Tag: editing

Quick Status

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All Writing work has been really slow the last week or so. I’ve been so heavily loaded at the day job that I haven’t had any time in lunch breaks (or any other kind of breaks) to make progress, and the evenings have been a wipe, too—either I’ve been too late getting home to have any time for writing, or too tired, or more likely both.

So things are pretty much where they stood a week ago. I made one small dent in the editing of The Voyage Of Valerie McGrath, and haven’t been able to touch it since. It’s frustrating.

So, it’s back to that, right now. Until next time . . .

Bad, Bad Week

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I just got through one of the heaviest work weeks I can remember in quite some time. One of our developers is leaving, so his projects are being transitioned over to other people, and I’m one of the lucky ones. But as it turned out, this guy’s work is, to put it mildly, appallingly bad. Having worked on this project for more than six months, the thing still wasn’t working—and it was supposed to have been rolled out to production the week before last.

So I was drafted in to try to get it into shape. And after four very tough days, including late night finishes, we’re almost there. One last bug to be nailed (which will probably be dealt with Monday morning) and it can go for final testing.

All of which has meant that there’s been no time for anything else. Work on GB2 has got no further than it was this time last week. The Voyage of Valerie McGrath (the short story that’s going into Xchyler Publishing’s Around The World In 80 Days anthology) is still to be edited (but I’ve had no word from my editor on that, so there’s little I could have done anyway). I’ve had no time even to relax with a bit of gaming.

Today, then, is going to be all about relaxation. I want to spend an hour working on the GB2 timeline (I have some ideas to get that ending sorted out), and I think I could do worse than have a read through McGrath to spot any mistakes I missed earlier. And I do want to have a little game time. (World of Warcraft? Diablo III? Not sure yet.)

And so, it’s time to get moving on that. Tea, then get on with it. Until next time, gentle reader . . .

Eleven Hour Shift

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Yesterday was horrible. Not the working-at-home-because-of-snow part—I have no problems staying focussed on the day job, it’s quieter than working at the office, and coffee and snacks are close to hand. In fact, it was all just fine until knocking-off time. I had an errand to run as soon as the work day was over, and I was clearing half a foot of snow off the car when my phone rang. It turned out that a new release of a web application, that had been installed at 3pm, was having problems. It turned out to be some weirdness in the database server, and somewhere along the line it cleared itself and everything started working. But by that time I’d been working for eleven hours pretty much straight. I missed a Facebook release party (too busy arranging some dinner) and then slept heavy for something like ten hours. It’s mid-day and I still feel like I’m barely awake.

Anyway, on to the important stuff. The sequel to Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia (which in future I’ll refer to here as GB2) is coming along quite nicely. The first draft of the timeline was sent to my editor last week. The ending still isn’t set in stone—there’s a section that describes where all the characters are and what needs to be resolved, and I have a couple of ideas on how to wrap things up. And my editor will no doubt spot many scenes that need work.

But that’s on hold for a little while. I think I mentioned, a few posts back, that a steampunk short story I wrote for Xchyler Publishing‘s Around The World In 80 Days anthology contest made the cut; it’s scheduled for release at the end of May, I think, but the deadline for copy editing is just a few short weeks away. I should be getting something from my editor in a couple of days, and as soon as that happens I’ll be getting busy with getting that story into shape.

For now, I’ve decided to take a weekend off writing. I finally broke down and went back to playing World of Warcraft, after an absence of, I think, well over a year. At that time I gave up on it for a number of reasons: that I don’t like doing dungeons with people I don’t know (because, to be honest, even with a group as small as five players, you can guarantee at least one will be some twit who forgets that it’s a game and takes it way too seriously—it’s supposed to be fun, guys, not a chore); that even creating new characters, exploring the same areas and going through the same quests was getting somewhat old; that they seemed to be dumbing the game down; and that the Mists Of Pandaria expansion appeared to pander (har!) to kids, paving the way for a Hello Kitty Island Adventure expansion. But the thing is, it’s still by far the best MMORPG I’m aware of, and after such a long time away from it I’m seeing some things afresh. It’s still loads of fun.

So, I’m going to grab a cup of coffee and go play for a little while, then maybe park myself with a book for a bit. If you’re a WoW player and you happen to be on the Shu’halo realm, and you see a level 19 Alliance Pandaran hunter running around Redridge Mountains or Duskwood with a pet fox, just /yell the magic word “Gunn”. If I yell back “Bohemia”, you found me <grin>.

Until next time, gentle reader . . .

