Tag Archives: novels

A short post with tremendous news

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I really need to get to bed, and I’m sorry for posting such a tiny post on something so big, but here’s some good news to follow the Oscars.”

Tonight, after about two months of very serious, dedicated sessions of writing, I have completed the first draft of book one of Joshua’s Nightmares. That’s not to say there isn’t a ton of editing ahead of it, and I’m sure it will be incredibly taxing to get things just the way I want them, but this has been such a thrilling, fantastic process for me, and I had to share the news. What happens next? We’ll have to wait and see.

I’m sure I’ll be very busy with the editing, once I pick it back up to look at the story with fresh eyes. Mine are currently bloodshot from the hours of staring at MS Word, so that’ll be a few days at least. I’m trying to not even think about the horrors of looking into publishing just yet, because that is all very foreign and scary to me still. I wish I were kidding.

The final stats for the first draft are as follows:

  • 293 pages in standard manuscript format
  • 79,575 words
  • 316KB in MS Word 2010 docx format
  • a total editing time of 57,781 minutes

I’d apologize for all the rambling I’ve done about this story (I feel so odd calling it a novel, because that just seems smug somehow? I don’t know), but I’m not actually sorry. This has been so much fun, and it really revived the joy I find in sitting down and just writing like crazy for hours on end.

And now for bedtime, because I have to be at work at my new job tomorrow. At the ungodly (read as perfectly reasonable) hour of 8a.m.

 

How early is too early to plan a sequel?

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “How to handle being too attached to your own characters without killing them all at the end of the book.”

I skipped out on writing and reading yesterday (ignoring my journal entry last night, which doesn’t really count since it’s not creative writing and the goal was some creative writing each day).  I’d like to say I took a day off for a good reason, but it was mostly just a mix of laziness and being tired from work.  Excuses, excuses.

Naturally, I felt a bit guilty about that today, and so I focused on getting some new bits added to “Joshua’s Nightmares”.  I had errands to run today in preparation of an important interview of the job variety, which meant I had to get a shower at some point.  In the process of getting ready to shower (yes, I know, there is a lot of process to me not being lazy on my weekends off), I found myself thinking about certain prominent characters from “Joshua’s Nightmares” and where they’d end up at the end of the story.  Yes, there would be closure for them, but it felt like there was more that could happen.

And that’s when an idea happened.  It met up with similar ideas, which in turn met with other similar ideas.  I realize this presents a bit of a bothersome situation, as I’m not even close to halfway done with “Joshua’s Nightmares” and I’m already thinking, “Hey, there should be a second book.”

So the real question to you writer-type people is how soon is too soon for sequel-oriented thinking?  Or is it just one of those things you should embrace as it happens?

Either way, I’m afraid to say I’ll have to stash the ideas away in my little red Moleskine for the time being.

Chapter 1, drafted!

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

I am very excited to say, especially with how today went so horribly at work, I have completed the first draft of Chapter 1 of “Joshua’s Nightmares”.  Despite feeling very-much drained after an exciting 7-to-3 drag at work, I found some inspiration in a good dinner, and a bottle of Pennsylvania Dutch Birch Beer (I suspect the secret ingredient is pure, undiluted happiness), and wrote away.

There are a few points I’m a little iffy on with the chapter already, but I’m letting it have at least one day of peace before I even consider doing major edits.

My biggest problem at this point is wanting to get to certain characters who aren’t quite important to the plot just yet, because I love me some good, ol’-fashioned, truly bad-to-the-bone villains.

This progress is especially nice as it follows the news of my final interview for the new job I’ve been working towards, and so this week will end with even more craziness for me.

What this means is more writing to happen soon, more energy towards this work, and hopefully some pieces I can share on here eventually, perhaps, as means of stealing further interest in this fledgling novel.

PS: I’m also happy to be back to posting under the Joshua’s Nightmare Updates category, even if it’s no longer accurate with the working title (but, really, I’m not about to split hairs; huzzah for progress!).