What are you working on right now?

Finishing the formatting on Into the Second World. Release date is set for 21 July.

Meanwhile doing lots of work on character and plot for The Falconer. I'm also going to take the plunge and get the beta of Scrivener 3 for the new project.
 
I am working on writing scenes--mainly just stand-alone scenes, and trying to figure out how to do it well.
 
Ok, the novel I was working on has developed a big looming plot hole that I don't want to tackle right now, so the dragon hunter story is trying to claw its way out of my head. I'm supposed to be researching it, but it has other ideas, and is now over £3,000 words.
 
Hi,

I'm busy, busy, busy - or is that confused? I put out Madness and Magic about a month ago, and immediately gave my editor the next book (Callum) to start work on. Meanwhile I started a new sci fi (The Travel Bug) and just completed the first draft - all 80K. I think that's a record for me for a single month's writing. Now I'm just starting the rough edits on it and will probably be hunting for beta readers in the next couple of weeks, before trying to finally finish Wings.

And somewhere in all of this I've scheduled some sleep - but I don't know when!

Cheers, Greg.
 
Hi,

I'm busy, busy, busy - or is that confused? I put out Madness and Magic about a month ago, and immediately gave my editor the next book (Callum) to start work on. Meanwhile I started a new sci fi (The Travel Bug) and just completed the first draft - all 80K. I think that's a record for me for a single month's writing. Now I'm just starting the rough edits on it and will probably be hunting for beta readers in the next couple of weeks, before trying to finally finish Wings.

And somewhere in all of this I've scheduled some sleep - but I don't know when!

Cheers, Greg.
That's some word count. Do you write full time?

What's your genre? Clearly sff but more specifically?

Give me a shout when you're after betas. I'd be happy to give The Travel Bug a read through.
 
I'm 35k into book 2 whilst polishing synopses, blurb and query letters for book 1.

Only I'm in a quandary about some potentially sizable revisions to book 1. The book works without them I think but for some reason my brain wants to make the changes. It seems to be operating independently on this, I wish it would consult me first.

So the question is whether to revise or not...
 
After rewrites and editing, I'm up to 65K on the Darganau novel, and 2/3 the way through. I still think I can make the Black Friday release date I set for myself in January!
 
Hi Plucky,

Normally I stick to the space opera side of sci fir as well as epic and urban fantasy. This one's a little different. It's space opera without space ships (except for some flying saucers!) or travel! I was thinking again of Simak's Time is the Simplest Thing (great book), and decided I could do something with his book's precept that astral travel is real and there were ways of recording what a traveller saw - which could lead to massive advances in technology as we spy on alien races. Then I added in a new concept - Affective Response Disorder - which is simply a condition where the mere sight of an alien in the flesh overwhelms and emotionally traumatizes. Then I wove a plot around two arrivals - the first a fake one used to sew destruction and chaos by some failed travellers which lets them rob the world, followed two weeks later by a real one. What are the odds?!!!

As to the writing, I not only write fast, I also have no social life, watch damned little telly and don't sleep that much. 3K a day isn't that much - especially if I'm really into a book.

And thanks for the offer, but my betas are already lined up.

Cheers, Greg.
 
In order to avoid working on a tough patch in MS#2, I did a short story about an alchemist who gets blackmailed into carrying out assassinations of high profile targets by an insurgency against the crown. It was my attempt to write more "literary" fantasy, though I really have no idea what that actually is. Rejected by Clarkesworld (of course) and Interzone. Come on BCS...
 
Decided that my schedule now will be include some free and easy writing on an entirely new thingummyjig at the weekend. Might do some Sir Edric proofreading too.
 
Doing fer reelz research for The Falconer. Getting the historical timeline for Frederick down. It's complicated (downright Sicilian, in fact), and it doesn't help that everyone not named Walter is named William. Yeesh. But there is a fat Genoese pirate who becomes the lord of Malta and Fred's chief naval commander. I have to come up with an excuse for bringing "Henry the Fisherman" with Fred across the Alps. He's too good of a character to leave behind.

The two larger issues at present are the need to see the ending more clearly, and fleshing out the secondary characters, both friends and enemies.
 
Taking a break from editing 'Star Bright' (the 2nd Under Darker Suns novella) to write a 3000-word short for submission to the forthcoming Third Flatiron anthology on longevity. The deadline is the 3rd August and I've kind of let this creep up on me...
 
Finishing up everything for Blood Under Water, which is the sequel to my fantasy novel Up To The Throne. I've reached that stage where I can't do much else: it's up to the typesetters and Amazon's weird programmes now. Hopefully it should be out in early August!
 
Taking a break from editing 'Star Bright' (the 2nd Under Darker Suns novella) to write a 3000-word short for submission to the forthcoming Third Flatiron anthology on longevity. The deadline is the 3rd August and I've kind of let this creep up on me...
I'm astounded you can write any story under 3000 words, with an additional 'stound for doing it so quickly. Short stories are elusive for me.
 
I'd already sketched out the opening 1,000 words which appeared on here (now heavily revised), but, yes, sometimes it feels like you're shoehorning the narrative you want to tell into a straightjacket.
 
OK, now I'm picturing shoehorns and straightjackets. Not a pretty picture.
 
What, no updates from anyone since July? That's got to be a record.

Let me resurrect this thread. Today I hit the final stretch of my WIP. It's not easy to explain the sense of 'somethingness' I feel about writing fresh material on a novel - the only novel - I've been working on since April 2009 (Okay, officially I had the idea to start writing about a haunted house in 2009 but didn't start it till I joined Chrons in 2011... I'd never written before so it took me 2 years to get the nerve to try).

It's going to need huge edits - it's currently a little over 240k according to Scrivener - but I don't mind that. I just have this sense of opposite-of-trepidation.

I hope I can keep the momentum up.

pH
 

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