All right, confessional time in the old corral.

I've been shying away from writing Ring Of Fire #5 for a long time, partially because I've been occupied by other projects such as Living After Midnight, the false start but still-simmering Black Sunshine, and learning how to be a better guitar hero with my Ibanez. These things happen; especially when dealing with long-term projects, distractions and side trips can not only be a welcome thing, they can occasionally be quite necessary.

The other part of the equation is a little darker. Truth be told, I'm more than a little frustrated with myself for the glacially long time it took to finish Book #4, aka Underworld. My earliest entry concerning that book dates back to February 23, 2006, but I'm fairly sure I began work on it earlier than that. The date at which I finally ran the flag up the mast and trumpeted that the book was done rang in on January 3, 2008. So give or take a few weeks, that means that Underworld took roughly two years to finish. Although the fabled river of blood was able to wash away most of the sins committed during its writing, the lack of focused plot I was working with was fairly disturbing.

If you're going to write a series of books, especially if the story arc is going to be one with a definite beginning and end rather than staying open-ended, a certain amount of planning is essential. In the plainest possible terms, I dropped the ball on that with Underworld. When I finished that book, I resolved that I wasn't going to come back to the series until:

1) I had done what would hopefully be the last round of major surgery to Salvation. Since I was able t cut down from 121,000 to 90,000 words and then finally to 71,000, and to boot some of the Alpha Readers have responded... oh hell, you guys actually finished the story, which means I did something right. It didn't happen before when I sent it out, so barring a few cosmetic fixes, the first Ring Of Fire book is really ready to be run up the flagpole so the publishing industry can take a look-see.

2) I had completed at least most of the pre-plotting on whatever the fifth book was going to be. Having spent the last year sawing off uncessary portions of both Backlash and Underworld taught me (painfully, once again) that if somebody is going to beat their blog drum to the tune of "working things out in advance is a good idea," that blogger would be well-advised to follow their own advice. While I'd been able to pull of a minor miracle by successfully taking some of the overflow from the 140,000 words (yikes!) of Backlash and splicing it into Underworld, something told me that betting on a literary hat trick would be just plain stupid.

So I've been editing, pre-plotting and getting my ducks in a row. After three weeks of typing, here's the results.

18,663 / 80,000 (23.3%)

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Descent.

Feels fucking great.

I don't really update like I used to, do I?

Never mind, it's all part of my grand plan.  Surely you remember by plan for this year, how I was going to do less blogging and more actual writing?  So far, I've managed to stick to my guns.  I'm roughly a third done with Underworld... although it looks like I'll have to take an extended break from this project, and not just because of NaNoWriMo.  I'm not exactly certain what the thrust of this novel is; doing to chop-and-paste job on Backlash the way I did gave me about 35,000-40,000 words of extra material that I desperately want to include in an upcoming book, but I have no idea if that book is indeed going to be Underworld or the one that comes afterward.  Until I get it figured out, I'll most likely take a hiatus from writing on that series.

Not that I'll be stopping writing entirely, oh, fuck no.  No, there is The Phoenix Initiative awaiting the November 1st start date for NaNoWriMo, and I have a few other ideas spinning around that once were novels but may actually work better as novellas as well.  Some things that were never finished, other things that were never started.  Meh, and so it goes.

No word as of yet from the literary agency I sent Crossroads off to, so still awaiting some fireworks (he prayed) from them.

Kitten pictures will probably be next week.

Until then, I remain your friendly neighborhood undead caprine.  Peace.

I'm feeling jaunty because the editing to Backlash is finally done.  I managed to take a 140,000 word book and get it down to 88,233... and once again, I have to say that with editing almost everything gets better.  I know that there are certain writers out there who take a great point of pride in not letting one of the red-pen crowd near their manuscripts (did you hear me, Laurell Hamilton?) but I'm glad to know I'll never be one of them.

So since NaNoWriMo is only about 31 short days away, what the hell exactly is a novel?  Here's the definition from The Free Dictionary, and it's a pretty good one:

A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters.

