40,000 Words and Counting

My second novel, For Honor We Stand is coming right along.  I just crossed the 40,000 word mark today, which is something between one third and one fifth of the way to the end.  As I have mentioned, this book is going to be a bit more ambitious than the first.  If we don't keep reaching for the stars, what's the fun, right?  I am in the middle right now of the second battle scene and this one is both big and complex.  I won't say much for fear of spoiling the fun, but I will tell you that the engagement is the Battle of Rashid V B and involves twenty-five Krag Dervish Class Destroyers, three squadrons of Rashidian SF-89 Qibli fighters, our heroes aboard the USS Cumberland, and a great big surprise. 

I've gotta say, this stuff is hard work, but I'm having a blast.  I am literally working 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week and it tires me out less than four or five eight hour days practicing law.  It wouldn't be so hard but for the kind of attention to detail I bring to this kind of thing.  I can't just say that there were a "bunch of Rashidian fighters."  I have to give them a model number.  I have to find a reasonable Arabic name for them (Qibli = the Arabic word for the Sirocco wind).  I can't just say that the fighters engaged the destroyers and the destroyers won, I have to explain what each group did, why, and how that tactic lead to victory for the winning side.  I can't just say, "Captain, sensors show that the target is a Vaaach ship," I have to explain which sensors, and how what they show leads to the conclusion that the ship is Vaaach rather than Pfelung or some other race. 

And, then, there are all the lame cliches and tropes and other Science Fiction pet peeves that I have stored up over the years that I have sworn a thousand times that I will never commit myself but that take a lot of thought and creativity to avoid.  Try it sometime yourself, and see what I mean.  Write a chapter that doesn't have a Mr. Spock who knows everything, who can look into his special blue light sensor thingy and tell you whatever it is you want to know about what's out there, and who can calculate the odds of a successful outcome down to the last decimal point.  I dare you. 

And then there's the issue of trying to concentrate on writing the new novel when there is so much interesting stuff going on with the old one.  It is so easy to stop work and just bopp on over to the Kindle Direct site and see how many copies have sold in the last ten or fifteen minutes, or to jump over to the Amazon site itself and see what the book's overall ranking is or where it stands on the three bestseller lists in which it is currently in the top 100, or--even more fun--look at where I (me, H. Paul Honsinger, personally) stands in the Amazon Kindle Top 100 Science Fiction Writers.  Me.  A top 100 Science Fiction Writer.  I can watch my little number go up to 71 and then drop to 85 and then go back up to 79 and then down to 91 and up to 78 and so on almost full time all day long.  Stop that.  Satan calls you to watch the numbers.  Retro me.  Or something like that.  Never actually took Latin, I just sort of collect words and phrases. 

As if that's not bad enough, there are the reviews.  If you don't know what I mean, go over to the Amazon site for the book and read them.  On the whole, they are amazingly, fantastically, mind-numbingly wonderful.  You've got to understand that when I sat down to start writing this stuff a few months ago, I had no idea that I might be a good novelist.  Now, I knew I was pretty good at argumentative, essay, and exposition type writing, but novels?  I had never even written a serious short story.  So, when the reviews started coming in saying that people really enjoyed the book, that it was one of the best things of its type they had read, etc., it took a lot of getting used to.  It was truly, truly an enormous surprise.  Even the "worst" review is a three star and says things like:  "Harvey Phillips and Paul Honsinger both understand _and_ deftly depict the real basis of shipborne combat effectiveness. They know what motivates men in combat. That alone pulls To Honor You Call Us: Man Of War (Volume 1) way out of normal for space operas, and makes it a Buy This Book, but they also understand human weakness and redemption. Their knowledge of people marks them as authors to watch."

If that's the worst, I think I can take criticism.