I started Nancy Kress's 'Beginnings, Middles and Ends' last night.  I think it's another, spot-on book on writing.  So far, it talks about how important the first three paragraphs (or first three pages for a novel) are.  She mentions how your introduction makes promises to the reader about what to expect.  I couldn't agree more.  It's something I believe in and something I'm going to try hard to do write with Angel Odyssey.
  With Smooth Running, I started with a fight in a strip club.  I mention magic and cyberware.  Right off the bat, I'm promising sex and violence, magic and technology.  I think Smooth Running delivered on that promise.
  With Angel Odyssey I think I'm promising adventure, courage and heart.  Hopefully I delivered on that, too.  I imagine I'll be polishing my first three pages of Angel Odyssey just as much, if not more, than I did Smooth Running.  Its in pretty good shape so far but I need to work more on those first three paragraphs.
  I'll be starting my revisions this weekend, fixing some stuff in Chapter 1 (I want to mull on the beginning a bit more before tinkering too much) and finishing up chapter 2.  This first revision is just going to be me reading it aloud and fixing typos.  Subsequent passes will probably get more in-depth. 
  I'll keep you posted on it and anything else from 'Beginnings, Middles and Ends'

  I finished 'Self-editing for Fiction Writers' last night.  I still highly recommend it.  The second half of the book gets into what I consider to be the more difficult parts of editing, for me: what to cut.  I'm going to want to go back and re-read those last few chapters I think and digest them. 
  Basically the editors writing the book suggest cutting repetition, not only of words but of feelings and scenes.  Then intended goal, of course, is to get out of the way of your story.  They phrase it as 1 +1 = 1/2.  The more you 'explain' an emotion or any point, the more you diminish it.
  Another great segment was on 'beats', or 'stage business' for actors or screenplay writers.  It's how to break up dialog with actions.  I do this already but I'll make sure when I'm doing revisions that I don't have too many paragraphs of straight dialog without there being some physical action as well.  That segues into another bit on paragraph construction.  Again, this is something I do pretty well, I think but it was good advice on how paragraph length can cause the feeling of a scene to speed up or slow down. (the same is true of sentence length).  The final chapter was on 'voice', both of your characters and of yourself.  Voice is critical to any good writer.  The book acknowledges as well that it's impossible to 'teach' someone to find their 'voice' but it had good advice on how to search for it.  They suggest reading your own work as if you were new to it.  (Yes, that's a tall order in and of itself)  Then to underline any passages you liked and underline in a different color any passages you don't.  The lines you like will lead you to discover your 'voice', hopefully.  The lines you don't are places to ask yourself 'what's not working here?'
  'Self-editing for Fiction Writers' was very accessible and full of good and hopefully eye-opening advice.  I recommend it to writers of any skill level, even if you've mastered every trick and craft outlined in the book, it's still a good reminder of what to do and why.

  Long, long bike ride (for me) yesterday, 24 miles or so.  It took longer than planned but I still managed to get through about half of 'Self-editing for Fiction Writers'.  So far, I recommend it, highly.  The first chapter is one of the most important, I think.  They start off right away with 'show, don't tell'.  That's something I believe in but I still struggle with.  As I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog, sometimes I have to tell in order to know what I want to show.  But 'showing' is something I really want to focus on in subsequent drafts of Angel Odyssey.
  I probably could go on for pages talking about all the good advice the book has but there's one tidbit that I really liked.  They abbreviate it as RUE, as in 'Resist the Urge to Explain'.  That ties into a lot of their advice, like on avoiding just about anything ending in '-ly'.  I knew about the adverb rule, even if I don't follow it all the time...yet.  But I really liked the idea of writing clearly enough that I wouldn't need to explain to the reader what the characters are feeling or how they're acting.
  On the other hand, the most successful (ie. biggest selling) novels have tended towards the other side of the scale.  Twilight comes to mind as a book that holds the reader's hand and tells you exactly what you're supposed to feel at every step.  There has to be a middle ground. I don't want to talk down to my readers, even if Angel Odyssey ends up a YA novel.  But I think a simple and clear story, well told, may be something to stand out and who knows, maybe live forever.
  Ah well, my next self-editing step: cool my love for compound sentences.  :)

