Devil Deal Novel Draft #3 Word Count - By The Numbers

All on target this week, as I sailed through the final stages of Novel Draft The Third. This will be a familiar tone to regular readers of this blog, most writing updates in the last month or two have broken down to: "Today I reached another book milestone!"

But just to reiterate what it all means: I am now at the point where I will show my book to some other humans. I've recruited a few volunteers from my writing group and personal life, now just gotta email it over to them. Once I've plucked up the courage to tackle Scrivener's sometimes-horrific ebook compiling options.

Anyway. In a bid to keep the blogs interesting, I'm going to run some actual stats for the whole project, to see how much I cut, where it went, what it all means, etc. Will the numbers tell me anything of worth? I don't know, as I haven't generated any of them at the time of writing this intro. Better go do that now.

Hobson & Choi #69 - "Follow That Man!"

A little bit of meat-and-potatoes detective action in Hobson & Choi #69! Who is the Yellow Man and can Choi keep him in sight?

Despite the chapter number of 69 (snickersnicker etc), I couldn't find an excuse to insert some sex. Sorry guys. I promise I did at least try. For about ten to fifteen seconds.

More importantly, it is the final chapter of May, so if anyone hasn't caught up on reading/voting/ideally both for a while, now would be a very beneficial time to do it. Just a casual thought.

Even more usefully, why not review Hobson & Choi on Web Fiction Guide, thus enticing more readers to the serial and taking the voting pressure off yourselves, the existing readership?

Enough shilling for one week. I am off to celebrate finishing my third draft - more details in a blog post tomorrow hopefully. And I really do mean details, you'll see.

My Writing Music - Songs to mash the keyboard to

Some writers don't listen to music while they work, needing constant silence to produce their genius. However, I require an endless rolling soundtrack to drown out the screaming choirs of my own insanity (10 points for knowing where I stole that last phrase from), so I get through a lot of tracks.

A lot of the choices go in phases - new records come out, or I fancy immersing myself in the music of one artist, so I load my phone up with their albums. Then I listen to this person exclusively for a while, until I'm sick of them and don't want to hear anything they've done for months.

A few songs/sounds do survive the gap though - elevate themselves above the flighty phases and become evergreen presences. Here, then, are my perpetual audio companions. Apologies if a few of them turn out to be part of temporary phases and I'm just blinded by momentary love.

"Why are there so few superheroes in the superhero TV shows?" - A thinkpiece

A longer, more deep and meaningful article usual on Many A True Nerd, as I ask why so many superhero-comic-based TV shows shy away from actually showing superheroes.

And in general, Many A True Nerd has just relaunched in a more monthly-magazine type format, so there's a load of new articles up. Check them out.

Sadly, my hilarious photo captions didn't make the cut, so you'll just have to imagine them. The one under the Flash picture was: The Flash - Master of running. He has all the runs. Just wanted to make sure posterity didn't miss out on that.

Round table interview plugging A Chimerical World! Contains brief snatches of me!

This is probably one for the Nick Bryan completists (who I still hope exist), but I participated in a round-table interview to promote the A Chimerical World: Tales of the Unseelie Court anthology, in which one of my stories appears.
And if you just want the hard facts about the actual story, here are the details of those particular anthology appearances. The Unseelie Court story is probably the strongest of the two, if you want to check one of them out - although the other one is much longer.

How many drafts? Definitely more than zero...

Today, after considerable striving, I finished one of the many readthroughs I am doing on The Novel. This was one part of a raft of edits, which together constitute a third draft - more details on those here if you're interested - and I'm hopefully within a week or two of finishing the whole damn lot. After that, I may let some other people read it.

The whole draft-counting system is a very personal thing really - you'd think the criteria for a first, second and third draft would be easy to define, but in reality you might as well ask a writer to define the concept of being. In fact, that might be quicker. (But I would say that, I have a Philosophy degree.)

In general, I'll use whatever approach works for me at the time. One numbering idiosyncrasy I've never quite found a use for, though, is Draft Zero.

Hobson & Choi #68: "Lay of the Land"

Heavy fish out of water action in the latest chapter, as Hobson struggles with the ultimate modern temple: an enormous shopping centre.

Phew. The new case is moving along now, it only seems like yesterday it started. The end of the month isn't a million miles away either, so do vote for us if you have a few minutes spare. Once per chapter, every single one helps. Cheers.

Meanwhile, the H&C self-publishing effort is in a bit of a holding pattern while I wait for my text back from the editors. That's going to explode all over the place when it does return though.

In the meantime, if you're enjoying the ongoing serial, sharing it with your friends via social media/blogging/threatening them at parties is always much appreciate. Have a good week.

Game of Thrones review time!

This week's Dork Adore review of Game of Thrones is the last before a two-week break, so maybe read it slowly or something?

Not to mention the whole series is almost over, which is quite sad in itself...

