Editing is Hell

The image that keeps occurring to me, as I work on Dragon Prey, is of Hawkeye Pierce in the surgical tent on MASH with blood up his arms and smeared across the front of his scrubs with his hands buried in the abdomen of a wounded soldier. I'm not sure if the patient is going to make it.

Yes, it's a bit melodramatic, but that's the way it goes. I'm getting all turned around in the story and questioning everything. I'm tying myself in knots, but I think I'll be okay as long as I keep what I'm considering the spine of the story intact. I'm questioning the value of certain characters and entire scenes, but that's the window dressing.

I remind myself of that cruel writer's adage "Murder your darlings." (And I just went down a little Google rabbit hole while searching that quote. Slate has an interesting article.) So, while I'm not contemplating anything suicidal like Naomi's death or Tavik's, I'm contemplating hard choices and wondering if I can do it.

Cheery stuff, right? Sorry, I don't want to be a downer. I hope to have some happier progress to report next week.

What have I been up to?

I got some responses for my call for beta readers, so yay! I wasn't sure anyone would respond, but two lovely ladies did email me.

I sent off the manuscript to those brave souls and have now heard back from them. (I am amazed anyone succeed with my, quite frankly, greedy turnaround time demand.) This next week will be looking over and figuring out how to work in their suggestions and comments. They've pointed out some plot holes that need filling so work is most definitely ahead.

This past week, I worked on Scary Mary 4. I wrote over three thousand words for that. I also read some very intriguing writing tips that I think may increase my productivity.

Because I know no better, I played with a new story idea. It would be a light fantasy, unrelated to anything I have out currently. The working title is Royal License. Sometimes, I just feel like brainstorming new ideas and so I did that Friday. No idea if anything will happen with this story. I wrote out a rough plot for the book, though I imagine it will be rather short. More a novella, than full novel. Again, don't know if this is something I will pursue or just idle daydreaming.

I did my taxes. Not sexy, but glad that is off my plate. Taxes are trickier because I itemize, and the writing income means I have to fill out several more forms. But it's DONE.

This next week, I shall be immersed in Dragon Prey again as I read the betas' comments and fix things that they point out. Thank you so much, Jolene and Lee!

What am I doing?

I know I'm very behind. Dragon Prey is still not published and I'd promised to publish it last year. I am in the process of setting up editing for it (the second round). I have no clue how long that will take. I'm sorry that I can't be more definitive. I know a publication date would reassure everyone, but I can't do it. I set a date for Dragon Prey, and it makes me feel like a failure that I still haven't even published. I really want to publish this story, but one thing you have to understand about me is that I don't write flawless prose. I need to edit heavily and that it a huge time suck that often feels like running in place because I'll look at a part of the plot and consider changing it. I'll come up with an idea, but then I need to follow the dominoes and see how that change will ripple through the story and sometimes, this amazing change will screw up another part of the story that is essential and so I have to "CTRL Z" back to what I had before. I may have spent a day on this possible change and at the end of it, have nothing to show for it. That can be very discouraging as well.

So, what's the point to this rambling? Well, I plan to start posting weekly to this blog to let you know what I've been working on. It will hopefully be a way to hold myself accountable so that when I do get discouraged, I won't let myself avoid the computer and not work. If I have to tell you what I'm doing, then I sure as hell better DO something.

I'll try not to whine too much, and I'll try to be somewhat interesting in these posts. So instead of picking arbitrary publication dates, I'll just steadily work and get stuff done and hopefully published.

Something I've been working on this week is the blurb to Dragon Prey. I'll paste it below. I hope you find it intriguing. I struggle with blurbs, but am proud of this one. Let me know what you think.

In the inns of Terratu, bards tell the story of Lady Naomi, the unicorn mistress. It’s a grand story, in which she saves the unicorns and defeats the insane god Errilol. At the end, she lives happily ever after with her husband Lord Tavik. But unfortunately, the story’s about to change because there are two Lady Naomi’s and one of them is a fraud.

The fraud is the one who killed the god. The fraud is the one who helped the unicorns. The fraud is the one who got the happy ending, and the real Lady Naomi feels cheated and wants it for herself. With one little sip from a love potion, Tavik’s planning to marry the real Lady Naomi, and a price is put on the other Naomi’s head,

Naomi rushes to find an antidote before Tavik marries the real Lady Naomi. She’s hampered, though, by the reward Tavik has placed on her dead head. (Divorce doesn’t exist in Terratu.) She almost has it when a dragon shows up to ruin her plans.

ETA: I NEED BETA READERS! I'm looking for 3-5 beta readers for Dragon Prey. If you're interested and have time now-ish to read and comment on the novel, please send me an email: sahunter(at)sahunter.net

What I'm looking for: general comments on plot. I need to know if there are plot holes or if stuff just doesn't make sense. I'd appreciate a quick turnaround time. So if you volunteer, I would expect your comments in hopefully a week.

If you volunteer, you agree to not share the manuscript with anyone else. (Sorry, but I have to add that.) Thanks in advance!

 

My Review of Gil's All Fright Diner

Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a fun book. I'd read Martinez's Too Many Curses, and  would rate that one over this one, but I did enjoy this story. Duke and Earl are a werewolf and vampire respectively who are down on their luck and arrive at Gil's All Night Diner just in time for a zombie attack. That's dealt with speedily enough, but where did the zombies come from?

Earl and Duke are not glittery preternatural alpha studs. Earl has thinning hair, and Duke, a massive gut. I feel like Earl was the better realized character with all of his insecurities and false bravado, while Duke coasted on enigmatic smiles and the occasional raised eyebrow, but they were still an appealing pair to be with.

There was plenty of wackiness that seems to be Martinez's trademark, but the warmth for the characters wasn't here as it was in Too Many Curses. I wonder if that's partly due to Martinez's obvious railing against the current trend of alpha preternatural studs. He may have been so focused on making these guys romantically unappealing that the good will that permeated Too Many Curses got lost here.

SPOILERS BELOW (Highlight to read.)

I was rather surprised, in fact, with the late story romantic interest that worked out. With the bad luck Martinez gave these guys, I didn't think Cathy would go for Earl. In contrast to the rest of the story, it seemed saccharine sweet and out of place, especially considering how Duke handled the overtures from the waitress Loretta. And in regard to Loretta, was it just me or did Martinez seem to be fat-shaming her quite a bit? Duke of the big gut got attention from Loretta and the nubile high school girl, but Loretta was denied any lovin' because of her massive waist. I thought there was a bit of a double standard there, especially as Loretta kicked ass throughout the book. But this wasn't a massive aspect of the story, it's just something I noticed that I may be a bit more sensitive to than other readers.

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The Fussy Librarian

Because it's free and has recently accepted to feature me :-), I wanted to tell all of you about the mailing list The Fussy Librarian. They are a mailing list for eBooks. They only accept books with a rating of at least 4.0 with at least 10 reviews and the books cannot be priced over $5.99. The books can be on sale or at their normal price. You can choose what genres you wish to receive and what level of mature content is in the books. Plus, the site is just nicely designed. So click the logo if you'd like to check them out!