Editing going well, I guess

Yesterday and today I have edited the first 19 Chapters which puts me over halfway home. I shouldn't have any problem getting the rest of the chapters edited by the end of the week so I can start on the new book on the weekend. I made substantial changes to Chapter 1 but only small ones to the other chapters. I have added more text, however.

Now, the book is 79,357 words.

TV time with the wife.

Been up since before 4:00 AM

I've been up for about 2 1/2 hours and I have gotten only Chapter 1 and 2 edited thus far with most of Chapter 1 last night. Editing is almost as hard as writing it in the first place. I always have trouble with the "Show don't Tell" concept and sometimes have to spend quite a while on a certian passage.

Total word count now is 78,651.

Friday and I guess the first draft is done

I finished Chapter 31 last night and this morning so I guess I am officially done and ready to begin the first edit. I have 76,237 words now. As I edit, I'll probably add more.

I'll keep you updated as to my editing progress. I hope to have the first edit done by the end of next week so I can begin the second book (remember there is to be 26 of them).

Onward.

Thursday And it's almost done

I added a bit to Chapter 29 so it is now 2,407 words and wrote Chapter 30 (2,882 words) which is, basically, the concluding chapter. At least it's where the major conflict in the book is resolved. I am going to write Chapter 31 just so I can clean up a few items and then I am going to call it good although I have thought of a couple of things I need in earlier chapters.

As of now (counting a little of Chapter 31) there is 75,375 words. Hooray!! I made it!!

I will give a final update tonight or tomorrow mrning.

Wedesday Morning

Reordered chapters 28 (1,796 words) and 29 (2,094 words) (with a bit of change, of course) and wrote most of Chapter 30 (1431 words).

Now, by actual cunt I have 71,841 words which is 96% of the 75,000 I am shooting for.

I hope to be done tonight or tomorrow night.

I know how the book is going to end but I am going to have to find some point to put in the part about Ram writing the blog about Sweatwater. I will do that when I edit the book for the first time. I will probably start that next week since I am going to do one edit before I put the book away and start on the second book. I have mentioned before that I am going to edit the first book, write the second, and then go back and edit the first, and then work on the second, etc.

Tuesday Morning

I got the first draft of Chapter 28 (2,005 words) done yesterday along with about 800 words of Chapter 29. I think there's going to be 31 or 32 chapters.

Actual word count is now 69,248 words which is 92% of the 75,000 I am shooting for. Again I say, I should have it by the end of the week easily. I already have the conclusion in my mind.

I went back this morning to Chapter 28 and added about 400 words, but have come up with a better approach (in the shower) and am going to redo that section.

Sunday evening

"I guess it's time to quit for the day," he said reluctantly.

Not a direct quote from the book rather a direct quote from me.  I really do hate quit.  Today I finished  the draft of chapter 27. It's a long one right now. I  looked to see if there was any place split it but I couldn't find a logical place. Thus, it is 3,394 words long. Maybe when I edit the book, I'll find some place logical to split  it.

Chapter word count is now 63,256  but if I count the words in the entire manuscript I get 66, 207  which is  approximately 88% of what I need to have a manuscript of 75,000 words.   I need about 9,000 more words and since I have been  doing about 2,500  words a day, I should easily finish before the end of this week.  Which will be within the one month time frame I alloted to myself (internal challenge). Of course, it has not been edited so it really won't be done until it is.

I think I mentioned before that what I intend to do is do one quick edit of the entire book, and then  I will set it aside and work on the second book for a minimum of a week before I go back and do another edit. I will continue to do this until I have been through the book at least four or five times. I know most authors claim they edit 10 maybe 20 times, but I think that is way past overkill. If the book is written well enough to begin with I don't think that many edits are necessary by the writer.  It's good, of course, to have other people read the book and make edits and comments. It's  easy enough for the author to miss things like changing a character's name (Fred in one place and Sam somewhere else) or using a character in the later chapter that was never introduced in the earlier chapters and things like that. The  author is too close to the material to notice such things. It  takes that second or third or fourth set of eyes see that sort of thing. Fortunately, I think I have three people who are willing to help. My daughter, Heather, being one of them, and two guys from work.  Oh yes, and one guy's wife , so I guess maybe I'll have four. That will be good.

Well TV time.