   Another good IM gaming night.  I wanted to do something with vampires.  So vampires showed up and tried eat the main character.  Its interesting how many classic monsters are motivated by hunger.  I guess there's something universally understood about being hungry enough to kill.  Zombies, as they're currently depicted, want to eat the living.  Vampires, of course, live on our blood.  Werewolves are predators that, again, want to eat us. 
  Hunger is one of the primal emotions.  You occasionally see other primal emotions crop up in horror novels.  Creatures that cause or feed off of fear used to be popular back in the 80's, as I recall.  I've heard of some ludicrous stories that tried to sell zombies as being lust-driven instead of hunger-driven.  Yeah, and necrophiliacs of the world rejoiced when THAT novel was publish.  Anger cropped up in 28 days later, though there were severe logic problems with that take on zombism.
  I understand the temptation to want to play around with tropes and expectations but I don't think they make for good stories.  I think hewing as close to what is universally understood is what makes a story resonate.  Monsters should be bad, not your next-door neighbors (with due respect to Monster Squad and none at all to True Blood).  Monsters should be scary, not sitting on the couch with you playing video games (Yes, looking square at you ending-to-Shaun-of-the-Dead).  Monsters need to be a threat, something to overcome, something to fight against.  They should not be something you befriend, team up with or have sex with.  Doing that weakens the monster, the protagonist and the story itself, I think.

  The writing itch continues unabated.  I spent the weekend biking and socializing with the wife but half the weekend I wanted be upstairs on the Throne of Writing(tm).  But that other stuff is good too.  Tonight I'm IM gaming, so I'll be writing but for a small audience. 
  I'm starting 'Editing for Fiction Writers', the first of my books on writing that I want to absorb before I begin true editing of Angel Odyssey.  I have high hopes, the first part on showing and not telling (very useful advice, something I struggle to keep in my mind when writing) has been excellent.
  I also got my first feedback on the rough draft of chapter 1.  Some good advice and encouraging words.  I think I'll do a quick copy edit on chapter 2 and send it out to my writer's group as well.  So much of Angel Odyssey just rushed out of me, I wonder a bit about the quality.  Writing is almost more about re-writing and polishing.  Almost.

  I'm not feeling a great sense of accomplishment for finishing my first draft.  That's the opposite of how I felt when I finished Smooth Running's first draft.  Then I was elated.  I don't know if it's because I know how many rewrite drafts I'm going to have to do.  I just don't feel 'done'.  Writers are crazy, maybe this doesn't have to make sense.
  I didn't write last night and I felt empty.  Luckily a two hour bike ride gave me enough fatigue toxins to distract me but I'm thinking I have to write something every day.  I feel the same way when I'm exercising. If I miss a day there, I feel it inside too.  Curious.  I have some not-for-publication stuff I could fiddle around with.  Maybe I'll do that.  Or maybe I'll start editing Angel Odyssey early.  I know I'm supposed to let it settle and get some perspective on it, but I'm feeling idle and adrift.  Exercise can only fill so much of that.

  Woo!  Well, it's done, the first draft at least.  Though, I have a feeling I'll be revising the ending chapters as much as I edited the first chapters of Smooth Running.
  140,623 words, not counting chapter titles.
  244 MS Word pages
  Not to let it rest a week or so and then the real work begins.  The revisions.  I'll keep blogging about the versions, why I'm changing things.  I thought I'd be more relieved or something.  This is only the second novel I've finished, after all.  I guess I don't feel it's done until it's in some editor's hands and he/she's grinning while they're reading it.
  I'm also going to catch up on my reading for the rest of the month.  First up, Masked, an anthology of superhero stories.  That's a genre dear to me, so I'll read it and post my review of it here.  I'm also going to devour a few Dorthy L. Sayer and Georgette Heyer novels for a change of pace.
  My original plan was to write some short stories but I want to have Angel Odyssey in publishable shaped by end of October (World Fantasy) so I'm not taking much time off.
  I'm also going to read up on some of my books about writing, which I've mentioned as well.  I'll be sharing my thoughts on that as well.
  Thanks to all of you reading and thanks most of all to my wife, who's kicked my butt when I've needed it (and because she thinks it's fun) and been very supportive.