That's pretty appropriate.  What about that "of considerable length" part?  How long is long enough... or too damned long?  Stephen King once said that anything done up to about 15,000 words is still in the land of the short story, while once you passed the 40,000 word mark, you are in the realm of the novel.  I think that's about right, along with the long-honored benchmark of 65,000 words being pretty much the ideal length for one.  You have enough room to get in all characterizations, plot and dialogue, while still leaving enough room open for a side trip or two off the main beaten path.

These days, publishers have for the most part imposed a 90,000 word limit on most things they are willing to take a look at.  That's not because of the dreaded afflcition of short attention span; rather, it's due to the mechanics of cost involved in publishing, assembling, shipping and promoting.  This is why I pared down Backlash so consirably; I had to jettison two out of the three main story lines, and while I'm hoping they will turn up in future books, for the moment I'm not holding my breath.bay, I guess.

Oh, and Crossroads has been submitted again, this time to a literary agency rather than a publishing house.  Here's another bit of use(ful or less) information:  most publishing houses do not want to hear from you unless you have already had something published, or have an agent to represent.  Just another set of gatekeepers to keep the literary riff-raff at bay, I suppose.  So wish me luck, and continue having fun with your Saturday.

Aren't I informative?

This Just In: today at work, I got one of my co-workers at the bus company to agree to do NaNoWriMo.  I think there's another couple or so I can shanghai into doing it as well.  I'm going to get as many people as I can to join me in my personal hell, both in real life and on the old Internet, just you watch.  I'm a smooth-talking bastard.

If it seems like I'm overly excited about this coming event... well, fuck, I am.  50,000 words in 30 days means about 1,667 words per day, and I am already bursting at the seams with wanting to start the project.  Not because I need a distraction, but because I'm actually excited to write on something that's not a Ring Of Fire novel for the first time in about four years.  I love the series, characters and everything... but shit, man, I am stoked to do The Phoenix Initiative (working title) like you would not believe.  My vacation coincides with the first week of NaNoWriMo and no, I didn't plan it that way, but it'll be great for that initial burst.

For my next rask:  getting Backlash whipped into shape before the checkered flag drops.  (checks word total)  I'm on page 107 out of 156 for the editing.  It'll be done before November 1st, 2006.

Now, on to my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  Yes.  Tastes good.

Ahem.  Now, as you were.

No submissions as of yet for Crossroads; I've been busy dealing with the work trip.  Twelve-hour days are seemingly the norm at the bus company these days and while the overtime has accordingly racked up, it leaves very little time--or, truth be told, inclination--to leap outside the box.  I think that will come to an end this weekend, however.  It's time to begin the boostrap-hauling process and get this train rolling again.

Pardon my clumsy metaphoring.

Things around our house lately have been... stressful.  I believe I mentioned in the past that Lady Jade's mother and brother had moved in with us, and I'd love to report that it was a completely smooth transition.  That would be a big fat lie, though.  In truth it's been damned stressful all around and our hosuehold doesn't exactly have the most positive vibes flowing through it these days.  hence I am here at Starbucks writing this, having just gotten done transcribing another chapter of Underworld.

I have decided that mechanics and plot cutting-and-pasting aside, in the meantime I'm going to go ahead and keep going on Underworld with the original plan.  I mean, I need something to occupy my time with.  All work and no writing make Jesse go stark raving bonkers and we can't have that, now can we?  What the hell, I can always fix it in the future as I did with Backlash, right?  The editing on that work is going pretty well; it's just basically some cosmetic changes and neatening up of phrasing that has to be done, and since I'm about halfway done with it, I figured that now is as a good a time as any to turn my attention back to writing again.  With everything that has gone on at our house in the last two months, I need a distraction like you would not believe.

I haven't been updating lately because every time I sit down to make a post, I feel this giant flood of negativity wanting to pour out of me.  A few years ago that would have been fine; hell, it would have been par for the course.  Things have changed, though, and I don't do that any more.  I'm trying like hell to keep it positive these days, so I apologize if the updates are a little less frequent than they used to be.  I'm trying to avoid falling into that trap every LJ post I do is whine-whine-whine, so we're going to go ahead and sacrifice quantity for quality.

