Category Archives: Writing

Distractions

I’m up to 20K transcribed, probably another 5K written in longhand for War Mage.  I’m testing out my book cover person with Grim and Scott from Champions.

I have to do a pinterest board for War Mage.

Here’s Grim’s.

I wrote for three hours this whole weekend – yes, I know that’s not much, considering I wrote a whole weekend at first.  I tried to read Gentlemen Bastards to at least finish it – I’ve got about 100 pages to go – and then realized that my right eye decided to pull a double-vision on me, in addition to me being nearsighted and I can’t read normal 10 point font.  So I can’t see the words, they’re doubled (black on top, gray on the bottom).

That, along with a very scary episode in which an ambulance had to take me to the hospital in the early morning hours last week, kind of put a damper on my writing.

So I ended up mindlessly gaming, looking through builds and trying them out.  I’ve still been writing daily, but not as many words.  I need to get back into it.

I’m just afraid that after I do this plot point, I don’t have another plot point to go to until the hero meets his nemesis (at least for this book).  And then the book ends, because I don’t know what to put my hero through after that.

Pantsing is tough in that way.  It’s always scary to keep jumping from rooftop to rooftop, hoping you can get the other side, or at least land safely.  Maybe some of my plot cards/cubes/apps can give me some ideas.

War Mage – and dragons

I will admit, the war in Afghanistan seemed to be more a war of reaction.

I’m reading a book about the Green Berets in Afghanistan called Gentlemen Bastards by Kevin Maurer (he also wrote about the Navy SEALs).  This gives me a good overview of the Special Forces Army in Afghanistan.  Although the men went out on patrol, they weren’t always hit by snipers, IEDs, or RPG’s.  There was often constant fire on their bases or constant threat of fire.  However, it didn’t happen all the time.  It was always a surprise.  They were always on edge.

I can only hope that I do this book justice.  I know I’m not a war correspondent, that I’m going entirely by research, that this probably won’t pass a military sniff test.  But I’m trying to not end up like I did with WW2, and have three bookcases full of books on the Waffen-SS.

I’ve gotten back together with Al and hope that we can collaborate on more book covers.  I’m redoing Grim’s book cover to be simple purple silk with gold sigils embossed over it.  The second book is Grim looking up at an old Victorian mansion (Dottie’s house).  I haven’t finished the third book so I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I’ve also commissioned the first book of the War Mage series, the one that will take place in Afghanistan.  It will involve dragons, a female Marine dragon rider, and the first introduction of the Black Lions (Al-Asad Sud).

I’m also commissioning concept art for War Mage himself.  He will have the usual Army armor, but I want him to have specialized weaponry.  The walking stick (aka “pimp stick”) is one.  The formal “dress robes” will be necessary.

I still haven’t gotten around to a conflict.  Well, I did have a conflict when push came to shove with Sarah’s boyfriend Boz, which I have to rewrite.  And I suppose Sarah was a conflict.  I’ve set up how Brent will be captured (oops, spoiler), set up another possible conflict with a vampire.  I’m trying to figure out how to involve a shifter.

In my world, shifters and vampires could work together.  In my world, vampires can come out during the day (though they prefer the evening because they don’t have to explain their complexions).  In Massachusetts, they have legal rights to exist, but it’s not federal.  In some parts of the country, they’re hunted down.  There are some asylum cities or states, such as California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, St. Louis and New York City.

Vampires work in different places.  Dr. Bates is a slightly unusual case in that he can be in a room full of blood and doesn’t go nuts.  He’s an old, old vampire, so the mere smell of blood doesn’t make him crazy.  Younger vampires, however, are not allowed to work in hospitals or as EMT’s, police or firemen.  That means a lot of them are entrepreneurs, managers, bouncers, you name it.

Shifters are mostly werewolves, although there are some werebears, wearleopards, or other were-creatures.  None are of less mass than the person they are shifting from.  So there are usually no were-birds or smaller were-animals.

So I’m staring at the Story Cubes that I bought, trying to see if I can shoehorn how Brent finds out Tony is a shifter…

War Mage – the muse

I’ve entitled my next (maybe) series to be War Mage.

So far I’ve done more writing than researching.  (Did you know the Afghan war is STILL going on?  Since 2001?????)  13,727 transcribed words, another 2K or so left to transcribe in my notebook.

