Thought-Drive

I didn't blog yesterday, and I don't feel bad about it. The every day thing just felt like a lot, and there didn't seem to be much of an increased readership, despite my updating the content every day. Nor am I really torn up over that, either. Did chapter 5 today, and that was interesting. Was sort of a full circle bit. The main character of the 8th book is an antagonist in the 1st, and what she was doing and why were left somewhat up to the reader to infer. I feel good that I get to tie up all these loose ends, although, writing it down and getting it so people can read it are two very, very different things. The way things are going, the last book of the series won't be out for another few years. Little sobering to consider that. I was reading another author's blog, and they were complaining about someone stealing an idea from their books.  I don't know any of the specifics, so I won't speak on it further, but it's a strange thing. Intellectual P...

Done and done. The synopsis, along with the RTF of my fantasy manuscript went into the aether today. I hope it returns with something more positive than rejection. It was weird, looking over it one last time. Up until I was double checking everything in the email itself, I had totally forgotten that a book was going along with the synopsis. It was like the only thing I had to send of note was those three paragraphs, every word scrutinized, every paragraph compared for content and character. After that, I felt bad because I felt that maybe I hadn't given the same consideration to the novel itself. I think that's why I sent it. Being neurotic wasn't going to help past a certain point. I worked, I worked hard, refined, edited, analyzed, all that. It couldn't be perfect, and just becaise it was good doesn't mean they wouldn't say no. I just needed to put my best foot forward, and trust that it was the right foot. So, the clock starts now. I figure I won't hea...

I won't say eureka, but after working somewhat extensively today on both the synopsis and the short story, I got both to places I can be happy with. This is the new first paragraph: The footsteps didn’t wake him. They unsettled the wooden planks that made up the dusty flooring, first ones farther away, then ones closer. The wood was aware of the people’s walking before their boots arrived, like they were walking behind their own shadows. When the door opened, they were behind their own shadows. Dark fingers reached across the room. He couldn’t wedge himself any farther into the corner of his cell. The light flashed between the figures’ shoulders. In the dream, Rupert screamed, but really, all he did was start awake. This is much, much closer to what I wanted. It still establishes the notion of the dream, yet it allows for a double interpretation of the reality the character wakes into. There are sights and sounds that say other, but he wakes up in a recognizable, terrestrial...

Day one of the weight loss program... for my short story submission. I sent it to two different readers. The first one liked it, but was shaky on the passages I feared would be wobbly. The second one also liked it, but had a lot of questions about what was going on, what it all meant. He pointed out something I could only discover by writing: 2,000 words is not a lot of words. I told him that I felt the prompt of the story had to be part of the whole process of reading the story. So much had to be left out, replaced with pointers to specific bits in the premise. I wasn't very happy with things. Good news is I did get it down to under the word maximum. That is, unless the title counts as part of the word count. If so, I still have some suctioning to do. Through it all, I still didn't figure out a better way to start it. What's worse, nothing has occurred to me since. Normally these things occur to me with rumination. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes days. I told myself...

Rupert's story was drafted and I'm not upset about it. It isn't due until the end of the month, so I think I'll actually try to do a good job and edit it at least half a dozen times, get some folks to look at it, etc. The biggest problem so far is that it is about 90 words too heavy. It doesn't matter how amazing and epic a piece one rights, if it doesn't conform to the rules of whatever competition, it loses.  In addition to hat, I have identified a first hurdle for the fine tuning. I give you the opening paragraph of the latest draft: " The footsteps didn’t wake him. They unsettled the wooden planks that made up the dusty flooring, first ones farther away, then ones closer. The wood was aware of the people’s walking before their boots arrived, like they were walking behind their own shadows. When the door opened, they were behind their own shadows. Dark fingers reached across the room. He couldn’t wedge himself any farther into the corner of his cell...

