Now that the book has come out and my NDA regarding it is no longer in effect, I've posted my review of Fragments by Dan Wells on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.
If you enjoyed the first in the series, this book is bigger and better in every way. It's one of the better books I've read in a very long time, and I totally recomend you pick it up. If you haven't read Partials, the first in the series, grab that one first, obviously.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 13 Draft 4
I've finished the fourth draft of I Am Nobody Chapter 13 and you can find it here.
-384 words
I'm now back under 100k words. At this rate I'll finish up pretty much exactly where I want to be in the end I think, that being around 95k.
-384 words
I'm now back under 100k words. At this rate I'll finish up pretty much exactly where I want to be in the end I think, that being around 95k.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 11 Draft 4
I've finished up chapter 11 of my fourth draft of I Am Nobody and you can find it at the bottom of this page.
-600 words
Most of the text that's getting chopped is repetition in dialog, and this is a very dialog heavy chapter, hence how much was chopped from this one.
-600 words
Most of the text that's getting chopped is repetition in dialog, and this is a very dialog heavy chapter, hence how much was chopped from this one.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 5 Draft 4
Chapter 5 of the fourth Draft of I Am Nobody is done, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.
-107 words
Not so many out of this one than previous ones because I found something I needed to add here.
-107 words
Not so many out of this one than previous ones because I found something I needed to add here.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 3 Draft 4
I've finished up another chapter of my fourth draft of I Am Nobody and it can be found at the bottom of this page.
-363 words
-363 words
Book Review: Dauntless by Jack Campbell
I've posted my review of Dauntless by Jack Campbell on goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.
Great story with a likeable protagonist and spectacularly well thought out space battles, but falls a little flat in the pacing and supporting character departments.
Great story with a likeable protagonist and spectacularly well thought out space battles, but falls a little flat in the pacing and supporting character departments.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 2 Draft 4
I'm done with another chapter of the fourth draft of I Am Nobody and it can be found at the bottom of this page.
-425 words
-425 words
Monday, February 18, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 1 Draft 4
I'm done with Chapter 1 of the fourth draft of I Am Nobody and you can find it at the bottom of this page.
-302 words here.
-302 words here.
Book Review: God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert
I've posted a Review of God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to read it.
This book is terrible, amongst the worst that I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
This book is terrible, amongst the worst that I've ever had the displeasure of reading.
I Am Nobody Prologue Draft 4
I've started on the fourth draft of I Am Nobody and the prologue of it can be found at the bottom of this page.
I think this draft will be the last major revision to this book. In this draft, mostly what I'm doing is streamlining the text. What this means is that I remove things that are repetitious, reword things so that it says the same thing in fewer words, and generally remove as much as I can while still saying the same thing.
Here's an example. This is the first paragraph of the book from Draft Three:
"The moonless night was cold, dark and empty, awaiting the blood of the innocent. The crisp, early September air was still, untouched by the slightest breeze. Away from the lights of the town, the stars filled the sky in spectacular display. It seemed almost as though the night was holding its breath in anticipation of horrors yet to come."
And here's the same paragraph from Draft Four:
"The moonless night was cold, dark and empty, seemingly holding its breath as if in anticipation of horrors yet to come, and the spilling of innocent blood. The crisp September air was still, untouched by the slightest breeze, and the stars filled the sky in spectacular display."
As you can see, they both say pretty much the same thing, but the paragraph from the fourth draft is 12 words shorter than the one from the third draft.
I managed to drop 615 words from this chapter without cutting really anything at all.
I think this draft will be the last major revision to this book. In this draft, mostly what I'm doing is streamlining the text. What this means is that I remove things that are repetitious, reword things so that it says the same thing in fewer words, and generally remove as much as I can while still saying the same thing.
Here's an example. This is the first paragraph of the book from Draft Three:
"The moonless night was cold, dark and empty, awaiting the blood of the innocent. The crisp, early September air was still, untouched by the slightest breeze. Away from the lights of the town, the stars filled the sky in spectacular display. It seemed almost as though the night was holding its breath in anticipation of horrors yet to come."
And here's the same paragraph from Draft Four:
"The moonless night was cold, dark and empty, seemingly holding its breath as if in anticipation of horrors yet to come, and the spilling of innocent blood. The crisp September air was still, untouched by the slightest breeze, and the stars filled the sky in spectacular display."
As you can see, they both say pretty much the same thing, but the paragraph from the fourth draft is 12 words shorter than the one from the third draft.
I managed to drop 615 words from this chapter without cutting really anything at all.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
I Am Nobody Draft 3
Ok, so I lied. I went to work on the third draft of I Am Nobody over the weekend and finished it tonight. You can find it at the bottom of this page.
