June 2016 reading....

I spent the month finishing Small Favor by Jim Butcher.  The book is the 10th installment of the Dresden Files.  It was somewhat formulaic and predictable.  Harry Dresden is a battle wizard in Chicago, IL in an urban fantasy.  He gets pulled into a conflict with fallen angels and military arm of the Catholic Church.  There's also the Italian mafia and the fae.  Dresden moves from one battle to another.  The books is non-stop action.  Enjoyable, but predictable...

I'm also reading Proxima by Stephen Baxter and The Last Stand of Fox Company. 

Proxima is about Yuri Eden's settlement on Proxima Centauri c. an Earth-like planet orbiting a red dwarf.  There's intelligent life on the planet.  I'm getting to the part of first contact between the remaining humans and native life-forms. 

The other nonfiction books is The Last Stand of Fox Company.  It's about a US Marine Corps company during the Korean War at the Chosin Reservoir.  I'm at the point where a Chinese Peoples Liberation Army infantry battalion is attacking Fox Company on a cold winter's morning...

That's what I'm reading right now.  I'll move onto another hard copy of The Lost Fleet:  Beyond the Frontier series by Jack Campbell.  I'm making more progress with the hard copies than I'm with my ebooks, right now.  

Editing Kepler Falling - 5th Draft

I'm in the process of editing Kepler Falling - 5th Draft this summer.  I'm about halfway done.  I posted my novel in Inkshares.com, which is a crowd-source publisher.  I haven't had much luck with it, however.  I haven't had that much time to really put into promoting the novel.  I should do a much better job.

Most of my effort has been on editing Kepler Falling.  This book will probably the only novel I ever write.  My other works have been novellas.  I don't know what that says about my writing.

Regards,
Blake

Finished Ganbaatar. Reedit. Repeat.

I finished editing Ganbaatar earlier this month.  I moved back to editing Kepler Falling.  I'm on my fifth draft of the novel.  It seems like the only thing I do is reedit/revise/repeat.  I figure I'll be editing the rest of the year until I'm done revising.

I have poetry in need of critiquing.  I haven't been able to make it to WUTA lately.  My family life has thrown me some curves with a sick parent.  I still edit and revise each day.  It daunting with a large project like Kepler Falling.  It'll literary take months to get through all 96,000+ words.  I need to writer some more poetry when I find the time.

More novella editing this April 2016....

I have about 30 more pages of editing left to do in Ganbaatar.  I'd like to get the novella does by the end of the week.  I'll see how I do...

Blake

April 2014 novella editing

What should be consumed by poetry is being drowned out by novella editing.  I'm on the third draft of Ganbaatar.  Fortunately, it's under 20,000 words.  Bad news, I'm on Page 19.  This will take a while to plod through...

Blake

Rearranging my writing/editing/revisions

I met with WUTA Big Books last Thursday evening at my house.  The group discussed my poetry.  My poetry has emotion, unlike my other writings.  They thought I'd be better served it I worked on poetry.

In fact, I divided my chap books into two different projects.  The first one, Half A World Away, deals with love, despair, and reflection.  The second one, Lies My Father Told, deals with my estranged relationship with my late father.

I had to shut down my computer when the contractors finally showed up for the basement.  I have no idea when they'll come back.  It's annoying to my work schedule.  I'm using the upstairs PC.  It's only available to me during certain hours of the day.  I thought I'd update my blog postings while I had the chance.  I don't know when I'll get around doing more...

However, I went through and marked the status of my different prose projects today.  I'll go back and revise a short story tomorrow.  It'll take a while to get through all my writing.  I'll be working on that for the foreseeable future.

I also write poetry when the spirit moves.  I've focused on my strained relationship with my father.  He and I didn't get along.  I took care of him the last 12 months of his life as he died from stomach cancer.  There's enough material to put together several chap books, unfortunately...

Regards,
Blake 

Editing/revision/retyping.....

I'm currently retyping Nordic Sun - Epsilon, 3rd Draft.  This will take a while to finish.  The best advice I got was to retype your second or third draft as far as editing/revisions go.  I look forward to be done with it by mid April 2016.

This year will be focused on reediting/revision/retyping.  I'm not going to write anything original.  I do have plans for a fifth novella.  It will be a steampunk manuscript set during the Boer War.  I probably won't start rewriting until the end of the 2016...

Such is life.