Muse News #17: 2000 post views!

It doesn't seem all that long ago that I posted about crossing the one thousandth post view threshold!

Thank-you, loyal readers for sticking with me and with The Annotate-Id.  As I mentioned in NITM#16, it's been a tough few weeks.  However, when there are little glimmers of sun through the clouds the day doesn't seem so grey after all and the levels of motivation climb back up.

There's no progress this week on either 360, or the audio beta.  I've written more character biographies for Kiranan's Crucible, so that's a little progress and I'm now I'm rather pleased with it.

It's not the massive step forward that I'd envisioned - that included rattling off a dozen scenes a week for the last couple of weeks so that the first draft was well on its way - but I now see my progress so far as a smaller step forward on what is actually a longer and possibly slower journey.

I've just got to keep on, keeping on , as they say.

Anyway, thank-you you all again for sticking with my little blog, I'm flattered that you like it enough to keep coming back and here's to 3000 page views!

Muse News #16: More 360 Beta Feedback & Kiranan's Confusion

This week's been slightly more productive than last week.  Not much, but a little.

So,there is some news this week.

More 360 Beta Feedback

Another 360 beta-reader, who is among the small group that beta read the third draft, has finished reading the fourth draft.  The good news is that she enjoyed it more than the previous version.

Muse News #15: Not Such A Productive Week

No news is good news, or so they say.

I'm not sure how accurate that is.  It's not been a particularly productive week, so there's not really any news to report this week.  That doesn't sound like good news to me.

Hopefully, I'll something a bit more substantial next week for you and that will be good news.

However, here's a lovely sunset to keep you going until then...

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Muse News #14: First Beta Comments, Audio Beta Slow Progress and Kiranan Psudo-Pantsing

It's a relatively short Muse News this week (no, seriously)!

I know I have three headlines at the top of the post, but what I can report on them could probably be written on the back of an envelope, that's if you could post the back of an envelope on the Internet (Note to self, might have to try that).

First Beta Comments Back

At last, the first drips of what I hope will become a steady flow of comments from my beta-readers have come back to me.  One reader a new reader for whom this is their first encounter with the story while the other read the last draft, so for them this is the second time they've read it.

However, both have provided some very detailed feedback and it will be interesting to see if a pattern emerges between the first time beta-readers and the second-time-rounders and if the two camps pick up similar things accordingly.

Audio Beta Slow Progress

Reading out loud is really difficult.  You wouldn't think it, would you?  It's just saying words as you read them.  How hard can it be?  And for a former puppeteer too!  For someone like me, talking should be the last thing I have trouble with.

Yeah, well, it seems that after three or four scenes my mouth seizes up and decides it's not going to play ball any more.  It might just be because I've been feeling tired lately (lots going on besides writing) and tiredness always affects concentration.  And then, once mistakes build-up, frustration creeps in prompting more mistakes and the circle feds itself until one becomes a gibbering wreck.

So, progress on the audio beta has been slow this week as I've hit frustration point sooner with each recording session.  My two loyal beta-listeners both have the first hour or so that's already in the digital can, so I'm going to have to focus and pick up my pace to keep them up to date with fresh material.

Kiranan Pseudo-Pantsing

In NITM#13 I announced that I'm just going for it and launch into writing the first draft of the first Kiranan's Crucible book without doing any more planning.  Well, I've started!

I've got the general plot laid down, so it's not as if I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen, but I've stopped trying to pin-down every single detail before I touch the keyboard and write each scene.  So there will be a certain amount of detail that I'll skip over in the first draft, while I'll insert others simply as placeholders until a permanent solution can be found for the second draft.

So it's pantsing of sorts, only this form of pantsing has some lines within which I need to keep my metaphorical crayons.

It may drive me totally mad and I may change my mind in a few weeks, but it is good to be writing again, even if all the current material is eventually going to be edited it out.  I'm not word counting this time round either, but scene counting, so we'll how that works out too!

