What are you working on at the moment?

[K.]

Richard, yes I torture the main character. He's lawful evil, and when I hit a sticky spot in the story, to get it moving, I shove the character into a situation where the only way out is to do something chaotic good.

Keeps the story lively, and it really drives the character (in my head) crazy. Besides, it's so much FUN to see him squirm. I'm hoping the series will see him change moralities, but I'm not holding my breath. That color blue just isn't a good look.

[K.P.]

nerd. :P

[K.]

K.P. I'm a gamer at heart, and that's actually where my main character comes from. So, the morality alignments are my bread and butter. Helps to keep the story on track for me, at least.

[E.J.]

Hi guys! I'm currently working on Nexus, the sequel to my first novel Dakiti. They're sci fi with environments and concepts that were heavily influenced by Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. I'm actually done writing Nexus and it's currently in the editing/beta-reading stage and hovering around 145,500 words. Phew! The official release date is December 1 so I've still got about a month and a half to go. I'm on my third self-beta-read and am twiddling my thumbs while waiting for my editor and other beta readers to finish. It's starting to get exciting!

I've also been trying to make a little progress on the third book in this trilogy as well. I've only got about 19,000 words done so far, but I've got more outlined and I have a pretty good idea of where the story needs to go. There's still a lot of planning to do, and all of this is really hard to work on during school :P

[K.]

E.J. What level of school are you in? Would be nice to get to know another student. (Master's level myself, though the classes are easy enough, I guess.)

WHEE!!! Class Novella is done and submitted! Now, I can focus on getting book 2 wrapped up, and start getting the foundations for 3 in place. I forgot to mention earlier, I'm going to try for NaNo. I must be insane, but I'm going to try.

[E.J.]

K. wrote: "E.J. What level of school are you in? Would be nice to get to know another student. (Master's level myself, though the classes are easy enough, I guess.)

WHEE!!! Class Novella is done and submi..."

I'm a 5th year senior going for a degree in IT with a health information emphasis and a minor in medical sociology! My schedule is pretty light for this whole final year so it makes it a little easier to get away with writing instead of doing school work ;) I still find myself sitting in class and I realize I haven't heard a word of the lecture for the past 10 minutes because my brain has been on another planet...

[K.]

E.J. wrote: "I'm a 5th year senior going for a degree in IT with a health information emphasis and a minor in medical sociology! My schedule is pretty light for this whole final year so it makes it a little easier to get away with writing instead of doing school work ;) I still find myself sitting in class and I realize I haven't heard a word of the lecture for the past 10 minutes because my brain has been on another planet... "

::Laughs:: Thankfully, I haven't lost any lecture... yet. I just have issues when class papers interfere with writing time. That's when I have difficulty getting things done. The ego doesn't want to do a poor job on the class papers, but the heart wants to rush through and just slap something together. The result: Nothing getting done at all. A real disaster.

Here's hoping to a good year for you. Just remember what the priorities are. I have trouble with that from time to time myself.

[Jamie]

Haven't checked in here for a long time. I'm:

- print proofing Blood of the Water, Arts Reborn: Book II
- helping beta edit/compile Beyond the Gate, an upcoming cross genre short story anthology set in the steampunkish fantasy Engine World
- letting the first draft of my Arts Reborn 2.5 novella simmer this week
- plotting Book III: Winds of Turmoil, which I intends to write most of in NaNoWrimo
- and I co-host the To Be Read Podcast, www.tbrpodcast.com every Tuesday night on Google+

So I've been busy. :)

[Frederick]

I am wrapping up the second pass through my first novel. It's an alternate history political satire where the United States is founded by Satan-worshiping pirates and the pilgrims wind up in Haiti. I expect to start looking for beta readers at the end of the year.

This was a NaNoWriMo project from last November.

[Sapphire]

I just finished writing a book (Pilgrimage) and now I'm getting ready to move onto something different. My first two books were fantasy, now I want to write a mystery novella, so that's my next project.

