Editing and Warm and Fuzzies

First things first: Let me start with a quick flash of admin. In case you missed it, I'm still looking for critique partners to help me edit my Historical Romance, so if you think you might be interested, please head over and check it out. (I do return the favor if you help me.) 

Secondly: The Vanished Knight is being featured on Andrea Washington's blog. She's a bit new to the community, so I'd love if you said hi. 

Okay? Okay. Now let's get into today's post.

(How's that for a smooth segue, eh?)

After putting out a call for critique partners for that romance, I decided to open it up one more time before it went out for a critique. The last time I had time to do so was in April.

I'm actually glad I waited so long, because I have a rather interesting relationship with ES1. See... this is the first book I ever tried to write when I seriously became a novelist. Then stuff happened and I moved on to greener pastures. The book stuck with me, though. Again because of a character walking into my head while I was reading. (It happens to me a lot. The Vanished Knight started in much the same way.)

I kept coming back to it, though. Even working on it on weekends while working on the beast that would become The Vanished Knight and The Heir's Choice. (Yes, it was once one book.) In other words, ES1 became the second book I ever finished. Then I rewrote it and lost the entire rewrite the day after I finished it.

I know. It was horrible. The loss, I mean. The book was (I think) good. Hard to tell. See that draft is a lot like a dead person to me. You know how dead people suddenly become saintly and perfect after they died? Yeah... like that. There's this part of my mind that keeps clinging to the idea that that draft was simply marvelous. Even when I never even edited it. Seriously, it was the worst time to lose a draft. Right after the high from finishing it.

Needless to say, I didn't have the heart to start again, so I put the story on the back-burner and worked on three more books. It took me a year, and when I came back to the rough draft, I realized that it was a mess.

Which meant one thing. Redraft. I went through the book and basically split it in two. Don't worry, these stories won't end in a cliffhanger. It's just that I had a huge cast of characters. I split it in two, which allows me to tell two previously competing plot arcs as stories in their own right. (I still need to write the second one. It's on my to-do list.)

This time, I loved the story as I wrote it. I loved my rewrite even more. After the pain and slogging that goes with writing the War of Six Crowns series (no seriously. I take four times as long to rewrite any of the books), ES1 was a joy.

So when I read it two months after the rewrite, I still had the warm and fuzzies.

Six months later... Not so much. Okay, okay I'll admit that it still makes me go "AWEEEE!" every now and then. It's just that now that I've been able to look at it without my other writing experiences coloring my vision, I'm noticing things.

Things like: I deviated far from the genre norms in certain places. (Which is fine. I do it all the time. Just wondering how it's going to go over with the readers.) Or... I noticed I glossed over a lot of scenes. Which now makes me wonder if I'm being overly critical (glossing over boring things is a good thing), or if I really didn't put enough attention into some aspects of the story.

I'm mulling this over for now, and will continue to do so while the manuscript is with my critique partners.

Do you also suffer from warm and fuzzies after finishing a draft? How long do you have to wait to make them go away?

Calling all Critique Partners!

It's Friday again and I'm yet again sitting here, shaking my head and wondering where the heck my time went.

It's actually the same with the whole month. Next week is the last week for October, which means that I should have done this a while ago...

Calling all Critique Partners!

I'm currently looking for critique partners for my Historical Romance and am willing to return the favor. 

What I'll Critique for you: Basically, I read almost all genres, but I don't critique MG, Picture Books, Memoirs, Erotica and Horror. Nothing against any of those things personally. I just don't "get" them, which means that I'll be pretty dang useless in reading them. 

You don't need to be ready for a critique to sign up for this, though. If you're still working on something, I do keep a tally of people I owe critiques to, so if you help me now, you can drop me a line whenever you're ready. 

What I'm Good at Critiquing: Plot, Characterization, Dialogue, copyedits. 

What I'm Looking for: Pretty much everything, but just let me know what you're good at so I know when is the best time to send my manuscript my way. 

About the Book: 

It's set in Texas before the Civil War. I'd classify it as a steamy romance. Not too hot, but the love scenes are there. 

A rough idea of the blurb: 

Wanted: A housekeeper and governess for five children. Position requires living on a ranch in Texas. Family welcome. 

