No word counts or pages written to brag about, just to vent about the tedium of editing my first book.

I hate editing.  I hate even more finding the stupid mistakes . . . missing words, duplicate words, punctuation, spelling errors. 

Boring, boring, boring.

I've found that the worst thing you can do when you stop writing for a night, is to put up your winner hands, declare the chapter is finished and go to bed.  Don't just leave a new chapter header up there for tomorrow.  Instead write at least two paragraphs of the opening for that chapter.  That way when you wake up in the morning you aren't left scratching your head and going huh.  Will I ruin things if I start this way, or where in the heck do we go from here!

Its the same thing with a new book.  Try to write at least a chapter, maybe two of the sequel immeiately after the end of your book.  Throw it in as a sneak peak for book 2 in the back of book one,  or book four for the end of three etc.  You might still feel that little bit of blah feeling when taking up the new project but that whole I need 'research' before figuring out where to pick up next angle is totally blown out of the water.  There is your new beginning now you just need to follow your plot (written down or mental) and naturally proceed from that.

Plus even if you screwed up the new beginning you can always delete it with that new and better idea burning a hole in your brain!


The Deposed King

That's good advice.  Now, following through on it . . . that's another story.  And congrats on finishing the first draft of Falon Half Blood.  Did you rush right out and draft the first scene of the sequel afterwards?

I guess it depends on whether you think you need some sort of structure to learning the craft of writing.  Personally, I've never taken a course in creative writing.  But I've taken time to read about the subject.  For example, I found Stephen King's "On Writing" to be a big help.  And I write a lot in my occupation, just not the type of writing that leads to a novel.

So, my only recommendation is to think about what you want to get out of the course.  Are you somebody that needs additional practice writing?  Do you have folks around that can help guide you and give feedback?  Do you have the will to do it on your own, or will it help to be in a more formal setting? 

Best of luck.

Thanks.  I think I am beginning to see how to better craft something that will work. 

It's obvious that I do not yet know what I'm doing.  Time to do some research and get it all straight in my head.

Thanks for the response.  I'm struggling because there isn't a main character.  Rather, there are several.  It's told in third person limited POV, with multiple voices in style of Game of Thrones.  I could choose one, but then I wonder if I'm deceiving the reader somehow when they find out that the description doesn't match what's advertised. 

Maybe I just need to spend a day brainstorming and come up with several different possibilities and then narrow them down.

Yep, that's sort of what I thought too.  I've been toying with how to better describe my book tonight and came up with this:

Long ago, in a mystical world, a lunar eclipse brought change to the Empire.  Some humans developed astounding physical and psionic abilities.  Revered by some, feared by others, these practitioners changed the Empire.  Some built new wonders of science, technology, medicine, and art.  But others became despots and tyrants without equal, bending or manipulating others to their will.  Hundreds of years later, these magician guilds hold an iron grip on power.  Their plots, schemes, and secrets sustain the body politic.   But then a foretelling of a new lunar eclipse stirs others to action.  In the frontier of the Empire, forces gather for an invasion. 

In the frontier town of Fifty Horns, a soldier drowns in blood guilt; a megalomaniac extorts others to do his bidding; guilds plot secret deals to line their coffers; a church threatens to split from within; and a determined group of practitioners undertakes a treacherous journey.  The potential fate of the Empire hangs perilously in balance.  An eclipse of the blood moon comes, and it brings change.

Still hate it.  Pure.  Cheese.  Trying to shorten it down to just a few sentences from here.  Maybe I just work off the last paragraph?

I'm impressed that you could shorten yours down to just the one sentence.  I think you had me at Spiritually Canadian borderline post-humans.  Sounds like the Montreal Canadians.      Or if not, maybe that's your sequel.  Any book about a hockey team that fights intergalactic crime would be well worth my hard earned money.   

Oh, I know the world doesn't revolve around me . . . yet.  [Insert evil laugh here.]

I just wish the world would spin its bad juju someplace else for a while.