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Adam J. Nicolai

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Proceeding apace

September 11, 2011
September 11, 2011

Two of my beta readers have finished their read throughs, two more are in midstream, and the last three have yet to start (so far as I know).  The lion’s share of the feedback thus far has been positive, which of course makes me happy, but I’ve gotten plenty of suggestions too, all of which have plenty of merit.  All the same, the revision list for Alex is shaping up to be a hell of a lot shorter than it was for Children (which is no surprise, given the vastly decreased length and complexity of Alex).  That is a relief.  Not sure how long revision will take, but if it’s more than a month or two, I’ll be surprised.

Which means it’s time to start thinking seriously about the rollout plan.  I know I’ll be publishing on Kindle, and most likely going through Smashwords as well – primarily because it will get me on Nook and Sony.  Smashwords has a lot of cool options for authors – the ability to create coupons and have sales, to set your price as “let the reader set their price”, and other things – but I get the feeling that books there may struggle with a reputation as… to put it kindly… underdogs. 

The honest truth is that a number of the submissions there are not really finished products (or at least, they didn’t read that way to me).  They read more like first drafts, and for some of them, that’s being generous.  I have a feeling one of two things will happen when I publish there: if my work is of higher quality, it will stand out (but most likely everyone who publishes there has the same thought), or, my work will just sink into the mire of thousands of unproofed and unedited books, never to be seen or heard from again. 

I do plan to as much as I can to keep Alex‘s head above water.  I’ve started doing some research on what other e-authors have done, and have several ideas of my own.  The exciting part is that for once, I don’t feel like making these sorts of plans are putting the cart before the horse.  Yes, I still have a lot of revision to do.  But it’s a manageable amount of work, and when it’s done, the next step is publication.  So getting the plan together certainly seems like the right step at this stage of the game. 

0 Comments/in Book News /by Adam Nicolai

Whew

August 31, 2011
August 31, 2011

Just finished the first draft of Alex.  As I told my wife, I started crying when I wrote the last sentence, so either I’m doing something right, or I’m just way too invested in the story to separate the actual quality of the work from the story in my head. 

Either way, the first draft is done.  It feels really good.  The first draft of my second book took 10 months.  The final word count was 66,840 – a little short for a typical suspense novel, but perfectly acceptable in Kindle world.  Besides, there is a good chance the word count will go up during revision.  One of the things I want my beta readers to give me feedback on is which plot threads they found most compelling (and could thus, hopefully, use some expansion) and which need to be trimmed or culled entirely. 

In case you’re wondering (and I know some of you are), 66,840 words is 156 pages in single-spaced 12-point Word font, or probably roughly 300 manuscript pages.

Wow.  I’m just sort of stunned.  I’ve now written two books. 

Count ’em.

3 Comments/in Book News /by Adam Nicolai

Big night for Alex

August 1, 2011
August 1, 2011

Finished chapter 135 tonight, with the main twist of the book finally revealed.  I can’t believe I finally got to it.  Agh, I’m getting goosebumps!  Really, finally, truly almost done.  There’s a big action scene I still need to write, followed by a sizable denouement.  But we’re really in the final push now.

I think 70,000 is probably the most likely final word count for the first draft, and I’m okay with that.  I hit 63,400 tonight.  That’s 90%, but whatever – the point is, I’m almost done with it.

Really. 

God, it felt good to write that reveal.

0 Comments/in Book News /by Adam Nicolai

Reasons why this week kicks ass

July 28, 2011
July 28, 2011

1.  I started writing again.  I’ve shot up to 60,500 words, or 75% of the goal word count.  I feel like I’ve really got momentum.  Now the trick is to keep it.  I want to finish.  I want to say, “I’ve got a book on Kindle,” instead of, “I’ll be Kindle-publishing a book this year.” 
2.  I started a biking/lifting routine in May.  So far I’ve lost 15 pounds and actually learned how to eat without ordering pizza.  Did you know if you eat a banana and an apple, you’ll actually get full?  It’s amazing, but true.  You don’t need to stuff your face with bismarcks and fried cheese in order to stop being hungry. 
3.  My wife and I had our 14th anniversary yesterday.  Don’t tell anyone, but I have a little surprise for her tomorrow night.  Sadly, doing something celebratory on a Wednesday night, when everyone doesn’t get done with their workouts until nearly 8pm and the kids have school the next morning, is pretty much impossible.
4.  We’re playing D&D; again on Saturday, after almost two months off.  I’m going to celebrate by killing a PC.  Mwa haha.

