"Counterpunch" edits - done

Ten days later - and I'm done with "Counterpunch", which received a pretty good scrubbing in the meantime. I've cut the lazy writing, sharpened my structure, fixed some factual mistakes (these days, all writers have to do their own fact-checking anyway), and cut all the flourishes and self-indulgence that added nothing to the book.

Which now means I'm trashing my print-outs, my notes and re-shelf my books on boxing. Clean up my work area and thus clear my mind of the book and characters. And then I'll sit down in a corner, cradle my hurting brain and whimper softly. (Editing a book means you have to carry the whole thing in your head and remember everything, because nobody else will ever point out the small issues and mistakes, and nobody takes ownership of this, so, essentially, this final edit is very much the writer's obligation, and wow, but it's hard work.)

Editing, I've heard it said, is the punishment for writing.

But holding the book like that, and having done my research and my fact check, I have ideas for a sequel, possibly. There's some intriguing possibilities with the characters, and another character who can mess it all up.

However, it's all up in the sky right now. I'll need to clear my head now, do nothing writing-related for a couple days (I'm thinking I'll play "Gears of War" pts. 1 and 2 to celebrate the launch of "Gears of War 3" NEXT FRIDAY!!!), then do the sanity and typo check on two novels of two friends - both urgent, both great novels.

After that, I'll write my half of "Lion of Kent 2" (which involves a metric fuckton of research) for Carina Press (hopefully), and hope to close 2011 with that.

In terms of novels, I'll dedicate 2012 entirely to WWII - both novels need to get going again or I'll lose the characters, but the research is intimidating to say the least. Twelve months for two historical novels and around 50 books of research sound about right.

After all the books written this year, I'm looking forward to taking things down a notch. Writing novels in 6-8 weeks is completely insane. I simply can't do it. I dig in too deep, deal with pretty complex things and I can't do that in 6-8 weeks. I'll need some time to find my equilibrium, so I'd say 2012 will be a "slow" year, and I'll definitely try to do some travelling, too after staying at home in 2011.

So, yep. Mission Accomplished. Now relaxing.

Counterpunch edits

I got the edits for "Counterpunch" yesterday, which all seem relatively minor--a couple typos, passages where the rhythm is off, house style things and that's pretty much it (I guess I'm just a clean writer overall, and "Counterpunch" has come out pretty clean overall). So that could be easy, right? Err, no. I've recently been on a bit of a "trip to the past" with regards to my style, which tends to mean paring the fluff down even more, using a tighter POV and overall better structure.

Which means, knives are out and I'm giving this book the full treatment once I have a moment. (Work at work is crazy. We're again under strength, thanks to holidays and people leaving. Which is somewhat unfortunate in terms of timing.) The biggest decision I have to make is how to deal with any potential connected work.

Right now, there are a couple "missing scenes" from "Counterpunch" that would make a good addition to the book. Originally, I was hoping to write a related project (possibly a novella), this month, but I don't think I can fit it in. I'm also thinking that that novella might actually belong to a potential sequel or might stand completely on its own. The main issue is, the novella puts everything that happened in "Counterpunch" into a completely different light, and it seems wrong to simply deliver that like an afterthought. So, potentially, that idea might be large, it might start where "Counterpunch" ends, and I'm running out of time on the "Lion" sequel and a number other projects.

A couple days ago, a good friend told me she has an aggressive cancer, which in many ways brings home mortality (apart from all the other emotions that I can't speak about--least of all in public. That's stuff that I need to work through on my own, really). From my family history, I have a good chance to get cancer, too, so at least I have a fair idea how I'm going to end.

As a writer, it made me think of all the books I really want to write. It's that old mind-game: If you only had a year to live, what would you write?

In my case, that's "finishing Dark Soul" (a project that's ~20 years old), "Lion 2", and the two WWII novels. So that's basically what I'm going to do, before I think about any short stories, novellas or sequels to anything else. The WWII novels especially have been heavy on my brain, so I'll focus on those for the rest of the year and likely all of 2012.

2011 has been an insanely productive period, but part of me thinks "stop messing around" - it's like I'm running to all these other projects largely because I'm scared as hell to mess up the historicals. I'm scared witless of getting any of that stuff wrong. It's time to turn around and face that particular tiger.

I have that one short story to write and "Counterpunch" to edit, and then I'll tackle those three books. It might even mean that that's all that's coming out in 2012 or even in 2013, but I'm OK with that. If I still have time to play, I'm sure I'll find some projects to fill up the rest of the schedule.

