Well, it finally happened. I finished it. The Shepherd.
Wrote my author's notes for it today. Although..... let's just say I am not entirely finished with it. But I am quietly pleased with it. Maybe in a couple of years time I will look back and laugh at it, at the mistakes and the things that I did wrong, but I have loved doing it. Even when it got difficult. And now? Who knows! I will buy myself something special to celebrate. I have a dragon earwrap that I bought when I completed Glitch, and a Dragon's Breath earcuff that seemed to 'fit the bill' when I completed Breathless... Now it is just a matter of finding the right thing for The Shepherd. Okay..I have started the revisions of The Rachel Chronicles. Some are going to be relatively easy, (Surrendered, for example will need very little 'tweaking') but others will be much harder. I have NO idea how I am going to re-do 'Redacted'!
Process of Elimination is now up! (if this link doesn't work, you can find the story under The Rachel Chronicles) I am a little happier with it. At least I don't think Rachel comes over as quite so much of a Mary Sue, although Straker is definitely a Marty Ste (after all he IS one!) and true to character I hope! I will work my way through the rest, slowly and I will be removing some adverbs !! It might seem silly, revising stories that I wrote two years ago, but it is actually very good to read through and see where I was heading. (And there were several silly mistakes that should have been picked up much earlier.) I have three (no; six) stories on the 'back burner' at the moment. Well, probably more than that if I actually search through the numerous memory sticks that are lying around the house/office/briefcases/desks. I have two Rachel stories nearly completed, but I need to redo several earlier ones before I even think about finishing those. The Rachel stories were going to end in the marriage between Ed and Rachel, but that won't happen now, although it will end happily. ( Hey, I do ANGST... not 'Get'em' stories!!)
And after all, not every relationship has to end in a couple walking down an aisle. Let's face it, marriage would not be permitted between two people in that situation. (I covered that in Rules and Regulations!) Combined Operations (the next Rachel story) will have to be re-thought, as will 'A Matter of Degree' which was going to be the final story in the Chronicles. But, then I remembered 'Pittencriel' .. yet another Rachel/Ed adventure! I sometimes wonder if I will ever finish these stories! It doesn't matter though. There is time enough to write and to finish the UFOverse stories that I want to do. What IS important is to correct the things I have done in those earlier stories that are are so very, very 'wrong' (Alec Freeman as an Australian, Straker as a tee-totaller, Paul Foster as an incompetent!, and Shroeder misspelled throughout!). And maybe there will be time to do those reviews. Shepherd? You want to know how that is coming along? Well, it's ........ progressing. Slower than I would have liked, but I am getting there. Over twelve months now. But I am quietly pleased with it. (And that is down to one person.) Crikey! A long time since I posted here. Things have been moving on. I have got older, and probably wiser as well. I have been busy writing Shepherd.. too busy really , but I am over that dreaded 'hump' of wondering what I will do when it is complete, and I am facing the end of the story in the next couple of weeks.
Looking back over my 'personal' author notes from when I started writing this darned epic ( well, it feels like an epic to me!) I realise just how much 'effort' i have put into this story. It has been a hard slog at times, in fact an unbelievably hard slog. but I hope it has been worth it. What I HAVE learned is that it is dead easy to churn out a chapter a day...especially if you don't give a damn about the quality of your work. I could have finished Shepherd ( and probably added another 30K words to it) if I had not really cared about gettting the characters the way I wanted them. Rebecca was not easy, and neither was Paul, or Jackson. Miss Ealand was extraordinarily difficult. But I hope that I got her right, so that, when you eventually 'read' her you can hear her voice in your mind. Straker was, as always, Straker. And I hope that he doesn't decide to visit me anytime soon for a quick conversation! Anyway, if you are following Shepherd on the Herald , (and I know a lot of you are doing!) part 2 ( Hefted) is about to come to an end. But there are at least another 75K words to come. The story is far from finished! And afterwards? When I have written that last sentence? Well, I will do as I did when I completed 'Glitch in the Machine' . I will buy myself a piece of jewellery to celebrate. I have seen exactly the right thing as well. And then I will put Shepherd away and carry on writing. Shepherd 1 and 2 are now on this site, but you need to confirm your 'adult' status to access them. It means that you have to go through a couple of extra pages first, but the stories do have some adult content and are tagged as well. Anyway. Shepherd 3. Drafted... should be up on the Herald soon! |
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December 2015
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