It's my party and I'll cry if I want to/ It doesn't write itself

Do As You're Told (DAYT) finished 10 weeks ago but chapter one was posted a year ago to the day. With that anniversary/ birthday (it's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to...) in mind, I got to thinking:

From time to time I'm asked how writing on A Series of Embarrassing Events (ASoEE) is going so I thought this was a good opportunity to give some insight into how I write my stories. ASoEE is nowhere near done so this is how Do As You're Told progressed...

 

 

The idea for DAYT began to take shape in a written format around July 2016 and I started writing chapters 1-6 around October/ November the same year - while The Embarrassment of Riches (tEoR) was in progress. It was around December that I realised editing tEoR was going to be a fulltime project so I stopped writing DAYT.

Writing on DAYT resumed in April/ May 2017 and continued until the following March. When it was finished, there were 32 chapters and it was 285,500 words long. Four chapters were way too long so I split them, making 36 chapters (technically 39 since there were four chapter 20's).

Then editing started. Yes, I'm aware there are still a few spelling & grammar errors but as Dr McCoy would say, "Dammit, I'm a doctor, not an English teacher." Also, I'm not a doctor.

The first 16 chapters were edited by the time I started putting the story online. Editing really is a fulltime project too - on average adding 1700 words to each chapter. Chapters range from 7,000 - 12,500 so that's a lot of extra work.

Most of the edits up to chapter 36 were done a few months before they went online but minor tweaks to the latter chapters were still happening the same week it was going online. The very final product was 349,500 words long (an extra 64,000 words). The average book is 80k words so DAYT is four books worth of work. 

 

 

DAYT was a two and a half year project; it's a lot of work and it doesn't write itself. For this reason, I'm thrilled at the response I got. It's awesome that so many people emailed, sent messages on Tumblr and comment on Blogger.

So how is progress on ASoEE going? If I reveal that two thirds of the story is written, it tells you nothing because writing another 10 chapters could 6 months or 8 months. Plus, editing is such a huge pain in the hole and takes forever too. This is why I set a release date of next August/ September - regardless of when I'm done writing.
I like to request the Authoritarian and High School sections but Nifty reserves the right to put my stories wherever it likes (the moved DAYT from High School to Adult Youth). Who knows where ASoEE will end up?

 

I was also asked after tEoR and DAYT if I planned to write anymore stories with the main characters and the answer was no. Having created a single story character arc, I struggle to come up with an idea that wouldn't be a step back for the characters that I (and readers) love. ASoEE is the first time I've designed the beginning, middle and end to conclude with the possibility of a sequel.

That's exciting, eh? Coming in 2525, A Geriatric Incident of Dogging In the Night-time.

 

I was starting to think this entry is a bit dry and maybe I should include more anecdotes or humour (what, the joke sequel title didn't work for you?) so:

When is a door not a door? When it's a jar.

What's black and white and red all over? A newspaper/ a penguin after a shootout.

There, that'll do it.

Thanks for reading,

J.