So – why the hell has it been so long since my last post?  Tons of reasons, most of them family-related, which I can’t go into on a public blog.  I don’t think I had written a word on Alex – prior to this week – since my last post in May.  That’s changing, finally – but man, what I wouldn’t give for more hours in the day.

0 Comments/in Writing Life /by Adam Nicolai

The last leg is underway

May 23, 2011
May 23, 2011

After a nearly one month hiatus, I picked up work on Alex again tonight.  Got five pages, putting me at 54,382 words.  The alarm bells are going off in my head – it won’t be long enough, the last act won’t be interesting enough, the pacing is off, the ending won’t be as cool as I’d imagined, or I’ll lack the skill to convey the emotions that made me start crying in the car on the way home from work when I thought about the ending.  I’m ignoring all that shit.  Ian is eager to reach the end of his journey.  I want to get him there.

1 Comment/in Book News /by Adam Nicolai

Act 2 done

April 29, 2011
April 29, 2011

I finished up the second act of Alex tonight.  It seems like I’ve been slacking a lot lately on working on this book, and it still feels like it’s coming along at break-neck speed.  I’ve got about 70 pages left to write.  I’m thinking 50 or so for Act 3, and 20 or so for the denouement.  That’s just my early estimate.

I do enjoy crunching numbers.  It makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere.  So to put it another way, I’ve got about 52,000 words now, and only about 28,000 to go.  My guess is the first draft will be finished before summer is over.

Here’s hoping Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn’t come out before that.  It could probably do quite a bit of damage to my schedule. 

As it is, I got next to nothing done last week because of Portal 2.  I finished the single-player game this week, and my wife and I started on the cooperative 2-player game.  I’ve been really, really impressed with the game for the most part.  The only thing I disliked about it is that – spoilers ahead – you never really get out of the compound.  I was hoping from the previews and early trailers that it would be a little more “open” than the last game.  I was looking forward to using my portal gun in wacky ways, in the great outdoors.  Instead, if anything, it felt even more enclosed than the first game did.  That was disappointing, but everything else about the game was fantastic, and ultimately that nitpick isn’t enough to keep me from recommending it.

I also got a copy of Kirby’s Epic Yarn as a belated birthday present on Easter.  It is incredibly cutesy.  But that’s neither here nor there.

I wanted to try it because of all the things I’d read about it on Penny Arcade and elsewhere.  It sounded neat.  The basic premise is that you are in a world made of string, and you need to peel back patches to get power-ups and unravel enemies, and such.  The graphics do a good job of capturing this feeling – you do feel like you’re in a world made of string.  But I was expecting the game to make more use of the Wiimote (like pointing at string and “pulling” on it, for example) and that doesn’t really happen – you actually spend most of the gameplay with the Wiimote held sideways, ala New Super Mario Bros.  That’s all right with me.  I’m finding more and more lately that using the Wiimote in its intended way is actually really annoying.  It wasn’t designed with big TVs in mind.

Other than that, I’ve been playing a lot of Dokens lately.  I made B rank again with Ryu, after having been downranked back to C+ twice now.  This time I seem to be holding my rank a bit better.  You hit B rank at 5000 battle points, and I’ve dipped below that again, but my slide down to the 2500 mark (where I would be downranked yet again) has been arrested and reversed several times.  I’ve realized the trick, for me at least, is to really try and get the points out of my head and focus on the match.  If I go into a match thinking, “Oh god, if I lose this match I’ll dip below 4700,” I will definitely lose it.  But if I go in thinking, “Okay, this is Akuma, dash under air fireballs and pop a Tetsu on standup because he’ll try to teleport,” then I do much better.  I’ve also resolved to quit making the same mistakes over and over in a single match, and to change strategy mid-stream if something is not working.  Yeah, that sounds obvious, but so far, a conscious focus on it has been making a big difference.  It’s a long road to B+, but I’m hoping to finally traverse it.

Anyway.   Yeah, Act 2 is done.  Further bulletins as events warrant.

0 Comments/in Book News /by Adam Nicolai

Not Happening Tonight

April 11, 2011
April 11, 2011

I sat down to work on Alex, like in the deal.  I managed a paragraph or so.

