What are you working on right now?

[AnyaKimlin]

Listening to Black's Nest first draft and I'm beginning to think I might get away without a complete from scratch rewrite.

 

[Tim Murray]

short stories and trying to finish my third novel, yet unpublished.

 

[millymollymo]

I'm working through the second draft of DG. Pleased with how its maturing. Some out-of-this-world ideas for the next Explorations installment. (Must have done something good to be allowed back again, right ) A short I wrote and set a side was sparked again thanks to a comment from Stephen Palmer. But its all very slow going with a poorly pc atm.

 

[Scarfy]

Several years ago (back in 2012, I think) I began writing a fantasy novel about a man who was attempting to rid himself of a curse. I put it aside for reasons I now forget, but have since returned to it. Only plugging in 1,000 words a day, but making good progress so far. Partly rewriting, and partly editing and updating what was there before.

 

[ratsy]

@millymollymo I can't wait for everyone to read your Explorations story. It was great, and I love the connection to another story in the book. It was a great collaboration.

I'm working on The First Colony stories, trying to get the story all done! At the least, its already mapped out and in my head...I've really enjoyed doing something like a monthly serial. It's been a lot of fun.

Also working on draft 2 of my novel. The farther I get in it, the slower it's going as I am reworking things. I also know I have a lot of adjustments to make in the climax, which is coming up soon. Hopefully I can dedicate some good time this weekend to these two projects.

 

[CWScott]

Working on the draft of book 3 in my trilogy, but its proving difficult.

Also working on a SO draft. Hoping to release in November. Only 12k in though, so long road ahead. Want to get the draft done by end of the month and start on edits. Maybe get those done through September and off to editor. Want to get a draft of book 2 done before release of book 1.

 

[The Big Peat]

Mix of editing my military sci-fi - just reaching the first big action chapter now - and another proof of concept thingie/writing exercise, that has unexpectedly bloomed to 8,000 words in three days.

Slightly concerned its a bit too similar to the second completed manuscript - BTB* takes on mystery/personal action in a medieval-esque setting - but I suppose at least I've worked out what gets my motor running. Every attempt I've ever made to write something without a fair amount of snark and mystery has failed. Everything with it goes like a house on fire.

Also preparing for edit number one on the second manuscript.

*Bad Tempered *******/Bitch

 

[pambaddeley]

Still on the big slog of an edit .... with some research in how to format ebooks occasionally as light relief

 

[Cathbad]

It's over.

40k words in, and my horror stories file is gone.

One of the gentlemen here thinks another one was messing with my computer. That man knows nothing about computers. Whoever or whatever, all that work is gone.

I'm abandoning the project, and moving to the next one I had planned.

And trying hard not to give in to my dark side and beating someone to a pulp.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

40k words in, and my horror stories file is gone.

That's awful, it's horrible to lose work like that. I hope the next one turns out to be super-awesome for you

 

[Cathbad]

That's awful, it's horrible to lose work like that. I hope the next one turns out to be super-awesome for you

Thank you, sir.

 

[Wruter]

40k words in, and my horror stories file is gone.

Commiserations, Cathbad. I can only urge you to try every recovery/backup/hidden file trick you can google to be certain it really is gone. I once found a file I thought I'd lost by doing a full system restore back to an earlier date (this was back on Windows XP). Anyway, if it's really gone then best to be philosophical, and good luck with the new thing.

 

[Cathbad]

Commiserations, Cathbad. I can only urge you to try every recovery/backup/hidden file trick you can google to be certain it really is gone. I once found a file I thought I'd lost by doing a full system restore back to an earlier date (this was back on Windows XP). Anyway, if it's really gone then best to be philosophical, and good luck with the new thing.

Thanks. Problem is, it seems to be saved with no data. Really, I shouldn't have left the file open when I got someone to run me up to the store. :-/ After all, this guy has messed with my things before... I really should'a known better.

 

[Cathbad]

Actually, I'm now cleaning up Flight of the Elves, making it more readable, moving some things, etc. There's apparently only a few typing errors; only missed a few before, I guess. I'm probably going to publish the Third Edition on Smashwords.

