Wait--what do I do now?

[hrj]

Mother of Souls went off to the beta-readers this past weekend and the first report back is, "I stayed up all night to finish it," which is a good sign. But I'm left in one of those odd, brief periods when I don't have an obvious "current writing project" to talk about. According to the hypothetical to-do list, the next thing up is starting the re-writes of the earlier Skinsinger stories. But what really needs my attention at the moment are a few projects that have been rudely shoved out of the way by the drive to edit MoS. Like the new Alpennia website. And lining up the next batch of Lesbian Historic Motif Project material.

(Started thinking ahead to the MoS release date in November and went to a bad place, so I deleted that. Let's try again.)

I've talked a lot about how each book has been different, simply because my process is evolving. Mother of Souls was the first book that didn't grow substantially in word-count during the initial revisions. The first editing pass, which was about plot continuity, alignment, and stripping out redundant material, added only 500 words to the overall count. The second editing pass, which was more about description and tone, added only another 1300 words. (It involved both adding and cutting, so that's just overall growth.) I'm still comfortably under 150K and unless the beta-readers find enormous chunks of story that need to be included, it's likely to stay that way.

This is interesting. As a comparison, the final version of Daughter of Mystery was 135K, and the final version of The Mystic Marriage was 166K. My impression based on reader feedback is that DoM "reads slower", in large part because the plot is less dense, while MM "reads fast" because more is happening. So MoS is just about midway in word count between the two, and (at least in my perception) the plot is even denser and more complex than MM. It will be interesting to see people's subjective opinions of the results of that. It will be even more interesting to see how long Floodtide wants to be. Based on the outline, FT currently has 17 chapter-type-plot-units. And based on the three existing books, evidently I'm settling into chapter-like objects around 4500 words long, which is the average for both MM and Mos, although DoM averaged out at 2200 words. So if FT is more like DoM, that calculates out to 37,400 -- technically within novella length. If it's more like the later two, that calculates out to 76,500. This is actually a bit of a relief since my goal is to aim it at the YA model (and believe me, that's going to involve a big learning curve), and those numbers fall within the "typical suggested range" even at the upper end.

Not that numbers are the only relevant thing, but they're a measurable thing.

And to close, the Strange and Random Happenstance blog is doing a Regency Magic series currently and featured a bio and interview with me last Friday. As usual, my books intersect the core concept somewhat at an angle, so it will be interesting to see what readers who are looking for "Regency magic" think of Alpennia. But if you like Alpennia, you're likely to find some other authors there that you might enjoy.

Comments

[irina (from livejournal.com)]

Well, not quite all night, only until about 1:30, but still. (I do have a couple of nits to pick, one "wait what?" bit and one bit that seems tacked on, and no, I can't help proofreading so I'll include those too (funniest typo: "Barabara").

But there were more parts that made me go WHEEE! So looking forward to the finished thing, and November is a very good time for it to come out so I can give it to my friend for her December birthday -- she had to wait months for the first two :-)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Well the "wait, what?" and the "tacked on" are exactly what you're there for!

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

If you're like me, you go into a deep funk when the one person who gives you an overall reaction to the book takes a position on the other side of the Grand Narrative Discussion the book is supposed to be having.

In other words, they would have liked it better if it had been a different book altogether.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm always disappointed when someone doesn't like the books as much as I hoped they'd like them. But if I'm only reaching the people who are guaranteed to love my books, then I'm not aiming high enough. So-so reviews are proof that I'm getting people outside my focus-audience to read them!

[irina (from livejournal.com)]

Worst critique I ever had was from a friend who posted it on his blog as a favour: "no style". Meaning that my style is spare, whereas his is florid. I'd spent so much energy on depurpling!

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I am jealous of your beta-reader who could stay up all night to read it. In order to ensure I get my grading done by next Wednesday I am using chapters as incentive. I've just complete chapter five. You say you write the books that you've always wanted to have read. But with Margerit, at least, you're writing the book I have always wanted to read. Can I have her life now, plz k thnks?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

But consider: Margerit would want to have *your* life! (Well, in some ways, anyway. You know, the whole being a university professor thing.)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's probably a few aspects of each other's life we could do without (I'm perfectly happy with my husband; she might not want my kid), but yeah, she'd probably love to have a tower office with a view of the cathedral, access to books, and eager students, of both sexes.

[irina (from livejournal.com)]

Well, I couldn't have stayed up all night (and indeed I didn't; read my earlier comment) but I'm currently gearing up for a huge job that I can see on the horizon but doesn't start until the beginning of May. Also I'm blessed with less-than-average need for sleep: 5 hours is enough at a pinch, 6 1/2 is comfortable. (Inherited from my father, who slept less and less as he got older and only needed 3-4 hours in his eighties.)

The days that I could really stay up and read all night are long over... I remember buying Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Manchester airport, starting on the plane, reading it in snatches while waiting for luggage and various public transport, and sitting on my bed beside the unpacked suitcase with my coat still on until daylight (this was July so pretty early) to finish it.