Drafts, discoveries, and re-writes…August 13, 2015

I have already posted one thought about writing (see Voila Science), but it occurred to me – I had not yet mentioned just where I was in the writing process.  Let me correct that oversight.

A complete draft of my first book, Half A Mind, is done.  In fact, it has been done since early March.   But what surprised me was that I did not start writing until mid-February; I finished that first draft in about 3 weeks.  I had few expectations going in, but a first draft in 3 weeks was not anything I had imagined.  Nor was how much I enjoyed the whole process.

If you are thinking, it must have been pretty sketchy given that amount of effort, I agree.  Basically, I knew where the story was supposed to go; it just did not say it yet.  And, as the text now stood at about 60,000 words, I had space to work with.  (Somewhere, I read that the average eBook on Amazon was about 75 to 80,000 words.)

And then, as life tends to go, I got busy.  It was not until May that I found another break for writing, and over another 3-week period, I did my first revision.  The text became more complete, as its length grew to around 75,000 words, and I was thinking I was close. 

And then…I made a discovery.  Part of the technology that I had written as fiction actually existed!  Since I am endeavoring to keep the gap between fact and fiction as small as possible, this was a problem.  Revision 2 ensued.  The book grew to a bit over 83,000 words.  But now, I felt I had fully described state-of-the-art technology, meaning that the device that wreaked havoc in the novel was close at hand.  Maybe it even exists as a proprietary product in some laboratory.  I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Currently, I have received and incorporated comments from two reviews and I expect the 3^rd and final review soon.  I am having art created for the cover and hope to post that soon.  And I have been reviewing eBook publishing processes.  They seem pretty straightforward, and I even have my own private Kindle version of the book that I can read on my tablet. 

Everything is close, and barring some unforeseen roadblock, I expect to meet a December 1^st release, or perhaps sooner.