More Illness

Posted on March 9, 2010
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I am lying down on my bed, with my laptop on my lap.  I have been back in the hospital for two weeks.  I just got back last night.  This time I lost a spleen and a great deal of energy.  I was very, very sick.  It seems my  prostate surgery had enough rogue infection running around that it found a few sites.   The worst was my spleen.  I had a pocket of infection above it and just below my diaphragm and the infection inside the spleen has started to kill the organ, so swoop, the doctor’s skillful scalpel took it out.

No writing until my energy picks up.   I hope this is the end of this episode.

2009: A great year for speculative movies

Posted on February 12, 2010
Filed Under American Culture, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Dark Knight was the best speculative movie in 2008 among quite a few mediocre to worse. (I’m not a graphic comic fan, so bear that in mind.)  2009 was a great year for speculative movies.  Here is my list:

  1. District 9 - A bit offbeat, but this is a character-driven movie.  It’s documentary style helps sharpen the image and allowed the director to cut the action to keep everything moving crisply.  Of course there is the stock evil corporation, but if you can ignore that cliche the movie is an incredibly creative piece.
  2. Sherlock Holmes - This is Steampunk Sherlock.  Forget Sir Arthur’s version.  The characters are right out of a steampunk novel.  This movie has so much energy it is bursting.  The acting is great and for steampunk, overdoing it is part of the gig.  The CGI was great and there were some great visuals.
  3. Avatar - This is a sci-fi romance.  Avatar wins the CGI honors by a mile.  The plot is cliched and some characterizations are pure comic book.  Why does the evil corporate guy always have a golf club in his hand.  There are some heavy-handed messaging and the kumbaya personality transference was beyond belief.  This is not the best picture of all time, but I’ll make sure I’ve got my own copy.
  4. Inglorius Basterds - I take this from secondary sources.  Alternate history is speculative.  This is a romp that is as nasty and irony-laden as much as Sherlock is a good natured romp. I can’t wait to see it.
  5. Star Trek - The movie was well done.  Of course, this is the equivalent of sublime fan-fiction.  I enjoyed quite a few parts of it.  The Nimoy Spock greatly stretched my suspension of disbelief, but the movie was one of the better Star Trek movies.

What does this mean for speculative writers?  Not so much for writing, but instead of a bunch of comic book movie spin-offs we have a great selection of movies here and a good variation of genres.

Surgery setback delays writing

Posted on February 12, 2010
Filed Under Plotlines | 1 Comment

Life is wonderful.  My recuperation was moving smoothly until Superbowl Sunday.  I put out a flash for LH’s challenge and was about ready to sit for more than a few minutes and do some real writing.

I came home from church and laid down.  My temperature rose throughout the day.  When it hit 103.7 just after the Colts lost (darn!), I called the doctor.  He instructed me to take an antibiotic I had at home (Cipro) and a couple of tylenol.  That night I woke to violent chills that lasted for what I believe was an hour and a half.  My temperature spiked at 105.5.  Fifteen minutes later it was back into the lower 103’s and an hour later in the 102’s.  By Monday afternoon, my temp was 99.8.  That night I had another spike after over an hour of violent chills peaking at 104.

Tuesday, the doctor prescribed another antibiotic and that seems to have done the trick.  In the last 24 hours my temp hasn’t gotten past 100 and is generally in the low 99’s.

My incision, of course, split open a little bit and became infected.  My writing goals vanished Sunday night.

I’ve gradually regained some strength and last night I thought of a wonderful idea for a story.   So the creative juices are starting to flow after weeks of sluggishness.

I wrote down some notes last night and that’s a good sign.

After the Hiatus

Posted on February 3, 2010
Filed Under Writing Process | 2 Comments

It’s been a month since my last entry.  Reason?  I’ve been a bit preoccupied.  Prostate cancer surgery.  Luckily it was early stage and everything looks good at this point.

Recuperation isn’t particularly pleasant and it will take a bit and I’ll probably never be 100% again.  Early detection is the key.  Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after skin cancer and it results in the second highest number of cancer deaths among men after lung cancer.

With PSA tests, early detection is possible.  Radical surgery (radical meaning removal of the entire prostate) is actually the best alternative from what I was able to read.

I suspected I had it after a PSA test for a physical in December and had a biopsy performed in early January.  I had surgery two weeks ago and am making reasonable progress.

