There’s
no connection at all with the comedy spy movie; I just like the modified title,
as it appears apposite.
So, what has this last
month seen in the study of writer Stuart Aken? Well, not enough writing, that’s
for sure. But there has been a great deal of editing, and that can only be to
the good. My adult epic fantasy trilogy has been hanging around for long
enough. I’ve written and edited the first two books and have now started
writing book three. Long ago, I decided that I’d look at publishing book one as
soon as I started writing book three. So, I’ve prepared it ready for a
publisher and am now in the process of seeking some company that will be prepared
to risk some investment in my fantasy. The book is 216,000 words (for
comparison, the first book of the Lord of
the Rings trilogy is about 198,000 words) and will need to incorporate 3 or
4 maps. Clearly, this is hardly the sort of package most publishers will
welcome. They tend to look for books that will be easy and cheap to produce. I
need a brave publisher. If one doesn’t materialise, I shall have to
self-publish, of course. I think an ebook initially, to see how it goes, and
then the paper version. Still that’s for the future. For the moment, I’m
looking at submission and the work involved. As you’ll see from the chart, I’ve
spent a good part of the month in editing; most of that was on book one, which
has 53 chapters. I’m still involved in the final edit of book 2; really no more
than a re-read to increase my familiarity with the 83 named characters and
multitude of places in my invented world.
What else have I done?
Well, I’ve read a couple of books and written reviews. Reviewed some software,
written a few blog posts, including a guest post on character development; here’s
the link for that, should you be interested: http://brianhayden.net/guest-post-by-stuart-aken-character-development-is-good-for-you/
I’ve also written a short
story and entered another for a contest. Nowhere near my target of one new
story and one contest submission per week, but at least better than nothing. I
did more research for the contest page on here, only to discover that I can no
longer use Google Docs to provide that updated version. A lot of fruitless
experimentation later, I discovered there is now no way I can continue to
provide this service for my readers. I will, however, continue to find and pass
on links to the websites I come across where writing contests are listed.
Hopefully, some time in the unspecified future, I’ll be able to come back to
this and pass on the information as previously.
Oh, and the touch-typing
seems to have died a death along the way. It’s simply too time-consuming to try
to write anything with my current level of ability in that skill, and I’ve
discovered that extreme age has rendered my hands less flexible, so I’m not
able to sustain the digital gymnastics for long enough to produce anything of a
worthwhile length. It was worth the attempt, but I think the time has come to
give in gracefully and continue with the reliable and relatively speedy two
fingers and thumb approach that has stood me in good stead for the past 46
years.
For the coming months, I’ll
now be more and more deeply involved in the creation of the third book of the
trilogy. That is bound to take up vast quantities of time and effort, so I may
not manage as much other activity. Only time will tell; but the writing must
come first, so forgive me if I appear to be ignoring you: I’m not; simply
spending my time in the best way I can to get some more fiction out there for
you.
In the meantime, as
always, I welcome and encourage your thoughts here in the form of comments. Let
us all know what you’re doing and what your priorities are for July.
The chart, explained:
'Writing' - initial creation of stories, blog posts, reviews and longer
works.
'Editing' - polishing of all written work to make it suitable for
readers.
'Research' - discovery of info for story content, market research,
contests and blog posts.
'Reading' - books and writing magazines.
'Admin' - story submission, blog posting, marketing, organisation, learning
to touch-type, and general admin tasks.
No comments:
Post a Comment