[Christina]

Anyone else biting off more than they can chew? Right now I have just finished the first draft of the first book in my next series. I still need cover/blurb/buttloads of edits and I'm hoping for late Nov release. At the same time, I'm formatting another book for print, learning to knit, putting together a major promo for late November, trying to get my house repairs done before family comes into town for the holidays, and working with a nutritionist to figure out why my vitals are out of whack. Oh, and I'm trying to squeeze in time to participate in our latest peer review endeavors here!
Ok, most of that was probably TMI, but I had to kvetch somewhere and it seemed somewhat relevant here.

[Jamie]

Christina wrote: "Anyone else biting off more than they can chew? Right now I have just finished the first draft of the first book in my next series. I still need cover/blurb/buttloads of edits and I'm hoping for la..."

I hear you. :) One revision to start, one print proof to finalize, plotting the next book, assisting on an anthology, 2 young boys, start of the NBA season, and consulting projects? :D

[Frederick]

And I thought *I* was having a busy autumn.

[Christina]

Jamie wrote: "I hear you. :) One revision to start, one print proof to finalize, plotting the next book, assisting on an anthology, 2 young boys, start of the NBA season, and consulting projects? :D "

And I forgot about basketball! I guess this will be another season of yelling, "what's the score?" at my husband.

[Aurora]

Yes! I have a trilogy in progress (SF & paranormal). Book 1 is mostly at the editing stage, book 2 is maybe half written with a start on book 3. I want to have a good idea of the overall direction and characters before publishing Book 1.
Also I'm writing a short story. Never mind my day job!

[J.A.]

Three books, two novellas and some short stories on the go. Also cramming in some recommended reading from Festival of Writing '14, working full time and also learning to knot (with little success so far it has to be said.) as to that running and martial arts... Yeah I really need to pick a project and stick with it!

[Christina]

Okay, good. It's a writer thing. I'm not crazy, just... Ambitious.

[K.]

Well, since you asked, Christina:

Book 1 is undergoing a major edit - I let quite a bit of cortex get out under the polish, and so I'm doing my best to knock that off.

Book 2 is with the betas, and I expect to be getting it back for round 2 of edits some time mid November

Book 3 is what I'm writing for NaNo

Oh, school adds 4 major papers for grades, I have no idea how many tests this coming month, and that is before you add in just living and figuring out how to pay the bills with the day job.

For some reason, I think that writers without a tidal wave falling on them in work just can't THINK clearly enough to make things come together properly.

at least, that's my story after reading the replies to your comment. And, I'm sticking to it.

[G.G.]

@Christina I'm biting more than I can chew but not by choice. I dealt with sick pets. Four out of five had health problems such as teeth infections (2), bee sting or spider bite, pneumonia etc.. One had to undergo an emergency operation for her back and still is under restraint movements. Couple with a neck injury, which prevented me from reading, much less writing. Anyway, everyone is much better now so I'm back to my word processor, albeit keeping conservative. I'm fine even if I can only write 100-500 words a day. :)

Now for thread: I started on a new project, a side story to my series. While it will be a stand alone, it will give more insights about the villains from book one, and a new race appearing in the sequel. Contrarily to the other two, which are equally sci-fi and fantasy, this one will be pure sci-fi.

The title isn't final yet but I'm tilting toward 'The Legacy: Dax' to stay in tune with the rest of the series.

[Christina]

G.G. wrote: "@Christina I'm biting more than I can chew but not by choice. I dealt with sick pets. Four out of five had health problems such as teeth infections (2), bee sting or spider bite, pneumonia etc.. On..."

Aw, I hope all the pets are healing and recovering well!

[Montgomery]

Right now, I'm promoting Ella Bandita and the Wanderer- the first in a 4-book fantasy/erotica series of the Ella Bandita Stories. The novel as a whole is offered only in paperback form through Amazon. Through ebooks, "Ella Bandita and the Wanderer" is broken down into 4 novelettes that will be released every 3-4 months - "Birthing Ella Bandita;" "The Bard Speaks;" "Challenge;" and "The Heart of the Lone Wolf" are the 4 parts that make up "Ella Bandita and the Wanderer." I'm currently working on the 2nd novel in the series, "The Shepherd and the Courtesan." I plan on promoting that the same way as the first, and I expect it to be out by Summer 2015.

[[deleted user]]

Working on the last scene of the last chapter of my next book. It's already written, just needs some serious polishing. Then I'll write a short epilogue and switch to my editing/publishing role. I hope to be done with this soon.

