Before you gasp and say “499 pages?!”, keep in mind this is the printed out version–double spaced, 12 point font on normal sized pages. The total word count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 90,000. To compare, Magic of Eyri was 170,000+ words and 919 pages printed out in the same format.

Yes, I’ve killed quite a few trees lately.

Will I self-publish this one? Nope. I’ll get this baby ship-shape and start shopping it around in a few months (hopefully) to agents, etc.

My first thoughts after reading the last page and setting aside my red pen?

1. There are a few sentences I’m proud of.
2. It certainly is a first draft (as in, a good sized portion is “crap”).
3. I can see its potential.
4. I have a lot of work to do.

The most interesting thing about this novel is that I stopped writing it about halfway through and didn’t start up again until at least six months later (life happened). And it shows in some parts. Getting the story going again was rough, and in some sections it was apparent that I didn’t care how the characters got moving, as long as they were doing something.

But, towards the latter half, I found my groove once again. There are some great ideas that came to me then–ideas that will make me go back and completely change the first half of the book, for the better.

This is why, when asked for writing advice, I tell people to just finish, for better or worse (to wit, see my Ignite Lansing 3.0 presentation). I wrote scenes in the last 30 pages that I didn’t even have ideas for in the first 200 pages. I came up with a huge change for my main character in those last 30+ pages or so, and it’ll make the first part much better.

Had I stopped half-way through, I would have never come to that revelation. Better still, a few lines I wrote in the last few pages may end up going to the BEGINNING of the story. They set up my main character really well.

Sure, going back and rewriting most of the book with this new focus will be a bit of a chore, but I don’t care. It’ll make the story better and honestly, I’m not happy with how I wrote some of the early sections anyway (lots of info-dumping).

Next step: going through and taking all the notes from my marked up manuscript and putting them all in one notebook or sketch book.

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I had the pleasure of being a guest at the science fiction and fantasy fan convention, ConClave once again this weekend.  I had a great time like always,  running into  Jim C. Hines, who was there promoting his latest release, Mermaid’s Madness, and the always entertaining M. Keaton.

It is fun to reconnect with writer friends and to make new ones at these conventions.  I was a part of nine events, including the Writer’s Workshop (I read and critiqued stories), panel discussions (ranging from zombies to werewolves to comic books) and I was even a contestant in a Last Man Standing Sci-Fi/Fantasy Trivia Contest–and I came in 2nd place.

My prize for coming in second is that my name will be used for the name of the president of the CDC in an upcoming zombie novel (The Ravening) by Stewart Sternberg. Stewart said that there will be a quote at the start of a chapter, which will be attributed to said CDC president, so something along these lines perhaps, to give you an idea:

“I see no reason to panic. As long as none of them bite you, you’ll be just fine.  Oh, and wash your hands.  Seriously, people.”

- Daniel Hogan, President of the CDC.

I’m excited to see what Stewart comes up with–he’s threatening to make it something that will cause an angry mob to show up at my door. Hey, I can use the publicity.  The novel will be available in stores and obviously I’ll do a post once that happens.  The grand prize winner will be made into a character that gets ripped apart by zombies.  Lucky.  Amusingly, I lost my shot at first place by not knowing the name of Barbara’s brother in the original Night of the Living Dead (Johnny).

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Speaking of Mr. Sternberg, we were on a panel about werewolves at ConClave, which I recorded for this week’s podcast.  Check it out. I’m glad I recorded it, because between late nights at work this week and getting ready for the con, I didn’t have the next episode of the Magic of Eyri finished. Hooray for filler. Give the panel a listen, it is a fun time. Jon David, Rick Moore, Charles Zaglanis and William Jones join us as well.

Joining me in splendid 64 kps glory are Jim C. Hines and Phil Kline.  I haven’t listened to the audio yet, but I’m sure it turned out just fine (or fine enough for this purpose).

I’m curious how this will turn out and if people will like it or not. This will not be a regular feature, but I know people do enjoy this sort of thing (listening to writers talk about writing)–otherwise no one would ever attend any of the panels I’m on. I keep meaning to record non-podcast stuff to have at the ready if I ever need filler in case I don’t have an episode ready or something comes up (illness, vacation, pirate-ninjas).

Regular transmission of episodes will continue on September 27th.

Starting with the next episode, things really start kicking into high gear, action-wise anyway.  And we’ll meet some new characters too.

Event this Tuesday: I’m going to be part of the Fantasy Author Panel at the Delta Township District Library. Join Jim C. Hines, Phil Kline and myself as we rap about writing fantasy fiction. FREE. 6 PM to 8:30 PM.

We will be signing and selling books afterwards…well, I won’t be selling books, but I’ll be giving out free podcast CDs.  I may only put the first few episodes on there and make them audio CDs instead of .MP3s. We’ll see.