Category: Writing

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Perfect Assassin (Book 1), Writing

The Nitty Gritties

K.A. Doore

The baby is sleeping better and the days are gradually lengthening. I can see an end in sight. The threads of this story are coming together, tight and snug, while at the same time the notepad I have open on my desktop continues to accumulate little changes – tone shift here, reordering a scene there, small continuity notes for the next run through – the last one before this goes to betas.

This is my favorite part. I love the nitty gritties: attending to details, tracking whose hand is where and what phase the moon is in and just when to drop that teeny tiny tidbit of important information so it’ll seem organic. I love chopping out words and smoothing sentences and fixing a character’s voice.

This WIP no longer feels like I went out to the backyard and dug up a pile of dirt and just left it there, an untidy mess, but it doesn’t feel quite right yet, either. I’m too close to it right now and don’t know what to think. Part of me is confident that this is the worst thing I have ever written. But part of me recognizes that every WIP at this point is the worst thing I have ever written. So: I don’t know. And I can’t know.

And that’s okay. Worrying about how awful this really is can come later. Right now, I need to keep my head down and write.

Without further ado, here’s current progress on Book One, working title Redacted, the story of a historian turned assassin turned detective who’s more than just a little tired of this shit. Now with more! ominous weather, grievous wounds, and rooftops on fire.

Chapters: 23 chapters out of 32(?) edited

Current word count: 60,144 out of 90,000

Coffee?: Coffee.

Number of times I’ve listened to that one song while writing this book, according to just the iTunes on my netbook: 128

Random fact of the week: Undyed baby camel yarn is a smooth cream in color. Also, baby camel yarn is a thing that exists.

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Perfect Assassin (Book 1), Writing

Write when Baby Writes

K.A. Doore

Another week, another 10,000 words closer to my goal, another seven days closer to my deadline, another notch up on the panic scale. I think we’re around abouts purple, going on plaid. Thankfully, I do my best work while panicking. It’s also good for the skin! (No, no it’s not.)

Despite a week of horrendous sleep on mine and the baby’s part, I’ve managed to continue making progress. Sometimes, it feels like, through sheer force of will alone. Well, what else is will for but to meet deadlines?

Alas, alas I feel like I’m finally in my element. Am I alone in loving the editing process? It’s so satisfying, like filling a hundred tiny holes so that you finally have a uniform, cohesive surface. If you do it right, it’s as clean and smooth as glass. Nobody can see – or even find – all the cracks you’ve filled in, all the holes repaired. It’s a process of bringing order to chaos and finally, finally seeing a real story with real characters.

Of course, this feeling will only last for another day or two, then we’ll be right back in the depths of despair, but at least the process is predictable, eh?

Without further ado, here’s current progress on Book One, working title Redacted, the story of a historian turned assassin turned detective who’s more than just a little tired of this shit. Now with more! self-inflicted angst, broken promises, and more (always more) corpses.

Chapters: 16 chapters out of 35(?) edited

Current word count: 40,731 out of 100,000

Body count: 3

Excursions outside: What is this “outside” you speak of?

Cups of coffee: Let’s just… not go there.

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Perfect Assassin (Book 1), Writing

Sunny Days Ahead

K.A. Doore

Ever since that snowfall two weeks ago, Michigan has been all sunshine and flowers. Within the space of a weekend, every tree here has burst forth with leaves or blossoms. Spring is quite literally in the air. And by spring I mean pollen.

Here’s to you, allergy-sufferers. May your antihistamines not make you drowsy.

Instead of enjoying the everything’s-not-covered-in-ice weather, I’ve been holed up working on this (semi-)final draft. But I can see the neighbor mowing his lawn from my window so it’s just like being outside. Right?

But the end is in sight and soon – so soon, but not that soon, maybe another month, honest – I will be handing this not-so-shabby draft (can we just start calling all final drafts the not-so-shabby draft from now on?) over to my handful of delightful and I-swear-I’ll-pay-you-in-wine-and-chocolate betas and then picking up a glass of lemonade while sitting and relaxing on the front porch with all the windows open and nothing to do but watch the cars go by and the fireflies wake up and –

Aah, who am I kidding. I’ll be busy working on the next book while my betas read. Who needs rest and relaxation when you can have caffeine and anxiety, amiright??¹

 

Without further ado, here’s current progress on Book One, working title Redacted, the story of a historian turned assassin turned detective who’s more than just a little tired of this shit. Now with more! desiccated corpses, moonlit vistas, and awkward flirtations.

