Boo Boo enjoying a day of leisure

Howdy crew!

I’m still kicking and more importantly still writing.  No big news from the publishing side of things yet, but I continue to put pen to paper.  The day gig creeps in quite a bit these days, but that’s my problem, eh?

In addition to working on fiction, I recently launched a new blog, dedicated to my love for senior dogs. Boo Boo, my border collie/flat-coated retriever, passed earlier this year somewhere north of 13 years old.  It was rough, because we had come quite a ways together. He has been found as a stray and there were a lot of indications that he was abused in his former life based upon his mental state when I got him, but happily we worked through a lot of the bumps together.

Fast friends

A month after I laid him to rest I got Rusty. Rusty’s a troublemaker.  Rusty doesn’t get along well with other dogs.  He’s aggressive.  It wasn’t untrue.  He had some issues, but I saw something.  It was that same nervousness that Boo Boo had, but Rusty wasn’t going to take crap from anyone.  Several weeks of socialization and lots of training later, and… well, he’s not quite the model citizen, but he not only gets along with almost every dog he meets, but even those that are more excitable calm down after they get a chance to know each other.

Trust me folks, I’m no Dog Whisperer, but I took this opportunity to launch SeniorPooch.com as part public service announcement about all of the good that comes from owning a senior dog, part homage to Boo Boo, and part photo diary of my new adventures with Rusty.  So far the reception is blowing me away.  If dogs are your thing, whether or not you’ve had an old one, you might be interested in adopting a new dog, but are unsure of how old is too old, or just want a peek into another of my passions, come check it out.  So far, I’m having a lot of fun with it.

The short of it is that I’ve been reading, writing, reviewing, editing, revising, rinsing, and repeating.

Reading: Plenty of short stories by a variety of horror writers.  Much of it has been good, or at very least to my liking.  The best comes from early work by Ramsey Campbell.  If you like Lovecraft, but wish it was a bit more contemporary or accessible, check out Campbell.

Writing: I’ve been focusing on my short game to the extreme.  I’m shopping around a flash fiction piece that I just finished and have a few other ideas with potential that I’m considering moving on next.

Reviewing: As part of the Mighty Pandora’s Box Online Writing Group, I’ve been reviewing plenty of quality fantasy, horros, and sci-fi.

Revising/Rewriting: Once the last round of rejects came back at the end of 2010, I decided I was going to read everything that hasn’t been accepted with a critical mind.  The results are that I’ve sliced and diced more of my previously “untouchable” lines than I thought possible.

I’ll have more to say soon, but for now, it’s back to work.

Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, Analog, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly are just a handful of titles that I find myself going back to time and again for entertainment and inspiration.  All are interesting and have their own voice.

Correction.  I received another rejection.

As a writer, if you’re out there trying to get your work recognized, rejection is one of the things that you need to get used to.  There have been times when it’s been easier for me to give this advice than to follow it myself.  No matter how much you think you are ready for the rejection, it still stings a bit, especially when it comes in a form letter.

I’ve received a handful of these, so I was ready for this one.*  I’m not satisfied that I wasn’t able to find the right market/write well enough to get into this market/etc. but there are plenty of other fish in the sea, and I have no doubt that this isn’t as much of a setback, as an opportunity to become a better fisherman.

With that in mind searched my records for top markets that I thought that the story would work best in and sent it back out within 24 hours.

Next up – Rewrite another story doesn’t quite fit into any of the markets I’ve read so far.

Note: * – This is in no way reconciliation that I’ve figured it all out.  If you should see me at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in San Diego, beating my head into my laptop please be nice.

Check it out here: http://hauntedcomputer.blogspot.com/2010/07/readers-as-slush-pile-slaves.html

I’m very much in agreement with him.  I don’t see an issue with all of the new work being put out there.  I give a writer a couple of pages to reel me in.  Usually it’s a couple of pages if I’m in a book store, or whatever sample they’ve provided via Kindle.  That’s my purchase decision.  If I’m still digging what I’m reading after 75-100 pages, I’m going all the way.  If not, its gone.

Thanks for sticking around crew.  Even though I haven’t been here a lot in the last week I’ve been busy.

I looked at my goals and what I’ve been working on and realized that I needed to dig down deep and get some done.  The “stuff” in this case was getting published.

