Writer Senses

Current word count: ~168,000 Listening to: People talk ____ It's been three years (November 5) since I began the Ark series. Typically I am long-winded, but to be honest, I don't feel very reflective about it this three-year milestone. Surprise! I wanted to come to this anniversary post contemplatively. I wanted to say something meaningful and deep about how writing a novel changes you. The fact that I'm writing a novel stopped being novel (see what I did there?) after the first year, though. Once you write a 167,000-word-story that still isn't done, it becomes so ingrained in the rhythm of your life that it ceases to be fresh. I don't mean to say that I don't think my novel is interesting—far from it; I am the story's biggest fan—only that I want to be done with it. I want to begin pursuing publishing, attend conferences, get an agent, and perhaps feel like I have more time to work on my master's thesis (or play Team Fortress 2, y...

Current Word Count: ~90,000 in the manuscript. Listening to: Not too much of anything recently. ____ November 5th marks the 1-year anniversary of my completion of the first draft of the first chapter of ARK. For any unversed readers of this blog, the novel follows two alternating story lines from the points of view of Tru Arneau, a powerful Telepath in the ranks of the Magisterial Authority, and Laro Sadoleto, a crime boss of the Antipodes who finds himself in the jaws of the World's most dangerous fugitive. Each story line contains its own specific characters: we learn of the workings of the Authority as Tru traverses the vaunted halls of the Citadel while weaving her way through the political spider web to achieve her own goal: justice at any cost. And we see both the vast expanses of natural beauty and the grimy back alleys of port city of Fair Havens as Laro is forced into the service of the fugitive Sa'ava on pain of death. The (current) novel synopsis is as follo...