Sensory Overload - Part IV

I have now written 424 pages with 132,529 words in total for the first three parts of my science-fiction novel, Sensory Overload. According to my outline, I now have seven chapters to finish, plus an epilogue. My New Years Resolution for 2013 is to write at least five new chapters of the final Part IV by the end of the year. Since I average a little over two months per chapter if I stick to my regime of 2 new pages a week, it should be no problem.

Update: 4/3/13
I have finished the rough draft for Chapter 21. This one took three months because it ended up being 10 pages longer than my usual length. Writing this chapter helped me fill out deeper outlines for my next two chapters and also sparked me to rethink the future story-line after that. I decided to change a major plot-point and throw out my outline for Chapter 24 and replace it with a completely new story idea. The basic outlines for the final chapters survived, but needed some major revising to absorb the changes. I think it will be much better now.

Update: 7/3/13
Another long chapter, but I have finished writing Chapter 22. This chapter ended up being pretty straightforward and easy to write due to my earlier outline work, but I am still behind schedule. Unless the next three chapters are all well under 20 pages, I doubt that I will complete my New Years Resolution for 2013.

As I write the last part of my novel, I've looked back at the evolution of my writing process. For the first few chapters, I hand-wrote them in a notepad before transcribing them into Microsoft Word. Even after I learned to type fast enough to write creatively on a computer, I would still need to print out the completed pages to edit them with a pen and a crossword puzzle dictionary. Now I do everything on the computer, outlining, writing and editing. Even when I send chapters to my friends for review, it tends to be on their Kindle or Nook.

Update: 9/26/13
After writing two long chapters in a row, Chapter 23 is back to a reasonable length. I should have time to complete at least one more chapter before the new year begins. Halfway through 23, I decided that it will end up switching its location with Chapter 22. Since the timelines overlap in these last three chapters, the events in 23 will end up being anti-climatic after 22. Switching them will now prolong the mystery of what occurred at the end of 21. I now need to edit all three to make sure they are cohesive.

Update: 3/3/14
Helping to plan my wedding in January put me behind schedule in writing Chapter 24. Before I was halfway finished with the new chapter, Tori read the first three chapters of Part IV and had a problem with the major event that happens at the end of Chapter 21. At first I didn't agree with her critique, but she convinced me to think it over. After long debates in my head, I finally have a rough plan on how I can revise the troublesome plot-point and adjust the events in the 22 and 23 to fit. It will be tough to pull off but I think Tori has pushed me to improve my story. I will abandon 24 until I finish revising the three previous chapters.

Update: 8/1/14
Even though I had a revision outline, I was daunted by the task and distracted with our preparations for Burning Man at the end of the summer. I finished re-writing Chapter 21 yesterday and I think it is much improved. I know I will be obsessed with editing my Burning Man photos after the event so I hope I can finish revising 22 and 23 before the end of the year as well.

Update: 3/17/15
Slow as usual but I finally finished rewriting Chapters 22 and 23. I am looking forward to getting back to Chapter 24 that I started over a year ago. Including the 10 pages I moved into it from previous chapters, I have 22 pages that I will have to rewrite before I can start on new material.

Update: 7/27/17
That was a long layoff but I finally put my nose back to the grindstone and finished Chapter 24. At 27 pages, it ended up being another long chapter but I am happy that I am finally back on track writing new material. I have two trips to Los Angeles and Amsterdam planned for August and September so I hope I am not delayed too long with more photo editing.

Update: 9/24/20

It took me three years before I got back into gear and finished writing Chapter 25. While I want to blame my time-consuming photography hobby and the return to Burning Man in 2018 and 2019, the real reason I put off writing this chapter for so long was because I was a bit scared. Chapter 25 was the culmination of a lot of different plot threads and I didn't know how to tie them together. After re-reading all my chapters from the beginning, I finally figured it out.

This might be the slowest book ever written. I wrote Part I during my Twenties, took a long layoff and wrote Parts II and III in my Thirties. If I can finish Chapters 26, 27 and the Epilogue before my 50th birthday at the end of 2021, I will have written Part IV in my Forties. Three Decades!!!

Update: 12/10/20

The rough draft of Chapter 26 is complete. I wrote these 24 new pages fairly quickly as the story advances toward the final confrontations. I will now spend the rest of December re-reading and editing Chapters 25 and 26. My New Year's Resolution will be to finish Chapter 27 and the Epilogue before my 50th Birthday on 12/25/21.