Chapters: 12 chapters out of 35(?) edited

Current word count: 30,116 out of 100,000

Desiccated corpses in novel: 2

Desiccated corpses in real life: 0

¹No really I’m fine mom, I’m just exaggerating and not drinking 10 cups of coffee a day that would be entirely too unhealthy of course

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Perfect Assassin (Book 1), Writing

April Snow Showers Bring May… Final Drafts?

K.A. Doore

Evidence of said April snow.

Well, one can hope!

I’ve been down on myself a lot during this particular writing process. I feel like my first draft was wildly different from my draft zero, which of course was the most awful awful that ever awfuled. And my first draft still has a lot of problems. How could I have been so far off? How could I need so much rewriting, and now, so much editing? I thought I’d come so far as a writer, and yet –

Despondent, I picked through the old drafts folder for the Impossible Contract. I rediscovered its draft zero and idly skimmed through it – and was quickly surprised by what I found. My fond memories of the process, where everything went smoothly from the very beginning, complete with candy and unicorns, were 100% incorrect. No, it hadn’t gone smoothly. No, I hadn’t known what I was doing from page one. No, it hadn’t been a neater process than the one I’m going through now. I’d still needed to rewrite and rethink my draft zero going into my first draft and my first draft going into my final draft.

If anything, that draft zero was more of a mess than this one. For instance, Amastan, a side character in TIC who is the main character in Book One originally didn’t even exist. And yet, that draft zero still became a book that I’m proud of.

And I’ve been bemoaning the fact that I’m struggling a bit with this ending, but how did the draft zero of TIC end? “Rocks fall, everybody dies.” Not even kidding.

So okay. I’m willing to admit that the despondency is just a part of the process. That my draft zeros are always a mess – and that’s okay. It’s to be expected, even.

Just remind me of this when I’m neck-deep in Book Three, mmkay?

 

And now we have the current progress on Book One, working title Redacted, the story of a historian turned assassin turned detective who’s more than just a little tired of this shit. Now with more! angry spirits, angry drum chiefs, and angry cups of tea. J/k on the cups of tea. Of course tea can’t feel anger. Everybody knows tea only feels contempt.

Chapters: 8 chapters out of 30 edited

Current word count: 19,500 out of 100,000

Scenes Changed: 5

Cups of Tea, consumed by characters: 1

Cups of Tea, consumed by Author: 12

Bees?: None. Most pollination is done by flies in this world.

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Perfect Assassin (Book 1), Writing

Hello, hello

K.A. Doore

Wow, babies man. Thinking you can write a book while juggling a newborn and a job must be the mark of a madman.

Add updating your blog to the mix and, well.

Hi. *waves*

No news, as they say, is good news. And in a way, it is. I’ve been steadily working on this book (one of three, the second of which is already written, go figure) and after six(ish) months I have two rewrites and I’m finally starting on the not-quite-final draft. Thus, the life of a pantser¹. But I can see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Unless that light is a train. Which, you know, might explain the tracks and that no-longer-distant rumbling.

In the spirit of optimism, and a nod towards tradition, I’m going to check in here and keep y’all updated on this last (haha), heroic push towards a (not so) final draft.

Without further ado, here’s current progress on Book One, working title Redacted, the story of a historian turned assassin turned detective who’s more than just a little tired of this shit. Now with more! relatively benign crypts, exciting exorcisms, and ever-present sand. Oh god. So much sand.

Chapters: 2 chapters out of 30 edited

Current word count: 6,222 out of 100,000

Shots of whiskey: 0

How much sand?: So much sand.

¹Pantser, noun: One who writes without an outline, i.e. by the seat of one’s pants.

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, Pre-pub, Writing

My Not-So-Meandering Path Towards Publication

K.A. Doore

It’s cliché, but I’ve always wanted to be an author. I tried to find another, better paying career path – I did, really – but nothing held my attention like writing. My eclectic employment situations over the past ten years holds the truth of that. I bounced from retail to foreclosure to secretary to data entry to property assessment to web training development. The only consistency over the years is that at every job I wrote on my lunch and breaks. Daily.

Persistence. It’s another tired but true cliché that stubborn, consistent persistence is how you break into the publishing industry. That, and a little bit of luck. My wife will the be first to tell you I am stubborn af*. And I’ll be the second.

Since graduating college, I’ve averaged writing a book every 1.5 years. Of course, some of those were rewrites – and re-rewrites – of old stories. And after a few years, I started querying. At first, it was more just to see what would happen. I made all of the beginner’s mistakes and received only form rejections.

