NickNoWriQuart - Failure Broadcast

After a few weeks of admin-linking to work elsewhere, a full on-this-website blog post this time - although not a super-long one as I'm going to talk about something I failed to achieve and I don't think dwelling on it for thousands of words is super healthy.

Between that paragraph and the title, regular readers may guess where I'm going - my one-thousand-words-a-day-for-three-months word count challenge did not reach its final goal. To be precise, it wound down a week or so back at around 66k, but due to real-life busywork, writing blogs for other sites and the huge amount of comic-based TV I'm trying to follow, I haven't got round to posting about it for a while.

Still, after going to the trouble of announcing the challenge was happening, I shouldn't gloss over my non-success. Pretty annoying that I chugged along fine for two months on my own and then died off just as everyone else joined in for NaNoWriMo, I must say.

Anyway. Where did it all go wrong?

Plan Vs Reality Vs Words Vs Plan

A lot of my problems can be summed up with this post I wrote in June, which is nice as it saves me typing all that out now. Turns out, planning a new novel in a whole new world is harder work than planning another nice comfy Hobson & Choi book.

My plan didn't entirely fall apart, which is nice - my words were going in the direction I planned, but the way they got there and the circumstances under which the story took place changed so much that I couldn't really keep going. Or rather, I could, but I'd be writing stuff I knew I'd end up deleting and much as I sometimes enjoy the NaNoWriMo forge-ahead-no-matter-what approach, I also don't like knowing beyond all doubt that I'm wasting my own time.

Plus, in terms of progress along my book plan, I'd written sixty-six thousand words to cover plot that should've taken about forty thousand max. So, even if I did my planned ninety-one thousand by the end of this month, I'd never have a full first draft as I barely covered half the story. Not to mention, I don't see much point in writing a new major part if I know huge chunks of the foundations will be removed, but haven't yet decided which ones.

So I've started bashing together a better, more coherent draft of the early chapters, re-using existing material for most of it, but stitched together differently. We'll see. As with all these word count challenges, best to focus on the fact I achieved something. Even if a huge chunk of my 66k gets cut, it all went toward figuring out the world.

...Vs Reality Vs Plans Vs Leeds...

Also unhelpful, I admit, that just as I started wobbling on how to progress the novel, I became incredibly busy all the time so momentum died. I was in the day job a lot, many birthday parties came along, I went to Leeds for Thought Bubble - which was fun, by the way. Saw loads of comics, feel like I want to write some more of them soon.

No idea how that fits in with the novel writing, no. Will try and keep bolting together my better draft.

To be honest, it is with some confusion that I stagger towards the end of 2016. At least I know to start editing H&C4 in early January, that's a pleasing constant. Everything else is in a state of weird flux.

And that's a current writing update, for anyone interested. If you're doing NaNoWriMo, good luck to you - you've just passed halfway, that's gotta feel good. And if you've attempted and failed NaNo, ah well. Stick with me and focus on the fact you wrote something. There could be gold in there somewhere.

Writing challenge update! Guest post! GollanczFest! ADMINARAMA!

This is going to be another post which mish-mashes together some smaller points rather than having an amazing structure of its own, I'm afraid, as I've been writing a lot of guest-posts for other people's blogs, so haven't got a huge amount of fuel left in the Blog-Engine (or spare time left in the day) to produce a properly-structured masterpiece for my own.

However, I want to do some kind of update on my ongoing thousand-words-a-day writing challenge and I've got a few other bits and bobs too, so here's another disjointed general summary!

NickNoWriQuart - OOH WE'RE HALFWAY THERE

The big news (for me anyway) is that I've made it over the halfway mark of the daily writing challenge I outlined on this blog a month ago. My day job got quite busy for a while and then I had to publish the third Hobson & Choi book and write all those guest posts and I really thought one of those things would smash it to bits, but no, I'm still on track. In fact, I'm a few days over quota, as I'm busy most of the weekend - for reasons I'll outline a little further down - and wanted to make sure I didn't drop the challenge.

So, the good news is that I've done nearly 50k and, if this were NaNoWriMo rather than NickNoWriQuart, would have won by now. But NickNoWriQuart is both more hardcore (longer total!) and less (smaller daily wordcount!) than NaNo.

The bad news is, as with nearly all my first drafts, decent-sized chunks of the plan haven't really survived contact with reality and various changes became necessary as I went along. This is something I've blogged about a fair bit - here I am talking about making less mistakes and here I am talking about plans going awry - and yet still it happens.

But I've got my notes, the broad plot remains in place, so I'm going to try and swoop onwards for now. Mostly because I think it would be useful to have taken a swing at the ending - more infuriating to go back now and make a huge amount of substantial change, then discover this new version doesn't work for my ending and have to change everything again.

