As per my tradition, of course, I am posting here the first chapter of my 6th (!!!) book. Crazy. Can you believe it? And on Monday I'm starting my 7th. This one was a fun one. It turned out better than I thought it would. Because of the copyright issues I almost scrapped it, but then didn't. Because I'm not a quitter. Enjoy! (Oh, and here is the link to the final draft).
A novel by Ksenia Anske, Draft 4
Chapter 1. The Duck Pond
Read MoreThe trip to Spokane has distracted me from blogging about this. Are you ready? Here we go.
DRAFT 3 OF THE BADLINGS IS DONE!!!
This is such a fun book to write, at times I feel guilty. Instead of crying every day like I did when writing IRKADURA, I'm giggling and sniggering and laughing. Due to the copyright I had to cut down the number of books the badlings jump in and out of down to 10. The title has changed from CORNERS to THE BADLINGS as it doesn't fit the story anymore. Below is the first chapter. I'm taking two weeks off and starting Draft 4 on February 16th. Wish me luck.
Read MoreThank you, thank you, thank you to all my readers who encouraged me, to all my beta readers who sent me feedback on the 1st draft, my friends and family who left me alone to write it. Without you this wouldn't have happened. The 1st draft took me only 2 weeks to write, this one took 1 month. I have done something different this time. I didn't take weekends off, plowing right through them, and it sped up the process.
Read MoreAnd...I have started. On Draft 2. I took a 1.5 month break between drafts this time, a bit too long. Maybe it's a good thing? We shall see. So far I'm having so much fun writing this, I find myself feeling guilty sometimes. I think this book will be glorious. I'm laughing almost on every page, writing it. I hope you will laugh too. Here is the excerpt for you, THE WHOLE FIRST CHAPTER.
A novel by Ksenia Anske, Draft 2
Chapter 1. The First Corner
It was a dangerous business, turning corners, especially corners with numbers. In exactly twelve minutes Bells would find a paper corner sticking out of the dirt by the old duck pond. In another minute she’d see number sixty-eight printed on it, lift it and get sucked into a book, together with her unsuspecting friends Peacock, Grand, and Rusty. The only things left behind them would be their four bikes, a gum wrapper, and a couple backpacks.
Read MorePhoto by Ana Luisa Pinto
Photo by Ana Luisa Pinto
Nanci asked: "How do you fight the temptation to reread and revise before finishing shitty first draft?"
Since I just finished writing the 1st draft of CORNERS and it was the first 1st draft of any of my novels which I actually didn't edit at all while I was writing it (I used to go back over what I wrote the day before to get myself into the mood, speed-editing), this seems like a very timely topic. Plus, NaNoWriMo is coming up. So yeah, how do you do it?
1. Write every day. And I mean, every bloody day.
This is something I did for the first time. I wrote through the weekends. You always hear writers telling you, "Write every day, write every day." You even heard it from me, too. Except on the weekends I would break from book writing and would write a blog post or two. Sometimes I wouldn't write anything for a whole day, because, you know, family. Gotta spend time together so they won't forget how my face looks. And it's only now that the truth of this statement hit me, what it really means. It means keeping the story fresh in your head.
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