When I strip away all of the BS, it comes down to a couple of basic steps:

1. Come up with a killer idea – Sound difficult?  No really, ideas are all around us all the time.  When I come up with something that I think is unique, I jot it down so that I can work on it later.   Sort of… It turns out that one of the big challenges that I’ve been fomenting is starting on all my ideas, but not really finishing any.  Sure, the next big thing is always exciting, but does it really count if you never get it out of the gate?  Not so much, in my opinion.
2. Develop it – I didn’t say test it out verbally on others and I don’t me sit around and think about it.  Development means different things to different people.  For me, it means I need to get to writing.  If I’m working on a short story it means laying it all down as quickly as possible.  For longer works, it means outline and character development.
3. Fact checking – If I had a nickel for every one that I’ve talked to that said they just needed to do some research before jumping into a piece, well, I’d have a pocketful of nickels.  If you’re a writer, you should be reading, both within your market, as well as those non-fiction topics that are related.  I haven’t caught myself getting bogged down with extraneous research in a while, as I’ve been more concerned with character work.  Your mileage may vary.
4. Revise – If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I have a love-hate relationship with editing.  Right now I’ve come to accept  that I need to do it, so I should just shut my pie hole and get to it.  How many drafts do I take on average?  As many as it takes.  No more, no less.  Right now I’m averaging about four revisions per short story, but it’s been as low as tow and as high as there are stars in the sky.  The only thing that I know here is the more I write, the less time that it seems I’m editing (unless you count rewrites, then this stage is still an awful lot of my time.)
5. Put it out there – There is something that I forgot to mention back in Step 1.  That killer idea of yours?  It should be tied to a particular market that you’re looking to break into.  If you didn’t start with this end in mind, start reading markets that you want to get into and see if your work fits there.  For novels, search on Amazon.com for recent work that they’ve published.  Short stories and poetry are easier, as they usually post samples on line.

So am I eating my own dog food?
You could say that.  I’ve been reading like a fiend, revamping my stable of short stories, and marketing them where I think they fit best.

In the last month I’ve got four stories submitted and several more that I’m working on editing (One at a time… really.)

I’ll let you know how it goes.

photo credit: edenpictures

My tool of choice for tracking my progress is Duotrope’s Digest, a genre market tracking website.  At first I just used the site to get feedback on short story market response times.  The difference between Duotrope and similar sites is that they give users the ability to see their submissions up along side the market trends.

Before Duotrope, I used spreadsheets and slagged together information from a variety of websites and put it in a spreadsheet.  I had slightly more flexibility in creating my own reports in that format, but I’m not looking to be a market research for a living.  Do I need the information.  sure.  Did I need to play Sherlock Holmes?  Not so much.

Another tool that I used with similar results to the spreadsheet was Spacejock Software’s Sonar, which is a fine tool with a much better interface than Excel, and a number of useful built-in reports.

There are those who would rather not have their submission information online.  It’s a valid point, but as there is not a lot of risk of the information that they story being detrimental.  That’s just my opinion.

The point to this whole thing?  There are many different solutions out there to track your submissions and if you’re looking to make a living at it, you should get organized.

Duotrope's Digest

Yeah, that's me starting down evil cultists

It’s been about a month since I had DragonAge up on the big screen, but I’m happy to report that I’ve completed it some 100+ hours over the course of two months.  I’m a swords & sorcery wonk, but this was easily the most engaging computer game that I’ve played in forever.  As a writer, the plots, subplots, and dialog were impressive.

The replayability is HUGE, given that so much of the game focuses on your own origin story.

Happily the spam software that I’m using protects me from seeing 99% of the spam postings, and even those that I do see are just to review.

photo credit:theimpulsivebuy

Art is a noble endeavor and those that undertake it should be commended in their desire to advance the aesthetic.  I don’t claim that I get everything that is tagged as “art”, but I appreciate the dialog that it starts.

What gets stuck in my craw is “artists” who claim that their being stifled by some external force.  They cry, “Insert your favorite publisher here don’t understand me.  If they were really innovators like they say they are, they publish my stuff.”

Ummm… no.  I’ve been a product guy for more than a few years and the markets don’t owe you jack no matter how good/avant guard/unique/special you think you are.  They (the markets… focus artists, this isn’t always about you and your art) have their own stakeholders that they need to satisfy.

If you’re looking to share your work, you can either put it out there yourself (create a website, do your own marketing, etc.) OR figure out what the people signing the checks are looking for.  No one owes you a living.

The latter is accomplished by doing your market research and getting your read on.  I’ve been doing this by loading up kindle with this month’s  offerings from magazines that I like to read and wouldn’t mind getting published in one day.  While it doesn’t guarantee me acceptance, it does give me a fighting chance to share my writing and moving one step closer to treating writing a paying gig.  After a couple of weeks of research (in between writing) there are at least three markets that I have a good feel for the themes and tone that they’re looking for, which goes above and beyond anything that you’ll find in their submission guidelines.

JA Konrath deserves a big shout out  for inspiring this post.  If you’re a writer or a reader interested in how the publishing business works, go check out his blog at:  http://jakonrath.blogspot.com

photo credit: Daquella manera

We’ve always been supportive and have been there when one person or another has raised their hands for help, but those times were few and far between.  We also had moments when most of us chose not to get that critical extra set of eyes on our work before sending our work out to the cold hard world.

