January 13, 2015

CORNERS is now THE BADLINGS!!! Or, fit the title to the book.

It started out innocently enough. I wanted to write a book that would take me on a wild romp of stories I grew up with. "What could be wrong with that?" I thought. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing could go wrong." Somewhere in the back of my mind a little inimical worm sourly whispered words of caution. I ignored him. Smart, very smart. Two drafts into the book by the curious name of CORNERS (the plot revolved around 4 kids turning corners of pages and dropping in and out of 30 books) I have lost my old editor to a year off-work and landed a new editor who immediately made her first significant investment in my glorious writerly future. "Have you checked the copyright?" she asked. I was struck with a hot iron right in my face.

"I haven't," I thought with horror.

December 20, 2014

The 2nd draft of CORNERS is done!

by Ksenia Anske

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all my readers who encouraged me, to all my beta readers who sent me feedback on the 1st draft, my friends and family who left me alone to write it. Without you this wouldn't have happened. The 1st draft took me only 2 weeks to write, this one took 1 month. I have done something different this time. I didn't take weekends off, plowing right through them, and it sped up the process.

November 26, 2014

CORNERS excerpt, Draft 2

by Ksenia Anske

And...I have started. On Draft 2. I took a 1.5 month break between drafts this time, a bit too long. Maybe it's a good thing? We shall see. So far I'm having so much fun writing this, I find myself feeling guilty sometimes. I think this book will be glorious. I'm laughing almost on every page, writing it. I hope you will laugh too. Here is the excerpt for you, THE WHOLE FIRST CHAPTER.

CORNERS

A novel by Ksenia Anske, Draft 2

Chapter 1. The First Corner

It was a dangerous business, turning corners, especially corners with numbers. In exactly twelve minutes Bells would find a paper corner sticking out of the dirt by the old duck pond. In another minute she’d see number sixty-eight printed on it, lift it and get sucked into a book, together with her unsuspecting friends Peacock, Grand, and Rusty. The only things left behind them would be their four bikes, a gum wrapper, and a couple backpacks.

October 8, 2014

CORNERS excerpt, Draft 1

by Ksenia Anske

Time is just flying like crazy, no? I took a 2 month break from book-writing and did ghostwriting, and now I'm back to book-writing, and I have started writing like mad. Seriously. At a pace of 6K words a day. I hope I can keep this up, because now I'm on a schedule. Have to finish 1st draft by November 5th, before going to OryCon, and have to finish the book before March 2015, before going on my Amtrak train adventure. Yes, they have finally reached out to me and I'm asking to be put on the train in March or after. More on that as it gets close to Spring 2015.

Now. As is my custom. I am going. To post here. An excerpt, the very opening, in fact, of the 1st draft of CORNERS, for you to tell me what you think. Here we go.

CORNERS

A novel by Ksenia Anske, Draft 1

Chapter 1. Number 348

The world had corners. All kinds of corners. Dark creepy corners, dusty corners, corners full of spider webs—not that Bells was afraid of spiders, she wasn’t, but we’ll come back to that later. What was it again? Ah, corners. We were talking about corners. Secret forgotten corners (ohh, are you scared yet?). Hidden corners. Corners to be discovered, like pages of a book that hasn’t been read. Hasn’t even been written. Waiting to opened and fallen inside. If you knew where to look, of course. Bells knew. And didn’t. She didn’t know she knew, she was about to find out.
     “Piss it!” She yelled at Peacock.
     “What?”
     “Watch where you’re going!”
     “Gee. Bossy today.” Peacock steered his bike out of the way.
     Bells furiously pedaled past, head high, dark pony tail whipping in the wind.