Edit, Edit, Edit! All in the name of "Good"!

I hope, I do not complain too much about the editing process as such. It is simply a brutally boring work but it needs to be done. Received back the edited version of my newest Young Adult novel. Grammar and spelling I already approved mostly unseen. Writing in a non-native language gives you almost no argument NOT to accept these type of errors. That took ten minutes. 

What takes ten days is the content edit: Rephrasing, rewriting, logical error. See below one of the many examples. 

Typical edit for rephrasing

What brings me through this phase is good music in the background. Yesterday it was a rediscovered Gerry Rafferty's City to City. Tonight William Fitzsimmons's Derivates enriched by Halloween, Alaska. Enough, I shouldn't write blogs, I should edit my manuscript!

From the Writer's Desk - March Update

Long time no hear. Working on various things at once, but most importantly, I switched projects in mid-stride. In my last post I tracked the progress for the next romantic comedy. A month ago I decided to put the writing on hold and concentrate on a new project. A bit of a longer explainer might come later, but I am almost done with what I set out to do. 

The new project came as sort of a Sunday night inspiration, writing a young adult novel based on "a formula". It took me about two days to work on the formula and then I simply started writing. I am now at 35K words of a 50K words target and hope to be done by end of April. That is the great thing about being an independent unsuccessful author — you can turn your ship on the top of a pin at moment's notice, as you are only responsible to you. The story based on the formula came out almost exactly as I envisioned it to be. A little too short after the first A-Z run, working on bolstering it up now. Thinking about illustration, too, but not sure how that will work, timing wise.

Going into Young Adult novels has another consequence: I'll need to restructure my website. Right now, I just have the content split in three sections: the blog you are reading now, English novels, German novels. This might not work as I'd like to keep kids and grown ups separated. Option would be to create another pen name and keep both identities apart. Or structure the site according to genres: Mystery&Thriller, Romantic Comedy, Young Adult, and German Young Adult. Let's see how flexible Squarespace is.

Another update from the back catalogue: Five for Forever is oscillating in the Amazon book charts. Don't worry, nothing spectacular. But this weekend it made it up to the 2000 of Romance and Woman Contemporary charts again after a while in the 10000-range. There seem to be buyers, after all. Hope they enjoy and recommend it.

The long march...

Writing is a lonely profession, especially when you are stuck at 47.000 words. My latest project, another romantic comedy, let's call it project RomCom2, so I don't need to give away anything, is coming along. I wrote the base storyline which centers around three girlfriends who start-up an online company, and I wrote some of the romantic entanglements. Did the word count on Sunday for the first time, just to get a lay of the land. Shocked: 47.000 words. As comparison: my previous romantic comedy "Five for Forever" came out in its first version at around 110.000 which I painfully had to reduce to 100.000. A lot of dear scenes went out of the window. 

Excerpt "RomCom2" (Working Title)

With RomCom2, I am now halfway there. Only halfway. How much more romance can I pour in? How many scenes do I need to make this a full length novel. Admittedly, 100.000 words for "Five for forever" resulted in a thick book. So, I give myself a target: 80.000 words for RomCom2. Let's do some quick math: 80.000 words target minus 47.000 words status quo equals 33.000 words missing. 33 chapters at 1000 words each. 16 chapters at 2000 words each. 24 chapters at 1500 words. Well, you get the drift. 

Let's break it down structurally on the basis of 24 chapters. I have three major characters with romantic developments and entanglements. So June, Carlotta, and Gracie receive eight chapters each. This gives me a lot of development room, as most of them already have their first and last acts already drafted. So eight chapters for each of the protagonists second, third and fourth act. Hope the quantity in relationship melee does not affect quality.

Let's do it. The long march...

8. February: 47.000 words down, 33.000 words out there...

From the writer's desk... New Year, New Plans

I am not a backward looking person, so I won't check out the rearview mirror. 2016 is over and even though I had published a lot (Pieces of Trouble, Five for Forever, Troubleseeker and two large print editions of my German young adult novels Piratenjunge and Piratenkapitän), revenue-wise the plan is not where I want it to be. All in all—tax season coming up and I already prepared my author income statement. Revenues and costs are not in the black figures. Marketing myself and my books is still a hurdle. I could risk going public with my writer's identity and draw more sales through friends, colleagues and their respective networks. But I guess 2017 is not the time and place, yet. 

So, what's in store for 2017? As a side project I am working on a new set of "Pieces of Trouble", some more short stories from the Troubleshooter universe. I'll have to look at some magazines or eZines submissions that can generate interest in the series, so the Novellas are a good tool. Three of those stories are already in a good shape. One story centers around General McAllister, one story describes how Paul needs to handle a bunch of Kindergarden kids during a mission, and the third one follows Amy and Tom—Paul's underappreciated sidekicks—on a mission where they are without Paul's safety net.