Another weekend done, which means I've got another week of staring at the three paragraphs of my synopsis ahead of me. Looking back, the weekend was good. I wrote another chapter this morning. I'm trying not to examine it too much, the healthy pace. I chalk it up to having thought about the novel for a while before sitting to put it down. Today's chapter was a little emotional. I feel a little embarrassed saying I got a bit choked up, though I can't say why. I do wonder if the feeling of the author is better transmitted through the words if the author is actually having feelings. Also managed to hang with friends and take in a show downtown. I enjoyed myself. I thought the actors were well utilized, and the subject matter of the movie, though grandiose, was given a good bit of dignity with a combination of attention to detail and well-paced story telling. I've seen most of his American work. Del Torro is the kind of guy I'd like to meet one day, shake the han...

Woke up at 2 am from a dream about a friend I haven't seen or thought of in years. My perplexity over the vision was more than a match for my sadness at how people move in and out of each others' lives. I went down parallel thought roads. In one, I thought about how in the dream we were back in school, and regressing, further and further, before high school, before middle. In the other, I wondered why our parents weren't friends like we were. It struck me that maybe people who may not like each other very much might tolerate one another so their children might be happier. I had a bit of a brainstorm as I was looking down my options, standing at that dream crossroads. I ended up outlining a whole series of young adult supernatural-themed books. Buffy Potter, and the Lightning Thief, or some such. I imagined a young man listening to his parents argue, about what he doesn't know. Then the divorce, and the move. To Nowhere. At least, that was the working name for the out...

I seem incapable of stringing two productive days together in a row. Looking to change that this weekend. I RSVP'd  "no" to the Sunday Write In for the writing group, but that doesn't mean I won't be writing. Actually, in addition to writing, it looks like I'll be taking in a show. Imagine that. Last thing I saw in theaters was... well, suffice to say it's been some time since I've been out.  I had another back and forth with the one reviewer of Silver Age. After he put his finger on what items threw him, I pointed out which deliberate items I put in to curb that confusion. His reply included the half-hearted digression " Okay, when you put it together like that, I can see it. Part of the problem is that the sections of the story dealing with any particular character tend to be widely separated... I like letting the reader fill in the blanks, myself, but I think you've just left the blanks too big and too far apart." The whole conversa...

I got back on the horse today and dove right into the synopsis for the fantasy novel submission. I'm thinking maybe the day off did me some good. What probably helped even more was showing someone else the synopsis. I presented it to a friend's wife. She had read up through the first few books of the Sword of Truth; she knows what fantasy is. "Here," I said, "have a look and tell me what you think." I didn't know what to expect. I was just hoping to be able to improve it. What I got back was a bit jarring. It actually challenged my notion that I have a firm grasp on the English language. "What does this mean?" she asked and "Did you mean to say this?" she questioned. It was refreshing to get a different perspective, and also a little terrifying. She maintained that everything made sense, but simply required a couple passes back through. I hung my head. I am 99% sure I'm not going to get more than one chance at this. So, I wip...

I got precious little done today. I did manage to get over my distrust of technology and make almost a dozen forum posts, one for each chapter in the Silver Age story. Not sure about the site's readership, but I guess I signed up for the possibility, so we'll see where that goes. I did do some more thinking on the 1861 abductee in the town of Diablo Canyon. Among the "heroes" possibilities, there was actually a Town Drunk mentioned. I thought about that, and wasn't sure if the character, we'll call him Rupert for now, if he's actually a drunk. Drinks, sure, not sure how else he would cope with the event of being abducted. I mean, people don't really have a lot of language to describe it now in 2013, and alcohol was used to cure everything from pain to strange lumps. So, that's one question: how does Rupert cope, with not being able to articulate his troubles, not being believed? I also had the thought of a nurse practitioner of sorts, but I th...

Finished the edits on Silver Age today, right on schedule. Hit a bit of a snag submitting it, but the plan is to iron that out this week as well. After that I moved forward on the submitting of the fantasy novel. It requires a "one to three paragraph synopsis" which I agonized over, and did not complete. I won't even say that I plan to finish it tomorrow either. I'm putting a lot of emphasis on it because those one to three paragraphs might be the difference between getting my novel read, and getting it thrown into the slush pile. The last editor that had it told me there were too many POV shifts, and too many characters that the POV could shift to. The first problem I worked on. The second problem... well, the story is about several different people. I didn't know what to say then, and I don't know what to say now. I shall now grumble about "some other authors." But I'm happy to say that nothing else is really on my plate. Aside from the week...