Mostly there are very few changes in this draft. The only real changes were fixes to awkward and repetative wording, with a few things added in the end to bring some firmer resolution between Mia and Death, and Mia and her mother.
The Second Draft was 103,423 words in length.
The Third Draft was 104,332 words in length.
So as you can see, there wasn't a huge amount of changes made, barely 900 words added. Like I said, this draft was mostly about fixing awkward and repetative wording. Looking at the two side by side, you won't notice much difference except that the third draft is a bit easier to read. Also, near the end there are one or two paragraphs added here and there to bring resolution that was lacking, such as Mia telling her mom that she loves her, and Death being forced to admit that Mia is actually his daughter and he may, somewhat, be proud of her... maybe. You may also notice that there are more chapters now than there were before. I had a few chapters that were two scenes together in one chapter, and I decided I would just make each individual scene its own chapter, no matter how short it may be. It makes things simpler that way, and simple is, most often, better.
All in all, I'm actually pretty proud of this one. It's coming a long pretty well, and it probably has some of the best writing I've ever done in it. I've got one more major revision draft planned, where I wil try to cut about 9000-ish words from the manuscript by condensing and streamlining hte text as much as possible without ruining hte integrity of the prose, and a final draft to, again, fix any awkward wording, etc, and make sure it all fits together right. I'd say I've got about a month to six weeks until I'm done with the final draft, making this the quickest book I've ever written in my life. Hopefully I'll actually be able to sell this one.
Mostly there are very few changes in this draft. The only real changes were fixes to awkward and repetative wording, with a few things added in the end to bring some firmer resolution between Mia and Death, and Mia and her mother.
The Second Draft was 103,423 words in length.
The Third Draft was 104,332 words in length.
So as you can see, there wasn't a huge amount of changes made, barely 900 words added. Like I said, this draft was mostly about fixing awkward and repetative wording. Looking at the two side by side, you won't notice much difference except that the third draft is a bit easier to read. Also, near the end there are one or two paragraphs added here and there to bring resolution that was lacking, such as Mia telling her mom that she loves her, and Death being forced to admit that Mia is actually his daughter and he may, somewhat, be proud of her... maybe. You may also notice that there are more chapters now than there were before. I had a few chapters that were two scenes together in one chapter, and I decided I would just make each individual scene its own chapter, no matter how short it may be. It makes things simpler that way, and simple is, most often, better.
All in all, I'm actually pretty proud of this one. It's coming a long pretty well, and it probably has some of the best writing I've ever done in it. I've got one more major revision draft planned, where I wil try to cut about 9000-ish words from the manuscript by condensing and streamlining hte text as much as possible without ruining hte integrity of the prose, and a final draft to, again, fix any awkward wording, etc, and make sure it all fits together right. I'd say I've got about a month to six weeks until I'm done with the final draft, making this the quickest book I've ever written in my life. Hopefully I'll actually be able to sell this one.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Aaaaaaand... Done.
I've finished the second draft of I Am Nobody and the last few chapters can be found at the bottom of this page.
I've got all of Second Draft chapters up individually, as well as the entire second draft as one file, and I also have the full first draft still up as well if you feel the overwhelming urge to compare them to each other. Now I'm going to take a week or so off of writing and relax before starting in on the third draft. I think I did pretty well with the second draft here, and I'm not sure how much work is left to polish things off, but I can usually always find something that I've missed while flipping back through a project.
The First Draft was 86,696 words long, which was 149 single spaced pages in length.
I've got all of Second Draft chapters up individually, as well as the entire second draft as one file, and I also have the full first draft still up as well if you feel the overwhelming urge to compare them to each other. Now I'm going to take a week or so off of writing and relax before starting in on the third draft. I think I did pretty well with the second draft here, and I'm not sure how much work is left to polish things off, but I can usually always find something that I've missed while flipping back through a project.
The First Draft was 86,696 words long, which was 149 single spaced pages in length.
The Second Draft was 103,423 words long, which was 175 single spaced pages in length.
That means I added 16,727 words and 26 single spaced pages to my second draft.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Book Review: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
I've posted the next entry in my Dune Retrospective on Goodreads if you feel the great urge to check out my Review of Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.
In a nutshell, this book is not as good as the first two in the series. It suffers from two main protagonists who never show a hint of humanity, emotion, or motivation whatsoever, and a lot of vague plot details. Parts of it are very, very good, but others are pretty terrible.
In a nutshell, this book is not as good as the first two in the series. It suffers from two main protagonists who never show a hint of humanity, emotion, or motivation whatsoever, and a lot of vague plot details. Parts of it are very, very good, but others are pretty terrible.
