The End of Black Earth

For months now, I've been working on my current WIP (Work in Progress): Dark Horizons, the third novel in my Expired Reality series. My original intention was to release the first three books in the series in a row, one a month, this last summer. The first, Endangered Memories, has been released, with the second, Lost Birth, coming out of the gates hopefully next month.

Even though I'm about 75% through a rough draft of Dark Horizons, I can't shake the feeling that it's not the project I should be working on at the moment. Once my son was born at the end of August, my writing time vanished for a while. With weeks of no writing, I've had a creative build-up of sorts, and I have a HUGE desire to finish up the Black Earth series.

My original intention was to bounce between the Expired Reality series and the Black Earth series while alternating book releases within each series. As good as that idea seemed a while ago, it doesn't seem to be panning out too well now. I have fans who want to see what happens with Black Earth and for them to have to wait while I finish books in another series is kind of lame. Besides, my Expired Reality series is going to run almost a dozen novels, if not more, so I'd like to give that series 100% of my time and effort instead of bouncing between it and the Black Earth series.

All this said, I've decided to finish off the Black Earth series. My original intention was for the series to run about 4-5 novels and in keeping with that, I'm going to do two more books and close the series off.

Coincidentally, next month is National Novel Writing Month, or NanoWrimo. (Check out www.nanowrimo.org to see what it's all about.) Seeing how I have a lot of writing to do with two books, I'm going to use NanoWrimo to do so. I usually complete the 50,000 word limit early on in the month of November anyway, so I'm just going to do my best to complete two, 50,000 word manuscripts for the contest this year. Then I'll polish them up and hand them off to my editor after the new year.

Keep tabs on this blog to find out more about the next two Black Earth novels. I'll be posting plot ideas, writing samples, and some character profiles as I get into the thick of it. 

Outlining With Reluctance

As I write my novels, I'm really not one to outline. I don't really care for the structure, nor do I like trying to guess what my characters are going to end up doing. We all know they do whatever they want regardless of our own intentions as their writer, and trying to outline their actions ahead of time just feels like a wasted effort.

Usually I just plow through a story, writing as my muse - and my characters - direct me. The only thing I ever nail down before a book is barely started is the ending. That's right, I usually have the ending to the book already figured out before I even get part way into the manuscript.

Not this time though. While working on Dark Horizons - the third volume in my upcoming young adult series - the other day,  I realized I have absolutely no clue where this story is going. I know where I want to be a few books down the road in this series, but I have no idea how this book is going to end or how I'm even going to get to that endpoint.

Because of this quandary, I've taken it upon myself to sit down and start sketching out the chapters, trying to figure out what characters I need to cover - there are a lot - and what plot points I need and want to write through. As this series is set to run at the very least twelve volumes, I need to have a bit more structure in regards to the direction I'm heading in.

When it came to the first book in this series, it was easy to run rampant and let the story go wherever I wanted it to. When the second book came through the pipeline, I found it a bit more challenging to just write whatever I felt like writing at the time, but I still managed to fit all the pieces together. Now that I'm in the third volume in this series, I don't have a choice but to map out the direction I'm heading in, especially since most of the story is pulling from the direction I started in during the first two volumes.

And, since I have only given myself about four more weeks to finish this manuscript, I decided I'm going to apply the NanoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month) technique to my writing regime. I'm setting a personal goal of 7,000 fresh words that need to be written per day, seeing how most of this draft which started out as a 50,000 word NanoWrimo manuscript needs to be rewritten anyway.

Approaching The Finish Line

I posted last week about my progress on Lost Birth, the second volume in my upcoming young adult sci-fi/fantasy series, and I am very near to approaching the completion of this draft so I can send it off to my editor. My editor just handed me her edits on the first volume in the series, Endangered Memories, so things are right on track for a summer release of the first three volumes in this series.

Because of how close I am to finishing Lost Birth - and the fact that I am going on vacation toward the end of this week - my posts are getting put on the back burner until I return toward the end of next week. I really wanted to do a writing prompt today, but I ended up working a twelve hour day on my revisions on Saturday, so I wasn't able to write up anything new.

Writing prompts will be back starting Monday, April 25th, as will the rest of my posts on self-publishing and writing. When I return from my vacation, I will be starting work on the third volume in my young adult series, and I'll also be working on the next email newsletter issue. Click here to sign up for it.

Some great things are coming down the line! Hope to see you all on the other side. For now, I'm crawling back into my writing cave to finish this up...

Finishing Up Lost Birth

I know I have been in the habit of posting on self-publishing on Wednesdays and writing on Fridays, but for the rest of this week I'm going to be hiding in a cave (or library), trying to get Lost Birth finished, so you probably won't see any more posts from me for the rest of the week.

Lost Birth, for those who don't know yet, is the second volume in my upcoming young adult sci-fi/fantasy series coming out this summer. I am already behind on my goals for the year - planned on having the third volume done and in my editor's hand by now - but it's not a big deal. Life happens. We gotta roll with the punches.

So, I'll be spending most of my time either in my office, at the public library, or at the local coffee shop trying to bust out this novel before the middle of next week, when I have to hand it off to my editor.

In the meantime, if you want to check out one of the characters from my upcoming YA series, check out the novella I put out a little while ago - Picture Perfect. You can find it here at my website - http://www.davidnalderman.com/picture_perfect.htm - where you'll find links to purchase it for various ebook readers. Only 99 cents, and it's been getting some pretty good reviews.

Wish me luck, and I'll see you all on the other side. I'll be back for sure this coming Monday with another writing prompt. ;)