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!
Monday, 23 May 2016
Thursday, 19 May 2016
Notes In The Margin #3 - The Thrill of Paper
I had intended to post a completely different NITM today, but the events of the last two hours changed my mind.
What marvelous occurrence overwhelmed me? What startling epiphany descended? What glorious joy overtook my soul?
I printed out the fourth draft of 360. That may not seem like an earth-shattering event to most people, but for me it was somewhat enlightening, and I'm hoping that the writers among you will empathise. Today saw the fruits of the last five month's labours transform from ethereal and digital scrawlings on a computer screen into words on a physical page, in order, together and whole.
It's not the first time I've printed out an entire manuscript. This is the third time 360 had been manifested in paper form (the second draft was quickly superseded by the third and consequently was not printed) and every time holding a thick, stack of paper bearing tens of thousands of words all neatly arranged into a story that started as nothing more than scant ideas flashing through my imagination just blows my mind.
In 360's case, those same 120,000 words have existed in the same order on my laptop's hard drive (and in various back-up copies) for months now, but somehow holding them in my hand just has an affect on me that I can't explain. I'm an unashamed convert to ebooks. I find them so convenient and rugged in a way any number of my paperbacks never were, or could be. Their tattered edges and creased spines bear testament to that.
But every now and then I have to go back to a printed book, just because there's something reassuring and physical about it. And yes, before you ask, I am one of those people who likes the smell of a good bookshop. I grew-up with that smell - along with several other smells like the sooty and oily whiff of good steam train - and it's just one of those things that sends my synapses sparking. I'm just wired like that. However, I recognise that not everyone is.
The last time 360 went to my beta-readers was nearly three years ago, ebook readers were a novelty and the majority of them read the hard copy. This time the majority are reading a digital copy and a few are reading the hard copy. In another three years, the ebook reader may even be a thing of the past and some other form of book consumption may have taken over - projected into our eye line on augmented reality, or VR headsets anyone? Oh, now there's a idea...I should have put that in the novel. It's about virtual reality!
Wherever the next step in reading consumption takes us, one things is for sure: I'm going to continue printing a manuscript of each novel I write and enjoy the sense of immense satisfaction it gives me.
I think that's the feeling a book should generate in writer and readers alike.
What marvelous occurrence overwhelmed me? What startling epiphany descended? What glorious joy overtook my soul?
 |
| The Fourth Draft in all its papery glory! [Photo: Jack Gilbert] |
It's not the first time I've printed out an entire manuscript. This is the third time 360 had been manifested in paper form (the second draft was quickly superseded by the third and consequently was not printed) and every time holding a thick, stack of paper bearing tens of thousands of words all neatly arranged into a story that started as nothing more than scant ideas flashing through my imagination just blows my mind.
In 360's case, those same 120,000 words have existed in the same order on my laptop's hard drive (and in various back-up copies) for months now, but somehow holding them in my hand just has an affect on me that I can't explain. I'm an unashamed convert to ebooks. I find them so convenient and rugged in a way any number of my paperbacks never were, or could be. Their tattered edges and creased spines bear testament to that.
 |
| And from the side... (Just so you didn't think it was just the title page) [Photo:Jack Gilbert] |
The last time 360 went to my beta-readers was nearly three years ago, ebook readers were a novelty and the majority of them read the hard copy. This time the majority are reading a digital copy and a few are reading the hard copy. In another three years, the ebook reader may even be a thing of the past and some other form of book consumption may have taken over - projected into our eye line on augmented reality, or VR headsets anyone? Oh, now there's a idea...I should have put that in the novel. It's about virtual reality!
Wherever the next step in reading consumption takes us, one things is for sure: I'm going to continue printing a manuscript of each novel I write and enjoy the sense of immense satisfaction it gives me.
I think that's the feeling a book should generate in writer and readers alike.
Monday, 16 May 2016
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.
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!
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] |
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!
Thursday, 12 May 2016
Notes In The Margin #2: What's In A Name?
There is one part of the novel writing process that fills me with equal measures of excitement and dread: Naming characters.
It excites me because before I start the whole process is full of a shed-load of potential and my imagination can be let off the leash. The rules are simple. Find the best name for each character than I can possibly come-up with! It sounds so simple, doesn't it?