Busy, busy, busy . . .

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Time for a few updates on where I am right now . . .

Day Job Stuff

When I got back to work from the shutdown, I expected my project deadlines to have been pushed back a bit. Wrong! The project I was working on when everything stopped had an end date of last Wednesday—and that didn’t change. Which meant I had about four days to complete a job that was originally scoped for three weeks. It was a tough few days but, thank goodness, I hit no serious roadblocks (apart from one technical problem, which was quickly sorted out thanks to a colleague who’d been down that same road before). Effort estimates usually include some wiggle room in case of problems, and this one was no different, but everything came together on the last day. It made for a pretty stressful start to the week, but I was able to put that behind me on Thursday.

Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia

The book seems to be doing well. I know I’ve made some sales (I won’t know precisely how many for a while), and I’ve seen a couple of reviews on Amazon (one on the US site, and one from the UK). So far, people are saying good things. And I haven’t even got into any real promotion yet. I’m barely started into arranging some things to get the word out—a blog tour is a strong possibility, as well as a signing or two locally. I’m hoping to get some progress in those directions this afternoon.

Around The World In 80 Days

The short story I wrote for Xchyler Publishing’s Around The World In 80 Days anthology contest is complete, as of a few days ago, and in shape to be submitted, as of about an hour ago (I started an editing pass last night, and finished up this morning). It is good. Without wishing to sound all conceited about it, I have to say it’s definitely one of my better short stories. I just hope it’s good enough—each of Xchyler’s contests seems to get more and better submissions.

Smoke & Mirrors

The next full-length story is coming along apace. This is the one I put to one side in February or March, and now Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia is out there I’ve been able to get back to it. I’ve redone the timeline somewhat, and I’ve been editing the scenes I’d already written, working forward to the point where I’d had to stop. I’ve recovered the momentum, and the voices and personalities of my characters, so when I reach that point (which won’t be long now—I’m almost there), I should be able to carry on and pound through to the end. My plan is to have a first draft no later than the end of November, and get it into shape to submit sometime in December. Fingers crossed.

Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia II

Yes, a sequel is in the works. I have the basics of a storyline, but I’m still thrashing out details. That’s about all I can say at the moment.

That about wraps it up for now. I have my weekly online chat with the family coming up in a few minutes, so I’d better grab a coffee and get settled. Until next time . . .

Floods and Book Progress

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First of all . . .

To those who asked about how the floods affected us, thank you! We’re lucky, in that our place is on ground that’s a little higher. As such, although there were some problems on the roads, and it looks like the wet got into the electrics in the garage and took the fridge down (fixed by running an extension from another room), we got off lightly. Please spare a thought, though, for those not so fortunate, and make a donation if you can. Right now we have blue sky, but the forecast is saying there’s more rain on the way, and we’re still getting flood warnings on the telly. It’s not over yet.

Book Progress

The last couple of weeks has seen a big burst of stuff going on with Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia, in that a whole herd of different jobs all came to a close at roughly the same time. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we now have cover artwork, back-cover blurb, bio, acknowledgements, and dedication all done. Yesterday we finished the proofreading of the individual chapters—another milestone! The next step, I think, is for those chapters to be compiled into a single mock-up, which will go off to various people for a semi-final reading to spot remaining problems. That should be happening just about now, in fact, if I understand things correctly. I should be getting my copy pretty soon. On the publicity front, I’m expecting the official release date and the cover artwork to be revealed sometime in the next week or two, and there’ll almost certainly be a Facebook release party announced for the big day.

Loose Ends

Which means, by the way, that right at this moment I’m at a bit of a loose end. It’s a bit after 2pm Saturday, and just for once I’m not writing, or editing, or proofreading. After months of spending weekends and evenings on G & B, it seems weird and alien. So, I’m doing what any writer with time on their hands would do: I’m thinking about the next writing project. To be a little more accurate, I’m thinking about five writing projects, and deciding which of them is going to be next. Two of them are definitely not in the running for now. At this moment it’s a three-way toss-up between:

  • a steampunk short story for Xchyler Publishing‘s next anthology;
  • Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia II: The British Empire Strikes Back*;
  • getting back to work on Smoke & Mirrors, the full-length story I put to one side six or seven months ago.

There’s plenty of time to decide; whatever I do, I won’t be starting in earnest until G & B is wrapped up and ready for release.

On that note, I think I’ll whiz out to the store and grab a chicken for dinner. Until next time . . .