Sensory Overload - Part III

After my successful New Year's Resolution last year that motivated me to write five chapters and finish Part II, I made a new one this year. It is not as big, but I need to finish a thorough edit of the prologue and first thirteen chapters of Part I & II and write at least two new Chapters in Part III by the end of the year. One each for my two main characters, Jâk and Keefer. This will set me up to finish the last 5 chapters of Part III in 2011.

Update: 9/27/10

After spending the first seven months editing, I've finished writing the rough draft of Chapter 14. It's great to be officially past the half-way point of my book. I need to write one more chapter this year to fulfill my goal. I want to be completed before December so I can spend time re-writing Chapter 8. I'm going to change a supporting character who will be showing up later in Part III and make some radical alterations to two scenes.

Update: 11/24/10

Chapter 15 is finished, completing my New Year's Resolution for 2010. It is a couple pages shorter than my usual chapter length but I think it perfectly sets the scene for Keefer's story arc in Part III. I am now ready to tackle the problems within Chapter 8 in December.

Update: 12/30/10

I finished re-writing Chapter 8 with a day to spare in December. I think it is so much better now. Now I am ready to start a new New Year's Resolution to write five chapters in 2011 to complete Part III.

I found I have two writing modes.
1.) The Fun Way - I have a spark of an idea for the chapter I'm working on and start writing to get it on paper in a rush of words. When I am really lucky, each idea triggers another and I end up going two or three pages before they dry up.
2.) The Hard Way - I try to finish my page quota for the week based on my general chapter outline. I struggle through paragraph after paragraph, sometimes counting every sentence as I grind out the story-line. If I’m lucky, this will trigger #1.

Update: 3/10/11

Chapter 16 is finished, the first new chapter of 2011. This was an important section that I had outlined in great detail a long time ago. I had originally planned for these events to occur earlier in the book, but I ended up pushing them back along the storyline. Even though I knew all the details, getting them all to flow together in a cohesive way was a bit of a challenge.

The hardest part about writing is the motivation right at the beginning of a session. My brain tries to fake tiredness just before I start, but I have found the cure, Red Bull. It’s the ultimate writing juice. A few sips and I am clicking away at the keys.

Update: 5/22/11

I really struggled with Chapter 17, but the rough draft is finished. After I wrote the first two sections, I changed my mind and flip-flopped them. It works better but I had to do a lot of editing to massage the new order. The third and final section also caused problems. After writing half of it, I realized that it didn't belong in this chapter and I had to start again from scratch, but it came out great.

Update: 10/28/11

Chapter 18 is finally finished. I meant to have this chapter done at the end of July before my three week trip to Europe, but I was still 2 pages short when I left. I was delayed further when I had to spend so much time editing the 5,000 pictures from my trip when I got back. I now only have two more months left in the year, not enough time to write the last two chapters of Part III like I planned. I will have to be content with just finishing 19 and starting 20 at the beginning of the year. That will eat into some of the editing time I have planned for 2012 before I start Part IV.

Update: 2/29/12 - Leap Day

The first draft of Chapter 19 is written, a couple days before my ski trip to Vail on Friday. It is nice to get it out of the way. I meant to have it done by the end of 2011, but this chapter ended up having almost twice as many pages as my other chapters. This chapter is pretty rough as I normally concentrate on getting a logical story-line onto the page in the first draft. During editing, I will work on the flow and use one of my favorite writing techniques, adding in successive layers of detail each revision to build depth.

Update: 6/13/12

The last few pages of Chapter 20 took longer than I expected, but I have finished the rough draft. (With the end in sight, I let my two new pages a week rule slip a bit!) Part III is now complete, only six months behind schedule. My book is now at 405 pages with almost 130,000 words. I had planned to have 2012 set aside for editing Part III and writing the first two chapters of Part IV. I still might pull it off if I can finish my rewrites by the end of August, but I doubt it. I am willing to push Part IV to next year if needed.

Update: 12/26/12

I have completed my editing of Part III and now I am ready to write the last section of my story starting in 2013. I also went back and edited Parts I and II as well, incorporating new ideas I developed while writing Chapters 14 through 20. Tori has also been reading my draft and based on some of her suggestions, I went back and modified details about Chase's character in Part 1. My book now stands at 424 pages.

Sensory Overload - Part II

After taking years off from writing my book, Sensory Overload, I am back up on the horse. I finally finished writing my first new chapter in a while, Chapter 8.

