Posting the book

So here's the plan, people:

I'm going to register a website under the title of this book, and then I'm going to get someone to put up the site, and make the whole thing look fancy, and interact fancy, and all kinds of stuff. The thing is, I'm gonna have to ask some favors in marketing this thing.

See, I'm gonna print up some post cards with a rundown of the book, and where it can be read. So I'm gonna go all over the city, and leave these cards in coffee shops and book stores and whatnot. But as much as I love NYC, I want people all over the country - if not the world - to read this thing.

So I ask you, fellow readers, to help me out. Let me know if you live in a reasonably large city, and if you'd be willing to leave these post cards in your local bookstores and whatnot. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours in return.

Online novel?

I've been talking to a friend about this novel. I've been filling in blanks in the novel, sending out queries, and so on. The thing is, there've been few if any bites. I've been thinking of actually posting parts of the novel here. And I don't mean piddly little chunks of the novel - you know, 20 pages here, 10 pages there, 5 pages up the road - that kind of thing.

No, I'm talking about, say, one sixth of the novel, right here, right now. It'll require some math on my part, which I feel I'm up to. There's a complex plan involved, which isn't that complex, really, but a little tedious. And it would require an output of cash. And some help from friends and family in cities other than New York. And some phone calls on my part.

The plan? Well, that's for next time, dear reader(s). Stay tuned.

Been a looong while, hasn't it?

So I haven't written about this in a long while, and to be honest, when you're dealing with simple edits, there's not much to say other than, well, I did some more editing today.

But the thing is, there was a long stretch where I didn't do much writing. I was moving from Queens to Harlem. The specifics aren't important, but when I moved, I had to restock my apartment, set things up, and so on. I had to settle in, in other words, and that kept me occupied. I also wondered if I should even continue with this novel, with novels at all.

And I've decided that I should at least get the damn thing into shape. And that's what I've been doing, getting it into shape. Right now, I'm going through and implementing all the edits. Once that's finished, I'm going to have to get into the rewrites, then back into editing. Hopefully that'll be the end of it. Since I've been getting back into the groove, I've been pretty good about working on this monster. Perhaps it'll go faster now.

I've been working... really, I have!

I've been working on Godsend, but I've been taking a slightly different approach to the material this time around. When I first sat down to write this story, I wrote all the fun, juicy bits first, and left the connective tissue for later. Well, I'm easily bored sometimes, and this perhaps wasn't the best idea, since I dragged my feet on writing the boring bits.

But now, I'm doing the grunt work first. I'm not re-writing the thing from the ground up, but I am fixing things, like punctuation and spelling, and cutting things out and so on. But there are scenes to write. And since I enjoy writing scenes, I'm saving that for last. So it's like dessert. Before, it was like I had a dessert of chocolate cake before I had my supper of saw dust. Now, I'm having the supper first and saving the cake for later.

Let's hope this works.

I'm writing a sequence - well, I don't know if it's strictly a sequence - where our hero, Christine, is getting up in the morning and getting ready for work. She's got a bit of a hangover, but that's not really important. What's important is how she gets ready for work.

Or is it?

What does a person's morning routine say about them? Before, I had about a page and a half about what Christine did to get ready for the day, from washing her face all the way to walking out the door. It wasn't too detailed, despite it's length (it's in 12 point Courier New font, double spaced - anything you write covers a lot of page space like that). But now I'm wondering, considering the direction the novel takes, should I go into some small details.

One thing is for certain, Christine is going to use an electric toothbrush. And she's going to meticulously floss and rinse her mouth. That's three things for certain. A fourth thing, I'm not going to spend a page and a half on her morning routine, either.

Hmm.

I think I know what I need to do here.

Holy crap! I've been ignoring this for too long, especially since I've done a little work on the old girl. It wasn't much, but it was something. I got to my new place last night, and I was able to sit down and work on a few pages of edits. Mostly it was just some basic grammar stuff, reworking a sentence or three, and a slight restructuring, but it's something.

I haven't been as good to Godsend as I have been to other projects. But I hope to treat her better this year. I'm 31, and I want to finish this before I'm 32.

Moving on

Sometimes you have to look at your work and realize that you have to move on from it. I'm not giving up on the novel, but on the scene I've been worrying over. The thing is, I haven't been able to get that scene the way I want it. Christine's boss is introduced, and then... I have to have him act mean. But my heart isn't in that right now.

So instead of letting this one scene - something that won't be more than two paragraphs long - I'm letting it sit right now. It's the best thing to do for it. There are so many other parts on which I need to work that I can afford to let this go. I cannot, however, forget about it. Not that I"m going to forget it. I hope I'm not, anyway.

But you get the idea.