First off, I want to thank all of you guys who have been reading and leaving comments on “Reflexive Fire” so far. It means a lot to me and your input certainly does not fall of deaf ears. Your comments are invaluable to me as I try to produce as high quality work as I possibly can.
Today I posted Chapter 19 which leads directly into the books climatic conclusion. Like the rest of the book I hope the conclusion is something that even jaded readers have never seen before. This will be the final chapter that I will be posting on this blog, I want to hold the conclusion in reserve for the time being.
However, I will continue to update this blog with chapter revisions as I make them. Even after this book goes to print I intend to keep a half to a third of it on this blog to be read free of charge. In the mean time I will be writing the end of the book and making edits.
Please continue to check in though, I plan to put up more content on the blog, mostly discussions about military related issues but if anyone has suggestions I’m open minded.
Thanks again!
Reflexive Fire 
Cool. Good luck on your climax! I’m going to have to read the other chapters you posted here. Just stumbled on your blog today. I’m also a writer, I’m writing my first novel and hoping to be done by the end of the year. Good luck to you!
Thanks, it sounds like we are on the same track. I’m hoping to wrap this thing up by the end of the year as well. What is your novel about?
Congrats, Jack. You really banged it out in good time.
Thanks Henry, but I still have 30 or so pages to go. I want a epic battle to close out the story. Just out of curiosity, how long did it take you to finish the draft for “Hell and Gone”? Funny thing is that I set out to write a 300-350 page novel…now it looks like it will be more like 400 pages even after some edits.
Actually I banged out the first draft of Hell & Gone in record time (for me). I followed what I’ve heard other writers say is the best method: I took a week’s vacation, stocked up on groceries, locked the doors, unplugged the phones, forbid myself to watch TV or surf the internet unless it was for research/fact checking purposes, sat down at the keyboard and plowed. I think I got all but a few chapters down during that week. I could have got it all done but I have a bad habit of going back to edit/revise even before the first draft is finished. It was awesome. If I could do it that way every time, I would.
But considering you’ve got college courses and a girlfriend competing for your attention, I think you did a great job–even if you have 30 pages left to go. Kudos–I’m excited for you.
Oh yeah–I always wind up writing way more than I intended, too. Then I chop out probably 1/4th of it when I revise. Another of my inefficiencies. 😦
Holy crap Hank! I’m blown away by that. I can’t believe you pulled a Howard Hughs locking yourself in and boarding up the windows while you banged out a novel over seven days! That’s pretty mind blowing to me. I wrote a page or two a day taking a break here and there. I also had to pause to conduct research, of which I ended up doing a huge amount of despite thinking I was pretty read up on the subject matter.
I’m excited too. I’ll breath a big sigh of relief when the draft is done knowing that I’m no longer in danger of hitting a wall in the middle of my novel. Luckily, I never suffered from “writers block” while writing this book. I think making the revisions will be a little less overwhelming though.