So I’m actually making some significant progress with Chasing Shadows. There are days I feel like I’ll never get through it. Other days, I knock out a scene or chapter and think every scene completed is a step in the right direction.
I’m in the center of the book now and see I got sloppy. Lots of bracketed areas [describe XYZ], [Mujur does this or that]. Bad Reena.
A little about me. When I get tired of writing but still want to finish a story, I tend to do brackets with brief descriptions of what should happen. Coming back to those pieces makes me anxious, but in a way, it’s good they’re there.
First, it gives me an opportunity to fill in the blanks when my mind is more on the work. If I’m not in the zone, the words I place in the story are likely to be crappy and dull anyway. No sense wasting time on things I’ll just have to redo. Polishing is hard enough for me as it is without being overwhelmed by bad writing.
Two, Chasing Shadows was a little on the short side for my tastes. Shadow Cat is over 80k words long. Some might consider that too long considering I’ve had some complaints about where the story starts. 🙂 Still, it bothers me to have a novel length piece of work, then release a work less than half the size.
Filling in the blanks is my opportunity to plump up Chasing Shadows a little. I doubt it’ll be the length of a novel, but it definitely will be a good sized novella.
My goal for preparing Chasing Shadows for release is August 2012. However, I’m thinking a July release will be more likely. So sit tight a little longer. It’ll happen.