Posts Tagged ‘manuscript’

Star Trek: Seekers #1 is away!

As of last night, the manuscript for Star Trek: Seekers #1 – Second Nature has been delivered to its editor. Now begins the waiting and the wondering: “What if the editor doesn’t like it? What if she asks for a lot of changes?”

In case you’ve ever wondered what it feels like for a writer to surrender a manuscript to an editor to begin the process of line editing, copy editing, and revision, it feels like this.

(I’d have embedded the video, but for some stupid reason the “start at [X] time” function doesn’t work when embedding on my blog, even though it works on Facebook and Twitter. Stupid blog.)

Time to distract myself with holiday planning….

Manuscript Completed…

It’s 3:15am and I have just finished the manuscript for the expanded edition of my previously published short novel Star Trek Mirror Universe: The Sorrows of Empire.

As TV producer Hans Beimler once said to me upon my delivery of a first-draft teleplay for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Great! Now the writing can begin!”

Tomorrow I shall write the acknowledgments, paste in text for “About the Author,” and begin my polishing draft and revisions. Woo, and might I add for emphasis, hoo.

Another notch on the keyboard

It is with a great sigh of relief (and exhaustion) that I can now declare I have finished the first-draft manuscript for Star Trek Vanguard: Precipice, the fifth book in the original-series-era saga I developed with editor Marco Palmieri, and on which I share alternating writing duties with Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore.

The new book is the shortest tome so far in the Vanguard series — only 87,000 words. But it feels as if it is light and fast and fun. I’ll know more on Sunday night when I start my read-through and polishing pass. The ms. is due to my esteemed editor by Wednesday morning.

Now to take forty-odd hours away from this manuscript and let my brain rest for a spell…

Three Books, No Waiting

Sometimes in the life of a freelance writer, all of one’s projects seem remote and abstract. Even if you are focused on the one you are currently drafting, you are half aware of the others lingering in various stages of completion.

At other times, everything collides.

For me, today is an example of the latter. Though I am in a mad scramble to finish my ms. for Star Trek Vanguard: Precipice by April 15 (having negotiated a deadline extension today with Madam Editor), I now must also review and return the copy edited ms. of The 4400: Promises Broken and the first-pass pages of my first original novel, The Calling, by March 25.

Write one novel while editing two others: this is the nature of the job. Oh, well — I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Back to work now. If I don’t return phone calls or e-mails in a timely fashion this month, now you know why….

Manuscript in da house!

I am pleased to report that as of today, I have completed my first draft of The 4400: Promises Broken.

The novel clocks in at roughly 75,000 words — lean and mean, considering the epic scope of the story I set out to tell within its pages. Set after the show’s cliffhanger final episode (and following up on the events of Greg Cox’s upcoming post-finale novel The 4400: Welcome to Promise City), Promises Broken is intended to serve as a sort of grand finale to the saga of The 4400.

The spell-check is done. The title page, dedication, and epigraph are in place. The acknowledgments and “about the author” pages are written and tacked on to the end. Now I think I’ll take a few hours off, get a shower, make dinner for my wife when she gets home, and have a beer to celebrate.

I’ll be spending the weekend reading through the manuscript and doing some very fast polishing. On Monday, the ms. goes to madam editor. Then I will take a couple of days to read my just-arrived copy of A Case of Conscience by James Blish.

On Wednesday, I will pick up the copy edited manuscript of The Calling and begin making my final revisions to that tale. My thanks to all of you reading this who have provided me feedback on the rough draft; to those of you who still haven’t done so, you have until Wednesday to get me your input. (You know who you are…)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my ice-cold Spaten awaits…