I Am Nobody Chapters 25-27 Draft 2
I've finished three more chapters of the second draft of I Am Nobody and you can find them at the bottom of this page.
These chapters were relatively well done to begin with and only required a few minor tweaks. The beginning of the book needed a lot more than the end did because I had changed my mind on a few details, and gave others more solidity in the end, and had to go back and clarify everything leading up to them. Everything in the climax here was pretty much as it should be, and only needed a bit of work to make things as clear as possible, and in keeping with the rest of the book. Most of the changes I made here were to give Mia a final touch of character development before her big face off with Methusalam, and to remove all of the contractions. In the first draft Mia just blindly plodded ahead with no doubts, and here I've added a paragraph or two here and there where she stops and thinks about what she's about to do, doubting herself, but then overcomes the doubts and goes on anyway.
Only three chapters left, but I've had about as much editing work as I can handle today.
These chapters were relatively well done to begin with and only required a few minor tweaks. The beginning of the book needed a lot more than the end did because I had changed my mind on a few details, and gave others more solidity in the end, and had to go back and clarify everything leading up to them. Everything in the climax here was pretty much as it should be, and only needed a bit of work to make things as clear as possible, and in keeping with the rest of the book. Most of the changes I made here were to give Mia a final touch of character development before her big face off with Methusalam, and to remove all of the contractions. In the first draft Mia just blindly plodded ahead with no doubts, and here I've added a paragraph or two here and there where she stops and thinks about what she's about to do, doubting herself, but then overcomes the doubts and goes on anyway.
Only three chapters left, but I've had about as much editing work as I can handle today.
The Post Office
Well, it's been no secret that the United States Postal Service has been having financial issues over the last few years. The widespread use of e-mail, text messaging, and online bill paying has really cut down the need for people to send actual, phyiscal letters through the mail. This is compounded by the fact that the Postal Service as a business cannot implement any policy changes without the approval of congress, making it near impossible for us to adapt to the changing landscape of the delivery scene. As you may have noticed, getting congress to agree on generally ANYTHING is usually facilitated by an act of God.
As a result of this, and several YEARS of arguing our case before congress, congress has FINALLY decided that it would be best for the postal service to go down to five days of delivery a week. Starting in August, the Post Office will no longer deliver or pick up mail on Saturdays. Packages and express mail will, however, still be delivered on that day. At this time it is unknown how this will affect business, but it is projected to cut a large chunk out of the losses that the Postal Service is currently experiencing.
What does this means to you, as the everyday, average Joe out in the world? Probably not much. You will no longer be able to send off anything on Saturdays either by going to the post office or through your own mailbox. This is not likely to be much of an inconvenienc to most people, as most people these days are using other, faster mediums to send things along. If you're expecting a package, it will still be delivered. And the Post Office has been closing at noon on saturdays for the last fifty years, so there's not much being missed going in to the office personally to send things off.
What does this mean to me as a "part time" postal employee? At the moment, nobody knows for sure. As I have the most seniority amongst the "part time" employees at my particular post office, I will likely keep my job. However, there is talk of stripping my route down and dividing it up amongst other routes and puting me back on filling in for days off and delivering packages on saturday. At the time being, there is a lot of union negotiating going on, and it will probably continue to go on well past the august deadline. For the moment, I am not sure if I will have a job past August.
As a result of this, and several YEARS of arguing our case before congress, congress has FINALLY decided that it would be best for the postal service to go down to five days of delivery a week. Starting in August, the Post Office will no longer deliver or pick up mail on Saturdays. Packages and express mail will, however, still be delivered on that day. At this time it is unknown how this will affect business, but it is projected to cut a large chunk out of the losses that the Postal Service is currently experiencing.
What does this means to you, as the everyday, average Joe out in the world? Probably not much. You will no longer be able to send off anything on Saturdays either by going to the post office or through your own mailbox. This is not likely to be much of an inconvenienc to most people, as most people these days are using other, faster mediums to send things along. If you're expecting a package, it will still be delivered. And the Post Office has been closing at noon on saturdays for the last fifty years, so there's not much being missed going in to the office personally to send things off.
What does this mean to me as a "part time" postal employee? At the moment, nobody knows for sure. As I have the most seniority amongst the "part time" employees at my particular post office, I will likely keep my job. However, there is talk of stripping my route down and dividing it up amongst other routes and puting me back on filling in for days off and delivering packages on saturday. At the time being, there is a lot of union negotiating going on, and it will probably continue to go on well past the august deadline. For the moment, I am not sure if I will have a job past August.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 24 Draft 2
I'm done with another chapter of my second draft of I Am Nobody, and you can find it at the bottom of this page.
