My Life,  Writing Resources

The Novel is Done

So I’ve finished the second novel this year! I still have to edit this one (and sell it!) before anybody sees it of course.

Overall I’m satisfied with it. It is too long (115 000 words) but I overwrite my first drafts and I’m sure most of those extra words will disappear. Unlike the first novel there’s no major changes I need to make in the second draft. I’m going to read it over the holidays and come up with a revision plan and start tackling that in February. December and January will be devoted to playing around with some short story ideas I’ve put aside.

For the curious this novel is set in the same ‘world’ that is first explored in my story ‘Touch the Dead’ which will appear in a future issue of On Spec Magazine.

This year I’ve accomplished all the content creation goals I made for 2010, so I’m quite pleased — over 380 000 words written, way past my goal of 240 000. And because I love stat tracking I’ve noticed that I’ve made 171 story submissions this year, one more than last year, so that’s cool. Can’t sell stories if they are not out there circulating!

Though in sadder news my most productive day in 2010 was only 5000 words compared to a 5600 word day I had in 2009. Okay enough stats, I have some writing that needs doing today.

Former lead designer at BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins, Neverwinter Nights). Creator of Raiders of the Serpent Sea.

8 Comments

  • Jordan

    Well done, Brent!! I hope to match you in the coming year.

    And, wow, gotta say I hate the new comments system. I don’t think I’ll comment after this. It’s way too much effort to just share a thought.

  • Jordan

    Like, I suppose it’s easy enough to supply my e-mail address and name, but I don’t have the option of giving my website, so people can’t look me up if they think I have something to say? And I have to deal with a popup every time I want to comment? And apparently, it doesn’t remember me.

    And of the non-email ones, Yahoo is dead and I don’t recognize anything else but Twitter, where I never post anything.

    Sorry, it’s just brutal.

  • Jordan

    And hey, even though I “replied” to my previous post, it’s not nested like LJ, and actually appears above the comment I replied to. There’s literally nothing I like about this system.

  • Brent the Tester

    (This is Brent replying testing how comments work for ‘not-me’ people).

    – I’m not sure about the remembering you thing, that might be an option I can enable. Will look into.
    – This is a reply of your second comment, we’ll see after I type this if its nested, it has been for me previously
    – On the popup there is a ‘here is my website link’
    – Disqus is the comment system, OpenID is used by google/wordpress and I think LiveJournal is (or can use) OpenId too

  • Brent Knowles

    Thanks Jordan!

    And I hear you about the commenting… I didn’t comment on any disqus system for a long time, seemed like an extra, unnecessary step. I’ll post the other reasons why I’ve actually moved over to this later… and make a decision whether to ditch Disqus early next year, depending on feedback.

  • Jordan

    okay, you fixed it somewhat.

    Yeah, I know about openId, but you have to remember a huge web address to use it, that no one on earth remembers. Try subbing to EDF if you want to see the proper way to use OpenId (and I’m not blaming you here, but the commenting system).

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