Then I had a mini mid-life crisis. I was years out of college with nothing to show for it. It was not too late to go back to school, it was not too late to find a Real Career Path(TM)**. But if I did, if I committed to extra education and a Job That Mattered, I wouldn’t have the time or the mental energy leftover to write. I had to decide.

It was a surprisingly hard choice. I love writing, but every successive year that I had nothing to show for all the hours I put into it I felt like more of a failure. Where would I be if it never went anywhere? What would I tell people when they asked me what I did? Who was I to think that out of the thousands, millions of aspiring authors, I could be one of the few made it?

But then again, if I didn’t try, if I didn’t throw everything I had at it – I would never know.

I chose to put writing at the center of my life and treat it like a profession – because it was. I made plans and set deadlines and from there devised daily word count goals to meet those deadlines. I frequently sailed right past my personal deadlines, of course, but I was rarely more than a month off.

I set up a system of writing, rewriting, editing, beta-ing, and querying, each stage with its own expected timeframe and deadline. I returned to the metaphorical drawing board for querying, researched the heck out of it, read Query Shark’s entire archive (twice [thrice]) and revamped my approach.

My queries improved and I got a few personal rejections. I kept writing. I kept querying. And then I took everything I had learned, wrote TIC, and queried again. After two months and many rejections, quite literally one week after I had decided to let TIC go and write something new, I received an offer of representation from my now Awesome Possum agent.

I’m writing all this not to say, hey lookit what I got, but hey lookit what I did. The cliché is tired because it’s true: persistence is key***. It’s important. So is trying new things and continually (constantly) learning. Write. Rewrite. Query. And then look critically at what you wrote and move on to the next project. No word or sentence or paragraph or novel written is ever wasted, because you are constantly learning from what you’ve done.

Some writers sell their first book. Most don’t. I sold my third****. Others sell their fifth or eighth or nth. Keep going. Practice. Read. Write. Repeat.

 

* AF = as foretold, or at least that’s what the Kids These Days(TM) tell me.

** I.E. Microbiology, like my wife, or accounting – which I might have (definitely) considered.

*** Necessary caveat is necessary: the privilege & luck of having the time to write is equally important.

**** Third distinct and separate novel that I wrote as an adult and consider Whole and Complete.

 

Chronicles of Ghadid Trilogy, The Impossible Contract (Book 2), Writing

Assassins of Ghadid has been Acquired by Tor

K.A. Doore

cz2ntzzw8aamrvbYes! I can finally shout it from the rooftops! My book, the Impossible Contract* – which is about assassins and camels and magic and queer romance – has been acquired by Tor! Not only that, but they also acquired two more books to make it a solid three! If you don’t believe me or think that I photoshopped the above (which is fair, I’m still not sure if it’s real!) you can find the original Publisher’s Weekly blurb here.

This means that not only do I get to share the world and characters of TIC with you, I also get to go back and write two more books in the same world. TIC will actually be the second book, so right now I’m hard at working writing the first one. The three stories will each feature a different character and stand on their own, but work together as a greater story. I’m so excited to be back in the TIC world!

Here I come, Winter 2019!

 

* As always, titles are apt to change. But I think for consistency’s sake it’ll be easier to keep referring to Book Two as The Impossible Contract, aka TIC.

Writing

NaNoWriMo with a Baby

K.A. Doore

If you’ve ever had a baby or been near someone who had a baby then you’ve probably heard the phrase sleep when baby sleeps. Sounds simple. Almost sounds luxurious when you think of how much a baby sleeps.

Which is all well and good, except there comes a point when you want to do something human and prove to yourself (and your cats) that you’re more than just a baby feeder/diaperer/sleeping apparatus. So I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. I have a novel to write, that doesn’t want to wait for me or baby, and I can finally write again, so why not? I should have plenty of time.

Ahahahahaha.

See, the thing about newborns is that they’re deceptive little creatures with powers over time. One moment you’re feeding baby and it’s 7am. The next you’re still trying to get baby to sleep an it’s 9am. Where did those two hours go? You have no clue. Then it’s 9.30am and baby’s asleep and you think, finally – I can write!

Except: you really need to pee, you haven’t eaten in six hours, you’re dehydrated, the cats are dying from hunger, and omg is that smell you?

If you’re lucky, you have a snack at hand, a water bottle, and someone else to feed the cats. The shower can wait. You can get some writing in!

If you’re unlucky, you scramble to meet your basic requirements of survival and then it’s 10.30am and, oh shit, baby’s eyes just flew open.

Occasionally, you get a longer stretch. And then it comes down to a different choice because, remember, you’ve been repeating this same 2-3 hour cycle for weeks now and you. are. beyond. exhausted.

