The SFF Writing Check-in Corner

joeyc

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Glad everyone's making progress. Keep at it.

As for myself, I'm trying to prep the novel to shop around. I'm having to rewrite two and a half chapters, though. Too many things were happening too fast. (The big set piece of the first act happened in about five pages, so I slowed it down and now it's about double that. Gives a lot more time to develop everything that's happening. I hope it works out better.)
 

valleycs

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I finished my first novel (eeeee!) at the beginning of December. And I've been a machine this month, editing like a psycho. And I'm almosttt finished. It's crazy.
 

Robinski

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I finished my first novel (eeeee!) at the beginning of December. And I've been a machine this month, editing like a psycho. And I'm almosttt finished. It's crazy.

Excellent, well done!! Going straight into an edit can be hard work--good commitment :) What do you plan after the edit? Alpha read? Is it SF or F?
 

Robinski

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I have just finished Edit #3 of my first SF novel, although it's my 6th novel--the rest being fantasy. I submitted it to the Angry Robot open door and now am waiting for the rejection to roll in :D

Having had a couple of days off, I'm about to start submitting Book 2 of the trilogy to my online writing group. I'm 50k words into it (probably about half way) after NaNoWriMo, and need to pick it up again after editing and submitting Book 1.

:)
 

eschluessel

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I have been on vacation these past two weeks and have used the time to write furiously. An 8400-word SF/horror first draft, "Amorphous Ice," is done, as is a 5600-word Chinese-flavored space opera, "The Hollow World and Its Foundations." One flash and one Clarkeian short story, "Little Secrets" and "The Cost of Doing Business," are done as of today, and "Simple Machines," which is short Golden Age space opera, is being outlined.

The biggest impact on all that writing: I got myself a collected short stories of Arthur C. Clarke, everything from his 1930's cadet words onward, and I've been going through it with an analytical eye I didn't have 30 years ago when I started reading him. The chronologically ordered collection gives me a chance to watch him evolve as a writer and also to pick up on themes and habits I never noticed before--for example Clarke seems to have had a great love of Sibelius's symphonies, and he had no shame at all about re-using his own outlines and re-visiting ideas that stuck with him.
 

kaysa

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I have just finished Edit #3 of my first SF novel, although it's my 6th novel--the rest being fantasy. I submitted it to the Angry Robot open door and now am waiting for the rejection to roll in :D

Having had a couple of days off, I'm about to start submitting Book 2 of the trilogy to my online writing group. I'm 50k words into it (probably about half way) after NaNoWriMo, and need to pick it up again after editing and submitting Book 1.

:)

OMG Robinski I am so excited to see you over here!! WELCOME to AW!
 

JackieZee

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Hi! Can I join this thread? I just finished my first novel, a 80k word fantasy that may or may not be the first in a series. I've had a few people read it already and have gone through a round of revisions and edits, and I'm working hard on query letters while I wait for other readers to finish. I thought maybe I'd join in the discussion here in the meantime. :)
 

Morri

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Nice to meet you, JackieZee, and congrats on finishing your first novel! I hope I'll be able to say that in a few month's time.
 

zanzjan

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:welcome: new peoples! And so much writing and editing going on! WTG all of you. :)
 

Mary Love

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Hey everyone. I've just started another round of edits on my fantasy novel as well. Yay us! :)
 

Siwyenbast

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Knocked out a big chunk of Psycat and the Ashen Silk, bringing it from around 1k words to 7.3k as of Friday morning. Still got a big chunk with Psycat's partner in the chair stepping up in a huge way while she's healing from the ass-biting. Looks like I'm probably about hallway to 2/3rds done.

Also received advice back during the fall semester to make the first 3 years a novel by squishing them together, since they're all novellas. This came from my professor, who actually worked for DC comics for several years as one of their writers.
 

Kithica

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I have been on vacation these past two weeks and have used the time to write furiously. An 8400-word SF/horror first draft, "Amorphous Ice," is done, as is a 5600-word Chinese-flavored space opera, "The Hollow World and Its Foundations." One flash and one Clarkeian short story, "Little Secrets" and "The Cost of Doing Business," are done as of today, and "Simple Machines," which is short Golden Age space opera, is being outlined.

Wow! Well done! Was the 200-words-or-less that you excerpted on the other thread from any of those?
 

JackieZee

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The forum is back yaaaaaaaay! Welcome back everyone! Anyone else get way more writing done than usual? :) I spent the week off doing final revisions and obsessing over my query letter/synopsis, and added about 4k words to a new WIP.
 

rwm4768

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For the month, I'm just under 1000 words per day. I need to get back to writing more consistently. I've written 15,000+ words, but I've only written on four of sixteen days.
 

GoSpeed

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My first novel, Rasere's War (71k words), has gone through several self edits, two rounds of beta readers, and is now on pre-order at Smashwords and Amazon. The release date is February 3rd.

My follow on novel, We Built This City, is complete (95K words) and has gone through one revision. It will go to my beta readers in February and hopefully be released this spring.
 

Siwyenbast

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Got the scene where Marcus gets told what happened in the OR down before school started, and have 4 more major scenes to go on that. Since I need a 5-10 page piece for workshop this semester, I'm doing a small piece on Binara's backstory. Already got the first 3 pages down of that. The 10-15 pager later on in the semester is probably going to be a historical/sci-fi crossover I'd thought about making earlier but didn't have the time.
 

WriteMinded

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Glad to see some activity here again. Looks like Ryan has more books out with more great book covers.

I'd like to say I finished the first draft of my latest book. I'd also like to say a new car was just delivered to my door along with a check for a couple mil.

I am so envious of you speedies. I am still slogging through the last few chapters. But I do see the end, the news that Ralenna will be named the ruler's heir, the parting that is supposed to last a few days, but will - in the next book - turn out to be forever.
 

Robinski

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Just editing Chapter 4 of Book 2 for the comments from my writing group. Aiming to submit Edit 1 of Chapter 5 on Monday. That'll be tomorrow's job then :)
 

xenylic

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Querying, querying, and more querying. Trying to get some blips on the radar. Maybe a partial request in the next century. I want to finish the first chapter of my next book by the end of February, so I guess that's a thing of measurable achievement.
 

WriteMinded

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As per usual, book is far too long. Stopped all forward progress and started edit of each POV. Still too long, and waiting in the wings are two chapters that must be added. Grrr. Feel like I'm drowning. Earlier books had their difficult spots, but this one has been a one long battle.
 

Shadowlancer

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I'm literally just starting a steampunk novel. Don't have a working with goal as it will be finished when it's finished. So far it's like to hit 1000 words a day. Here we go!
 

Siwyenbast

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Got Psycat back to consciousness in Ashen Silk and left her sipping some broth, with another 2-3 scenes ahead of me. Already at about the 45 page mark (I'll update word count later).
 

WriteMinded

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I'm wondering how it happens that when I start out to shave the word count I end up adding as many words as I delete.
 

Siwyenbast

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And DONE! Psycat and the Ashen Silk's first draft comes to 15,477 words with title and name. Gonna do some editing over next week and submit a chunk of this as my submission for my short story class.
 

rawan

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Finished the first draft of a 3500 word fantasy story that I started writing back in November or December. I needs a lot of revision! I'm very excited about this one, though-- I don't usually feel attached to short story characters and plots like I do with novel ideas, but this one is different. I'm also 2000 words into another fantasy story, but I'm not so sure about this one.