Tag Archives: book

Enter the Blue Pen

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Piece of cake, right

After a sporadic five months, I can say with some certainly that Project Kingdom does not suck. It’s not great, but as you can see above, the bones are there. All I have to do now is go back, cut out the crud, rewrite the crap and fill in the holes.

It was a bit of a rough road to get here, especially as I was sticking to the hard part of Hemingway’s maxim “Write drunk, edit sober.”

If you’re wondering about the image, that’s the revised outline for the book. Those are just eight of the hundredish  pages of content I generated outside of the Project Kingdom story. I have a working notebook that includes geographic data. I have an army guide which delves into unit sizes, outfiting and movement rates. I have crudely drawn maps. And I have an original timeline which I now realize I did not put nearly enough thought into.And, of course, my editing journal.

Those above eight pieces of paper contain every scene in Project Kingdom, and they’re color-coded to let me know what needs to happen with each scene. Green scenes need to be moved to another point in the story. Red scenes need to be written in order for the plot to make sense. And the light blue scenes need a massive overhaul. Black? Those just need a minor overhaul.

Did you just hear that? That was the sound of my social life crumbling. Going to be a sober Spring.

Enter the Green Pen

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First Draft and Celebratory Champagne

Late in the evening on Labor Day, I finally wrapped up the first draft of Project Kingdom. I popped the champagne, invited over some close friends and threw some steaks on the grill, and promptly put the printed beast onto the shelf with all of my other work.

It wasn’t easy. I wanted to jump right into editing, to maintain the momentum I had built up in August and early September to carry me through the writing period most easily described as “hell.”

But I gave the story some time to breathe and myself some time to recover. Like a cooling off in a relationship, I tried to occupy my time.

I made up for all those late nights drinking and writing by going out, drinking and not writing.

I started playing golf, poorly.

And I got back to reading. I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading, and I put down at least 6 books in the last two months.

But, in the back of my mind, there was always that nagging voice complaining, “Hey man, don’t you have a book to edit?”

You can only shoo that voice away with whiskey for so long (but be damned if I didn’t try.)

So, as November crept into existence, I made up my mind to get back into the process.

I took my manuscript out of the cube shelf it was resting on and moved it to the steamer-trunk-cum-coffee-table. I let it taunt me there for a few days.

I took the cover off the first volume and reverse it, so I could pull printed chapters off individually without unseating the entire work.

And I told myself, repeatedly, “I’ll start editing…right after I finish this television show/movie/book.”

Saturday turned out to be blissfully quiet. I cleaned the house, started the laundry, and did some grocery shopping. Following that, I picked up Project Kingdom and realized just what a mountain I had in front of me.

It has quite literally been years since I read the prologue (which was way too long at 1500 words) and the first few chapters (which failed to introduce the characters and set up the motivations for the remainder of the book…oh and foreshadowing, I needz it).

So, after getting jacked up on coffee, I grabbed my green pen and started carving.

Mighter than a nerdy double entendre

I trimmed and rewrote the prologue, taking it from a bloated and unnecessary 1569 words down to a tight and cracking 400.

It wasn’t so bad, this rewriting thing.

I then immediately jumped into chapter 1, completely rewriting the beast. The rewrite successfully defined the protagonist (and changing the spelling of his name), painted a clearer picture of the initial setting and amplified the violence.

I also used the F word on the first page, which may or may not survive further edits.

I’m hoping to move through Green Pen edits – fixing plot wholes, characterization, mechanical errors and shitty writing – by the end of the year, end of January at the latest. From there, I’ll pick up the red pen and push through heavy copy edits – fixing grammar and cutting down on the word count – and I’ll hopefully be submitting this bad boy to agents in the Spring.

You know, as long as the publishing industry doesn’t collapse by then.

February Book Pitch – Pitch Me!

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Congratulations to Jaime Bentley! Her pitch for Christopher Moore’s “A Dirty Job” was the winning pitch for the first month of what looks to be a regular trend.

January's Pitch Winner

January's Pitch Winner

For those that missed it, in January I decided to hold a pitch contest to determine the next book I would purchase in what I hope to make a monthly trip to the bookstore. The impetus for turning the decision into a contest was a desire to broaden my horizon. So, sometime this week I’ll be swinging by the local bookstore and picking up not one, but two copies of “A Dirty Job”.

Why two, you ask? Because, we’re doing it again. And the person who pitches the winning book for February will get a copy of January’s winning book for free.

Here’s the run down:

Got a great book you want to tell someone about? Pitch me. Did you write one? Pitch it to me. Are you representing a client? Pitch them to me. Recently read something that was horribly overlooked for its pure genius? Pitch me.

The rules

  • The book must currently be in print and available at a brick-and-mortar store.
  • You only get two sentences, or 40 words to sell me. Title and author are not counted in this limit unless you use them in the pitch itself.
  • Pitches must be listed here, as a comment, by Friday the 6th of March.
  • The winning pitch receives a free copy of the previous month’s book.

January’s winning pitch: A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. Paranoid Beta Male given the job of “death collector”. Hilarious (in the laugh out loud kinda way) and perfectly dark :)

Pitch Me A Book

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This weekend, while I was out at the book store, I had the desire to read something new. I wanted a new author, not necessarily a new writer, just new to me. A new voice, a new setting, something new.

So, as I am want to do when looking for many varied viewpoints, I hit up Twitter. And I got a few very good responses. Unfortunately, Twitter on a Blackberry is a stilted medium at best. I ended up grabbing a random book in addition to the one I came for.

As I’ve yet to crack open the second book I purchased, I cannot vouch for my ability to judge a book by it’s cover. But, I’d like to roll in to Barnes and Nobel next month with an idea of what I want to purchase.

To that end, I invite you to pitch me. Got a great book you want to tell someone about? Pitch me. Did you write one? Pitch it to me. Are you representing a client? Pitch them to me. Recently read something that was horribly overlooked for it’s pure genius? Pitch me.

The rules are simple:

  • The book must currently be in print and available at a brick-and-mortar store.
  • You only get two sentences, or 40 words to sell me. [edit] Title and author are not counted in this limit unless you use them in the pitch itself.
  • Pitches must be listed here, as a comment, by Friday the 6th of February.

That’s it. I buy the book of the winning pitch.  And if you think I’m kidding, I once used my blog to name a friend’s child.