Novel Progress

Posted on May 23, 2010
Filed Under Writing Process, Writing Process - Panix, novels | Leave a Comment

I’m getting antsy to write my thriller novel.  I did a little character building today.  Research is going to have to be done on this one.  I imagine I’ll be using Google earth instead of a taking trips to sites.  I hope Google view is still up and running when I need to look at European cities and villages.

Panix still needs to be queried before I sit down and actually write the treatment for the thriller.  I feel a bit guilty putting my other two WIP novels on the back burner, but I really want to get the new genre out of my system.

Looking at Barnes & Noble, there’s not much period stuff going on.  It’s mostly urban fantasy on the shelves.  That might be a function of the buyer at that particular store.  Anyway, I was reading a Daily Kick by David Farland this week and it talked about writing to a market rather than what you want to write.  I can’t say I’m an artiste.  So that’s my thriller motivation.

Since it looks like epic fantasy might be in the tank nearly as much as science fiction, I might bring my urbanish fantasy into the next in line after the thriller.   That one needs a plot renovation.  Right now it’s in novella form (30,000 words) and it needs to be three times the length.

That leaves Bellian as fourth in line.  That already has the length, but my MC is too insipid, so I’ve got to spice him up and give a bit of a bigger role to a couple of women.

My goals?  Get 20+ queries out by the end of next month.  My synopses are done (three lengths), the query letter is done.  I’ve got to work on the first five pages to make sure they are as good as I can make them.  I’ve identified the agents and what they want.

The thriller novel needs the treatment written, world building (mapping scene locations) and then my plot outline.  Those should all be done by the end of July.  Two months of writing and then it’s up for review and rewriting.

That’s enough for now.

Emerging: Status

Posted on May 12, 2010
Filed Under Writing Process | Leave a Comment

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last posted. Since then I’ve written three or four flashes, two short stories and a query and synopsis for Panix.

I’ve had less interaction on the two boards I inhabit, Hatrack Writers Workshop and Liberty Hall.  But that’s okay, I’ve been concentrating on baseball (hooray for MLB.TV) and the great season end, but quick out in the second round for the Utah Jazz.

I also did some rewrites and submitted three stories to various markets.  One came back within 24 hours as a personalized rejection, but a rejection nevertheless.  More to do there.

This whole getting back in the swing of things deal has shown me that it takes a lot of energy to keep everything going.  Since my operations, my energy level still isn’t where it should be and I’m not staying up as late as I was writing.  I need to do that.

I really want to get Panix (the guy in the picture that I made in photoshop from an actor in Foyle’s War) out there so I can work on my next three novels.  Bellian, my NaNoWriMo work, is still sitting simmering with Bellian needing more salt and pepper.  My Motes and Meddles novel remains about a third done.  I might rewrite that as a Young Adult novel.  My third novel is one I’ve only done conceptual work on.  It’s not a speculative genre work, but an international thriller.  The concept is a private shadow CIA operations group for hire based in Switzerland.

I want to write the thriller, but I want to finish the others, too.  What’s a budding writer to do?

On the health front, I think I’m 85% recovered.  I have one issue I’m dealing with that’s getting better and some lingering discomfort.  I had a busy weekend and it really fatiqued me, so my strength isn’t there either.  The best news is I can swing a golf club without discomfort and I’ve been able to walk a couple of miles without having to stop.

What’s up in the near future?  Continue with the short story challenges on the boards, but try and get a lot of novel time in.  I want to send out Panix query letters by June 1st.

Emerging from my funk

Posted on April 8, 2010
Filed Under Writing Process | 1 Comment

I won (barely) a flash challenge at Liberty Hall this week.  The key thing was not the win, but that I wrote 1,600 words of passable prose in 90 minutes.  The ideas came and some were a tiny bit novel.  It gives me confidence that I can get better.  When I came home from the hospital I had no ability to write.  I think there was still too many drugs working on my body.  I wondered if I was going to be able to get back to writing at first.  Although I wrote a few other stories since I’ve been home, I haven’t been able to come up with unique (is anything really unique in writing? … at least unique to me.)  In addition, they were short… under 1,000 words.  So this represents more of a return to my previous writing style.

I have a WotF story to write this weekend.  I’ve already got a rough outline of the story and the ideas came pretty easily.  I couldn’t have done it a few weeks ago, so perhaps my illness induced drag on my creativity is behind me.

The problem is I’ve gotten some work projects to address that will get a bit in the way of getting down to putting words down on paper.  Once the story is done, I’ve got to get back to my novels.  They are gathering dust (metaphorically) on my hard drive and I need to get them in the position to submit.

Speaking of submissions, another writing goal is to have ten submissions out at a time.  At this point I have… none.  My WotF story didn’t place, but I felt it was one of my best shorts.  I have a number of good candidates to submit (and resubmit).  I’ll get them out soon.

As far as my recovery is concerned, I’m getting better every day.  I’ve been out of the hospital for a month today and feel fine.  My strength isn’t all the way back, but that’s as much a function of lousy Spring weather (it snowed this week).

More Illness

Posted on March 9, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized | 9 Comments

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 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.

« go back — keep looking »
Fiction Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory