Red Ice Final Check is done and future plans

Well, Red Ice's final check (from me) is done......

It was like crawling over broken glass. I went over the novel, word by word, making spelling and grammar corrections, cutting words here, adding words there. And I noted every change in another file (I don't have a full-function Word program to use --- I've used WordPerfect 8.0 for years, and I like it. Besides, I don't have the money to buy Word and even if I did, I wouldn't). Below is an example of the changes I made....

Prologue

Page 3, 3rd Paragraph, 3rd line --- Changed "he'd hadn't" to "he hadn't"

Page 3, 6th Paragraph, 1st line --- Changed "begin" to "begun"

Page 5, 5th Paragraph, 2nd line --- Changed "sub as the" to "sub was the"

I had to note the changes because Rick needed to know what I changed when he makes his final check. So, the manuscript has changes in red, and the second file has entries like the ones above, telling Rick what changes I made, and in a few cases, why I made the changes.

Going over the manuscript word by word is tedious and slow. More than once I was asking myself, "Who the *#&@^ wrote this?" There were many, many changes that had to be made, all types , each one changed and documented like the example above. Sometimes, changes in one place cause a cascading effect down the page, leading to several more corrections that had to be made.

But it's done.

Now, what am I going to do? Well, three things:

• Work on several Battletech short stories.
• Continue plotting The Assassin Prince
• Start plotting my own thriller for NaWriNoMo

So, Red Ice is done, onto the next project(s). I'll be expanding on two of these projects in future posts. (The Battletech stories will be handled in my other blog, The Battletech State)

If you want to read African Firestorm, it's on Amazon and is part of the Kindle Direct program. African Firestorm on Amazon! For those in the UK, click here! Red Ice should be be for sale early in November.


Take care,


Craig

Red Ice -- The Final Run-Through

Rich Chesler finished up his part of Red Ice and sent it back to me for my final go through. So, The Assassin Prince outlining has been put aside as I go through Red Ice. It should be simple and straightforward, right? Just read through it again, stamp my approval and send it back, done in a day, right?

Er....Not exactly.

One piece of advice I have always heard that once you finish a story, you set it aside for a period of time before you go back and edit it. This is so you can see the story with fresh eyes and find things you would otherwise miss. It's been a while since I read through Red Ice, and my read through now is. . . .humbling.

I have found so many minor and a couple of less minor mistakes in the first four chapters that it stunned me. Things like missing possessives, wrong tense, extra spaces, missing commas or dashes. In less minor mistakes, I wrote a scene about meeting of four people with five people speaking, and having people smile or scowl while wearing industrial-grade dust masks!

I doubt there are any major plot problems, or Rick would have pointed them out. But this isn't going to be done in a day or two. If the rest of the novel is as error-filled, it's going to take a few more days of reading every line, testing them, and noting changes. Making sure everything is as near perfect as I can make it.

One of the reviews for African Firestorm said the following:

 A fun easy beach read need to be more careful about misspellings, bad grammar. And duplicated words in same sentence. Tighter editing.

Mind you, the reviewer did give it four out of five stars, so the clearly liked it. And to be fair, I didn't do such an intense scrutiny of African Firestorm as I'm doing this time with Red Ice. And the reviews have been great for African Firestorm -- 4.7 Stars out of 5 --- but for some reason, that short, mildly critical review is the one that's stuck with me. So, maybe I'm a lot more critical with Red Ice than I would be otherwise. To the reviewer, if you ever read this, thank you for reminding me that an author's job isn't over when they write the last word of the story -- it is only half the job.

Now, I need to get back to Red Ice.....

If you haven't read African Firestorm, it's on Amazon, but NOT part of the Kindle Direct program (I was wrong about that....) but is part the Kindle Unlimited Program, and is free to Amazon Prime members -- African Firestorm on Amazon For those living in the UK, please click here

Take care,

Craig
(The last paragraph has been edited several times in the last ten minutes, due to my incompetence. Will try better next time....)

