Fakeminsk TG Fiction: Constant in All Other Things

Writing Update: 10/05/24

Start of week: 21,357 (chapter 2)

End of week: 22,760 (chapter 2)

Change: +3020

Year total to date: 77,593

This week, work took a great old dump on me. A long expected, yet somehow still surprising, crisis reared its head. Successive 11- and 12-hour days didn't leave much room for writing. To be honest, it was exhilarating--at first--but then exhausting, getting to work for 6.30 and grinding out the day. It was an intense series of days, but fortunately, short; and cri...

Writing Update: 03/05/24

Start of Week: 37,306 / 10,207

End of Week: 35, 433 / 19,740

Change: +7,660

Year to date: 74, 573

Editing this week brought changes to the first two chapters of Book 3, with the Halloween scene shifted to chapter 2, but the story with Michael Connor and then Dan and Anastasia kept in chapter 1. I'm considering Chapter 1 complete now, and am working on the final scene of Chapter 2. I reckon this chapter will finish at around 25-30k in length, depending on how things go ...

Sneak Peek: "Torture What You Love"

Another sneak peek, open to all members. Moving towards the end of the chapter, this is meant to be the bridging scene between the Halloween party, and Julia's Story, which rounds out the chapter.

This one's in still at the draft stage - it's had a few tweaks since posting on Friday, and hasn't quite settled yet.

Oh, and if it's not obvious - the final line to Julia's meant to echo Hamlet's closet scene, when he sits his mom down and speaks daggers to her.

Anyway, enjoy and ...

Sneak Peek: Constant 3, Chapter 2

With Chapter 1 done, I'm now focusing on gettin

Constant in All Other Things 3, Chapter 1 (v2)

So, taking on board a little feedback, I went a

Constant in All Other Things 3: Chapter 1

I wasn't going to post this until Monday, but I

Writing Update

Start of Week: 40,402

End of Week: 37,206

Change: +6856

Year to Date: 66,913

Those numbers obviously don't make any sense without an explanation.

With the repackaging of Constant into a trilogy, I took the old chapter six and split it between Book 3, chapters 1 and 2. Currently, chapter 1 is pretty much complete, at around 37k words; and chapter 2 is half-done, at 10k words.

Shifting from editing and posting back to purely focusing in writing has been... mo...

Sneak Peek: Halloween Party

With the completion of this scene, Chapter 1 will finally be complete! I probably shouldn't have posted the chapter earlier this week - it was a bit premature, and still riddled with minor errors. Once this scene with office boss Michael is complete, I'll give the whole chapter a final pass to make sure the new scene integrates properly and then post the completed chapter here.

It's a scene I'd been looking forward to writing for ages--it had been lurking in the back of my mind, incompl...

Publish: Constant 3, Chapter 1

Posting to TGStorytime has finally caught up wi

Writing Update: 19/04/24

Start of week: 38,636

End of week: 40,402

Change: +2021

Year to date: 60,057

The number don't quite add up, as there are other bits and pieces floating about: some cut-and-pasted into chapter 2, some just cut and left on the floor. There's also been edits and amendments throughout the whole story.

It's taken weeks, but finally the editing is done! Mostly. I still want to write an additional scene or two at the end of "Book 2" but otherwise, everything's had a onc...

Sneak Peek: Alla Norma

Chapter 6 - now repackaged as chapter 1 of book 3 - has been both a fun and infuriating chapter to write.

The first 20k words of it flowed pretty easily. The club scene, especially, was a joy to write, as were the initial scenes with Julia. But the second half of the chapter, as we transition from the funeral into setting up the rest of the novel, has been challenging.

I've written, and rewritten, and moved around the different beats of this scene several time, trying to get the f...

Ramblings: Writing a Trilogy

So, making the decision to repackage Constant as a trilogy has proven interesting for me. First of all, because I'd initially intended Constant as a trilogy. When I first started writing it way back when, I plotted out three main story arcs.

The first, which went pretty much as planned (from Prologue through to David's "death" at the end of book 1).

The second, covering his waking up as Cindy through to his marriage to Tom. (No spoilers there - it's in the prologue!) I'd planned o...

Repackaging Constant

Checking in on TGStorytime this morning to see whether the last part of chapter five had gone live or not, I started to think about the length of "Book 2".

Book one came in at about 106k words, according to the word count on TGS. Book two, up to the end of chapter 5, comes in at 92k. Word tells me that the Interlude is 71k, and chapter 6 is already nearly 39k. By these numbers, a very rough estimate suggests that "Book 2" would finish at something like 300k words in length, which is a b...

Writing Update: 12/04/24

Start of week: 34,980

End of week: 38636

Change: +3656

The week started strong but peetered out a bit by the end, largely due to both real-world responsibilities but also due to a return to some editing. The word count also hides some deletions made throughout the chapter. I feel chapter 6 is coming along nicely, though I've run into a small bump in the road in terms of how to progress - hence the poll earlier in the week. Though I want to explore that aspect of the return t...

Poll: The Story of Dan--Show, or Tell?

