Holy Smokes, Webpage-building can be hard!

Or, "how I learned the hard way".

Dreamweaver isn't cooperating. Div tags and cascading styles just won't do what I want. I've fallen back on tables... sort of.

The current webpage is sort of a default accident. I think it looks cool, so I'm living with it for now...

More later,


dave

A little perspective goes a long way...

Hell's Own was a story I was moderately proud of when I finished writing it. I'd written it in 6,000-word chapters, chunks, really, and I'd read and made edits to each for a day or so after writing.

Well, I entered it in the ABNA contest. I made the first cut, whoo-hoo. I should have made the second cut, down to 100, it's a great story. At first I thought it was a bias against SF/Fantasy in the contest that kept me out... but no.

I attended the writer's conference I went to last weekend, and heard things, and saw things that made me wonder...

So I used a macro or two to highlight words in the manuscript. Words such as 'was', 'by', etc. that indicate passive voice, or helper-verbs or linking.

Wow. I found tons of passive voice. Tons more helper/unnecessary words. Even more sentences with FOUR or MORE linked clauses... especially in action scenes.

Whups.

I spent an intensive four days scrubbing 130,493 words. I trimmed 5200 extra words unpassive-voicing, separating, deleting. Just in Pass One!

Pass Two will have me delete whole sections of unneeded plot, and move whatever plot I need to keep to a different section. I'll also add sensory detail (not just weather, but texture of the floor, internal sensations, grain of wood, that sort of thing). This will probably have me add 1,000 words but delete 3500, for a net reduction of 2500.

That'll bring the 130,453 down to about 121,500 or so words. Almost without trying.

I clearly had a lot to keep me from advancing in the ABNA contest, and I now know I have more work to do on my other mss, plus more to do before I EVER think of querying.

It's important, since Hell's Own goes out in 3 more weeks.

Pass Three will be a repeat of Pass One, looking for more passivity, too-long sentences, redundant clauses.

I'll get to 120,000 words or someone's gonna die (probably an unneeded character :) )

later,

dave

Editing on Hell's Own proceeds apace.

My time's kind of committed to McAllister just now, except for work - I don't have time to get a webpage up yet. It's tough trying to be an author, it's not all drinks and canapes.

That's enough for today... more detailed posts someday, if it all ever lets up (I jest).

Hello, World

Hello, World.

I'm overhauling my old publications - blogs, sites, stuff. Welcome to the new bloggerspot.

Exciting things in my world! First, the Southern California Writer's conference. Look, if you're a bipolar person, don't be a writer. The business has enough ups and downs to make your head spin - I went through about two dozen this weekend. I found that Sparks may be in the wrong genre, and that McAllister has a pretty good chance at piquing a publisher's interest (please, let it be true). I met some really cool people, some who will be friends for life, I think, from all around the world. I got to hear some styles and genres I don't even see when I go by them on the shelves (blindspot, I know). Just a great time.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest may or may not have a publicly-visible cull down to 100 authors' submissions this Tuesday (tomorrow). Keep your fingers crossed for McAllister's Redemption!

One more note - Every real (read: self-respecting) redneck with a sand rail or quad was in the Imperial dunes this weekend (Glamis, Winterhaven, CA). When I was driving home on I-8, I passed a desert carpeted in Toyhaulers. I got stuck behind the guys who left early - approximately 10,000 had the idea to leave early - and the Border Patrol checkpoint between Yuma and Gila Bend was jammed full - a three mile backup of toyhaulers. There's something humorous in there, but I wasn't feeling it at the moment...

More posts to come.