Sunday morning

Yesterday, after posting,  I drafted Chapter 25 (2,151 words) and this morning I finished (started yesterday) Chapter 26 (2,848 words). Current count by chapter 59,862 and by word count withint the manuscript 61,640.

61,640 is about 82%/ of 75,000.

I'll post again at the end of the day.

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday mornng at about 7:30 and I've been up for about two hours.  Yesterday I drafted Chapter 23 (1,752 words) and this morning I drafted Chapter 24 (2,382 words). I should be able to do one more chapter today since it is still early.

The total thus far is 54,863 words by a total of the chapter totals, but the count of the entire book gives me 57,770 so I will have to recount the chapters but I will wait until I am editing since the number of words is only important in that there is enough to finish the tale.

At 57,770 there is now 77% of the 75,000 words I am shooting for. As I said yesterday, I should be able to finish by the end of the month as planned.

Thursday wasn't bad

 I switched  positions of chapters 19 and 20  and added more to what was Chapter 19 and is now chapter 20.  It is now 3,553 words.  In addition, I've drafted chapters 21 (1,941  words) and 22 (2,061)  for a current total of 53,566  according to a direct word count of the manuscript. . The total I have an Excel for all the chapters is 50,729 so I'm off on some of the chapters.  Which isn't surprising since I'm always going back and changing them.

53,500 is  71% of the 75,000 words. I'm shooting for.  At this rate I should be able to finish the book. By the end of the month, which is also what I'm shooting for. I think that would be quite  an accomplishment  and give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I once wrote a textbook in  a month, but I've never written a novel in a month.  Since I've only written two  novels that's  not be a surprise.

I actually thought it was pretty good that I wrote the last killer standing in three months, essentially.  I'm still pretty proud of that accomplishment because I'm proud of that book. I really like that book.  Of course I'm a bit partial. . But if you like books about serial killers. I suggest The Last Killer Standing as a good read. It can be downloaded for free  on Smashwords. . All I ask is that if you read it for free that at least you write a review. I've had a number of people read it but nobody's written a review.  Naturally, I like it, but I'd like to know what other people think too.

That's all for now. I've got to go to breakfast.

Not much done Tuesday but a little bit done today

I've been doing a bit of rearranging of chapters, and adding a bit here and there. I have chapter 20 finished and it's 2,107 words  and I have 804 words of chapter 21 done. This gives me a total  of 47,531 words , which is roughly 63% of the 75,000 words. I'm shooting for.

It's already almost 8 o'clock. So I suppose I have to sign off of this and my writing to go relax for a few minutes and watch some TV.  The wife is waiting.

Split 15 and drafted (first draft) 17, 18, and 19

I had a pretty good day, I think. As the heading says, I split Chapter 15 into 15 (2,275 words) and 16 (3,447 words) and drafted17 (1,908 words), 18 (1,956 words), and 19 (1880).

The total is now 45,190 and that is about 60% of the total of 75,000 I'm shooting for.

Back to work. I don't have much time left today as the wife wants to watch TV.

Not much done

I didn't get as much done as I had hoped yesterday (Sunday). We went to Church and then the gas dryer was making a lot of noise so I had to take it apart. Fortunately, I was able to find the problem and fix it (more or less). Now the dryer only makes noise when it stops.

I spent yesterday editing and changeing Chapter 1 based on suggesteions from my daughter. It's better now, I believe, and hope. I also changed a conversation with an old lady later in the book to make it sound not so much like me. I may have gone a bit overboard so I think I'll try again this morning.

Last evening I did get the chance to write a bit, Chapter 15 is now 3,447 words. Too long, I think. I'll see this morning if I can split it. I have some to add to the end. 37,702 total now.

Chapter 14 and 15 drafted

I got Chapters 14 and 15 drafted yesterday as well as some of chapter 16 even though I took time out to go play poker. But, since I was up at 4:00 AM, I had some time before the wife was up so I got a bit done.

Chapter 14 is currently 1,566 words
Chapter 15 is currently 2,175
and I have 1,234 of Chapter 16 with more to come.

I reworked chapter 1 this morning taking into consideration some suggestions by my daughter. I think it's better now. Thus, 1 edit of Chapter 1 done (at least two more to go).

By the way, my daughter carves bone into magnificant jewelry. Her website/blog is at AvaniArts. Check it out if you think you might be at all intersted. She really does do marve))lous work (of course I'm a bit partial)

Total words as of now, 35484 and of 75,000 - 47%

Chapter 13 drafted

I finished the preliminary draft of Chapter 13 last night. It is 1,898 words. Now I have 28,271 total. Since I have three days off, I hope to get another 10,000 or so words done. I'm hoping to have the first draft of the entire book done by the end of the month (probably wishful thinking).

