For new content from Joan Albright, including the all-new Steampunk serial Silas Merryweather and the Bottomless Sky, please visit joanalbright.net. See you there!
WIP Check-In – Mid-August 2014
Felt like doing this a little early given that school starts next week and my productivity is likely to drop after that. I also feel like I’ve just been cruising through these edits this month, so let’s take a look.
WIP Title: Pegasus Chained
Last Check-in:
137K words.
52K archived.
Total words added (in 30 days): 26K.
63 chapters.
3rd draft: Ch. 43.
4th draft: Ch. 17.
5th draft: Ch. 3.
Current Wordcount/Chapter Count:
143K words.
61K archived.
Total words added (in 11 days): 15K.
64 chapters.
3rd draft: Ch. 47.
4th draft: Ch. 17.
5th draft: Ch. 5.
WIP Issues since last check-in:
It’s all pretty much fresh rewrites here. I glance at the old draft occasionally, steal bits of dialogue here and there, but so much has changed continuity wise, there’s a whole slew of extra characters, so much more depth of characterization, that almost none of the actual prose is relevant. Once I near the end I might be able to use more of the previous draft again, but I fully expect to have as much in the archives as I do in the final draft.
What I learned in writing:
As I mentioned last time, sometimes I’ve had to throw out a lot of junk before I find a character’s true personality. I did that with another minor character (who becomes major in the sequel, so it was important to get him right) in this last round of rewrites. Fixing most of it is a job for the 4th draft, but I’ll get there eventually.
What distracted me while writing:
School might not have started yet, but all my children’s school books arrived. They’re pretty much ready to dive right in, and I’ve indulged them a little bit. It takes away from my writing time, but more importantly it saps my creative energy, leaving me with less to spend on writing.
Last 200 words:
Wes jogged back up the trail, scuffed and sore, until Victor came to get him. The Krasiviian’s hover set down precariously on a wide part of the trail and Wes hopped in. Shipley was already inside.
“What happened?” Victor demanded, taking them up but holding position. “Aaron said he heard gunfire.”
Wes avoided meeting Victor’s gaze. “I missed,” he said. “She got away.” He didn’t know what was wrong with him, letting his aim slip like that. He’d head-shotted Tesaad in his combat sim from farther away than that.
Victor breathed a sigh of relief and turned them back toward the mountain.
“Aren’t we going after her?” Wes asked. “She’ll give away our position!”
“It is too late for that,” Victor told him. “Word just came in from Raven; Olympus has been compromised. These mountains will be crawling with soldiers by morning.”
Wes chewed his cheek and turned his gaze westward, though he couldn’t see anything through the back wall of the hover. The ominous feeling was related to the NDF’s approach; of that he was sure. But why did he feel nothing at letting Walker escape?
WIP Check-In #6
WIP Title: Pegasus Chained
Last Check-in:
131K words.
32K archived.
64 chapters.
3rd draft: Ch. 39.
4th draft: Ch. 19.
Current Wordcount/Chapter Count:
137K words.
52K archived.
Total words written this month: 26K. (That’s half of NaNoWriMo!)
63 chapters. (Lost 2, added 1, need to split another.)
3rd draft: Ch. 43.
4th draft: Ch. 17. (Merged some early chapters, and my critique partner is on hiatus.)
5th draft: Ch. 3.
WIP Issues this month:
Deletions, deletions, deletions. I archived that entire section of text I posted last month. Replaced it with a high-paced action scene from someone else’s perspective, so lots of win.
What I learned this month in writing:
I finally got a handle on Major Daniels’ personality. I’ve been kind of struggling with this character this month, which is a good thing. Up until now I’d been afraid to do much with him because my husband wrote the original version, but I finally had to quit relying upon that foundation and make him my own. I made a lot of mistakes with his chapters, and those are all in the archive now, but now that I’m through that I know who he is again.
