Book #7

This cover is NOT  final! Still a LOT of work
to do on this book!

I finally finished the first draft of my fifth novel this week. It’s a YA book about the Daughter of a Wealthy Black elitist who pledges a Sorority.

Like The Cassandra Cookbook it’s a comedy/Drama with a female lead. It’s told in the first-person perspective. But this time the story is told from the viewpoint of a single character.

It’s a first draft.

It needs a lot of work.

But it’s a start.

I’m trying to get back into writing fiction full-time again. I’m still trying to shake off the rust and get back up to top form creatively on the novel. I’ve been writing screenplays since 2007.

Being unemployed since 2008, I’ve been primarily focused on promoting and publishing existing work instead of creating new work. Writing is the only way I make money these days and if I don’t sell eBooks or paperbacks I don’t have any income.

I’ve been focused more on the business side than the creative side of writing because this was the only chance I had to publish most of the books I finished years ago. I had a lot of unpublished work from back as far as 2004. But I was out of work from January 2001 until April of 2008. I wanted to get all those titles to print before my savings ran out. So I haven’t had much time to get to a keyboard and just write fiction like I used to.

After such a long absence from being on the keyboard full-time I’m realizing that writing fiction is much more work to write than non-fiction. I don’t know how I did it in the old days.

Non-Fiction is just writing my opinion based on some facts. Or just finding a way to explain some facts I researched in a way the reader can understand.

It takes an hour or two for me to write a blog.

It takes two to three years for me to write a novel.

Fiction requires thought. Organization. Planning. I have to run scenes in my head, then run them again to make sure they make sense. Then I have to go on the net and research things to make sure the facts I want to use are correct. Then after I write a chapter out, I read dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds right. Then I do revisions on the prose. And more revisions on spelling, punctuation and grammar. I keep working until the book is good.

It’s a slow painstaking process done to the tune of MP3s and in between watching TV and DVDs.

With the first draft of Book #7 finished, I’m putting this new book on the shelf. I’ll be working on a new short and eBooks for the Summer YA eBook exclusive series. I’ve been working on this book since late September and I want to give myself a chance to see it from a fresh perspective when I start revisions.

Book #7 should be published by about 2014 depending on my process. If my savings hold out that far. If I can stay afloat that long. Or if I find that new job. If not It’ll be up as an eBook.