Book 2 Progress

I try to explain the status of book 2 to everyone who asks about a release date, but I thought it would be helpful If I posted something on my sadly neglected blog with a bit more detail. The biggest question I would probably want answered if I were on the reader’s side would be “What is taking so long?” It’s a fair question and I’ll try to give it a fair answer.

The rough draft of book 2 took about four months to write. It held the basic plot and the general character arcs. To call it a rough draft though, is somewhat misleading. A better description would be a horrible, unreadable, rubbish draft. To the writer, it’s a magical draft because the writer sees the intention, and it is without doubt the most important draft. But if anyone else tried to read it, the experience would be most disappointing ― no, infuriating. The story is in there, but it takes a great deal more work for the writer to extract it from the thorns. Enter rewriting.

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” ― Vladimir Nabokov

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Rewriting is the process of going through the manuscript with infinite care and seeking to improve wherever improvement is possible. It’s more than editing, though that is a part of it. As the term suggests, much of the book is replaced and written with more care. There comes a point when one needs to let go, but that point, for most conscientious writers, is far removed from the first draft. I did several rewrites of the first book, the first being a massive overhaul and the last being a subtle tweaking of words to ensure that sentences sounded right, that the tones of adjacent words interacted well.

I’m currently finishing up the first and longest revision of the sequel. During this stage, I’m filling in gaps, fleshing out scrawny scenes, and tying it all together – melding plot and character. It’s also the stage where I do most of the hard research to make sure the book is solid in the way of terminology and technical accuracy. It’s long and slow. It was made slower by the fact that I was held up quite a lot. The marketing demands of book 1 intruded, but all those channels are now in place and I’ve been able to get back to serious writing.

When it comes to rewriting, different authors have different foci. Here are some of the aspects I concentrate on, the things I try to achieve. To an extent, I look for anything that can improve at any point in the rewrites, but certain stages favour certain elements. (This is a heavily abbreviated description. The full list is several pages long.)

1st draft. Rough story.

1st rewrite. Continuity of plot and personalities of characters. Add detail – specific replaces general (requiring a ton of research).

2nd rewrite. Depth, magic, sparkle, flow, atmosphere, creative word usage. This is where I try to get settings and characters to float up from the page. I also work hard at eliminating hackneyed, lazy forms of expression. I can spend hours on a few sentences, searching for fresh ways to convey ideas. This usually entails throwing out a hundred or more attempts that seem awkward before finding one that blends into the style of the book. Sometimes it’s the first idea that works best, flowing naturally off the page; often it takes a lot of thinking to reach an idea that flows as if it were the first one that came to mind.

Beta readers – first group. Beta readers can take a while. So I will probably write the rough draft of the third book during this time. It gives me a break from the book so I can come back to it with fresh eyes.

3rd rewrite. This one concentrates on the feedback from the beta readers. In the first book, I made significant improvements, cut a few scenes and wrote additional ones.

4th rewrite. General fixes. Restoration of continuity following the surgery (or butchery) of the previous revision. Again, I work on imbuing each page with more sparkle, magic, depth, emotion and resonance – both in characters and their settings.

Beta readers – second group.

5th rewrite. By this stage there shouldn’t be any major fixes necessary, but some tweaks will inevitably be needed. The rest of the revision will be smoothing out and finding typos. I’ll put an emphasis on sounding the book – getting rid of unwanted echoes and other tonal problems.

6th rewrite. This is quick and really more of a read-through – error spotting.

While I’ll probably keep relatively close to this six-rewrite process, I may well do another rewrite or two if the book needs it, and there are sections that will likely be rewritten dozens of times. I rewrote the first chapter in the début perhaps 40 times before I was happy. First chapters are notorious.

The artwork will happen in the background so that by the time the last revision is done, the book will be ready to launch.

 

I truly appreciate the enthusiasm for the second book. I’ll admit that I am strongly tempted (and strongly advised by many rapid-firing authors) to release as quickly as I can. But I’m not comfortable with that. I make no claim on being a good author, but I do make every effort to be the best author I can, and I believe this means producing better books instead of more books. It probably means less income, but I’m okay with that if it results in an improved product and happier customers. I just hope that you are okay with me taking longer to sculpt something better. Let me assure you that the revisions are not subtle tweaks. They make the difference between that which draws you in and that which you need to fight through. The improvements between the early and final versions of the début are huge.

I want book 2 to be as good as book 1 at the very least, preferably better. I’m working hard to improve my writing as I go, adding a part-time masters in English to the study diet. While I’m working as quickly as I can, I do need to mention that book 2 is probably going to end up as long as book 1, which, when multiplied by six revisions, is no minor prospect.

So, the question – how long will it take? Initially I thought I might have it done within a year of the first release, but I can see this is not going to happen. I also worry that if I set myself a desperate deadline, I won’t find that quiet space in which to dream, get lost in a new world, and then return to the manuscript to pour out the treasures I found. Realistically, then, it will probably be near the end of 2016. A long wait, I know, but I hope you can see that it’s because I’m working hard to deliver something that is worthy of a much-appreciated readership, not because I’m kicking back and watching cable. (I don’t even own a Time Vaporizer.)

One last quote:

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”― Samuel Johnson

The effort going in on my side, will, I hope, be appreciated in the end. Thank you, everyone who has mailed me to tell not to rush it, to take the time to get it right. It really is encouraging to know I’m backed up in that way. Patience is a rare thing these days and I value the understanding more than you can imagine.

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