Beginning in the Middle

So in 2003 I started to write a book, System Seven. A fiction novel. Sci-fi. No outline, no real specific plot in mind. I wrote the prologue in about two hours and liked the feel... of the scene and of the process of writing. I knew I had in me a lot of cool ideas that could serve as unique premises for a cool story. I figured if I liked it, others might, too. So voila! I was on my way!

Ummm, yeah.

Four years later, 40,000 words into it, I realized I wasn't taking the idea of becoming a writer very seriously... but knew I wanted to. I liked the story. I still had stuff that wanted to come out and I knew it could in the world I'd begun creating. My response was to pick up a book on fiction writing and get serious.

It worked, mostly. Over the next two years I picked up and studied about five more books on writing while doubling my word count by 2009. I was getting excited. I even went back over the original work and revised it with all the new found knowledge I had. Actually, I did that every time I finished reading one of the how-to books. Did it help? Absolutely. Each revision chipped away at the problems I hadn't known I had. All the while, I was keeping in touch with a brimming writer's community on the forums at AbsoluteWrite.com. I submitted three chapters in the peer review forum for the genre... and received great critiques that further helped me to learn the craft.

Fast forward another year and I found myself writing regularly. In 2010, the muse (or muses) visited me almost daily. I followed where they led. The story unfolded, even grew wings. The word count had soared (and I do mean soared). Things had happened in the world of System Seven. A lot of things! Alas, things had also happened in my world... including an end of a long marriage. Writing became an anchor for me then, one that tied me over the intense currents of change that ensued.

Finally, after a long and arduous battle between revisioning and trying to actually get to the ending of the story, I did reach the end. It was Christmas morning 2010 at 2:30am or so. The word count was over 220,000 words, but the story had been told. What a tremendous feeling!!! But inside, I knew there was still much to fix...

The year 2011 brought more revisions... of the novel and my personal life (luckily, both were positive). Draft two took most of the year as a result. Draft three began in the last weeks of December and continues today.

This is a big book. Not as big as most every of Robert Jordan's books in the Wheel of Time series, but it's big. The story spans some 675 pages and 73 chapters and is segmented into three parts (I. Shift, II. Change, and III. Control). I've revised through chapter 26 (part 1) and have that out to four readers and am incorporating the resulting feedback. I'm pushing to revise part 2 now. (A final re-doing of the chapters is still ahead - with some consolidation involved I'm sure).

That's where this blog starts, in the middle. Or, almost in the middle... I'm at the part where I need to find out if the story sucks or not. I need to know what others think of it. If it passes muster, I'll go on and try get an agent and see where things go. If it doesn't pass muster, if it's truly diseased with first-novelitis, then I'll shelve it and begin a fresh project and put all my knowledge and experience to work on something better.

What exactly am I going to blog about? Honestly, I won't really know until my inner-muse decides to post. I can say I'd like to be helpful to other writers, to share inspiration and provide motivation as well as provide truly useful stuff. And I can say I'll likely use the blog as an anchor for my efforts and as a therapy couch. We'll see.