Grey Wolf: Blog

Hi everyone! I wanted to update everyone on some things going on with the story behind the scenes.

First: I'm very grateful for the support everyone's given to me and to this story. I appreciate it! I enjoy hearing from everyone - even if it's a critical comment. I might not change the thing you don't like, but that doesn't mean I'm not curious about what you're seeing and what you think I might do better. Whether it's feedback, comments, kind words, critical suggestions, jokes, nitpicking, or whatever else, please drop me a line.

We'll hit the halfway point of Book 1 (both by chapters and by timeline) this weekend. I'd planned to post several 'bonus' chapters in late December and January (effectively speeding up the posting process); that hasn't happened. I wanted to let you know why that hasn't happened - there's a good reason - and what to expect in the near future.

Early last month, a new volunteer editor (Steve - amusing coincidence in names) and I started working together. He's had many great suggestions. You'll notice changes based on his suggestions starting around Chapter 24-26. I've reduced the number of passive-voice constructions, cleaned up some wordiness, reduced the number of adverbs, and so forth.

I (with much help from my editing team) have now completed updating the 'early' chapters (1-34, to various extents) and will repost them, most likely on Thursday, February 4th. If you've read them, don't worry - there's nothing in there that you need to go back and read. There might be a bit more depth in a few places, and the writing's cleaned up. If and when you reread, you'll see that things look almost the same and yet slightly different. There's no strong reason to go back and read over 100,000 words, but I want it to be in place for new readers.

All this updating, and the need to proofread it all, has meant that I've been editing just a few chapters ahead of where I'm posting, which makes it hard to post bonus chapters. Now that I'm building a solid base of edited, cleaned-up, proofread, ready-to-go chapters, you'll likely see some bonus posts.

Looking forward, I've completed updating all of Book 1; my editors and proofreaders are at various points cleaning things up and making suggestions (one has moved on to Book 2). Book 1 currently runs 90 chapters and just short of 330,000 words; the reduction in sentence-by-sentence wordiness has balanced with new scenes giving more background or different perspectives on characters (most of the new scenes are in chapters that I've already posted or haven't posted yet; again, you won't miss much if you don't reread the old ones, and nothing that's critical for character development or plot). It's still possible that the number of words, or even chapters, will vary from those numbers as we complete editing the last 20% or so of the book.

Book 1 was 'done' and is 'done'; if I had to post what I have today, I'd have something I could be proud of. I'm proud of what's already posted, but I'm also enjoying working on making something good even better.

This is why I'm currently declining requests to make Book 1 available on e.g. Bookapy, or Patreon, or whatever. I'm exploring the idea of offering pre-release 'good enough' copies to readers who are willing to read something that's not fully done and expecting some things may change. I can see that becoming an option before long. I understand the desire to have the entire book in hand before starting into reading it; I tend to not read serials myself, mostly (except for long-running open-ended serials, where I read what's out there, wait a few years, then read again).

For those who encourage me to keep writing: Book 2 is currently about 90% or so 'done'. Some of what's written needs a fair bit of work, but it's mostly there. I've been spending so much time on Book 1 that it's stalled, but there are almost 350,000 words of Book 2 written (yes, it's longer than Book 1). About half is first-draft level, half is second or third. I expect to start posting Book 2 immediately upon the conclusion of Book 1 (and, fingers crossed, Book 3 should follow immediately on the heels of Book 2).

I hope you found this interesting. If you've got a question that might be a good blog topic, let me know. Of course, I'll do my best to answer non-blog topic questions, too.

A bit over a month ago I blogged about there being bad things that will happen to good people, and updated the Foreword to make a stronger note of that. The foreword now says:


One important note: I'm telling the story of many people's lives, seen through the eyes of my main character. Bad things happen along the way, sometimes to good people. If they're outside the story codes, I'm not going to add extra warnings. That seems consistent with many other stories. I don't want to say 'X happens to someone at some point' and have everyone wondering to whom X happens and who the bad guy is who does X. I apologize if someone is upset by something that happens. I'm personally upset by some things that happen, but the story is richer for them, I think. There's lots of happiness and love, but all happiness and love all the time makes for a bland story.


