390 words. A total drop of two pages and 287 words. I honestly thought it’d be a bit more, but I guess I was wrong.

So what’s next for Rose? Well, after four drafts and great feedback from my beta readers, I’m going to try looking for a publisher. I’ve been doing my research and I’ve got a few leads that I think could pan out, so hopefully I’ll have news within the year to share. And in the meantime, there are a couple of short stories, one novelette, and a blog post for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors I’ve been waiting to work on till I was done with the fourth draft, so I’ll likely start on those tomorrow. Hopefully I can get them all done before any publisher takes an axe to my door in their eagerness to publish me (I wish!).

Well, Followers of Fear, that’s all for now. It’s getting late, I’m tired, and I’ve got a big day tomorrow. I’ll let you know how things are going as they happen. Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Self-Pub Authors: How to Write an Interlude

My latest article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, How to Write an Interlude, has just gone live on the site. I don’t see a lot of discussion on this topic, so I thought I’d write an article on the subject (it beat writing another article about Lani CSarem and her con job, anyway). Click on the link, and learn all about writing interlude chapters in your novels.

And while you’re at it, why not check out the rest of the site? Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is a wonderful site that is written by authors for authors to help them write, edit, publish, and market, no matter their background, budget, or story. It’s great, it’s free, and it’s quite edifying. Believe me, I’m not just a contributor, I’m a client (so to speak).

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope you enjoy the article, and I hope to have another post on this blog out very soon. Until next time, pleasant nightmares.

Self-Pub Authors: The Mary Sue Character

I’ve just released my latest article on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. This time around, it’s What is a Mary Sue, and When Can You Actually Apply the Term to a Character (damn, that’s a mouthful). It’s an essay on the Mary Sue character trope, which is honestly one you want to avoid at all costs if you can help it. And in discussing the character, I hope I teach people to do just that. If you’re an author and you get a chance, take a look and see if you’ve ever written a Mary Sue character. Even if you haven’t or don’t write fiction at all, you may find the article illuminating.

And if you like what you see, consider reading the rest of the blog. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is a great site for all authors, no matter their background or experience, to learn tips on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing on their own. Written by myself and other dedicated contributors, you’ll surely find it helpful for all sorts of projects. Believe me, I know from personal experience.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope to have another article or two out this week, so keep an eye out for them. Until next time, pleasant nightmares.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well, when a lot of time goes by, I get itchy and want to do a blog post, something that happens when you have blogged steadily, usually releasing one or two posts a week, for the past six years. And since my last post was nearly a week ago, I thought I would pop in and say…I have nothing really to say.

Okay, I do have things to say. Anyone who’s been around for a while knows I ALWAYS have something to say. The thing is, nothing feels right at the moment. I could do an update on Rose, but I have not reached a point or done something with the story recently that merits a full post. I could do a post about some aspect of writing or horror or the macabre (especially the latter two since it’s October), but there’s no subject I feel particularly passionate about to write about. I could do something about current events, goodness knows I’m confronted with enough idiocy every day to make plenty of posts. But those posts usually bring trolls by the dozen to my blog, and I don’t even want to summon the energy to ignore them if I can help it (plus with my current job, we’re encouraged to not get too political because some of our clients wouldn’t care for that). I have two potential articles for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, but I’m saving those for after I finish Rose. And as for my personal life, which does occasionally get a post here, just nothing’s happened that I feel like I need to speak about. There are a few things I would like to talk about eventually, like hobbies I’ve taken up in the past year, but I feel like I need more material before I do.

As you can see, I’m a creature of mood and need. I have to be in the right mood to write about certain subjects, and I have to have accomplished something or have the material for a post if I really want to do other subjects.

I’m also a creature in general, but you probably knew that already. What kind, you’re about to ask? You’re probably better off not knowing that.

Regardless, I feel like I have to talk about something, so I’ll talk about my life at this moment. And…it’s busy. My life is very busy.

Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a big thing, but honestly, it’s amazing how much is going on with me right now. I recently got a small promotion at work–nothing big, just a pay raise and a few more responsibilities. I certainly don’t have a cushy new job title or office–and that’s made me very busy. I even had to travel recently to take a week-long training for one of the duties I’ll be taking on, and I’ll be going to another training very soon (as soon as I get through all the paperwork). And right now at work we’re in busy season, as the new fiscal year has started, and we’re wrapping up all the old so we can get into the new. I had to stay at the office late today just so I could take care of my own workload and have less to do tomorrow. And this may be something I have to do more often as the month goes by.

