Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Author's Blog, June 23, 2006

Author’s Blog: June 23, 2006

I just finished the pre-draft for my second novel, Out of the Shadows—seven days before my artificial deadline of June 30. It took 2 hours to print—406 pages and probably half a printer cartridge. It’s a heavy sucker, too—not exactly something I look forward to dragging around while I’m trying to edit it. It’s not the first draft—just the pre-draft, basically a rough skeleton of my story without any description or character development. It’s also missing pieces of information—lots of pieces, just like a half-done jigsaw puzzle. Ugh! Two to three years worth of work and it’s still full of holes.

I’ve set the artificial deadline for my first draft at the end of the July. I feel like that is pushing it, but then, I thought setting my pre-draft deadline for June 30 was pushing it, too. I’ll be spending this next month reading the thing, searching for holes, creating timelines so everything will flow, making sure the seasons are described. (With A Prophecy Forgotten, I totally forgot that most of the novel took place in winter. I didn’t realize that I had forgotten to add snow until I watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the movie theater. While everyone in the theater gasped at Czechoslovakia’s (or whatever country it is now) snow-covered scenery, I was choking because I realized that my own little world had no snow. That’s what living in Florida will do. Gosh, now that I think about it, I forgot to describe the spring flowers at the end of the book. Dag nab it!) I also have to do research on the Naval Academy and surrounding Annapolis so when my heroes are running through the town for their lives, the residents of Annapolis won’t be laughing at me. Does anyone out there have any good military jokes, preferably Army/Navy or Navy/Marines?

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