One weekend and two chapters. I also finished the edits on the first book of the fantasy trilogy. One of the goals for getting back into the writing was shopping that manuscript around. I had it on my mind ever since I found a book on the coffee table of a writer friend. I liked everything about the book, and thought to myself maybe I would stop trying to get in with Tor so fiercely. It's a huge publishing house, but it isn't the only one putting out books people are reading. That was almost two years ago, when I made that promise to myself. Next week I'm going to be making my first sojourn down that road. The website for submissions says they don't consider anything less than 95,000 words. When I started smoothing things out in the fantasy ms, unpacking convoluted sentences and giving crisper meaning to important details, it was hovering around 90. By the time I got to the end, it was up about 96. I was happy to have gotten over the mark, but I also felt really good...

So, I've been actively trying to publish my work for three years now. I guess I've done alright, though it feels like I've been at this for much longer. I've already missed my five-year college anniversary, for instance. Over the years, I've had a handful of people ask me about an audio plan, my poetry, my short stories, my novels in a way that people could listen to. I didn't so much lack interest in such a thing as much as I lacked control over such. When I tell people about my publications, I only mention the novels (whose audio rights I don't own), primarily because it seems like unless people can hold it in their hands, it's of less value to them. But out of nowhere I received an email about the very first thing that was ever put online in a publicized fashion. In 2010, I wrote a series of stories about super heroes in the 60s in a stylized Chicago I called Galena. I called it Silver Age. I liked the story, thought it was good, but I can admit th...

Today marks the first Saturday I've written in a while. Chapter 1 is drafted, and the outline for the next few is coming along. There have been some interesting developments, character wise. Three months ago, I had the broad idea for the last book, and as the weeks went along I chiseled more and more ideas out of that rough whole. And just today I had six or seven thoughts that made me go back all over everything again and take a good, hard look at things. I don't want to think that the ending will be good, or that things have become well in hand. I say that because I want to keep myself open to the better idea. I don't want to be settled until it's settled. So, before I started writing, the outline looked a certain way,and now that chapter 1 is drafted, I have to go back and fiddle with it. It reminds me of some terminology I learned at the last meetup. The two extremes seem to be "Pantsers" and "Outliners." The first group "writes by their ...

Yesterday, a guest blog I did for another writer I recently met went live. Here's the link . It was a little different because the woman was more involved with the process than others I've worked with. She through out some ideas, and the one that caught me was looking back on the series up to this point, and why I had written it all in the first place. It struck me in that I didn't think it was a story I would ever tell. I was glad for her idea. This is the same author who introduced me to the group that ought to be producing a review for one of my books pretty soon. That situation had some firsts, too. In my mind, it was a good plan. Get someone to review the first book. Get someone else to review the second book. Announce the publication of the fourth book. I think it was one of those situations where it felt like a whirlwind in my mind, but really it wasn't even a full lung of air. It turned out the reviewers called me, saying they liked the second book, but were ...

Got asked by a friend if Super Mario Bros. could ever be presented in a serious, literary fashion. He said he saw some show or movie that had attempted to do it differently, but not necessarily seriously. He mentioned Bowser as a gangster, and Luigi being hopped up on mushrooms. We joked back and forth for awhile, and later last night I lost some sleep over taking the concept seriously. I thought about Mario and his profession first, how plumbing can occur on scales. As is my wont, I decided to make his larger. Instead of a handyman level plumber, I thought instead of making him a civil engineer. And to keep plumbing key, I pushed forward the idea of the turning of the industrial age, the transition from outhouses to centralized plumbing. I thought about what kind of grand undertaking that would be, how epic, all the muck and sweat, the earth and cement. I thought of a kind of steampunk era New York, where an Italian-American industry man was working his way up from the bottom of ...

Got my first contact email today, brings to mind the scene in the space ship movie where the pilot takes the vessel out for its maiden voyage. All the planning, all the building, all the praying didn't make it as real as the sleek, irrepressible thing coasting out among the stars, the act of defying gravity. That is to say, that email was confirmation that this thing is happening. The book is coming, the fourth in the Where Shadows Lie series. But I want to post a review I got today for the first book. The second has few, and to my knowledge the third still has zero, but it would be improper to complain. At least someone is reading me. Maybe not loud, and maybe not clear, but it's better than static. It's not so hard to imagine a book written with precise and deliberate language. Happens all the time, right? You can find it in classic literature, even in the Magical Realism of writers such as Isabel Allende. Such authors have a way of setting up a world not only throug...