More scarce

Several of my people have asked whether I'm OK - so I'm just quickly writing that, yup, I am.

I'm just busy, doing dozen of hours of developmental edits and spending the rest of the time not socializing - I've even left my RL writing group, hard as it was, but I simply wasn't contributing the level of critique that would have been helpful - and the remaining time goes toward getting some writing in.

I've found the time to re-read the Two Birds book and the good news is that the writing's pretty good. It'll need some editing, but we have a pretty solid piece so far. Certainly not the worst thing I've ever written, which is something. The *bad news* is that I've forgotten the rest of the plot. I barely know what happens *now*, but after that I'm drawing blanks - and I had a full plot, I'm pretty sure of that. So, yeah, apparently two months or so is enough to forget a plot. Those were two busy months, but, still.

So, as the saying goes, if you don't hear anything from me, I'm writing. I've also started watching "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman, which, when I tried it many moons ago, didn't do much for me. Now that I know London, however, that's very different. I'm enjoying the insider jokes. Two episodes down, four more to go over the weekend.

Starting on Monday, I'm expecting the edits back for "Counterpunch", and that means more work and a whole LOT more work to turn this around for release. It's OK, it's a good book and I don't expect it to give me any trouble. And while I hope that the editor did more to it than fix a couple wonky commas, I am hoping there won't be huge rewrites.

Chances are, I'll be a bit scarce on the ground this month, as I try to put at least a historical novel and "Counterpunch" to bed. But autumn is the time to slow down, take stock and make the house ready for winter.

Coming up for air

In the last few weeks, I've been working on the "Dark" project, which comprises a number of short stories that are all linked by one character and all of them focus on one aspect of that character.

Yesterday, I completed the fifth story, called "Dark Lady", which is the natural end-point to one of the Big Archs I had in mind when I began exploring this. So, as it stands, I have 5 stories, ranging between around 5k and 12k in length, with a total wordcount of just under 40k - that's 2/3 of a novel.

There are a couple more stories, of course, so right now this feels like around 7-8 stories in total, grouped together in pairs and triplets for added structure. The last part (stories 7 and 8) are still missing, but I have their titles and will play with them over the next few weeks, hopefully completing the whole "Dark" project in the very foreseeable future. Then it'll need tweaking and editing and publication, of course. Right now, I'm pretty damn smug about this project - as smug as you can be when emotionally drained.

I'm also trying to help a friend sell her book, so I'm making phone calls and sending partials to agents in the UK. Just a day in the life, but at least it's a holiday, since I've taken the day off work to recover and regroup.

So, what now? There's a project that demands urgent closure before I lose the characters (yes, I can lose characters). I've promised some short stories and potentially a short novella tied into "Counterpunch", so I better get cracking on that. I'd absolutely love writing something for the current Samhain Publishing submission calls, but I have to step away from that, telling myself I have no time whatsoever for *additional* books.

Then there's the "Lion of Kent" sequel, and the "Dark Edge of Honor"-related novella, and the "Two Birds" book, and, of course, the most serious and slowest of all, the original WWII novel.

I'm hoping to get through some of them before the year's up. Sometimes I look at the list of stories I have to write and despair. It feels like there's just no chance in hell to finish all that in a lifetime, let alone a eighteen months or so. Worst is probably that people are waiting for me to join them or re-join them on some of these, and I'm already working hard and can't clone myself, and then I get my own books thrown at me by the muse, just like the "Dark" project.

I'll get there. One step after the other. Too many projects is - so much - better than being blocked.

Now starting on the "Counterpunch" shorts.

Blog post and a funny

This is something that came through Twitter: stuff people say in bookshops.

Me, I've taken half the day off work to celebrate my/our end of our probationary period - my partner's been three months in his job, and me six months. We're heading out to a restaurant in North London that serves Afghan food (the alternative was Russian, but I wasn't in the mood for that).

The "two birds" book is moving along just fine. Only 150 words yesterday, but that's OK. I do expect to write a bit more tonight and over the weekend - I should hit 10k at least.

Spit'n polish (or: Counterpunch is done)

I need to keep better track of when I start books. But I'm reasonably sure that I started "Counterpunch" in about February. That's a 55k novel in three months. Writing four novels per year can be done, but I'm personally aiming more for 2-3 plus some small fry, because I don't want to burn out in a year or two.