There's a small poll at the end of all this - I'm curious what people thing.

I've returned to chapter six this week, and making some steady progress. Here's a short clip from the current scene:

***

            Julia frowns. “Doesn’t anything matter to you?”

            “This matters,” I say and wave my fork at her, strands of spaghetti sway...

Sneak Peek: Chapter 6 - Jonas

With the revision of chapters 1-5 of Constant finished, I've gone back to writing new stuff. It was unexpectedly difficult to return to the keyboard, but then it's always a little scary after a break. In any case, it feels good to be back at it. My goal's to have the chapter done before the end of the month, especially as I'm very keen to try writing some shorter fiction. I've got all these ideas I want to develop, but want to finish off the chapter, first.

In any case, here's a sneak p...

Finished Chapters: Chapter 5

I've finished the revision of chapter 5 - few e

Writing Update: 05/04/24

Not much to update this week. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 revised, with some new material added through, most notable a flashback/dream sequence at the end of chapter 4.

I probably should tackle revising the Interlude - but I think I'm going to skip it for now and get back to writing chapter 6. I've been keen to get back to it for weeks now!

I've enjoyed a little Easter holiday time, which has been great but not for writing--sttuggled at times to find the space and time. Conversely, it...

Sneak Peek: Chapter 4 (Ending rewrite)

As mentioned in yesterday's post, though overall pleased with the chapter, I wasn't really happy with the way chapter 4 ends. I've gone and reworked it slightly, tweaking David's final thoughts as he lies in bed with Julia, and then using that to slide into a memory/dream from the past. I think it works better this way. I had to restrain myself from really stretching out the scene with Tom--there was just something really compelling about the idea of writing a short story about two guys shar...

Sneak Peek: Chapter 4 (revised)

I'm calling this a "sneak peek" instead of a "p

Ramblings: On Writing Chapter Four

After this ramble I'll share Chapter Four. I'm calling this a "sneak peek" rather than a "publish" because I'm not quite happy with it. Or rather, I am happy with it, except for the ending. I considering ways of tweaking the end of the chapter, or possibly adding in another short scene - possibly a jump to another character (unlikely, as it breaks the 1st person narrative) or another flashback - possibly Tom, as he's been too absent from the the story so far. At the moment, I don't l...

Publish: Chapter Three (Rewrite)

It took a little longer than expected, but I've

Publish: Constant 2, Chapter 1

I neglected to publish the full, revised versio

Writing Update: 29/03/24

No word count update this week.

As with last week, word count seems a poor metric for determining "success" - whatever that means in this context. Though I haven't written anything new for chapter 6 (and believe me, I'm chomping at the bit to get back to it!), I've finally worked through the editing block on the end of Book 1, and the start of Book 2.

Putting together the prologue, and cleaning up Book 1 was... a lot more difficult than expected? I suspect many writers find editi...

Publish: Chapter 2 (Rewrite)

After the agony of creating the prologue and re

Sneak Peek: Chapter 1, the "Body Horror" Rewrite

So, I had a go a tweaking the third scene of chapter 1, the one where David sees himself in the mirror and realises what's been done to him. And I think the feedback was correct: I can't imagine (though I suppose that's what I'm doing here) just how mind-warpingly hideous it would be to wake up to the realization that someone had performed surgery on you without either your knowledge of consent. And while I don't want to look -too- closely into that, because I'm not wriitng a psychological h...

Sneak Peek: Book 2, Chapter 1

Well, I've sent the prologue off to TGStorytime for publishing - it takes a bit of time to get validated but should show up soon. I'm still not really happy with it, but it's time to move on, I think. Consequently, please find below the first half of the 'new' - mostly edited - Chapter 1. It's a significant departure from the original. Among other things, K is no longer there to ease David into wakefullness. There's also a new flashback, to a memory with Sakura.

Here's the first half o...

Sneak Peek: Constant 2, Prelude

Here's a look at the new "prelude" for the second book of Constant. I've decided to cut the Interlude and repurpose some of it into this prelude--if you've read the old Interlude, a lot of this will be familiar. It's a "sneak peek" rather than a "publish" because I'm still fiddling with it, aiming to post it to TGStorytime at some point next week. For some reason I'm finding this absurdly difficult to get right - I suspect I'll just have to draw a line under it and come back to it during the...

Ramblings: Writing Darker

There was a recent review posted up on FM that asked some good questions, which got me thinking, and I thought I might write out my thoughts here. Apologies for another rambling response!

The review asked:

"Some observations and questions, if you happen to see this and are open to it:
- since your return to the story, things are generally darker. Some of the character revisions paint folks in a more sinister light (eg Scooter). Even from within her head K seems more dama...

Writing Update: 22/03/24

Word Count: unchanged.

So, by the traditional metric (word count) it's been an unproductive week. This is a bit misleading: in the past week I've managed to revise all of Book 1 of Constant in All Other Things (the first ten chapters) and get it up onto TGStory, where it seems to have been well received. There were many edits along the way, cleaning up inconsistencies (especially with names) but also expanding some key scenes - for example, the evening David witnessed the murd...