Part six of my story Breach appeared in the mantic magazine Ironwatch this week, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Breach was a learning experiance for me. It's the first time I've written a series and had an enforced deadline to write to. Seeing the date looming closer and closer really ramps up the pressure to get the words down, but most of all it makes you realise when you're 'that'd good enough' level is.
I don't think the story is as good as it could have been. Partly because of that point I mentioned where I had to choose timeliness over quality, but also because I really, really, reallyreally, should have plotted it properly before.
Seriously, I had one chapter where my notes were 'Shit hits the fan, yo'. I'm not exactly sure what the 'yo' was for, but you get the drift.
Tighter plotting would have lead to a tighter story. The last two parts were nearly 12,000 words all up, and I think I could have gotten away with half of that had I known what I wanted to say.
But as I said, it was a learning experiance, and I've had a lot of nice things said about the story, and hey, i had a tonne of fun writing it. Let's see what happens next...
Michael