Sarah McAllister is out of options. Her husband was killed, leaving her with two children and without any prospects. She's desperate enough to move into the wilds of Texas to save her family. But when she arrives, she encounters: One gunfighter in the making whose best friend is a gambler, one taciturn fourteen year old, twin girls who've been allowed to run wild and one boy who's fixing to be as wild as his older brothers. None of them want her there. Turns out, neither does her employer. 

Yes, Grady Kincaid had asked for a well-bred, well-read lady from back east. Heaven knows his children needs someone capable to get his children ready to meet their grandparents. What he hadn't asked for was a very pretty widow with more guts than sense. It's a nuisance to have her around, especially when his neighbor and enemy is interested in her, but when it's clear that she's in trouble, he can't turn his back on her. So he's stuck with her, which is a problem when he can't ignore his attraction to her...

If you're interested in helping me out, please mail me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com and we'll take it from there. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

PS If you could spread the word to people who might be interested? Pretty please with shiny sprinkles on top!

Whoops! It's Wednesday.

So here I am, a bit late. I promised to be back on Monday, but Monday wasn't a good day. It started with people visiting our neighbors keeping us awake past twelve on Saturday and Sunday. But just as things settled down on Monday morning, a huge thunderstorm, the likes I have never seen in the Western Cape, came over us.

Our cats were like: Meh.

Our dogs... Two were in a blind panic. The third was completely confused by the drama, which, in his barking to understand what was up with his buddies... added more drama.

I think I fell asleep at 4am.

I managed to get work done, but when it came to actually writing anything (blog, fiction, whatever)... no go. By lunch time, I was a zombie.

Needless to say, I'm so behind on my goals that I have to hit 3k words every day for the rest of the month to get anywhere approaching the goal I'd set.

I'm feeling good about my rewrite, though. So I might just make it. If I don't have any more horrific late nights to screw up my writing routine. But yeah. So far, I've written almost 1500 words today, so I should be making progress.

In somewhat unrelated news, I'm struggling to decide if I should still publish Endless this year. The plan had been to have it out by end November, but... it's hard to set a date when it isn't clear on when you can actually pay for your cover so that you can use it.

The good news is, I'll be getting a salary real soon. The problem is that the date isn't finalized. Which means I can't finalize a date. Which means that I can't set up anything approaching marketing around the launch...

*Headdesk*

*Glances up.* How are you doing?

Still alive and well, but will be quiet.

Hi all!

Thanks so much for the good wishes and prayers you've been sending my way. Things went well at the meeting, which means that we're moving forward. However, it also means I might be back to having a bit of a manic November (new job, NaNo, other businesses and Realms Faire), so I have to graft now in order to stick more or less to the goals I have left for the rest of the year.

Which means that I'm going to probably be quiet until next week. Too much to do. (Including but not limited to edits, rewrites, meetings with banks and employer etc.)

Wish me luck!

Misha

Please Pray

Hey all!

I was hoping to write a bit more of an interesting post, but today we've reached the make-or-break point in business negotiations, which means we're right in the balance between having another crap three or four months and actually seeing our problems solved.

Obviously, we're hoping these negotiations swing in the latter direction, so please pray that they go well.

In the meantime, I'm in for the most stressful wait of my life.

Misha

Holy cow! Where has the time gone?

Oh my word. I wanted to write a post today, but somehow, it's 5:30 PM and I still haven't started. Problem is I haven't started writing either, which means I need to knuckle down and get writing right now. 

See you on Wednesday. 

A little bit of news...

Hi all! Today's been a bit of a rough day, so I thought I'd do a bit more of an admin/news post for the things I'm up to or involved with.

Red Earth to White Light

For those of you looking for something slightly different this Halloween, I'm sharing the ghost story I wrote for Twisted Earths, the Untethered Realms Anthology, last year. 

You can find it on Wattpad. I'll be posting two more updates, once a week. 

Speaking of the Untethered Realms Anthology...

Mayhem in the Air

Coming Halloween. Tales from Untethered Realms. Ten stories of horror, the fantastic, the future, and macabre, all embracing the element of air.