My Writing Process meme - The truth behind Hobson & Choi

So, for the first time ever on this blog (WOO), I have done one of those answer-some-questions-then-nominate-people memes. Because, y'know, why not? Lets me talk a bit about Hobson & Choi, which I always enjoy doing. For anyone who ever wanted a straight-forward pitch for the whole story, here it is.

Thanks to Lisa Goll of London Writer's Cafe for nominating me, you can see her pass at the same questions over at her blog.
But now, on with the ME.

Why can't I work at home? - A video study in writing and procrastination

So, for a while now, I've found myself unable to get much work done in my home. I'm not sure why, my procrastination levels just spiked, but I've spent ages going to a local cafe as a result. Loads of time, loads of money, but I've also achieved a fuckton of writing, so maybe it'll just have to be fair enough.

Anyway, long story short, I fancied doing another video blog after last month's moderately fun experiment, so I have created the below. A short piece exploring that very question: why can't I work at home?

And for anyone interested: yes, that is my workspace. Judge away.

So, can you no longer work in your house? Is it for the same reasons as me? Feel free to form a sufferer support group in the comments, I'll break up any fights.

Hobson & Choi #67: "Involvements"

Latest Hobson & Choi chapter up now! The truth about the new case slops out all over the place.

Not much time for a lengthy blurb this week (real life stuff, surprisingly), but you can read a lengthy early update about our Hobson & Choi self-published edition if you're hungry for more material.

Thank you and ta-ta.

Hobson & Choi Self-Publishing Attempt - An Early Update

Like most of my big announcements, this one was somewhat buried in various podcasts and the London Book Fair blog post a month ago, so here it is up top: I am planning Hobson & Choi self-published editions, collecting the series storyline-by-storyline, with proper covers, editing, extra material and general joy.

The first of these should be out in the summer, for both e-readers and paper-readers. The second... hopefully by the end of the year, but that could end up being optimistic.

So, as I embark on this adventure, I thought I'd blog about it a little. These will be on an irregular basis rather than every week, as there won't always be anything to report. And yes, it is taking a fuckton of willpower to not call this Self-Pub Update #1 and start numbering them, but I've only just made myself stop doing that with the writing blogs. Must be strong.

Anyway. How's it going with the self-publishing, Nick?

Game of Thrones review! Tyrion goes on trial!

New Game of Thrones review on Dork Adore! Tyrion Lannister goes on trial and the DA site has a new design! Double the excitement!

Exciting blog post tomorrow, in which I finally go into some detail about that whole self-publishing thing. Oh, and an almost-relevant picture of the back of my hand. Wow.

I AM NOT A NUMBER (but my novel editing progress is and I can't stop looking at it)

This week, threatened as recently as last week, I launched into the third draft of my constantly-in-progress novel. This is the phase where I trawl through the entire text of the book, picking at individual words and trying to get it to the stage where I'm willing to share it with my elite team of beta readers.

ASIDE: If you want to join said elite team, email me and volunteer, or contact me using any other method available to you. All viable humans considered, especially those able to read a book in 1-2 months and provide feedback more detailed than "Yeah, it was okay." Beta reading likely to commence in early-to-mid June.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I launched into the editing process, and quickly settled on a method. For more details on said method and its implications for my location, read on...

Hobson & Choi #66: "Modern Life Is"

Latest chapter up now! The team arrive at the venue for their newest case: Westfield in Stratford! And yeah, it's all distractingly shiny.

As you may have heard if you follow our various social media presences, Hobson & Choi was #6 in the Jukepop charts for April, which was pretty good. Thanks to all voters as ever.

Aside from that, work continues towards the self-published edition - possibly some kind of blog update next week if I have time. Hope you're enjoying it.

Game of Thrones 4x05 - THE REVIEW

Review of Game of Thrones up now on Dork Adore! The ghost of season one rears its head.

Hope you all had a good long holiday weekend thing. Well, those of you lucky enough to be British and get to celebrate it.

Is it me or is there a COMPLETED SECOND draft in here? (WriteBlog #24)

Unfortunately, the pun in the title doesn't really work, as that kind of draft is spelt draught. But enough self-sabotage.

This week, on Wednesday to be precise, I completed the second draft of the novel I've been blogging about for ages. So yeah, hit my self-imposed deadline of the end of April by about six hours, go team. Now, this doesn't mean it's time to show it to publishing professionals, or indeed other humans at all, but it is a major chunk of work finished, and I'm going to number it as second draft anyway, simply because it gives me a feeling of progress.

So what exactly do I mean by second draft? And what's next if not showing it to others? Time now for a little pause-and-take-stock in the editing process.

Hobson & Choi #65: "Matchstickmaker"

The soap opera reaches critical mass in this week's episode. Will anyone survive the awkward sex conversations and needless poo joke?

A good one this week. And also next week, actually - clearly I'm on a roll.

Genuine query, now: I've had a bit of a rush of votes on H&C lately, has anyone done a post/blog/review/plug for us somewhere? Much appreciated if so.

In non-H&C news, I finished the second draft of my novel! A full blog about this to follow, but it seemed to go well. Next: the third draft.