Journal of the Dead first draft: 114,181 words
Journal of the Dead second draft: 111,992 words
Journal of the Dead third draft: 110,394 words
I just hit that fantastic final sentence again. Now it's time to let the whole thing set again, with the plan to look at it seriously for what I hope will be the final pass. I'm tentatively planning to start that on March 15th. Oh, yeah, that's ominous.
Going to take a little break before I think about having other eyes look at it, but that's probably on the horizon. Maybe. The sample chapter section for certain. I haven't had a beta reader since I was thirteen (or so), in case people are wondering why I'm so skittish about the idea.
About Me
- Lindsey Duncan
- I'm a professional harp performer, chef / pastry chef, and speculative fiction writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. My contemporary fantasy novel Flow is available from Double Dragon Publishing, and my science fiction novel Scylla and Charybdis is now out from Grimbold Books. I've also sold a number of short stories and a few pieces of speculative poetry. I write predominantly fantasy, usually epic and/or humorous, with some soft science fiction. I play the traditional lever harp with a specialty in Celtic music - but I also perform modern and Renaissance tunes. And yes, you read that right - I have a diploma in Baking and Pastry and an Associates in Culinary Arts and am currently working in the catering field at Kate's Catering and Personal Chef Services (Dayton, KY). I am a CPC (Certified Pastry Culinarian) and CSW (Certified Specialist of Wine).
4 comments:
Don't worry, I'm really nice :)
What re you skittish about, exactly?
And congrats on finishing another edit round! If the word count is more concise, that's a good thing.
My draft style is bloated - I just seem to use a lot of unnecessary words. In short stories, I cut deeply; with novels, I try to preserve the occasional "that" or stutter. ;-) So invariably, even if I'm adding significantly to the story, my novel drafts will shorten as I edit.
Just putting up short stories for critique ties me in knots. The thought of having someone look at an entire novel is daunting. I suppose this boils down to "my skin is too thin." ;-)
That's very interesting, because as musicians we have to have such a hard skin. Every lesson your teacher is criticizing you to make you better. I think this has helped me with dealing with the comments about my writing.
My musical skin is thicker, really. I even spent some time on the competition circuit, which while I think it's more casual in the SHSA than it is for classical musicians, is still not an easy ride for the ego. ;-)
I don't know. I've actually gotten quite good at filtering comments - "That makes sense, that's garbage, I don't know about that, we'll see if anyone else agrees." - but the process remains nerveracking.
Also I think the complete lack of knowing what to expect might have something to do with it. ;-)
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