This is actually a writing blog, not medical, so what did this do for my writing?  After surgery I couldn’t sit at my computer and before I did a few short stories, but mostly worked on what I wrote.

I looked at the last time I saved my Panix novel.  It was December 22nd. So I’ve started working on inserting a new character into that novel.  After the character is in, I’ll work on a proper rewrite.

I looked at my submission list.  Nothing is out there so I need to get some WIP into shape and probably resubmit some of my rejected work.  My goal is ten pieces out at any time.  That will probably take a month or six weeks to make happen.

Not much more to say, other than I’ve got to roll up my sleeves and get back to work.  I’ll have another entry on top of this one soon.

Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized, Writing Process | 2 Comments

I haven’t been writing for a full year… I’ve got a few more weeks to go, but I can say I’ve learned a lot in 2009.  I wrote two full drafts of novels and a partial draft.  I wrote about 70 short stories.

Now 2009 was intended as a learning year.  2010 is a learning year as well, but I do feel I am at a bit of a higher level.  Less of a novice and more of a seasoned beginner.

What’s up for 2010?

  1. Get better
  2. Finish all three novels and query them to agents
  3. Participate in WotF until I win or sell my way out (my goal is really to be a finalist or winner)
  4. Ten shorts in the submission process on a regular basis.

I think all of these are doable (except the finalist/winner part isn’t under my control).  I’m looking forward to it.

Crafting the Novel

Posted on December 23, 2009
Filed Under PAG Progress Report, Writing Process - Panix | Leave a Comment

I found myself on an extended burnout after NaNoWriMo as I mentioned below.  I’ve still been writing, but I’ve had a hard time trying to get motivated to do my Panix rewrite.

I was referred to the link below:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=607

This is an ongoing series by Dean Wesley Smith on writing as a career.  He talks about producing novels (note the plural) each year.  I have no problem with writing a lot of words, but I do have a problem of getting them right.  That is where practice and craft comes in.

Rewriting and restructuring my Panix novel has been tough to get going.  I’m not quite halfway through my first real rewrite on Panix.  The Panix path so far has been as follows (times are calendar not time spent writing):

What does my first rewrite involve?

  1. I removed my prologue.
  2. Started the novel in a different place.
  3. Gave the MC’s romantic interest a little more reader time with more foreshadowing of future actions.
  4. Began the stronger story arc that was weak in the last section of the book and will continue to strengthen to the end.
  5. Put in a new character to leaven out the massive accomplishments of the MC in the middle.
  6. Strengthen the MC’s leadership element in the his character arc.
  7. Continue to work with the language to make writing stronger.

I’m to number 5.  The new character’s been introduced, but not involved in the story, now he gets involved.  This is the biggest change in the novel’s narrative.  The others were more mechanical.

My goal is to get Panix in shape to query by the end of January.  Then I have to move on to work with Bellian.  After that I finish my contemporary fantasy that mired in its first draft after I realized last spring, I didn’t have the writing part down well enough.

So part of my goals, that will appear in a post soon to come, is to query three or four novels in 2010.

More on this subject in future posts.

talk about burnout!

Posted on December 15, 2009
Filed Under PAG Progress Report, Writing Process, Writing Process - Panix | Leave a Comment

Here it is three weeks since my last post.  I didn’t realize it but NaNo did produce a burnout condition in my writing.  I have been piddling along doing the minimum on my novels, writing some shorts, a flash a week and trying like crazy to do something for Writers of the Future.

I wrote one of my little tales— flop.  I wrote one that I liked—flop.  I rewrote one that I liked—flop.

So I took one of my flashes and fleshed it out and will send that one out.  More emotional pop.  Sort of a tragically sweet ending.  We will see.

I haven’t heard any more about the Q1 WotF entry.  I have hopes for that one.

I’ve got to get a grip and start working on my novels again.  Panix is just about sketched out.  I’m not satisfied with my overall story arc.  I’ve got to make it smoother, so I am still cogitating.  Bellian is still simmering on the stove.

Time moves on.  And I’ve got to keep writing and learning.

It’s been ten months since I really started my writing and I haven’t quite gotten where I want to be.  Nothing moves as fast as I’d like.  Patience, Owasm.

NaNoWriMo Defeated! 105K Word Novel Written in 20 Days!

