Impromptu Sabbatical

What’s this place called again? Blogspot? What do I do here?

Oh, right. So, you may have noticed, I’ve been away for a while. I suppose I should let you guys know where I’ve been.

I’ve been moving. Not me, personally; moving my fiancée into a new apartment. A really, really nice, new apartment. A word of caution to those who may be considering it: if you’re moving from your parent’s house into an apartment (or house) – so that you don’t actually own anything necessary for owning a home – expect it to cost a lot of money. There’s a lot more going on than the first month’s rent and a security deposit.

So between that and college and writing, this and a few other things in my life have...taken a place of less importance, we’ll say. But the good news (I hope) is I’m back! Fresh bursts of activity on Twitter! Updates on Facebook every day! Blogs three times a week!

And, most importantly, revision on my book. Speaking of which, you should have been there on Friday; it was an insurrection. Funny thing happens when you get rid of one of the foci of your plot; a lot of stuff can get hacked. Chapter Six (I think, you’ll see why I’m not sure soon) had gotten chopped to just over 2,000 words in length. Most of my chapters are between 3.5k and 5~6k; some authors are fine to have little mutant chapters, I am not. Then, I saw that a lot of stuff in chapters one and two were really unnecessary, because of this shift of focus. So, after taking a few moments with the computer off to lay on my bed and gather myself, I tore into them mercilessly.

The end result was this: 4,000 words have been cut from the novel, one chapter got dissolved into the preceding and succeeding chapters, and another chapter got partially added to a previous chapter. Meaning what? The novel is 19 chapters instead of 21. What had been chapter seven is now chapter five, with corresponding chapter-number reductions to the rest of the chapters.

When I wrote the first draft between the ages of 16 and 20, it totaled 164,000+ words. Draft two, written from scratch this spring, was 110,000 words. It is now 96,000. When an author approaches agents with a first novel, 96k looks a lot more attractive than 164k. And I still have half the novel to finish editing.

Now, it won’t be done there. I’m seeing where my protagonist is going to need some extra motivation in order to up the conflict, and that is going to have to come in the first nine chapters. I don’t think it will revive a chapter, but this number is fluid, as is everything prior to publication. But I get good feelings about it.

See you Wednesday.