Finally, I'm still waiting for more of those plot elements.  Come on, folks, I know you're all pretty creative, so lay them on me.  It can be anything... man, I need a fucking distraction, you know?  So fire away.

Oh, and happy anniversary to myself and Lady Jade; today was three years in the making.  I love you, honey.

On that note, we return you to your regularly scheduled burst of static.

Good Monday morning to all of you... with the "good" being purely alleged.  I'm sitting here in the break room at work with my neck feeling like it's going to rip itself out of my body and go searching for serious paikillers, as somewhere during yesterday's fun-fun-fun session of Lifting And Carrying A Ton Of Shit On My Day Off I managed to either pull a muscle or strain the ligament.  I can barely turn my head to the left and I got about six hours of sleep total this weekend.

It's not a good beginning to the day thus far, but I'm hopeful that I can get a special service assignment later, sio I can pull a bus out to a rail station, play on my laptop and wait to do coach exchanges until they tell me to come in and I can go home.

(scrubs eyes furiously)

I figure that if this happens, I'll do some work on Backlash and try to get that closer to being in ship-shape so that I'll have three novels in the "Ring Of Fire" series completed and ready to go for when the contract arrives.  I don't know if it will be a "you work for us for this period of time" or if it will be "give us X books and we'll call it even" thing, but I'd like to be ready either way.  Being a Capricorn, anything else would be grossly out of character for me.  I may fall short on having Underworld completed by the time NaNoWriMo starts up, but that's a twenty-car pileup that can be saved until after Thanksgiving, maybe after Christmas.

Jesus, it's weird.  Having to plan out what I'm going to do for writing, approaching it as if it were a job... I mean, I always hoped this day would be coming, but now that it is here, I feel a little unprepared.  Guess it's a good thing I made so many contingency plans along the way (like getting and keeping a day job).

Forecast for today here in Sacramento is 105 degrees.  WTF?

There will probably be another update later today, if the dispatch gods are kind.  Pray for me, and pray for peace.

EDIT:  No dice, I'm being sent out.  Damn them for making me actually do stuff, even if it is fairly easy.  Le sigh.  Be back about noon.

I've been going over my back catalogue of novels during the last couple days, and have come to two inescapable conclusions. one delicious and one very much unsavory.

The Good News Is:  a quick word count has told me that Crossroads' immediate follow-up, Covenant, is just over 91,000 words long.  At the very least, this means there will need to be a bare minimum of editing done for length in order to comply with the 90,000 word limit that is becoming depressingly common amongst the publishing houses these days.  It's a fast read and, dare I say, a good one.  At least, the limited reaction I've gotten from it thus far has been.  Considering the hullabaloo that I went through with Crossroads, this is a welcome thing indeed.

The Bad News Is:  the novel after that one, Backlash, is nearly 140,000 of the buggers in length.  Saying I was flummoxed by this is like saying the Young Christian League was a little surprised at the content of Brokeback Mountain.  I knew it had run a little long in some places, but I was completely unprepared for the amount I had run over.  Granted, when I started writing these novels I never put a word limit in mind, but if they're ever going to get to a bookshelf near you, it means that I'm heading for a river of blood that'll make The Book of Exodus look tame.

At least, that's Option One.  Here's where the real gore begins to swirl to the surface.

Option Two involves not cutting the novel down, but blowing it up by about another 15,000 words and then splitting it into two smaller novels rather than one humongous one.  This sounds like a great idea until you factor in the niggling detail that I have no fucking clue how to do this.  At least, not at the moment.  This is probably going to be the choice I go with, but in the meantime, it means I have to stop writing on Underworld since I'm not sure what will stay and what will go, whether or not more things shall be added, and where exactly the division in Backlash is going to take place.

For the record, simply chopping right in the middle a la Gordian Knot would not work, so I need to think about this one pretty carefully.

On the plus side, you're probably going to start getting some more regular and original updates, so yay for LJ.