From Amazon bestselling and popular science fiction and fantasy authors comes Mayhem in the Air, a supernatural anthology of ten thrilling tales. Meet hot robots, hungry winds and the goddess of chaos. Explore alien planets, purgatorial realms, and a shocking place where people bury the living with their dead. Mayhem in the Air is the second, long-awaited story collection from the dynamic and inventive Untethered Realms group.

“A Strange Penitence” by Catherine Stine – A young artist pays a supernatural price when a drawing trip to North Carolina turns deadly.

“Mass Transit” by Graeme Ing – For Emily, mind over matter is not just a saying, but the gateway to her career among the largest starships built by man.

“A Tangled Weave” by River Fairchild – A TimePulse rips through the Great Tapestry of Life, leaving Earth’s history in a jumble, and Death and Chronos in a race to save the world yet again.

“Corrosive” by M. Pax – In a world ruined by pollutants, Bex sets off to establish a new homestead with her dreamy robotic man. Already farming her plot of land is another dreamy man with radical ideas, presenting new challenges as corrosive as the air.

“Saving Scrooge: A Short Story Prequel to the Saving Marley Series” by Gwen Gardner – Marley is sent from purgatory to save the soul of his old friend. Can he save his own in the bargain?

“The Silent Wind” by Christine Rains – A team of specialists must dispel a mysterious storm on an alien planet to prepare it for colonization. One by one the crew disappears until only a seasoned soldier remains. How can he battle a hungry wind that makes no noise?

“Paper Lanterns” by Cherie Reich: In order to keep his promise to his daughter, Mayor Alfred Merry must betray the woman he loves.

“Chaos. Hope. Love.” by Misha Gerrick – Although Eris is the goddess of chaos, her life has fallen into a nice and comfortable routine. Until someone from her past shows up in her bookstore.

“Cardinal Sin” by Julie Flanders: Beleaguered hospital workers bury the living with the dead in the midst of a tuberculosis epidemic and a seething spirit vows vengeance from the skies.

“The Ark” by Cathrina Constantine -Plagued with memory flashes of fiery explosions and running for her life, Fallon emerges from a drugged stupor to find herself in an airborne Ark, and the earth below is a drowning wasteland.

Realms Faire 2015

We still have limited spaces left for Duelling Bards. 

Hosted by Cassandra Webb. Daily prizes.

Your character squares off with another writer’s darling. Can you win? The audience decides.

Dazzle us with your character’s savvy and brawn, magic and might, quick draw and sweetness. An easy and exciting way to show off what your books are made of.

There are a few slots left in Dueling Bards.

We're also still looking for prizes, so if you're interested in taking part or sponsoring something, please sign up here.

One more thing. The Realms Faire has a Thunderclap going on at the moment, so it would be awesome if you could take a moment to support it. Please and thank you!

What about you? What are you taking part in or planning to do? Any other interesting news?

How I set huge goals without getting crushed by them.

Friday's post got two comments by J.H. Moncrieff and Kelly Hashway (both ladies have awesome blogs, by the way), which basically came down to "How do you keep getting so much done?" and "How do you handle your discouragement if you achieve your goals?" 

Since it isn't the first time people asked me, I thought I'd go into my madness/method once more. Actually, I'm going to share my big secret: 

I set huge goals and then make a game of chasing them. 

If I think about it in an attempt to explain myself, it's a lot like a perpetual game of soccer/football/rugby/whatever else you can think of involving points. Or maybe I'm playing a game of Quidditch, because I remember that some of those go on for a while. The only thing here is that I'm both sides. Misha the writer/doer-of-things vs Misha the procrastinator. 

The more things in a day, the more times I score. And yes. I keep track. 

If you look closely, you'll see I have two Excel spreadsheets open. I open them up the first thing every morning. 

The first is this one: 

This is where I keep track of my writing/editing goals by month. This was September, but at the end of each year, I create a spreadsheet for the next year. (2016's is done too. I did it this month to take a writing break.) Basically, it started as a way for me to keep track of my rough draft's word counts and daily progress during NaNo, since counting by hand is a bit of a pain in the butt, so it's easier to only count toward the total and then subtract to find what I've written in a day. 