So There You Go...

Another week on Planet Gilbert and another Muse News.  Be sure to check back next Monday to find out how it's all going!

(via Notes In The Margin on Thursday, of course...)

Muse News #13: Beta Audio Tweaks & More Kiranan World Building

It's not been a very exciting, or innovative week, but that's not to say it hasn't been productive!

360 Audio Beta

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Rather than recording new sections this last week, I've been rectifying technical issues with the files I've recorded already.  This has been in response to feedback from one of my beta-listeners who "took delivery" of the first batch of MP3 files last week.

The main problem was that the volume wasn't as loud as expected when played on different devices, so I've had to amplify the recordings in post-production.  From experience with the original recordings I made for the second draft a couple of years back, I knew that there could be a discrepancy in volume levels, but I had factored that in and thought that I'd adjusted sufficiently to combat it.

Muse News #11: Audio Beta Recording Resumes, OneNote Migration and Beta Reader Questionnaire

It's been a funny old week full of lots of positives despite the feeling of not actually achieving very much.

It's strange how sometimes, there can be weeks like that, where you may feel like you're running to keep-up, but afterwards, when you look back and reflect on what you've actually accomplished, you find it's actually a surprising amount.

But look!  Muse News is being posted early...or at the very least earlier than normal.  Surprised? No? Flipping-heck! I am!

Audio Beta Recording Resumes

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I've all but shifted the annoying summer cold that afflicted me for most of last two weeks and I no longer sound like Barry White, or Darth Vader.  My voice got really deep.  That's great news for the recording audio beta schedule, which suffered as a result, but it's a shame that I can no longer go around saying things like "Simba, I am your father..." with silky-smooth resonance like James Earl Jones.

You'll only get that joke if you've watched both The Lion King and The Empire Strikes Back. Sorry.

I have, however, had a couple of comments from friends expressing their disappointment that I didn't record at least a snippet, or two, of the audio beta while I had the deeper than normal voice.

If I succumb to the lurgy again, I'll see what I can do.  The characters voices will be all messed-up, but the general narration might sound rather cool.

Anyway, with the head-cold gone, I've resumed recording of the audio beta and I'm managing to get half a dozen scenes recorded each night.  There are still over two hundred to record, so there is still a long way to go.  But, like writing, it's a matter of getting into the routine and maintaining it.

I'm good at doing that, so I will get there eventually!

OneNote Migration

Following my decision to move my digital notes from Evernote to OneNote (or "succumb to the Dark Side" as one friend put it), I've now moved the bulk of my notes to OneNote.  Microsoft provide a handy Windows application for former Evernote users to import all their notebooks, notes and tags into OneNote.

The app looks appears to faithfully transfer all the required notes into OneNote, but having said that, I haven't actually used it, so I can't vouch that it is 100% accurate.

I wanted to review my "back catalogue" of notes as I went, so I'm migrating my notes manually.  I've discovered some corkers in among the tidal wave of words and ideas and I've also discovered quite a few half-thoughts, or duplicates, so some pruning and reorganisation has ensued.

It can be quite cathartic having a clear-out every now-and-then, digital or otherwise.

I should be fully migrated by the time the two device limit comes into effect in a week, or so.

Beta Reader Questionnaire

Most of my trusty and loyal army of beta readers are now engaged in reading the fourth draft of 360 (no pressure, beta readers...I've only told the rest of the world) and I've thrown myself into the new challenge of compiling a questionnaire for them to fill-in so I can analyse their feedback.

I've not designed a questionnaire before, so I've been doing lots of reading around on the Internet to see what other writers, editors and professional questionnaire designers do.  I hope that my efforts will be clear and helpful, but I may find myself in the ridiculous position of requiring feedback on my feedback form.  I won't go beyond that (a feedback form for the feedback-form feedback-form) because I'm sure that could break reality and irreversibly warp the fabric of the universe!

