tag:dreamwidth.org,2012-03-31:1588346Lawyer and WriterJessica SteinerJessica Steiner2012-06-11T04:40:09Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2012-03-31:1588346:12249State of the Writing2012-06-11T04:40:09Z2012-06-11T04:40:09Zpublic12I reached another turning point in projects, so I thought I'd do an update.<br /><br />Today I finished the first draft of my <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://originalbigbang.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png' alt='[community profile] ' width='16' height='16' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://originalbigbang.dreamwidth.org/'><b>originalbigbang</b></a></span> story, which isn't due until September or something, lol. I wanted to get it written and out of the way so I wouldn't have it weighing on my mind as I work on other projects, and I'm glad I did. <br /><br />It's called Grim Opera, and is the fifth instalment of my Hunter Grim short story series, which is a series of gay erotica stories set in a post-apocalyptic world, depicting a love story between a vampire hunter (who is also a vampire) and his shape-shifting apprentice. I'll probably release the stories as an anthology someday. It was fun to revisit this world, and it definitely won't be the last time I do.<br /><br />I got a little positive feedback from one of my beta readers for <i>The Sleeping Death</i>, which was nice to hear. I also got back into contact with my editor, who had been on vacation. I signed my contract, sent my deposit and my manuscript, so now all I have to do is wait.<br /><br />I'm pretty excited. I feel fairly confident that the book will stand up generally to scrutiny, and I'm very interested to learn where I can improve it. I'm sure that my editor will have things to say, of course, and I'm sure I'll learn a great deal and that my writing generally will improve because of this experience. <br /><br />I'm also a tiny bit nervous that it'll hurt a lot to get the feedback, but I have faith that Marie-Lynn will give me constructive criticism gently, and that it won't be in the vein of "this sucks, start over". Anything less shattering than that I can probably handle. After all, I've been writing fanfiction for over 13 years. I've gotten lots of unhelpful negative comments in my life.<br /><br />In the meantime, I've started work on my draft of <i>The Dreaming</i> once again. I started this book quite a long time ago now, and I keep making a lot of progress in short bursts and then putting it down to work on other things. I'm determined to get it done without getting distracted this time, partly because I'm really getting excited to get started on my <i>next</i> project, which is my "Harry Potter in Space with Aliens" series. I'm doing character profiles for that series, whenever I don't feel like writing.<br /><br />So that's where I'm at!<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=jessicasteiner&ditemid=12249" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2012-03-31:1588346:10614Another Milestone...Crossed2012-05-19T20:42:23Z2012-05-19T20:42:23Zpublic0It's been a productive morning!<br /><br />I set up a twitter account, which I'll primarily be using for quick writing-related status updates, boosting the signal on reviews and posts here, and for retweeting random things I enjoy. Follow me at <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://twitter.com/steiner_jessica'><img src='https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico' alt='[twitter.com profile] ' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' width='16' height='16'/></a><a href='http://twitter.com/steiner_jessica'><b>steiner_jessica</b></a></span> if that link works...<br /><br />Secondly, I cleared out my email and did some administrative things.<br /><br />And thirdly, I finished my line edits on <i>The Sleeping Death</i>! What a painful process that was. I mostly was trying to focus on tightening things, getting rid of extraneous speaking tags and adverbs, especially, and it was really fiddly. I found that I couldn't really do it for very long before my concentration started to flag, so I tended to do about 2 chapters a night. For a story with almost 60 chapters, that was a slow pace.<br /><br />So now I'll be sending it out to my beta readers and hopefully get their comments within a week or two. After that, it goes to my editor!<br /><br />I'm looking forward to a rest from editing for a couple of weeks, to be honest. Time to focus on my <span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='https://originalbigbang.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png' alt='[community profile] ' width='16' height='16' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='https://originalbigbang.dreamwidth.org/'><b>originalbigbang</b></a></span> story, which is the fifth instalment of my <i>Hunter Grim</i> series, as well as getting back to <i>The Dreaming</i>. So it's going to be a bit of a pure writing stint for now.<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=jessicasteiner&ditemid=10614" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments