Revisions completed!

I'm going to break the pattern I've been following slightly to throw in a writing update. I've been avoiding that because I don't want it to be the only focus here, but now and then, it's good to get a hint of that out.

Ever since nearly two years ago, I've had occasional posts here about the serial project I've been working on. I ended up breaking it down into thirteen 4k-5k-word episodes for the first season and then did the second (and at this point final) 13-episode season for NaNo last November.

Ever since the New Year, I've been focusing on revising the first 13 episodes. Revision...doesn't always come easily to me. I find it very easy to be distracted by new ideas. Copy-editing is easy, but when it comes to any deeper structural reworking, I tend to rationalize it away or procrastinate. So I think it's been good to force myself to immerse myself in revisions.

For the month of January I didn't write anything new, beyond little writing exercises, and when I started letting myself think about writing something new (without letting it overwhelm the revisions), it had become difficult to get into that mindset. I ended up taking one of those writing exercises from January and expanding it, and that's going well at last. It builds on the whaling stuff I mentioned a few of the inspiration posts.

Still, my focus is--and has to remain--on revisions. I have so much I've written that I like and believe in, but if I leave it rough, then it won't really do justice to the story. As of yesterday, though, I'm finished with the revisions on all of season 1. One more thing I thought of that I ought to read through and make sure everything is consistent, and I may decide to revisit them in a few more months, but if this were something I was sending to a publisher, it would be at the point where I'd consider it ready to go.

What do I plan to do with it, now it's done? I'll leave that for another time. For now, I'll end with the story teaser/info that I'd put in my NaNo profile while working on season 2:

In a city of beetle-drawn carriages and steam cars, dangerous factories and mysterious spire singers, a mad scientist's serum is infecting the poor and indigent with a sickness that turns them slowly into animals. A group of these infecteds struggles to make its way on the streets and dreams of turning the tables on the mad scientist.

Comments

Lindsey Duncan said…
I wish I could write a teaser like that. Arrrrgh. :-)
Daniel Ausema said…
Thanks, Lindsey :)