Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Still working... working... working

The book is coming along.  At some point I have to stop editing, I know.  But I'm not quite comfortable with it yet.  Still.

On the other hand, it'll be soon.  Honest.  To that end I've been coming up with things I want to say to catch me an agent.  Nowadays authors can't submit to most publishers directly.  Some agents don't even take new authors.  It's complicated.

Writing a whole novel is easier than finding an agent or publisher.  Or at least it's more enjoyable for me.

Anyway, if you'd like to read the description as it exists today, CLICK HERE


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Friday, January 5, 2018

Still coming to a bookstore near you

Last May I posted about a book I've been wrestling with since 2009, Evolution Device.  I had hoped to get at least a digital version online before now, but that hasn't happened.  What happened instead was a professional editor.

I thought the book was ready to go.  But no.  I didn't realize what I was getting into with a pro editor, because, silly me, I thought that the book was nearly ready for publication.  I thought maybe I'd just pay this editor to nitpick the manuscript and I'd be giving readings and autographing books in bookstores in short order.

Bwahahaha!

The editor was kind.  She softened the critique by letting me know the book had potential  But then she identified a few plot points she didn't understand and other areas that she had questions about. 

Three pages of areas that she had questions about.

At first I was overwhelmed.  I waited a few days, then started with some of the issues that looked easiest to fix.  Was that  movie star I referred to really a star in that year?  Why did that character just disappear?  Why was I spelling Magick the way I was spelling it, and would readers understand what I meant?

Other issues were not so easy.  If they weren't fixed they could end up becoming fatal flaws.  Some of the problems had come about because I was tired of reading my own writing over and over again.  Some of it was because reading my own writing over and over again caused a kind of editing blindness.  That's when I just don't see what's actually on the page, I instead see what I intended to be on the page.

Which is why I hired a professional editor in the first place.

And the result is...

Now the manuscript is shorter because I ended the tale in a different place.  It's tighter because I corrected a point of view continuity problem that, in doing so, fixed other problems.  I took out some backstory that just wasn't necessary.  I added a couple plot twists in passing, and I fleshed out a few characters that could use the extra weight of words.

I had no idea I could do all that.  I impressed myself mightily. 

But it's not over yet

You'd think by now I'd be sick of this whole thing, but au contraire!  Just this afternoon I finished editing a print-out of the manuscript, all 345 pages of it.  It took three days.  When I was done with the last page, amazingly, I still loved my book. 

So hey, I've got a fan-base of one already!

The manuscript goes back to the editor after I've made the corrections to the digital file, probably in just a day or two.  She had told me that if I resolved the issues she had pointed out, it'd be ready for an agent.  Those words alone kept me going at the revision.  But she's a pro, she knows when to use the whip and when to use the carrot.

Once she's done with it the manuscript will be copy-edited, because I want a candidate agent and/or publisher to have a polished novel to enjoy without the distracting goofs, typos, and dumbnesses that can ruin the reading experience.

And oh, the blurb

A blurb is a description of a book in a few short paragraphs that gives potential readers an idea of what the book's about.  It might appear on a back cover or on Amazon or be sent to a book reviewer -- it's a worm on a hook to get people to buy a book (you didn't know I was a poet, did you?).  Almost a year ago in my blog post about this book, I provided a draft of a blurb, but I think this one is better.  It is, of course, subject to change.

Evolution Device
They call it a gift, but sometimes gifts are really curses.  
Eddie Edmunds was born to be a shaman to his people in remote New Mexico.  Instead he finds himself on the slippery path of fame and fortune as a rock guitarist in music-crazed London in the early 1970s.   
Eddie's gift is not what it seems.  His extraordinary skills with music are actually manifestation of a power that some would consider magic.  When Eddie inadvertently calls his Muse into physical being, Lilith must learn how to act in a human world where she has no place, and where being in a physical body is not always what it was expected to be. 
Lilith must not only be the Muse who provides inspiration for Eddie's music, but she must provide a way for him face his fears.  He must control his gift before he -- and she -- are destroyed by the wild power.  

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I've also been playing with book covers, not that a publisher normally lets an author have a say in that.  Here's one I did early on that I still very much like.

Example cover for the novel Evolution Device


Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Coming soonish to a bookstore near you

Well, okay, not soonish. Maybe digitally in a few months, but in print... next year at the earliest.

Oh, perhaps you are interested in what the heck I'm talking about?

Evolution Device. A book I wrote. Not my first book published but my first novel. The title is subject to change, as these things are until it's too late to change them. The reason I'm posting about it here is because it this book was a long time coming. It was conceived oh, just about when I first started listening to The Yardbirds, in a way. Just about when the music of Jimmy Page first entered into my consciousness. 

It just fermented in the deep dark of the back of my brain, receiving jolts every so often as I listened to that music. It called to me, the magic I felt in that guitar, magic I've written about at length here. Eventually I had to respond.

I started Evolution Device in 2009. It's only now getting ready to be born. Maybe it'll be a Frankenstein's monster, but maybe it'll have absorbed enough of its Master to bring its own magic to the world.

It's not about Jimmy Page, but in a sense his music is my muse. 

Evolution Device 

Rock guitarist Eddie Edmunds has inadvertently manifested his spiritual Muse, Lilith, into physical reality. Lilith must now get Eddie to learn to control his power before he -- and she -- are destroyed by the wild magic of his music. Or before the drugs he uses to dull the power take him out. But a Muse can only do so much and Eddie is headed down a path of no return even as his band, Evolution Device, is dragging him to greater fame and fortune.

If you're interested in following the adventures of Evolution Device's... um.. evolution, you can sign up for my email newsletter soon as I set up an account. It's all up in the air right now, so stay tuned!

UPDATE December 2017
Evolution Device is being whipped into shape with the help of a professional editor.  The revisions, rewrites, and copy editing is almost done.  Then the hunt for an agent and publisher begins.  Stay tuned!