My main character also did some … growing is the wrong word. In the sample words below, we see Daniels kind of opening up again after spending years closed off. Unfortunately for Rosa, she did a bit of the opposite. By far the hardest part of characterization for her and for Wes, her counterpart, is how they deal with the trauma of war. Post-traumatic stress disorder something I’ve never personally experienced, but getting into character for some of those scenes can take me to the very edge of a panic attack. If I don’t make sure to exercise and eat properly, I can end the day pretty bad off.
What distracted me this month while writing:
Not exercising properly. I had a few off days and a couple lazy days, and they all ended up being part of the same bad week. Also a bit of depression which I cleared up by confronting the source head on.
Good things, too. I participated in the very first FantasyCon ever, as part of the live entertainment (the Belegarth MCS battle games). If I ever need to write about being a gladiator, I now have some firsthand experience.
Last 200 words:
“A sparrow?” Daniels asked. For Reynolds to launch and control a sparrow while bathed in the sensory backwash of a malfunctioning TAG must have required tremendous mental fortitude. “What did you see?”
“Not much, sir, but the hover parked right next to her. She’s alive, and the rebels mean to keep her that way, if they can. They loaded her onto that hover and launched it, straight as an arrow, east by twenty-two degrees north.”
“You’re sure she was alive?” A tiny flame of hope kindled inside of Daniels. The rebels didn’t take prisoners. But they’d made an exception for Walker. She was the first person in a very long time to surprise him. Could she do it again?
“I swear it on my life, sir.”
There was a crack in Daniels’ armor. In the wall he’d built to keep out the pain of loss, of death and ruin, that he’d suffered in the long war against the Tesaad. Somehow Walker had planted a seed in that crack, and it was growing, widening the gap. Daniels couldn’t bring himself to pull it out and let it die.
“I’ll find her,” he said roughly, gripping Reynolds’ bicep tightly enough that the stalwart captain would feel it even through the layer of dead nerve endings. “And I’ll give them hell for you.”
Reynolds fumbled to place a hand over his, gripping weakly. “Thank you, sir.”
WIP Check-In #5
Last Check-in Wordcount + ChapterCount (+ scene count if you’re revising):
120K words. 61 Chapters. 3rd draft chapter 30, 4th draft chapter 15.
Current WC + CC (or SC):
131K words with 32K+ in the archives. 64 chapters. 3rd draft is on chapter 39, 4th draft chapter 19. The 4th draft will continue to fall behind since I’m not pushing to keep it equal anymore.
WIP Issues this month:
Few and far between. Mostly trying to decide which perspective to write scenes from. Got through some very intense action scenes, killed off 3 named characters in 3 chapters, nearly killed my MC. Fun stuff.
What I learned this month in writing:
I learned that by the time I finish this novel, I’ll have actually written about twice as many words on it as the final word count. Not including the drafts I aborted prior to last year’s NaNoWriMo.
What distracted me this month while writing:
Not what I expected to distract me.
Mostly equipment failures. My chair busted, or anyway came very close to busting, so I retired it. Fortunately my neighbor had a nice loveseat at her garage sale for only $10, and it seems to be working out so far. My laptop broke just a little bit more, the hinge losing all resistance. I rigged a fix with duct tape, but it’s very ghetto. Also the baby can now pull himself to a standing position and is tall enough to reach my keyboard when I sit at my chair.
What I expected to distract me was my husband doing JuNoWriMo. He didn’t win, but his best wordcount days were usually when I sat and did word sprints with him. So rather than his being busy preventing me from writing, I got more writing done myself.
Last 200 words:
The load on her was partly Daniels’ fault, he knew. He had set the precedent by suggesting that Walker assist with the programming. It had seemed like the perfect solution at the time. And it was–she was brilliant. But if he’d been able to foresee any of what happened since, he really would have left her in Decryption. Out of harm’s way.
Too late for that now. For any of it. Too late to spare her the pain of betrayal. Too late to spare her the blood on her hands. Too late to pretend it didn’t hurt to see her suffering.
Rago finally realized Daniels wasn’t going to answer him and let Sergeant Hammond harry him back through the partition. Daniels completed his circuit of the hangar and paced out past the gathering line of trainees in contact suits. It was chilly, despite the highly-insulated fabric the suits were made of, but they bore it. They had to, if they ever expected to be honored as Daniels had been, with their own custom TAGs. When Dobbs wanted to dangle a carrot, he didn’t do it by halves.