Individual goal setting always seems to work, at least for a short amount of time, so why not on a larger scale, right?  Right indeed.  The results are nothing short of remarkable.

What did we do?
We set a deadline.  One chapter or short story by the twentieth of the month.  Reviews to follow: within two weeks of the date if possible.  Advanced notice of any deviation from the plan.

The results
Entering into our fourth month now with a monthly deadline I’m happy to report that all of us have taken our writing and critiquing to new levels.  Just a couple of observations include:

• Establishment of a standard critique format – This was largely provided by one of our members.  Not everyone uses every part of the standard every time, but it always makes an appearance in some form.
• Critiquing that is more varied by member – You would think that with a standardized format, that we would have similar critiques, but not by a long shot.  It appears that the format is having the opposite effect.
• Regular, high quality contributions – This was the goal, but we’ve really taken it to the next level.  In some cases the submissions are a little more raw than we’ve done in the past, however everyone has been good about calling out the level of their own editing that they’ve done and if they don’t want one type of critiquing or another on their work.

Ultimately, the result has been  better storytelling across the board that is that much closer to to getting published.  I’m loving it.  My latest critique on Chapter 1 of a novel that I worked on earlier this year is already getting me thinking about refining some of the main characters’ journeys.

What tips or tricks has your writing group used to take things to the next level?

photo credit: Mario Carvajal

Chillin' with the Dalish

I don’t know about anyone else, but some of the biggest time sinks that does me in time and again are computer games.  DragonAge is my latest poison.

DragonAge is a cross between Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic, both made by DragonAge’s developers at Bioware.

Set in a pseudo-medieval setting, you get to chose several races, classes, and character backgrounds which provide high replay value, although after having clocked at least 30 hours, I can’t imagine how the writers of the game took to write such an elaborate story.  Some of it is derivative of Lord of the Rings, but by and large it’s impressive about how personal the story feels so far.  There have been a number of times when my character’s personal story has been enhanced by some impressive cut scene action from both the main plot and the many subplots.  Color me blown away.

Stay tuned…

Ig takes a Hero’s Journey to discover who he is and ultimately who killed his girlfriend.  The characters are rich and as textured as they come.  Give it a go, if for nothing else, but the shear entertainment value.

It’s a brilliant idea, whose time has come.  Barnes and Noble’s gets it.  Whose next?

Check it out here.

photo credit: cdsessums

I came across Robert’s site a few months back when he held a contest on Hint  Fiction, which was for an anthology that he was putting together (and soon available from Amazon.com).  My initial impression was, “How the heck can you have an interesting story in as few as 25 words?”   I had to rethink that comment after looking at some of the interesting examples that I found.

Hint fiction is a flavor of Flash Fiction that focuses on the allusion to a larger story, rather than the traditional three act structure.  Google Robert and Hint Fiction for some cool examples.

Love great sci-fi?  Surf on over to his Free Speculative Fiction Online page for a taste.

Twice.

It wasn’t an easy decision, but they had to go, there was just no living with them any longer.

Sure, they were only two lines written for a short story, but they were my favorites.  Previous to this editing pass, I thought that they “made” the character who they were attributed, but alas, when all was said and done they were just a little garish and didn’t say anything that I hadn’t already showed.

The good news is that I understand that they’ll be very happy and are now frolicking on a farm with a description that I held onto for a year that I wrote for a different story.

OK, almost two years.

photo credit: Anonymous Account

Script Frenzy is a contest in the same vein as its sister contest National Novel Writing Month, but requires that the participants complete a 100 page script during the month of April.

The site has plenty of tips on writing and formatting screenplays on its resources page. Give it a try. What have you got to lose? (except a few extra hours in front of the TV.)

When it comes to the living dead, my two biggest inspirations are The original Night of the Living Dead and 28 Days.  In case there was any doubt, I’m a slow-moving zombie guy.  None of this zombies running down the street nonsense for me. 

photo credit: leepus

Short stories, novels, poems, and screenplays (some of which have been published or made into movies) are been part of the mix.

I’m particularly blown away by those folks, who, after reading some of my posts have gone out and created something new, despite never having written a lick in their lives up to this point.  Since my passion for writing has been something that has come to me later in life, I’m speechless that just a few words may have made a difference.

Is writing something that you’ve always been interested in?

What’s stopping you from taking that next step and putting pencil to paper (or fingers to keyboard)?

photo credit: JaeYong, BAE

Like everything else that I’ve ever read from her, my first reaction is that she still has the old magic.

The easiest comparison of her story, “Under Fog”, would be “The Lottery”, although her portrayal of residents of the village is sympathetic throughout despite the gruesome acts that pervade the entire story.

