Category Archives: NaNoWriMo

Welcome!

Hello! Welcome new people that I may have met at RI ComiCon; or if not, just welcome anyway.

I am L.A. Jacob, and I’ve been writing for about 30 (mumble-mumble) years. Homecoming was my first published novel, in June 2015. I’ve since published the Grimaulkin series and a quick sequel to Homecoming, War Mage.

My plans next year is for an anthology for Grimaulkin which will be the backstory of some of the characters in the novel, including how Grimalkin appeared, who Ritter is, what Chevalier is, and how the man in the gray suit ended up at the Atheneum Library.

Also, I hope the new book I’m writing for this month’s National Novel Writing Month, Yellowtree, will be good enough for publishing some time next year. It was going to take place in Florida, but I noticed there was a real interest in local areas, so I’m going to set it in Jamestown, RI and go from there.

Speaking of RI ComiCon, I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who purchased books and stopped by my booth in the Dunk. I went over and above my target; in fact, I ran out of stock on Saturday! Thank you, thank you, for stopping by. Next year, we may do it again – with more and bigger and better stories available for your consumption!

3 days until exhaustion

November 1 is special to me this year. It not only is the starting gun of NaNoWriMo, but it is also check-in for RI ComicCon. RI ComicCon, although smaller in scope than WorldCon, feels to me like a make or break atmosphere. I don’t have a quota – any sale puts me over the moon – and I did surprisingly well at Autumnfest. But here, I have other books than my own to sell, and this crowd may be more open and receptive to new works of art.

My location is better than last time, which was down in the cellar, but this time I’m in the upper concourse I’ll get more people. I’m not sure of the protocol – do I hawk my wares like a carnival barker, or do I sit and hope they come to me? Do I play up the LBGTQ aspect or do I point to the fact that it’s local? I’ll hopefully find out during the course of the Con; but needless to say, this puts me behind the 8-ball with NaNo.

I’m really excited about this book, and think it will be pretty good coming out of the gate. Whether I can make it long enough is another story, because for the past few novels, I’ve been writing novelettes or even short stories. It’s almost as if I forgot how to write a novel. NaNo will put me back into that mindset I hope, and I’ll just keep writing. I have my “Plots Unlimited” book next to me in case I lose steam.

This book will be more personal. It will have scenes in it that come directly from my life. But I hope that it will be fun regardless.

Oh, and episode 24 is up of DMQ (or is should be very soon).

So November 1 is the start of too many things…

At the risk of repeating myself…

Hello!

This week there’s nothing really new. I’m writing Gemini for Air and multi-tasking about contemplating what to write for National Novel Writing Month. I have some scenes ready to do, but I’m not going to be able to start until the 4th due to ComicCon. Thursday I have to load in, Friday I have to set up and be ready for the VIP, Saturday and Sunday I’m there all day, break down Sunday, and collapse.

I’ve written out some things in my notebook of what to do  once the 4th hits. I’ll be 6000-ish words short at the start, but hopefully will be able to make it up the week after having Veteran’s Day off. I was thinking about dictating it again, but I feel weird with my son in the next room. Or he randomly comes and sits in the same room I’m in and then suddenly, I can’t write. He’s sitting on the opposite end of the room, and can’t see what I’m writing, but I feel weird, like he can see what I’m doing. I have this weird feeling that the stuff coming out is too raw to read, and that he’s judging what I’m writing. From the other side of the room! I wonder if any other authors feel this, too.

I need either silence or just the right music to do my writing, and no one in the room. No one in the house would be perfect. No one in a 10 mile radius is even better. Go figure.

I am all packed for ComicCon. Two suitcases, two retractable banners, and I’m ready. I’m at booth 1637 which, if I can read the map correctly, is either near the bridge to Artist’s Alley  or the loading dock. At least I’m not downstairs, where the internet is nearly non-existent.

After ComicCon comes the Expo, and then after that, a breather. I think I’ll work on writing for the spring months, and then pick up the selling later. I’ll try to get in to the Cumberland author expo, and then maybe something else, but winter and spring is going to be dedicated to writing and editing.