WIPMarathon Check-In #4
Last Check-in Wordcount + ChapterCount (+ scene count if you’re revising):
112K. 59 chapters. 3rd draft was at ch. 25, 4th draft at ch. 10.
Current WC + CC (or SC):
120K. 61 Chapters. 3rd draft I’m rewriting chapter 30, 4th draft chapter 15.
WIP Issues this month:
Major continuity revisions. I added a whole bunch of stuff, and it was just completely throwing off the pacing. I finally figured out that if I rearranged some of the scenes (and deleted a large section of one), things started working again. I lost a lot of time to rewrites because of everything though.
What I learned this month in writing:
That I can’t keep up a pace of 4 chapters revised per week. Not with a new critique partner and a blog post (on my other blog) each Wednesday. I appear to have done an average of 2/week since I started tracking, so I’ll keep that pace as a goal and count anything on top of that as bonus.
What distracted me this month while writing:
Lots of stuff. Mostly the kids’ schoolwork, and the baby getting some teeth, but the really fun one was being a zombie on a movie set. I volunteered to do some stunts that landed me in the snow though, and caught a chill again. I need to remember to bring a spare outfit when I work as an extra.
Oh yes, and we mustn’t forget the completely new story concepts that have jumped into my head this month. There was a steampocalypse idea, and a short story, and I figured out the ending for book 3 of the Quetzalcoatl storyline that interweaves with the Pegasus Wars, and also I figured out how I want to rewrite Noise, the short story I wrote in February. All of these required me to do some writing on them before they’d get out of my head and leave me be.
Last 200 words:
Did he know it was me in Sandstorm? Rosa wondered for the hundredth time. Or was he as surprised as everyone else to find out I was the pilot?
Rosa shut the book with a sigh. There was no evidence that Caleb Dobbs was even remotely interested in her. He hadn’t contacted her, or left her his number, or anything. And why should he? He was fourteen years older than she was, and two grades higher in rank besides.
He could have any woman he wanted, Rosa reminded herself. Like Stephanie Carlisle–just as rich, twice as famous, and much better endowed.
General Dobbs approved of her. That in itself seemed to be miraculous. Rosa’s grandfather would resist the match, of course, but he couldn’t stop her. And he might find the political ties useful in the long run.
“You’re doing it wrong.”
“I know!” she shouted at no-one, starting to pace.
She needed to get out, go for a walk, do something. But what? She’d been ordered not to help Forsberg. Lieutenant Fielding wouldn’t get off shift for hours, and even she didn’t spend every night on the town.
“Lunch. I’ll go eat lunch.” She would go to the officer’s mess–that would at least get her out of the apartment. And then … she’d figure out something.
WIPMarathon Check-In #3
Last Check-in Wordcount + ChapterCount (+ scene count if you’re revising):
105K. 50 chapters.
Current WC + CC (or SC):
112K. That makes me feel all depressed. :P But a lot has been rewriting, and that’s just how it goes. Up to 59 chapters somehow; I didn’t think I had split that many of them. Right now the third draft is done through chapter 25, and the 4th draft has hit chapter 10. An explanation of this later.
WIP Issues this week:
Had a really big one. I was working on a chapter that really needed a second perspective character for the last half. The problem was, the character I had slated to give that perspective was no longer in the same time zone. I had 3 named characters in the scene and struggled to decide which one to write the scene from (hint: the one with the greatest emotional investment is the only right answer). Finally I settled on one, and started writing.
I spent the whole evening writing, but in the morning I got stuck. I tried doing the end of it 2 different ways, and hated both of them so much that I actually deleted the scene and decided not to split the perspective after all.
Fortunately I had time to ruminate on the scene before I had to do the rewrite, thanks in part to the need to redraft an earlier chapter in a major way. By the time I finished with that, my head was back on straight and I came up with a third scenario that let me keep everything I’d already written after all. (Hooray for Scrivener!)
