Just finished the fifth chapter of Lowborn a minute ago. Like Secret, I’m going to let it simmer for a couple of days before I start the first-pass edit.
On that note, I’m going to wade into said edit on Secret this evening. I’ll figure out where I’m going next after that… Or perhaps in the middle of it, as I sometimes feel like taking a break from editing to write. We’ll see.
I’m working on one of the last scenes of Ch. 05 of Lowborn now. I’ll probably finish it tomorrow night, considering how relatively smooth it’s going. I’m still only writing a few paragraphs at a time, but with only a few minutes between the spurts. That just seems to be what’s working right now. Still miss cranking out half a story in one sitting, but oh well. I’ll take what I’ve got.
I’ll probably work on the first-pass tweaking of Secret of the Wood after that. Should have been enough time passed with writing on a completely different story for me to catch stuff in that by then while I’m painting the world in a bit brighter colors and strengthening the Earth Day theme.
I flipped through my remaining focus stories in progress, and Mindblind is what’s singing to me. As soon as I opened it up and read through the brief introduction of the current chapter, a way to resolve the plot block in my head popped up. I wrote that out and finished the scene, so it’s ready to keep on rollin’.
Heard back from the editor who gave me such a good impression read on Forever of the Wood, and she’s on board for Secret as well. More good news for me and my readers. Her insight into Forever made it a much stronger story than it started out.
Now, back to Mindblind 🙂
A little later… Actually, I ended up fiddling with some coding stuff until the young one finished winding down. Finally got around to inserting a new table into my database, though I went with the one for cover images instead of new releases. Easier data set to deal with.
I’ll see about creating a test page to read that data next. I need to dig into both my old code and the forum code to hammer out what’s necessary to pull this off.
Odds are that the first version will be quick and dirty. All I’ll do is see if I can suck the data out of the table and display it in simple text format.
The next task will be to actually show the cover image pop-up as it will appear in the final version. I’ll probably put it up as a preview at that point, using the new cover for Secret as the example.
This page will be the one that pops up when you click on the cover image link from umpteen places on the website. There will also be a cover browser that will let you navigate through all my story covers, probably showing the story information for what’s inside that cover. It might even be an alternative to browsing the story listing, depending upon how much room I have within the template once I start playing with that.
Okay, now back to Mindblind.
Just finished the first draft of Secret. It’s clocking in right now at just short of 13.4K words, but that will likely change as I do the first-pass edits in a day or two. Regardless, it’s going to be about the same length as Forever, as I expected.
The ending changed a little when I wrote what I thought was going to be a quick transition scene to the real ending. I just stumbled across the perfect place for the standard “of the wood” ending where I use the title as the closing, so I went for it.
Hate to lose the scene I was conjuring up for afterward, but oh well. There was a neat little interaction that I was really keen to write. Maybe I can use it in something later.
Now I’m going to take a little break, goof off on the internet, and see what strikes me to tackle next.
Finished the resolution scenes, and built right up to the edge of the sex. Every time I try to close my eyes to visualize now though, I’m nodding off *laugh* Guess I’m done for the night.
All I even know for now is that the naughty bits are outdoors. Can’t stay awake enough to even figure out how things are going to start — other than the initial transition from heavy petting to nekkidness.
Once I do get that written though, the story is pretty much finished. The ending scenes are short. Then the polishing touches I mentioned last time, and I should have this one in the can well in advance of the contest.
Okay, off to bed before I fall over.
