More words...

Two days and three thousand words or so more on the Neverwoods novel. 

So what distracts your humble wannabe writer? I mean, besides working for a living.

Well, recently I had an extreme bout of video game addiction as I played through Mass Effect. Its an amazing game, like playing through a great season of Star Trek, with a bit of Rainbow Six for the action.

Lots of excuses, not a lot of words.

But here is the new goal: Finish the Neverwoods in September. Read some science fiction in October and spend November writing a scifi book for NaNoWriMo. That makes 2009 the year of the edits! It sucks to miss my original goals for the year, but it's time to just move on and keep writing.

More to come.

More words! A break for progress.

My major preoccupation these days is my novel Demons of the Neverwoods. Tonight I managed to hammer out another 900 words or so, which is a major achievement for me, lately. It's very rough, what I call zero draft, material, but I am determined to hit the 100k mark with this one. Then begins the major Odyssey of editing, but that's a ways off.

So anyway, I'm just glad to get a bit more of the story written.

No Genius: An Update

Okay, so it didn't take a genius to see where Nocturnal was headed. Did I ask for a prize or something? No. Now that things are coming together, I am going to refrain from further potential spoilers and let Sigler work his magic.

I'm a bit behind on my blogging, with a few Escape Pod episodes and a short story or two to go over. Reading-wise, I am knee deep in Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth and really enjoying it. I carry Steven Erikson's Gardens of the Moon around with me, but I am stalled about a third into it.

The best news is that I made some progress on Demons of the Neverwoods last night. I've been kind of stalled over Laeleh's section, but I had a breakthrough with part of the plot and then the words came tumbling out, about 1800 of them. I feel much better about her section now and that means the book as a whole will work better. I don't want to get too far ahead with any of the characters, and I think I may wait to finish the Gilthani characters until Jaek and Laeleh are done. We'll see. More writing tonight.

Goblin Jumper Cables

Tonight I start writing again. Between battling depression and preparing for the con, I have not written a word on Demons of the Neverwoods in a couple of weeks. Bad writer! Bad! Listening to Scott Sigler today really got me pumped up. Damn, that guy has so much energy. Can't wait to meet him on his book tour. By that time I darn well better have novel #3 done, at least the rough draft.

It helps that I am running a Neverwoods campaign right now, so there is even more incentive to get into the world and immerse myself in their strange culture. No excuses tonight. The bills are paid, the chores are done, I'm recovered from the Con. Yup, its back in the saddle again.

Gittee-up!

Sold! To Flashing Swords

Well, since the contract came, I guess it's time to announce that I've made a sale. "Blood, like Roots" the Neverwoods story of Raana the hunter sold to Flashing Swords e-zine and will appear in the November edition.

Woohoo!

They have a great crew there and the community of swords and sorcery writers that hang out in the forums are wonderful to chat with and learn from. I will be posting reading summaries of some FS issues in the future. Good stuff!

40,144

40,144

That's my word count on Demons of the Neverwoods as of a few minutes ago. I almost stopped at 39k, but I still hadn't gotten to some of the core images I wanted to hit. Tonight I wrote about Kirya's Trial of Thorns, where she has to climb down and prove herself to the heartmind of an ancient thorn tree. I am not sure all this stuff will be interesting to a reader, but it sure is cool to finally document the ritual and the experience that I have had in my mind for over a decade.

W00t!

Back in the Writing Chair

Woohoo!

Gotta celebrate the small victories, right? Well after more than a week of struggling with the same damn demons I am out of the slump and writing again. Tonight I passed the 1/3 mark.

Once I get writing, it's pretty easy. Starting is the hard part. Every time I face the page again, I feel like somehow the words are going to fail me, but they do not. That is a good thing and I should show my gratitude by writing every chance I get.

There is some reading to catch up with tomorrow. For right now, I am just glad to be writing again.

2008 Writing Goals

Last night I added another 1000 words to my novel Demons of the Neverwoods. It felt great to get back into it and revisit the characters. Working on the story about Raana over December helped keep the Neverwoods in my mind. That story will hopefully make it into Flashing Swords some time this year.

By my birthday at the end of March, I want to have the rough draft of the novel done. I am shooting for 100k on that one. Then I plan to spend the summer revising and expanding my two nanonovels to reach at least 80k on those. I would love to hit November '08 with three completed, revised novels, but I will be happy if I can get one into good enough shape to share with others.