Ah, the smell of new books!

I just got Grimaulkin Tempted in the mail yesterday, both hardcover and trade paperback. It looks so cool!

Although it’s officially not going to be released until December 1, I needed them for the Author Expo on December 2, which will be my launch party! I’ll have special bundles there, buy Grimaulkin 1 and 2, get $5 off. Or pay full price of the two Grimaulkin books, and you can get Homecoming for free. And, of course, you’ll get a copy of Mike’s origin story “Self Defense” for free. And card readings if you want.

I’ve decided to put aside War Mage for the display, although I still will have the dragons as eye-catchers. For the past week, I’ve been working on War Mage, doing some exercises to try and generate ideas for the story. I’ve got the trajectory, point A, the beginning, and point Z, the end. It’s how to get to point Z from point A that I’m having trouble with. I know what the theme is, but it’s really hard for me because I, myself, don’t believe in the theme.

Maybe I should change the theme into something I believe in. But that would make for a dark story. I wanted it to be uplifting. I want the main character to succeed. But the way I have it now, he fails in one way, but succeeds with the theme. If he fails in his environment, it’s the end of the series.

Maybe that’s what the muses want. I’ve been working on this story for 2 years now. It’s been on the back burner for all this time, and I really should get it going. I’ve written it three times. It’s a story that I’ve promised, but I can’t seem to deliver.

I’ll keep working on it over the Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe something will come to me by then that will make the 4th rewrite of the story an actual charm. I should have done it for NaNoWriMo, but I thought the memoir would have been easier. It wasn’t. Check out my podcast as to why.

So my homework this week is to keep working on War Mage, and get myself psyched up for selling Grimaulkin on December 2.

Non-fiction is hard

I’m in the midst of writing my memoir, and it’s been really hard. Going back ten years, and gathering bits and pieces of conversations, moments of getting together, things said, people spoken to, quotes and how things went…feelings of other people, and, really hard: my own feelings.

I was numb then. All I knew was I have to take care of things.  It reads like a newspaper article. There’s no feelings here and there. Maybe I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I don’t remember that.

I told my son that he can read this after I’m dead. If he wanted to publish it then, that’s fine. But I can’t see myself publishing it when I’m alive because it makes me look like I was cold and uncaring. After I’m dead, he can do whatever he wants with it.

I don’t even know if I can drag it out for 50K words. Right now it’s almost 9K. I suppose half of it will be “how to handle grief and loss” or something like that. Something I need to research and regurgitate.

On a more happy note, Grimaulkin Tempted is complete and ready for printing. Hopefully I’ll have some copies for sale at the Expo on December 2 (though I don’t expect to do a booming business there due to 124 other authors being there as well). Maybe I’ll do a “2 for $25” deal–books 1 and 2 for $25. Or even $20. I’d prefer $20. That would be a good sale, and being that we’re all a bunch of cheap Yankees…

I’ve also written a story of Mike’s prison time called “The Joint” which is also complete though we only need a cover.  That won’t be ready by December 2 unfortunately. I don’t know when my next appearance will be, but I’m going to strive next year to go to the RI Comicon. Yes, I know, it’s expensive, but I think I can sell more stuff there. So instead of the Narragansett thing, I’ll save my money for Comicon. I need a banner for that.

After NaNo, I’ll tackle Earth.

Oh, and next week I’ll be on WADK at 10:30 on November 8. Only about 15 minutes though. A two-hour drive and $8 toll for a fifteen minute spot. Not worth it, but what the heck, right?

My interview on WNRI was great. I plugged the Press, and Zarra, plugged all my books, and we talked about writing and publishing. It was excellent. I didn’t get to plug my podcast, but that’s okay.

So onward. If I can squeeze out 2K words today, I’ll be happy. I tried to get 3K words yesterday, but the muse was reluctant. And I kept getting interrupted by a bored kid. If I do 2K a day, I’ll succeed.