I remember hitting the wall because I had come to a cross-roads in my story and I didn't know which direction to take. Just thinking about it caused me frustration and sapped my enthusiasm to write. I felt like I would just have to wait for the inspiration to hit again. It lasted much longer than I thought, but the breakthrough finally came on a long drive up to my Grandmother's house for Easter. I tried to zone out the bumper-to-bumper traffic while listening to some music on the radio and a cool idea for my story popped into my head. Plot points just started to fall into place like magic and I found myself mapping out chapter after chapter in my brain and I even figured out how I wanted to end it.

Near the end of the drive, I had to pull into a 7-Eleven to buy a small notepad and quickly write all my thoughts down before they vanished back into the ether. That was a great drive.

Now, on to Chapter 9.

UPDATE: 2/14/09

I finished Chapter 9. My New Year's Resolution is to finish Chapter 13 by the end of the year. My book will then be half finished.

UPDATE: 4/9/09

I have finished Chapter 10. While writing this chapter, I had an inspiration on how to wrap up Part III of my book. I now have to decide if I want to end the book at that point or continue with my original plan to finish it with Part IV. An expanded version of the storyline in Part IV might make a good sequel.

UPDATE: 5/9/09

I have finished writing Chapter 11. I am ahead of schedule so far on my New Year's Resolution to write five chapters this year. I am going to spend the last three weeks of May editing the three chapters I've written so far, before starting to write the last two in June.

UPDATE: 8/2/09

Chapter 13 is finished. I know I skipped Chapter 12, but it's okay. My chapters are currently alternating between two main characters and I was feeling inspired to continue with the same one after Chapter 11. The good news is I figured out how I wanted to write Chapter 12 as I wrapped up this one.

I like the pace I am currently writing at, around two months per chapter. Fast enough to keep the storyline fresh in my head, but slow enough to think carefully about the upcoming plot.

This week, I also finished a rough chapter outline for my story arc in Parts III & IV. I have expanded my original plan for Part III to spread it out over III & IV. I realized that I was trying to cram too much story into too few chapters. Now my original idea for Part IV will definitely be pushed into a second book.

UPDATE: 11/10/09

I am back to writing after taking a break for my trip to South America. Walking through the hillside favela in Rio de Janeiro really inspired me to go back and rewrite two of my recent chapters. I have just completed making the edits to Chapter 10 and half-written Chapter 12. Now I have a month and a half to finish writing Chapter 12 and complete my New Year's Resolution. I will finish.

UPDATE: 12/12/09

I have finished writing Chapter 12 with two weeks to spare in 2009 and Part II is complete. My book is now 273 pages long at the half-way point. Since there was more than a five year gap between writing Parts I & II, I will spend several months editing both to make sure they are consistent with each other and the story flows.

Hopefully it won't take too long before I start writing Part III. I already have pages filled with notes about new chapters and I am eager to write them.

UPDATE: 1/2/10

I saw James Cameron's Avatar for the second time today. I really love it but I'm worried that people will think I stole some of it's ideas for my book even though the plots are radically different. My main character's name is Jâk, pronounced just like Jake from the movie. That is not so bad by itself, except that Jâk also has blue skin and is a former soldier who was discharged because of a combat injury. At least their injuries are different, Jake has paralyzed legs while my Jâk suffered brain damage.

The last item is only vaguely comparable. While Jake links up to an alien avatar body, Jâk uses a link to control computers and other machines over a network. I came up with all these ideas back when I started writing my story in 1996. It's funny because it probably won't matter at all. How many will end up reading my book to spot these details when it is finished anyway?

UPDATE: 3/6/10

I have spent the first couple months of 2010 working on fixing my grammar in Parts I & II. Using Find in my word processor to get rid of bad words like suddenly, completely or entirely, and changing my passive verbs to active. I have just finished going through and removing all the prepositional phrases that state the obvious or adverbs that intensify instead of modify. It's very time consuming. It is amazing how many little typos I find searching through my book in this way. I tend to miss them when I am reading the story straight through.

I have now started the part of editing that I love, re-reading the chapters and adding deeper layers to my story. Fixing dialogue and adding details. When I write my first draft, I am more concerned with pushing the plot forward and I use generic details and dialogue as placeholders. I have already found in my grammar search six scenes that need to be re-written based on how the story has developed in the later chapters.

I am planning on editing a chapter a week so I can get back to writing new ones before the end of summer. I have not stopped planning the future chapters and I have been making notes of all the ideas that keep jumping into my head when I am in the shower or driving to work.

Update: 5/8/10

I have finished editing 11 chapters so far with a few more to go before I can start writing new material. I think I have been making a lot of improvements.