I outlined.  God help me, I actually outlined.  Not anything major, because I knew darn well that if I detail-outlined, I’d never write the book.  I just put in one or two words of what the plot points are and put them in the outline.  The muse then takes a look at it and we write.  She knows, for instance that “Sarah” is when the main character meets his old flame.  What happens?  How does he treat him?  How does he treat her?  Do they still care?

I’ve noticed that as long as I got some semblance of an outline, that I will follow a set group of plot points or action points I want to hit.  I also need to write in my notebook the beginning of the scene, at least the first two lines.  So that when I sit down and start the writing, that I will know where I need to start and what plot point I may need to hit.

The other thing is, I’ve realized, that this book is not the first in the series.  The first in the series really needs to take place in Afghanistan.  Maybe a few of the books in the series need to take place there.  But it starts in Afghanistan, goes to the States, then ends back in Afghanistan.

I’m wondering if this character is any good.  He seems flat to me.  He’s got power and ability, doesn’t use it often unless he’s angry (“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”) or passionate or has extreme emotion.  He has a short fuse, the power to back it up, and he’s got luck on his side – until…

That’s the problem.  Nothing seriously bad has happened to him yet.  I know what the big bad is.  I’ve been working on developing him as a powerful mage so much that I haven’t made bad things happen.  Or if they do, they just roll off him.

Well, something’s gotta give.  13K words, and nary a conflict.

Okay muse, let’s go to sleep and think about this.

The best muse

Ok, so I finally broke down and paid for someone to look at my query letter.  Now, the thing is, I decided to toss my old query letter and start a whole new one (since I rebooted Grimaulkin, I might as well).

I got an excellent critique back.  No, not a request for more chapters.  But an excellent idea that I think I’m going to use when I rewrite Grim yet again.  However, this time, I’m not going to squeeze it all into one book like I did with the second rewrite.  This third rewrite, I’ll go back to the original and tear it apart again.

I’m ready to do the rewrite, except…

I had a really awesome dream one night.  What if the US Army used wizards?  What if there was a special corps of wizards, the Magic Corps?  What if they were in modern-day Afghanistan?

The dream was told from the POV of a young (21 y.o.) powerful wizard.  He’s different than most wizards, in that he doesn’t even have to utter the spell – he just waves his hand and people go flying.  In the dream, the platoon is ambushed and he’s captured, and I force the dream to end there.

I forced myself awake and wrote the dream down.  The next morning, it was scribblings, but I could make out some things and most of the dream returned to mind.  I started to write it.

I haven’t stopped.

I’ve decided to write it in longhand.  It’s got a lot of padding, and I can see where I can tighten it, but I’m going to get it out on the page first.  That’s the important thing, no?

Transcribed, it’s 7,000 words with maybe another 2,500 to be transcribed.  So maybe 10K over 3 days.  Pretty slow, if you ask me.  But writing longhand slows me down and gives me a minute to think about what next.  Or what down the road.  Or what I’m going to use as Chekov’s gun.

I’m looking at the notebook here, and there’s a plot point I’m burning to hit…

The Memoir

I have two things I’m working on.  I’m not sure if I like either one, because they both take place in the past.

My coworker’s husband passed away.  My coworker’s in her early 40’s.  He died of a sudden illness.  It was a shock.

I was fine talking about it, but I realized how eerie it was compared to my experience.  As I told this to my counselor she said, “You should write a memoir.”

I had it in mind these past few years, even with a title: Torn Asunder.  It’s been seven years now, and to think about revisiting that moment in time as if it was yesterday…

So I decided to do it.  It’s in Scrivener, and I may end up doing it as a Kindle book because it’s not going to be long enough for a real book.  Or I’ll do it as “Book one in a trilogy”, with the other two being about dealing with an autistic child and borderline personality disorder/video game addiction.  I haven’t published it anywhere.

The other thing I decided to do was write out the Leopard Knight – Mal and Knight’s story.  That is published here.

I’m still playing games more than writing.  Doing these two things is like work to me, because I’m an “organic” writer.  I want to see how the story goes and later ends up.  I don’t know the end usually when I start a story.  However, in these cases, I know the end, and details in the middle, and how it all began.  It’s like I’m regurgitating a story I already have memorized.

However, nobody else knows the story like I do.

