Author Archives: Darkniciad

First read done.

Just finished the first read of Lowborn, and I don’t think I’m going to do a second, despite that being the original plan. After only a few tweaks on the first read, I’m happy with it.

So, after I’ve relaxed for a bit, I’m going to begin the final nuts and bolts editing of the first chapter, and get it off to my editor.

My best guess at this point is that it will begin posting on the 30th or 31st. Keep up here, on Facebook, or Twitter. Major points will go on the latter two, while I’ll ramble on in more detail here.

Most likely write some more on SOTM today as well. I’ve had a big scene at a roiling boil in my head for the last couple of days that’s pretty desperate to get out *laugh*

Initial stage done

Finished the initial stage of editing Lowborn a few minutes ago, which involved going back through a few chapters and adding some spice to the descriptions of the setting. It actually wasn’t as sparse as I thought it was.

Now, I’m going to do the first full read from beginning to end, to check the pacing. Odds are that I’ll do more tweaking along the way. After that, I’ll let it sit for a couple of days.

And updating

To put it mildly, my day at work yesterday sucked donkey balls. Today was a little better, but I’m still worn out.

Fortunately, amidst the living hell, my muse is still in full swing, writing scenes in my head between moments of unbelievable frustration.

So, nothing went on paper yesterday, but things are still moving on SOTM 19.

Now that I’ve been home and relaxed for a bit, I’m going to dig in to the first stage of editing Lowborn. Starting about chapter five, I feel as if I lost some of the atmosphere of the world for a bit. I’m going to go back through and punch that up. I’ve got a bad habit of concentrating so much on my characters that I forget they have to have somewhere to play :p

Once I’ve tweaked the chapters that are weak on atmosphere, I’ll begin the first read-through. That’s checking continuity, pacing, etc.

The second read-through ( probably a couple of days later ) will be a deeper read, looking for obvious mistakes.

After that ( again, I’ll probably leave at least a day of lag between. Doing other things to get the story out of my head to at least some extent makes errors that I might otherwise read past stand out ) I’ll begin the first-pass edit on the chapters one by one. As each is finished, I’ll send it out to Roust for a second set of eyes. Once I’ve went through his suggested changes, the chapter will go gold.

I’m going to get at least three chapters ready to roll before I start posting. That should allow enough space for any issues that might come up on my end or Roust’s, in order to assure that I can have two chapters per week prepared to post.

Then it’s a matter of whether Lit’s queue will cooperate with that *laugh*

I’ll keep you up to date on the editing process, as well as progress on SOTM.

A tidbit

After finishing up a couple of things as RR, I opened up something that’s been tormenting me just as much as Lowborn.

Over all this time, I’ve probably written five chapters worth of stuff that I’ve backspaced for the next chapter of SOTM. I just couldn’t get the opening right to save my life. Sometimes, all it takes is a single scene to bring me to a complete halt. It was that way with Lowborn, and it’s been that way with Ch. 19.

I just finished writing that first scene – a mere 448 words – and I’m happy with it.

I think I really needed the time away from writing ( even if it was primarily because work had been HELL ) and a recharge of my fantasy batteries. You may know this if you’ve been to the forum, but one of the things I’ve been doing when I couldn’t write was playing CRPGs. Neverwinter Nights + expansions, Neverwinter 2 + expansions ( first play through ), and Might and Magic VI-VIII.

I’ve done this before, as some may recall. My roots are in the PnP role playing game, and the roots of that are in old video games. Sometimes, I just need to go back to the beginning.

It certainly seems to be working right now 🙂

I’m going to take a quick break and then write a naughty scene that’s been in my head since before I finished the last chapter all that time ago. Probably have a nice wordcount to report before the night’s out.

Here’s hoping. Cross your fingers for me.

By the way, here’s a link to the very first mention of Lowborn. http://darkniciad.com/blog/archives/830

The story has been in the works that long. I’m pretty sure I started Ch. 01 not very long after that post. It’s been a long road, and I’m sure you can see why I’m not posting anything from any story until it’s complete now.

How I wish I’d already come to that conclusion when I started posting SOTM. The ending of Danica was a true ending, and the loose ends leading into the next book were subtle. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near as annoying for readers to wait if there wasn’t a partially written story sitting there, even though they knew a second book was coming.

EDIT ( a little later ): Yeah, writing conditions went to hell tonight. Boy’s acting the ass *laugh* Got another 150 or so written, but that was it. I’ll come back to it tomorrow after the first full read of Lowborn.

First draft of Lowborn is DONE!

I just “put down my pen” after finishing the first draft of Lowborn. Ten chapters, just shy of 54,500 words.

Now, I’ll let it settle for a day or two, and the editing process begins.

It’s probably going to take a couple of reads ( each with a day or so between ) to get through that part of the process. Then, I’ll start my first pass edits. Considering how much I’ve gone over the early chapters, it probably won’t take long. Likewise for once Roust has them in hand.

I have a story as RR close to done, so I can use it as a guinea pig in the Lit story queue while I’m editing, to see how long it’s taking them to post. That will give me a better idea on how to set up the first release.

I’ll keep everyone up to date right here as the process continues, with release information probably not too far in the future.

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Erotic Writing as Darkniciad and Les Lumens