                She met him at a state fair, one her mama forbid her from going to. Something about how the sky looked over it, or how the wind felt around it, the ground beneath it. But forbidding Magdalena from doing anything was similar to buying her the ticket and driving her there. Her mother had a word for it, had words for a lot of things, but Maggie never bothered learning the language.                 “It’s fine,” her father had said. “She was born American, so let her speak it,” though, her pa might have wanted a reason not to put up with the little fetishes and dangling sigils. Maggie didn’t know why they had stayed together if they had such differences, but she wasn’t likely to care. At least, not on that day, the day of the fair.                 Luke was tall and put together ...

                The phone rang at 7:30, a half hour past full dark. He wished he hadn’t heard the noise of the slim device vibrating against his desk, but he knew who it was, not only who but where they were calling from.                 “Yeah?” he asked.                 “Oh thank god, I thought you weren’t gone pick up,”                 “What’s the problem, Doug?”                 “It’s tank four. Something’s off with the mixtures, it’s,”                 “The pink foam?”                 ...

No sketch today, though I did write. I wrote in at a write in, whatever that means. Local meet up I joined recently had a gathering at a coffee shop. Going in, I didn't know how it would work exactly, but then again, I also didn't know it would rain. So basically, I was enthused to get in and out still fully clothed. I sat on a couch in a corner, trying not to think too hard about my seating position and what it communicated, or how upwards to 16 people would cram themselves in a near enough vicinity to write in as a cohesive group. The place is an L-shaped building filled with an obstacle course of tables, chairs (both tall and short), and couches. As it turned out, less than the number that RSVP'd were there, and other people encouraged by our herd status joined up during the meeting. I finished a draft of the prologue for the last Where Shadows Lie book, wedged into the couch, pecking away at my laptop, distracted only occasionally by the odd smell that seemed to be...

                The man couldn’t remember who had proclaimed it, but he regretted confirming it with his own eye. War is hell. Even more, he regretted discovering that war is not the only hell there is.                 Working for the government, even as a teacher, he could see that change was coming. Still, he tried to keep his head down and work, for the children’s sake. They knew nothing of economic systems and cold war hangovers, political gerrymandering and social unrest. One day, perhaps, but not then. As if he alone could have stopped the fragile globes of their worlds from shattering.                 When the war broke out, others in his neighborhood came to him like they went to every other man. He was no soldier or tactician. He wasn’t even brave, but very soon he discovered his optio...

                Lil Ray knew people in the neighborhood stared, just like he knew his family was different. He just couldn’t say why. His first inkling came when he compared the outside of people’s apartments to their insides. Lil Ray’s place had the same cramped little porch, with the same cracked street beside it. Everyone used the same creaking stairs with the same rusted handrails. Inside though, their place was different from others, and eventually he thought people were the same as project tenements. Lil Ray’s dad had suits in all different colors, shoes made from serpents. His mom had a box just for her jewelry, and it was made from wood, strong perfume that came in beautiful bottles. When he would visit his friends, the insides of their apartments lacked those things. And he was never allowed to bring anyone over, not even to eat dinner.                 As ...

The editing is done. The fourth book is due out next month, and will complete what I have begun called Cycle I. The first book, Where Shadows Lie: Bay City , is followed by Hunting Grounds , Steeler's Mill , and Campaign Trails, respectively following the stories of Nickolas Hughes, Jarvis, and David Cruz. Readers who read the first, and liked the first, will all have their opportunity to follow their favorite character, or them all, deeper into the greater story and world. I feel a wee bit accomplished, and that's mostly not a lie. However I also think it's time to take a step back. These past few years in publishing found me making a lot of mistakes, most of which I will not enumerate here. Suffice to say, I might be farther along my way if I had tried to published less, and attempted to network more, or at least advertise my first publication more. I still spend time trying to get people to start the series, and I get questions from people about where the story begins...