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Writing a Novel: Day Fourteen

Day One 

It's day fourteen and I'm sitting at around 15k words. This is usually the point where I wrap up act one of my previous novels; perhaps I've built a hook into the narrative and I've either presented it to the reader, temptingly close, or I've caught them. Neon City is playing a little differently - it's more of a character driven plot with little authoritarian interference. The reader currently has all the information they need. Hopefully, it will engaging enough to stick with.

“No Yu this morning?”

“She probably caught the early car,” answered Xi.

“She was complaining again last night.”

“What’s new?” He faced the window and the faint outline of their reflections like underwater creatures in a tank. No air. He watched Fei’s fish-like lips move, at once gasping and speaking.

“If you’d turn up she wouldn’t have anything to complain about.”

There was no intonation of malice, or emotion in general, as they spoke. Brothers passing yet another morning, talking through the mirror.

“She says the same thing when you don’t turn up.”

“Well she’s twigged that we’re never there at the same time.”

“What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing. It won’t be forever.”

“Do you ever feel bad?”

 I previously mentioned my plotting Excel sheet. There's various digital tools out there like Writers' Cafe and Scrivener, allowing you to move pixel-cards about on a virtual cork board, but it's all just ways to manipulate information. It comes down to how you want it presented to you. How you want to input the data. For me, opening Excel and jotting down the plot points I want to aim for, and being able to move them up and down as necessary, does the job. Making a line GREEN is more satisfying than it should be. When it's ALL GREEN - amazing!

 

Cover reveal - Neon Zero - Neon Series Prequel

Hi all! Well it's been an exciting month for my book sales - having Neon Sands Book One on free for a few days was great, reaching #1 in 3 different categories and curiously, across all 5 days, the ratio of free downloads to purchases of books 2 and 3 was 30:1, consistently. I like that ratio. So next up, the perma-free prequel Neon Zero:

You cannot outrun the sun...

With Earth falling to pieces, those who escaped look back with sorrow, and forward with hope. Hope of a new beginning. A chance to start over.

Then the fires began...












Looks good, eh? I might just have to get a paperback version printed, if only for myself, even though it'll only be 100 pages or so long. You can add it to your Goodreads reading list here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43199128-neon-zero

I seem to have had a rise in book review requests lately - apologies if I've not responded to you. At the moment, the only books I'm thinking about are my own and a few that are already on my reading list, sorry.