Tag: newsletter

Making A List

Laura Highcove

And I’ve checked it more than twice. I’ve been over it at least three or four times and there’s more to go as I sort through things. My time sheet has been getting a lot of ‘organize’ time, but I’m feeling like I’m making some progress at least. All those little things I ‘put off until later’ as well as the big issues that I would ‘figure out later’ are all coming due.

Some of the little problems will likely only take a few lines to fix, and I’ve already fixed some of them, but the larger issues often either span a large part of the novel, or I haven’t figured out how to fix them, or both. But this is the point of the revision process where everything starts coming together one way or another. Hopefully with my only being reduced to tears of ‘this will never work’ a few times.

Can’t give you a lot of detail, obviously, without spoilers, but I did realize I’ve been describing my Laws and magic backward the entire time, which will require some fixing, and I’m still rough on both Gabir and Wildrose’s motivations throughout the book. Good times.

I should have more information, and maybe even more of a timeline, in my next update in two week’s time. Also remember my newsletter will be going out next week, so look forward to another Chapter 1. This one takes place in space, but is still fantasy.

New Year’s Projects

Laura Highcove

We’re into the new year and I’ve been using my new spreadsheet to keep track of my hours and so far! …well it isn’t much different, truthfully. The changes I implemented are more important for summarizing and ease of looking back, for now I’m working on a few new projects into the new year.

I did a pass through of the Huntsman and sorted through everything I’d written. When I finished writing the rough draft the ending was sort of all over the place in terms of order and all stuffed into the same folder. I have since pulled those pieces apart and reassembled them into chapters.

After I got that done, I sat down to determine what my biggest problem is right now. And I’m pretty sure it’s ‘what the heck is Rose doing!?’. I know what I want him to do, but the path there is a hodgepodge, so I did notecards of scenes to figure out what I did have, what I needed, and then I went back and started smoothing. I haven’t hit the “messy” place yet, but I’m trying to tighten his focus a bit. Not sure if I’m being successful yet, but as I try to remind myself I don’t have to fix everything in one pass, just made it a bit better each pass.

I also have a new announcement for my newsletter which disappeared in August of last year. I am going to be restarting that with a new focus. I’m still going to use it as a place to talk about the lessons I’ve learned from life’s difficulties, but I am also going to be posting the “Chapter 1” of stories I have written, a new one each month. I’ll also be including a quick (like only 1 question) questionnaire at the end of each chapter for feedback. I want to use this feedback as a way to gauge interest in my projects and use it to determine what my next project may be.

For the newsletter going out at the end of January, I am going to be sending out the first chapter of Angelic Links: The world is run by computer code and only heaven has admin access. If you’re already signed up for my newsletter, then you don’t need to do anything to get this chapter. If you’re not yet signed up, you can do so here, and you’ll receive my newsletter at the end of the month that will include the first chapter of Angelic Links.

As for my goals, I am hoping to get through to Chapter 15 in the next two weeks with a lot more focus in Wildrose’s motivation. If I can get through Chapter 18 without any major problems, that will be a huge success.

Headed for the New Year

Laura Highcove

Most of what I’ve been doing in the past two weeks is smoothing of the Huntsman in order to put into place what I can and see where the holes still are. The first 14 chapters went by very quickly, only needing some minor notes and fixes. At chapter 15 my progress slowed down considerably because, as I told my alpha readers, ‘that’s where things get messy’.

There is far more smoothing and straight up new prose that needs to be done in order to push forward. The other day I literally did nothing other than write out my thoughts on where the story should be going in order to try and figure out where the story was going. It was a bit painful, but it gave me enough to move forward.

I found that keeping track of word count is too difficult because of the way I switch from writing to smoothing and back. It’s disruptive to pay attention to the shift, and it’s not a clear enough divide to get any meaningful data from it. It would’ve been a different story if I’d done it during Nano, but alas.

I also created a timeline to keep track of the different plot threads during the Huntsman. Doing so helps to organize the shape of the story which allowed me to find a hole. It also encouraged me to write out the timeline of the Law of the Prince Charming, so I know how much time the book took. It is 30 days.

My goal is to push through the Huntsman. Wildrose is giving me the most trouble. I’m trying to give him some direction, but mostly I just need the most basics of what is going on. I’d love to try get through the rest of the novel this week before I go away for Christmas. However, I’m not sure how realistic that is. I might need to take off the writer gloves and just do nothing but reorganize what I have and write down what I don’t.

I’m also planning on overhauling my newsletter some. It sort of got …ignored for a while, and part of that is that I think something needs to change. Expect some news on that by the end of January.