* Chance that there will be a sequel to Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia: 99.99%. Chance that it will have that title: 0.00%, even though I’m a big Star Wars fan.

Expect Big Things

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The last couple of weeks have been completely, absolutely insane. At work, the seeds of this were planted a few weeks ago, when one more senior developer decided to move on (for unusual reasons, too: he passed his bar exam, and he’s gone off to be a lawyer). With him gone, that left just one SD in the place: me. And as problems came up on one system or another, I’ve been drafted in to fix said problems. A few weeks ago I worked exclusively on one system; today I’m consulting on two systems, fixing problems on a third, developing a fourth from the ground up, single-handed, and I’m expected to spend half my time on a fifth project starting next Monday.

At the same time, on the Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia editing front, I’ve been spending every evening and weekend working on that. Hence the lack of posts here, since if I had time to blog then I had time to edit, and the editing had to come first.

And it’s all been worth the effort. Sunday I finished a major edit of one scene that my editor-in-chief had pointed out as having serious issues, and then yesterday I finished the last two chapters. So, all I’m waiting on now is (1) feedback from those changes, and (2) proofreading. On top of all this, the editor-in-chief had her own problems—car, phone, and Internet all pfft! gone at much the same time, just when things were getting heavy. Frankly, I’m amazed that everything is still pretty much under control, and—at least from where I’m sitting—apparently on track to meet our deadlines and get the book out the door on the scheduled release date.

Other essential bits are all done, too: the back cover blurb is finalised, as is my Bio page and the acknowledgements. And . . . we have a cover! Yes, the artwork is done. Things are happening; all is finally coming together, and I’ll be reporting developments here.

In other words, Watch This Space and Expect Big Things. Over the next couple of weeks I should be announcing the cover reveal and the official publication date, and I hope to be posting a bit more often in the run-up to the release. Exciting times indeed.

Until next time, gentle reader . . .

A Crazy Few Weeks, and A Couple Of Shows

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No, I haven’t been deliberately neglecting the blog posts. I’ve just been far, far too busy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my publisher, Xchyler Publishing, brought forward the release date of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia by about a month from the original mid-November date. I’m thrilled, of course, but there’s always a downside—in this case, that being the deadlines are now much, much tighter. And so I and my extremely dedicated line editor, Jessica, have been hammering away at getting everything in shape in time. And we’ve done really, really well. The edits of the early chapters were completed four, five or more days past their deadlines, but through sheer hard work we’ve pulled that back in; we’re down to the last four chapters, and from the look of things we have every chance of finishing the job within the next three days—that is, only two days past deadline (and there’s even a chance that we’ll finish only one day late).

Doing that meant pretty much everything else had to go to the wall. Last weekend was twenty-one hours of knuckling down, and since then every lunchtime at work has been taken up, as well as every evening at home. And so, there’s been no time to compose blog posts. This is the first breathing space I’ve had, and it’s only because my editor was out of town yesterday.

That makes it sound as if there hasn’t been anything else. Not true; there has been time taken out for some fun stuff…

A couple of weeks ago we went to see Oleander at Moe’s BBQ and Bowling in Englewood. That was, frankly, a bit weird. I mean, Oleander, people; the band that brought you Are You There? You’ve probably heard it, even if you don’t know it by name. And there they were, playing to no more than fifty people. We were sitting twenty feet from the little stage, and the band members manned the CD/t-shirt sale table in person after the show, and shook hands, chatted, and signed CDs.

DSCN0152
Oleander at Moe’s

Last night we were at the Ogden in Denver to see Seether, who were supported by Eye Empire and Ten Years.

DSCN0194
Seether at the Ogden

Great show. We saw Eye Empire last year, when they supported Seether at the Fillmore; they were good then, and they were even better last night. As for Ten Years, I’d never heard of them until the day I bought the tickets, but I was seriously impressed, and I’ll be buying their CD next chance I get.

So… it’s Sunday, and I have some down time. What to do, what to do… Tea, I think, and a late breakfast. By this time next week, all the line editing should be done, and (if all goes well) most or all of the proofreading. I won’t know what to do with myself. But I’m sure I’ll think of something.

Until next time…

Another Milestone

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Followers of this blog might have seen Saturday’s post, in which I moaned and groaned about having no editing to do on Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia, and how it was turning me into a nervous wreck.

I needn’t have worried. Before the day was out, a batch of line edits appeared in my inbox, and yesterday (Sunday) turned out to be a busy day—my changes went back to Jessica, my line editor, and then more came back, and before I knew it, files were bouncing back and forth like tennis balls at Wimbledon. A great day for progress.

And in the middle of all this, something else happened, the significance of which I didn’t realise right away. Chapters 10 & 11—the last two that were with Terri, my copy editor—were approved, and sent through to line editing. It doesn’t sound like much, and it didn’t really hit until Terri sent an email later.

Copy editing is done. DONE! Another milestone!

But there’s a downside. It means that Terri’s role in the project is at an end. Of course, that’s the way process goes—but I was surprised at just how personally the news impacted me. Terri and I have been working on this book for so long, it’s going to seem strange not having her wit and wisdom for the last stages.

There will be other projects, though, and that’s a good thought.

In other news: the release date for Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia has been brought forward! It was originally slated for November 15, but that’s changed; if all goes well, it’ll be available a few weeks earlier. I have a new date, but for now I’m keeping it under my hat—the deadlines are obviously much tighter now, and I don’t want to say something, only to have to change it again in the event that we slip a few days. But so far, we’re well on track to make it happen. Copy editing is complete, almost two weeks ahead of deadline, and line editing is going well. It’s looking good.

Potential problem, at least for today: I woke up with a fever, headache, and a sore throat. It’s not strep throat—despite the fact that some people at work have had that recently, this is something else. I’ve called in to take the day as sick—but there’s editing to be done, and I know that I won’t be able to rest in bed knowing that I could be doing something, even if it’s only a little bit, to push on. So I’m writing this post as a warm-up. And now it’s done, and it’s time to get some Dayquil and coffee, and take a gentle run at Chapter 4 line edits.

Until next time . . .

Milestone

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I finally got through editing Chapter 11 of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia this morning—and then Chapter 12, being very short compared to the others (only about two thousand words—not much more than an epilogue, really) followed shortly after. Then I started, and finished, the polishing pass. Chapters 9, 10, 11 AND 12 of have all gone off to my copy editor. WOOT! And . . . rest.

That’s not the end of it yet, of course. The previous versions of Chapters 6 & 7 came back with some markup, and there’s still line editing to get through, and a bit more after that—but this is a major milestone. All the heavy lifting is done, after what seems like months. Actually, it HAS been months. Much as I’ve enjoyed working on G & B, I’m looking forward to putting it to bed and getting into something different.

The Tenth Day

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Tuesday morning’s post was, shall we say, a little premature. At the time I thought I was in for an easy day and an early out. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There was a slow morning, then I helped interview a couple of people, and then there was a meeting about a new project.

And then the used food hit the ventilation; a system that’s been in production for a while had developed a problem, and the people who’d developed it are no longer with us. I got drafted.

It seems I am now the resident Developer Without Portfolio—able to move stealthily from project to project, jump tall buildings in a single bound, etc.

Well, I fixed the problem. Problems, actually—there were three, it turned out. It meant a working day of eleven and a half hours, but considering that I had to pull apart a web application that I’d never been involved with and knew nothing about (I don’t even know what it’s for, really, even now), dig into its guts and figure out what was suddenly wrong with it, I don’t consider that half bad.

On top of the work I’d done at the weekend, by Tuesday night I’d worked nine days with a few hours on Sunday afternoon as the only break.

Yesterday morning, which was Wednesday, I was ready to get back to editing work on Chapter 10 of Mr. Gunn & Dr. Bohemia. Except that I wasn’t, really. I worked on it for an hour or so, then like a racehorse that’s decided it’s had enough, my brain started refusing fences. After nine days of brain-busting, I needed a proper rest. The Tenth Day ended up being a well-deserved day of rest.

One thing I’ve learned: when editing, if I reach a point where I know I should be able to see what’s needed, but I simply can’t, it’s time to stop. If I push it, all that happens is that I have to give up on it anyway, then when I start again the next day, it’s looking back at me with red eyes and yellow fangs, daring me to grapple.

So I stopped. I saved what I’d done, backed it up, then stretched out on the sofa with a coffee and watched The Ninth Gate, then Total Recall.

A night’s sleep, and this morning I got back to work, and things are much, much better. Chapter 10 is done, gentle reader, and I’m eight pages into Chapter 11 (which is forty pages long, so there’s a way to go yet).

I have four more days after today before I have to go back to the day job, so I’m going to take it easy; get the work done, but not push so hard that I burn out. Four hours a day, maybe five, then stop. And for now, for today, I’ve stopped.

And it’s time to stop blogging, too. I need a coffee, and another movie.

Until next time . . .