So, in short, everything continues as normal. I still want a full first draft by the end of November (or possibly the end of the year if I need to write a final couple of chapters in Dec) and I'll do another update at some point.

Guest Post - Five High Street Institutions I Could Turn Evil in Future H&C Books

If you want something that more closely resembles a structured blog post, I've written this one for Jim over at YA Yeah Yeah in which I talk about five fixtures of the British high street that I could theoretically turn all crimey for a future Hobson & Choi novel.

Do give it a look for some fun. Even if you've no interest in hearing about my writing process (in which case the previous section of this post must've just killed you), this really is all silly jokes.

Oh, and as this is the only H&C-relevant section of this post - yes, the book 3 launch went fine, thanks for asking. Sold a decent amount of book three, gave away a huge amount of the newly-free-on-ebook book one. Coming up next: some promotion, including a few more guest posts (I'll try and list them here in some kind of link compilation) and maybe even some Multimedia Content. We'll see if that works out.

GollanczFest - Will it be GollanczBest?

This weekend, I am going to GollanczFest in London, in which a bunch of sci-fi/fantasy authors (who happen to all be published by Gollancz) will be talking in general about their work on Saturday and in a more advice-to-writers way on Sunday. I hope it'll be interesting, there are some great authors in attendance (including Joe Abercrombie, Ben Aaronovitch, Paul Cornell, loads of others) and after the excellent fun of Nine Worlds in August, I'm up for more of this kinda thing.

Linking back up to the first part, GollanczFest is why I've written a short way ahead on the NickNoWriQuart challenge. It may also be the topic of its own blog next week, if I can think of much to say beyond "Yeah, it was good." If you want that level of analysis, follow me on Twitter and it's a safe bet you'll get some over the weekend.

Okay, that turned out a decent length (if still quite bitty) post in the end. Cool cool.

NickNoWriQuart - One K, Once A Day

I stopped blogging regularly about my writing a while ago, felt I was running out of new/readable ways to say the same things - certainly, nothing I couldn't say on Twitter more concisely. However, I'm embarking on a Big Writing Exercise shortly, so I'm throwing it a post.

Because, yes, it's autumn, the end of the year is poking its head over the door, leaves are brown and it's cold in a Winter-Preview kinda way, all that can only mean one thing - Writers Doing Calendar-Based Word Count Challenges!

Obviously, I'm a little ahead of everyone else here - most are waiting for November to embark upon the epic NaNoWriMo quest. But I'm doing something a little different and I'll now attempt to explain it...

Hobson & Choi Podcast Special - Writers' Huddle Interview with Ali Luke!

Like a bolt from the blue, the Hobson & Choi Podcast is back on the scene!

I've moving house in the near future and will be without wifi, so internet content from the Nick Bryan/H&C Media Empire will be thin on the ground. But before disappearing into irrelevant meatspace for a bit, I recorded an interview for Writers' Huddle, a subscription-only writing forum run by the excellent author and blogger Ali Luke.

Listen now to hear me talk about H&C, serialisation, self-publishing, writing characters different from yourself and whether I ever considered putting Hobson & Choi into first person. Plus a little news about the status of upcoming H&C books in the outro.

So, download the episode here using the power of browser rightclicking!

Or use the embeddy player below, or if you're faithful enough to still be subscribed to H&C in iTunes, it should be there too...

Hobson & Choi Podcast Special - Writers' Huddle Interview with Ali Luke! by Nick Bryan on Mixcloud

Thanks to Ali for hosting the chat and letting me put it out to the wider internet. Be sure to check out her blog at Aliventures and her own self-published fantasy book Lycopolis. Plus she's on Twitter (obviously) as @aliventures.

If this interview got you interested in my Hobson & Choi darkly comic crime books, you can read more about them at HobsonAndChoi.com. Sounds by zagi2 on Freesound as before.

And that, for now, might really be it for a wee while...

Five ways my book plans collapse upon contact with the real world - A Metaphorical Disaster Movie

At this stage, I've written a lot of novels, and started even more than that. Every single one started with a plan of some form - sometimes a couple of ideas scribbled on a pad, other times thousands of words of ideas, followed by a chapter-by-chapter outline and then individual scene breakdowns within those chapters.

But either way, the plans always come a little unstuck when exposed to the writing process. As I've been doing a lot of first drafting lately, so spending a heaping helping of my time dealing with plans not corresponding to prose.

So, to inform and reassure anyone in a similar place, I've broken my Plan Vs Reality problems into an internet-friendly Buzzfeed-style five-point list. Yes, only a thin membrane separates some of these feelings, but I've spent enough time staring at my plans in despair to know they're all distinct. If you've experienced all five of these, you can award yourself a prize when you reach the bottom!

