write and publish a book

I printed a few copies of my 2nd draft on Lulu.com, which turned out damn nice. I’ve now given them out to friends, and I’m waiting for feedback before doing a third (and hopefully final) edit.
In the meantime I’m back to short stories. I’ve started a semi-regular blog about my writing here: ruzkin.wordpress.com, which will hopefully encourage me to keep on moving.

Well, haven’t been on here in a while. Working on the second draft of my novel at the moment, it’s a major improvement on the original. Hoping to blast through it by mid march.

After three on-and-off years, I’ve finished the first draft of my novel, Weathermen. It came out at 138k words, so in need of some serious trimming.
I’m putting it aside for a while and doing some short stories before getting back into the editing grind. Then we’ll see if it’s marketable.

I’m really almost done. It could be this week, it could be next week, but it’s almost done.
Goddamn.

The final chapter is getting close to done. I’m squeezing in writing in every spare second. I’m hoping I can get it done within the next three weeks, and then begin my editing without too much delay.
It’s really promising when I hand segments of my novel to folk who I know will crit me honestly and they say “It could be improved, but it’s already at publishable standard.” That gives me hope.

Well, my novel is now over novel length, and I have one chapter to go. Don’t actually know what to do with the conclusion though…

Just to help, I’ve gotten an idea for another book, which I started on last night. Has a lot of promise. Post-cyberpunk murder mystery, I guess. So much writing to do!

Well, I took a short time off to do a short steampunk story, which is in the draft stage here if anyone wants a read and critique:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=25353

Now, back to Weathermen. I’ve instituted new requirements of myself beyond my old 2000 words a week, so hopefully I can get the rough draft done before I go back to university in early July.

Finished Chapter 5 of my novel a few days back! That brings my wordcount up to 98k. Having outlined the rest of the book, I’m anticipating the finalwordcount to be around the 150 mark, which is about 3 times longer than I expected this story to be when I began.

I’ve been sending the story to my closest friends and girlfriend chapter by chapter. My best friend sent me a message after he finished Chap 5: “FUCK YOU RUZ”, so I assume he was really involved. My girlfriend said she cried. Jaysus. I might have something kinda good on my hands.

My uni work has ramped up, so finding time to write is scarce. Still, I’ve managed to stick to my 2000word/week minimum… pitiful, in the face of most authors, but it keeps the book rolling. I think I broke the 90,000 word mark just recently, but I’d have to do a more comprehensive wordcount of all the seperate chapters to be sure.
Aiming to finish Chapter 5 before my girlfriend moves in, so I’ve got… 14 days. Cheer me on!

Huzzah! Finished the draft of another chapter of Weathermen, which puts me around just over halfway through the novel. Sent it to my girlfriend for her to nitpick over while I keep working on what comes next. Might go back and revise the first chapters soon as well.