before publishing a novel Archives

The fun part of writing is doing a draft. I can make things up as I go. Afterwards, draft considerations descend with a vengeance.

November was my carefree, write drafts time. That is the great thing about participating in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month). Getting 2000 words a day down on a draft leaves no time for careful research, corrections or rewriting.

I worked on the ends of two novels. One is finished. One is not. I’ve discovered that 25,000 words is only a third of what is needed to complete the thing.

Nature Book? Scifi Book? Both?

The Carduan Chronicles has been challenging from the first. It was a simple survival scifi idea. A spaceship drops out of a worm hole in the middle of a February ice storm and lands in an Ozark ravine.

Ship Nineteen in The Carduan Chronicles ends up in an Ozark ravine. The Carduans must find a place to call home. It needs to be defensible, have building possibilities as they would rather not live in their spaceship forever, have ready access to food and water and have growth potential. Since the spaceship is 30 inches long and eighteen inches high and wide (The Carduans are four inches tall.), a ledge such as this one along my road might be perfect. Knowing the setting is essential to writing about Ship Nineteen and how they learn to live in this alien place so full of dangers.

I wrote that draft one November. Except it wasn’t complete. There had to be a second ship.

This ship drops out of a worm hole about the orbit of Jupiter and must go over the sun to get to Cardua. There are many events happening on the ship during the fifteen weeks it takes.

I wrote that draft one November. Except the two accounts were two takes on the same time frame, the same people and they merged near the end. Enter another draft.

This is the draft I am trying to complete in between several other projects now that November is over. Reality has returned. Draft considerations are now top of the list.

How Many Manuscripts?

There is the completed novel draft. I need to do lots of research for that one and get it rewritten. My deadline is a March release, so I better get busy.

The Chemistry Project has taken a new turn. I need to complete the book, yes. However, my science books are mostly ignored. I hope to release them as units on a teaching site.

And the Dent County Flora needs attention. Draft considerations for this massive mess are mostly backing up the pictures from this year and identifying all the unknowns I can. Then I can fill in more pages.

But Cardua still calls. There are five weeks left in their journey to write about to finish this draft. The hardest part for it is yet to come. Draft considerations for this close to 200,000 word project will take months as I need more descriptions of Cardua, making sure everything is believable for four inch tall aliens and cutting down the size of this monster.