One Over X News

Update on New Strategy

If you have been checking for updates, my apologies. I really have been very busy .

Earlier today I completed revisions on Spectre of Dammerwald. I am very happy with the book. I will warn one and all that it is very different from what I have written in the past.

I have to confess that I never really considered ever writing a book like Spectre of Dammerwald. The only reason it exsists at all is because my publisher said that I should write a children's book. No, it is not a children's book, but that is how the project began.

A year ago last January I had been fighting with the plot of Book 9, even before I had really finished Book 8. I'm sorry that is how I usually write. It may seem silly to have so many projects going at the same time but I have found that because of it I do not get bored with the process of writing. I can move from one plot to another.

I had fully intended to take a very long break from writing whenever I had concluded Book 8 but as I was already into writing Book 9, it just never seemed to happen. Then, around that time I had a run in with the real estate management company and had to prepare to move at the end of Feburary. All things considered all of that probably worked out for the best. Last years hurricanes did a number on the house where we had been living. I never doubt that there are balances in nature.

My publisher had sent me an interesting project that he had been working with since before he ever saw a rough draft of From The Inside To The Closer. I had of course heard a good bit about the infamous children's story that one or our mutual friends had written. I read the story. It needed some work but it was essentially a good story aimed at 8 to 14 year olds. I did some of the editing, massaged a couple of rough spots, and basically made a couple of decent suggestions. That was what I did for about a month inbetween packing, moving and unpacking.

When I had finished the editing on James Ela's Finding CJ, I got permission to send it to Ela'na for her opinion. She read it in a day or so and loved it. There were a couple of revisions that polished the book a good deal but I was not much involved in much of that. I did some of the layout in Quark Express, the program used throughout the industry to 'create' book layouts.

After that I was ready to finish Book 8 and really get into writing Book 9, what I fully intended to be the conclusion of the second series, Two: The Power of X - a trilogy to complement the six book saga, One Over X. One minor problem. As I have mentionjed before, I really suck at writing endings.

Book 9 demands that severla plotlines come together. There was a little of that in Book 7, a lot more in Book 8 but by the time Book 9 concludes everything needed to be resolved - as much as such was possible, anyway. Major problem, though. The ending that I was working with demanded a lot more detailed information of events that take place long before the events in Books 1 or 2.

So, around April of last year, I started working directly with a few pages of notes that I had used for creating the original Wolf Story that is introduced in Book 2. Since my publisher was suggesting that I do a children's book, I decided to have at it. The first chapter of Spectre of Dammerwald emerged from that effort and very early in the chapter the young Wolfcats Ela'na and Rotor start to act less and less like children.

I mention all that just to give you a historical reference to why I wrote what I did when I wrote it.

Today is my brother's birthday. He would be 69 had it not died in 1945. Maybe it is somewhat fitting as a tribute to him that I completed the revision of a book today. Not only is the book important to the first and second series in ways left to be revealed, I am pretty sure that it is the best book that I have ever written. It is a fun book with a good deal of detail and tie ins to things that are to come. It also greatly amplifies and provided background into many of the Wolf characters mentioned in Book 2.

Previously I posted an excerpt from the book. I have rewritten it extensively though so I'll re-post chapter 1 later this week as a sample of what I have been doing.

E

posted by Unknown @ 1:17 PM