Have any other of you read really good new short horror?

photo credit: Eric-P

Not everyone has the ability to say no to activities that take them away from their passion, but I’m more aware of those time wasters now more than ever with the crazy state of economics today.  I don’t have the luxury to waste my time, even during my “down time.”

So, if you’re interested in writing, the next time you’re watching that reality show, fixing that old barbeque that you’re never going to use anyway, or playing that farming game on your computer, think about whether you want to be known as someone who is best known for those silly things or for being able to entertain and educate people with your words.

Some of this reading that I do is research for pieces that I’m writing.  Not too long ago I was reading “Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking” by Eugene “Spider” Robinson to get some thoughts on alternative takes on fighting.  It’s a fun read and my short review that I posted on LinkedIn drew some attention from several of my friends over there.

Did I say LinkedIn?  Yep.  Sure did.  The same LinkedIn that is typically used for connecting professional people to others.  What I hadn’t thought about was that there were people in my current profession (aka “the day gig”)

The good news is that none of the ass-kickery that I was reading about adversely affected my primary means of making money, but it certainly opened my eyes.

It’s not a “how-to” book on writing and it’s certainly doesn’t fall cleanly into business or self-help categories (although the latter is where I tracked it down at a bookstore.)  For me this was an important book.

Unfortunately, it appears that he’s made some decisions based upon his publisher not picking up sequels of his work, combined with his current efforts in promotion not working as well as expected.

My opinion is that he’s a great writer whose example has helped encourage more young writers to get out there and give writing a try than he’ll probably ever realize.

Check out the original post here: An update on the 7th Son sequels, 2010, and my creative plans

I’m just focusing on a couple of passes right now, but breaking it down seems to help.  The first pass is a lightspeed pass over the story to pick up pacing issues.  After that, I punch up descriptions of people, places, and things.  Once the first two passes are out of the way a couple of tweaks to emotions, dialog, and grammar, and with any luck another story in the can.

I must say that the progress that I’m seeing is excellent and includes folks stretching beyond what I’ve seen them do before, as well as producing some of the more vividly constructed prose that I’ve read anywhere.

Thinking about it in this way lets me get beyond the idea that describing the setting is strictly visual in nature.   Setting extends to all senses and beyond.

Do you grok?

For the record they’ve always been a fantasic group of folks who have backed each other’s writing endeavors.  The critique portion is just the icing on the cake.

If you’re a writer who is overwhelmed with that writing project that is about to finish you need to check out one of her latest posts found at: http://freelancewriter4hire.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/how-do-i-deal-with-the-overwhelming-feeling-of-finishing-a-book/

There are a ton of posts on writing out there that regurgitate the same old lessons for writers, but this is not one of those.  It points out how to identify what those feelings of overwhelm are telling you and how to deal with them.  If this sounds like you, take a run on over to check it out.

Wait a minute.  Take a step back.  Take a deep breath.  OK, I’m ready to reset.  Like a lot of people, I have a million reasons why I’m not getting the writing throughput that I need.  Each one of these is legitimate.  As I’m writing this I’m delaying running back to the vet to get a prescription (nothing that can’t wait an hour… I’m not a monster) and putting in a solid six hour work day on a Sunday.

The opportunity starts with the recognition is that important things are going to come up all the time, but if I want to be a professional writer there is a certain level of commitment that I need to provide.  I do it for my day gig, and therefore need to extend that out to my writing.

I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions (more on that in a later post), but this year has been a disaster to my word count.  The words are trickling in when they should be gushing forth. 

Here’s what I’m going to do:

• Set some goals – I’ve already done this and I’m working on these now.  If I’m going to make the commitment to be more successful in this aspect of my career, I should know what success looks like.
• Be aware of how I’m spending time – If the TV goes on or not doing anything productive, I need to trigger the thought that I have the opportunity to get at my writing.  You might ask:  ‘What if you don’t know what to write?’  Well in those cases, I don’t worry about it.  If I did, that would be what we call Writer’s Block. 
• Get organized - Schedule the time, get my butt in a seat, and go for it.  Simple.  Effective.  1,000 words before work.  300 words at lunch.  Dedicated time in the evenings and weekends.  It adds up. 

Time to get serious.

What I like best about it as a (relatively) new writer is how Eric (the blog’s author and publishing insider), demystifies the life of a book once the author finishes writing.  My favorite series of posts was on how publishers figure out the Profit & Loss statement for a book.  It might be the most technical post, but it really provides some good insight on the economics of publishing.

Another winning series of posts covers genre sales which was a real eye opener, as I never really considered how different genre markets are faring in this tough economy.

Whether you’re just looking to get your feet wet in publishing or need an overview of the current state of the market, you can’t go wrong by checking out Pimp My Novel.