Outlining The Assassin Prince

For most of the time I've been writing, I've been winging it. Most of my short stories and my attempts at novels have involved me sitting down and banging away at the keyboard with only a few scenes and a vague idea of where the story is going. Fine for short stories (Though I have outlined a few when I pitch for an anthology), no so fine for novels.

One thing that writing both Outcast ops novels is that I need an outline of some sort for a novel. Now these outlines aren't hard and fast -- both African Firestorm and Red Ice have changes from the outline to the first draft, but for the most part, they follow the outline that Rick Chesler and I created.

So, I'm taking that same concept to The Assassin Prince. I am writing a chapter by chapter breakdown of the action in the chapter. I have a few names, some idea of the world-building I need to do, and how the action is going to happen. At this stage, if I come up with a subplot several chapters in, like I did the The Assassin Prince, I can go back in the outline, add a sentence or two in a previous chapter and continue on, adding the subplot when I need to.

I have the first eight-plus chapters plotted and it's going along pretty good. I haven't determined a lot of the background or the details, but right now, it's getting the plot down on paper. Once the plot is down, I can start looking at the details and decide on what to go with for the universe's flavor. I have no idea how long it's going to be -- it will depend on how the story unfolds.

If you want to read African Firestorm, it's on Amazon and is part of the Kindle Direct program. African Firestorm on Amazon! For those in the UK, click here!

Take care,

Craig

Future Plans

Rich Chesler is still working his way through Red Ice, but he's busy juggling several other writing projects and it looks like he won't be able to commit to another Outcast Ops novel in the near future. I may go ahead and outline another OO novel, but it won't be a priority.

So, what does this mean? It means that I am free to work on my own projects and I've already started outlining a fantasy novel, The Assassin Prince, which I hope will be the start of a series I plan to call The Night Blades.

Why the change in genre? A change of pace. I love technothrillers, both reading and writing them, but I also love fantasy and decided was the time to try. It more worldbuilding then with technothrillers, because, it's literally a whole other world that has to be built from scratch. While I wait for Red Ice to be sent back for my look-over, I want to use this blog as a guild to how I build this world.

I won't bother with the African Firestorm updates anymore, but if you want to read it, it's on Amazon and is part of the Kindle Direct program. African Firestorm on Amazon! For those in the UK, click here!

Later!

Craig

Red Ice is done!

Well, at least my first run through it......

The revision is done and I sent it off to Rick Chesler to add his part of the story. He'll go through, note what he sees as problems, list questions he wants me to clarify, makes his additions to the story, then send it back to me for my review. Which means with a little luck, Red Ice will be in the Amazon Kindle store by the end of September!

This novel is longer than African Firestorm --- 80,000 words or so, in comparison to Firestorm's 65,000 words -- and takes place in one city (See the picture above.) It didn't start out that way, but the story didn't fit into the smaller word count. After discussing it with Rick, we decided to try for 80,000 words --- and that's what it ended up as.

Why is it longer? For one, there's more action in Red Ice, on both sides of the table. After some discussion, there was some altering to the outline, but it did add more action. I was willing to increase the length, because I want to see if I could sustain the story for another 15K words. And I think I have!

As I wait to hear back from Rick, I'm working on other projects. Once Red Ice is out, I'll talk about the writing process more and maybe even answer some questions about writing.

And for the snapshot of AF's current standings:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#170,808 Paid in Kindle Store
#482 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Military
#1129 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military
#1256 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Military

While that doesn't look like much of an improvement, it's only because I caught it on the downside. The last three weeks have been up and down -- as low as #368,051 (August 30th) and as high as #56,604 (September 11th) On September 14th, it was ranked at #57,154. Sales are still steady, so we shall see.

As for overseas.....Amazon.uk

#85,096 Paid in Kindle Store

#277 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Military
#1438 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Action & Adventure
#1601 in Kindle Store > Books > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military

Again, higher than last time.......

If you are a member of Amazon Prime, Outcast Ops: African Firestorm is on Kindle Direct! Use this link! African Firestorm on Amazon! For Amazon UK, click here! And please check out the other two (soon to be three) novels in the series!

