Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

And a few other things. In fact, just a short post all the way around. I lost this day. I don't even know where it went. I got a little editing done, a little lecture and a little grading but accomplished nothing over all.

Before I get into the meat of this post, CHECK THIS OUT FREE writing workshop This sounds fantastic.

But it's the editing I wanted to talk about. I'm sitting at 42K with about 30 pages left to edit. That means I'm within 18K of being novel length for Dreamspinner and within 7K for Storm Moon. Now, I originally planned on sending it Storm Moon. Kept Tears started as, believe it or not, a short story for one of their anthologies then grew all out of control.

I could easily get this to 50K. But Storm Moon doesn't go to print and ebook until 65K. I'm definitely not sure that I have THAT much more left to say in this book. Overall, the pay is slightly higher with Storm Moon but not by much. I thought Dreamspinner also had the 65K rule for print runs but I no longer see that. So, what's the big deal? For me, I can't even read ebooks because kindle/nook screens do very bad things to my eyeballs. I would love to be able to hold my novel in my hands.

So, for my beta readers for Kept Tears, what do you think? Can I pull this out more without taking the tension out? Any SUGGESTIONS for scenes you would like to see? I'm open about that. I was thinking (points to the ofic filter post today) that maybe one of Morcant's friends, a little more impulsive and a little more stupid than he, goes after Aaron and Aaron ends up in the elf home but that alone is not going to get me to 18K (not even if I jam in some make up sex).

I could go back and do a scene or two more with Corinne at school but I need some thoughts from outside eyes. I'm this close, I don't want to mess it up. So if there was something you really wanted to see now is the time. Also I'm going to be willing to do a share here, edit for edit because this is definitely going to need to be seen again before I shoot it off somewhere.

Yearly Word Count -

133862 / 175000 words. 76% done!

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I like both ideas, Morcant having a dumb friend, and definitely more time with Corinne. She's a neat character!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

well good. Now... SUGGESTIONS for what they can do

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Corinne and Aaron can be studying for exams. They can be discussing double date potentials. They can be complaining about some professor, or worse, some of their idiot fellow students. :D That's always good. Remind us that Aaron's in classes.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

poor Aaron going through all this crap and have to deal with biology graduate program (I'll have to see what classes he might be taking)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

...one's a distraction for the other?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

in theory

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Or something?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah still not sure it'll get me 18K

[havocmangawip.livejournal.com]

AGREED ON ALL COUNTS! I NEED TO SEEEEE THIS WRITTEN!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

working on it. I'm still looking for ideas so if you have any...