I don't know if the timing was relevant, but I'm perfectly happy to repeat the inadvertent experiment by posting chapter 19 now. It's up and live. I hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Elevated Chapter 19 is posted on SOL.
Last week, I needed to get some sleep and posted chapter 18 of Elevated at 10 PM on Thursday instead of after midnight on Friday as I have been and, for some reason, it got a ton of reads - more than twice as many as other new chapters have been in previous weeks.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
I wonder what I was thinking
Combing through the files in my hopper, I came across a number of unstoried titles - story stubs that are nothing but a title and maybe a couple of notes jotted down or an opening paragraph. Some of them I have no idea even what I meant to write and some are really quite evocative. Here are my ten favorite (in no particular order):
A Cold and Broken Hallelujah
Attractive Nuisance
Care and Feeding of the Wild Party Girl
Frenemy Mine
Hypotenuse Screamed
Love on the Installment Plan
Our Sins Like Ghosts
Shade-Tree Fixing Man
They Move Slowly in Winter
Nor Custom Stale
Maybe I'll take some time this weekend to play with a few of them.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Abandonment Issues
The French poet Paul Valery famously said, "a poem is never finished, only abandoned." It's equally true of prose, I think. I put the finishing touches on Chapter 21 of Elevated tonight and shared it with my first readers and editor. Already I have a list of over 100 changes I want to make to the story before I release it as an eBook on Amazon. But for now, it's done. I'll fix whatever typos my sharp-eyed editor Mandrake LXIX catches between now and then, but the story is what it is. The last chapter should be available on or before February 14, 2014.
I hope it's a satisfying ending for all of you. Corvus, his friends, enemies, lovers, family, and slaves will be back in the next novel, which no longer has even a tentative title.
I'm going to take this week to decide what I'm writing next. Some possibilities include The Paphian Way (the origin of Lucretia Octavius/Tullius/Gallicus,) a series of short stories called The Truthspeaker and the Oracle set in the first century of New Rome including one called Saturnalia in Rio which is told from the perspective of Caesar Mauritius shortly after landfall in the New World.
There are other possibilities not from New Rome as well. I may need a break from exploring that world every week before I plunge back in. Watch this space for details.
I hope it's a satisfying ending for all of you. Corvus, his friends, enemies, lovers, family, and slaves will be back in the next novel, which no longer has even a tentative title.
I'm going to take this week to decide what I'm writing next. Some possibilities include The Paphian Way (the origin of Lucretia Octavius/Tullius/Gallicus,) a series of short stories called The Truthspeaker and the Oracle set in the first century of New Rome including one called Saturnalia in Rio which is told from the perspective of Caesar Mauritius shortly after landfall in the New World.
There are other possibilities not from New Rome as well. I may need a break from exploring that world every week before I plunge back in. Watch this space for details.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Elevated Chapter 20 is off to my first readers.
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Saturday, January 11, 2014
Chapter 19 is ready for proofing
Chapter 19 of Elevated has gone to and been reviewed by my First Reader and now just waits for proofing and final edits before it's ready to go. It's the most information-dense chapter in the whole book, but I think I managed to keep the pacing accelerated and the tension high. It should be posted on SOL January 31, 2014.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Reaching the end
I have just now reached the end of Elevated.
This does not by any stretch mean that it's done. Chapters 19-21 are in rough draft form and, in the case of the last chapter, it's still incoherent in places. Chapters 16-18 also need proofreading and last-minute touch-ups.
Still, it's a milestone. I finally got to the point I wanted to reach when I started this story back in August - more or less. After 400ish pages of plot and character development, the ending actually wound up must stronger than I originally envisioned.
That being said, it's not the story I imagined - even as I was writing chapter 15, the latest one currently on storiesonline.net. There have been hints since the first chapter of what's coming, but it's not a mystery novel. The reader isn't supposed to have enough information to solve it and feel intellectually superior to the brilliant protagonist who manages to be smart about everything except all the things that are essential to the story unfolding around them.
This isn't meant to be a tease, although it sounds like one even to me. I just want to commemorate this moment and promise my readers that what's coming is even better than what they've already read.
Maybe that's the definition of a tease.
Either way, the conclusion I've written is a bit daunting. If it's not pitch-perfect, the whole story falls apart and starts to feel disrespectful. I sincerely hope I can do it justice.
This does not by any stretch mean that it's done. Chapters 19-21 are in rough draft form and, in the case of the last chapter, it's still incoherent in places. Chapters 16-18 also need proofreading and last-minute touch-ups.
Still, it's a milestone. I finally got to the point I wanted to reach when I started this story back in August - more or less. After 400ish pages of plot and character development, the ending actually wound up must stronger than I originally envisioned.
That being said, it's not the story I imagined - even as I was writing chapter 15, the latest one currently on storiesonline.net. There have been hints since the first chapter of what's coming, but it's not a mystery novel. The reader isn't supposed to have enough information to solve it and feel intellectually superior to the brilliant protagonist who manages to be smart about everything except all the things that are essential to the story unfolding around them.
This isn't meant to be a tease, although it sounds like one even to me. I just want to commemorate this moment and promise my readers that what's coming is even better than what they've already read.
Maybe that's the definition of a tease.
Either way, the conclusion I've written is a bit daunting. If it's not pitch-perfect, the whole story falls apart and starts to feel disrespectful. I sincerely hope I can do it justice.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Days of the week (Chapter 15 is up!)
Finally went back to work yesterday, then promptly forgot how the days of the week work. Fortunately, before I went to bed, I remembered the whole Friday-follows-Thursday thing and posted chapter 15 of Elevated.
Chapter 19 is in draft and so are the first twelve pages of chapter 20. I still have a lot more story to squeeze in before the wrap-up, but it's getting closer.
Chapter 19 is in draft and so are the first twelve pages of chapter 20. I still have a lot more story to squeeze in before the wrap-up, but it's getting closer.
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