Zed is alive!

I thought writing was simple - I breezed easily through writing a novel-length story - why do they make it out to be difficult? No writer's blocks, no writing into corners, no 'what do I do now' moments. Writing is a doddle - or so I thought.

Well, the devil is in the details. Writing is easy, editing your novel is hard. I think I spent about as much time editing it as I did writing it. It was harrowing, although it could simply be a reflection of my infancy within the literary world. I learned far more about the rules of grammar, punctuation and 'writing stuff good' than I did from twelve years of schooling. Is it an indictment of the education system that I was subjected to? I should damn well  hope so ... but I digress.

Oh, and by the way, I released my first novel today!

Zed is not your typical zombie. He is cursed with the affliction of thought ... although he tries to make the best of a bad situation. The goals for his unrest are simple: to improve his stride, to taste a lightly-seared pork loin once again and avoid Activists at all costs. 
His life was predictable, controlled and good until chaos crashed the party. In just one day, his world is destroyed and his ability to survive is tested. Would he be able to get through this in one piece? And would he somehow be able to survive the unstoppable force that goes by the name of Chase?

Here's the link to smashwords - you can read the first two chapters for free and it's only $2.99 to own a DRM-free copy of my novel in most e-book formats. Nice. Here's the link to Amazon - I'm Kindle-official!

I think I'm going to take a few seconds to savour the moment before I plough into my next project. It might not necessarily be zombie-related, but I have a few ideas that should make it a must-read, even if I do say so myself.

Putting on a spit-shine

Knowing when to put down your brush is one of the hardest thing to determine. When another brush stroke will detract rather than add is hard to distinguish - there is such a thing as too refined. Take Van Gogh; do you think if he revised each bluntly-applied stroke, would the final painting look as good? It would lose the impressionistic aspect that makes his work so appealing - it would look like any other painting. However, knowing that you still need to revise your work is just as hard. At what point do you define something as done?

Is it at the point that you no longer find something to criticize or is it when the rest of the world thinks it's fine even if you don't? I'm not sure. All I know is that when I revise my work it is better. Maybe at some point any change or addition will no longer be an improvement but I have yet to reach that point. I think if I am not careful I could get into an infinite loop. I hate unnecessary iterations in my code so it seems logical that I should have a predefined limit on the number of iterations I can take when revising and tweaking.

That's it. That will fix the situation I find myself in.

Now all I need to define is what my limit actually is. I can't simply define a number - a limit needs to be defined relative to context; relative to the complexity and subjectivity. Grammer Grammar and spelling should be easy to limit. Revising punctuation: trickier. Story arcs? Pacing? Plot holes? Dialogue? Character development? Factual accuracy?

...this will probably take a few revisions before I can define a steadfast set of rules.