One of the few trade mags that I would pick up on a regular basis back a few years ago is back with its second issue under new management and I’m happy to say that it hasn’t lost a step. 

There are plenty of fantasy magazines out there that have smattering of fantasy with a healthy dose of sci-fi, but ROF is bringing the magic back to the genre in a big way.  Covering everything from contemporary to swords and sorcery and everything in between, I’m thoroughly enjoying the current issue which is available online via PDF. 

In particular, Euan Harvey’s “The Demon of Hochgarten” blew me away with a vividly painted alternative take on the sword and sorcery genre.  The story’s protagonist, Sir Stefan Von Stawy of the Order of the Bloody Spear, is no Lancelot, that’s for sure, but I’ll leave the surprises for those of you interested in reading this entertaining tale.

The issue also includes the usual well written reviews of movies, books, and games.

Check it out.  You won’t be sorry.

The trouble is that B&N’s message is not carrying above the noise that is generated by folks looking to make a story out of a slipped deadline during the holiday shopping season.  What compounds the situation, in my opinion, is how loud they were trumpeting the nook as the usurper to the crown held by Amazon.com’s Kindle.  The nook promises to be everything the Kindle is not: extensible, include a dynamic touchscreen interface, and color.  Wrap that up with some of the more important features of the Kindle (wireless delivery and ease of purchasing books from arguably one of the world’s largest booksellers) and you’ve got a winner.  Heck, I own a Kindle, love it, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t dying to get my hands on a nook.

The tragedy is not that B&N is missing their first deadline with the product: I’m not surprised given that they’re using a manufacturer that they’ve never partnered with for something this innovative and complex.  It’s also not the way that they are backordered:  That’s expected in a competitive market, where the current leader has blazed a path that is all too easy to follow given some of the deficiencies that they have. 

The tragedy (and Amazon.com’s gain) is that they have this perfect storm of changing expectations that they’re throwing at customers and are not making sure that reviewers are getting the correct messages.  The impression that I got several months ago when I first heard about the nook indicated that they’d be available for Christmas, then there were back orders, now they’ve missing their initial run. 

It’s a costly lesson to learn, but B&N is going to have a long winter while they figure out how to make back the investment for the initial run of the devices.

Captain Canine

Writers can spend a lifetime looking for their muse.  That inspiration, which makes them want to get up and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.  I’m lucky in that I’ve never had that problem.  My biggest issue is being focused.  I can sit and crank out short stories all day and all night, the challenge: being able to string together enough consecutive hours for it to make a difference.

Two years ago, that’s exactly where I was.  I had plenty of great* ideas, but I was all over the place.  It was one particular story that I was working on that helped me round the bend.  It was a horror story about a faithful canine companion, his family, and a horde of zombies.  The research was pretty light considering that I had always been a dog owner.  Around the same time I started talking with folks about my writing “hobby.”

A wise friend of mine pointed out that although they felt my passion for writing, that there was something else there that I was missing: having a dog.  She was right of course and after some symbolic resistance, I went hunting.

It had to be a special dog.  One like no other.   Smart.  Energetic.  Lots of mileage left to go.  It also had to be a rescue dog.  The last point was an important one for me, given the number of dogs abandoned every year.  I found the dog, went to an event where he was showing and met him.  His foster parents couldn’t have been nicer and the dog was ideal.  He sat their letting his foster mom’s  2 year old pulling on his ears and trying to ride him like a horse, all the while smiling through it all.

That would have made for a great ending… if it really ended there.  Unfortunately, the dog in question had a lot of energy, and while it seemed like a good idea at first, it would not have been fair to take him in, given how much I work.  I needed a dog that was more “broken in” and had “less needs.”  Fair enough.

That’s when he showed up: Fifty pounds of the sorriest dog that you’ll ever meet.  He would only look at you if he was sure that he couldn’t be caught doing it.  Would only take a treat long enough to put it on the ground.  And didn’t want to be there.

“That’s the dog for you,” proclaimed the volunteer.

He was easily the oldest dog there.  ”He’s five, maybe six,” she told me.  ”Give him a walk, go ahead.”

He wasn’t five or six, that was for sure, but he was obedient, and he had been in the shelter for several months.  Whatever reason I had for not taking this dog in went out the window when I heard that.  Several months in the pound and who knows how many on the road.  Not a lick of interest in him and no one to come claim him.  My mind was made up.  It doesn’t matter if you run away from home or just get lost, everyone deserves to have someone looking for them.

I took him in that day.  I’m not sure when he took me in.

It certainly was not on Day 1 when he tried to scale the iron fence on my porch.  I don’t think it was after the three month mark when he started getting comfortable about being in the same room with me enough to sleep.