Posted on November 22, 2009
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After an active 20 days, I made it to the end of my NaNoWriMo.  When I first heard of National Novel Writing Month back in the spring, I didn’t think anybody would write anything worthwhile in thirty days.     I knew I could write the 50K words for NaNo.  I wasn’t going to participate, but decided that I had to do it once.  So in order to make it more of a challenge for my nimble fingers, I decided to write my whole Bellian novel in the month of November.    I did it.  Since the NaNo site has a spot for a book cover, I created the one shown on this post.  It was done in Adobe Illustrator.  I took a photo of a temple folly in the UK and photoshopped it to add in all of the jungle and vines, added more building and put in the Reberrant in the foreground with his bone claw weapon.

Bellian’s Journey is complete as a first draft at 105,000 words.  Now that’s the first draft that’s complete.  I have to edit the basic words (just about done) and then I need to let is sit.  I’ve been thinking about some things for the rewrite and there are two characters that the readers are going to want to know more about, so I’ll have to give them a bit more playing time.

I wrote this from a treatment I wrote at the beginning of the Liberty Hall Writers’ Bloody August worldbuilding exercise.  The world came from the exercise.  When that was over I took both of those and created about 75 scenes to use as a wireframe to write the first draft.  The preparation worked out really well, I thought.  Where the outline constrained me a bit too much for the Panix novel, this method allowed more freedom to write the story.

I don’t think I’ll participate in NaNo again.  Writing fast is not a challenge for me.  I’ve found I write about 1,250 an hour in draft mode.  That works out to 80 hours for a 100K word novel.  I put about 40+ hours or so into the initial worldbuilding and another couple of hours putting the treatment together.

NaNo was fun and it was fun doing it with a lot of the Liberty Hall and Hatrack Writers Group folks.

Minor Successes, Minor Failures

Posted on November 12, 2009
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Nothing would suit me more than another sale right now.  I had high hopes for Ollie’s Dream for a major SF mag, but alas.  Form rejection.  I’ll have to submit it to a lesser market.

One story I submitted had an extremely rude rejection.  The editor called all of my characters stupid.  This story had been critted in a few places.  Stupid?  that one sort of hurt.

I lied about the minor successes, they will come.  I have won a few internal contests at Liberty Hall and some good reviews in other places.  Nothing beats a sale.

Panix is steeping.  My brother read the novel and I took down three pages of notes.  Many of his points will affect the next rewrite.  I have to modify the stakes so Panix isn’t so darn competent.  But with NaNo going on, I’m not thinking about Panix’s world.

I’m still trying to get a few short stories written.  I always write a flash a week for the Liberty Hall flash contest and work on the next quarter’s Writers of the Future story.  But five submissions out at a time is way too few.  Perhaps I’ll use December to build up a decent submission pile.

NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month

Posted on November 12, 2009
Filed Under Plotlines, Uncategorized, Writing Process | Leave a Comment

Here is it November 12th.  It’s twelve days into NaNoWriMo and I didn’t write a single post.  My, my.

NaNoWriMo is a contest for fun.  Thousands of writers sign up to write 50,000 words in a month.  The NaNo organizers don’t care what kind of tripe is written.  Their word counter jumbles up all the words anyway.

I decided to get a good start with my Bellian novel that I worked on for the Liberty Hall Writers Group Bloody August.

I guess I get a bit compulsive when I get going.  Here it is 40% through the month  and  20,000 words would be the target.  I’ve written nearly 65,000.  I hit the 50,000 word mark on the eighth day.

The good news is my writing isn’t gobbledygook.  I’ve used my initial Bloody August treatment and world building and then I created a wire-frame of scenes to use as targets for my story.  Then I’ve been writing by the seat of my pants.  The story has just taken off and achieved a level of complexity all on its own.

I originally started this as a heroic fantasy, where the hero does his deeds and changes his character and charges off into the sunset.  The book has turned into the first volume of an epic fantasy.  I didn’t think I was really capable of doing this, but I’ve got multiple plot threads including three thousand year old women, sidekicks galore and a war between the gods using wizards as soldiers.  The god-wizard part is only set up during the first book.  It will resolve in the last book and I’m not sure who will become Emperor of the world in the middle book… but that will come.

It’s been fun and my goal is to get a first draft complete by the end of the month… then a quick cleanup in December.  One doesn’t go back and do any editing during NaNoWriMo.  It’s full speed ahead without a glance to the rear.

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