In the last three days, I've applied a spit'n polish edit to the manuscript, which is the quick read-through and typo-fix and continuity check that I do on my own before things go out to betas. In this case, as it's a story set (mostly) in London, this went out to two Brits.

I'm now in the post-book slump. It's a weirdly calm place (no voices in my head), but also very low energy. I struggle to do more than make coffee or get dressed. Getting catapulted from one "reality" into the other is jarring, and part of me desperately wants to escape back into a different book world. But at the same time, I know that's not good. I need to regather, regroup, and recover. Sleep, rest, read, research. While I'm in the throes of writing, all that feels like wasted time to me, but I really need some rest.

So, I figure I'll finish the three books on boxing that I acquired, to be ready for the rewriting. And after that, I'm off to WWII.

Ironically, "Thor", as weak as it was (especially all the stuff in Asgard), has triggered an idea for a book. Since that idea isn't really mine, I need to get in touch with a friend of mine who has an unsold manuscript. I'm figuring I might be able to convince him to hand the idea over to me. It's suitably "high concept" and generally awesome, but he won't be able to sell it in Germany.

And once I'm done with that time period, I'm returning to the crusades and William Raven. (And that other templar I haven't talked about yet.)

Meanwhile, the taxpayer-sponsored spectacle of two nice young people getting married unfolds. And here I thought the Windsors had enough spare cash to pay for all that themselves. Silly me. I'm assured the influx of a few million tourists makes it all worthwhile, and they may just have saved the London-based camping industry.

Me, I'm haunted by the memories of Diana. The nicest, sanest people have to get damaged under all that public pressure. And Kate, while apparently incredibly nice and sweet, is far removed from a "modern queen-in-waiting", as she's been called. We're looking at a woman who has no other ambitions in her life but her prince and to look good on camera. I've seen that model of womanhood fail so often in both my family and those of my friends that I cringe inwardly when I see women submit like that.

And let's not forget that only her male kids can become kings, whereas even a first-born daughter has no rights to the throne. The whole spectacle is so anachronistic. At least we're having a day off... but I rather suspect that the London infrastructure wouldn't be able to cope with people trying to get to work while the inner city is full of watchers.

The greatest thing ever

Yesterday, late, at night (okay, it was really morning, technically speaking), I finished a book. It's my boxer book, tentatively called "Counterpunch" and it stands as a - very - rough draft at 54k.

And it's a thing of beauty. Of course authors are supposed to say that. Partly because we'd never admit to ourselves (or anybody, for that matter) that some books are better than others or that we have doubts if something works. In a way, admiting to doubts makes stuff real. Denying them is a bit like "if I don't see it, nobody will!" and then reviewers don't pick up on it and we go "whew, s/he missed it", and relax, until a better reviewer or a less polite one points out exactly that and why the king is naked.

But regardless of "what's done" and "not done" as a writer, I think "Counterpunch" is the best thing I've ever done, hands down. In part it's because I'm now a better writer than I was even last year. In part also because "Counterpunch" came out in one piece and it's almost perfect. The structure works, the pacing works, the individual scenes work, and the characters work. It's not what I expected it to be - it's what I hoped it would be.

I pushed Brook and his story away a few times and had a rather unpleasant two weeks where I didn't do anything on the text. I hemmed and hawed and freaked out over things like British stories at American publishers (I struggle hard to rewrite something into "American" that's set in Britain and hence written in British English), then I freaked out over royalty rates and release schedules, which led me to partner up with a new publisher who basically makes a lot of effort to please me. Royalties, cover, editing, and "red carpet treatment" inclusive. Contract terms look very favourable to this writer, and I've signed a fair few contracts by now.

The idea is to try several models, several publishers and then narrow things down to the places I really love (and pay me good royalties). More once I've actually submitted the story and have signed the contract.

Back to the book. Currently I'm mentally and emotionally completely drained (and should have taken the three days between the long weekends off, really, to recover from my 16k-in-four-days writing binge), but I'll look into making the usual changes and begin editing.

That means typos and "line editing" stuff, then a Brit check (because some of my phrasing is pretty American, and that's just wrong for this book) - I already have two volunteers lined up for that), and then a final line edit and style check from a seriously hardcore beta.

Then submission, wait, contract check, signing on the dotted line. I'm looking at a November release, hopefully. But in the meantime I'll bask in what I think is a job well done - and I'll hope you agree with me once you've read it.