Thought-Drive

Writing today went much more favorably than last week. In this, the last book of the series, whether they die or not, I'm having to say goodbye to a lot of characters. And I wouldn't call them my children, because most of them are older than me, better or worse than me, and all of them different. But they did come from me, and I did my best to nurture them during our time together. Today's chapter was the series wrap for a character that I enjoyed, and I was enthused that I could send him off with something that felt like dignity. I'm taking that positive and am trying to build on it. I've had a lot of ideas lately about a possible series after this one, and I might actually start writing them down. I'm getting closer to arranging those ethnographies, as well. I need to outline some things before I start, and chisel out some time to brainstorm on ideas. The meetup has been strangely unhelpful for that, but then, I haven't really been helping myself, eithe...

The book's out . The chat went well. I even met another author whose story struck me as interesting. He channeled his own debilitating illness into his main character. It was interesting. Write what you know, they say. I figure if I release fifty or so books, at this rate, I'll have fifty or so business contacts, people I met here and there. We exchanged emails once a month, were seen in the same photo twice a lifetime. Well, I hope it snowballs. The results for that writing contest came back as well, and I got a tie for third. Doubt I'll win the breaker. There aren't a lot of authors on the site, but most of them seem to know each other from wherever they were recruited from. Which isn't necessarily bad, just bad for me. In their posts, I can hear the familiarity they have with one another. I can see their body language, and I realize now the difference between all the specific steps professional contests take to better insure objectivity and why they exist. I...

Thursday evening I was supposed to be "sitting in a chat room" (I just realized how weird that is. I would be in my apartment, but simultaneously in a chat...) talking to readers and others about my fourth release, Where Shadows Lie: Campaign Trails. I was not, but not because I missed it, or was conscientiously objecting. I was not because the chat didn't happen, because the release didn't happen. I post from the publisher's email to the authors: " It's not any one thing but a cascade of problems with multiple people this time that have backed up everything. I feel I owe it to you to do this release right." The CEO did not go onto to say what those problems were, or who those people were, or even how we could help, but I am happy to say there hasn't been a lot of public speculation on it, either. And I feel pretty sure it wasn't me. The edits were done for my book a month ago, and I have already made my peace with certain changes that w...

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...