Or maybe it'll just really confuse everyone.

Perhaps that's a good place to finish for this post.  I think space and time will be warped enough if I post this on time!

Muse News #9: More Audio Beta Recording & Kiranan's Crucible Ideas

After my week away, I'm settling back into the old twin-track routine of recording the audio beta edition of 360 and brainstorming ideas for Kiranan's Crucible.

It hurts my head a little, trying to think about two different projects at the same time, but it does seem to be working.  Here are the highlights of both.

Audio Beta

[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Progress on the audio beta continues at a steady pace.  I'm getting used to the different character voices now and I'm making mistakes far less frequently than I did when I started.  It's still not all plain sailing, but I'm getting into the rhythm of recording a couple of scenes each day and I'm enjoying it.

I'm still not sure what the neighbours think!

I'm about a third of the way through, so it looks like it's going to take a bit longer than I first expected (sorry, neighbours).  But then, I'm not rushing it.  When it's done right, it's sounding really good (even if I do say so myself...), so I think it's worth taking a bit of care to get the quality.

Kiranan's Crucible Ideas

A mountain of ideas!  Well, a mountain
to represent a mountain of ideas!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

The rush of ideas for the new project didn't stop when I got home from the trip to Scotland.  If anything, it's gathering pace, which is really encouraging.  I must have hit a veritable vein of creativity!

And any ideas I do have are very welcome.  I have an entire world to build and three (and maybe four) books to tell the story the stories of that world.  

The notebook is starting to fill up nicely and I don't think I can have too many ideas.  I won't use them all, but it's always better to have more than you need than have a half complete world.

So, there you go.  It's not been a majorly busy week, but it has been a week of progress.  Hopefully this week will be more of the same.

I hope you have a productive week too!  

Muse News #8: Rest Of The Holiday & Back To Reality

Well, I'm back home again after a fantastic week away in the Scottish Highlands.

This time last week I was looking forward to four more days of adventuring.  It seems like much longer and those little adventures now feel like dreams.  I won't bore you with all of the details, but I will give you the edited highlights for now (Trust me, I can bore you - I took over 1500 photos and can tell you at length about each one).

So, the edited highlights from Tuesday onwards:

Tuesday

Last year my best mate and I explored a little bit of Glen Coe, a place that is usually known for the infamous massacre of 1692. It's also a place of outstanding beauty with towering mountains that line the winding glen below.

Our amazing destination, the falls of Coire nan Lochan.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

The view from the falls back down to the road far below.
It's the pale line in the glen below...yeah, that far!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert] 

Last year we didn't really get a chance to walk very far up one of the craggy paths that climb the mountains, so we decided to put it front and centre of this year's itinerary.  I'm glad we did even though it meant facing my fear of heights again in order to reach a waterfall high up on the valley side.  This place and the walk up gave me plenty of inspiration (More of that in Thursday's NITM).

Wednesday

Another development of last year's trip was my second ride in a RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat). Last year I agreed to a ride up Loch Ness.  I thought if you're going to see somewhere as magical as Loch Ness, do it in a memorable way.  So we saw it from one of the fast boat tours that ply its waters.

This year, we took an equally exciting and fascinating wildlife tour around the waters of Loch Linnhe and Loch Leven.  The ride was choppier than I'd expected out on Loch Linnhe, but again really worthwhile as we saw seals, wild goats, geese, cormorants as well as the lodge in which we stayed for the week from the great loch.

I really loved it.  I want to do another boat ride next year! The question is, where?

Yours truly sporting this summer's maritime look.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

I have no idea what the seal on the left was trying to tell us.
I think it was giving us its seal of approval...
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Thursday

Another place we visited last year was the Isle of Skye.  On that occasion it pelted it down with rain all day, so we only got limited glimpses of the fantastic scenery that lines the route up to the Kyle of Lochalsh and the isle itself.

