Progress report

Third and final? I can't my hands off of mine. (keep it clean you perverts) But doesn't it feel refreshing to finally hit "the end"?

Liam Jackson said:

Hiyas Kevin! Yep, you've tackled one hellaciously ambitious (in scope) project. Maybe we can come back to this one, and discuss precisely where you are in the story. It's a strong premise, I think, and I'm anxious to see where you're going with it. LJ

Click to expand...

Liam, I just wanted to thank you for your words and offer for help since my wife died, they mean a lot to me. I have your number.

As for my story, the hellaciously ambitious one, I have not written on it for a while, not with everything that is going on now. Where I am at in the story is I'm jumping around the world, devestated from the loss of the moon, and having dead Demons being unburied. Their burial sites were hidden from humans by a device on the moon. The Angels realized that when they and the demons decayed their bodies let off huge amounts of radiation that was killing mankind so they built a device that sheilded the bodies. With the loss of the moon the sheild is failing and the radiation and energy that had been building up explodes, killing everything in its path. A traitor angel finds these bodies and resurrects them, building an army to kill mankind until his bretheren return from the far reaches of space.

I have my MC starting his quest for the relics that will save mankind but he will soon be dogged by the resurected demons. Through his dreams he gets help from Angels, they tell him about the past and warn him of the future. He finds out that he is the only thing standing in the way of mankinds extinction. Not an easy thing for a man who just found out his God is dead and also learned that his God was never a God at all. He is a man in conflict with his faith and life. How does he go on? Can he really save us? Does he stick to his belief in his God or face the truth that there never was one?

Soon Christ and his son will step into the light as they try to take over the world and kill every human in their way.

Great thread, Liam. I've nothing to report. Haven't worked on anything at all recently. Just wanted to poke my nose back in horror and see what everyone's up to.

Hmmm...still at 27000 words. And stuck, waiting for the characters to tell me what the hell they want to do. I may go back to outlining.

Just a few days, and it's only because I haven't had time to work on it. However I am at a point where I have no idea what's coming next. Even without an outline I usually know at least what the next few thousand words will hold. I got in a few hundred last night but I got interrupted. (cursed real life always getting in the way of my fantasy world grumble grumble).
Anyway, I'm just seeing what the characters will want to do as they're in a bit of a pickle. It will go somewhere, no worries.

I've been slowly bringing the old stories out of mothballs. I completed what I hope will be the final edit on one today. I'll look at it again with fresh eyes tomorrow just to be sure. If it is finished, I guess I won't have any choice but to begin the rejection process. I really should start on something new too. I'll have to program myself to dream up a 'what-if' tonight.

Looking forward to your book, Liam.

I just passed the 80,000 mark, and I should be finished the current draft by the end of next week, if not sooner. Sort of scared what it will be like to finish, but then, I always am.

I recently passed the 65,000 word mark, after writing about 50k of it this summer. I hope to finish it by the end of this school year (giving myself more time to finish it due to studying and homework). It was a very productive summer, and it got me back to writing regularly.

And Liam: Only 14 days left? Already? I'll have to buy it and read it when it comes out.

My game plan at the moment is to write a few hundred words when I get home (around 2:30), do homework, then perhaps write some more. If I don't have much homework one day, I usually finish it quickly and write until dinnertime. I depend on weekends for longer writing sessions. The book's going much slower than it was before, but it's still making progress.

Liam Jackson said:

Marlowe, congrats on nearing The End. That's when the real journey begins. I suspect you'll experience a mix of emotions including pride, relief, and a touch of melancholy. Is this the final draft before you begin submitting?

Click to expand...

Thank you- it's actually sort of a first draft, but since I've been posting it online for friends, I've been editing/polishing as I go. I plan on giving myself a week off, maybe working on something new, and then giving it a final edit. (Right now, I have a partial with an agent, so I'll probably wait till I hear from him before I send it out to others.)

I'm still undecided about doing this, but I almost have the first chapter of the book – featuring an exorcism – ready for critique consumption. Like I said, I'm undecided, but I may post it over in the local SYW area here on AW.

Looks like everyone is up to their armpits in WIP's. I've roughed out my zombie piece then bounced back to a post-modern gene-genired dark fantasy (cyberpunk sans cyber) I started earlier this year then started throwing together another piece and had to stop myself for fear of never completing a single project. Time to renew my Ritalin prescription.

Mine is in near-second-draft form. I've reworked the entire opening to fit the genre. I wrote the original organically, and then I had a choice to make: market as horror or supernatural romance. So it was either change the beginning or the end. I chose the beginning. Sorry, but I really liked the way the guy died. Lucky for me, the middle works!

Siddow said:

Mine is in near-second-draft form. I've reworked the entire opening to fit the genre. I wrote the original organically, and then I had a choice to make: market as horror or supernatural romance. So it was either change the beginning or the end. I chose the beginning. Sorry, but I really liked the way the guy died. Lucky for me, the middle works!

Click to expand...

I think that is great! It's so much easier to manipulate a completed work rather then struggling with blank pages. And never apologize for liking what you've done in a piece (liking a character's death); pride in our work is often all we have until it finally gets published.

FINISHED.

93,000 words. A month and a half. And I don't think it sucks.

WOOOOO!

Sucks? Not a chance. It's about 90,000 more then I've put out recently. Skoal!

Well, I went ahead and posted the first chapter from my work in progress novel. It's the one I described earlier in this thread. I thought I would just follow through with it and see what comes of it.

It features an exorcism.

Liam Jackson said:

Congrats, Marlowe! We're damned proud of ya. Reaching THE END is a helluva accomplishment. Now, on to the next phase.

Are you going to let it sit for a few days/weeks/months, then begin a final edit, or are you ready for the submission route?

If youre ready for the sub route, have you got your targets lined up? Are you going after representation first, or going straight to the publishers with your mnauscript?

Click to expand...

I've let it sit for a week- normally I'd wait longer, but this was a very intense, roller-coaster kind of ride, and I'm going to try and capitalize on that energy to push through to the final draft. I actually was a little nuts and sent out query letters a month or so ago; I was under the misguided impression that putting the rough draft online would make it more sellable. (Trust me, made perfect sense at the time.) Fortunately, I've had two postive response to the queries, one from Trident Media Group and the other from Harvey Klinger, Inc. I'll be sending the full manuscipt to HK within a week or so- I sent a partial to Trident, cause that's all I had at the time, but I'll probably try and contact them and see if they want the rest of it.

I'm pretty psyched. I've been doing this for a while, it's nice to feel like I'm finally making professional progress.