Yeah, she's done. Yes, the query is also done. The first five pages, polished as polished gets. As of this moment:
Hard edits: On Chapter 40 or 47
Soft edits: On Chapter 16 of 47
Copy Edits: On Chapter 2 of 47
Yeah, someone shoot me please. The gloss of the masterfully executed ending that I fought so hard for was quickly robbed by finding chapters I had already been over nine times still have errors. Still.
I am acctually looking forward to the moment this thing is polished to where I can submit and copy editting is over with.
Stick with me. We're at almost.
CHV (March 12th 2010)
Update? Eh, why not. I'm almost there. I kind of changed the entire ending and that really put a hitch in the time frame. I can of started to ignore my personal deadline. After all, one does not rush greatness.
There will be much blogging to take place after this monster is done. And perhapes a review of the progression of a character. But before that, there will be much yelling. Much jumping and drinking and squeeing with glee. And then submitting, and rejection and more drinking and less squeeing.
Can't wait.
CHV
I was awake until 6:15am on Friday morning working. In truth, I would have stayed up longer but my hands were going numb, so I finally gave in to my mortality and went to sleep.
This "cram session" put me a hell of a lot closer than I was, or thought, I was going to be. Here we are, in the dying days of February, and I am but 5 words from the end of Of Hollow Men.
The query is done. The first five pages are flawless. It is ready to go to the agent(s) I have selected. But, dammit, I need the ending. So, I work to reach it, work to stave off my doubt and insecurities, and race toward the finish line.
CHV
Okay, folks, I am so bad about updates right now. I tried and tried really hard to get back here and inform the masses, but my job seems to like to steam roll all my free time into one big, quotidian pancake.
As of this moment I am five chapters from completion of Of Hollow Men. Earlier this week I smacked into a plot hole and was forced to go back ten chapters to make a corrections. Fortunately, where I thought this would take a week, it only took about twelve hours.
Plans are still set for submissions in the month of March.
Just know, I'm close. Oh, SO close.
CHV
Sam and I are in rehab. No, really. We reached that part of the book. I know, I can't really believe it, and I care less to look at it as I might have a panic attack. We've pressed onward toward the finale. And with this I am execptionally proud.
We are now on the nineteen day countdown to my submission goal. Nineteen days.
I'll make it.
-CHV
I have officially made it through edits all the way to chapter eighteen, which, in the last draft, was chapter twelve. The word count is doing a funny thing as it drops 1160 words in one hour only to gain 800, then lose 500, then gain 1700. I'm not even trying to keep track anymore.
I did however decide, I will NEVER write another book like I have written this one. NEVER. Between the SIX different copies and the FOUR difference hand-written places random scene happen to appear, it can take me sometimes fourty-five minutes to find the version of a certain wording that I want. Not to mention, about 30k words of this monster is not yet typed into a computer.
There's a lot of hunt and peck going on 'round these parts.
- CHV
Projected completion date: Feb. 19th 2010
A sever kidney infection took me off work for a few days. I spent two whole days with Sam on the couch and we sipped apple juice and made it all the way to Chapter Eleven. For more on the humor of editing, please see the blog.
Still looking to Samantha to be ready by the end of February- and at latest, the end of March.
-CHV
Chapters one through five have undergone their total and complete overhaul and they have been set aside under the file heading "perfect". (At least, as perfect as I am going to get them). With a new style and new plot element woven into the prose, I feel like this is turning out to more of a well-rounded tale.
Samantha continues to evolve as a character. We hit a little bump in the road this week as I began a deep, hard look into her past. The mood all this work trigger seemed to send me into an odd place emotionally- inspiring some of the best work I feel I have ever done, but at the same time wearing me so far down physically, I slept more time than I was awake on Wednesday.
More to come.
CHV
Samantha and I rang in the new year the only way we know how: sipping tea and smoking cigarettes. Our love affair has been as violent as it has been beautiful over the years, but after learning so much in L.A, she and I have come to a mutual understanding that has brought new life into our relationship.
I'm in the middle of a chapter-by-chapter overhaul, as well as the continued re-write. This has included a massive plot change and a word-by-word comb that has formed a tour-de-force of style.
-CHV
