Monday, April 19, 2010

Three Cheers And A Tigger For Me!

Yesterday (4/18) at 7:18p, I finished the initial draft of my novel "Line 21".

For the time being, it clocks in at 142 pages and 69,313 gut-wrenching (at least for me) words.

A brief recap as well as a brief synopsis is now in order.

The recap:

On Super Bowl Sunday (2/7), I came up with the basic idea of writing about a woman who was in debt to a loan shark and the only way that she could earn the amount of money that she needed in the short time frame she had to work with, was to get involved in making adult movies. For the next seventy-one days, I worked on this story, after work and on the weekends. Some days, I cranked out as little as 500 words, and on some days I cranked out as much as 3,000 words. The end result was a completed manuscript that rivaled my original 90,000 word mess that was my first self-pubbed book.

The super brief synopsis:

Jeannie fell behind on her loan payments to her friendly neighborhood money lender. After having a short, but heartfelt, phone conversation with her uncle, she was given exactly five days to come up with two thousand dollars so as to get herself current with loan. After running into Ken Epee at the park and having a brief conversation with him, she decided to take him up on his offer of working in the adult movie industry.

The interesting twist:

I decided from word one to add a touch of fantasy to the mix, by having Jeannie talk to and live with, a symbiont. I also decided to have this symbiont, who goes by the name of Aissa (pronounced 'Eye-sha'), to become an active participant in Jeannie's adventures with the adult movie industry as well.

The plots:

I got temporarily lost a couple of times with the plot lines while writing this story, but I was able to find all of them before I finished. They are as follows:

1} Jeannie participating in a video shoot, along with several different tangents that sprang from the video shoot.
2} Her day-to-day/hour-to-hour dealings with her symbiont, Aissa.
3} The transformation of Aissa from a symbiont to a semi-real person.
4} Jeannie's boyfriend Geoff.

Those are the four major plot lines in the book. Like I've mentioned previously, I do like a challenge, and weaving together four distinct plot lines is about as challenging as one can get.

So again, three cheers and a tigger for me, for I have finally put this bad boy to bed.

Up next will be the all important yet incredibly dreaded "E" word.

Editing.

But more on that later. Right now, I just want to enjoy the moment of actually writing a book, from scratch (which is much different than writing a short story from scratch), starting with the opening sentence of "I need an extension" and finishing with the last sentence of "Lisa hung up and just before she dialed nine-one-one, she said, 'It sucks to be you." and all the other 69, 291 words in between.

16 comments:

  1. Congrats - that has got to be a great feeling!

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  2. CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY well done. HOOOORAH, you should feel proud.
    WAY TO GO! :)Bea

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  3. Congratulations, G! That is a heady, awesome feeling and you have every right to simply enjoy it and put the idea of the dreaded "E" on the back burner for now. (I'm a strange one, but I happen to love editing!)

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  4. Very cool. Congrats on getting through it. that's about the length of the Talera novels so I have a feel for that length.

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  5. Well done G! So how will you celebrate?

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  6. A Tigger! That's always worth celebrating. Congrats!

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  7. General comment: I actually re-wrote the last paragraph of the ending because I didn't like how it came out. Whacked it out in ten minutes during my break at work.

    Bearman: Thanks.

    Lynn: It certainly was. Strange thing is that I sort of felt lost for a good chunk of the day.

    Bea: Thanks.

    Talon: Thanks. I will probably put the dreaded "E" word on the back burner as I have one more round of note taking to do.

    Charles: Thanks. I actually didn't think I had that long of book in me to begin with, so it was quite enjoyable to write.

    Joe: Thanks. Not sure other than to give my brain a brief rest from writing and simply let it wander around for a little while.

    R.K.: Thanks. I always like Winnie the Pooh, so doing a small twist on a Bugs Bunny line was a no-brainer.

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  8. G, this must feel great! And the plot is interesting. Dreaded editing be damned...you wrote a book!

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  9. Pamela: Thanks. It does feel great. It is definitely a different feeling from the type I would get when I finished a short story.

    Editing is gonna be the proverbial one ton elephant, but yeah...I wrote a book!

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  10. Kelly: Thanks. I hope the next one that I write will come to me this easily as well.

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  11. Congratulations! That must be an infinitely satisfying feeling!

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  12. It is, thanks.

    Even more so after I got done fixing the ending to my sastifaction.

    Kind of lost without something to write at the moment, but that should end once I get a jump on editing.

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  13. Good for you getting so much worked out, n pounded out- definately thehard part!
    Sounds like a good story-

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  14. Thanks.

    It is actually. Now my may concern is finding someone else who will like it as well.

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Go on, give me your best shot. I can take it. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have created this wonderful little blog that you decided to grace with your presence today.

About that comment moderation thingy: While yes, it does say up above I can take it, I only use it to prevent the occasional miscreant from leaving thoughtless and/or clueless comments.

So remember, all of your comments are greatly appreciated and all answers will be given that personal touch that you come to expect and enjoy.

G. B. Miller

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All the content that you see here, except for the posting of links that refer to other off-blog stories, is (c) 2008-17 by G.B. Miller. Nothing in whole or in part may be used without the express written permission of myself. If you wish to use any part of what you see here, please contact me at georgebjr2006@gmail.com