So that too made it onto the "visit again" list and to make it all the more worthwhile we dropped in on the Talisker whisky distillery for a tour while we were there.

The weather wasn't perfect, but clear enough for us to finally see the full beautiful scenery that surrounded us.

Sea and Skye.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Friday

For me, Friday was the highlight of the week.  It was the day that we returned to one of the places that started my whole love affair with the West Highlands.  Glen Gour is the place in which I set part of The Wickedest War and it was on our first visit in 2014 that we first walked along part of this wonderful glen.  We walked it again last year, getting further than before on account of not stopping to take photos every twenty yards (I still took over a hundred photos the second time round).

This year we walked for just over six hours (there and back) and still didn't traverse the entire length of the glen.  However, we did discover a new delight in the form of another (small) waterfall.  Each time we've visited Glen Gour the weather has been glorious and this year was no exception.  It just adds to the attraction of the place.

It started as a name on a map and now this place is very special to me.  Don't be surprised if it doesn't end up featuring in all of my novels in one for or another!

One of many, many photos I took of Glen Gour this time round.
It's hard to choose just one.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Oh, OK. Just one more photo. The falls where we had lunch.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Home Again

So, that was the holiday.  I'm home again and pining for...well, not the fjords, but the lochs.  I was hoping to get the feel of what it's like to be in a more natural, less urban environment for my fantasy series, Kiranan's Crucible, and I've certainly achieved that.

Now, it's back to reality and back to turning all that inspiration into stories!

Muse News #5: 360 Audio Book Beta & Kiranan's Crucible "Pantsing Strategy"

There's not much to report this week, but that limited news in itself is quite exciting nonetheless  - well, from my perspective it is!

Audio Edition

My humble recording setup
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

With the fourth draft of 360 now in the hands of most of my wonderful beta-readers, I've turned my attention to working on the audio book version.  It isn't meant as a serious attempt at a commercially available audio book.  Recording an audio edition simply allows another two beta-readers (or should that be beta-listeners?) access to it and it provides me with the opportunity to review the story from a new angle.

Reading with the inner-voice my head, I'm prone to skip missing words, miss grammatical errors and gloss over badly constructed sentences.  Reading aloud helps me spot those errors and iron out the difficult, or clumsy dialogue.

And trust me, there's plenty of clumsy dialogue.  I've managed three recording sessions so far this week and almost driven myself mad recording some sections more than a dozen times.  I fear that by the time I finish recording the whole thing, if I'd kept the bloopers they'd be longer than the book itself!

Having said that, I have already recorded 20 of the 170 scenes, so I envisage that the remainder will take another three weeks if I continue at the current pace.

Kiranan's Crucible

As indicated in other posts on this blog, I've returned to the fantasy project that I started last year, but shelved in favour of preparing 360 for publication.  I need something to keep me occupied while 360 is being read.

Kiranan's Crucible is planned be the first of a series of an as-yet unknown number of books (or it might be the title of the whole series).  What had appeared initially to the plot of the first of the series, has - following further planning - rapidly turned it into the plot for the second book and an entirely new first book has emerged along with ideas for a third (and possibly more)

I'm still only at the planning stage, and by that I mean planning of the major plot points.  I'm not a natural "pantser" and prefer to plan my plots to quite detailed levels, but I often find myself going off-piste when I actually start writing, liking what I've then written and scrambling to rejig the remaining plot to absorb the new ideas from the new sections.

I imagine that's going to be a nightmare with a series, so instead of plot planning I'm going to world build as much as I can in advance and assemble with plot of each book as I go with only major plot points in place to guide me.  It might work, or it might all go horribly wrong.  Either way the, results should be entertaining...

This week promises much of the same as this week, but you never know.  I may have driven myself insane recording and listening to my own voice for hours on end and the planner in me may have quelled the pantser in me.

Find out in the next Muse News!

