People tell you that editing a book is harder than you think but I’ve found that isn’t true for me. It’s just a hard as I imagined. I officially started working on the second draft last week as April reared its head, and am inching my way towards the second draft. The timeline and new outline helped me realize that with the action and focus being on one character, some major changes needed to take place, such as completely...

It took longer than expected but I’ve completed the reread of the novel and I can honestly say I don’t hate it. Full disclosure I like the story itself but I can tell it needs a lot of repairs for consistency, voice, grammatical editing, and a number of other tweaks, manipulations and adjustments. These are expected; it is my freshman novel and it is, well, a novel. These things don’t magically come out perfect. I...

I’ve spent the last few weeks working my way through the novel, driving myself just a hair crazier with each step. I feel like I’m slowly revealing the map on how to edit the thing, but it’s unnerving at times. I have notes, guidance, and advice from a number of sources, but it’s more akin to someone giving me advice about how to fly while leaving out the things like how to deal with wind, figuring out how to navigate the local...

It’s been almost four years since I submitted something to a market. I submitted a short story called Total Immersion to Fantasy and Science Fiction back in 2007 and received my first and only rejection letter. Loading up the story and looking it over now, I see clearly why it was rejected. Cliché, boring, and full of amateur mistakes. Things I should have caught then had I really looked over the story and had the right people read it....

For two weeks now, I’ve been keeping up with the writing. As mentioned last post, I’ve been continuing to wake up early and get some Flash Fiction in. When this post was written, their total weight came in at 4108 words. Combine that with the 4798 short story I finished, and I’m up to roughly 9000 words in the past two weeks. It’s not enough compared to be a professional, but I’m climbing. I’m sitting waiting for a first reader...