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Progress report

Books and other news

A progress report, today, and a glimpse into the publishing industry from the writer’s end.

Draft two of Stars Uncharted

We’re onto the next major draft of Stars Uncharted.  This is officially draft two for us, although if you count how many rewrites we’ve done so far, it’s a lot more than that.  We used to count each draft separately, but nowadays we mark them by the big milestones.

  • Draft one—get the story down
  • Draft two—fill in any story holes, nail the action scenes (even if they still need rewriting, and they do)
  • Draft three—incorporate any feedback from Caitlin (our agent), if any; add more world building
  • Draft four—clean out the weasel words*, tidy up
  • Draft five—read aloud

* We don’t use the term weasel word as per the dictionary version. For us, it’s shorthand for cleaning out all the wryly’s (ly words), changing from passive to active, getting rid of all those ‘,too’s, and so on.  Also, World building is not so much just making the worlds more realistic, it’s also building the characters, too.

They’re not clean ‘finish draft one, start draft two’ as they’re written above.  For example, Sherylyn was already working on draft two while I finished draft one, and she’s already cleaning out every weasel word she comes across.  (Sadly, more creep in.)  Even in draft one we went back and rewrote story holes once we knew they were there.  And we try to world build every draft.

We also read aloud chapters on occasion even now when we know the language isn’t working.

At the end of this month we’ll send a (relatively) clean copy to our agent for her input.

It’s starting to feel like a real book.

Contract

We signed the contract for Stars Uncharted (and a second book) yesterday, and sent it back to the publisher.

Those of you who have been reading our blog might notice that back in December we mentioned the books were coming (but only after it had been announced in Publisher’s Lunch, and Locus), and we knew about it a while before that.

In fact, until we get a copy back with the publisher’s signature, nothing is truly formal even yet.

This is normal.  While you’re writing the book, your agent is busy working in the background with the publisher getting the contract in order. For the Linesman books, we didn’t get a contract to sign until about two days before we had to deliver the book.

How an editor works

If you’re interested in how the book process works from the other side, over at Unbound Worlds, Matt Staggs interviewed Anne Sowards about working with Patricia Briggs.  Anne’s our editor, too, and that’s how it works for us, as well.

12 replies on “Books and other news”

Thanks, Kay.
We hope so. We have three more Ean books planned, and will write them. As to when/whether they get published, that depends on the publisher/our agent. (And that, in turn, probably depends on how well we write the book. 🙂 ).

Yay! I really love your Linesman series, they just keep getting better. Confluence was so much fun, kept me on the edge of my seat. I don’t think you’ll have a problem with the editor liking your story. If you write it, I’ll buy it…

Absolutely LOVE the Linesman novels & can’t wait for more books from y’all, especially Linesman novels but any will do. I’m notifying the book store to automatically order any & all books from you (two? that’s a nice surprise). Hope you are well. God bless.

That is some excellent news about getting the 2 books on contract. Your writing style is unique and immensely readable. I am excited to hear what you have in the works.

Please write more Ean books. Read both books 3 times, bought hard copies and ebooks. Love them

I just love the series. Ean is such a great character, quirky which I love. I guess that makes Radko a bit of an oddball since they get along so well. All in all I love all the characters.
I’ve read the series, word for word, at least 5 times.
I’ve yet to grow tired of them. And I don’t think I will.
I can’t wait to read more.

Thanks, Nikol. Glad you like the series.
The books you can reread are the best books, I think. There are some books I pick up again and again, and still love, every time.

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