the September series

The State of the Second Draft

As I’m past the half way point in the second draft I thought I would do a more in-depth post about how it’s all going.

First off I am feeling a lot happier with this draft than the first one. I keep a list of revisions I want to make for each one, adding to it as I go along, I don’t like to make changes as I go along. For the first draft the list of revisions notes was big, loads of book ones bullet points and at least a couple for each chapter. This time round there are a few tweaks I want to make to some chapters and alongside some other changes to how I describe some characters and locations.

The story feels like it flows a lot better, I think I’ve managed to arrange it in such a way that it has a good pace but allows for a few quieter moments to show more of different characters. It’s been easier to write as well, having done the first draft and revised outline I’ve known what I needed to do and it has felt right.

So overall I am happy with it. It’s not perfect, far from it, and is going to need a good editor and beta readers to finish it. The plan now is to finish the second draft and then make the few revisions I have in mind, which should take me until mid-July. Then I will hire an editor and put the call out for beta readers to do a story line pass before moving on to the line-by-line editing and improvement.

Still on schedule for a release before the end of the year. I have my own date I am aiming to release it for but whether I meet that depends on how much editing is required. I’m not going to rush the book out if it is not ready, but I’m also going to make sure I don’t over-edit it as well.

Onwards I go.

First draft done

Thanks to a mammoth effort this weekend the first draft is finished. It is 65,420 words long and now I will do nothing.

Seems an odd thing to do as I know it needs a lot of changes (got a long list of revisions I want to make for the second draft already) but I need to let it sit and my mind wander onto other subjects so when I come back at the beginning of April to being that second draft I will see the whole book in a fresh light.

Then will start the hard part of making it good. I think I know what is needed which is a good start, but only time will tell.

Oh I’ve also added a Progress Check section where you see where I am at and how far I have until I’ve finished this book.

So it begins…

This has been a few years coming but I’ll leave the back story of me in another post. This one is more of a mission statement.

I am writing a book. A series of books to be precise, a space opera trilogy. I have almost finished the first draft of book one and I aim to have the final book ready and self published by the end of this year.

The series is tentatively called The Three and book one is Oranje. All names subject to change but I thought I’d put up what I have so far.

The plan is as follows:

  • First draft finished by the end of this month
  • Second draft done by the end of June (tentative date for now) at which point I will get an editor and beta readers involved
  • Several months of revisions and improvements
  • First third of the book posted on this website for free for everyone to read
  • Book self published through Createspace (paper back), Amazon (ebook) and through other ebook distributors sometime before the end of the year

I am going to stick to this plan and I know I can accomplish this. The 50,000+ words of the first draft I’ve done so far have all been written this year. The goals are realistic and I am going to get it done. Once the first draft is done I will put up a back of the book description for The Three: Oranje in the books section and post up my concepts for the cover art for it.

Alongside this grand plan I will be making posts on this website to relate the progress I am making and talking about writing as I go through the process of finishing my first book. I’ve had many false starts but this one I am going to finish. I will also be doing occasional YouTube videos talking about subjects ranging from my writing to broader subjects relating to writing in general and science fiction and most likely some which are a little bit random.

So there we go, my mission statement. I am writing some books and I hope you may join me for the ride.