Well, yeah. That's where the counterweight of dread comes in. Almost anything is possible. When faced with a massive blank canvas like that it can become a bit overwhelming and like a child in a sweet shop with too much choice, I sometimes find myself dazed and confused by the sheer abundance of choice. I usually feel I've made the wrong choice and that a better answer is evading me, hiding out there, somewhere in the creative ether...
Over the last two decades that I've been writing, I've tried numerous methods for finding character names. They've ranged from looking at the premise of the piece and seeking inspiration from that to literally sticking a pin in the phone book.
I should point out that both methods have had their fair share of success and failures. 360's main protagonist, Nick Hasben, got his name from the starting point of his character considering himself to be a "has-been". If I say "has-been" enough times, it comes out as "Hasben".
It struck me as a fitting name, so a character's surname was cast.
I'm less inclined to use the phone book these days. The main reason being is that we don't really see them around anymore. When I was a kid we had volumes of the things around the house. Nowadays, I have one book and that's mostly full of area code information rather than names. I suspect for some younger writers a phone book may already may seem an antiquated name generating tool!
Thankfully, there are Twenty-First Century tools available to the modern writer to help them when inspiration runs dry. I tried the Linux version of Scrivner recently. Scrivner is an amazingly powerful piece of software for writers. It's not a word processor, but an application written specifically for writers whether it be for writing blogs, dissertations, articles, short stories, or full-length novels.
Suffice to say for now, one of its many tools is a character name generator. You can choose to generate either first names, or surnames from different parts of the world, or different time periods (like Saxon), or mix it up and have each name suggested on different criteria, or starting with a certain letter. Even if you don't use the names it suggests, sometimes it's enough to spark the necessary inspiration for that elusive character name,
Scrivner is far more than just a name generator, so well worth a look if you're looking for something to help organise your writing projects. It's a fantastic piece of software and warrants a NITM post of its own sometime (other writing software is available of-course).
At the other end of the scale is another, more low-tech, method that I've tried recently. I wrote names that were in the ball-park of what I thought my character should be called on small sticky notes. Once I had good number of each, I mixed and matched forenames and surnames trying the different combinations, or adding new ones to the mix until something jumped out at me. As I say, it's very low-tech, but it was a fun way to explore the possibilities.
Also remember, however you find your characters' names, until you publish nothing is set in stone. They can change at any moment (search and replace permitting). So even if that inspiration strikes three quarters of the way through the first draft, you're perfectly free to change your mind. One of the characters in my previous work in progress, The Wickedest War, spent several years called Murray. A friend pointed out that there were several characters whose names began with "M". I struggled with the idea that this character that I'd become so used to calling Murray should be called something else.
But reason won the day and Murray's not Murray anymore. He's Tamblyn. It suits him far better. It's the name he always deserved.
If you're struggling with finding suitable names for your characters, relax and try to enjoy the freedom to create rather than dread the possibility of messing it up. Use software, sticky notes, an old phone book, or your own form of creativity. If you have your own methods, let me know.
Either way, have fun with your name making and you might surprise yourself with the results!
It excites me because before I start the whole process is full of a shed-load of potential and my imagination can be let off the leash. The rules are simple. Find the best name for each character than I can possibly come-up with! It sounds so simple, doesn't it?
Well, yeah. That's where the counterweight of dread comes in. Almost anything is possible. When faced with a massive blank canvas like that it can become a bit overwhelming and like a child in a sweet shop with too much choice, I sometimes find myself dazed and confused by the sheer abundance of choice. I usually feel I've made the wrong choice and that a better answer is evading me, hiding out there, somewhere in the creative ether...
Over the last two decades that I've been writing, I've tried numerous methods for finding character names. They've ranged from looking at the premise of the piece and seeking inspiration from that to literally sticking a pin in the phone book.
I should point out that both methods have had their fair share of success and failures. 360's main protagonist, Nick Hasben, got his name from the starting point of his character considering himself to be a "has-been". If I say "has-been" enough times, it comes out as "Hasben".
It struck me as a fitting name, so a character's surname was cast.
I'm less inclined to use the phone book these days. The main reason being is that we don't really see them around anymore. When I was a kid we had volumes of the things around the house. Nowadays, I have one book and that's mostly full of area code information rather than names. I suspect for some younger writers a phone book may already may seem an antiquated name generating tool!
