started a new project today

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

2700 words written this afternoon.

Which given that since just before Christmas when I finished the through draft of something that is looming over me wanting a major and complex through edit, the only fiction-writing-type work I have managed to do is a through pass on a different project and sending it to a specific beta-reader*, because I've been too tired from work panic to get anything done, is a huge relief.

It's SF, far future, large interstellar setting, starting off as a fairly small-scale mystery but with threads leading in all directions, it's also a big and weird universe where it's going to be an interesting challenge to get all the necessary information across to the reader to get what's going on, without breaking the discipline of a tight first-person POV.

*Unlike Jim's usage, I have for many years been talking about the people who read my stuff chapter by chapter as alpha readers, and the people who read complete manuscripts when done as betas.

[SCARPA]

Good job and good luck.

[meg_evonne]

Best writing to you, Neuro.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

hah. OK. I now see some major things wrong with that first chapter and how i have to rip it apart and redo it.  At least i am getting faster at seeing these things.

[meg_evonne]

Some things I find so much faster, but then I hit a wall with YA Book II.  Major structure and bones problem. *sigh* At least i saw them before i went too far afield.

[SCARPA]

I am beginning to be grateful for mistakes.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

First chapter mostly fixed, second chapter done, 8000 words in.

[SCARPA]

Good job! Right now Im on 35,676 words edited so far. Total length is about 60,000.

[LizW65]

Did the unthinkable today and ditched approx. 50% of my Work In Progress. 
I should explain; in my original concept, the novel consisted of roughly half present-day story and half flashbacks to a related story that took place five years previously. 

The idea was that the parallel stories would tie together at the end and everything would wrap up neatly--however, something just wasn't working, the story wasn't engaging me at all, and I couldn't get my head around what was wrong.  Finally, as I was dropping off to sleep last night it hit me:  I really don't need the flashbacks in order to make the story work,at least not to the extent that I was using them--they actually drag the narrative down and make it a lot weaker.

So today, I removed all the flashbacks to another folder and am in the process of re-working the present-day narrative.  Sure, I've lost about two months of work, but I'm feeling very positive about it now--and I've discovered that my first two flashbacks combined make a cool origin short story, so all is not lost.

[meg_evonne]

Word count bump   LOL   I'm now cutting my 3 to 1.5 page synopsis down to 1.  I love your comment Neuro about, "If I could have written the book in two pages, I would have."    It makes me know that I'm not alone.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

This project passed 13,000 words last night, and I finally this week did some pushing of contacts wrt sending other projects out, because I have an editor in mind for one of them who works at a publisher that does not take unsolicited submissions so I am networking like hell to try and get a "sure, if X says it's worth reading I'll give it a look".

[meg_evonne]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!  And great news on the word count.  Hang in there.