I’m getting worse about updating my blog, which is either a sign of being lazy or motivated, it really depends on your latitude. A big reason why is because I’m hard at work on the follow up to Terminus Cycle. I’m not going to shoot myself in the foot like I did with Terminus Cycle and promise that it will be out within a specific time period, though, I’m going to do my best to slow down and give this book the attention that it needs to help nurture it into existence. I’m not saying that I didn’t try with Terminus Cycle, either, or that Terminus Cycle was somehow not a good book, but I always strive to do better. I wanted Terminus Cycle out into the wild and I wanted it out as soon as I could get it out there.
My big hurdle right now is slowing myself down and reminding myself that being careful and meticulous will only make things better. I was recently reading some advice on revisions and read one author’s opinion that there are two types of writers; the first being the overly eager and the second being the overly careful. I definitely fall into that first category more often than I’d like to and usually don’t see the problems in my own work until a bit later, which has bitten me in the ass before.
I never really took revisions seriously before, in part, because my first draft is usually not bad and also because it can be hard to distance myself from my own work. I’ve always been able to barf up first drafts that are beyond acceptable, which is a good thing and a bad thing. With Godslayer there were some grammatical quirks and problems but when it came to structure, characters and general flow it was pretty cut-and-dry. Of course in retrospect another few passes of revisions could have made it a hell of a lot stronger of a book and made it better overall book. Terminus Cycle was more complicated and I made conscious attempts to do a few things that were a bit more complicated, narratively, to varying degrees of success. Looking back, sitting on it for another month and giving it a solid three or four more scrubs could have made it a tremendous book.
Terminus Cycle is still a fun book. I really do believe that it’s a fun story that is worth your time or else it wouldn’t be out in the wild and I wouldn’t be writing a sequel right now. This is just my personal neuroses and how I really, genuinely want books on the market that represent my talent, vision and creativity. It’s frustrating as an artist to fall short of your vision or disappoint yourself, which is why I’m taking my revisions very seriously with Andlios Book Two.
The good news is that I’m making great progress on my revisions and am truly happy with the book right now. It will only get better, too, which is great. It’s a good feeling to go back, read a few chapters, then stop and say, “How can this be better? How can I build tension better here? How can I make you care about this character more here?” While I did that in the past, my solutions were more shortcut than overhaul and I’m now really taking a step back and instead of worrying about doing too much am making sure that I don’t do too little.
So thanks again to everyone that supports me and enjoys my books. I promise that this next one is really going to be killer and that it will be in part from all of your great feedback.