The big block on the left is for rough drafts and rewrites and the block on the right is for my edits. (I count edits by hour instead of words.) 

I have another block each month for critiques, but including it just makes the whole thing too small to see. Anyway, on all of the blocks, I color-code my progress so that I can see at a glance what I've been doing. I can also input monthly writing and editing goals (say 10k words and 15 hours respectively), and the spreadsheet calculates my totals, cumulative totals as well as daily goals and cumulative totals. In other words, this thing helps me keep track exactly the same way as NaNoWriMo's stats do. 

The other spreadsheet I have open looks like this: 

The words are pretty squidgy so it might be hard to tell, but you're looking at the month of September. Each color-line in the calendar other than turquoise represent particular monthly goals I've set. You know the ones. I set them on this blog on the last Friday of every month. The key to those goals are in the multi-colored blocks at the bottom. I try to keep themes. (Such as the Purple involves stuff I still have to do for The Vanished Knight. The dark green was for all my writing this month. Yellow was for my reading (and to count the average hours spent reading) and orange are my life goals.) Every theme/color has a primary, secondary and tertiary goal, as well as a space for me to mark them as in progress or complete. 

In other words, this little bad-boy is my score card. The things written in on the calendar aren't a to-do list. They're everything I've done. Every day. Saturdays and Sundays tend to be emptier because I let myself rest, and also because they're spent on less quantifiable things like spending time with my family or binge-watching series to recover from my hard work. 

This month, everything except for eight tasks (out of 24) had me making at least some progress (two of which were postponed due to circumstances beyond my control.) Of the remaining 16 tasks I set myself this month, I completed 4 plus a bonus task for that rough draft I hadn't set a goal for, so 5. Of the 12 remaining, I made significant progress on one. So all in all, I might not have finished the majority of my goals, but so what? Everything I did only sets me up to finish them next month or the next or whatever. But in the meantime, I know that very few of my weekdays (six) went without me furthering my writing goals in some way, and I compensated for those by working in on Saturdays. 

Also, to help keep things balanced, a quick glance at my word-count reveals that though I didn't achieve everything I set out to do, I still finished a whole round of edits, a full rough draft and about a third of my planned rewrite in one month.

In short, I won this round by a wide margin. Starting tomorrow, I get to see if (and how far) I can win again. 

And yes, this came is huge fun. There's nothing as awesome as marking things as complete when you have things to do and goals to achieve. 

What about the bad months? Oh I have those too. Usually, what I do is I focus on what I have achieved. (I almost always get something done.) Also, it helps me to keep a long term view in mind. 

How long-term? Well. The Five Year Project runs from 2014 to 2018, but the timeline I have (the one I always post on my update days) have projects pipelined. And to give you an idea, this is what the Project looks like visually at this moment. (Each row is a project, each column is a month and each block is a year.) 

Each orange block means something's been (or will hopefully be) published. If I can just get half of next year done, I'll be a happy camper, and currently, I'm pretty much set to get there. All those tasks that didn't quite get done in any single month still add up to me finishing things, so there's no reason to worry about any supposed failure. There are no failures here. Only failure to do things, and I know I will get to them at some point.

What about you? Do you set goals? How do you keep track of them? 

Hello! And Update Day.

Phew! That was a close one. I almost missed my own bloghop, but then the help I mentioned in my previous post kicked in to some extent. So here I am.

Before I get started, I just wanted to say a special and huge thanks to everyone who’ve left messages of support, and who’ve boosted me and my family with thoughts and prayers. It means a lot to me, and for those who asked for a return favor of prayers and thoughts: You’ve got it, awesome person.

And now, back to the matter at hand. For those of you who are wondering, we’re a group of people who’ve set ourselves huge/crazy/very important goals. Then we get together on every last Friday of every month to update on progress. Anyone with a huge/crazy/very important goal is welcome to join. Just click here for more information.

Right, so this is what I did to date (and I think I should be able to get some more done before the actual month end):

My goals for September:

Writing:

1) Edit BvB1.

Did one round, but the lack of Internet messed things up a bit, so I didn’t get a fast enough turnaround to get to a second pass. (I have an editor for this one.)

2) Rewrite Wo6C3

I had a huge burst of productivity on the 9th. It started with a new project that grabbed on and wouldn’t let go. After I spent a week writing that draft (It’s a new record. I finished an entire rough draft in six days.), I used that momentum to get stuck in with the rewrite, and have added almost 15k words. At the rate I’m going, I should be able to add about 18k more before the end of the month.

3) Rough Draft BvB2.

Didn’t start this yet, but I’m hoping to get stuck in once I’ve finished the second round of edits to BvB1. Hopefully, the timing will fall so that I’ll be done with the Wo6C3 rewrite by then too. Yes, I do work on multiple projects at a time, but for some reason, the Wo6C series and the BvB series can’t live in the same head space at the same time. So I’ll finish the one, then the other.

4) Rough edits to ES1 and get critique partners for it.

My near constant lack of internet screwed this one up. I need to go looking for CPs for this, since I think maybe one of my CPs will want to read it. It’s a historical romance set in the old west, so it’s not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea.

5) Prep VD rewrite.

That other draft I mentioned, DM1 messed this one up big time. DM1 is still trying to take over my priorities, but I’m holding off until the end of next month. It does, however, mean that I’ve moved VD closer to the end of this year or maybe even early next year.

6) Rough Draft StW

Poor StW. It’s been hanging around, patiently waiting since January. Still haven’t gotten to it. The truth is, I’ve always intended it to be a bit of fluff for me to write to relax, but my main projects aren’t giving me the time to do it. (And then when I have time, another exciting project like DM1 comes along and steals its thunder.)

7) CdW concept.

I did a little of this, but not as much as I’d wanted. Again, the lack of internet caught me here, because the concept requires research.

8) Critique works sent to me by critique partners.

I’d need to find those CPs first.

Writing-wise, my month looked like this:

Reading:

1) TRY reading six books.

I’m on my third at the moment.

2) Give up on the idea that I’ll catch up on my yearly reading goal.

Yep. Done.

3) See how far I can get with Les Trois Mousquetaires.

Didn’t get anywhere with this. The older french in this one doesn’t feature in the dictionaries I have, so before, I’ve used the internet to help me translate the tricky bits. Sigh.

4) Read for an average of 15 minutes per day.

Current average is 34 minutes per day, but I’ll be reading this weekend, which will push the number up some more.

Social Media:

1) Maintain about the same level of activity as August.

Nope, the only real activity was me letting people know I wouldn’t be online, along with a few odd moments on twitter and Facebook when afforded the opportunity.

Life:

1) Don’t freak out while waiting to hear back from the film company I submitted the concept to.

Done. Was way too busy to freak out. I should be hearing back next week.

2) Crochet.

I did a few squares, but I’ve spent more time writing than anything else.

3) Get the first layer of paint on my canvas.

I’ve had to postpone my painting for a few. We might be moving house before the end of the year. My idea of hell is trying to move a canvas half the size of a decently sized dining table when it’s covered in wet oil paint.

Aw nuts. This is the moment I realize what moving house will do to my publishing schedule for the rest of the year.

Okay. I’ll find a way not to get too scrambled with the move. Hey. Last year, I moved in the middle of NaNoWriMo and still won. I can do this.

My goals for October:

Writing:

1) Edit BvB1

2) See if I can finish the Wo6C3 rewrite.

3) Get back to the BvB2 rough draft.

4) Find critique partners for ES1.

5) Prep the DM1 rewrite for NaNoWriMo.

6) Start StW. (Or…end up postponing it yet again.)

7) Work on the CdW concept.

Writing-wise, I’m hoping October looks like this:

Reading:

1) Read four books.

2) If possible read some more of Les Trois Mousquetaires.

3) Since I’m giving myself a break on the number of books I’m reading, I’m upping my average time a day spent reading to 20 minutes.

Social Media:

As disheartening as this is, start again to build up some sort of a presence.

Life:

1) Be prepared to chop and change my plans in the (unlikely) event of the film concept I’ve sent in being chosen.

2) Take deep breaths and try not to murder anyone. (Long story.)

3) Crochet.

How did you do in September? Anything important that I missed?