Writerly Progress and CONTEST!

Yesterday I sat down and wrote that one additional scene for the novel Well of Sorrows . . . and then I printed it out, boxed it up, and got it ready to mail to my editor. The revisions are officially DONE unless I find something horribly wrong before I get the package mailed and need to reprint something.

After that, I turned to the short story Mastihooba and started the revisions on that. There are five scenes and I got through four of them yesterday. The last scene needs the most work of course, so I'll tackle that today. I need to cut it down by 800 words to get it under 7000 words for the anthology. Yesterday I managed to cut 300 words or so. I'm hoping the revisions on the final scene will take care of those last 500 words.

One thing I noticed about these revisions as opposed to the novel revisions is that for a short story I pay much closer attention to individual words. I must have asked myself "Is this word really necessary?" at least a thousand times yesterday. It's much closer and more detailed work. For novels I'm usually looking at the sentence, paragraph, and scene level. Some individual wordage is also done, but not to the same extent as at the short story level.

I'm still happy with the story though, which is good. It feels . . . solid. And feels like it's coming together rather well. I'll get the last scene done today I think, then wait and reread it all again tomorrow before sending that in. I'd like all deadlined, writely things DONE before I head off to Worldcon.

And now, the on-going contest!

The winner for Monday is vespican! Congrats! Get in touch with me here on LJ in a message or email me at jpalmatier@sff.net with the address I should mail the book to and a name if you want me to personalize it. Otherwise I'll just send a signed copy.

For everyone else, there's still 7 days left! I will be giving away a first edition signed hardcover of The Skewed Throne, one per day, for the next seven days. The drawing will be done at random based on the comments received on that day's LJ entry. So if you enter today, you're in the drawing for today only; you have to come back tomorrow and enter again for a chance to win in the drawing tomorrow; then come back again for the next day, etc. You have to comment on that day's LJ post to enter for that day, so if you stop on by and I haven't had a chance to put up the post for that day yet, you'll have to come back when it's up to enter. You can enter as many days out of the 10 as you wish, even if you win on one of the days (if you win multiple copies, or already have a copy of the book, I assume you have some friends you can give the book to, or perhaps you can donate it to your local library, etc).

This contest is to celebrate finishing the revisions of the new book Well of Sorrows, coming out in May 2010 in trade paperback, AND to celebrate the release of Die Assassine, the German version of The Skewed Throne, which will hit the shelves on August 11th in Germany. Here's the incredible cover:





So if you're in Germany or can read German, RUSH--I say again RUSH--out and buy Die Assassine! Once it's out of course. (It is available for preorder on the German Amazon.com, along with book 2, "Die Regentin," to be released in January 2010.) And please, please tell all of your friends about it, since it's going to be impossible for me to do many signings and other stuff to promote it in Germany. Especially since I can't speak or read German very well.

And there you go! Enter the contest (just comment!) every day for the next 7 days, and buy my German book!

That is all. Carry on.