A Final Title At Last

For those that don't know, Graduation Summer was always meant to be just a working title. No more, no less. It was a case of not having any idea what the title was supposed to be before I started writing, which is unusual for me. With everything I've ever written, the title came along with the story, if not before. This time, it didn't. I named it what I did because I was tired of calling it the Untitled Crazy Freddy story.

I tried everything. I made lists of potential titles, nothing. Asked friends based on just the synopsis, got interesting feedback but nothing that worked. Asked my beta readers to give me ideas based on what they read, again, good feedback, but nothing that fit. I was resigning myself to letting an editor pick the title once I submitted it for publication.

Then it happened. That moment of inspiration.

When I'm working on a first draft, the first thing I see is the title. Whenever I loaded it up to work on it, I saw the title "Graduation Summer" with whatever draft it was afterwards (AKA "Graduation Summer - First Draft")(For completionists out there, it's a .doc file, so you can add that to the end). When I edit though, all I see is story. The cover page is already in the manuscript box it's getting stored in once I finish the markups (see my last post for an explanation on my editing process). Since story is all I see, that's what I get to focus on.

When you edit, especially during that first or second read-through, you get more of the subtext. That stuff's not even on my radar when I write the first draft. I don't care about theme, I'm going for straight, blissful, escapism story. Anything resembling a theme or a central message is put in there entirely by my subconscious (hmmm, almost makes the case for writing as psychotherapy; may have to explore that later). When I re-read for editing, that stuff finally emerges.

For this one, I realized that every single character in the story - major, minor, or otherwise - has to deal with the consequences of their choices. That's when it hit me. Who cares about subtlety? I'm writing freaking horror novels here! Call it what it deals with!

So, after sleeping on it and still liking it, and getting feedback from the wife and a couple of beta readers, "Graduation Summer" gets to lose its working title. The story is officially titled Consequences.

One word, catchy, grabs your attention. Consequences.

Now let's hope it survives the submission process!

Progress Update

Feedback has starting coming in for Graduation Summer, and to my relief it's mostly positive. My wife has some issues with the sex in it, but overall liked it and gave some pretty good advice about things I hadn't really considered before. The beta readers have also thought it was pretty good, and have likewise given some good feedback I will be incorporating into future drafts. Revisions for the second draft are moving along, maybe at about 25% right now, and should be done pretty soon; it's mostly copy edits, proofreading, and obvious fixes. Then I incorporate the rewrites and revisions based on beta feedback. I'm still on target for my goal of getting it submitted and / or published by the end of this year or start of the next.

Based on my initial estimates (which may change depending on how it goes), I'm at the halfway point for the first draft of Demon at the Window. I haven't really talked about the timeline goals for this one, mainly because it's starting to look like GS has to come out first, but I'm starting to think maybe the middle or end of next year for it. You don't have to read GS to understand this one, but I think if you did it would enhance this story considerably. So I'm not setting any time frame, even a tentative one, for Demon until I have a better idea of what's happening with GS.

Wow, a shorter post this time!

That's it for now, stay tuned for more updates as things progress!

Graduation Summer Update #2

The first draft is finished. And I'm a little surprised at myself.

This was not the first novel-length work I've done. It may end up being the first one published, but I've done others. Out of curiosity, I went back and checked what the total writing times were on those. For your amusement, here they are:

Thriller / Horror 1st Novel (@67,000 words): 1 year, 3 months, 20 days = 475 days.
Fantasy Novel Book 1 (@81,000 words): 1 year, 6 months, 14 days = 562 days.
Fantasy Novel Book 2 (@97,000 words): 1 year, 6 months, 29 days = 578 days.

Getting the picture here? Over a year, at minimum for a first draft.

Not much has changed. Still have a day job, still only get to write about an hour to two hours a day. But here's the stats on the first draft of this one.

Just over 85,000 words, so not the longest thing I've done, but up there. Total writing time: 32 days.

Now either my discipline has increased a thousand-fold, or this story wanted to be told. Since my writing habits didn't change other than I had to get back into them, I'd say the latter is the case.

Don't get me wrong, this thing is nowhere near ready for publication, even if I do it myself. Beyond needing a thorough spell-check and line edit to make sure MS Word didn't say I was fine with the word choice just because it was spelled right, I'm sure there's some continuity errors and plot holes that need fixing. And since I moved onto a new project the day after I finished the first draft of this one, I have to work editing time into my schedule somewhere, so it'll be a while before I say it's ready for the general public to consume it. But that doesn't take away from the fact that I got the raw story out onto paper in basically a single month. Actually, call it that since I did take two days off when I took my family camping.

One month = one draft. Nice.

Let's see if it holds for the next project.

As for this one, beta readers will be getting it as soon as I get it printed and bound for you guys. I'll be doing some self-editing for spelling, grammar, content, and word choice in the meantime. Hopefully the second draft will be done in about six weeks, with a final draft incorporating advice from the betas in about three months. Then it's off to submission and wait for a response. If it's no, I'll commission cover art and hopefully have it ready for self publication by the end of the year or start of next year. If it's a yes, well, believe me, you'll know.

I'll post a note about the next project once it takes shape a little more on paper rather than just in my head. All I'll say for now is that it could be a spiritual sequel to Graduation Summer, only you don't have to read that one to understand this one.

And now back to it!

Current Project Update #1: Status Report

So for anyone reading this and wondering how the current project is going, here's a status report and some details about what I'm working on right now.

The current project falls into what could be classified as a "hardcore" horror novel. If you're not sure what that label actually means, read Richard Laymon, Jack Ketchum, Bryan Smith, Kristopher Rufty, and other authors in that vein. Basically, take a normal horror novel, amp up the blood and sex to about 12 on a scale of 1 to 10, and that's a hardcore horror novel. I'm using the quotes when I describe it because, realistically, this is probably a little tamer than the stuff they've written, so I don't feel entirely comfortable lumping it into that category just yet. I'll let my beta readers decide once I finish it and it gets out into the wild.

I'm not giving away much information in the way of the actual meat of the story, because it is still a work in progress. I don't want to jinx myself.

Here's what I will tell you. It's based on an old legend I heard in high school about a guy who went nuts and killed his family by skinning them alive while they were hanging from barbed wire. The story went that the guy, Crazy Freddy, still haunted the place he lived, looking for fresh victims. That's pretty much where the similarities end. I took that legend and ran with it to the point it's not quite the same as what I heard so long ago. I envisioned this as a slasher film in novel form, and so far that's what it feels like.

Seven friends decide to party at Crazy Freddy's place on the night they all graduate high school. What they don't know is that someone is not happy with their being there, and after an accident causes the place to burn down, that person wants revenge.

The working title right now is Graduation Summer. Don't get too attached; that still might change.

I'm still working on the first draft, and am in the process of wrapping up the second act of the story. That puts me roughly two thirds of the way through it. I'm at the point now where I know who's going to live and who's going to die, but these characters are behaving in ways I never anticipated, so even that might change. I won't force it if it's not meant to be.

So. If you're one of the people I have asked to beta read this, you probably will have it in your hands by the end of next month. If you're just waiting to get it when it comes out, I'm hoping for early next year. I do have a publisher in mind to submit this to, so if I win the lottery and they accept it, I'm at their mercy for release dates. If I do it myself and self-publish it on CreateSpace and Kindle (which WILL happen if the publisher doesn't accept it), my target may be closer to the end of this year. I will need to commission cover art and get it edited to the point I can accept it being out there forever for anyone to read.

Keep watching this site for more updates and news about the submission process. As soon as I know a release date, I'll post it here.

Fingers crossed, and I hope you enjoy it when it finally does see the light of day.