Voice

I ran into somewhat of a problem last night while writing. I have this great idea for a story. For the last little while I’ve made some notes here and there waiting for the day I could finally put it to paper. Last night was my chance. I clocked out from work, came home to change, kissed my family and headed out to the coffee shop. All went well until I was about two pages in.

I couldn’t find the voice. At least not a believable, attention grabbing voice. I tried switching the point of view from limited third to first. Whatever I gained in voice and insight, I lost equally in characterization and narration. Both situations I can fix with a rewrite, but but I’m still unconvinced on which route to take. I might just end up writing two stories and see which one is better.

So if you’re keeping score, it’s currently short stories: 3, Stephen:0.

*sigh*

Oh, well. I could wallow in self-defeat or get over it and start writing some more. Who knows? I could come up with an entirely different idea today. I’d be happy to accept.

One More Week

This week I’ll tackle those short stories running around in my head.  As for that other novel-length story, I’m going to have to let that one sit and simmer a bit longer.  It has great potential, but it still lacks something that can’t quite put my finger on yet.  I’m sure if I sat and wrote it out I could come up with it.  Unfortunately, I have other things that need attending to, Raven’s Mark being in the forefront of them.

After this week I will start revisions.  I can’t wait any longer.  I believe my eyes are “fresh” enough to start from the beginning.  It’s been almost three years since some of the material has been written.  Really it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.  Most of it I wrote within the last year.  I also need to add about 15,000 words to the manuscript.  That shouldn’t be too hard.  I already know of three scenes that need to be added and about a half a dozen that need to be expanded.  I’ll make sure to keep you up to date on my progress.  I hope to be done with revisions by June.  I’m not actually sure how long it will take or how long it should take.  What I do know is I would like to market it this summer.

I see myself moving to the next stage in my writing life.  It’s a little intimidating to be honest.  Well, with an underlining thrill to go along with it.  Up to this point I’ve only written and only for a limited audience at that.  The few people that have been gracious enough to read it and give helpful feedback (The Amys come to mind), I owe much of my gratitude.  Now I’m expanding to a beta readership, soon to be followed by query letters and the like.

Regardless if anything comes of it or not, I have plans to write the second installment of Raven’s Mark.  Followed by a third.  Now that first is done and out of the way, the second two shouldn’t take as long to complete.  A set might even be easier to sell than just the one.  It’ll show I have the self-motivation to continue writing, not just a one book wonder.