Sometime in the middle of it, slowly, but surely, we worked it out.  At least most of it.  We both like chasing rabbits in the park and watching the Simpsons.  Sure there are compromises.  He prefers blondes, whereas, I’m less discriminating  (I’ll give him that, he is the true master of the double-take. )

Through it all, I know that when we get in, he knows where I’m most likely to be writing that day and takes up a comfortable position just out of reach to watch, or on those days when the world has taken a bit more than I could give he’ll come over and get in my face and give me that silly grin of his that he found again to let me know what really matters.

* Yes, I thought they were “great” at the time.  Some still have promise after the first couple of drafts.

This year’s NaNoWriMo is a bigger challenge than it was last year.  Less prep work, more things going on in my life, yada yada yada, you know the usual excuses that we all make and bundle together in what is better known as “Writers Block”.  We all get that there’s no such thing, right? 

Happily I was able to wrestle it to the ground and have chosen not to let the distractions get to me, or at worst, they only get to me in that moment.  Once the distractions are gone, they’re gone.  No need to allow them to continue to eat me up afterwards.

So now I’m back on the attack and I’m on my way to another win, although I know it’s not going to be easy with another 20K words to go and a week left.  That means just less than 3,000 words a day for the next 7 days.  

The good news is that the story is progressing nicely and the characters are doing all sorts of things that I have not planned.  The secondary characters are doing their damndest to steal the main character’s thunder in a big way.  I feel that the tide is once again beginning to turn.

Stay tuned…

I’m in the throws of NaNoWriMo, but wanted to drop by and introduce two new features that I recently implemented here.

The first is a polling feature. This particular option is a WordPress plug-in that I’ve been testing called WP-Polls. It’s simple and gets the job done.

The second feature is a store powered by Amazon.com. It includes those things that inspire me across different media. I plan to change it every so often.

That’s all for now. I’m working on a post on something that inspires me, so expect to see that later in the week.

Cheerio!

When in doubt, there is only thing that you need to remember.  Come closer.  No closer.  This is important.  I’ll break it down in case it’s too much for you.

1. You are a writer. 
2. Writers write.

That’s it. 

Now go put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, or record your story into one of those ultra-hip voice recognition systems that will take your tale of unrequited hillbilly love and turn it into beatnik poetry. 

Do not settle on just one form of expression.  Use everything at your disposal: Descriptions, dialog, showing, telling, and character exposition.  This is your shot.  Being a one trick pony with the latest poetic tempo that you’ve “discovered” isn’t going to do it.  You are going to need every last weapon in your arsenal to make your novel pop. 

Now drop and give me 1,667.

I wound up at 18,000 words during 2007.  This was a tough pill for me to swallow.  I really thought that I had what it would take when I started, but just wasn’t ready for it.  No excuses.  I didn’t bring my A game.

2008 was a different story – There was no way that I was going to lose again.  I did some superficial prep and resolved myself that no matter what else happened I was going to do it.  Fortunately I was smart enough that time to not rely upon willpower alone.

I’ve included some of my not-so-secret weapons for anyone who’s going through the first time, or feels they needed an extra push to get over the finish line.

1. Know your characters – Have a good understanding of a couple of the main characters in your story.  Whatever pieces of a plot that you choose to start with will be colored with richer scenes if the characters are well developed by the time you reach the end of your story.

2. Check your internal editor at the door – This was a large part of what sunk me my first year.  Whatever you do, DO NOT… I repeat DO NOT GO BACK AND EDIT WHAT YOU HAVE JUST WRITTEN.  If you must read the last paragraph on the page to figure out where to go next, by all means, but under no circumstances should you work on editing it in any way, shape, or form.  It will take you down that dark perfectionists’ road from which there is no way that you’ll be able to sustain your word count.  Worry about refining in December.

3. Step away from the research – If you have not started research for your novel, do not start it now.  Really.  If you’re writing as fast as you need to be and mixing in research, you are going to start throwing in all sorts of extraneous details if you’re too close to the source material during the creative process.  Focus on the story and your characters.  You can annotate details that don’t seem correct and go back and fill them in later.

4. Trust in your abilities – Or more directly: Trust in Yourself.  One of the worst pieces of advice that I’ve heard given to confused people looking to get themselves back on track is “Trust in the Process”.  It doesn’t work here.  Trust me.  You’re the only one who can get to the end of this journey where your novel awaits.  No one else is going to write it for you and no one else’s process is going to make your work the unique piece of art that you are working towards.

5. Bring reinforcements – This was the second big part of why I failed the first year.  I’m a competitive person by nature and didn’t have anyone else to play off of when I went on my month long quest.  If there was a point where I was getting bored, I took a day off, or worse, got involved with other projects.  Last year I took a different approach.  I talked it up to everyone I knew, including one member of my writing group that joined.  I never had a chance to fail between my cheering section and my partner in crime whose word count was just ahead of me for most (OK… all) of the journey.