Post 150!

Today I took a ride to Newport to find the radio station WADK that I’m going to be on November 8 at 10:30. I found the offices, but I don’t think that’s the studio, so I’ll call them tomorrow and ask for directions. This Tuesday at 9 a.m., I’ll be on WNRI talking about Grimaulkin.

Finished the final edits on Grimaulkin Tempted. I did them in about 6 hours. Just little things like extensive commas. I am a comma abuser.

I wrote a tie-in story called “The Joint” which I’m letting rest right now. It’s about Mike in prison, but told from a different point of view.

This NaNoWriMo is going to be a memoir, which I suppose will be published posthumously. It’s going to go into my life, how I was treated by my family, how I treated my family, and about cancer, death and living with autism. I think I’ll get 50K words out of it. But it’ll be hard, because it will be narrative non-fiction, something I’m not really good at.

On the blog of Paper Angel Press will be a press release for Under the 13th Star which has my short story in it. My website will have a link to that book. I might actually send the press release out to the Providence Journal or the Pawtucket Times or even the Valley Breeze to get an interview. If I do, I’ll be sure to post it here. And I’ll buy up all the copies!

 

What to write next?

Last week was a long, boring week. It seems that I’m not writing much, if at all. I’ve been thinking about doing NaNo, but it depends on when Grimaulkin Tempted gets back from the editor. I can turn it around usually in two weeks, so that’s not a problem. The problem is I have no idea what to write for NaNo.

I looked over War Mage and I have 8K words there. Earth, I have 3K. The other thought is to get Earth finished for NaNo, since that’s what’s next on the publishing agenda.

War Mage is slated for May 2018, but War Mage is like pulling teeth. I don’t want to offend anyone in the armed forces with the book, being that I’m coming at it from a non-combatant’s point of view. It’s not like I didn’t do any research on war–I’ve read four books on the Afghan war and two on Iraq. But I do admit it’s nothing like being in combat, and I somehow have to lie about that when I write. I’ve been told that the first scene of Homecoming was very realistic, so I might be able to pull it off. It’s the little things, the slang, the acronyms, the military language that I don’t know. My target audience for War Mage is people who are interested in the military but want a fantasy element to it. Kind of like John Scalzi but with fantasy instead of sci-fi.

Something–the muses, whatever–wants me to try something else. Memoir, perhaps, because memoir seems to sell well in this neck of the woods. The story in the anthology is based on a story my great-uncle told me about when he lived during Prohibition. (By the way, my story is first in the anthology, a place of honor, as I understand it.) I want to get away from the magic for a little while, not because I’m sick of it, but because I know it all too well. The memoir I have in mind is in three parts: Cancer, Death, and Autism. The title is Torn Asunder. Maybe I’ll do it. I know NaNo is for fiction, but I want to do something that is lucrative. I don’t know if I have enough stuff to write it, and if I want to bare my soul yet (some people involved aren’t dead yet). But it could be only for me. And my posterity. I do want to get it down before I die, and the way things are going, I have about six years left.

Okay, so I amend my first statement. I have a few options. We’ll just have to see what I end up with in the next two weeks.

In the meantime, I’m going to try and write at least once a week on my writing blog. It might not always have to do with the game, even though I’m back to playing it again. I have too many characters in that game to keep track of now! And I keep making more! I’m addicted and need to stop. But I’ll try and write a short story once a week. I read a quote that if you write a short story every week, there’s no way you can write a bad short story 52 times in a row. So somewhere there’s going to be a diamond out of all that crap I spew out.

Don’t try this at home

After the festival, I ended up in the hospital for dehydration and elevated potassium. Oops.

So lesson learned: don’t not eat or drink anything for two days.

Finished the editing for Grimaulkin Tempted, and awaiting a new cover.  Also trying to think up the blurbs for it.

I think I might do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a few days off next month so I’ll be able to do it. I have NO idea what to do since I started War Mage already. Maybe add 50K words to it to make it viable? I also started Earth. Those are the two books that are on the schedule for next year. I don’t want to do Grim 3 because I have just the major plot in mind for that. The muse needs to percolate more ideas for that one.