Muse News #4: Beta Copies, Old WIP is the New WIP and Audio Book

With the completion of the fourth draft of 360, this week has felt distinctly less productive than previous weeks.  Having said that, it's not been a week devoid of activity!

As reported in NITM #3, I printed a hard copy of 360 for my remaining beta readers who don't own ebook readers.  My printer isn't the fastest and, having learnt from past experience, I refrained from printing in draft quality.  Draft quality may be the fastest way to produce a manuscript, but it certainly doesn't give the most readable results.  Some beta readers found the grey lettering lacking definition, hard to read and tiring on the eyes.  So this time I used standard quality, which is much clearer, but also took much longer.

Consequently, that filled almost an entire evening.

Producing the ebook version wasn't all plain sailing either.  Formatting a document of the length and complexity of a novel has its own challenges and pitfalls.  I'm afraid I cheated and took out all-but-one of the chapter headings for the beta-edition.

Officially, I've told everyone that it's because I'm reviewing where the chapters should start and end in the new draft, but in all honesty it's because I wrestled (and lost) with the formatting and contents tables on the different ebook versions.  I'll get them to work, I'm sure...eventually.  It's something I do need to master.

Five beta-readers now have their copies and another four will receive theirs this week, so there's no going back now!

As work finishes on one phase of one work-in-progress, so work on another starts again. In the absence of 24/7 editing in my life, I've resumed work on Kiranan's Crucible, a novel that had previously been put on the developmental back-burner.

The original plan for Kiranan's Crucible was for it to be a standalone story, my first and experimental foray into the fantasy genre.  As I began gathering the ideas into a coherent plot, it became apparent that there was enough material for more than one novel, especially if I were to keep to the target length of eighty thousand words.  It lends itself to being a series of books rather than just one, so I decided to work on 360 ahead of that as my first effort into self-publishing.  With 360 out for beta-reading, now seems like a good time to revisit KC.

It's still very early days, but I've been having fun this past week brainstorming plot ideas, characters and backstories.  It's been good to be really creative again.  I've missed that side of writing.

And finally, this weekend will see the start of work on the audio book version of 360 for my two beta-listeners.  I've been working on my character voices and I think they're very nearly ready.  The neighbours have been warned!

More news on that and everything else next week in Muse News!

Muse News #3

It's a milestone day!

Finally after nearly five months of work, the fourth draft of 360 is finally finished!  I say "finished", but of-course even as I prepare the copies for my loyal band of beta-readers, I been noticing things that I want to change.

Not a milestone, but as close as I could get.
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

Those things will have to wait until the fifth draft. I consider the fourth draft finished. I've made all the changes and refinements that I set out to make when I started this particular draft and fixed all the problems raised by various readers in their feedback from previous drafts, so that's job done for now.

I have to say that - overall - I am very happy with the fourth draft.  The plot is tighter and has better pacing while the text itself has benefited immensely from being changed from the passive voice to the active voice.  It makes total sense that an action story would be told in the active voice.  I don't know why I didn't do that in the first place.

There we go, you live and learn.  I'll know for next time.

With the fourth draft ready, I'll be distributing copies to my beta-readers this week. I can then sit back and wait with baited breath for their comments to come back (actually, I will be quite nervous).

Well, maybe not quite sitting back.  I'm not going to be totally idle.  A writer very rarely has nothing going on in their head.  I have at least three other ideas in various states of readiness waiting to fill the void that the last five months of editing will leave.  Who knows, a completely unexpected idea from left-field may strike me and demand immediate attention.

One thing is for sure: my next novel is going to be much shorter! (Why do I have to make these plots so detailed?).

I'm going to try to give myself this week off from writing...so next week's Muse News may be a little thin, but no doubt the creative pangs will overrule and I'll do some work on one project or another.

There will be there will be something to report, so do checkout how I do in next week's exciting Muse News!

Muse News #2

It's been a busy old few days in chez Gilbert.  Busy, but not complicated so this will be a relatively short Muse News this week.

