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I know it’s been a little short of updates here, but that was because I just finished my manuscript on October 5th. It was a big milestone for me and something that I’ve been working on for the better part of a couple of years now lays atop my desk complete.

It’s been sent off to the readers and now I have to move on to the next part of my graduation task list: The Genre Essay.

Now, those of you who know me can attest to how much I loath essays. Most of the time I view them as busy work set upon my by a professor who has nothing better to do than make me waste my time. This time though I think it’ll be different. After all, it’s an essay on something academic in genre I love so much: science-fiction. Maybe it will be interesting instead of mind-numbingly boring I don’t know. But, it’ll be interesting to find out.

Also on the plate is looking for a literary agent. I’ve polished off my synopsis and now I need to craft the dreaded query letter. That damned letter is like writer’s kryptonite. I find it hilarious that most of us have no problems putting out a multi-book opus which has the potential to sell millions of copies, but then we’re afraid of writing a little letter that might top out at two hundred words. That will be what I’ll be focusing my efforts on after having scoured the Writer’s Market Agent’s guide earlier in the week.

If any other science-fiction writers out there have an agent they love and is looking for authors, please contact me because I’m definitely looking for that right agent to grow with.

Well, after a couple of emails between my mentor and I, I have started my revisions in earnest. Right now the majority of them are dialogue related. Which is interesting since I thought dialogue was my strongest capability in a story.

The cardinal sin I committed while writing the dialogue was that I had made the characters sound much to alike. More than likely this was due to letting my own diction seep through as I wrote the draft. Understandable, considering the speed I was trying to keep in order to finish the thing.

So now after having basked in the afterglow of accomplishment, I now start the task of making my characters sound different from one another. I guess for starters some contractions would be nice, according to some of my critique partners.

Picky, picky. Ah well, as long as I don’t all make them sound alike when I relax their speech then that would be good. I could just give them all cockney accents, even though they are nowhere near the British Isles.

It would be hilarious though, wouldn’t it?

I’d like to know what your thoughts are on accents and dialects. Can they be used effectively without making them look like caricatures? And can you use accents or dialects from our own world in Fantasy or Science Fiction worlds without having the reader stop and go “Why is there an Irish guy in the middle of that group of dwarves?”.

Wow, I can’t believe the day came, but I finally finished my 1st draft of my thesis novel on Sunday evening. It came out to 91,768 words with a marathon 5,437 word dash on the last day. You have no idea how relieved I am about it. By no means am I finished (I still have re-writes to do) but those are a lot easier to do when you have a completed draft in your hands.

For the past two day’s I’ve been holding off on beginning re-writes until I head back from my mentor Gary Braunbeck, but tomorrow I will start writing again with an eye at correcting some of the too formal dialogue and perhaps even writing a short story to change gears a bit.

Either way, it’s great to be done with the first major milestone!

Well, it’s Wednesday and I’d thought I’d post on my progress since I aim to finish the novel this week.

I’m just shy the 85,000 mark and right now I’m approaching the “big action scene”. In some ways I’m elated to be almost there, but in others I just want to finish the damn thing already. Some of the mornings I feel like my mind is full of molasses and my fingers are made of cement. I just want to finish and then take a big, long, nap.

But, I know that my work is just beginning since I need to start revisions as soon as I’m done and then have everything finished by September 30th in time for the readers.

Sometimes I wish I could scream.

Does anyone have any tips on how to fight these weird “end of novel” emotions?

I was able to get through about 2,300 words during the weekend. By far my most productive weekend, but still shy of where I wanted to be. There had been hope that I could finish the manuscript before the final hours of Sunday, but I found “Weekenditis” had taken hold.

What is Weekenditis? To keep it short, it’s a condition which affects me during the weekend and prevents me from getting any actual writing work done. Oh sure I get other things done, but my writing comes to a complete halt. It’s a rich combination of laziness and procrastination with a small bit of avoidance thrown in for spice.

In the coming days, I’ll talk a little bit more about Weekenditis and how to combat it, but for now let’s continue with the update on my progress.

I’ll be setting a new goal to finish the novel by the end of the week on Sunday. I’m confident I’ll have it wrapped up before then, but I want to put a self-imposed deadline to push me to finish it.

And after that it’ll be time to take a harrowing spin through Revision Land.

Beware the Red Pen! Beeeewwwwaaaaarrrrrrreeeeee!!!

I can now say that the end is nigh. No, not the end of the world (at least I hope not) but the end of my novel. So far I’m in the last 5,000 words or so of it and I can feel the threads are coming to a close and then I can start the process of re-writing.

I do apologize for the lack of content update, but it’s been a harrowing week or so. Who could have thought possible to first catch something at Residency and then get either some minor food poisoning or stomach flu from a July 4th family gathering? It makes me the lucky winner this month and my prize is an economy sized bottle of Pepto.

Toward the end of this week, when I aim to finish the novel, I’ll be going back to my daily posting regime and post some more information on what happened at Residency and what I learned while there. I also have some great updates as far as social networking is concerned and how writers can use it to their maximum effectiveness.

Well, here we are the Sunday before Residency, and this is my first post concerning progress on my thesis novel. I hope to post occasionally on this to tie together the quick status posts I put on Twitter, Pownce and Facebook about my total progress.

Right now I’m almost at 80,000 words so I have about 10,000 or so words left in order to finish the novel. I believe though that I can wrap it up in about 5,000 words. I’ll be able to get at least another 1,000 tomorrow, and I plan to see if I can keep the momentum going during Residency, but that might be a little difficult considering I still have my critiques to do.

So far though, after speaking with my mentor, I’ve had an output spike and I hope to keep it going. I seem to have gone through so many different ways of keeping my output up. I’d like to hear some of different ways all of you use to keep on writing. I’ll post the top five methods you recommend in a later post.