Let the writing begin!

Hello and good Monday to all you copious notes readers out there! Last week, I left off with you guys letting you know that my research poor should for Spirit hackers is pretty much complete. Well, I am excited to say that not only do I start the book, but I actually restarted it today. Let me explain:

On Friday after I had blogs to all of you guys, I had decided to begin the book. I typed the first two “chapters” which equals approximately 600+ words. Now I used my new dictation software to write those pages but it was a lot of herky-jerky writing and it did not flow whatsoever. I look back on it only about two hours later to see that I didn’t like what I written. I think this is part of the adjustment process to using dictation software for writing my book. One thing I noticed, was that I had zero description. I think that stems from the fact that I had an entire picture in my head and did not do a good job of describing it. I will say that dictating a book compared to writing it on a keyboard or on a piece of paper is definitely different. I speak differently than I write, I have to take that into consideration when I am “writing” my book.

So… today I decided to scrap the 600 words and start again. I figure I’ve already restarted the book once why not do it again! I rewrote the same pages and made sure to add more description and have it flow little better. I also try to make it so that it was more exciting and read more like a book. I think I did much better the second go around because my word count is almost double.

I know it is a challenge right now, but I believe that once I adjust to writing in this method I will be able to use the dictation software to write very quickly and have the book come together very well. At least I hope that’s how it comes out. I am going to have to read and reread to make sure that what I have on the “page” is what I intended. I will also admit that dictating blog entries such as the one I am doing right now is different than writing a story via dictation. I also did not foresee that.

So for now, I have approximately 4 pages and 1376 words. I can only go up from here… I hope.

Wrapping up the research

Hey everyone! Again, just another heads-up that this is a dictated post and I do apologize in advance for any odd grammatical errors. Just to let you know that I do plan on posting another edition of lyrically speaking later on today. For now though, I wanted to talk about my current research/outlining process.

As most of you know, my current work-in-progress, Spirit hackers, has been in the conceptual stage for approximately 1 1/2 – 2 months. During this time I’ve been working out the outline, trying to hash out the characters, and also doing some research as to the technical items that occur within the story. I will say that this is hard and the fact that I’ve never researched or outlined the book before makes it even harder. I will say, that it is definitely a learning experience and only suits to make me a stronger author in the long run. Most of my research has been into the technical aspects of the story and while keeping a date I can say that I was trying to find out information about electrical fields, and energy in general. Google and Wikipedia have been great friends during this journey.

The good thing about this type of book that I want to write, is that there is only a little bit of science involved, but then it shifts into the fictional realm where I can just make everything up. I am very happy that I have a larger majority of things to make up then scientific fact, but I think the hardest part is going to be a smooth transition from what currently exists and is known into an area where it is my imagination. I need it to be seamless. So far, I think I have figured out but I won’t know until I actually start writing the book.

One interesting thing that I did notice, is that now that I have a lot of the research figured out, I have to go back and rehash my outline to make sure that it fits with in the technical items and research that I have found out. I noticed that there were a few things that I had put into the outline that now really don’t fit after my research. There are also some items I put into the outline but I honestly just forgot about. I don’t really know how that happened (this process takes long and I forget things easily) but I have to go back and kind of rehash the outline and clean it up a little. I don’t think it has strayed too far from the original concept, but I do need to make sure that all the pieces are in place so that my writing goes as smoothly as possible.

I do hope to get the story under way about this time next week or no later than the week after. With all the groundwork of the story lead out I honestly do think that I will have an easier time writing the book and more importantly having it flow well where I know not only where I am going, but also how to get there. For somebody who is only written organically, this can be a scary process and also it is something I have never done. Overall, I think that trying to write a book this way will be a great experience and I do hope that a great book comes out of it that often not only highlight but is also a book that I can get out there and sell.

Finally, slightly off-topic I did want to give a big thanks to everybody who commented on my video post earlier this week. I’m glad to see that my review of the Amazon kindle was so well received and you guys enjoyed seeing it up close. I do hope to get more video posts onto this blog and share more of my thoughts and reviews with you guys. If anyone has any ideas on something they would like to see, please let me know as I would love to post more.