Slash and Burn

To slash 2 thousand words in a single stroke is pretty harsh, but when you are gutting out a bad angle from a good story, it has to be done. I am in the process right now. There will be some filler to write, but I don't mind doing it because the story in the end will be much better. It simply wasn't seeded in reality so when it grew as big as it did, it looked good, but not as beautiful as it could truly be so something had to be reworked. I knew exactly what the issue was and as has always been my motto, less is more. In this case, I am cutting an angle that was over complicated and required far too much explaining and the reader was getting lost by it. The rest of the story is terrific and the characters got enough development. It will also require me to look over a few other works but that is alright. In fact, it will give me a little more to add to the work that comes right after this one which is small by my standards anyway.

This one at it's last stopping point was a massive 222k words. Yes, a monster. I have slashed out a lot and already it's below 220k,  closer to 219k. May not seem like a lot, but I am only on chapter 3 of 28 chapters. I am thinking I may be able to get it to as little as 180k words which would be terrific. I just don't want anything to feel rushed. If i have to leave it bigger, then I will. However, if in the end I can say I slashed 42k words and the book turned out amazing, that's a major accomplishment.

Back to the pit.

Products of Failure

Failure is not always a bad thing.

Sometimes you fail so terribly that no one even realizes you were there in the first place so you can withdraw completely and reintroduce yourself as something completely new if you want. I am considering doing just that. I have withdrawn my work from all websites and am currently reworking it into something I feel is better. I am leaving out my short works, but all my major work is getting redone. In some cases, it is getting reworked for length and reedited for content. I already know what I am taking out and what few things I am putting in. It will streamline many things so I feel that the work will still send out the same message i wanted to send upon its original release, but will be much more plausible and people will connect with it better.

I am not making massive changes, but a few semi major changes will be made. Characters will remain the same, but certain events will get overhauls. They need it. Certain parts do not need certain details while others need a little more. Sometimes it's better to let the reader fill in the blanks for themselves.

Many of you do not know I have been ill for...well...for some time now. I am trying my best to deal with that while still keeping focused on work. In fact, I think it's best that I do work while trying to deal with my illness. I need something to distract me while I go through my therapy.

And with that, I am off to do some big time editing.

A Moment in the Sun

Here's a link to a post from my other blog. Enjoy.

http://rumblingheartseries.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/a-moment-in-the-sun/

Writers and Honesty

I am going to get some hate mail for this post, but this will be nothing new for me.

Being that I am a writer by profession, I obviously know a ton of other writers of various genres. While in college, I was an English major so I know a thing or two about literary writing. Not saying I am the all knowing, just saying I know good writing when I see it. This is my 2 cents.

While not concentrating on my writing, I occasionally have people ask me to read their work who want "an honest review." I am ok with that. I'm not the kind of person to massage another's ego just so they can feel good. If i see flaws or what I feel are flaws in someone work, I point it out. I feel i give real literary reviews. I don't just tear into a work and say hateful things like "THIS IS AWFUL!" or "This author sucks!" No. Sorry. That's not professional or helpful in any way. What I do point out are both the good points and the shortcomings of a book. Perhaps a character was left underdeveloped or maybe there was a loose end that was left untied. I will point those things out in a heartbeat. I will also offer praise if warranted. If the story was solid with good character development and keep the reader interested, I will say that as well. I very rarely give 5 star reviews because I feel that almost any book can always be better. That being said, I;ve discovered one thing in the writing community.

Writers do not want honesty.

They want someone to rub their shoulders and tell them that they're the next frickin Hemingway. They want only reviews that make their work sound like it's the next Harry Potter series. It's not! It's clucking horrifying! Ok, maybe not that bad, but it can definitely use some work. I cannot tell you how many people have stopped following me on twitter, have placed me on ignore, and have flat out just lied about me all because I gave what I felt was a very honest and objective review of their work. I had someone unfollow and ignore me because I gave their work a 3.3/5 on a competitor's website. Hey, last I checked, 3.3 out of 5 is not too shabby. It's obviously not perfect, but I'm also not calling your work complete and utter dog [expletive deleted].

