Updates and Stuff

Yeah, I know it's not a day when I usually post here, but hey, it's good to shake things up a little every now and then. 

Anyway, I finished the edit-note phase of Duke Noble: Rumor Has It.  (Still not sure about that title.)  I ended up with thirteen college-rule, notebook pages chocked full of notes.  Typically, it takes me about an hour to input a page of notes.  I'll start that today.  If I can squeeze three hours out of each day to edit, I'll be done by the end of the week.  However, the chances of me editing for three hours a day is slim.  I hate editing.

The saving grace of editing is that it's a step toward having this book published.  I love the thought of that.  Having this book out into your hands is the goal.  Editing moves me toward that goal.  Thus, I will edit.  

Let me amend that slightly.  Having this book out - and worthy of being read by you - is the goal.  I could write THE END and shoot this sucker into space right now.  But it would suck and I can't do that to you.  You deserve better.  This book deserves better.  So, I edit.

And I bitch about editing.  Heh.  It's my process.

In case you're new here and haven't seen the process before, it goes like this: 

1) Write the book.
2) Send the book to my Kindle and read through the whole thing while making notes in a notebook.
3) Input the notes
3) Repeat steps 2 & 3 until I feel it's ready to send to readers
4) Send to readers
5) Input notes from readers
6) Read through entire manuscript again, making notes if there are any
7) Input notes
8) Format for publication
9) Publish

The other day I had a gal who read Dying Embers ask me how long it takes me to get a book all the way through from start to publication.  If all goes well, I can complete steps 1-9 in three months.  Things rarely go as planned.  Lord knows, this book has taken longer.  I started writing DN in August.  In August and September, I got about 8000 words down and then the wheels fell off.  I restarted this in December, finished it 6 weeks later.  It took me two and half weeks to actually do this edit round.  It should roll faster now.  Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

I hope to have this into the hands of readers by the end of the month.  They'll take however long they take.  Once they're done, publication won't be too long after that.  End of March maybe?  

I still have to make a cover.  Blerg.

So, Duke Noble will be born into the hands of readers soon.  Well, soon-ish... for varying definitions of soon.  Sooner than traditional publishing could make it happen.  =o)

Progress Report - Duke Noble 1

Ten days.  I've worked on this book for ten days straight.  Which is all Huzzah and Hurray for me.  I wrote every day but one and that day I deleted part of a scene that was bothering me.

In those ten days, I added 12143 words.  (12693 written, 550 deleted.)  Last night was my best night with 1928 words laid down.  And with those words, I rolled the book to over 20K words.

Right now, this morning - having gotten out of bed at roughly 3:30 again - I'm not sure if anything I wrote last night is any good.  And right now, I don't care.  If I still don't like it after I write THE END, I'll fix it in edits.  The point right now is to get the story out.  Blast through it all like blowing a hole through a mountain.  I'll clean up the rubble once I can walk out the other side.

I had a bunch of thoughts about the book as I lay not sleeping.  Some of them are still there this morning and I wrote those down.  I think I know who did it.  And why.  Now to get from here to there in another roughly 30K words.

I need a shower today.  And a boatload more coffee. 

Telling Myself Stories

I'm not sure what's happening or why it's happening but I seem to be on a roll.  3700 words in the past three days.  I don't want to jinx it.  Putting words to a new story has been like pulling teeth this year.  Hell, I haven't even been able to put new words to old stories.  Blerg.

Anyway, I'm over 11K on the book now, so I should be able to finish this one.  :fingers crossed:

Duke Noble, Private Eye.  

"It can't be," said a voice near the diagonally parked cars to my left.  "Hank?  Is that you?"

I couldn't very well pretend I was someone else.  Howard Ellington Nobel, to be exact, as pretentious as that sounds.  What can I say?  Maybe my mother wanted a poodle and got me instead.  I hadn't heard the name Hank in decades.  Thankfully, Granddad Noble got one whiff of my middle name and christened me Duke.  Once my friends in college heard the story, they wouldn't call me anything else and I've been Duke Noble ever since.   

I wasn't surprised someone in this town would call me Hank.  I was only surprised anyone would recognize me after all this time.

I like Duke.  I'm enjoying the hell out of this story.  I have no clue who did it, which is part of the fun of writing the way I write.  I'm telling myself the story as I go along.

Even when I was a little girl, I was always telling myself stories.  I'd lay in bed at night, talking to myself, telling myself stories.  I'd be out in the fields doing the same thing during the day.

Now, the hope is that other people will enjoy the stories I tell myself, but I shouldn't let that change how I do things.  Maybe that's why this year writing has been so hard.  I've been letting everything interfere with the process.  Well, not this time.