On the bright side, not all of this busy-work is from work, and not all of it is as grueling as work stuff can be. Take, for example, Rose. I am utterly absorbed in the last three chapters, and I am making such great progress with them. I could be done in a couple of weeks, barring nothing unexpected happens. And when that happens, I have two beta readers who are eagerly waiting in the wings to read Rose and give me feedback. Not to mention a lot of people I’ve talked to who don’t necessarily like horror stories, but are interested by the description I give of the book. I think if I can get this story published, it’ll really strike a chord with a lot of people. And if I’m able to get with any of the publishing houses I’ve scoped out, who knows? I could end up with a wide audience like I’ve always dreamed.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is my life. I’m also in the middle of a bunch of books, I’ve got a social life that can get hectic, and a few other things besides. But hey, that’s life, isn’t it? And I’d rather be busy and happy about it than what I was during my job search, which was frankly pretty miserable. I didn’t like not working, living in my dad’s house and feeling judged every time he came home to find out I wasn’t employed. Plus having my savings account dwindle every month due to bills wasn’t that great. No sir, I’m happy I’m this busy, because it shows how good my life has become and how much it can still improve.

And if the feelings I have about Rose are true, perhaps improvement is just around the corner.

What’s your life like? Are you keeping busy, and with what? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I hope to have a new post out Sunday, but we’ll see what life throws at me. Until next time, pleasant nightmares!

Self-Pub Authors: Update on the “Handbook for Mortals” Controversy

I’ve got a new article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors today, and it’s a good one. If you remember the last time I wrote one of these articles, it was about an author named Lani Sarem who had conned her way to the top of the New York Times bestseller list with her YA novel, “Handbook for Mortals,” and how the YA Twitter community found her out (click here for the article). Well, today’s article is a follow-up of that first article, based on the author’s own response to the controversy. I go over her response and give my two cents on the matter. Was she unfairly targeted by Twitter, or is she as bad as everyone says? Click here, and we can maybe make some educated guesses.

And if you haven’t had a chance, check out the entirety of Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. I and other indie authors bring you the very best in advice for writing, editing, publishing, and marketing independently. We’ve got just about everything, and we do an awesome job of it. Check it out, and see what you can learn.

Self Pub Authors: A Scam Involving the New York Times Bestseller List

My latest article on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors came out today. The article is called Handbook for Mortals: How One Woman Scammed the NYT Bestseller List, and How a Twitter Community Exposed It. And that’s really it in a nutshell. A woman tried to con her way to the top of one of the New York Times’ bestseller lists, and how fiction fans on Twitter noticed something was fishy and decided to take a look at what was going on. But it’s such an interesting story, from how she and her publisher did it to how these Twitter users exposed it. It’s almost like Spotlight for fiction lovers, in a way. And it made me realize something about writing, and what serious writers do that this woman tried to avoid (and failed miserably).

If you get the chance, please check out the article. If you like it, let us know with a like or a comment. And if you like what you read, consider exploring some of our other articles. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is a great website brought to you by indie authors, just like myself, who contribute articles for authors of all stripes on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. Trust me, this is a great resource you do not want to miss out on.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear!

Self-Pub Authors: Prisma: An Inadvertent Cover-Creating App?

So I just came out with my latest article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. The subject is Prisma: An Inadvertent Cover-Creating App. And as you can guess from the title, it’s about an app called Prisma. Prisma is an app that allows you to turn photographs on your phone into artwork worthy of hanging up on your wall. I explore some other uses for the app that authors can take advantage of.

If you have a chance, check out the article. And if you can, check out the rest of the website. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. The website is filled with articles on writing/editing/publishing/marketing your fiction independently and on a budget. I’m not only a contributor to it, I’m also a beneficiary, so you can take my word for it.

That’s all for now. Until next time, my Followers of Fear!

Self-Pub Authors: Dragon Software

Hey Followers of Fear. My latest article for Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors, Dragon Speech-to-Text Software: A Review, has just gone live on the site. Yeah, a review about something other than a horror story. Who’d have thought that would happen?

