Impression read on Beauty back

Got the impression read on Beauty of the Wood back, so hashing out the various points of that has been the focus for this evening. I have a good base to work from for doing my second draft now, and I’ll be working on that alongside of Lowborn.

I’ll write the second draft, give it a full edit and cold read, then send that off to M.L. again for thoughts on the changes. By that point, the tweaks are usually minor, and will be hashed out in quick notes, rather than new drafts. Once the final tweaks are complete, it will go off to Roust for final technical editing and his thoughts as well. Once the draft has passed his inspection, I’ll queue it up at SOL and submit the updated draft to Literotica.

Trying to come down a little from the work on Beauty to get more written on Lowborn tonight.

EDIT: ( a little later ) Got a bit more done on Lowborn. Edging toward the 4500 mark. If I can get out of work at a decent hour tomorrow, I might just finish this chapter before hitting the second draft of Beauty.

Long day, slow day

Had a long day at work, so it was a slow day writing when I got home.

Didn’t really get much done today except for deciding that there isn’t going to be a full-on sex scene in this chapter of Lowborn. The characters often take their own directions on me, and they just didn’t think it was the time or place *laugh*

While I was thinking about it, I did put together the new chapter image for Ch. 08 ( the actual cover will be used for the final chapter ) Even though I won’t be using them on the Lit forum any more, they’ll still be used on my “latest updates” page. I like having individual images for multi-chapter stories. They’ll then be collected on the “Extras” page of “My Work” as well.

Still expecting to finish this chapter and start the last one in the next couple of days, and with things quieting down, I might see if I can get a bit done tonight as well.

Little more before the noise

Managed another 500 words to hit 4k today before the environment hereabouts turned to one no longer conductive with creativity :p

I need to finish this scene, another one ( naughty bits *laugh* ) and the closer for the chapter. Hoping to have this now-penultimate chapter done within the next couple of days.

After that, it’s all a matter of having the time and proper conditions to write, because the ending has been fully fleshed out for a long time now. I just needed to get over that speedbump with the one character’s development, and now I can roll.

Hope to have more good news tomorrow. With things quieting a little around here, I might even try to squeak out a little more progress before I crash for the night.

Yeah, I’m past the roadblock.

I’m certainly past the roadblock in “Lowborn”. I came home from work this evening, had something to eat, took a nap, and then came back to blast through a scene and bring the chapter up to 2k words. The next scene already has my fingers itching, and I’ll be going back to it as soon as I finish this post.

As it progresses, I’m pretty much sure that this is either going to be an extra long chapter compared to the other eight, or there’s going to be a ninth, “Epilogue” chapter. It will all depend on how many more words it takes to tell the story, and whether I come to a good chapter breaking point.

I might just finally be in the home stretch of this one 🙂

EDIT: ( a couple of hours later )

I’m up past 2500, and it’s looking less like a long chapter or a chapter plus epilogue and more like a full chapter *laugh*

I’m headed straight back to it, provided the environment around here doesn’t get too noisy and annoying to write, so may have more to report a little later. If it’s after midnight, I’ll probably start a new post.

EDIT: Changed my mind. Same post *laugh*

Well, I managed to make it to 3500 ( easily the halfway point, and really a tad over ) before things got too loud and annoying for me to visualize. Doubt conditions will improve before I need to crash out soon.

It’s absolutely going to be a 9th chapter now. The next two scenes will easily carry it up to the length of the all the previous chapters. Then, a quick transition scene that will put me in a good position to start 9.

That should be the final chapter, though. That transition will put me at a place where there’s next to no way to stop the events of the ending from tumbling down on my protagonists.

What’s speaking to me

Well, what’s speaking to me right now is “Lowborn”. I just read back through the first seven chapters again for the umpteenth time. For the first time, I didn’t make any changes other than eliminating a couple of “this word repeats too soon after I used it”.

I backspaced a little bit of Ch. 08, because I felt as if it was getting off track. I’m taking a slightly different angle with one of the main characters than I’d originally intended, and the changes reflect that.

Really, that’s been the only thing holding this story back for a while. Resolving this character to get to the ending that’s been waiting for me to write it was the stumbling block. Once I can get that finished, I think this one will be ready to roll, and I’ll have a couple months worth of weekly releases ( they’re all going to be about 5.5-6k words each, I believe )

Finally finishing this one after so long might just give me a boost, too.

Working on SOTM 19 in the background as well. Just not enough true wordage to really report. Maybe after I get past the stumbling block in Lowborn.

Might be entering the summer contest at Lit. Eligibility means nothing to me, as winning isn’t what I enter them for in the first place ( though, I’m always tickled by the wins — if not so much the trollish aftermath on the forums there ) There’s a chance of a new Magic of the Wood there. The idea is brewing. May make another venture into taboo similar to my Christmas story as Les, too.

I’m going to try to stay more active here on the blog. Now that the struggle to finish Beauty has put me in a writing mode — at least for a while. Never know how long one of these is going to last.

Still waiting on the first reader to get back to me on Beauty for the tweaks and then the final edit. As soon as it’s ready, I’ll put it up at SOL and update at Lit.