I Am Nobody Chapter 20 Draft 2

I've finished up the second draft of Chapter 20 of I am Nobody, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

So close to done, yet so far away.  Between my day job as a mailman, my night job as a book critic, and working on this book, I've been putting in some 80-90 hour weeks lately.  It's kind of exhausting, actually, even if two of those three things are my hobbies.  If not for work, I would probably not have been outside in days.  I enjoy working on this proect, but it sure is wearing me down, and I can't wait for it to be over and done with.  It still needs a couple more drafts after this too.  Writing books takes FOREVER, who'da thunk?

I Am Nobody Chater 19 Draft 2

And, after a sixteen hour day of sheer boredom, stiff limbs, and my freeloader brothers fetching hotpockets and drinks for me, I managed to finish two chapters today.  Both of which can be found at the bottom of this page.

And with this chapter I've broken 100,000 words.  My goal for the finished book is to keep it at or just under 100,000, so it definitely looks like I'll have some cutting to do in the next draft.  Mostly I just removed contractions from this chapter, and reworded things so that the lack doesn't sound awkward.  If you read pretty much any book (except ones by crap writers) you'll notice that they only use contractions in dialog.  That's because it looks more professional.  It does take some stretching sometimes to word things without them to make them sound natural though.

I Am Nobody Chapter 18 Draft 2

I've finished up the second draft of the next I Am Nobody chapter and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

Lots of small tweaks here, along with some more develping of Mia's relationship with Mike.

I've got those identity theft blues...

So, I logged onto my credit card website thingy to pay my bill for the month today, and much to my surprise and horror, someone appears to have stolen my credit card number, and racked up $17,000 on it, which is awful in and of itself, but moreso when you consider that that is $9000 over my limit.  This is quite the feat, since every time a suspicious charge has been applied to my card in the last ten years or so, the account has immediately been locked, and me contacted to make sure that I was the one making the charge or not.

So, I called up the credit card company to report the card stolen and find out what I have to do to get this $17,000 charge off my card and the real fun began.  First, I got kicked around to about 73 different departments before someone finally sent me to the right one.  After an hour of sitting on hold and repeating my problem, I finally got a guy that seemed to understand English and knew what to do.  I asked them why my account wasn't put on hold when suspicious charges started showing up and they said that all of the charges were made within my zip code so they were not considered to be suspicious.  I pointed out the $9000 over the limit and asked why THAT wasn't considered suspicious, and the guy said, and I quote, "you can't see it right now, but I'm shrugging."

So, aparently there was a new law passed last year by congress regarding credi cards and identity theft.  Under this new law, a credit card company is within their rights to deny any claim of identity thefy and demand payment of any and all debts incurred on the card in question if they have any doubts of the validity of my claim that the card was stolen.  And since all of the charges were made within my zip code, there is some doubt, for some reason.

So, I now have to download and print out a 54 page appeal form, fill it out, have it notorized and send it back to them, and cross my fingers that whatever auditor reviews the case sides with me.  Otherwise I'm out $17,000.

I Am Nobody Chapter 17 Draft 2

I've finished up teh second draft of the next chapter of I Am Nobody, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

Uhg.  This one was a hard one.  12 hours, it took.  12 freaking hours to revise 7 pages of text.  Fight scenes are a bit different from other scenes, they take a lot more care.  There are a lot of elements that have to come together perfectly, or else it becomes boring rather than exciting.  There's the action itself, there's the emotional aspect, what the characters are feeling, there's the pacing.  It has to be paced perfectly so that you include everything that needs to be included and still remains suspensful and exciting.  You've got to describe the way things move and react to each other clearly and realistically, or else it becomes confusing and breaks the laws of physics.  It takes a lot of balancing to get a fight scene just right, and this one seems like it took even more than usual.

Sunuva...

Today, at sometime around noon, on my day off... My xbox 360 died.  Let us have a moment of silence for this poor, wretched machine that has suked up so many hours of my life...

*Taps begins to play*

Wait, wait, hold on...  Actually... This is a good thing.  Good riddance!!! Now I have one less thing in my life devouring hours upon hours with nothing to show for it.  Hurray, I'm free... FREE!!!