About a month or two ago, I ordered Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is a software where you speak to your computer and your computer records what you’re saying, on the recommendation of my boss and some writer friends in the hopes that I could improve my writing with it. Turns out, it works very well for me (maybe because I love the sound of my own voice). Anyway, I decided to publish a review on Self-Pub Authors because that gets a very wide audience, and I think a lot of authors there could benefit from knowing about the software.

Anyway, if you get a chance, please check out the article, as well as the rest of the website. Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is a great resource for authors of all backgrounds on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing your works as effectively as possible. Believe me, I’ve found it very helpful in the past.

That’s all for now. I hope to have another article on this blog out later this week, so keep an eye out for it. Until next time, pleasant nightmares.

Full Circle: One-Fourth Done

Reborn City

Well, this took longer to do than expected. I started writing this novel in November, and it’s late February now. I hope this isn’t an indication of how long the rest of the novel will take.

So if you’re unaware, for the past couple of months I’ve been working on Full Circle, the final novel in my Reborn City trilogy.The RC trilogy follows the Hydras, a superpowered street gang living in a dystopian future. Amongst its main themes are the horrors of prejudice and hatred, gang violence, drug addiction, and above all, learning to overcome what you and what others think of you.

I started writing this trilogy in high school, and it is so crazy that I’m finally on the last book. Even better, I made it to the first real milestone. Okay, technically with thirty-five chapters, there is no even point where it’s off the fourth of the way through, but being nine chapters and is close enough. And while as a first draft this novel is going to need a lot of work (pretty sure that the first two chapters are going to need lots of revision), I think I’m off to a very good start. I’m doing a good job of reintroducing the world to readers who haven’t been back in a while, introduce some really cool villains, and set up an intriguing plot. Plus, I feel like this novel is going to show how much I’ve matured as a writer. You really get this on mature sense of style and storytelling from reading this book. Even if it isn’t horror, this might be my best work yet in some respects.

All right, now for page and word count, which is something I always include with these updates. In terms of pages (which means 8.5″ x 11″ size pages with 12-point Times New Roman font and double-spaced lines), the total is 106 pages, with the average page number per chapter being 11.7. In terms of word count, the total is 30,313, a decent-sized novella, with the average word count per chapter being 3,368. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

So how will things go from here on out? Well, despite my worries at the beginning of this post, I’ve actually started speeding up my writing. This is in thanks mostly to Dragon, a speech to text software that I bought and downloaded onto my computer. Basically what I do is I narrate the story myself, and Dragon puts what I say on the page. What might take me two hours to write now takes closer to a half hour, forty-five minutes. It’s quite handy, and I plan to do a full post on it on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors in the near future.

Book 2: Video Rage

The point being, hopefully it won’t take another four months for me to reach the halfway point of the novel (which I’ll say is Chapter 18 for simplicity’s sake). And I have some interesting chapters coming up, so that’s even more reason to write. Chapter 10 is going to give us a look at most of the villains in this book, and I’m really looking forward to exploring them a little bit. I’ve actually made some of them a little scary. Like, Stephen King – style psycho crazy villain scary. And I always have fun writing those sorts of characters.

Plus we have some new revelations about certain characters, a little character development, and a location I’ve been saving to explore for this last book. Should be fun.

Well, that’s all for now. If any of what I’ve said here is made you want to check out the Reborn City trilogy, I’ll include the links below. And if you do decide to check out my books, please let me know what you think. Positive or negative, I love feedback and I would love to hear yours.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares!

Reborn City:  Available on Amazon, Createspace, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo

Video Rage: Available from Amazon, Kindle, Createspace, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo.

Self-Pub Authors: Backstory isn’t Character

I’ve just published my first article of the year on the site Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors. This time, it’s Backstory isn’t Character, and is in response to some things I’ve seen recently in various works of fiction. That problem, as you can tell from the title, is writers thinking a backstory is the same as having a character with a fully-rounded personality. Um, no it isn’t. And in this article, I discuss why that is and how to avoid it in fiction you write, so make sure to check it out if you’re interested.

In addition, I highly encourage you to check out Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors in full. It is a great website to get advice on writing, editing, publishing and marketing effectively as an independent writer, and it is absolutely free. It’s from authors, by authors, and for authors. Check it out and see for yourself what an excellent resource it is.