cleverbot | Michelle Proulx

As you may know, I’ve been working on the sequel to Imminent Danger for a while now. I believe I started it back in … 2010? Possibly earlier. Anyway, it’s been quite the laborious process. I’ve never written a sequel before, so there was a lot of stumbling and self-doubt and re-writing (the current version is almost indistinguishable from the original draft) and … yeah. You get the picture!

Anyway, I’m pleased to announce that things are finally taking shape with the sequel. I’ve settled on how I want events to happen, I figured out Varrin’s motivation (he had one before, but it was kind of a stupid motivation, so that’s changed), and I flexed my mediocre organizational muscles and did up a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of what the heck is going on in the story. I even made a timeline!

Guys, I’m so psyched right now. You know that point where everything just starts to come together, and you kind of sit back and go: “Wow. This feels amazing. And I can’t believe it took so freaking long to get to this point.” And then you ask yourself if all the hours of writing and re-writing and agonizing and plotting and arguing with your brother who absolutely refuses to entertain the possibility that maybe characters don’t have to make logical decisions all the time were worth it. The answer is yes — yes, it was worth it!

There’s still a heckuva long way to go before Chasing Nonconformity is ready for publication (obviously!). Part of my plan calls for new scenes, which need to be written. And then other scenes have been completely flipped around to be from a different character’s POV, or the same events happen but in a different location, etc. It’s going to be an epic re-write, that’s for sure. But now I have my lovely, color-coded chapter breakdown to guide me, so I’m confident it will turn out more or less the way I envisioned it.

So for anyone wondering how work on Chasing Nonconformity is progressing — there’s your update! I’m going to be working on it a lot over Christmas (hopefully I’ll finish the re-write!), and after that the basic process will be:

Run the draft past my mother
Wait two months for her to actually read it
Get it back — cringe at the red-coated pages — revise
Run the draft past my brother
Wait three days for him to read it and return it with a brilliant and in-depth analysis something along the lines of: “It’s fine”
Correct the inevitable logical errors he points out
Run the draft past my alpha readers (“alpha” makes them sound like a wolf pack — Arooooo!)
Make corrections
Run the draft past my beta readers (I might ask some of you awesome WordPress peeps for help with that, so stay tuned!)
Make corrections
Run the draft past my mother
Go through the entire book with her page by pain-staking page, tightening up my inevitably sloppy writing and probably chopping off about 10k from the final word count
Run the book past a copy-editor
PUBLISH!!!!!!!!

Realistically I see this book being published no sooner than Fall 2014. Cease your tears, my friends! The novel-writing process is not for the weak-hearted. We must stand together or we will surely perish!

Right. Thanks for reading! Remember to enter my Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It!

Unrelated media

Note: Cleverbot’s responses are in blue.