6. and finally… Prepare to be amazed – I look back at what I produced that month and I was floored that I was the person who wrote it.  There were some parts that literally blew me away.  I didn’t realize that I was capable of putting my thoughts to words in such an entertaining way.  There was crap (O yes.. there was plenty of that), but even for that less than resonant prose, it still filled in the story a lot better than other attempts that I have made where I tried to get everything correct down to the word before moving to the next paragraph.

The most important lesson that you’ll learn by the end is that NaNoWriMo can happen anytime and anyplace.  It isn’t restricted to November and it sure isn’t restricted to novel-length works.

Fifty thousand word in thirty days.  On your mark, get set…

It’s been 10 years since I’ve moved to the west coast and the fallout of a Yankees’ win has never been more surreal for me.  Let me explain. 

For 30+ years I lived in New York, where there were really only two teams: The Yankees and Mets.  For most New Yorkers, you’re either one or the other.  There is no middle ground.  Fortunately for me, I had family members that were Met fans, so while the Yankees were THE TEAM in our house, the Mets were still a team that we routed for (assuming they weren’t playing the Yanks.)  This was no small feat considering even the Yankee Stadium box seats and Bleacher Bums can’t get along.  The division was understandable.  We’re New Yorkers after all, but they’re not like that anywhere else, right?  Especially not in California. 

Fast forward to Friday.  I’m in a bookstore and a rather loud clerk is complaining to his buddies about how much the Yankees sucked, needed to buy their championships, were all on steriods, and were bound to be embarrassed the Yankees this coming weekend.

Really?  I don’t get it, seriously.  Why spend so much negative energy on anything?

Feel free to hit me back with any explanations.

The art is solid and the storytelling is even better.  The best part was the current popular sci-fi take on zombies with the Caribbean, which has never really been satisfactorily dealt with for me until now.  Every story does a great job at weaving history with zombie events, but I must admit I have a special place in my heart for the Ninjas vs. Zombies story.

I have also been fortunate enough to get spam and even my very first troll over here at the blog.  It seems that everyone is a critic. 

Speaking of critics… Besides the regular group of folks that I work with, Critters is my favorite place to get feedback.  I haven’t submitted anything to them in a while, but plan to once I get some more lengthy pieces ready to go. 

The first big benefit of the site is naturally the community supported critique system.  You get in line and submit your work and when it’s your turn up, you get a broad spectrum of feedback.  I’ve received about 15 different perspectives on one piece that I submitted to Critters, and, while I didn’t use all of it, it was all done with a constructive tone.  The challenge is that it took about a month for my turn to come up.  There are ways to jump to the head of the line (i.e., by providing a significant number of substantial critiques back to others), which is something to keep in mind if you’re looking to make the most of the site and optimize your time. 

The other big benefit is the Critters Blackhole.  This sections of the site gives you an overview of the turnaround time for the fantasy and sci-fi markets.

It had to be something else.  But what?  What was different?

That’s when it came to me.  It was me.  I had a problem editing my own work.  I just hadn’t seen it, as it must have been buried under the year old stack of stories that I was updating.

It’s not an uncommon problem, as I’ve talked about this with fellow writers before, so I decided to take my own advice and start off by muscling through it. 

The longer I put it off, the less likely that I’ll ever start.  Armed with my ability to call Happy New Year whenever I feel like it, I decided to proclaim the start of a new year in editing with my first resolution being the submission of  two of my unedited pieces to new markets. 

I began by printing out a story to edit it by hand.  After a liberal amount of bleeding red ink all over the page I realized why I was loath to come down this path: I was destroying the very thing that I had created.  At very least it was becoming something else.  Just that realization was enough for me to move on; after all, it was still something that was mine. 

I also saw that I was spending too much time on the little stuff up front.  A comma here, an adjective there… Blech.  I was creating a creating a grammatically flawless, vanilla story.  No good.  I stepped back and decided to drive on in waves tackling the big stuff first (i.e., story flow and characters), followed by less big stuff (i.e., scene structure and dialog), and ending up with the details (i.e., descriptions and grammar/spelling.)

The good news… I’m just about ready to push out three stories that I started back in January of last year.

Anyone else have any stories of editing nightmares that they’d like to share?

What I like best about these folks is, while we all have a common is our love of the craft of genre fiction, we all have different perspectives of what makes a work of art.  Some of us are more inclined to longer works, while others tend towards mixing it up with everything from the extra short short stuff (i.e., tweet fiction, hint fiction) through epic length novels and series.  We have our grammarians, character specialists, big openers, and description gurus which make for a wide variety of critiques that are returned in record time.   

Most of us have other feedback sources, but I’m sure I’ll be coming back to these folks for a long time to come, if for nothing else other than the encouragement (and pointing out the occasional misplaced comma.)

