Monday, May 30, 2016

First Draft Finished

I've just finished the first draft of my longest project ever, and it feels amazing. I wonder if this is how normal, non-writer people feel when they... I don't know what non-writers do, actually. I want to say build houses and buy antiques?

Anyway. It's 77,967 words, written in almost exactly six months. And I'm not totally dreading going back to edit it?

Here's a summary of the novel, which I've written in attempt to answer the age old question "what's it about?" without saying "Uh, spaceships?" (even though that is an equally accurate description; I killed off several characters and crashed a ship, and the ship was the most heartbreaking).


Freak Show is a space opera with superpowers, or what I like to describe as "If Heroes and Firefly had a baby."
Jacker Jetstark runs one of the universe's last carnival ships, bringing excitement to the lives of people on the lower class moons and asteroids colonized by a mining company that leaves death and destruction in its wake. The carnival's biggest draw is its freak show, where people can see a ferocious wildman, an angelic birdwoman, and psychic conjoined triplets - freakish anomalies from far flung corners of the universe.
But it's all a lie. The freaks are just genetically altered people whose genes react to the music played during the show, giving them powers and abilities. It's just for show, no real practical use.
Until the song changes, and the powers become permanent. Now Jack has to convince his crew that their destiny is to rescue his beloved Diantha from an assassin who has already claimed her husband, the leader of the mining company and de facto ruler of the universe's main governmental body.
Jack fancies himself the knight in rusted armor, off to save his damsel in distress from a dragon. Diantha fancies herself the dragon.


In the coming months I will be editing and rewriting, and mocking myself mercilessly along the way. Stay tuned.

(how much longer until things like "stay tuned" and "don't touch that dial" become obsolete? Or will they become phrases we use while having no idea of the actual meaning?)

2 comments:

  1. Congrats on reaching the end of the draft! I think 'stay tuned' will hold it's own - just like 'hold the front page' is still a saying, even though no one really needs to do that anymore, the 'front page' can change every hour online!

    One thing I have trouble will though is my characters 'dialling' a number on their mobile (cell) phones!

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  2. Thank you!
    I say "dialing" for cell phones all the time.

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