All posts by Niamh

Cleveland-born, Purdue-trained, Detroit-toughened trans woman, engineer, and author. I like football and when Detroit wins stuff. I swear a lot, I write a lot, and I drink coffee a lot.
Writing

Word Count: 100,731 and Next Steps

I’m heading down the final stretch of this first total re-write of my first book. Today was another 10k day. I think by next weekend this will be wrapped up.

So where do we go from here?

Well, first, you’ll stop getting these vile daily word counts. That was mostly an accountability thing and now that it is done. I got my rewrite done in far less time then I suspected.

Next, I’m going to take a few days off.

Third, after those few days I am going to reread the whole thing again and make line edits for character voice and motivation. This will hopefully bring some consistency to everything. One of the weakest points of the original run is it took over a year and my opinion and vision for the characters changed greatly during that period.

Fourth, I will have to figure out the map. The book needs a map, so I’ll have to design a B&W version for print. That’ll suck up a weekend easily.

Fifth, once the map is done and added to the manuscript it will go back out to two of my original first readers and then potentially a third fresh first reader. The point is that the two will see that I properly address their major concerns and the new one will make sure the surprises and such still work with this new (hopefully better) version.

Sixth. Copy editing.

Seventh, either get the book into the hands of publishers or move to self publishing. Still leaning toward self publishing, we’ll see how the con goes if I make any contacts who can sell me on traditional publishing.

Eighth, book 2 bitches! That has been sitting for a long time, and a lot of things have changed, so now it is time to get back to that. Probably start from scratch again, but full of all sorts of enthusiasm. Steps seven and eight will happen in parallel.

Ninth, get published one way or another and see all you guys at some cons and some signings. I cannot wait to get out there and sign books and talk to people. I’m looking forward to panels more than I can express.

So that’s that, motherfuckers! Not too many word count posts left, hope they didn’t ruin your lives too much. This has been very exciting for me if you couldn’t tell. Glad to have gotten this far.

Sláinte, bitches!

Uncategorized

Word Count: 90,728

Hey guys. I didn’t do any writing yesterday, instead electing to have some beers and BBQ at a local place and then retire to the bedroom to watch some youtube on the TV before going to bed super early.

It was a great refresher and helped me get a lot done today. Well, that and several cups of coffee. So huge amount of progress made today! I’m probably around 20,000-25,000 words from the end depending on all sorts of things. But huzzahs all around!

I’m not going to purposely try to break 100k tomorrow, but if it gets into reach, I’ll shoot for it.

Oíche maith!

Uncategorized

Thinking

Ahmed Merabet

From Twitter.

I looked at this picture for a long time. Probably cutting pretty deeply into my writing. It was after I worked on my Irish lessons and before I blocked my browser in my normal two-hour increments.

I care very deeply about the right to have something published. To have ideas and dogma criticized publicly. Not just because I write, because this isn’t really my main “thing.”

And not just because I’m a spiteful Atheist full of anger toward other religions.

But because no society has gotten better because it spent too much time insisting everything is great.

Anyway, not the point.

The point is that I spent a lot of time looking at this picture of a man who died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was senselessly executed because he stood between a madman and his intended targets.

I don’t know much about Ahmed Merabet. I don’t know what he thought about Charlie Hebdo. I don’t know what he thought of international terrorism or how important his Muslim faith was to him.

Maybe someone will enlighten us in time.

But what I do know is what doesn’t happen anymore.

While I was staring at this, Brigid called me over to watch a silly YouTube video. And I could.

 

 

And he can’t.

Writing

Word Count: 81,907

Again the change in the word count is rather low, but the quality of work is hopefully up. I am actually rewriting the majority of this chapter from scratch and in such a way that it essentially completely reverses the existing mood and outcome. So I can’t take as much from what’s there.

But this should be better for the story, get rid of some false drama that wasn’t terribly interesting to begin with, so the fat is trimmed and things are looking better!

Slán!

Writing

Word Count: 77,034

Read ’em and weep boys and girls.

That’s more than 10,000 words in a single day. Hell. Like a three-quarters day. But I am done for today. I might be done for tomorrow too, we shall see.

Since December 20th I’ve been on holiday, a long break away from my work and the things that happen there. A new year is starting and I am both nervous and excited to get started. However, when the break started I told myself if all possible I’d work through the break on my book. Work on getting it to function better and read better and in general just be better.

I think I’ve done that. I think I’ve been largely successful.

I also managed to kick the habit of wasting too much of my free time on video games. Don’t get me wrong, I love video games. I’m not trying to remove them from my life, but they are great at distracting me from my goals. Sometimes that is a good thing. Sometimes I need a break.

In these two weeks I’ve only briefly played Minecraft and it was always with Brigid and only after I had met word targets.

But now that the break is over, I am planning on not pushing myself quite so hard with the writing. The lion’s share has been put to paper and no one can say that I slacked off this break. 77,000 words in 19 days. Its going to take a while to beat that!

Sláinte, bitches! And go Lions!