What I have decided to do, is after the book is done, I will set it aside and begin the next book in the series. After a couple of weeks (if I can wait that long) I will go back and edit the first book. I will repeat this process at least a couple more times. By then, hopefully, the second book will be done and I can do the same thing with books two and three while the first is out to the agents (which, I'm sure I will never hear from). I"m sure the series will have to go eBook just like my last three books.

Chapter 12 drafted, 11 edited and added to, and 13 started

I have finished the first draft ofChapter 12 and it is 2,471  words. . I edited chapter 11 and now it is 2,786  words. . I have also started. Chapter 13.  Not much yet, but it's a start. Only 593  words.  The whole thing is 25,467 ( about  a third of what I need).  I guess the 40% I estimated yesterday was a little high.

Good news  for my writing.  I get Monday off for Martin Luther King Day.  Hopefully I will get a lot done.  I'll keep you up-to-date.

BTW  someone from where I work has bought The Last Killer Standing (and says he likes it), and I think he has agreed to be part of the audio book.  That really excites me.  I have been wanting to do that  ever since the book was written.  We shall see.  I'm still hoping to get my daughter to do the women's parts.  I, of course, will be narrator.  If you want to know more about that. Just check out my website at EdwardJCoburn.com.  You're welcome to be a part of it also.

Well, back to writing.

Chapter 11 drafted

Yesterday I added a bit more to chater 10 (it is now 2,560) and I drafted Chapter 11 which currently has 1,799 but I have already thought of some things that I need to add to it this morning. I even start on Chapter 12 last night and have 865 words in it.

Total word count so far is 31,137 about 40% of what I think I'll end up with. Lots of editing left to do, of course and I'll probably add more to most of the chapters when I edit.

BTW in case you're wondering, I have Dragon Naturally Speaking as a dictation program and it works really well although it does make quite a few mistakes. The most irritating thing is that it ends sentences where it thinks I want them ended, not necessarily where I put the period. Therefore, during editing, this has to be corrected. Also, sometimes I can't get the program to understand a word and how to spell it even after several tries.

Well, on with the writing.

Draft of Chapter 10 done.

I got the draft of Chater 10 done. There are 2,042 words, but I need to add more. This is where Sweetwater will be introduced. If you don't know what that means, read Ram's Rambing about SweetWater.

Enough update, on to the writing.

Preliminary draft of Chapter 9 done

The preliminary draft of Chapter 9 is done. There are 1,113 words so I'm susre I will add more. I don't feel obligated to do that, however, since there is not anything wrong with having a few short chapters. None of my chapters are going to be very long. I dislike books that have only a few very long chapters expecially if they could have easily been broken apart.

I did some minor edits to chapter 8 and it is now 2,032 words. On with the writing of Chapter 10.

I have split a couple, there are now 8 Chapters

I have split a couple of Chapters, now there are 8 Chapters. Chapter 8, which I am still writing has 1792 words. I am shooting for each of the Chapters to be about 2000 or so words. I did something similiar with The Last Killer Standing, so I should be able to manage it with this one.

I am up to 18,144 total. I am shooting towards 75,000 to 80,000 and I should be able to come close to that while telling the entire store I am trying to get across.

Since I received no objections, I am going to make a new tab for Ram's Rambings and make the home page into a sort of diary of the progress of the book.

On to it.

BTW I put some more quotes on the Interesting Quotes tab if you're interested.

I worked on Chapter 5

I worked on Chapter 5 today and I now have 2,411 words with more to come, but I am done for the day. I also did some small edits on Chapter 4 and 3 and I'm feeling better about both of them. I know I would be better off just leaving the earlier chapters alone and writing the new ones, but I can't help myself. As I said before, every new chapter mkes me want to go back and tweak the earlier ones. Some type of Writer's disease I suppose. That's all for now.

Started Chapter 5

I started Chapter 5 today. I only have about 900 word so far but I know where the chapter's going and how I'm going to get there.  I added more  to chapter 4 and it is now 4,463  and is likely to remain pretty close to that size. . I also added a bit more Chapter 3. It seems like every time I write a new chapter. I think of something that should have gone in one of the chapters before. As I recall that's what I did when I wrote the Last Killer Standing too. . I wrote most of Order of the White Feather quite a number of years ago, so I'm not sure exactly how I managed to put that one together. 

