The Titanic book is finished and it is pretty large...Titanic in fact at 444 pgs. I am happy to report I made it in three and a half months to this plateau, that of reasonably good first draft that needs editing, rereading for flow and sense, sound and sense, I call it. But am feeling pretty good about its chances of being an extra fine draft.
I will know more once I have printed out a hard copy to go over it as now an editor. I must take off my writing hat and put a hold on the right side of my brain and turn on the left while donning the editor's cap and visor. Have to see the lines and read them aloud and feel them as an editor now. Cut out the unneeded and unwanted, the errant comma, punctuation problems, missteps, all of it. Got to make it CLEAN. At least as clean as i can make it....until I feel I can clean no more.
Now comes the fun part. Actually, I enjoy rewrites. A lot of author fight em but I feel you can stumble on your best plot twists, build stronger more fully realized characters, fatten up descripts, tighten up dialogue and for me it is like watching a film unfold as I edit. I hear the characters speak, and I smell the odors, and feel the texture of the story, and in this case two stories.
Yes it will be one hundred years since the launch and the death of Titanic in 2012 -- wherein I set my future scenes with David. It makes good sense to not go too far in the future and this way the hundred years takes on a symbolism in the story all its own.
Well I am tired and weary eyed and bleary eyed while typing this; thanks for hanging with me this far. The journey is far from over....but now I am thinking the book may well be done done far earlier than a year. Much depends on the reRead and reWrite. ReWriting is Writing in my book.
The new title I am toying with is TITANIC 2012 - Curse of RMS Titanic and I kinda like that.
Again thanks for hanging with me....been a while since I posted as have zoomed from page three fifty to 444 and concentrating on the light at the end of the tunnel has kept me busy.
Rob Walker
stuff about ebook biz at Kris Tualla's blogspot...google it
stuff about marketiing before the book is even written is at http://www.1stturningpoints.com/
Free stuff at http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Titanic Curse Novel now at 350 pgs.
A milestone for a work in progress….
I started this blog and writing of Curse of the Titanic back in mid-February and in a few days it will be mid-May. I keep counting wrong the days but I figure that it has been approximately three months! I had hoped and semi-promised that the rough draft of the novel would be completed in three months, but this is AFTER the preparation in terms of research.
Yes even a “fantastic” tale, a retelling of history needs to be founded and grounded in facts….in this case the actual timeline of when and where the Titanic was built, when and where it left to and from on its trials and its ports of call, and on its fateful way to destruction in the Atlantic, its meeting with the 78 mile long ice flows like a meteor shower that Captain Smith plowed into at 21knots! Twenty four was the max the ship could get to and the fastest any ship on the high seas could go….
This is what got me questioning history in the first place, my reading…research. Research raises questions, and questions are wonderful catalysts for fiction. Whenever I see a standing mysery as in the case of what was going on in Smith’s mind to NOT stop for the night. He was the captain of Titanic, so he had the power to shut her down and stand down before this icy meteor shower ahead of him which he knew full well must be dangerous. No matter his bosses aboard, no matter the owners aboard, no matter the record they wished to break, he had the power as captain of the ship in maritime law to shut all systems down and wait it out. So why did he choose not to?
My novel will soon be completed in rough form and sent to first readers – and YOU could be a first reader if you care to be one, this novel answers in an imaginative, even fantastic way why Captain Edward Smith took action to bring Titanic down. What fears and concerns and anxiety must have been going through my rendition of the captain, not to mention the others in the cabal to bring Titanic down.
So now that I am close onto finishing, are you curious and impatient and wishing to read the book NOW in its current, admittedly terribly rough form? I am sending it out as a doc to any and all who simply cannot wait on the presumption YOU will tell me where I may have made a wrong turn, a slip up, a goof, a gaff, a startlingly stupid error….where I failed to go into enough detail….where I failed by going into too much detail…where I dropped the ball in the color of a character’s hair or eyes or condition of a character’s teeth for that matter.
Will you be among the first readers of Curse of the Titanic? If you are intrigued by the idea of “get Walker!” If you want to FIX the author, I welcome all the help I can get. After all, I was not born with a silver tongue or a silver spoon, and as I grew up in Chicago and went to public schools, I pretty much had to teach myself quite a bit about language, so truly I DO NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET…
So sign up now. Send me word either here via comment or direct to inkwalk at SBCglobal dot net where I live and where I can quickly, easily shoot you a copy of Curse of the Titanic once it has been completed on its FIRST go round. It will be cleaned up and I will be taking your comments seriously, and you can count on being added on the acknowledgement pages of the final product. Everyone should by now know that Curse is going direct to Kindle as a Kindle Original Title. I want it to be as error free as I can make it, so I welcome all input from yous guys…..
Sincerely,
Robert W. Walker (Rob)
Comments and requests for the book welcome
I started this blog and writing of Curse of the Titanic back in mid-February and in a few days it will be mid-May. I keep counting wrong the days but I figure that it has been approximately three months! I had hoped and semi-promised that the rough draft of the novel would be completed in three months, but this is AFTER the preparation in terms of research.
Yes even a “fantastic” tale, a retelling of history needs to be founded and grounded in facts….in this case the actual timeline of when and where the Titanic was built, when and where it left to and from on its trials and its ports of call, and on its fateful way to destruction in the Atlantic, its meeting with the 78 mile long ice flows like a meteor shower that Captain Smith plowed into at 21knots! Twenty four was the max the ship could get to and the fastest any ship on the high seas could go….
This is what got me questioning history in the first place, my reading…research. Research raises questions, and questions are wonderful catalysts for fiction. Whenever I see a standing mysery as in the case of what was going on in Smith’s mind to NOT stop for the night. He was the captain of Titanic, so he had the power to shut her down and stand down before this icy meteor shower ahead of him which he knew full well must be dangerous. No matter his bosses aboard, no matter the owners aboard, no matter the record they wished to break, he had the power as captain of the ship in maritime law to shut all systems down and wait it out. So why did he choose not to?
My novel will soon be completed in rough form and sent to first readers – and YOU could be a first reader if you care to be one, this novel answers in an imaginative, even fantastic way why Captain Edward Smith took action to bring Titanic down. What fears and concerns and anxiety must have been going through my rendition of the captain, not to mention the others in the cabal to bring Titanic down.
So now that I am close onto finishing, are you curious and impatient and wishing to read the book NOW in its current, admittedly terribly rough form? I am sending it out as a doc to any and all who simply cannot wait on the presumption YOU will tell me where I may have made a wrong turn, a slip up, a goof, a gaff, a startlingly stupid error….where I failed to go into enough detail….where I failed by going into too much detail…where I dropped the ball in the color of a character’s hair or eyes or condition of a character’s teeth for that matter.
Will you be among the first readers of Curse of the Titanic? If you are intrigued by the idea of “get Walker!” If you want to FIX the author, I welcome all the help I can get. After all, I was not born with a silver tongue or a silver spoon, and as I grew up in Chicago and went to public schools, I pretty much had to teach myself quite a bit about language, so truly I DO NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET…
So sign up now. Send me word either here via comment or direct to inkwalk at SBCglobal dot net where I live and where I can quickly, easily shoot you a copy of Curse of the Titanic once it has been completed on its FIRST go round. It will be cleaned up and I will be taking your comments seriously, and you can count on being added on the acknowledgement pages of the final product. Everyone should by now know that Curse is going direct to Kindle as a Kindle Original Title. I want it to be as error free as I can make it, so I welcome all input from yous guys…..
Sincerely,
Robert W. Walker (Rob)
Comments and requests for the book welcome
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