 

[j.grey]

Cathbad, that's actually one of my nightmares! I feel for you. Don't give up, there might be a way to recover it. Computers never really delete anything, they just reassign data. When you delete, it doesn't go anywhere, it just gets labelled as free space. Obviously, check the recycle bin.
Check these. If you're computer literate, they might help. Good luck.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/316951

S2 Recovery Tools for Microsoft Word

http://lifehacker.com/312831/recover-a-deleted-word-document

Jack

 

[Charles Parkes]

I'm trying to engage with writing the linear route for my piece of interactive fiction.

It's scaring me a bit.
I don’t know if this is normal – but I can feel its publication drawing near and I still have a big feature I want to add. A linear story-line.

I’ve wanted this to be available from the start – basically because I don’t think interactive fiction is just about offering a reader choices about how the story should turn out. It has the potential to do more, including allowing the reader to choose ‘how’ to read.

I want people to be able to choose not to read my story as a choice-driven narrative. So yes, for a CYOA fan I’m a little crazy…

But the point is: writing this linear path makes it feel like I’m writing a novel. It feels like the quality has to be that much higher, and I don’t know if I’m up to it. So wish me luck!

 

[thaddeus6th]

Sorry to hear that Cathbad. Hopefully Grey's links will help you recover it.

I'm sharpening up a couple of Traitor's Prize chapters, then back to writing new stuff.

 

[j.grey]

I hope so! I'm almost finished up with a project. I have a motorcycle travel book doing quite well so I wrote a prequel. About 5 years ago I toured Europe, then I rode from London to Asia through the Middle East. My first book covered the Middle East trip but people are asking for more so I'm turning the Europe trip into a book too. Personally, I doubt it will be interesting. The draft is nearly done, it's taken two weeks and I'm nearly there with it. I then have the editing and messing about stages to work on.
I have an epic story to work on afterwards I wrote it 20 years ago, it's 150k words now and looks to crack 250k when it's done. It's back to proper sci-fi and I can't wait to get cracking back on with it.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm in the process of stripping out all the formatting and replacing it with proper paragraph and character styles, which I would have used in the first place if I'd had any sense and techy know-how. I was delighted (hint: sarcasm) to find that my shouty demons were communicating in a seemingly random mix of capslock and "all caps" font style, the latter of which has now disappeared. But the worst thing will be going back and redoing all the italics.

 

[pambaddeley]

I'm in the process of stripping out all the formatting and replacing it with proper paragraph and character styles, which I would have used in the first place if I'd had any sense and techy know-how. I was delighted (hint: sarcasm) to find that my shouty demons were communicating in a seemingly random mix of capslock and "all caps" font style, the latter of which has now disappeared. But the worst thing will be going back and redoing all the italics.

Yes although I tend to use styles, I also did the old 'tab to tab mark' thing to create an indent. So I've been changing my normal style to include the indent, removing the tabs which is easy enough (you search/replace for the ^t character) and also creating another style that is blocked, for the first para of each scene. Plus styles for centring, and a few other things, and amending the Heading1 style to how I want the headings.

I did read that italics and bold were OK to have as 'inline' as opposed to styles; it's the font size, indenting, line spacing, justification etc that has to be set with styles. I used the latest version of Smashwords Style Guide for guidance. Also Rudy Rucker did some helpful posts starting with this one - http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/04/20/do-it-yourself-ebooks-1-getting-started/ - on this subject and how you can use Calibre or Sigil to create EPUB which can be edited to tidy up any problems before producing a Kindle file if required. Although they date to 2012, they still have a lot of useful stuff in them.

I've found it useful to run a filtered HTML saved from Word through Calibre a few times (choosing the EPUB format as that's the one where you can edit the underlying HTML), and check what styles Calibre creates each time in the stylesheet.css it creates, because that way I found some odd formatting glitches in my MS - e.g. text that was marked as hidden (went back and got rid of it after using Show/Hide to display it), a space that was formatted red (so Calibre created a style with red coloured font), and one section that persistently puts in inline styles despite being formatted correctly, so I will have to clean that one up in the HTML when the time comes.