blurbs

2 Comments Posted on Climbing Yggdrasil, Novels, Science Fiction, Writing

The Yggdrasil blurb

I’ve gotten some feedback, and I’ve used that to come up with something I don’t hate.

climbing yggdrasil 3d

Synchronizers are not supposed to awaken.

The comatose psychics who provide starships access to the central network sleep their lives away in coffin-like tanks. Their minds are broken by the process that creates them. This gives Captain Kandace Li Renwright some comfort, helping her to overcome her revulsion at the thought of acquiring one.

When Wendell wakes her from her sleep for a chat, she is faced with a pale, emaciated man who can speak into her mind. He claims to know nothing of who he used to be, and wants her help. The answers he seeks cannot be found on the network, only in the meticulous physical records the Corporation keeps. His past is locked in the maximum security facility where he was made into what he is.

Captain Kandace and her crew are about to embark on a mission to recover Wendell’s lost memories. They will bring him ever closer to his ultimate goal: punishing those who stole his life away from him.

I welcome any thoughts or comments. Would you read the book? Is there wording that seems clunky? What would you change? I just want to float this out there for a little while, and come back to it this weekend to settle on a final version, hopefully one that greatly resembles this one here.

2 Comments Posted on Climbing Yggdrasil, Editing, Novels, Science Fiction, Writing

The finish line is in sight

The second draft of Climbing Yggdrasil is all but finished. What remains is to fix the ending, which all happens rather quickly in the first draft. I did not build the suspense and let the events of the finale ring out as much as I should have. Upon reviewing the final chapter, I have found that it needs to be broken up into at least three chapters.

yggdrasil ending

Each of the colors except blue is getting its own chapter. The blue sections represent a different point of view that occurs at the same time as the action in the pink, green and yellow chapters. Notice that the green section takes up half a page, despite being the most important event of the novel. I remember being ready to just get the damn first draft over with, and so I hastily wrote the end instead of giving it the time it deserved.

New lesson learned: laziness in the first draft makes more work for the second. There is no getting away from doing what is necessary.

I drafted a new version of the blurb and have asked a few friends to give me their opinions. When I have taken all of their advice and used it to create a “final” version of the blurb, I will likely post it here and ask for comments. Once the blurb and second draft are finished, I can send the blurb and spine dimensions to Ellie to get a useable version of my cover. Then it’s off to CreateSpace to print up proofs of the second draft! I could have copies of my book with the new cover in my hand by early August!

In the interest of brevity and being better able to tag my posts accurately, I have decided to try to focus on one subject at a time. This means more posts! This also means categories will now contain more accurate posts going forward, so that I (readers) can find exactly what I’m (they’re) looking for instead of a bunch of posts covering two or three topics at once. This move has been inspired by my previous post, which I reblogged from Winter Bayne (thanks again!).