What are you working on right now?

Background pre-release stuff. Blurb, trying to sort out banners and that kind of thing.
 
"And what I am doing now is what I've been working on for years"

I know that feeling! Still doing the latest round of edits, another 3 chapters to go ... but then I need to compile it into a dummy ebook and do another text-to-speech cycle.
 
I completed the first draft of my Cursed Man novel. It's clocking in at 89,000 words right now, and there's plenty to rewrite and tweak. I've also got some flashback chapters that, while I like them, will probably end up being embedded into the main body of the text, so that they don't become too jarring for the reader.

I'm setting it aside for now, and have started working on dragon fantasy, which is just shy of 6,000 words right now. I'll get that one up to 80,000 or whatever, and then return to the Cursed Man, most probably in early 2017.
 
Still proofreading. Easily my least favourite part of writing.
 
Trying to write two books at once: a space comedy and a rather bleak fantasy novel. It's rather weird moving between the two!
 
At the moment I'm working on a warts-and-all expose of my twenty years in publishing, to be serialised on my blog early in November:

In a unique series of five pieces, SF author Stephen Palmer tells for the first time the true story of his rags-to-riches-to-rags twenty year publishing career. His was a world of women, fast cars, legal drugs and gallons of lemonade shandy, but behind the massively successful exterior lay a life of tragedy and bad luck. Follow us up Shut Creek (now open for the duration) as we go… Behind The Novels.
 
Phyrebrat said:
I've just finished a second draft of my short 'What Little Girls Are Made Of'... it's 5443 words and if anyone fancies beta duties... ;)

pH
Click to expand...

You have my... actually you don't have my email address. I'll PM it over.


Anyway, I just finished editing Chapter 24 of Eye of the Eagle. Into Chapter 25 I go... at least until the hockey's on.
 
Phyrebrat said:
I've just finished a second draft of my short 'What Little Girls Are Made Of'... it's 5443 words and if anyone fancies beta duties... ;)

pH
Click to expand...

I thought I recognised that title. Is that an expansion of your challenge entry a while back? Just went back and read it over. Was brilliant! :) I've to a lot on at the moment, but at 5k it's only short, so I'd happy to beta.
 
I've been working on some "shorter" fiction this year. I planned to do a series of long short stories/short novellas as a prequel to a big series I'm going to start (hopefully next year). Results have been interesting, and I've learned a few things. Mostly that I don't do short (I'm telling myself I think big, rather than waffle!).

I'm trying to finish #2 and have got to the final showdown so I'm almost done.
#1: Plan/guesstimate word count: 15,000. Actual: 20,000
#2: plan/guesstimate word count: 20-25k. It might have got a little out of hand... Actual: 35k so far:)

I don't often read short stories as I prefer longer fiction, but after 10 years finally decided to try writing one. It's been a fun experience, and writing shorter chapters has been instructive.

Once I get #2 finished it will be time for a spot of editing then post something for show & tell.:D
 
A space opera, I'm working on fixing erroneous formatting (been using double quotes for dialogue for years, only just found out that's wrong), I've done a synopsis... hated it, very clinical. I also need to restructure the dialogue in a way that will remove a lot of the tags and hopefully shave off a few thousand extra words. After that, i need to tighten it up (remove unnecessary exposition and excessive description), proof it and then I'll look at getting some of it critiqued. baby steps.

Finding it hard to get time to write lately; doing copious overtime at work and trying to land a promotion, which is spilling out into my own time. Fate is trying to make me choose between my day job and writing... Fate needs to just shush and let me do both :p
 
@Stephen Thompson - I use double quotes (did NI schools teach them?) and it's never been a problem to any agent, publisher or reader. So, don't worry.

As to the day job/writing, this year has been tough for me. (Which is bringing nicely back on thread :D) Writing brings in a little income now, but still small. My job has a couple of strands, one of them a training strand, and I decided this year not to chase any new training jobs. Which has made this autumn hairy as hell financially and has me very exhausted, juggling it all.

But today I got some good news! The Arts Council have provided some funding for me to write my next project. I submitted two proposals and they funded one, so that will be my next project (wait... Wait....). The money is not huge but it is enough that I have until Feb/March before I need to up my hours of work again (I'm on about 20 hours a week at the mo). More importantly, my kids will have Christmas (not that they ever ask for much but... I like to spoil them, just a little). And I have some months free to write (my next edit is not due until Feb).

So... I will be embarking on a paranormal mystery based in Donegal, Ireland, and it will be a modern-day frame story tentatively called The Lily Pond. I have research to do for this one! And, in between, I hope to finish Galaxy of Flowers (a novella) and outline my next big project.

And I have time to do it. Utter luxury. :)
 
Might be a side effect of having read every one of the "15/10/4,768 things a newbie/aspiring/wannabe author should/shouldn't do" blogs and posts that appear everywhere. I have come to the (possibly erroneous) conclusion that double quotes should be used for sarcasm.

In any case, I did "find and replace" on them all and now they're all singles. I have to go through the dialogue anyway so if I now need to out them back it's no real bother.

Congrats on the funding, that's awesome :) My writing time is normally limited to a couple of hours maybe one or two evenings a week and every second sunday; the latter being the most important and people have been briefed not to bother me. I lock myself in a room and my phone does not come with me :p
 
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