What I learned this week in writing:
Um, there was a big one. What was it? …Ahh, yes, pacing the backstory. A lot of books start with a great big infodump. This is generally seen as a bad thing, but I’ve rarely seen any suggestions for fixing it. I managed to axe my prologue and original first chapter, allowing me to start right with the good stuff, but in order to pull it off I had to rework a major storyline.
Anyway … basically what I discovered is that you DO need your prologue, but not to sit at the beginning of the novel. DO write that infodumpy prologue. Get it off your chest. Then move it somewhere and use it as a checklist for everything that MUST be told in the narrative before you get to the point in your novel where the reader absolutely has to know it.
I think this method can also be used when you feel your scene is slowed down too much by internal monologue. Axe the passages and put them on the checklist too, then work the important points in beforehand.
What distracted me this week while writing:
A new critique partner. :D Actually gained two of them this month. Aside from spending time reading and writing feedback, I’ve discovered that it’s been long enough since I started the 3rd draft here that as I shell out chapters to my partners I’ve been doing proper 4th draft edits first. So I have to make sure to keep my pacing even, and not get behind on the 3rd pass.
Last 200 words:
They were in a cavern. The ground was black asphalt, running out to the sides of the irregular space, but the ceiling arced and curved unevenly, as did two of the walls. A third was mostly natural, but large pieces of corrugated steel had been formed into a wall across the remaining section. There was a door in that part, incongruously marked ‘EXIT’. The last wall was grey concrete with steel pillars and lights at intervals. Along it were more TAGs like those which had rescued them in the woods, and farther out were parked several transports of various sizes.
A wide double door opened through the fourth wall, and through this people came. Pam ran to the arms of a lanky man in his forties, who embraced her so vigorously that Wes made himself look away. Not even the dog had ever greeted him that warmly. Well, maybe the dog.
To either side, similar reunions were occurring. And then there were those whose anxious voices went unanswered. Wes shut his ears to them and hurried through the double doors.
WIPMarathon Check-In #2
I’m pretty sure it’s been longer than a week since I last posted, and most people are way past done with this, but here’s my #WiPMarathon post for the … month? ;P
Last Check-in Wordcount + ChapterCount (+ scene count if you’re revising):
85K. 50? chapters, 1/3 of which I’d finished revising.
Current WC + CC (or SC):
105K. 59 chapters, though two I’m going to axe on the next pass and two more are just outlines at the moment. Still only 1/3 through the revisions because I keep adding new chapters.
WIP Issues this week:
I was writing a scene and kept revealing way too much of the plot to the main character in dialogue. I had to back up 3 or 4 chapters to tweak her conversations in order to not give away so much in that scene.
What I learned this week in writing:
Something about dialogue pacing. It was explained really well in an article I read, but I didn’t pay much attention after I realized that I was already doing fine, so I’m afraid I can’t quantify it like I should.
I also learned that conversations which go the way they should are boring. Much more fun when characters are so caught up in their own lives that they miss opportunities to ask all the right questions.
What distracted me this week while writing:
A cold. I’ve got it, my husband has it, the kids have all got it. The baby has it the worst off; normally they sleep when they’re sick, but he’s only managed an hour or two of nap total each day since he got it. So kind of distracting.
Last 200 words:
The words sent a chill down her back. They jarred with the white marble tiles, the finely decorated hall, the sounds of glasses and platters being cleared away by the service staff. Like his assertion that the Tesaad threat was a fabrication, they just didn’t seem real.
“Promise me one thing,” Governor Wirthlin said while Rosa was still sorting out her thoughts. “If you care about me, or about your father’s wishes, promise me you’ll stay away from Doctor Andrews.”
Rosa shook her head; that was the one thing that she wouldn’t promise. “I can’t do that. This project means too much to me, and I’ll see it through to the end with or without your help.” The bitterness of her grandfather’s disappointment was so deep that Rosa almost took back the words. Instead, she pressed on. “And if you’re right, and we really are headed to war … understand now that I won’t be able to stand aside.”