Well, that's all for now. Another update tomorrow. Don't forget to let me know what you think about my idea of using the homepage as a book diary of the progress and making a new tab for Ram's Ramblings.  If you like the idea, let me know. And if you don't like the idea, let me know that too. It will help me decide what I should do.

Change of plans

I have decided to change the way this blog is being written. I am going to use the home page as a sort of diary of the writing of the first Ram book (which I am sort of already doing). Then I will make a new tab on which to put Ram's Ramblings. I will also change to notes at the top of the page to explain the tabs and home page a bit more.

Let me know what you think. If there are no strong objections, I will probably do it this weekend (since I will have some extra time to get it done). 

As for now, I have added a bit more to Chapter 2 and almost doubled Chapter 4 and am not quite finished with it yet. I will give you numbers later today if I get the chance.

Today, chapter 4

I  worked on chapter 4 today.  I wrote a little bit of it last night but wrote more and edited a bit today. I am up to 1,994 words  but have some more that I need to write for the chapter.  I'm feeling quite comfortable with the progress I'm making and have a pretty good idea that I'm on the right track for the flow of the book. . I really wish I could tell you more about what I'm writing,  but I, like most writers,  don't want to disclose too much for fear our ideas might be stolen. After all,  ideas are not copyrightable only the words are.

 Well,  back to work.  I'll give you an update again tomorrow.

Some additions to chapter 2 and a good start on chapter 3

Today,  I worked on chapter 3 and have 1,623  unedited words.  I'm not through with the chapter so there's going to be more. I also realized that I had left some important points out of chapter 2 so I have added to it. It is now 4,114  words long.  The additions, of course, haven't been edited so the next edit of that chapter will be for the new additions as well, as the old material.

It's now about 6:30 and I think the wife wants to watch another movie.  Both of us like disaster movies. We already watched one today, but I bought her some new ones for Christmas and that's what are watching. The one we watched earlier today wasn't too bad.  I think we're going to watch one that we've actually seen before, but as I recall it was a pretty good movie., so I guess I'll cut it short for tonight. I'll update you on my progress tomorrow. Not so much, of course, since I have to go back to my real job tomorrow. What a pity. I'd much rather just be writing and telling you about it in my (or Rams) blog.

The first pass at Chapter 2 is finished.

Well, I finished the first pass at  chapter 2.  It is 3092 words. Of course I haven't edited it  yet so that word count may shrink or even grow larger.

I am ready to start on Chapter 3, but probably won't do it tonight , rather I'll get an early start in the morning since I have Monday off because of New Year's.

Well, got to go. The wife is calling to come and watch a movie.  That's no doubt what I'll be doing this evening.

Poker yesterday so only a few pages

I played poker yesterday (Saturday, New Years Eve) and I was 6th out of 20. Not bad, I guess. Unfortunately, my poker playing meant that I didn't get much writing done. I usually get up by 5 or 6 AM since I get up at 5:00 AM every day during the week and I really can't sleep in on the weekends. Thus, I just get up to write so I generally get some work done before my wife gets up since she does sleep in on the weekend (she gets up every day during the week to make my breakfast - her choice).

I did manage to get a couple pages done yesterday so I have about 5 pages for Chapter 2 now. Right now there are 1259 words (by the count the Word gives me). Chapter 1 currently has 1641 words.

If I get the chance I'll update you as to my progress today.Because of the new year, I have tomorrow off as well so I will get some additional writing done. I do have a couple of projects pending int my workshop as well, so I may work out there some today and tomorrow. I do some wood working to break up the mononity of just writng. That's why I play poker too (though I just really like to play poker and since it's free to play...)

By the way, I'm going to lower the price of my two books on Smashwords to zero and, hopefuly, Amazon will follow with the price change soon (you can't price at zero on Amazon). I am doing it to, hopefully, get some readership with the hopes of gaining an audience for subsiquent books. Also, I just want somebody to read my books (it's a pride thing). I just wish someone would review them either on Smashwords or Amazon so I would get some feedback.

Smashwords:
Last Killer Standing
Order to the White Feather: The Sword of Dalaamar

Amazon
Last Killer Standing
Order to the White Feather: The Sword of Dalaamar