Back to writing!

Craig

Red Ice -- The Rewrite Begins.....

I started the rewrite of Red Ice on Wednesday, and I've finished the Prologue, Chapters 1&2, and most of Chapter 3.

I read somewhere the following: "You can't edit a blank sheet of paper." I translate that into "Finish what you start. It doesn't have to be perfect, polished or ready to be published, just done." The first draft is a piece of stone, and I have to sculpt my final draft out of that stone.

I have said before I do not write perfectly. The writing is rough, extra words pop up in the paragraphs, plot lines are dangled but are not followed up on, exposition need to be made, and scenes trimmed. Bits and pieces came to me deep into the writing. Sometime, I go back and something into the story before, other times, I move on and make note of where to go back. Things like foreshadowing events, introduction of characters and locations earlier in the storyline.

For example, in Red Ice, the Main Bad Guy (MBG) attends a meeting with his allies in crime in Chapter 7. I wrote the MBG being accompanied by two of his own men. After that, I found myself using these two characters more and more and near the end I realized these two were the MBG's chief lieutenants. In the rewrite, I being my introduction of them early in Chapter 2 and flesh them out more in a new scene in Chapter 3. I also plan to expand of one of the main plot lines in the novel, and alter a few other things to bring them into line with the new flow.

What it all means is that I have only done half of what I need to do; I have my Stone; now I need to create the story as a smoothly-running novel.

And for this weeks' snapshot of AF's current standings:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:  

#240,765 Paid in Kindle Store
#593 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Military
#1441 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military
#1494 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Military

The sales are still strong (Believe it or not) but the borrow amounts are still way off. Hopefully, the Borrows will pick up in the last week.

As for overseas.....Amazon.uk

#118,973 Paid in Kindle Store

#319 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Military
#1725 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Action & Adventure
#1988 in Kindle Store > Books > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military

A corresponding drop in the sales rankings over here too, but I think sales will leap again, as they have in the past.

If you are a member of Amazon Prime, Outcast Ops: African Firestorm is on Kindle Direct! Use this link! African Firestorm on Amazon! For Amazon UK, click here! And  please check out the other two (soon to be three) novels in the series!

Back to (re)writing!

Craig

Red Ice is finished!

At least the first draft is done. . . .

I finished the first draft this afternoon. It's a little longer than I expected, and a couple of decisions will have to be made after I go through and rewrite it. I'm going to lay this off to the side for a couple of days, then dive back in and rewrite it and see what happens.

Red Ice took me 108 days to write -- a little more than three months. A bit longer than I expected or planned. But I pushed through (one of the reason why I haven't posted in three weeks) and it's done.

Right now, I want to rewrite this and get it into Rick Chesler's hands before the end of the month. If everything goes right (Murphy, he whose law rules supreme, is a writer), I hope to see Red Ice up on Amazon by mid-September.

And the snapshot of AF's current standings:


Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,430 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#479 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Military
#1104 in Kindle Store > eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military
#1217 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers & Suspense > Military

Again, watching the sales raking going up and down is like watching an insane roller coaster. The funny things is while sales are ahead of last month, the borrow rate is way off from July -- off by over 3,000 pages. There was a glitch on Amazon earlier in the week which did screw up the page count. We'll have to see if that comes back, or if it's a lingering problem in Amazon's system.

As for overseas.....Amazon.uk

#61,928 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#224 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Military
#1141 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Thrillers > Action & Adventure
#1216 in Kindle Store > Books > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military

Remember, if you are a member of Amazon Prime, Outcast Ops: African Firestorm is on Kindle Direct! Use this link! African Firestorm on Amazon! For Amazon UK, click here! And check out the other two (soon to be three) novels in the series!

Red Ice Final Stats (First Draft):

Done: Prologue, Chapter 1-41, Epilogue
Words Written the last twenty-two days: 18,985
Total Word Count: 72,400 (111.38% of 65,000 words)
Average Words Written per day: 670/day (+49)

Later!

Craig