Kater Cheek's Blog - Posts Tagged "draft"
Changer's Turf progress
I finished the first draft of CHANGER'S TURF in August, a little over a year after I started. Since then I've been working hard on revisions. I got a new software, called Scrivener, and I can't believe I've ever been so foolish as to attempt a revision without it.
Usually a revision is a messy affair, involving notecards, stacks of tiny printouts of chapters, and various chunks of manuscript cut and pasted (with scissors! and tape!) and laid together on the living room floor, while the cats do their best to foil my efforts. Now I can do it all on the computer.
I'm so fortunate to have a number of amazing writer friends who have been willing to read my draft and give me feedback. When I'm done with this edit, I'll get a working cover so that I can print out proofs for copyediting.
Hope you guys can wait a little longer. (I'm not the most patient person either.) Current estimation is that CHANGER'S TURF will hit the shelves around Christmas. I'll post a cover when I've got it.
Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen my new novel, ALTERNATE SUSAN, feel free to go to my website, where I'm serializing it. If you like it, it's out now. It's the first in a new series.
Usually a revision is a messy affair, involving notecards, stacks of tiny printouts of chapters, and various chunks of manuscript cut and pasted (with scissors! and tape!) and laid together on the living room floor, while the cats do their best to foil my efforts. Now I can do it all on the computer.
I'm so fortunate to have a number of amazing writer friends who have been willing to read my draft and give me feedback. When I'm done with this edit, I'll get a working cover so that I can print out proofs for copyediting.
Hope you guys can wait a little longer. (I'm not the most patient person either.) Current estimation is that CHANGER'S TURF will hit the shelves around Christmas. I'll post a cover when I've got it.
Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen my new novel, ALTERNATE SUSAN, feel free to go to my website, where I'm serializing it. If you like it, it's out now. It's the first in a new series.
Kit Melbourne 6 Progress and Delays
I have rules for myself, and one of them is that I only work on one project at a time. I work on it until it's done, and then I go on to a next project. It's a pretty good rule, keeps me from having a lot of half-finished projects lying around. sometimes the 3/5ths mark of a novel is the nadir of inspiration, for example, and without this rule I might not finish anything.
But I had a novel I wanted to work on that had been haunting me for a while. I have a title for it that I love "Prophet of an Indie God" and it's in an alternate version of America. A really, really alternate version. I had only written one truly second-world novel before, and it was a hot, steaming mess. But this time would be different.
Eight months and 50,000 words later, I decided to set it aside. I got too bogged down with worldbuilding and lost what excited me about the project in the first place. I'm going to finish it, someday, but later.
So I started working on the sixth book in the Kit Melbourne series. I had already written it. It was, in fact, one of my favorites. It deals with a woman dying of an incurable disease, a boy who sees faeries and a girl who stopped aging as a tween. There's a really cute scene at a Halloween festival when a faerie-made costume turns to leaves and grass at midnight, forcing its wearer to sprint home in the all-together.
But I had to throw it all away. When I first wrote it, I was learning to write, and I wanted to explore other characters, but now that I'm publishing this series as the Kit Melbourne series, I feel that each book has to have her as a main character. I tried to insert her in there, but it just didn't work.
So I'm rewriting it with a new plot. Some of the characters bear passing resemblances to the original characters, which will confuse those half-dozen people who read the first version, but it's now darker and more twisted. I hope it will remind people of stories they've heard about or lived through in their own lives. I hope it will resonate. I know it will entertain.
But I haven't gotten very far, so you're not going to see it until late 2015 or early 2016. In the meantime, I plan to publish some stories I've been holding in reserve, and maybe try to edit and format and get some other novels ready for publishing. I plan on publishing at least one thing in 2015, but this one, this book that was once called FAMILIAR BATTLES, this one may take a while.
I hope you agree it's worth the wait.
But I had a novel I wanted to work on that had been haunting me for a while. I have a title for it that I love "Prophet of an Indie God" and it's in an alternate version of America. A really, really alternate version. I had only written one truly second-world novel before, and it was a hot, steaming mess. But this time would be different.
Eight months and 50,000 words later, I decided to set it aside. I got too bogged down with worldbuilding and lost what excited me about the project in the first place. I'm going to finish it, someday, but later.
So I started working on the sixth book in the Kit Melbourne series. I had already written it. It was, in fact, one of my favorites. It deals with a woman dying of an incurable disease, a boy who sees faeries and a girl who stopped aging as a tween. There's a really cute scene at a Halloween festival when a faerie-made costume turns to leaves and grass at midnight, forcing its wearer to sprint home in the all-together.
But I had to throw it all away. When I first wrote it, I was learning to write, and I wanted to explore other characters, but now that I'm publishing this series as the Kit Melbourne series, I feel that each book has to have her as a main character. I tried to insert her in there, but it just didn't work.
So I'm rewriting it with a new plot. Some of the characters bear passing resemblances to the original characters, which will confuse those half-dozen people who read the first version, but it's now darker and more twisted. I hope it will remind people of stories they've heard about or lived through in their own lives. I hope it will resonate. I know it will entertain.
But I haven't gotten very far, so you're not going to see it until late 2015 or early 2016. In the meantime, I plan to publish some stories I've been holding in reserve, and maybe try to edit and format and get some other novels ready for publishing. I plan on publishing at least one thing in 2015, but this one, this book that was once called FAMILIAR BATTLES, this one may take a while.
I hope you agree it's worth the wait.
