Weathermen has arrived!

Picked these up from the post office this morning. They’re my A4 prints of Weathermen from Lulu!

To head off any questions – no, I’m not taking the self publishing route. These A4 prints make it real convenient to edit for the next draft, and were markedly cheaper than getting it all printed at the local print shop (or even at uni). Postage included, each copy was about $24.

Can anyone have one? If I know you, and you can pay for it The purpose of these is for editing, so if anyone reading this DOES get a copy, I’d appreciate you scribbling all over it and sending it my way when you’re done.

Anyway, I’m handing these two copies on to friends. Hopefully they’ll target the things I think I’m lacking, which is mainly character development and story arcs.

In the mean time, back to shorts!

Being Poor (Scalzi)

I was first introduced to John Scalzi when I started working at my current job (Sci Fi Bookstore in Melbourne CBD) and the boss handed me Old Man’s War. It was a fantastic read, probably the best military sci fi I’d read since The Forever War. A little more hunting on the net led to me to his blog, Whatever, which is a great insight into the tough world of professional writing.

Today I went backtracking through his archives and found this post which I understood perfectly. I’ve been real lucky in life, but I know a lot of people who haven’t, and their pain still influences a lot of my decisions.

I don’t think I can take things for granted any more.

“Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place. “

Weathermen 2nd Draft is Done and Dusted

Decided to put an end to the 2nd draft today. I can see things that need improving, but if I don’t draw the line then I’ll never get around to sending the manuscript out to folk I know, so I’ll just call this V 0.5 and be done with it.

I’m using Lulu.com to send it out to friends. Surprise surprise, getting an A4 bound manuscript with colour cover from Lulu is quite cheap. $8.89 US plus postage, in fact. If you order in lots of 2 (which seems cheapest) the book is a neat $18.75 US each, which is about $40 LESS than it cost to get the thing printed out on loose leaf A4 back in Canberra.

The more I think about paying $70 to get my manuscript printed at that dodgy CopyQuik, the more I get pissed off.

REGARDLESS.

Weathermen is being put to bed for a few months while friends have a squiz and tell me what they think. Back to short stories in the mean time.

Finishing Touches

Almost done now. The second draft came out at 117,000 words, which is a cut of almost 20k. Not bad, say I. Just doing some tightening in the first chapter, and then I’m sending it out to friends.

It feels good to  have pushed through this. I know I can keep to the schedule of a professional writer now. The second step is to apply it.