The only short story I have in mind is a swords and sorcery were-story that arose as a kind of challenge on the SF Reader forums.

As far as reading, I have a long list of things to check out, from history on the middle ages and the black plague, to further dark fantasy novels, including Tim Lebbon and Steven Erikson. The fourth Temeraire book is a high priority. I am also looking forward to the print release of Infected by Scott Sigler and meeting up with him and some other fans during his book tour.

Dundracon is in February, so I will need to spend some time prepping for that. I would love to make Dragon Con in Atlanta this year and finally meet some of my podcasting heroes, but its an expensive trip to take as just a fan. However, if I can get one or two novels edited by then, I would feel better about lobbying the wife for the trip to Atlanta.

That's it for now. Here's to a creative new year!

Escape Pod 134 and Other Notes

EP134: Me and My Shadow by Mike Resnick

I really enjoy Mike Resnick's stories and novels. Santiago is one of my SF faves. This story was quite interesting. He has a very quirky, natural voice with the first person and it included what I think of as a Resnick trademark, a conversation with a computer. His novel The Dark Lady had many such information searches. I think the computer here must be an early model of the Snark 3000. =) About half way through I got really into the story and forgot it was Resnick. That's a good thing. THere were a couple of things that nagged at me, though. First, he dropped his wallet but never picked it up. Wouldn't the cops come looking for a guy who's wallet is found next to a brutalized mugger? Second, the idea that he could call the doctor from his home and not worry about being traced seems a little quaint. This felt more like an idea story and though the character reacts and changes, I did not care a whole lot about him. Still a fun listening experience.

Secondly.... the new agenda. I wasn't supposed to have an agenda for December, but Lo and Behold, I still feel like working on fiction. Cauldron of Shadows is still haunting me and I think I will edit it soon. First I want to finish THE SCAR by China Mieville. I am also working through two writing books, ON WRITING HORROR by the Horror Writers of America and SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS by Renni Browne and Dave King. I'm taking notes, not just reading them for fun. Still I am mostly taking it easy, playing WoW and relaxing.

Bottom Line: I am NOT just going to let these buggers (my novels) sit and collect dust. If they suck, they will be un-sucked, if they get rejected I will keep trying until they find a home.

Fantasy and Horror

I stepped out of lurking on the SFReader and nanowrimo blogs to ask around about fantasy stories with strong horror elements. So far these are the results of my inquiries.

The main person who gets mentioned most is Michael Moorcock. I will admit that I had a hard time with the Elric stories when I was younger because basically I was too immature to understand the point of Tragedy. I did enjoy the Corum books. I think that is the right name. It's the one with the necromantic hand and eye. As a teenager I wanted everything to have a happy ending. Now that I am much older, the happy ending is still good, but I realize there is much more to life than happy endings, and sometimes Tragedy is Truth.

So, I need to check out Elric again.

Other authors mentioned:
China Mieville - I picked up The Scar and I'm enjoying it already. Need more.
Steven Erikson - I bought Gardens of the Moon and I am looking forward to it. Bauchelain and Korbal Broach books were also mentioned, about some Necromancers.
Tim Lebbon's novels Dusk and Dawn sound like they are exactly what I am looking for, but I have to order them.
Tanith Lee and her books on Paradys?
James Barclay' Raven novels
David Gemmel, of course
Christopher Golden
R. Scott Bakker
Heroes Die, by Matthew Woodring Stover
THE NIGHT LAND by William Hope Hodgson

Someday that list will include Cauldron of Shadows by Bryan Lee Hitchcock!

The End Game

Yesterday was Sunday and the last day of the Thanksgiving break. I wrote 4k on Friday and 5k yesterday to reach 40,000 words. There were some moments last week when I wondered if I had what it takes to finish, but now that the end is near I am excited to finish. I need to write 2250 words each day this week in order to finish by Friday and celebrate with a night of WoW. No problemo.

Things are really coming together now. I pretty much know the fates of all the characters and it is just a matter of telling the rest of the story as outlined.

So far, I have learned the following things in this Nanowrimo:

Heroes who are just decent, stand up, neighborly folks... are boring to write about. It wasn't until I started to flesh out the villains and give them things to do that the writing really took off and I felt like i finally had a novel's worth of ideas.

