Crossing The Finished Finish Line
On Friday I finished the first draft of The Great Faerie Strike.
It ended up at 104k, 14k over my 90k goal, which was revised up from a 75k goal. New Year's Resolution: Use less words.
This book actually started when I was slushing. I was thinking about fantasy ideas that I never saw, and one,back in 2007, was Victorian fantasy, for all that steampunk was, ahem, gathering steam. I started writing queries that I would love to see and I wrote:
The Victorian upper class--of werewolves--has gone too far when they fire Charles the gnome. It seems that the new synthetic blood substitutes (readily available, highly nutritious, completely disgusting) have led these socialites to believe that they can run their factories on nothing but vampire labor. And though vampires are stupid, smelly and ponderously boring, they keep quiet, thinking they're getting a good deal.
Charles is lucky enough to have a friend among the unwashed vampires of London's Otherworld--an atypically bright vampire who still has all her teeth, Jane. Charles knows that street marches of elves, fairies and gnomes won't be enough to get their jobs back. He has to help Jane convince the other vampires to hold a strike, which means that he has to convince the vampires and the rest of the Otherworld to work together. In the process, he finds himself falling for Jane, complicating his life even further, and both of them are drawn into the vicious politics of the werewolf class. They don't have to worry about escaping with their souls, since they don't have any, but their lives--that's the question.
And I stood back and said, "I have to write that."
It started as a collaboration with Cat Rambo, but she had to pull out due to other commitments. Luckily, she quit after she had supplied all the good ideas. Thanks, Cat.
Oh, and this baby is proud of her racial heritage:
It ended up at 104k, 14k over my 90k goal, which was revised up from a 75k goal. New Year's Resolution: Use less words.
This book actually started when I was slushing. I was thinking about fantasy ideas that I never saw, and one,back in 2007, was Victorian fantasy, for all that steampunk was, ahem, gathering steam. I started writing queries that I would love to see and I wrote:
The Victorian upper class--of werewolves--has gone too far when they fire Charles the gnome. It seems that the new synthetic blood substitutes (readily available, highly nutritious, completely disgusting) have led these socialites to believe that they can run their factories on nothing but vampire labor. And though vampires are stupid, smelly and ponderously boring, they keep quiet, thinking they're getting a good deal.
Charles is lucky enough to have a friend among the unwashed vampires of London's Otherworld--an atypically bright vampire who still has all her teeth, Jane. Charles knows that street marches of elves, fairies and gnomes won't be enough to get their jobs back. He has to help Jane convince the other vampires to hold a strike, which means that he has to convince the vampires and the rest of the Otherworld to work together. In the process, he finds himself falling for Jane, complicating his life even further, and both of them are drawn into the vicious politics of the werewolf class. They don't have to worry about escaping with their souls, since they don't have any, but their lives--that's the question.
And I stood back and said, "I have to write that."
It started as a collaboration with Cat Rambo, but she had to pull out due to other commitments. Luckily, she quit after she had supplied all the good ideas. Thanks, Cat.
Oh, and this baby is proud of her racial heritage:
posted by Spencer Ellsworth at 8:46 PM
5 Comments:
Yay! Congrats on reaching the finish line!
I read a little of this not long ago and got engrossed. Way to go on finishing it (1st draft)! Are you sending out queries and 3 chapters yet? Do it! Get it out there before someone else does one like it. The first chapter seemed to me perhaps a bit thick for adolescent readers, yet that is the group that is most in love with vampire stories, is it not? Maybe spell things out a bit more obviously right at first? Just a thought.
I think that adage about the greatest opposition providing the doorway to the greatest progress is often true. In that case, you're in luck! (sooner or later).
I love you, S!
Use FEWER words, Mr. English Master.
Is that your baby? She looks Asian.
I want to read that book.
In this picture, Adia totally looks like a racist WW2-era cartoon of a Japanese person. But as evidenced by the book, she is a honky through and through.
I missed this but want to add my CONGRATUFREAKINLATIONS! That's a Really Big Deal, mister. I also have the book "Honky." It was fifty cents at DI.
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