The next chapter (40) is one of the reasons for emphasizing that. The chapter itself tells you there's ample reason for caution; nevertheless, I wanted to blog about it as well. I expect chapter 40 to upset people. I hope that, if it upsets you, it's for good reasons, not because I did a lousy job of storytelling (or story-coding, or whatever).

It also brings up a related issue: cliffhangers. I don't intend there to be significant cliffhangers between chapters; they're an artifact of the serialized posting process. Because chapter 40 ends with a cliffhanger, I'm posting chapter 41 tonight as well (bonus posting, not shifted from another day).

Bonus postings are another topic. I'd planned on more, but there's been a lot of editing going on behind the scenes that've delayed posting extra chapters. I'll write more about that in a blog that I expect to put out next week.

All the best! I appreciate all of my readers - thank you for reading and for your comments, thoughts, suggestions, and everything else. I'm glad you're enjoying this story, and I hope you continue to, even when bad things happen.

I made a slight update to Chapter 21 which posted this morning. If you read it this morning, you've seen that version.

The change is a safe-sex reference. That's entirely in character; later chapters will bear that out (and, obviously, it becomes an issue as what's happening moves towards full-on intercourse). It didn't make sense that Steve would mention responsibility in terms of laundry and sheets and being polite about scheduling and reputations but not encourage others to be responsible in terms of protection and safety. So, updated.

Text in [] was already there and included for context.

[I think she felt strongly about it. Everyone looked like they agreed.] I had one more point to make. "Everyone! Remember your 'birds and the bees' talk. Or that sex ed unit we got in Health in junior high. And if you haven't had 'the talk', or sex ed, or gotten the scoop from someone who has, talk to someone who has. One of the easiest ways to trigger the Spanish Inquisition is to slip up."

Angie smiled. "Remember, accidents cause people." There was scattered laughter, but also plenty of sober looks. Sober is good; rushing into things thoughtlessly is a recipe for disaster.

[Sarah suddenly blushed.]

Hopefully, no one dislikes this change :) 'Safe sex' is in the story codes for a reason!

It's a tradition in my family, and in my main character's family, that one present is opened on Christmas Eve. In celebration of that, I'm posting a bonus chapter tonight.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I've added a paragraph to the Foreword to Variation On A Theme, Book 1. It reads:

One important note: I'm telling the story of many people's lives, seen through the eyes of my main character. Bad things happen along the way, sometimes to good people. If they're outside the story codes, I'm not going to add extra warnings. That seems consistent with many other stories. I don't want to say 'X happens to someone at some point' and have everyone wondering to whom X happens and who the bad guy is who does X. I apologize if someone is upset by something that happens. I'm personally upset by some things that happen, but the story is richer for them, I think. There's lots of happiness and love, but all happiness and love all the time makes for a bland story.

I've considered the caution tag, but I don't really think it's appropriate. This is a slow, coming-of-age story filled with what I hope are relatively realistic people. Bad things will happen. How bad is partly in the eye of the beholder. If you have something that is a particular concern, you're more then welcome to ask me if X happens. I'll let you know (and ask you to not share that).

Please don't ask me "what happens that's bad"; I can't answer that. I don't know what someone's particular sensitivities might be and I might miss one.

There's nothing here that's designed to creep people out or upset them, hence my deciding against the 'caution' tag. They're much more in the category of 'life happens', and 'sometimes bad things happen to good people'.

If something happens that is covered by a code, it will be mentioned. Period. I'm not using this to cover a surprise incident for which there's a code.

If you have comments, please let me know. I don't want to cause someone distress by taking the story to a place they're not comfortable going.

One last comment: 'this' (bad things happening) isn't 'imminent'. There are specific things I'm thinking of; don't expect them in the next week or two. I just want to let people know well in advance that not everything will be happiness.