It had been my intention to get the fourth draft of my current WIP (Work In Progress), 360, finished and ready for my beta-readers by the end of last week.  However, in rewriting the opening third I have discovered I've negated some plot elements later in the story.  They have to go before I can consider the fourth draft complete and in a fit state to hand over to my beta readers.

Also, after initially hacking 30,000 words from the original 142,000 (yeah, it was a mammoth) during the early days of working on the 4th draft, I appear to have inserted another 7,000 back in as new copy.  That means I'll have to cull another couple of thousand to reduce it to be closer to the 110,000 target as well as clear up the loose plot issues.

Consequently, the original allocation of May for beta-reading is a very doubtful now, so I've revised my plans and June will now be set aside for beta reading (beta reader availability permitting).

The only other real news this week is that, as those who read last Thursday's Notes In The Margin will know, I've been dabbling in recording another audio book version of 360. I've only conducted basic tests with my new microphone to establish the kind of sound quality I'll be getting, which is much better than my previous efforts for the second draft.

I've also been trying out some new voices for the characters as I wasn't entirely happy with the majority that I chose to use last time.  If the resulting audio book is good enough then, once the ebook has been published, I might look at pursuing the audio book idea further, possibly with an eye to commercial release, but that is a very tentative "might"! 

For now I musty concentrate on finishing the fourth draft.  My original target for completing it was the end of March, so I'm throwing every available hour at it at the moment so it isn't delayed any longer!

Hopefully by Muse News #3 I'll have much more to report!

Muse News #1:

It's been a long time since I've posted anything in my blog, so there's a mountain of news from the Gilbert pen!

After some long, deep and very meaningful chats with myself, I concluded that starting my indie publishing career (I hope!) with a potentially six book series is possibly a tad ambitious.   Consequently, I've dusted off my long-suffering techno-thriller, 360 and begun work on the fourth draft with the intention of getting it ready for publishing before the end of the year.

That means The Wickedest War, my previous work in progress, is being rested and I hope it will benefit from the many lessons I've learnt and continue to learn from publishing 360.

The Wickedest War - rested but not forgotten!
[Photo: Jack Gilbert]

So, I have been working on a project during the last year-and-a-bit of blogging silence.  I've been working hard on the fourth draft of 360 and it's been an educational and emotional experience. I've always been poor at keeping the word counts down on my novels and 360 was no exception. The first three drafts hovered around the 142,000 word mark.  I lopped off a hundred words here and there between each draft, but I always managed to justify the survival every scene to myself.

Not so with the fourth draft.  360's been on a diet.  An extreme diet.  When I powered off my laptop last night, the word count stood at a slimmer and svelte 113,000 words.  Yep, I've been merciless.  A few thousand words will have to go back in to fill in some of the gaps but generally speaking, I don't think it will go much beyond 115,000 words.

I've also rewritten other sections to make the whole thing much tighter and pacier.  This week's goal is to finish that off and complete the fourth draft.  So, it's very nearly ready to hand it over to my ever loyal and patient beta readers for their views and comments and it'll be interesting to see what they think of the revisions.  I know a couple of them liked it just the way it was.

The other thing that's occupied me recently is the development of my online presence and conversations with other writers have convinced me that I really do need to get my backside in gear and knuckle down to keeping my blog up-to-date and my Twitter stream flowing.  If you're a tweeter then please do follow me @trebligkcaj.

As for this blog, I'm planning to post a Muse News every Monday with all the latest news on my works in progress and any other events worth sharing.

Then on Thursdays I'll be posting something I'm calling Notes In The Margin.  Those posts will cover subjects that I've been thinking about (I do lots of thinking) and will usually be writing related, but I may stray into more general stuff if the whim takes me.  The first one (this Thursday) will be about doing accents for audio books, so be sure to check that out!

And if I find anything else of interest to post between all that, I will!

Until next Monday, that's all for this week's Muse News!