To all my fellow writers, I say this: Grow thicker skin! The world is not a nice place. People are mean and vicious and some of them will only want to tear you down. If you get a legitimate, critical review of your book, take those words and think about them and learn from them. As a writer, I do feel we are on the same team. Heck, the same family, and like a good and loving brother, I will tell you when you need to brush up on a few things. I've had people call my work complete crap and that's ok. I've also had beneficial reviews and because of those I am becoming a better writer.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Image via Wikipedia[/caption]

Early On

Through the first 6 chapters, the rewrite is looking so much better than the original. It is pretty insane just how much you learn about yourself in a year. I think I've finally found a writing style that fits my personality. I think early on I was trying too hard to make certain language and insight work, so much so that some of the message was lost in translation. I am simplifying those areas that were too obtuse and making the language easier to comprehend. There are still a few things in there that are purposely difficult to understand and I am keeping them in there for certain reasons pertaining to the story itself.

Once the rewrite is done for RH, I will move onto RB. Emily will need minimal rewrite, maybe a little tinkering here and there to make sure story lines are kept in tact.

Once EM is done, then it's back to the final book. I am already 70 pages onto it. The last one will need major editing when i get finished with it. As it has progressed, I have no doubt that it will easily hit 200k words, probably even 230k which is too large. I don't want it to be any larger than say 215k words and that's pushing it. I would like to see it stay around 200k at the most so that people still get all they can from the final installment, yet do not start falling asleep toward the end.

You can still purchase the current version of Rumbling Heart over on Amazon, but I won't blame anyone for waiting till the rewrite is done. I don't see it taking anymore than 10 more days.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="Image by Phillie Casablanca via Flickr"][/caption]

Caption

Caption

While reading the times and looking out the window,

I wonder sometimes as to why I am being watched,

constantly by the carbon products of my internet life.

 

The drilling of information seems far exceeding my needs, yet

before I begin with my microblogging nuances, I feel the need

to read the newspaper which is still dutifully delivered to my door every day at 5am.

 

After I have had my fill of coffee, a bite of a bagel, and a story

about the city council asking for another municipal bond,

I find myself on the computer, hunched over my keyboard

just as I was 15 minutes before I fell asleep last night.

Rewriting

Through the past year, I've learned a lot about myself and about writing. I've learned that there are times when I need to dive into a little more detail and there are also times where I can be long winded. I've slashed thousands of words out of my work since I began, but sometimes thousands just isn't enough. I also believe I've found my place in the writing world. On more than a handful of occasions, I've been told I tend to write more as a story teller. That may seem like a general term for a writer, but I believe it's not. Sometimes people write simply to inform you on certain events so that you know what happened. Other writers, story tellers, take you by the hand and let you walk with them as they lead you down the very same road it feel that they once took. So often I am asked if the events in my book are real because of the way I've written them. For many, it feels to them as if I am presenting to them a glorified anecdote and calling it a book chapter. I am ok with that.

It is for that reason that I am going through my previously released works and rewriting certain portions of them. Obviously, even after going over them countless times, there are still a few piece of the books that simply do not flow as well as I want them to and even a handful of grammatical errors. From my very first serious work to Rumbling Heart to my latest release Emily Martin, my style has morphed and become something very different that how it originally started. I've discovered my shortcomings and taken hold of my strengths. For this reason, I have decided to take on a simpler, story telling approach to my work from here going forward. In the first book, there is quite a bit of story telling, but I believe I made certain instances far more complex than they needed to be from a grammatical perspective. For this reason, I am sure that RH will go from about 220k words to something a little smaller; maybe about 210k. Still quite large, but smaller and still telling the exact same story. At one time I was going for more of a Hemingway type approach and style, but it seems that many of her techniques died with him all those years ago as some of my critics are calling portions of the work "old" when it comes to style. It was for this reason that I tried what I did with Recorded Butterflies. I took on a very different perspective with this work and I think i did alright. It still wasn't exactly what I was wanting to do, but I did it.

The latest book Emily Martin is the one I am the most proud of. I found my strengths with this book and I was able to really connect with my Emily character as she tells the story. While I felt I was almost one in the same when it came to my character John, it turns out that I was more in sync with Emily and the way she saw her life and handled her station in life. It was obviously not the way she grew up or the life she lived, but it was more of the place she found herself as an adult. The feelings that she had kept pent up inside her were something very close to my own so I was able to really speak from her perspective. I will make updates to this work as well, but only for the sake of continuity. Even after the release of my final work in the series, I think I will still be most proud of Emily because of the way I was able to convey my feelings through that character.

That being said, I have work to do.

 

Visit Richard's Amazon author page here!