Thankfully, there are Twenty-First Century tools available to the modern writer to help them when inspiration runs dry. I tried the Linux version of Scrivner recently. Scrivner is an amazingly powerful piece of software for writers. It's not a word processor, but an application written specifically for writers whether it be for writing blogs, dissertations, articles, short stories, or full-length novels.
Suffice to say for now, one of its many tools is a character name generator. You can choose to generate either first names, or surnames from different parts of the world, or different time periods (like Saxon), or mix it up and have each name suggested on different criteria, or starting with a certain letter. Even if you don't use the names it suggests, sometimes it's enough to spark the necessary inspiration for that elusive character name,
Scrivner is far more than just a name generator, so well worth a look if you're looking for something to help organise your writing projects. It's a fantastic piece of software and warrants a NITM post of its own sometime (other writing software is available of-course).
At the other end of the scale is another, more low-tech, method that I've tried recently. I wrote names that were in the ball-park of what I thought my character should be called on small sticky notes. Once I had good number of each, I mixed and matched forenames and surnames trying the different combinations, or adding new ones to the mix until something jumped out at me. As I say, it's very low-tech, but it was a fun way to explore the possibilities.
Also remember, however you find your characters' names, until you publish nothing is set in stone. They can change at any moment (search and replace permitting). So even if that inspiration strikes three quarters of the way through the first draft, you're perfectly free to change your mind. One of the characters in my previous work in progress, The Wickedest War, spent several years called Murray. A friend pointed out that there were several characters whose names began with "M". I struggled with the idea that this character that I'd become so used to calling Murray should be called something else.
But reason won the day and Murray's not Murray anymore. He's Tamblyn. It suits him far better. It's the name he always deserved.
If you're struggling with finding suitable names for your characters, relax and try to enjoy the freedom to create rather than dread the possibility of messing it up. Use software, sticky notes, an old phone book, or your own form of creativity. If you have your own methods, let me know.
Either way, have fun with your name making and you might surprise yourself with the results!
Monday, 9 May 2016
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!
Thursday, 5 May 2016
Notes In The Margin #1: Producing an Audio Book - Am I Mad, or What?
When I started asking my friends if they would like to beta-read my novel 360, I didn't expect two of them to ask if I could provide it as an audio book. One of them listens to a large number of audio books, so he knows what he likes and doesn't like and was ideal to give me some feedback on my audio offering.
Which gave me an interesting challenge.
Recording an audio book isn't as straight forward as you may think. And for those who do already consider it a challenge, it's even more of a challenge than even you think! While it's relatively easy to record a short clip of someone speaking on a computer these days, it's not so easy to record something of a decent quality that can be anything up to twelve hours long, which is how long the second draft of 360 turned out to be when I recorded it.
Twelve hours!
And you can't rush it. Even at twelve hours there are some stretches where I gabbled my way through certain passages. There was just so much text to get through and so little time but a rushed audio book sounds awful.
And so many retakes.
Oh, the retakes!
In some ways reading your work aloud is a really useful exercise. It makes you appreciate what you've written, especially dialogue, where it works and where it doesn't work. In other ways though it is infinitely infuriating as you stumble, stammer and mangle your way through text that reads like prosaic honey on the page.
However, clumsy grammar, or cliched dialogue aren't your only enemies.
 |
| My trusty ProSound microphone with Audacity recording software running in the background [Photo: Jack Gilbert] |
Recording an audio book isn't as straight forward as you may think. And for those who do already consider it a challenge, it's even more of a challenge than even you think! While it's relatively easy to record a short clip of someone speaking on a computer these days, it's not so easy to record something of a decent quality that can be anything up to twelve hours long, which is how long the second draft of 360 turned out to be when I recorded it.
Twelve hours!
And you can't rush it. Even at twelve hours there are some stretches where I gabbled my way through certain passages. There was just so much text to get through and so little time but a rushed audio book sounds awful.
And so many retakes.
Oh, the retakes!
In some ways reading your work aloud is a really useful exercise. It makes you appreciate what you've written, especially dialogue, where it works and where it doesn't work. In other ways though it is infinitely infuriating as you stumble, stammer and mangle your way through text that reads like prosaic honey on the page.
However, clumsy grammar, or cliched dialogue aren't your only enemies.
Monday, 2 May 2016
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.
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!
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!
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