Monday 29 October 2012

The BIG update

Its been over a year since I updated this Blog so thought I'd better return and update.
A huge amount has happened since November 2011. To put it in simple terms I took part in the November writing competition and successfully wrote a 60'000 word Novel partly based on the Universe I created for the original 'big' novel.

The story is a combination of Comedy, action, investigation, with a small amount of romance, all set in a post-war fantasy world of my own devising. Its not an 'epic', as the post war world thing is more of a backdrop as apposed to the main focus. The BIG Novel will be the epic if I ever get it finished and this smaller novel will determine that.
Armed with my first draft I have spent the last year drafting and re-drafting, perfecting my writing style. Over time, with help from friends and family, I have moved from a badly written 1st Draft, to a much more solid 6th Draft.
Many friends have been proof readers for the various drafts and helped me modify and improve my writing. Spelling has gotten better, and grammar. The characters more real, the environment better described, the story more interesting.

The 7th Draft will be the last one before, all being well, this Novel will be published on Amazon Kindle. I had toyed with applying to a publisher but the amount of time and effort required would result in me waiting up to 6 months for a response. With Kindle I will be published immediately and will be able to tell within a very short space of time whether the Novel has been successful.
If its successful, I will then keep writing. If not, well, I can say I tried.
I've even sourced a illustrator to do the cover design. He's in the process of drafting a 3D computer image to serve as my books front page. The first images look fantastic and I'm looking forward to the finished product.

As well as the Novel other activates have kept my interest in writing going.
I've taken part in a short story competition between a friend and a friend of a friend, were we post short stories (between 250 and 500 words long) between each other for critique and comment. This continues today.
I've also written narrative for Airspace forums Aeronautica campaign throughout the summer. Not as well proof read but its kept my interest and let me do sci-fi as apposed to usual fantasy stuff.

For December, I've to write a 3500 word short story for the Paradiso writing competition on the go on infinitythegame.com. This, again, will be a nice break from fantasy writing.
Finally, I've set up a twitter account specifically for the novel. @jgwritesnovels is the name for those who want to follow, and I'll hopefully be using it to further promote the Novel once its out.
In the future I will update this blog, and my Badcompanyredux.com blog with more news on the Novel as its nears completion.

Hopefully, it will be worth the wait :).