[[deleted user]]

Finished my current work in progress late last night. A book that I expected to have 90-100,000 words ended up at 130,000+ and 34 chapters plus a short epilogue. Now comes the editing phase, but publication isn't too far away.

[Micah]

OK, so finally I've published my short fiction collection, The Cut-Up Man: And other Posthuman Cycle stories:



Which means I can finally get started on the edits/re-writes of my next novel, the rough draft of which was completed way back in January.

This collection was supposed to have been a slight break between finishing the first draft and the beginning of editing. I mean, how long can four short stories take, right? Especially since a couple of these stories had actually been started in 2013.

Well...Happy Autumn! One of the short stories turned into a novella, another turned into a novelette. And the other two short stories were finished back in August and published separately as individual works.

Soooo much stuff already started and chomping at the bit to be completed. If only I could retire from my day job...

[Micah]

Christina wrote: "Okay, good. It's a writer thing. I'm not crazy, just... Ambitious."

I'm not crazy, just... unfocused.

Or at least I used to be. I just looked at my writing projects list. I've got 9 stories that I've actually started writing that I want to publish someday, one other that's not been started other than some preliminary notes...and eight others that have either been started or are in some form of development which I'm unsure I'll ever pursue (at least one of them has over 250 pages written, and it's nowhere near done).

But that's the fruit of over 30 years of dabbling. Nowadays I tend to pick a bigger project and a smaller one and just focus on those.

[Keith]

I just finished published the second volume in what I plan to be a three-volume "The Mayonnaise Murders" series. I will say up front that it is somewhat wacky and humorous so it's not for the hardcore scoff types, although I do love hardcore scifi. I am continuing to learn how to market and promote my work, which is at times exhausting but also pretty exciting. I definitely made some mistakes after publishing the first volume about a year ago so I'm hoping I've learned a few things since then. Meanwhile I'm sketching out The Mayonnaise Murders Part 3 and working to finish a fantasy novel for children before Christmas.

[Richard]

I got a bit bogged down in the third novel in my Asteroid Police series, and decided to write a novella/short story in the back story to the series, set just 15 years in the future and in Earth orbit. It's a relief to be able to use Earth-based analogies again. I'm aiming more squarely for a young audience this time, heaven knows how that will work out. I'm also trying to separate the narrative voice from the heroine, as it got a bit boring looking out of heoric eyes all the time. She seems to want to turn into a bad-guy though. These people can be a bit confusing sometimes.

[Turhan]

Christina wrote: "Anyone else biting off more than they can chew? Right now I have just finished the first draft of the first book in my next series. I still need cover/blurb/buttloads of edits and I'm hoping for la..."

Well, this is a c/p from another thread I commented on "So, how the heck do I review/appraise books for The (smaller) Source review, then go on to review them, then reread my own 1st book in my trilogy (because I am starting the 2nd in the trilogy and need to refresh my mind about all its details) then start writing it. Plus, work a full time job, blah blah and more blah."

Hope your vitals get back on track :)

[Christina]

The real life business is mostly over, print copy of Going Green finally went to publishing (fyi: if anyone ever decides to do a book with pictures, expect a fight if you use Create Space.), and while everyone else is Nano-ing this month, I have set this time aside for intensive edits. After that, I may just dedicate all of December to reading and reviewing for the (smaller) Source. Who am I kidding? I'll still be trying to write, read, and go Christmas crazy.

[Richard]

Christina quoth do a book with pictures, expect a fight if you use Create Space

My bok has illustrations and I've not had a lot of problems. It complains a lot, but lets you go ahead anyway. If you're using Word and have an indent on paragraphs, it'll place a full-width illustration wrongly. It sizes it to fit the width, then indents it like a paragraph, so it violates the right margin. What I do is create a stle called 'picture' which is just like 'normal' but without the indent, and apply that whenever I insert a picture. You probably know all this, but the other no-no is pasting a picture into a document. Always use 'insert picture.'

[Christina]

My issue turned out to be with the human review. I have one picture that is meant to look like part of a newspaper classified ad. The body of the text is centered and to the sides there is extra text that gets cut off where the page was ripped out. It's mostly nonsense meant to make the reader wonder what is being asked, but clearly, it is not the focus. It was rejected as 'textual information is cut off on page 69.'
I reuploaded, got someone who wasn't burnt out, and it passed. It just took me a whole to figure out what was 'wrong.'

