Archive for June 2003

23rd

Hey, everyone. Sorry, but this isn't a story update. I've just been getting a lot of e-mails lately asking me when such and such story is going to be updated, or just when anything at all might get posted, so I thought I'd take a moment to let you all know what's up.

First of all, yes, I'm still writing. The only days I take off from writing are the weekends, so that I can give my fiancée my undivided attention. I'm also not working at the moment, so I've been writing more now than I have in a really long time, which has been really cool, except for the lack of money thing, which sucks.

Also, as you may have guessed from the mention of my fiancée, I'm in the middle of planning my wedding, so that's taken up some of my time, but it's been a lot of fun. Corene and I are going to have a pagan handfasting, so we've been working on the words and tying our handfasting cords and slowly accumulating the items we want for the ritual (we recently bought a pair of beautiful 100% lead crystal goblets at an incredibly discounted price, which is great, since the rings are going to cost us around $1,000-$1,500 each).

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still alive, still writing, and will hopefully have something new for you to read within the next few months.

Here's a list of the most recent stories I've been working on, just in case you were wondering (in other words, please don't e-mail me to ask about these stories, and if it's not listed here, then I haven't worked on it, so it probably will not be getting updated anytime soon):

The Vampire Hunter - I've just finished revising this story and have added approximately 30 pages of new and expanded scenes. There were some holes in the story, which I've now hopefully filled, and the story also starts several weeks earlier, so you'll be able to witness the first time Clark and Gabrielle meet, as well as Clark's hunt for Gabrielle. However, I haven't posted the revisions yet because I want to wait until I've fixed up Bloodlines, too. (Sorry. I know, I'm such a tease. :))

Bloodlines - I've just started working on the revisions for this story in order to prep myself for the third book (working title Paradigm Shift). Though I really like what I've got for the last dozen or so chapters (the challenges of Re, and of course, the love scene), the beginning needs a lot of work in my opinion (it's too slow, with too many unimportant details; I may end up doing a lot of cutting/adding replacement scenes, though I like the stuff with Avarice and Kevyn).

Paradigm Shift - I've written several scenes as they've come to me, but until I get the rewrites done for Bloodlines, I don't want to write too much on PS; only when the muse demands it. And regardless of how much I get written, I don't plan to post until I have the whole thing done. That way, I can be sure I'll be able to post a chapter a week without interruption.

The Trine - I've just completed the second part out of 14, but as I've said before, I've promised not to post any new stories unless they're finished, so until this one is done, it's staying on my hard drive.

The Kindari Academy - I've actually finished the first novel in this series and am just in rewrites to fix character inconsistencies and change some of the background technology to make it more visually interesting. However, several major plotpoints won't get wrapped up until the seventh book in the series, so I don't plan to start posting until I've finished up that last book. In other words, it will be years before you read this one, even though I'm writing on it fairly consistently.

Lights of Life - I just recently started working on this one again. The muse just called to me and that was it. Over the past week, I've gotten several scenes, which had just been in my head, into the computer in outline form, so as soon as I'm done posting this, I'll probably get right back to work on that, either extending the outline or actually writing the story.

Prisoner of War - I finished the third chapter a while ago, but it's really short, and I don't want to post it until I have the fourth chapter finished. Unfortunately, the muse sort of went away a few weeks ago, so the fourth chapter is still mostly in outline form and very incomplete.

And last, but not least, a few words about Xena: Warrior Slave and A Bondage Primer:

Honestly, I have tried to work on both of these stories recently, but the muse just isn't with me. I would actually really like to get the last two parts of X:WS done, so that I can move it to the Finished Stories page and not have to worry about it anymore (at least not until I decide to rewrite it out of the Xenaverse, so that I can expand it and publish it), but the words just aren't there right now, even though I'm very clear about what will take place.

And BP is such a massive project that I think I've actually frightened my muse away. There are still 170 days left to chronicle, and I have people e-mailing me and asking me to "finish it soon." Like that's going to happen. :)

Let me take a moment to be arrogant. :) One of the things that a lot of people have complimented me on is how polished my writing is. You don't trip over typos; I know the difference between 'then' and 'than'; etc. So, when you guys read new stuff from me, I'm very aware that you all expect a certain level of competence from me. But what you guys probably don't realize is that what you're reading is not my first draft. It's not even a tenth draft.

Before I even send my work to beta, I've gone over it at least twenty times (my secret goal is to someday send something to beta that not even my best nitpickers can find anything wrong with, but I know that will never happen). And then, depending on how many things I revise based on the feedback I get, I'll sometimes send stuff through beta again and make even more changes. And even after all of that, as you've read above, I'm still revising and editing my older stories because I've learned so much since first posting them that I want to fix those early stories, so they can be the best I can possibly make them.

Unfortunately, that all takes time. I can't rush the process, no matter how much I would like to. And the more I learn about writing, the more of a perfectionist I become. Not that my writing has to be perfect or that I even think I could make it perfect. But I can definitely tell when my writing isn't up to my normal standards, and I won't post that kind of shit just to have something new out there. I would rather lose readers because they got tired of waiting than because my writing sucked.

So, please, bear with me. It takes a while for me to get to a point where I'm happy enough with my work to post it. Hopefully, all my work will pay off and it'll be worth the wait.

Oh, and if you're tired of checking this page for updates, please join my mailing list. You will be notified immediately when I update my stories. No one else can post to the list, and I don't even send announcements about stuff like this explanation of my lack of posting, so you won't get pointless e-mails from me, only for story updates.

Well, thanks for reading.