This is probably my favorite chapter of the book. The entire story focuses on Mia's search to find the Hunter, and here she finally puts all of the clues together to figure it out. And Steve goes from light hearted and jovial straight into creepy, evil Michael Meyers territory the very second he knows that his cover is blown. Probably my favorite line of the entire book is when he tells her to enjoy her day because it might be her last, and to have a blast. He's been building bombs for two weeks ever since he heard about Mia's dance, and has been planning to blow it up since the very beginning. I cracked myself up with the have a blast line. Yeah, I'm geeking out over something I wrote myself, so what?
This is probably my favorite chapter of the book. The entire story focuses on Mia's search to find the Hunter, and here she finally puts all of the clues together to figure it out. And Steve goes from light hearted and jovial straight into creepy, evil Michael Meyers territory the very second he knows that his cover is blown. Probably my favorite line of the entire book is when he tells her to enjoy her day because it might be her last, and to have a blast. He's been building bombs for two weeks ever since he heard about Mia's dance, and has been planning to blow it up since the very beginning. I cracked myself up with the have a blast line. Yeah, I'm geeking out over something I wrote myself, so what?
I Am Nobody Chapter 23 Draft 2
I've finished another chapter of the second Draft of I Am Nobody today,a nd you can find it at the bottom of this page.
In the first draft, this chapter had a large section in the middle that was played for comedy. I thought that it was a really good character building moment, that showed the relationship that Mia has with Steve. HOWEVER, at the same time, the chapter just before this one is very, very dark and disturbing, and ends on a really down note. So I felt that going straight from that into what is basically a comedy setpiece really broke up the tone and flow of the story, so I removed it. Even though it is a great character moment, it just didn't fit here. Maybe I can find somewhere earlier in the story to fit it on the next draft, because I really liked the scene, but shooting for laughs immediately after a chapter involving suicide, betrayal, horrible revelation, and a child pornographer getting his just deserts just didn't work. The tone shift was just too objectionable. It's better not to have the character moment at all, than to have such a 180 on the tone and direction of the story.
In the first draft, this chapter had a large section in the middle that was played for comedy. I thought that it was a really good character building moment, that showed the relationship that Mia has with Steve. HOWEVER, at the same time, the chapter just before this one is very, very dark and disturbing, and ends on a really down note. So I felt that going straight from that into what is basically a comedy setpiece really broke up the tone and flow of the story, so I removed it. Even though it is a great character moment, it just didn't fit here. Maybe I can find somewhere earlier in the story to fit it on the next draft, because I really liked the scene, but shooting for laughs immediately after a chapter involving suicide, betrayal, horrible revelation, and a child pornographer getting his just deserts just didn't work. The tone shift was just too objectionable. It's better not to have the character moment at all, than to have such a 180 on the tone and direction of the story.
Monday, February 4, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 22 Draft 2
I've finished up my second draft of I Am Nobody Chapter 22 and you can find it at the bottom of this page.
In addition to cleaning up the general wording of the chapter as I have with all of the previous ones, and some clarifying on a few points, I removed about half a page from the end during Mia's reactions to Doctor Farnsworth's confession. I felt that she was acting too masculine at this part. She was acting the way I would act, rather than the way a teenaged girl would act. After consulting with a couple of women on the matter, I've changed this part to be more subdued and emotional, rather than physically violent, and I have to say, it does seem a lot more realistic for her to behave this way rather than the way that I had her behaving. Again, I am not, nor have I ever been a teenaged girl, so I do have parts that I'm running by my girlfriend, sister, and some friends to get their input on how Mia SHOULD act in whatever given situation.
In addition to cleaning up the general wording of the chapter as I have with all of the previous ones, and some clarifying on a few points, I removed about half a page from the end during Mia's reactions to Doctor Farnsworth's confession. I felt that she was acting too masculine at this part. She was acting the way I would act, rather than the way a teenaged girl would act. After consulting with a couple of women on the matter, I've changed this part to be more subdued and emotional, rather than physically violent, and I have to say, it does seem a lot more realistic for her to behave this way rather than the way that I had her behaving. Again, I am not, nor have I ever been a teenaged girl, so I do have parts that I'm running by my girlfriend, sister, and some friends to get their input on how Mia SHOULD act in whatever given situation.
Friday, February 1, 2013
I Am Nobody Chapter 21 Draft 2
I've finished the second draft of I Am Nobody Chapter 21 and you can find it near the bottom of this page.
And then...
And then...
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