It took eight days. Eighteen hours, fifteen minutes of writing time. It’s just over 42,000 words long. But the rough draft is done.
The rough draft of what? Well, we can get to that in about a year, maybe.
But this is the important part: the act of raw creation is complete. Now comes the truly grueling part.
Time to revise.
So last week I talked a bit about how I’m attempting to write faster. And I did. Oh, I did. I wrote so fast for this particular project. That’s good. Getting my speed up will help. I used an outline I’d already created and went zoom.
That’s a technical writing term. Go zoom.
But this manuscript isn’t ready for anyone to see but me. It’s rough.
First off, there are way too many good ideas for stories floating out there. I keep bumping into them. They ask, “Good sir, would you please commit me to paper so I may not fade into the formless aether?”
And I must answer, “Alas, promising jumble of concepts and characters, I may not. Already I am committed to another story. Do you see? I must fulfill my commitment, else its vengeful ghost strike at me and I am left bereft of the ability to string syllables together into words.”
Did you know that stories are terribly jealous, too? If you break up with one, it’ll keep haunting you.
Have I reached the point I can move to the woods and become a local cryptid? As long as I’ve got wifi, I can still write, but maybe I can subsist on fallen leaves and the screams of those who seek my presence? I could be the Writing Hermit, a gaunt figure that leaves inkstains on the trunks of trees. If you ever find yourself wandering the woods and discover a random papercut, that means he’s near. Beware!
So it’s been one of those weeks that I want to just hide. I don’t need people. Just let me hide.
Writing seems like one of those careers that you might be able to do alone. Write a manuscript and ship it off to a publisher or an editor or simply summon the Amazon spirits to waft the book away to their warehouses.
It’s true that the raw act of creation, at least for me, is often done in solitude. Forming worlds one syllable at a time takes me. Only me. No committees here.
Dawnsbrook Press publishes books full of adventure, wonder, and characters who change their world for the better. Our books seek to inspire middle-grade readers to dream big and do more. And while the books are aimed at middle-grade readers, we know how to tell stories that entertain the entire family.
Imagine swashbuckling pirates in flying ships and rocky islands floating in the misty sky. Ponder boys who turn to mud and queens who flee destruction. Will the prince protect his people or pillage the populace? How can a fourteen-year-old girl stand up to a creature that makes dragons fear?
And all that in our first year of publishing.
It’s more than adventure, though. We know that so often, book series come out far too slowly for middle-grade readers. We hear it from our kids all the time: “We have to wait how long for the next one?” Sometimes they won’t even pick up book one unless the entire series is complete!
Dawnsbrook wants to offer something else: an entire book series released in the course of a single school year. Our readers will be able to experience the beginning, middle, and end of a saga between the first day of school and the last. We publish for readers who just can’t wait for the next book.
Over the next month, we’ll be sharing more of what’s coming. But for now…
Last week I used a picture of some shelves. A commenter asked if they were my shelves. Alas, it was a stockphoto.
But it made me realize… maybe I should share my shelves!
So here I am. Sharing my shelves.
These shelves form our primary adult library.
Pay no attention to that Shel Silverstein.
Anyway, the bulk of these are “adult” novels. You’ll find Lord Dunsany and Robert Jordan and Star Trek and Doctor Who and Oz and Horatio Hornblower… Lots of things, generally organized by author. (A few are organized by topic, like Star Trek.)
Along the top you can see my “phone books,” collections that hold about twenty-five issues of comics in each. I miss when comic companies made those and made them cheap. To get collections that size these days you’re paying at least $40, and probably more. Back in the day I picked those up for less than $20 each.
When I look at it on a picture, it doesn’t seem like much. But when I think about reading it all, how many worlds those shelves hold… well, yeah. I think they’re nice.
Our shelves are populated by more than books! This ceramic fellow is our Keeper of the Books. He keeps them safe.
The superheroes are merely window dressing.
I also have a few shelves dedicated to just graphic novels. This is my DC and the first part of my independent comics shelf. The books are double stacked, and our toddler decided to rip all the Superman off the shelf, so some of the comics are leaning…
Here’s the Marvel and the other half of the independents. Also piles of unshelved books.
We may have a problem.
You may have noticed that I said those shelves were our adult novels… well, here’s our kids’ library, filled with picture books up through our YA books. Also that may be a half-collapsed play tent in the foreground. Pay no attention to that.
The kids’ library also houses our furrier Keeper of the Books.
Anyway, that’s a brief tour of our shelves. Each of the kids have their own bookshelves in their rooms, my wife and I each have our own bookshelves in our bedroom, and there are a few other shelves floating around the house like literary ghosts.
…we might have a problem.
And it’ll only get worse. After all, Dawnsbrook is coming… soon.
Jonathon Mast: Author 