Thursday has come around. This week at Noble Pen, we are going over chapters 2 and 3 for Flight of the Scions. It’s a bit longer piece (around 7k words), but I’m anxious to see if others like it. There are holes in it–I already found some, but I don’t think they are major ones.

I’m really enjoying writing this. It still has that “new writing project” smell. I’ve been distracted with my commission and got the first draft finished last night. Tomorrow, I’ll do the second, then Saturday/Sunday the third. I’ll send it out on Sunday.

If things go well, I’ll probably be writing a chapter or two for Flight of the Scions for Sunday again. If there are others that want to have something, I won’t submit anything, but I’m just having fun. I decided that I’ll only submit something if there is an empty slot.

In other writing news, I started getting my first novel formatted for an ePub. Remarkably, I had most of the tools already, my odt2text program dumped it into a format just slightly wrong. It doesn’t have the illustrations in, but I need to create reduced DPI versions for the reader anyways (72 verses 600 dpi for print). I’m also going to put the amazing cover I got for it. It will be easier than typesetting the book, but I think there is still a bit of effort to make the ePub file look “good”.

I still loving making my self-published books look good, be it in print or on screen. Just a matter of pride, but I find doing it from end-to-end to be just as exciting as doing just one part.

I said I didn’t care about the pricing issues between Macmillian and Amazon. That isn’t entirely true. I think the idea of more flexible pricing is a rather important thing in the long run, but in the short-term, it doesn’t directly affect me. I also have faith that the market will stabilize into something workable; it might take a few starts, but given what I see in the other medias, I think I have a good idea of what it will become.

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I’ve convinced myself I’m a horrible writer because of the difficulties I had with publishing Wind, Bear, and Moon. Call it the self-inflicted torture that I think a lot of writers put themselves through. Fluffy called me being “emo” when it happens (i.e. most nights that I don’t have a productive writing session… you know, most nights period).

One of the things that makes it worse is positive feedback. It might be strange, but I’ll use a co-worker for example. Yesterday, at lunch, one of my peers asked to read the first chapter of Flight of the Scions (i.e. Wind, Bear, and Moon rewrite 4). After 5-10 minutes, I got a short review.

It’s good. I liked it.

While I enjoy his company, I hate that review. I also get it from family members and friends. Well, I get the reverse from some family, as they tear it apart and tell me every little thing I do wrong.

I think that is why I’m enjoying Noble Pen, the critique group, so much. They are honest about the stuff they read. I’ve seen them pick apart some of the members stuff, but they list both the good and the bad at the same time. They talk about the higher level stuff I never think about, but also the lower level grammar I struggle with. Nothing is ever completely positive or completely negative.

So, when they say they like my chapter, it feels more real than friend’s and family’s reviews. I got some really good suggestions on making it easier to read, places to clean up the sentences, and suggestions for representing the genre better, but I came out of it feeling like I learned something and I’m not quite as lousy as I make myself to be.

I’m doing chapter two for next week, which means I need to write a lot for the coming weekend. I try to finish everything by Sunday, but I also have my commission due Tuesday after that. It’s doable and it will be fun, but it also means a very exciting weekend.

After the various struggles this week, I think I got over the hump of it. The car repair place found out how they screwed up my car (apparently the supersekrit fuse under the driver side seat) and fixed it for free. The flashing lights and stalling are part of the security system, so once the computer started talking again, everything worked smoothly. It was also an expensive week. I have to push back a few bill payments just to get through it, but I think I have a plan going forward. I even annoyed Verizon by taking off as much as possible from the phone bill to reduce the price by another $20/month.

I’m happier.

In writing, I think I’m doing good. I wasn’t planning on working on Flight of the Scions until after My Father’s Bike, but the need to have something finished today for the writing group (Noble Pen) means I went with that instead of another comedy piece. I mean, I still don’t see me as a comedy writer, but most of my publishing successes are humorous.

The new chapter is much different than the first. It builds up the main character’s personality a lot more. It also changes them from whiny to slightly bitter/frustrated, which is an emotion I can work a lot better with. Plus, I got rid of the some of the low-grade Mary-Sueism. It also reduces number of introduced characters in a single chapter from 7 to 3. Though, since the earlier chapters dictates why things happen in the later, it also completely changes the why of the novel, but with the same end result as the original.

Later this week, I need to work on the commission. So, no distractions… yeah, right.

This week has turned into a complete cluster, but a few deep breaths and I think I’m getting through it. One of the bright points was the writing group last night (yeah, had a busy day).

Plus, I got honorable mention in a contest.

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