While I enjoy writing, I am not very prolific. It takes me about an hour to write 1 page of rough draft and I get burnt out if I write more than 2 a week. When I am doing a thorough edit of a chapter (around 15 pages), it takes me about 10 hours to check every single line. I can easily spend an hour just tinkering with a couple paragraphs.

A quick chapter edit, where I read fast to test the flow of the story, takes about an hour. I haven't done the math but the amount of time I have spent on these first 14 chapters must be huge. I did about 20 drafts of Part I back when I was stuck on the future storyline.

Update: 7/19/10

I have finally finished editing all 14 chapters and I'm ready to start writing new material. I made some major changes in the prologue and had to follow the ripples it created through the rest of the novel. My biggest rewrite was creating a whole new version of Chapter 6. Russ had been reading some of my chapters and has given some great notes that I incorporated in Chapters 4 and 5.

I have also been working on the outline for my second book during the past month. For years, I've had the idea to write a travel adventure story, a fictionalized version of my international trips. I've finally figured out the basic plot and I have been writing down the timeline and locations.

Sensory Overload - Part I

I love science-fiction novels and I read at least 500 during my teens and early twenties. After reading a pretty lousy book early in 1996, it finally motivated me to try and write one of my own. It seems like perverse logic, but all my favorite sci-fi novels written by talented authors only intimidated me from trying to write one myself. The crappy books though, at the very least I could write one this bad, I thought.

Also lingering in my head all this time was a seed planted by my twelfth grade English teacher, Richard Cunningham, that I had the ability to write a book someday. I had scoffed at the idea at the time, but it never left me.

I started writing my book on May 13th, 1996.  I had no clear direction at first for my story but I was in the last year of my Army Reserve service so I latched onto a idea about a soldier being medically discharged from the military after being injured on a dangerous mission. Since the Cold War during my youth was over, I decided to place the story in the aftermath of a war against a alien race.

As a test for myself, I started out with a prologue of that final disastrous raid and I told myself that if I liked it well enough, I would continue writing.

After some positive feedback about the Prologue, I ended up slowly writing 7 chapters that dealt with the aftermath of the mission and the main character's discharge from the military. In those chapters, I developed the synopsis below.

Mini-Synopsis:

The Great War between the Terran Race and the alien Durmir is finally over and the newly formed DùrMan Confederation has created peace for the first time in a generation.  For an elite soldier like Jâk Silvestri who spent his whole life fighting in the war, his special forces unit is now tasked with hunting down former war profiteers and crime syndicate leaders.  After a freak brain injury on a mission that also killed his best friend, Jâk is medically discharged from the rapidly downsizing military and sent out into the civilian world he has never experienced.  While avoiding the crime syndicates who recruit former soldiers like him, Jâk vows to go after Tan Sipter, the man he failed to capture on his last mission.

I am currently stuck around 150 pages and I don't know where to take the story next. Hopefully, I will figure it out soon.

Short Story: Spider

The alarm went off. The incessant beeping jarred me awake. I scrunched my shoulders and gritted my teeth against the noise as I jumped out of bed and hit the snooze button with a practiced slap. The clock read 5:50 am as I climbed back into the small twin sized bed with Mary Ann. I clambered under the thick comforter and snuggled up against her body for warmth.

“What time is it?” Mary Ann asked, raising her head.

“Huh?” I mumbled, already half-asleep. “Oh, a little before six.”

“I should go,” she said placing her chin on my arm, sitting half up.

“Yes,” I responded before promptly falling back asleep.

I was nudged awake. “There is something crawling on me,” Mary Ann said in a frantic voice, She brushed at herself as she lay face down on her stomach.

“Yeah,” I responded without understanding. I saw her faintly in the early morning light through my squinted eyes. But my eyes closed and I was immediately asleep.

“I killed it,” Mary Ann crowed, reawakening me after only a few seconds. “I smashed it on me and brushed it into the crack between the wall and the bed.” I raised up on my elbows as I tried to comprehend what she was talking about.

“Good thing the light was off or I would have been too scared,” Mary Ann continued. “It felt big and hairy.” She readjusted the pillow for her head preparing to lie back down.

“My hero,” I said blandly, teasing her. I gave her a hug.

Mary Ann burst into laughter, squeezing me back. “My hero!” she repeated back, giggling, as I joined in. We laughed together for a few moments.

I drifted quickly back to sleep and decided I shouldn’t tell her about the black hairy spiders with the yellow spots on their backs that I often saw cruising around lately.

The loud alarm went off again a few moments later.