My rough drafts tend to be mostly narrative. This is something I will have to work on. For Nanowrimo, I suppose it is okay, because I can't really market a 50k novel anyway. What I have is a narrative framework and in the rewrite, I will have to take certain parts and make actual scenes instead of just explaining what happens. I think I will shoot for 80k on the rewrite, unless I get some brilliant idea to take it to 100k. Something to watch out for when it comes time to write on the Neverwoods again.

Also, I find myself consciously padding the language, using the most wordy possible phrases in order to meet the writing deadline. I hope more practice will help curb this. Next year, I will have a better idea of how many phases or scenes I need to flesh out 50k words. This year it was just over 60. I should look at 2006's nanonovel outline to see how many I ended up with. If I can start November with a solid outline at about the right length, then maybe at 10%, I may have enough subject matter that I don't have to pad everything so much.

Perhaps next year I will give myself a gnarlier goal and go for 80k. I hope to learn a lot in the year of editing coming up, so we'll see.

Six-thousand words

Yesterday, I had a great writing day. There was little to do outside of preparing meals for my family and some minor chores so I got in three writing sessions, broken up by the aforementioned meals and some trips to the battlegrounds of WoW.

I was running behind, but by 9pm I had written 6000 words and put myself back on track to finish. Right now I need to write 2200 words a day, not counting two days off for WoW nights with my family. Not bad. If I have another day like yesterday during the coming Turkey Day weekend, I may even finish early.

The biggest issue right now, is that I really don't have any idea how to make the ending exciting. There were going to be some murders, but I like my angsty couple too much to get them killed. I know who all the players are and now it is pretty much down to the final battle, rescuing the unicorn and the village children. Who will live and who will die?

Time for a bloodbath.

Reading and Writing Update

I ran a D&D game based on the characters and setting for my nano novel this last weekend. It was a blast, though it ended up running slightly too long. But it gave me some good ideas for things to have the characters do in the novel.

The writing is a bit behind right now. I guess you could say I am in the week 2 blues, but its really more about my own state of mind than any problem coming up with ideas or anything.

Also, I started listening to another podcast novel, Michael A Stackpole's Fortress Draconis. It is quite enjoyable.

I get the feeling that Seventh Son is almost done. New episode today that just rocked, though I am always sad when one of the clones dies. Let's hope it was just a cliff-hanger.

Now.... where did I leave my muse?

Ironhand's Daughter by David Gemmell

So, my friend Charles has been suggesting David Gemmell to me for years now. I am a very fickle reader. I love books, but I have to be in just the right frame of mind to start a novel and I rarely leave one unfinished. It's strange that I want to write fantasy novels, but I am reluctant to read many of them.

Anyway, I finally picked up Ironhand's Daughter. This one intrigued me because I like female heroes and I wanted to see how an accomplished writer handled such a story. This book KICKED MY ASS! It was so good. It took me two chapters to get into it, but then I could hardly stand to put it down. Far from the big fat fantasy books where every detail is described, Gemmell hits all the important parts and leaves the fluff on the editing room floor, so to speak. I laughed, I cried, I cheered. Ironhand's Daughter had lots of things I love in a fantasy novel and left me wishing for more. Fortunately there is a sequel and Mr. Gemmell wrote dozens of other books before he passed away last year, including novels about Troy and Alexander the Great. Those are going on my Yule gift list this year.

If my Neverwoods novel comes out a tenth as good as this book, I will be a very happy writer.

Works in Progress

Looking at my work in progress bars on the right always makes me feel like a quitter, but they are not entirely accurate.

On the Black Wings of Night is a completed novel set in a post environmental apocalypse town in northern California. I wrote it for Nanowrimo last year and I want to add another plot and make it 80k, a more marketable length.

Demons of the Neverwoods really IS an unfinished novel. I have the complete outline and I plan to work on it in the first quarter of next year to finish the rough draft.

Couldron of Shadows is my current nanowrimo novel and it is coming along nicely. Hit 10k last night. The only problem is that I am about half way through the story, so I need to take a bit more time describing things, I think.

So, that's the deal. Update complete.

NaNoWriMo!

WTF is NaNoWriMo you ask?

Well, I'll tell ya. That's short for National Novel Writing Month. I won last year and I am excited to try again.