"No-one else dies tonight!" - Nick Bryan's Ongoing Commitment To Making Fewer Mistakes

It's been a while since I wrote about writing - in fact, it's been a while since I wrote a blog which didn't hinge around the Buy my work! message. So, since it's late on a Sunday and I'm feeling too tired from last night's drinking to do any hard labour, I thought I'd break things up on the blog by talking about my current writing obsession: not fucking up.

A couple of months back, I finished drafting a fantasy novel which ended up having the bulk of its middle act and about half its third erased - not after the first draft (which is kinda acceptable) but after I'd finished a beta-readable draft and thought things were going okay.

Pros And Cons Of Reading Your Writing Out Loud (or Why I Was Talking To Myself, Honest)

From eleven o'clock yesterday morning until seven in the evening, I sat at my desk alone, reading out the first sixty percent of my current nearly-finished work in progress. (The second book of the Hobson & Choi series, since you asked.)

For a couple of years now, the read-out-loud has been the final step of any work before I show it to other people. I vocalise the entire text to an empty house. If you don't do this, I'm not going to tell you it's essential (because different strokes for different folks and I would never tell you how to stroke yourself), but if you've never even tried it, here's how it works for me.

Draft Four The Win? - The Novel Continues

I've just finished draft four of the fantasy novel I've been writing for around 18 months. This is obviously an achievement - not a top-rated one worthy of a party, but a clear rung up the ladder.

So what does finishing a fourth draft actually mean? How many more am I planning? Do I even know?

Well.

Novels By Numbers - How I Killed My Precise Book Structure

My novel - the urban fantasy one I am currently editing after intensive beta reading - has a very strict structure. Three parts (because I love the three act structure), each containing seven chapters (because... I'm not actually sure). I laid it out like that when I started, and have stuck to it ever since.

In my last edit, a few conclusive plot developments got pushed off the end of the final chapter - Chapter Twenty-One, obviously - and I put them in an epilogue. Because this preserves my precious structure.

I've continued this game of sevens all the way to the fourth draft, and frankly I think I deserve a medal. Or at least a giant seven-shaped cake. You can probably find one in shops under Birthday Cakes For Seven Year Olds.

Still, all good things are determined to come to an end, and I don't think I can sustain this shape any longer. I've planned out my new final third and am adding some major new sections to the book, important new bits, cool stuff, all thanks to good suggestions from my excellent beta people. But I don't think I can do it within the seven/seven/seven framework - not without writing chapters that are also ten/twelve thousand word novellas, at least.

So, with a heavy heart and a grim smile, maybe ever a cinematic single tear, I am waving goodbye to the sevens. I will miss them, but anything that makes the book better is probably worth it. And I still have sevens in the first and second third.

And, ditching the faux-eulogy tone for a second, let's be honest: if an editor, agent, publisher or similar entity says I need to add extra chapters to the book anywhere, further messing up the sevens, I'll definitely  do it as long as I agree it'll improve the story. Hardly seems practical to get over-attached to these things. Not as if the chapter-counts are story relevant, it just worked out that way.

And it least it gave me something to work within while I got the book written. Let's not be ungrateful.

I'm glad I wrote this blog post, it was therapeutic.

Dealing With Beta Readers - An Early Report

It's been a few months since I last looked at my full-length fantasy novel about Faustian deals - I put it aside for a spell, both to let beta readers have a crack at it and to focus on getting the Hobson & Choi book launch in order.

But the first H&C book is all fired into the atmosphere, the Book Two work now with other people, and most of my beta readers reported, so time to start in that direction again. Yesterday afternoon, for the first time in a while, I opened up the novel Scrivener file, looked at various beta reader notes and thought about it.

So, how does it feel returning to a novel post-beta? Have I got any advice for other writers in similar situations? Let's find out!

Work After Work - A Work Update Working 2014 Over With Work

Due to the combined impact of my book coming out, my first ever trip to a convention and the heat and humidity fucking with my motivation, I have not done one of these ramble-about-my-process blog posts for a while.

I miss them, I have a few minutes spare, I've recently changed my writing routine a little and solidified my future plans, so let's talk about that. Why would you work after work? Is it because you like work, or at least need to work on your work? What is work? What is my work? How is your work?

Receiving my first set of edits - A Psychological Journey

So, the ongoing plunge towards Hobson & Choi self-publication continues. I sent my manuscript of Book One off to an editor, because if my trip to London Book Fair taught me one thing, it's that you gotta let someone else loose on it.

After all, I'm competing with an array of authors who have editors, I'm bothering to get a decent cover done, so I might as well make sure the insides are up to scratch.

With that goal in mind, I got my book back from the editor about a week ago, and have just blasted through the whole lot of edits once, making changes accordingly. It's a strange experience, getting edited for the first time, and even after chatting to other people beforehand, it's still... interesting.

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.

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.

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...

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.