HF Novel Update 10/7/17 (Day 21)

Editing Time: 4 hours
Total Word Count: 112,624

I can feel work beginning to slow on this book now. The second draft is done. Now I'm going to spend a few hours each day and whittle away. My goal is to have something publishable in a week. I think that's do-able.

Working title: The Bastard's Refuge
Series title: Dunno
Author Name: Still not sure

HF Novel Update 10/6/17 (Day 20)

Editing Time: 6 hours
Total Word Count: 111,414

Yesterday was a productive editing day. The total word count keeps going up, which I did not expect, but I'm finding out that I don't have to cut as much story as I thought and the tweaks I wanted to make required more story. My best guess now is that I'll have a second draft that comes in around 115k.

At that point the story will be "right" and I'll start polishing. With a manuscript that long, I'm sure I can chop out 10k. Maybe even 15k. What I've found over the years is I tend to overwrite, sometimes by a wide margin. Figuring out how to reduce a six sentence paragraph into four sentences or shortening a 25 word sentence into a 15 word sentence almost always improves my story. Or just remembering that Character A's motivation was already made clear in the last chapter, and I don't need to take a paragraph to remind readers here.

That's just how I work. One day I hope I can write more cleanly, but isn't that every writer's dream?

***

10/7/17 marks Day 21 of the challenge. My original goal was to be done today, but that's not going to happen. I still have story to add and then I'll be at the point where I'm analyzing every word and trying to tighten the prose up. After a while (or pretty quickly, depending on how cynical I'm feeling) the law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head. I could spend weeks, if not months, tinkering with a story but I wouldn't significantly improve it in ways that readers are going to notice.

So gazing into my crystal ball, I think it will take me another week to truly finish the book. That means I should be ready to publish by 10/14/17, or Day 28, of the challenge.

I love failing when it means I've written in a book, especially one this long, in a lunar cycle.

***

In other news, I am wrestling with the idea of publishing this book under my real name. I don't want to start another pen name (because it's a pain in the arse) and readers have come to expect a certain type of book from Evan Ronan. I'm not sure my thriller / mystery readers will be interested in sword and sorcery for the most part, so from a branding and marketing perspective it might make sense to have a clear separation.

Not sure yet.

Working title: The Bastard's Refuge

PREORDER The Dream Machine Now for $0.99

Well, well, well. The Dream Machine  is finally here (almost).

Right now, you can preorder the sixth book in my paranormal mystery series starring everybody's favorite everyman, Eddie McCloskey, for less than a buck!

The preorder discount is over when the book releases, February 1st. I'll also be running some other deals on January 31st in case you're still playing catch-up. More to come on that soon ;-)

***

I've wanted to write this particular book for many years, but only just got around to it. When the idea first came to me, though, it was a standalone horror novel and did not feature Eddie McCloskey. It was a very different book.

I put that idea aside, tried some other things, got cranking on the Eddie books, did some short fiction, worked on historical novels, and one day had an epiphany, realizing I could take this older idea and turn it into one of Eddie's adventures.

It took me longer than I wanted to write this one for many reasons, most of them good. In 2015, I tried to get some other books (under pen names) out there and worked on collaborative projects with fellow author, Nathanael Green. I spent a lot of time working on shorter, serialized fiction (which has yet to see the light of day!). I decided to rebrand my Eddie books too with new blurbs and covers and some marketing...

Long story short, I tried doing too many different things in 2015 and as a result The Dream Machine kept getting pushed back.

***

I'm real excited for this book. It takes Eddie in a different direction but stays firmly in paranormal territory. Characters from a previous book return. And I really pushed myself to make this the fastest read in the series. I'm excited to get feedback here.

I'm also hard at work on the seventh book in the series, tentatively titled The Possessed. I'm loving this one too and plan to have much less of a gap between #6 and #7 than there was between #5 and #6.

If you do pick up The Dream Machine, please consider leaving me a review on Amazon! And stay tuned for some upcoming deals!