What's that?  My girlfriend bought me a refurbished one at gamestop when she went out to grab lunch...?

CRAP!!!

*shrug*

Uh, back to playing Halo 4 with her I guess...

I Am Nobody Chapter 16 Draft 2

Done with the next chapter of the second draft of I Am Nobody and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

This one only took 4 hours to finish up.  Joy.  My brother asked me why does it take me so freaking long to edit something I've already written one day after I spend nine hours working on a single chapter.  Well, I read each paragraph over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, making small tweaks here and there until it reads through perfectly.  It takes FOREVER.  And then I read the chapter through a few times as a whole to make sure nothing is repeated, and each paragraph fits with the ones near it, etc, etc, etc.  It takes a lot of time and patience.

I Am Nobody Chapter 15 Draft 2

I've finished up the second draft of chapter 15 of I Am Nobody and you can find it near the bottom of this page.

A lot of small rewrites, and a few things added to flesh things out a bit more, especially with Mia's feelings.  I really want to get across how utterly horrified she is over the fact that people are dying in her place, and how useless she feels at not being able to do anything to stop it.

I Am Nobody Chapters 13&14 Draft 2

I've finished up the second drafts of chapters 13 and 14 of I Am Nobody and you can find them at the bottom of this page if you feel the pressing urge.

Lots of continuity errors fixed here, and more than a bit of sloppy writing rewritten.  I am now over halfway done with the second draft, and I've added just over 10,000 words so far.

I Am Nobody chapter 12 Draft 2

I've finished another chapter of the second draft of I Am Nobody, chapter 12, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.

Okay... so... I'm starting to see why writing the entire first draft of a book in 11 days is not such a good idea.  Almost this entire chapter except the dialog had to be rewritten completely.  There are a ridiculous number of mistakes and instances of terrible writing in the first draft that I'm only finding now as I'm going back through it.  Note to self, save yourself spending twelve hours editing every single chapter next time and do it right the first time.

Book Reviews

I've posted a few more of my recent book reviews if you feel the great urge to read them.

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson the final book of The Wheel of Time, which I have been waiting to read for 22 years and was everything I ever could have hoped for and more.

When True Night Falls by C.S. Friedman Second book of the Coldfire trilogy, which I would recomend to anyone who enjoys Fantasy.  It really is an awesome fantasy series.

The First Confessor: The Legend of Magda Searus by Terry Goodkind While better than Goodkind's last two books, it is nowhere near as good as some of his previous works.

I Am Nobody Chapter 11 Draft 2

I've finished up my second draft of I Am Nobody Chapter 11 and you can find it at the bottom of this page if you feel so inclined.

Mostly what has changed here is just the wording.  I've added a few things to flesh out the story and the way that Mia views things a bit too.  People who went to Copper Hills High School will likely recognize the description of the school cafeteria in this chapter also.  I tossed that in as a bit of a nod to my past, as much as I absolutely hated my high school years.

I Am Nobody Chapters 9&10 Draft 2

No thanks to a broken hand, received falling on the ice on the stairs up to my apartment, I have completed the next two chapters of the second draft of I Am Nobody, and you can find them at the bottom of this page.

Large swaths of Chapter 9 needed to be completely rewritten from scratch because they were too vague, Mia didn't have enough personality, continuity errors and other such things.  Most of the dialog remains unchanged, with a few things removed for repetition, and a few things added to make things more clear etc.  Chapter 10 remains mostly unchanged save for a what needed to be changed with the changes I've made to the chapters before it, mostly in the Hunter's abilities, Mia's horror at what's going on, and her resolve to do something to stop it.

I Am Nobody Chapter 8 Draft 2

The horrors of the Christmas Season have passed at last for another eleven months.  After ten years of working for the post office, I've really come to despise the holiday.  Now that I'm not working twenty extra hours a week, I've got time to get back to editing I Am Nobody, and have finished the second draft of chapter 8.  It can be found at the bottom of this page.

Pretty much the only things that have changed here are the wording, and I've made it a little less obvious who the killer is.  I don't want people figuring it out a third of the way through the book after all.  The entire first half of the chapter was rewritten completely to reflect changes in the previous chapter, and to make it easier to read and understand, and only minor tweaks were made to the second half.