The problem is, I’ve been reading The Wise Man’s Fear and playing Dragon Age: Origins and the combination has put me into a serious fantasy mood.  Children and Alex are written in completely different styles, and my fantasy style was starting to creep into my work tonight.  A few spots where the narrative style changes completely would probably not be unheard of, but I’d like to avoid it if I can.  So I cut myself some slack.  Last week, I hit my goal of 10 pages for the week even though I skipped one of my writing nights, so here’s hoping I can pull that off again.

So, instead of working on Alex, I opened up Children and read a few passages, including the start, and the end, and a few of my favorite scenes in the middle.  On any given night, I can hate or love my own work.  Tonight, I am pleased to report that Children did not suck.

Nah, it was more than that.  It actually kind of kicked some ass.  It was a book I wanted to read more of.  Hell, honestly I wanted to open a new .doc and start working on book two, right there.  I refrained, for many reasons, but still – it was a good feeling to have.  I’ve been worried off and on that Children is a dead project now.  Tonight, I’m not having that worry at all.  It’s a different setting than a lot of the popular ones right now – more black and white in a lot of ways, for one – but it still has merit and it still asks good questions.  And while it may not be about a single character of questionable conscience, as I’ve seen suggested is the only form of viable, salable fantasy right now, its overall themes have plenty of grey.

Also, I love it.  It is my world, its characters are my dear friends and enemies, and I have tricked myself into sleep more than once at night by imagining myself resting in one of its secret sanctums.  Maybe I just needed a little shift back toward appreciation of fantasy to allow myself to enjoy it again. 

Regardless, I’m hoping to be over it by tomorrow night.  : P 

I have a ghost story to finish.

0 Comments/in Writing Life /by Adam Nicolai

The maiden post

April 8, 2011
April 8, 2011

Forgive me in advance for the rambling nature of this post.  Or, you know, don’t.  I’ll find the strength to survive. 

So awhile back I started a blog on Livejournal.  After having two updates in a row devoured alive by LJ’s ravenous hatred of successful posts, I opted to look for another host, and here I am.

So far, when I hit enter, the cursor doesn’t actually move to the new line.  Everything else seems good, though.  Maybe that’s just a visual thing. 

Okay, so – about me.  Or more appropriately, about this blog.  I’m expanding my horizons.  I originally set out to create a writing blog, dedicated solely to logging my startling revelations regarding the craft.  I’m still having those, though I do think most of them have been had before, by millions of other people over the years.  Nothing wrong with that; I’m an author – albeit an unpublished one – so it’s still important for me to get my thoughts down.  But I was also sort of tippy-toeing around doing anything too opinionated since the blog might end up being my “professional face”, perused by agents, publishers, or any number of other influential people who might decide they hate me without reading my material.

I’ve decided, fuck that.  I’ve pretty much settled on Kindle publishing my first book, which I’m discovering makes me a lot less nervous about coming off “wrong” to any prospective agent who might look at my blog (for whatever bizarre reason).  In that vein, I figure there are two other topics – in addition to writing – that I’m likely to want to mouth off about: politics, and games.

I’m a life-long game lover.  I’ve loved games of most stripes since I was old enough to watch them played.  The notable exceptions are traditional card games, including gambling, and sports – but everything else – collectible card games, video games, role-playing games, board games – I love.  I think there is something sacred about the act of playing a great game.  I want to explore that idea a bit more.  I may use this space to do it.  I may also just use this space to bitch about getting my ass nailed to the wall in Super Street Fighter 4.  No one said I had to be eloquent. 

I’m also a practical progressive (to steal a term from my wife).  Like many, I find my political outlook skewing slightly right as I get older, but it would be wrong to say I have much in common with the Republican party’s platform.  In fact, they infuriate me on a daily basis.  Sometimes, I need to bitch about it.  Sometimes, I need to bitch about the democrats.  I may use this space for both of those things, too.

Oh yeah, and I’m writing my second book.  I’m a little over halfway done with it.  The working title is Alex.  I’ll be posting updates on my progress on that here, too.  Along with whatever comes afterwards.

In any case, it’s writing night.  So I’m switching over to work on Alex now, but if I manage to hit “PUBLISH POST” and actually see this post appear without it getting devoured, I’ll most likely be back to post again.

1 Comment/in Commentary /by Adam Nicolai
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