I would hate to waste a month on something that I’m not going to publish, considering I have deadlines.

Also, I’m in an anthology, Under the 13th Star, which is a showcase of Rhode Island authors’ short stories. articles, and poems. My story is first in the anthology! I’m so excited! It will be officially released on Monday, but it’s on Amazon right now with print-on-demand.

NaNo – #amediting

I gave up on NaNo. I’ve instead turned my attention to Grimaulkin, with the intent of getting it ready to go by December 15. Hopefully then it’ll get read by February and be ready to launch in November.

In the meantime, it seems War Mage has taken a turn for the back burner. I am tempted to rewrite the entire thing from scratch. Well, I’ll keep the first chapter. I haven’t noticed that there is no plot. But I noticed that if I sit on something for a long enough time, that I can rewrite it from a different point of view and it’ll come out better. Grimaulkin, I had written from the first time he summoned a demon and did it chronologically. This time, I wrote it after he gets out of magic prison. Maybe I should write War Mage in medias res, after he’s been introduced to the dragons? Maybe he’s the first one exposed to the dragons? And StarForce comes in to try and take over?

I’ll brain storm more.

I’ve also noticed, the more I edit, the more stilted it sounds. I’ve been reading a few writing books, and most of them say to outline or plan out your story. I found it a lot more fun and enjoyable to just sit down and write. “Write hot” as one person in a writing book said.

I tried to read Chapter After Chapter, but found it to be one of those essay booklets like Bird by Bird or even Artist’s Way. Some “artist” in a beautiful, idyllic setting, writing about the craft. Oh, please. I tossed it. I also tossed “Plot Perfect” because I found out I’m not a plotter. Let it happen, write without guidance, and then, at the end, put it away. Go back to it with fresh eyes, now that you know the end, and cut everything that doesn’t have anything to do with that ending. Easy, right?

Meh.

Comicon, WNRI

Heidy Ho, neighbor! (As my character, Grimaulkin says.)

I finished Grimaulkin. Very proud of myself. 62,000 words. I need to edit it next month and hopefully get it ready to go for next year around this time.

I’m trying NaNoWriMo anyway, though I don’t think I’ll succeed. I’m doing a Casey story, set in the time of Queen Anne. It’s based on the four Mohawk Kings (3 were actually Mohawk, and one was Mohican) who visited London in the early 1700’s. Casey is their interpreter, and a woman of the court falls in love with him. It’s sort of a romance which, as everyone knows, is not my bag. Right now, the beginning is slow because I’m establishing the time period. I suppose I have to switch to the female’s POV at some point, and I’m not looking forward to that.

On November 8, I’ll be on WNRI.com at 9:30 am for the Rhode Island Author’s Hour. I hope I get some softball questions. He’ll ask if I’ve been in the military, I’m sure. “No, but my husband was a big fan of the Army and I acquired a lot of my interest through osmosis.” We’ll see if I can remember that.

And last, but not least, I’m doing RI Comicon! I’m in booth 15G in the Dunkin Donuts Center (aka “the Dungeon”) under the name of Paper Angel Press.  There should be a lot of traffic for people who are going to see the celebrities. I’m diagonally across from the “Kids Con”, so will hopefully get parents who are into understanding the whole Building Baby Brother concept. I’m also going to be reading cards (if Comicon can have a medium with two sold-out shows, why can’t I read cards?) and really pedling the books. I have 30 copies of Homecoming, 5 each of Building Baby Brother and Best Intentions. I’m offering a bundle, at the convention only, of each one of the books, plus “Custer’s First Stand” and a card reading for $25. Yes, I’m giving up my royalties for that, but I’m trying to get the books sold.

No War Mage, it didn’t make it. I’m going to get a different editor for that book, I think.

I may not post next week due to being at Comicon. But I’ll live tweet every sale from there! My handle is @warwriter.