[Richard]

Text in pictures is one of the things robot editors don't handle well. Maybe we need sentient ones.

[[deleted user]]

I just finished the first editing run-through of my soon-to-be-released novel. That took two weeks, and I'll need to run through it at least one more time--or several more if I'm not satisfied. I eliminated some redundancies, but added a little meat here and there, plus a brand new scene, so at 131,000+ words it's about a 1000 words longer than it was. Blurb is ready, book cover is ready, Facebook cover is ready; should be able to publish soon.

[J.]

I just started a first draft of the sequel to my first novel.

[K.]

Still waiting on Betas to get the first read impressions of book 2 back to me, NaNo (book 3 in the series), revisions on book 1. And, 2 of my "finished" school papers. Instructor told us one thing, but actually wants something else. Ugh! Back to the drawing board on that project.

[Turhan]

J. wrote: "I just started a first draft of the sequel to my first novel."

That's kinda where I'm at too :)

[Jamie]

So I "won" NaNoWriMo today, crossing 50K words in 26 days, with only 1 non-writing day (and did some outlining that day).

Now I need to do it again, and then some, to finish this >100K book. :D

But it's fun to be doing it at the same time as a bunch of other people and chatting a bit about it.

[Hákon]

Congrats Jamie. :-)

I was thinking about taking part in it, but didn't get around to it.

[Christina]

Wow! That's fantastic Jamie!

[Aurora]

Congrats to Jamie and other "winners" 50k is a lot in one month.

I'm in full edit mode with just under 80k in my WIP started in September.

[J.A.]

Well done, Jamie :)

I have 10,000 words to go and three days to do it in... I may have to induce the fugue writing state.

[Siobhan]

Congrats Jamie!!

[Siobhan]

I'm currently working on my second novel. It's of the horror genre, but haven't yet figured out the target audience.

[K.P.]

have a lot on my plate so far. finishing editing on 2 books beta reading 3 others and got 2 books finalising edits on for december 15 release (3rd book in the agency series and a dark fantasy "guardian legend". ) happy turkey day everyone

[Richard]

Siobhan said haven't yet figured out the target audience

You'll be lucky! You just have to put stuff out in places where such things are welcomed, and let the audience find you.

[Turhan]

I'm working on editing my blurb for typos, changing the title to my book with a font change too, adding my full name as author on the book cover instead of just my 'given' name, plus I'm going to remove a tagline from the bottom of the cover, after a suggestion by Sue after she had appraised it. Oh, and I've started the 2nd book in the trilogy.

[Richard]

Turhan wrote: "... I've started the 2nd book in the trilogy"

Well done. It's always good to have a book on the go.

[K.]

Well folks, I know I turned into a lurker, but I haven't been idle. The semester finally ended, and I am looking forward to catching up on the forum here.

I also have decided to submit to a small, independent publisher, but while I wait, I went ahead and pushed my second book out to start the process of conversion (it's on preorder, but until I know it won't bounce, I don't want to clutter up threads with it.) Still chiseling away on revisions to book 1, but I'm hoping to be done with those tonight. Once I am, I will get the update out as well. That leaves book 3 and all of the wonderful reads I've been anticipating on the burner for the rest of the month.

Kind of exciting, really. Seeing what it's going to be like again once I'm out of school permanently.

[Patricia]

I'm presently working on the third of my Distant Suns stories. At first there wasn't going to be a third until I received my first review for Distant Suns - The Journey Home, where the reviewer urged me to change the ending and expand it into another book. I realised they were right and, due to the delights of ebooks, I wrote a new epilogue and unloaded it and am now writing the third book, for which I'm yet to decide a name.

I tried to set myself a word count to aim for on my writing days, but so far that hasn't worked out. Also I love Christmas, but it is completely getting in the way. I shall hopefully be able to focus over the holidays and get on full steam ahead. I find once I pass a certain point the book starts writing itself. Thanksfully I'm there and the characters and situations are starting to tell me what's happening.

[Turhan]

I'm working on my Createspace POD because I changed the title of my book and it's driving me insane!