Full time novels are some in the works, though I have not decided which one to finish. I have this high octane over the top science fiction horror teen military action drama that I would like to finish for two years now. As this one is a stand-alone story.

During the fall I had been writing on a new romantic comedy, though the tone is not there where I want it to be, yet. The setting are three girls who run a start-up from idea to go-public and their adventures with men on the way. I constantly find myself enjoying writing the business part of the book, neglecting the romantic part, and even worse, not getting a real grip on the comedy part. Dammit! 

Last but not least, I am considering another German story, this time a crime book. German for two reasons: the tone of the story I have in mind is a very German one: set in a small German village with eco-system and specific Bavarian cultural traits. Which I feel I can capture better in German language. The second reason is a private one. My mother has requested a German book, so that she can also read one more of my books. That is a strong argument. The story I have in mind is a bit more complex with a lot of players. Unfortunately for my mom, also with a lot of planned ugly violence. Working title is "Der Metzger"  / "The Butcher".

A third "Brilliant" book is also due. But with only two full size books per year, the schedule is already packed. Let's see. The good thing in all of this is that I have no schedule to keep, no contracts to fulfill. It's my making from A-Z. 

How I love that! Happy New Year to me...  And to all readers.

What's going on? That's going on! In Full Edit Mode

Want to give you an update of what is going on in my writing life. Due to my travellings I also fell short on some of the other stuff I am writing on. My current "Troubleshooter Installment 3" was stopped almost completely, I am far away from my goal to reach a first version by end of May. Plus I am hitting a small block with some aspects of the resolution in Acts 4 and 5. Oh well, no one said it is easy.

Mostly due to the fact that I need to finish the edit for "Five for forever". The word remarks of my editor I managed to almost work through completely. I am running the edit in three stages:

First the small stuff - typos and grammar and simple logical corrections. I took it easy there and simply pressed "Accept" for 99.9 % of the recommendations. First, I am not a native English speaker/writer, so who am I to know it better than my editor. Second, it was a really good edit!

Second comes the comments - my editor left me with about 100 comments in the word document. From the mundane remark that she changed something and I should check whether she did in my interest; mostly yes, by the way. A first pass of comments got rid of all the easy stuff, regarding naming conventions, easy timeline fixes, clarifications, etc. But there are some issues with the timeline that need a solid re-read back and forth to make it right. And in two places I am really hesitant to move things around. To give you one example: I structured the book in seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter,... that coincides with the basic timeline. However I also structured the relationship of the protagonists around the seasons: falling in love in spring, enjoying each other during summer, conflicts appear in fall, break-up suffering period in winter, you get the point. But the calendar timeline where fall starts Sept. 21 and the relationship strains do not 100 % match. The relationship goes downhill slightly earlier in late August. So, what do I base my part-structure on. The calendar or the drama. Will the reader understand this?

Third, not started yet, is the editors letter to me where she gives some structural and content recommendations. I already had cut a lot of stuff, but there are still recommendations where the story is not brought forward enough by some of the chapters. Oh, well, it will be bloodshed weekend, just like on the first episode of Game of Thrones Season 6.

What I am working on — Chick-Lit, SciFi and Shorts

Troublemaker is out and already out of my focus. I should spend more time to promote and make sure that it finds a readership, but as usual I enjoy more the act of writing than the act of business. So next up in line are four oevres in various stages of completion:

• Chick-Lit (a variation on the Notting Hill movie theme) - my take on Jojo Moynes or Cecile Ahearn. Something lighter but with a lot of drama. A book about choice, love, regrets, friendship. And death. I am at about 50K words into writing, with estimated 25K to go. The main structure stands, all important chapters are done, so the rest is pure blood, sweat, and tears. 
• Science Fiction with light horror (my take on Invasion of Bodysnatchers) and over the top action. Heads will roll, aliens will be maimed, knifed, shot, exploded and run over. I started this one a while ago, but then had more motivation to finish Troublemaker and my second German Piratenkapitän.

Then there are two Paul Trouble shorts in the wings. Both are pretty much done, I just need to review them and to send them to the editor. But who has the time.

• Private Trouble - Paul's time as a fresh recruit, right after his Marine training. It shows the young, cocky, invincible Paul who already has some of the resourcefulness and cleverness that he needs in his later spy and troubleshooter life.
• Fast Trouble (working title) - Paul and his sidekick Tom are stopping over in Sao Paulo to indentify a bad apple in the top management of Brazil's Strom Industries. Point of view is Tom Chan this time. He is doubting that Paul will be able to solve the case in the few hours they have alotted.