  Writing flowed well last night, some good scenes between characters.  On the other hand, I'm not satisfied with the ending.  I suppose that's the point of re-writing.  I may end up splitting the last chapter in two and giving Jael another POV chapter after all.  I intended for ending to be from Jacob's eyes.  But there are some things that I think I need Jael's POV on.  Oy, I have a feeling I'll be redoing this ending as much or more than my beginning of Smooth Running.  Maybe I'm being to hard on what I wrote.  The last line came out just about the way I wanted it to, it almost echoes the first line of the book.
  The epilogue is next.  I'm still not 100% how to handle it but I have an idea.  I'll try it out tonight and see how it goes.  If all goes well, I'll be having a late 'I'm done!' party on my blog Thursday.  ONLY 21 days late.  Ah well.

  No work on novel last night, as expected.  Tonight should be a decisive night.  I know what I want to accomplish and have a pretty good grasp on sequence and scene.  I should be done with the novel tonight, except the epilogue.  I'm still pondering how to do that.  I may write it both ways and try leaving it off entirely and see how that works.
  I do want to muse a bit on my first novel, Smooth Running.  I submitted it to Baen back at the beginning of April.  At the time, I hadn't gotten much feedback on it.  Most people I shared it with, did not give me any useful feedback.  (Thanks for nothing, critters.org) But now I'm in a couple writing groups and corresponding with some active writers, sharing critiques.  Since Angel Odyssey is still in the first draft, I haven't been sharing it, I've been sharing chapters from Smooth Running instead.  Most of the feedback has been positive.  A majority of it, actually.  But naturally, it's the one or two people who didn't like it that stick in my head.
  Smooth Running is an action adventure scifi/fantasy.  It has magic and technology, a male and female lead, and lots of sex and violence.  Basically, I wrote what I like to read.  However, it's not for everyone.  I'm not sure what novel IS for everyone but the sex and violence turn some people off, particularly the sex, strangely.  (I won't get into the double standard weirdness of why violence is acceptable but sex isn't but let me just say: I'm aware of it). 
  Honestly, I'm ok with not everyone loving Smooth Running.  I love it and a number of other people love it.  That's not to say it couldn't use yet another draft before publication but I think it's professional, marketable and a lot of fun to read.  There's something to be said for writing for a wide audience.  Angel Odyssey is my first attempt at writing Fantasy but I think it would be enjoyable to a wide variety of readers.  Smooth Running is more for people who like sex and violence in a distinctive setting with magic and technology fused together.  To abuse the one-sentence pitch: it's Hardwired meets Lord of the Rings.  Not everyone is into that.  I just need to accept that.

  Still halfway through the last chapter.  Friday was spent gaming with buddies and Saturday and Sunday were spent with the wife.  My fingers have been itching all weekend to get the story DONE.  Oy.  Well, it'll have to wait one more day, tonight is IM gaming night.
  I've resigned myself to writing the ending chapter, 'lean and mean'.  There's so much I want to put in and say but I don't want to get in the way of the core story.  Maybe I can look at it with fresh eyes later and think about adding more layers.  My plan is to take the rest of July 'off' from writing and do some reading.  I have Nancy Kress's 'Beginnings, Middles and Ends' and 'Self-editing for Fiction Writers' among many, many other books on writing.  I want to read and digest them before beginning my second draft.
  Finally, I've been waffling a bit on my epilogue plans.  I know there are some events I want to relate regarding Jacob's homecoming.  But in my mind, it's coming out as something I'm telling when the rest of the book has been me showing what's been going on.  I'm concerned that a change of tone at the end might ruin things.  I guess all I can do is write it, edit it, pass it around and collect opinions. 
  Can't wait to get back into the Throne of Writing (tm) and get to work.