Sleep when baby sleeps? Or… write when baby sleeps?

It’s a fine balancing act. Too much sleep and you start to think you’re a normal human being again. And, well, you don’t get any writing done. Too much writing and you don’t get enough sleep, but the hallucinations from sleep deprivation fuel your creativity and plot. They also fuel your loved one’s reasons for an intervention.

So each time the baby sleeps, I have to choose. Sometimes it’s an easy choice, sometimes it’s not. But no matter which I choose, I’ve had to lower my expectations. Just like I will probably not get more than five hours of accumulated sleep  each day, I will probably not reach 50k this month. But that’s okay – 5 hours is better than 4, 3, 2, or 1 and whatever amount of words I write will be better than nothing.

Has anyone else tried to write with a newborn? Succeeded? Failed? I’d love to hear your tips!

Writing, Writing Tips

Missing Limbs: Writing While Pregnant

K.A. Doore

I’ve been pretty quiet about writing around here.

And that’s mostly because I learned as a kid that if you got nothing good to say, you’d better say nothing.

So I’ve said nothing, because I was also afraid of what was going on. Only now, on the other side of what I can now confidently call my longest bout of real, honest-to-God, writer’s block, I feel comfortable enough to admit I didn’t – couldn’t – write while I was pregnant. Quite literally from week 3 until week 40.

And it was terrible.

Not that I didn’t try. Oh, how I tried. The number of hours I spent forcibly typing word after word, only to realize I had written maybe 50 words in two hours and none of them felt right. The number of times I put on music and went for a run, but instead of dreaming up more plot, I dreamed up… well nothing. The daydreaming had stopped. I could only think about my present reality.

There was certainly enough to think about. The exhaustion, the food aversions, the nausea, the fear that something could go wrong, and on top of that my wife was applying for and interviewing for and – finally – getting a job in another state, which then necessitated that we find a new home and arrange a cross-country move, all while projects came due at work and we had family to visit and a wedding to attend –

Oof. Just typing it all out makes me tired.

But the thing is, I’ve had busy and hectic points in my life before, and I was still able to carve out time to write. Yet here I was, overwhelmed even further by the undeniable fact that every time I tried to write, nothing happened.

It was as if someone had chopped off my imagination. A phantom limb that I could still feel, that I could swear was working, uncurling my fingers and reaching out to grasp a cup – only to touch nothing. That cup stubbornly refused to move and the words stubbornly refused to come.

I’ve always, perhaps naively, believed that writer’s block was something one could force their way through. I now humbly accept otherwise. I tried every trick in the book and yet, nothing.

Then I despaired. What if it lasted forever? What if this was the end of writing for me? I had completely lost the urge to write, the ability to dream. For once, I knew what it must be like for the majority of people without that driving need to create, to expand, to explore. And I thought, this isn’t so bad.

Just shy of three weeks from my due date, I finally accepted the loss.

One week after Baby Doore arrived, I was writing again.

I can’t even begin to describe the relief.

Nor the realization of how much shame I had carried with me for those ten months. I swore I would never use pregnancy as an excuse to be anything less than 100%, but that’s impossible. And I hope that by sharing this now, I might help someone else wondering if they will ever be creative again. Not every pregnant person will experience the same thing – I’ve read that some lucky few experience a boost in their creativity – but for those who do, there is a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Take the advice I should have taken: be kind to yourself. ❤

Work In Progress, Writing

January Review

K.A. Doore

january

First off: Happy February!

Second: What happened to January??

Life happened. In quite a spectacular way. I knew January was going to be tough, writing-wise, what with every distracting thing going on, so I made the (very wise) commitment to simply write every day. No daily word count, no monthly goal, just a no pressure commitment of putting a few words on the page every day.

To hold myself accountable, I marked off each day that I wrote with a blue highlighter. You can see above what the month looked like towards the end. My final count was two days missed, and those were loooong, crazy days without any breaks. I usually write on my lunch breaks, but I have sacrificed many of those to doctors appointments, haircuts, last-minute meetings at work, and therapy at the gym.

Now that some of that Life Stuff has been resolved (but not all of it), I need to regain my focus. I’m going to recommit to writing every day in February and continue making small, but real, progress on this WIP. Hopefully by the end of the month I will have less on my plate – and cluttering up my mind – and will be able to zone the noise of the world out and get back to writing more.

For now, I’m going to celebrate the small victories. I could have easily let January go and written nothing at all. But instead, I got 13,080 words and four chapters into this WIP, plus I read three of the books on my 2016 TBR list. All things considered, I’m going to call that a win.