Regardless of our inclinations the feedback is superb and always constructive in nature (or at very least we’ve all grown a thick enough skin to endure each other’s honesty.) 

Last year two of us embarked upon NaNoWriMo and won.  This year all four of us are engaged and ready to set forth and conquer.  I can hardly wait to see what the month has in store for us.

I was thinking about this today in preparation for a new project, which caused me to look closer at what I look for in a great bad guy (or girl). 

The attribute that hooks me from the get-go how relatable they are to the reader and the world that they live.  Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s The Stand is the example that first comes to mind.  Sure he starts out as your average, everyday “Walking Dude”, but underneath you always know that there’s something more sinister afoot.  Up until the end he moves through the story charming the pants off of one character after another, all the time building his army.  I have to admit, it’s a beautiful thing to witness.  He’s slick, but not in a slimy way in that he never really forces anyone to do anything that is outside of their nature. 

If the villain is only relatable, that can’t be enough.  The couple that runs the Chinese restaurant that I usually go to is nice enough, but could they really rule the world?  Potentially, if they were trying to get everyone hooked on their egg foo young, but that doesn’t really define the ability to “bring it” that most evil masterminds need to acquire in order to be taken seriously.  What’s it?  For our purposes, let’s say “it” is the ability to bring the mightiest of heroes to their knees and generally making things less than good for everyone else (read: collateral damage) that happens to get in the way.  Ozymandias in Watchmen and Saruman in Lord of the Rings are two characters that have all of their resources lined up before moving over to the dark side.  Let’s face it, sometimes getting all of that wealth and power is going to go to your head.  For these two, apparently boredom set in and they decided to mix it up a bit. 

What else?  How about having the will to keep it up after being taken down time and again by those Goody-Two-Shoes good for nothings?  The poster child for sheer willpower has to be Lex Luthor of Superman fame and Magneto from the X-Men.  I like their style, if for nothing else, they know how to take a punch and keep on coming back for more.  The recent reimaging of Superman and his cronies in All Star Superman really does it for me.  Look at Luthor at the end of  All Star Superman, Vol. 2 and you have a guy, who despite being on death row, has already beaten Superman, and is already plotting to humiliate him further.  On the surface you might call it willpower, but if you peel back the onion one level you see that they both have some higher purpose behind their motives.  They don’t have the best intentions for the majority, but they are focused on more than themselves.  Luthor’s endgame has changed from time to time, but it’s always about getting the Big Blue Boy Scout out of the way in order to hatch some other scheme.  Usually it doesn’t include the best of intentions, but every once and a while he’s thinking of how he’s going to make the world a better place (sure it’s with him as the supreme leader, but that’s just a minor detail.)

I’m sure there are plenty of other things that make villains better (or is that worse), but these three really drive it home for me.

No, I’m not making a list and checking it twice for Christmas.  I have until December 24th, 4:50 PM, to take care of that.  It’s also not time to stock up for Thanksgiving, or Halloween, or even Columbus day.  It’s something better: It’s time to prepare for NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. 

NaNoWriMo is the brainchild of Chris Baty, who started it 11 years ago to help writers focus on doing what can usually be the greatest challenge: getting our butts in our respective chairs and get to writing.  The rules are simple.  You get thirty days to write 50,000 words. 

This will be my third consecutive year participating.  The first year I underestimated the task and fell behind early.  I had 18K words in the till at the end of the month, but it left me wanting for something more.

Last year, I decided that I wasn’t taking any chances and with support from the Mighty William Wood (a member of a critique group that we both belong), we were able to crush the 50K barrier with days to spare on our respective novels. 

If you’re a writer that has never done it before, I can’t recommend it enough.  Some words of advice:

• Don’t underestimate the challenge - Knocking out 1,666 words per day is no joke.  Be prepared to bring it every day. 
• Loose the remote, it’ll still be there when you return  - If television is one of your guilty pleasures, be prepared to ditch it.  No joke, it is a heck of a lot easier to lose yourself in some mindless reality show than it is to break the 30K mark.
• Say goodbye to your inner editor - Going back to edit page after page is what sunk me the first year.  Trust in yourself that you’ll have time to go back and give it a proper edit when you’re through.
• Be prepared to be amazed - I look back at what I accomplished that month and I’m amazed that what I’m looking at is something that I produced.  Don’t get me wrong, some of it is outright crap, but there are select passages that went far beyond the quality that I thought that I was capable.

Anyone else up for the challenge?

We set up this little corner of the Web to provide a glimpse at my fiction, publishing status, and occassional ramblings.  Although writing is a passion of mine, you won’t get more than the occasional article on the craft, as, at least for me, it’s all about the story and where it takes the reader. 

With that said, sit back, check back from time to time and enjoy yourself.