It's ALIVE

To quote the last line I wrote of this chapter, "What have I done?" I think I have created a monster. I have no idea how it happened, but there is no way this chapter should be nearly 20,000 words long. It just...happened. It's also one of the better chapters I've written, but it's too long, especially when the average is sitting around 8,000 words per chapter. This was an interlude. Ugh. Good news is that with the completion of this chapter, this means I only have one interlude left and the end of the story. I am closer than I have ever been to completing this abomination of text that I have worked 7 years on. Granted, I still have a lot of unfinished sections that need to be re-written, but I can finally taste the end. I will finish this, and I will celebrate. For now, work continues.

Current word count: 140,000 (rounding down to account for outline words)
Page count: 231

Uh oh....

So in my efforts to write Jason's chapters, a new character was born and I'm not sure if I like her yet. Though, she is working hard to finally help me develop some character, though I think she should develop herself if she's going to be sticking around for awhile. I'll see how this turns out, and hopefully I won't have to scrap the whole endeavour when I realize how bad of an idea it was. Then again, I need a few more women in my story. It's a little lop-sided at the moment.

Welcome to the cast Kelly Garth. May your pig-tails and chipper attitude survive the final cuts.

Meanwhile...I seem to be writing three chapters at once. I can tell this is going to end well. Before you know it, characters and events will be crossing space and time to invade other parts of the story they are not welcome in. I'm looking at you Kelly.

40% = 100%

At least in the Fire Emblem world. Playing on hard mode is like being slapped in the face. With a fish.

Over and over.



Quick update because I'm quite ill and extremely tired.

I was reading Dan's interlude again on the train the other day and came across a lot of HORRIBLE typos. It was terrible...extremely terrible. For instance, I used "you're" instead of "your" in one sentence. That nearly killed me to read. Yes, I feel the shame.

At any rate, I went back and read it one more time to fix the really terrible parts. It still needs work, but it's readable. I realized the free-running part and the end of the chapter are actually not bad. I'm pretty happy with them. The beginning needs to be completely re-written I think, but that's not too serious. So I have a prettier version of the chapter now, which makes me happy.

Also, the new Within Temptation album is awesome. That also makes me happy. Now I'm off to sleep.


Or write some of my portfolio material...




Nah I'll just sleep. I still have five days.

BALLS

So it turns out that the new release date for Republic of Thieves is JANUARY 10, 2012. BALLS AND A HALF. It's enough to make you cry rivers of madness. Yeah, even I don't know what that means. I was hopeful that it would be this year, maybe even October or November...but no. No that hope was dashed today at that fateful Chapters book search station in Chinook. I thought I'd post an update on that here since that's one of the reasons people are actually finding this blog. So...you're welcome?

Man, this book had better be good. At least it hasn't been 12 years (Duke Nukem Forever anyone? Not that I ever played the originals...and the game looks pretty...not what I'd like.)

Also, speaking of stuff that never gets made, published or written...I finished Dan's interlude. Finally. It's long. I'll probably need to cut a few parts out, but I'm not sure which ones yet. That or I need to make Dedrad's part A LOT longer. I probably should anyway because his interlude isn't as interesting.

I can't remember if I mentioned this, but I think that the place I'm going to insert a lot of explanation on the mechanics of my world in Chapter 1. I need to rewrite it anyways because it's...not fitting with the tone of the rest of the story the way I want it to. So right now I have Chapter 1 and Dedrad's Interlude first on the docket for overhaul when I'm done this. If ever.

Lordy I still have a long way to go. There's an element I'm debating about the end. I am no where close to writing it, but need to decide what's going to happen to two of the characters. I'm hoping that the story will just reveal the answer as I write, but either way, I'm not sure if I'll be completely satisfied with either alternative.

I've made tons of progress in the last year. It's funny because I look back to March of last year and I had JUST finished Dedrad's interlude. Calculating the progress from there until now, this means that I will take another two years to finish this. I'm not liking those stats. I'm going to try and get this done before summer 2012 (NOT BECAUSE THE WORLD IS "ENDING"). I'm planning a 3 month trip to Europe that summer and I want the completion of this to be a reason for celebrating with that trip (aside from...you know graduating university...). I have a lot of work to do, and that's not taking into account school work, work work and any other incidents that may crop up in the meantime.

I am also horrible at setting goals and deadlines for myself. Heh, heh.

The Second Interlude

Man, this really was the chapter than never ends. I started with a simple idea, and it kept going and going and going. I had my own personal energizer bunny by the end. This chapter taught me one main lesson: stories have a mind of their own. I'm sure I knew that before, but after this...I realized that I need to do a lot more work on poor Dedrad. He's my least developed character. He needs a little TLC, because he's an important foil for Ash. That and I need to rewrite chapter 1. This has been a long-term project, so naturally my style of writing has changed. Chapter 1 is a little too slap-stick for my liking. First half stays, second half needs help. I think this is the place where I'll explain the mechanics of my story's world. It's the perfect place for it.

I put a lot of work and research into Dan's chapter. First part, inspirational/fitting songs for the piece. Second part is reference material. My God those knives are beautiful. If I had $2000 dollars of expendable cash, I'd be all over that. Though, I'm pretty sure Canadian customs would have a few choice words about bringing tactical knives over the border.


Dead Inside - X-ray Dog
Enigmatic Soul - Two Steps From Hell
Morrocan Roll - X-ray Dog (and no I don't know why it isn't spelled "Moroccan" aside from the play on words...more rock 'n roll...har)
Lake of Fire - Nirvana

Jay Fisher World Class Knife Maker

I am now OFFICIALLY done one third of my novel. I expect the final product in rough to be around 300 pages by the end at this rate. Take that number and subtract 10-15%. Therefore, we should be sitting around 255-270 pages and 131500 words...which will probably be too much. Lots of editing to be done ladies and gents, though I took a few extra liberties with chapters than I should have. Maybe I'm over-explaining. Meh, it's only version 3 of WMRR (technically 2.5, but we'll say three for the sake of keeping the concept simple).