She came to attention before curtsying, as she had done with Major Dobbs, and Governor Wirthlin gathered himself, straightening his shoulders and taking a deep breath.
“I know you won’t,” Rosa heard him say as she walked away. “You’re too much like him.”
WIPMarathon Check-In #1
I need a bit of a break today. I just finished rushing to revise a short story submission for a contest, and I’m a touch winded, so instead of diving directly back into Pegasus Chained draft 3 (going great so far though!) I’m going to toss up one of these #WIPMarathon posts so many of my tweeps are into lately.
Last Check-in Wordcount + ChapterCount (+ scene count if you’re revising):
Not relevant, since this is my first. The last time I checked though, I was at 83K on my main project.
Current WC + CC (or SC):
Looks like my main project, Pegasus Chained, is up to 85K. The short story I just tweaked ended at 2700, up 700 words-ish from the first draft.
WIP Issues this week:
Hmm, let’s see. Biggest issue was deciding how to tackle the rewrite of chapter 3. My editor was all, ‘Oh, that’s so 80s sci-fi!’ and at first I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the point,’ but then I realized that I could do better. So I dug in and researched a new solution, wasting about 3 hours on dead ends.
After sleeping on it (really, I woke up like 90 minutes later and knew what I needed to do, but I managed to put it off until morning), I got to work again and ground out 5 of the most grueling paragraphs of my life. But they were amazing. And the rest of the section was amazing. And the next section had so much more potential that it just was missing out on doing it the old way. And then the last section, which I thought I wouldn’t have to touch, I managed to pack in some amazing character backstory, as well as introing characters I just hadn’t thought to expand upon in the first draft.
All in all, the chapter gained a lot this draft. Now I’ve got continuity for the entire rest of the novel to overhaul, but such is life.
What I learned this week in writing:
Hmm. I learned how to ‘kill my darlings’. I really was proud of that first draft, but having stepped back from first writing, I realized it was too cutesy and not nearly as powerful as it could/needed to be. And the new draft managed not only to incorporate all of the vital plot points from the first draft, but gained a rich wealth of foreshadowing and character foundation that I’m going to be able to build on later.
What distracted me this week while writing:
I discovered a new musician whose work I absolutely love. If you’d like to waste an hour listening to some awesome music and watching some amazing videos, check out Lindsey Stirling’s hip-hop violin.
Last 200 words:
“Major Daniels just pulled me out of Decryption. He hasn’t told me anything.” There was something, she saw now, in several large alcoves to either side of the office section. All Rosa could see of them from here was a bit of white metal. “What are they?”
“You don’t even know?” Corporal Holloway asked.
“That’s Daniels,” said Private Rago. “He never say nuttin’ if he can get somebody else to say it for ‘im.”
“Come take a look,” Holloway said, walking out into the empty space of the hangar. “You can see them better from out here.”
Rosa followed her a good thirty meters out, where she turned and nodded back the way they had come. Behind the catwalk, docked in the alcoves like suits of armor on display, were four enormous machines. Each was shaped differently, with varying equipment, but they were all obviously combat units. Prototype Tactical Armors.
But … they were huge. Nine to nine and a half meters tall, almost twice the height of any other TAG on base, and different in other ways as well, she thought. They stood like statues, unmarked and gleaming with a flawless white sheen that Rosa very much suspected was indirium. They must have cost a fortune, and not a small one.
Rosa stared up at the extravagant war machines and let out a slow breath. I can’t possibly be qualified for this, she thought.
The Veil
A bit of fiction that popped into my head while I was writing something completely different. …Or is it?
#
People don’t see what they don’t want to see. Call it the Veil, or Gnosis, or Paradigm, or maybe something else; the name doesn’t matter. What matters is that it buffers ordinary people from the strange, the arcane, the paranormal.
When you see something that doesn’t fit into your paradigm, you forget it. Oh, at first when you find yourself running from a werewolf on the full moon, or a unicorn charges down main street goring holes in every car that honks at it, you might see it truly for what it is. Some people never will; their grip on what they perceive as reality is too tight.
