Writing Update
Spring is slowly pulling in into Minnesota and all of our snow has melted (for good? for now? who can say.) Meanwhile, I’ve been working on a prequel to That Murder Feeling. It’s not meant to be a full length novel, more “cookie-sized.” When I sat down to outline it, I wasn’t sure where it might end up length-wise but the word count just crossed from novelette territory into novella (17,500 words or above). So novella it is, a bit more than cookie-sized. It’ll be about 90 pages when it’s finished.
Even with an outline, I tend to do a lot of revision and editing. What I used to do — to give myself some distance from the manuscript and enable me to look at it with fresh eyes — is to tweak the font between revisions. Times New Roman to Palatino to Garamond, that kind of thing. It never worked as well as the universally recommended approach, letting the manuscript sit for a month or longer without looking at it or even thinking about the story. But I’m not a fast writer and adding big pauses between drafts is SLOW.
So with the novella, I’ve been trying this new thing where I change the background color in Microsoft Word’s Immersive Reader between drafts. I like the Immersive mode because you can choose column width and set it to be more like a published book. There’s also an option to change text spacing and have Word read the words back to you. And then there’s the page color.
The new approach, turns out, works well.
For one thing, having a specific, named color gives more of a sense of progress. Done with the Yellow Draft, next up: Green. And so on.
There’s also more of a delineation between drafts, encouraging forward progress. No sneaking back to polish previous chapters. Leave that for Blue.
And it’s just plain fun to choose the colors.
I’m limiting myself to four passes, which might be a lot for some authors, but not so much for me. I like to polish and tweak and move stuff around and debate whether Option A or Option B works better for a character or story line… So it’s good to have a framework. The planned sequence is: Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, where the read-through gets faster and faster each time.
After that I’ll draw a line under the manuscript. Done. Whoosh. Off it goes to my editor. When it comes back, I’ll make any changes and then there’ll be a final read either on paper or my Kindle.
The prequel story take place about a year before the events in That Murder Feeling. No title yet… Stay tuned for more!
The novella will be part of the Soul Garden Mysteries. Just a reminder, as a subscriber to my author newsletter, you have access to bonus content for the series! Click through to the hidden page on my website.
What I’m Reading
If you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you’ll know that what I write hovers on the border between SFF and the mystery genre, sometimes falling more one side or the other. The same can be said of the books that I read (with a few other genres thrown in.) The last couple of newsletters I’ve had mysteries to recommend. This month, it’s two science fiction novels.
Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle. This one has been on my to-be-read list for a while. Based on the cover, I was anticipating a sci-fi thriller but it’s more of a combo of a thriller and an intricate murder mystery, with plenty of twists and time-travel surprises.
The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei. An adventurous, imaginative space quest with plenty of likable and interesting characters. I’m about a third into the book and enjoying it very much.
Let me know if there are any novels you’ve enjoyed lately and want to recommend! (Leave a comment on Substack or reply to the newsletter email.)
Books, Lots of Books
March seems to be kind of a bookish month, in that there are spring sales and promotions everywhere you look. Here are a couple that include some of my books.
The first one—the graphic says it all—is geared toward time travel books.
The second is for cozy reads of all kinds — mystery, fantasy, romance. The link takes you to Kobo Plus but all of the books are available on other retailers too.
Hope you’re having a good March! Thanks for reading,
Neve
Neve Maslakovic 