Bodacious & Sundry #21: Bodacious Creed and Alpha Readers

Bodacious

For once, my novel, Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western, is the main focus of a blog post and in the Bodacious section!

This will be a short post, but I have some exciting things to share.

I’m a bit over half-way through the second draft of Bodacious Creed, and a few days ago, I realized something. I was ready for my alpha readers to go over the book and give me their comments on the story, characters, pacing, and timeline. So, I uploaded the first half of the book to Google Docs and shared it with my four current readers.

Even though I’m not quite done with the second draft, I knew this was the right move. It's meant to motivate me to get the rest done, and it’s succeeding.

Like many writers, I confess that I struggle with procrastination. For me, it doesn’t really come from Facebook or Twitter. I do check those frequently, but I’m able to answer a couple questions, send a few tweets, and then get back to my writing.

What really slows me down is video games. Damn you, Blizzard! I stopped playing World of Warcraft only to get sucked into Hearthstone about a year later. So, I’ve made a promise to myself: No more video games until I finish this draft. Then I can play for a while before getting back to writing and editing and again, no video games. Seriously, that damned addictive game has taken up too much of my writing time. I owe readers an apology for that. Sorry, readers!

Today, I’ve done my work for my forty-hour-a-week day job, and I just finished editing another chapter of the novel, and have added it to the Google Docs file. This blog post is just a short break before I get to the next chapter.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I wrote the last 60,000 words of Bodacious Creed during NaNoWriMo. (Well, 50,000 during NaNo, and the remaining 10,000 within the next week.) I’m now deep in the NaNo material!

So, what do my first readers think? They love the story so far and are eager to keep reading, and that gives me the encouragement to keep editing, even just a little at a time. This must be what it feels like to have fans clamoring for a sequel. I also plan to improve the prose and more quite a bit before I publish the book.

Oh yeah! If you’re looking forward to the book’s release, I’m glad… and you can read a prequel story to Bodacious Creed just by subscribing to my mailing list, The Mostly Steampunk Newsletter. The Obstructed Engine introduces a few of the book’s main characters and technology, and gives some clues for the novel.

Sundry

I’ve received two new cosplay patterns from McCall’s called Belle Noir and Belle Rouge. These dress patterns are gorgeous. I’m going to cover them shortly though in the next Bodacious and Sundry, but meanwhile, check out the Cosplay by McCall’s site.

I also heard back from Steam Powered Giraffe’s own Walter Worker Chelsea! I wrote the band a week or so ago requesting interviews. Alas, she let me know that they’re too busy to grant interviews right now. I’m not surprised, as they’ve posted on Facebook and elsewhere about the many shows they’ve done since Wild West Steam Fest. They know it’s an open invitation, though, so hopefully at some point we’ll get those interviews.

When it comes to music, I like a lot of acts. Since I’m a trained musician, I like creative music with good musicianship and lyrics. In general, I’ll have three to five favorite bands at any given time whom I all like about the same. However, after seeing SPG at WWSF and listening to their music over the last couple weeks, they’ve become my very favorite band. I mean, they have so much of what I like: great music, great showmanship, acting, improvisational acting, and a cohesive act as three robots from 1890.

Finally, I plan to do a new Mostly Steampunk Podcast soon, possibly tonight or tomorrow! Click the link and subscribe!

Of course, the novel comes first, so I’ll do the podcast after I get through a few more chapters.

Thoughts? Comments? Post below.