Holidays and all...

So, the holidays put a bit of a quash on blogging so I'll get back into more of how I went about creating the book tomorrow. However, last week I came back from a trip to Kentucky to find that my proof of The Solstice Treaty was here! I used Lightning Source to print it and while the experience of laying out the book and the cover was not nearly as fun as I had hoped, the final product was pretty exciting to see. I did spend time finding some typos and a few friends gave me some comments on a few plot points but other than that it looked fine (except the cover which is too dark. Sometimes going from RGB colors to CMYK colors can make the art look dark.)

So, I've lightened it up, made my edits and submitted the changes to the printer. Why do I need physical books you ask? Good question. It's because I plan on sending them to reviewers who only accept hardcopies. I also am planning on attending and selling the novel at the VA festival of the book which happens here every year.

Anyway, here's a pic and I'll do some more posting this weekend.

"Book 1"

Well, now that I had secured my editor, I took to the serious task for writing the book. I had already completed the rough draft for "book 1" which contained the first 5 chapters. In these chapters I really wanted to show that five events took place that were all somehow intertwined. I knew that jumping back and forth between 1940's Europe and modern day might be a little jarring but I wanted to introduce them as quickly as possible so I could get into the backstory of Mark and Tess and then spend most of "book 2" building them up. It's funny. I thought that I would never have to go back and touch these chapters. I thought they were perfect. Hahaha. I ended up later pulling a lot of bits out of Chapter 2 simply because it became unwieldy. Anyway, I made book 1 (which is really just part 1) shorter because I loved how it ended with the phone call from Tess. It seemed like a great stopping point.

Anywhere, Anytime

I am posting this from a bus filled with football fans. The fact that I can post from my phone reminds me that inspiration can strike at any time. I've mentioned it before but keep something close to you at all times- whether it's your phone (send yourself an email with an idea, make a note, record it) or a pad of paper. Trust me, if you have a great idea for a chapter or maybe even a single word you want to use and you think you are going to remember it when you wake up, you're in trouble. You're welcome :)

Early Editing part 2

Okay, back from the turkey coma...

So the best thing that came out of having an objective editor early was the honesty and affirmation. Chris would let me know if something didn't make sense or if the writing was weak. But he would also encourage me, finding good things in each chapter. Many times, this is what kept me on pace and energized.

There was a con for using him too early, however. I had given myself an editing budget and used it early. Since I continued to edit on and off for years, I wasn't able to use him for the final version. Now, I'll go into that more later when I talk about what happened after I finished my first draft.

But, right now, I think dessert is waiting for me.

Early Editing

After I had written my first five chapters, I decided to hire an editor. I know, that sounds crazy. You see, as a new author, I wanted to find out early if what I thought was good writing was actually good. So I hired my friend Chris Brasted. Chris had worked at a newspaper and has good discernment in general. I think I paid him $100 per 10,000 words and I am definitely glad I did it. Basically I sent him new chapters as I finished them and he edited them (tracking changes in Word).

Here's what I found - pros and cons. Having him on board early helped me a ton as he pointed out both common sentence mistakes and bad patterns I was falling into. I also had a habit of writing a little 'cute' so he nixed those quickly. Chris also gave me a ton of feedback on the plot and where he thought there were holes (I also loved when he got angry that I killed off a character) Ultimately, his greatest contribution was...

Oh hey. Friends just showed up for Thanksgiving dinner. I'll finish this later :)

Interlude

I need to do a quick post. I uploaded my ebook last night. Sooo much fun. I consumed Zoe Winter's book called Smart Self Publishing: Becoming An Indie Author. So well written, encouraging and has step by step for preparing, publishing and marketing your book.

Anyway, sold my first book within an hour of publishing it on Smashwords :)

Research and the first chapters

Now that I had my outline done and secured my domain names, I decided to do two things at once. First, I started writing my prologue and first five chapters that made up book one (the novel is divided into four books). Since I had spent the most time thinking about these chapters, they were fairly easy to write. The biggest challenge I had was making sure that they flowed well as I bounced between modern day and the 1940s. The information on strip mining was easy enough to find via Google and I had driven enough through West Virginia to have an idea of how Beaver Hollow would look. Writing for Fritz von Ehrlichmann came easy enough as did Okahara and the gaming industry (as I have been making casino games for some time.) But understanding how Captain Roberts would get to Italy required more extensive research. I spent a good amount of time with a few friends who served in the Army (in Korea) and got a much better understanding of how these parachute regiments worked. In general research was a lot more enjoyable than I thought.

It took me a few weeks to write these first chapters (nights and weekends of course) and I didn't spend a lot of time making it perfect. I just wrote as quickly as it came into my head, knowing I would come back later and edit (boy, did I edit!)

Second, I continued to add more detail to the other chapters in the book. Sometimes it was just a sentence or two and sometimes entire paragraphs or pages. BTW, I also jotted down questions that needed to be answered in each chapters - especially ones where I felt a hole in the plot did/could appear.

Once I had the first draft of the chapters, I decided to find an editor. I'll discuss why I did this so early in the process in the next post :)