If you have enough imagination to believe in the incredible, you might see them for what they really are, at first. But then you get away. That werewolf? A drunken gang member. Or maybe it was a mugger. The unicorn? A seven-car pileup, exacerbated by a freak snow-storm. They even said so on the news.
You make up the story in your head, one that fits your paradigm. And then you forget. Maybe it lives on as a memory from a book you can’t remember the name of, or a fragment of a movie you saw in a DVD store window. Maybe as a clever bit of fiction you’re going to write down as soon as you have the time to do it justice.
Believe me when I say that strange things are going on all around you. You’ve seen them yourself. Deny it all you like; it doesn’t matter. The memories live on like echoes, in dreams and stories, because the reality just might drive you mad. But I need you to remember now, because I’m about to show you something very, very strange.
Creative Copy Challenge 9-7-2013
Since CCC has disappeared, my writing group has decided to do our own randomly generated word prompts. When I like how mine turns out, I’ll be posting them here. This is a little vignette from somewhere near the end of Pegasus Chained, my current sci-fi project.
—–
Maybe it was luck, or fate, that saved his life. Maybe it was paranoia, or perhaps simple cowardice. Whatever the cause, something made David Bingle leave the battlefield that day.
The rebels had been cornered in their mountain base; they were surrounded, out-equipped and certainly outnumbered. David was flying in tandem with two other jets, sweeping the ground with his heat sensors for enemy forces hidden beneath the canopy. He spotted one, veered toward it and aimed his guns, but before he could open fire an emerald burst of energy shot out at him from his target. The beam was incredible—half as wide as his jet, despite being from a what was apparently a mobile ground unit.
The beam scored his plane; he never even had a chance to dodge. With an oath mumbled into his flight helmet, he struggled to return to his original flight path. The smoke coming from one wing scribed an arch across the sky and then leveled out as David compensated for the damage. The emergency fire suppression system kicked in and soon he was flying parallel with, if a little behind, his partners.
David’s heart still pounded in his chest as he reached the end of his sweep and turned back. The target was still there; it wouldn’t have moved far in the time it took him to double back. He was still furlongs behind his partners; they would probably disable the enemy before David even reached it.
Still half a mile from where he had encountered the ground unit, David turned hard. He could never explain why. His plane shot to the left and away from the enemy, just as the other two jets erupted in flame.
David felt his heart skip a beat as he glimpsed his wingmen’s doom, and it was long moments before he recovered his composure. By then he was miles from the battlefield, way outside of the sweep zone. Taking breaths as deep as a man could while screaming through the air at mach four, David steadied his hands and swung back around. So it was that he had probably the best view of all when the mountain blew.
It started as a glowing crack spreading from the top of Eleph Peak to its base, then another almost as fast as thought. A third and fourth appeared, spiderwebbing across the other two just slowly enough for the eye to register before the whole mountain shattered in a burst of molten stone.
Disbelieving, David altered course to circle the newborn volcano, not daring to go nearer the rapidly-expanding cloud of debris. A wave of panicked shouts crackled in his headset and then faded as his comrades, closer to the epicenter than he, died by the dozens. He saw a few aircraft dart away ahead of the blast—whether friend or foe he couldn’t have said—before the shockwave hit him.
It was like a tangible wall of wind, and it knocked him sideways, nearly plunging him into the jungle overgrowth. He was vaguely aware of trees being flung past him, but miraculously his plane remained intact. He managed to level off and rise above the maelstrom, turning his tail and running at full speed away from the expanding cloud. Only when he was once again miles away did he turn and look back.
The devastation was unbelievable. Every tree, bush and stone had been blown back in a ring five kilometers wide. The mountain itself was now no more than a rising cloud, mushrooming out at the top and lit from below with a red light. It was a crown fit for the coronation of a terrible and ancient god.
David lived to tell about that day, as did a handful of others who had been able to escape. They thought it was the end of the conflict, but they didn’t understand that they had just awakened a greater foe than they had ever faced before. It was only the beginning.
Albright Writes 