Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Our Story So Far

Holy crap! I haven't posted here in a month and a half! If anybody's still out there to read this, my apologies.

I've haven't had anything to add to The One-Thousand (that's the list of stories, not this blog) because I've been working on big projects. I wrote over 23,000 words of a new novel and then put that aside while I started a novella for The Galaxy Project.

I often write bits and pieces of a story at first and then add to it so it gets larger with subsequent drafts. Others write long and then cut. When I reached about 8,000 words on the novella, I suddenly felt like my skeleton was in place and declared the beginning of the second draft. I just topped 14,000 words yesterday and I'm now declaring the beginning of the third draft. I'm going to read the whole thing through tonight (for the first time, really) and make notes about what still needs to be added. I make notes in ALL CAPS because this is one thing that transfers from file type to file type. I also want to brainstorm a few different endings and see which I like best. I have an ending now, and although it's nice, I don't think it's going to stick with anyone after they're done reading.

3 comments:

Elke said...

Could we please play it this way: consider yourself the recipient of a smart aleck and perhaps flirty remark or three, save the time from me dashing off a remark and then being apologetic and you forgiving me with a polite pat on the head? Then we could skip straight to the novella? Cool project. And it sounds like you're totally going for it. More power to you!

Matthew Sanborn Smith said...

Is this open to negotiation? Your initial remarks are fine. Forget the apology and I won't pat you and we can go from there.

As for the rest of your comment: Thanks!

Elke said...

It was merely a request. You're well within you rights to make a counterproposal, it being after all your blog. Can we include as an item to be determined, not the cessation of patting but the location, possibly waiving the politeness? Geez, I really do go too far sometimes. I apologize. What are you going to about it?