A Tale of Four Drafts

And now, ladies and gents, I give you SEER: A Tale of Four Drafts

The Four Drafts, from bottom to top, in all their glory.

Initial Idea: December 23rd, 2009

Outlining: 10 days (January 7th—17th 2010)

First Draft: 7 weeks (January 18th—March 7th 2010)

Word Count: 70,018

Revision Outline: 3ish weeks (March 25th—April 18th 2010)

Second Draft: 6 months and 3 weeks (April 19th—November 8th 2010)

Word Count: 81,937

Third Draft: 4ish months (January—April 2013)

Word Count: 88,819

Fourth Draft: 2 months (March—April 2014)

Word Count: 70,242


So. Four years, four drafts. The word count rise and fall is really interesting to me—I ended up about where I started, adding and deleting completely different words along the way.

(For anybody wondering about the long gap between November 2010 and January 2013, I was busy working on other projects, querying, and falling in love and getting married. :-D)

How to Survive an Arizona Summer

(a not-really-all-that-sarcastic-blog-post-by-Joanna)

1. Stay inside as much as is humanly possible. Draw the blinds. Keep the lights off, turn the fans on. DON'T LEAVE YOUR HOUSE.
2. Drink lots of water, and bring water with you any time you have to leave your house.
3. Park your car away from the direction of the sun.
4. Go shopping before noon.
5. Bring a cooler with ice packs to keep your perishable food from… perishing… en route from the grocery store to your house.
6. Bring a sweater when going to restaurants/movie theaters. Somehow business establishments can afford enough air conditioning to mimic arctic temperatures.
7. Stick your head in the freezer, shut your eyes, and dream of Alaska.
8. Remind yourself that November is coming. Eventually.
9. Try not to envision the grisly and most-definitely-pre-meditated murder of the next out-of-state person who tells you glibly "It's a dry heat."
10. Try not to weep at your power bill.
11. Head north to Prescott/Flagstaff for the weekend. Or every weekend.
12. Eat ice cream. You deserve it.

Ultraviolet & Sorrow's Knot

Happy April to all and sundry! Also, how is it April already? Pretty sure that joke's on all of us…

Whilst waiting for feedback on my revisions, I read two phenomenal books last week: Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson, and Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow.

Ultraviolet is sneaky—it starts out as one kind of book and ends up as another and was an amazing ride. Interesting and colorful and unusual.

Sorrow's Knot ripped my heart out and trod on it a bit—definitely read that one with a box (or two!) of kleenex. Lyrical and eerie and gut-wrenching.

Both books are HIGHLY recommended!