Happy times, pop the cork. I’ve finish my book

124,086 words.  Will anybody ever ready it though?

I had an unbelievable day of writing yesterday.

The words were flowing from my fingertips and I just kept pounding away. I think I wrote for about 4-5 hours, starting at lunch and didn’t stop until I had to head out for a meeting. This was one of the pivotal moments/battles of the book and I really enjoyed getting in to the one on one nature of it. This arc ended and won’t pick back up until the characters meet again, (at the Red Doors).

I have the characters currently split into four locations and will manage to bring three of them together for the last scene. The fourth group of character won’t be picked back up until the start of Book II. I didn’t plan for this to happen, but I think it will manage to keep a side storyline moving forward and will become important as the second book ends and the third one begins. After 15 months to get this point I can believe I’m talking about a third book already; God have mercy on my soul.

My main challenge now will be to tell the closing story and not let it drag on. I’m at 114,750 word and refuse to let it pass 120,000. As it is now I’m hoping to slim the post draft copy down by about 10,000 words, but no promises.
On a side note—holy cow, I’m seeing Kindles everywhere now. Went to a boy scout meeting and met two people with Kindles and I’ve seen two others in the wild. Are these things really selling or am I just surrounded by other geeks?

Lonnie

Getting close to the end

I’m feeling like a race horse that sees the barn door. I’m over 108,000 words and about 200 pages on a word doc and see the end. I’m trying to write about 5 days a week and with a few hours every day in front of the monitor, I think I can finish the story by the end of the month.

I’m going to take a break after the book is done, but to keep myself writing I’m going to write some back story for a couple of my characters. I don’t think it will see the light of day, but should help with the next installment in the series.

Lonnie

Kindle app on the iphone WOW!

I just got done playing with the Kindle Iphone app and it is fantastic. Works a lot like the Classics app on the Iphone, almost as good but the page turning and size of the Classics app is a little better. I downloaded Jack Campbell’s, (aka John G. Hemry) Lost Fleet series and it is very readable. Looks like I’m going to start doing more reading on my Iphone and less podcast listening, sorry Leo Leporte.

Lonnie

Back in the groove

Just broke the 200 page mark and 108000 word. I can see the finish line, just one more fight and a dragon stand between me and the words. The End.

Back to writing

I’m in an Army school and away from home for three weeks. Thus I’m back to writing on a semi regular business. I just finished a chapter and the last big war scene. There will be one more fight scene but this one will be quick. Although this will be a quick scene, it will be the most important one because it sets up the next book.

Life’s getting in the way of writing, (not a bad thing)

My writing is still hit and miss.  I’ve been preoccupied with my upcoming move, but I’ve been able to write a couple of thousand words more though. 

 I’m taking the family to London for 10 days at the end of the month then plan to move back to the states mid January, so I think I’ll take a brake from writing until I’m settled in to the new place.  This will be a good chance to read more and as Stephen King wrote in “On Writing,” authors write a lot and read a lot.  I’ll be working of the second of that one. 

If any of you are into podcast, I’ve just been listening to a good one, I should be writing 2.0 by Mur Lafferty.  I’ll put a link to the web site on the blog roll.

Lonnie

I want to share the best book I’ve read in a long time, Stephen King’s On Writing.

This is the most amazing book and it’s what you would expect from a writing book, but so much more.  I now want to go back and start reading more Stephen King books.  The first 100 pages are the most amazing part of this book.  The beginning is a cliff note version of his life story.  It’s a succinct autobiography, which is riveting.  He is an amazing man, but he gives you real advice that I wish I knew a year ago when I started my own book.

 

If you want to be a writer or if you just want to read a quick and interesting biography, this is the book for you.  I can’t recommend it any higher.

 

Lonnie

Just hit a big milestone

I’ve only written a couple of days in the last ten or so, but I did hit a big milestone in those couple of days.  I went over the 100,000 mark in word count, hooray!   The total single spaced pages are about 185 now—I think that works out to 300 pages in a standard 6×9 paperback.  The word count and pages aren’t my major concern, but I wanted to make sure once I wrote the book that I wouldn’t have to add a bunch of fluff to get it to standard book size.  I wanted to make sure that the story was king and not an artificial standard to be published. 

I’m not done with the story, but definitely at the culmination point for the first book.  Big battles will be the exclamation point of the main story line along with the twist in the last few pages that will set up the second book in the series.  I’m getting back into some semblance of a routine so I should be able to write next week for several hours each day.

Lonnie

Sorry for not posting in a while

I’m back from Bulgaria and I apologize for not being able to post in a while.  We were running internet through army satellites and the system blocked all blogs, so no posting I’m afraid.

I didn’t get as much writing as I’d hoped either.  Once I got to Bulgaria, I was made the Deputy Commander for the Task Force and I was swamped with work.  I only managed to write in spurts.  I’m at about 183 pages, but I see the ending coming up fast.  The last couple of chapters are going to be pure action so I expect the writing to go quickly from here on out.  I’m also taking this week off, so I plan to write every day for at least a couple of hours. 

Thanks for the patience and more posts to come.

Lonnie