Milestones!

Red Spring hit two milestones this morning. It passed the 1,000 reads mark and entered the top 20 of the Wattpdad sci-fi charts! Yay! #19 is cool!

...and in other news, I managed to work out how to convert the text into .mobi format for Kindle... It was cool to flip through some of my own pages on my phone...

Chapter Thirteen

I posted chapter thirteen on Wattpad today - one more to go...

Chapter Twelve

I posted the first draft of chapter twelve last night. It was actually a fairly difficult chapter to work on since I now need to get into a different rhythm as the book draws to a close. Having had the luxury to take it slowly and develop characters it's a real change of pace to be working on action again...

I've got some ideas in my head for how to blend the two style a bit in chapter thirteen, and I may come back to chapter twelve (will come back to chapter twelve) with some major editing, since I can see its weaknesses...

Can't say much more than that on the blog - spoilers...

I'm pretty sure there are just two more chapters to go now - plus a prologue. The big remaining question for me is how chapter fourteen will end. I know what needs to happen but the closing paragraph will be crucial...

New Cover

I reworked the cover for the book yesterday, using a photograph of a rose from my back garden and a stock shot of Mars with Valles Marinaris and Tharsis in full view. I produced it in high def and made sure it would fit with the Lulu template... Here it is:

Chapter Eleven

I began to work on chapter eleven at the weekend. This is the last of the chapters that will focus on one individual and cover roughly the same time with overlapping event. In a sense, this is the moment when the book moves forward towards the conclusion. I've enjoyed writing it so far, since it's been nice to spend some time in Alpha Base/City. It's been such a crucial element of the story but none of the narration has taken place there. I'm going to do some more today... My aim is to get the chapter up on Wattpad some time this week, keeping me to my chapter a week plan...

A format for Lulu

I've been researching the best format to use when the book is printed on Lulu. I've used Lulu before for other projects and I think it's a great system. This will be my first novel using their service though, so I wanted to do some thinking about how I can make the most of what they can provide.

Having looked through the options for paper type and size, I have come to the conclusion that the 'digest' form is going to be the best one to go for. This will enable me to produce something close to a 'pocket book' size but also keep the price down. As far as I can see, it would cost almost double for me to go for the smaller size which seems daft, although I'm sure there are some sensible economics behind this...

I've therefore shifted my files into the new template. This won't affect the draft as it appears on Wattpad, but I will be able to see what I'm working towards...

Of course, once I'm there, it won't be too difficult to produce a hardback (which will look nice on my shelf even if no-one else buys it) and I could make a 'pocket book' version available too, although it will probably cost two or three pounds more, so I don't think it will be a viable product. Never mind, this is all part of the fun of self-publishing...

Chapter Ten

I did finish chapter ten. As expected it came in nearly two thousand words short of the intended length. I think it worked in terms of action and did what was needed for the overall plot. I still think it needs something else though, so I will come back to it when it come to editing.

The gap, I think, is somewhere in the relationship between Eloise and Hillier - or possibly between Hillier and his past... these are quite important issues since they may help with the emotional build-up of the chapter. It may be easier to work this in when I look at the book as a whole though, so I'm not overly worried. It's just something I will need to look at again...