This year's novel is called Couldron of Shadows. It is a fantasy/horror story about a group of war scarred veterans returning home in a rustic Italian fantasy setting. Unfortunately their lovely home has acquired some...pests.

yahoo! yippeee kaiay

The Game Plan

This is just a statement of goals and purpose for this blog and my reading/writing agenda.

The biggest thing looming is National Novel Writing Month in November. I have a plan for an as yet untitled fantasy/horror novel, so I am going with that.

I want to continue reading, with a focus on fantasy. The Thomas Covenant books are a high priority. It is way past time, and it seems like they are going to be essential reading if I want the Neverwoods novel to be all it can be. That means posts here may be more infrequent, as my reading slows a bit. However, I plan to blog my writing progress for nanowrimo, so we'll see.

December is dedicated to playing games with Mechelle, reading and hopefully a music project with my buddy Sean.

After the holidays, I want to finish Demons of the Neverwoods by my birthday in March. Then I would like to spend several months editing the three novels I will have completed by then and get them ready for an agent hunt before nanowrimo 08. I figure 2 months each to edit, at least for a decent draft I can let others read.

Sounds like a plan.

Catching Up

Okay, I want to follow up on the old posts and document how some of those projects and readings have gone.

First off, my story Cold Snap did sell, but then Pitch-Black Books folded. Luckily the project was picked up by Carnifex Press. The artwork is done. Major revisions are done and I am just praying that Armand at Carnifex will still publish the story. He was extremely critical and unsympathetic to the character.

The revision process was very illuminating. Most of the edits were very good and I realized that I had started the story in the wrong place, since so much of it was a flashback. So I restructured the whole thing. It still feels a bit choppy, like a middle draft again, but at some point you just have to shrug and send it. A deadline is a deadline.

I have not returned to On the Black Wings of Night yet. The redline is still sitting there. I know I want to expand it to 80k words and at least submit it to Leisure books. That is my October project. Of course, August is almost over and The Zombie King story is not edited....

Demons of the Neverwoods, my long dreamt of fantasy novel is languishing at 30k. I plan to resume work on it in the new year with the goal of 100k by my birthday in March.

Here is the writing plan for the foreseeable future:
August - finish The Zombie King and Mr. Cook
September - edit my star-crossed horror novel On the Black Wings of Night
October - continue editing and prepare for Nanowrimo. My anniversary is on Halloween =)
November - National Novel Writing Month. This will be my second year. I have no idea what the new novel will be but, I am looking forward to it.
December - pretty much do what I want, including finishing the Hobbit game on the PS2, lots of WoW and good holiday cheer.
2008 - the year of the Neverwoods.

Reading Challenge

Okay, so no posts in a while, but I have been writing and reading... a lot.

I have this challenge for myself, to read or listen to a short story every day. I try to do this even if I am also enjoying a novel, but if 45 minutes or a chapter is all I can do, I count that as a victory.

Today I read the story Red Card by SL Gilbow from the February F&SF. Just a little behind... It was an interesting read, though I wish there was just a bit more background about why the Red Card program was started and what the purpose was, really. But the story was well written with little details that forshadowed later details. Love that stuff.

Yesterday's story was The Sundial Brigade on Escape Pod (www.escapepod.org). That was an excellent story with a very anti-authoritarian theme. Not a happy story, but an interesting one nonetheless. I seem to like things with Italian settings and language, maybe I should learn Italian. Every week, Escape Pod provides an audio version of a short story and I almost always enjoy them, especially when they are challenging to the status quo, though I fear sometimes that Steve will drive away listeners. It keeps me coming back, though.

Anyway, I want to keep this blog up to date now and make an entry for the stories I read. My current subscriptions are F&SF, Realms of Fantasy and Baen's Universe.

ciao

Good News and Bad News

Well, as they say, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that I have written 20,001 words of my fantasy novel Demons of the Neverwoods. Not quite my 1k per day goal, but I am satisfied for now. Also, I've written at least a chapter for each of the main characters. It was like starting the book four times in a way. The goal is to create a fantasy thriller which introduces some seemingly untrelated characters and brings them together in a storm of conflict and danger.

And the bad news. Pich-Black Books has folded. They were to publish my first pro sale, the super hero story Cold Snap, in their anthology Lords of Justice. But alas, it is not to be. Now to figure out what to do with a kick ass super hero story that's 17k words long.... They wanted novelettes for the anthology. No one else really does.

Thems the breaks. =(

Peace.