Review:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I finally broke down and decided to use my Netflix account for myself.  Being a deep-seated lover of comic books and the super hero genre, I figured I’d watch a couple of super hero stories.  I started with this.

I’m trying so hard not to binge watch this.  I’m only on Volume 1, episode 4.  Even though it’s more like Russel Stover’s than Godiva, it’s still like chocolate and I know I’ll get sick and overwhelmed if I see the entire thing at once.  I have found that I like Netflix over DVD’s.  I’m not sure if I’ll go out and buy this on DVD – it’s good, but not like RED, which was awesome and I had to have the DVD.

Gold Nuggets Among Dross

I finally figured out how to export my posts from WordPress into Word.  It’s not pretty, it’s certainly not clean, but the words are there, and that’s the important part.  Downloaded them by year.

I noticed that I started 800 Words as my junk drawer for writing.  Now I write for the two people who read it.  I know they like when I use their characters, and I only hope I do them justice.  (I suppose I do, otherwise they wouldn’t keep playing with me, I guess.)  But I opened up the second or third entry into 800 Words and read it.

And I was amazed.  No way; seriously, I wrote this shit?  There must be more nuggets in there somewhere.

The writing that is play seems to be a lot of fun.  I’m using Take Ten for Writers, which gives me ten minutes a day to write – the same amount of time that What’s-Her-Name from Writing Down the Bones wants me to write, minimally, per day.  That’s about a page in my composition book.

Hell, I can do that.

800 Words is just over a page and a half.  I can usually squeeze that out, too, though it takes me an hour.  Not because I type slow, but because I’m often keeping the end in mind and letting myself meander to get there.  Depending, of course, on whether I need to pad to hit my word count.

Stuff I’m working on:

Mal and Knight’s story over in Tumblr, starting from the beginning.  This one’s going to be a novel, though I would love a graphic novel if I could find an artist around here.  Craig’s List gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Daily writing in my composition book, the notebook at work, the notebook downstairs at the kitchen table, the notebook in the bathroom – you laugh.  Oh, shit, I need one in bed.  Taking care of that tonight!

Coming up with ideas for RP in Champions.  

Coming up with storylines for the characters I’m keeping and want to write more about.  Firefighter?  This means you.  Cybermancer?  You got fans because you’re hot so they want to know more about you.

And on it goes.

Reading:

Dead Iron by Davon (something-or-other).  Still following my (alleged) misogynistic tendencies of not reading a fantasy book by a female author because they can’t write male heroes worth a damn, I have found out that some males cannot write female heroines worth a damn, either.  Not sure yet about this guy because his heroine hasn’t been on-screen long enough for me to make a decision.  If the main male protagonist and this girl get together, I’m going to throw the book across the room in disgust.

Priorities

I sat down and figured out how many hours I write a week.

12.

You know how many hours I game?

About 60.

Gaming is mindless.  Writing can be work.  Sometimes it’s fun.  Sometimes, when I sit here thinking, “What character wants to talk today?”,  I have a total mind-blank.  I have about 30 characters that I can pick from.  Thirty distinct, separate characters with great backstory, but no wants.  That’s what drives a character.  As George Carlin says about sinning, “You gotta wanna.”

A few of the characters I have do have wants.  But not 30 of them.

I will have to cut down my gaming and get into the writing a little more.  If I can balance it, then I think I can be productive.  And that’s my resolution: to be productive.

Resolutions

So begins the new year.  It begins with a new journal, a new daily journal (which I’m still trying to think of what to do with it), and new resolutions.

Other than the typical “Lose weight, be more healthy, get on a budget, etc.” bullshit which fails by February, I plan on writing more.  To be productive.  To try and use my creativity for more than just a few select fans, but to put it out there.

First thing is, I’m going to write 800 words a day.  This includes diaries (in my journal, it’s 3 pages or 1 hour), my blog, and here.

I plan on blogging in 800 Words at least twice a week.

I plan on blogging here once a week.

Every day I will write something somewhere.  Hither and yon, a writer’s notebook, a journal, a diary – it doesn’t matter where, it has to be writing.  If I don’t do it at work, I’ll have to do it at home.  No news/tv/gaming until writing is done.

And finally…NO MORE NOTEBOOKS.

Pens, however, are another story…

Ever since NaNo.

Since finishing NaNo, I haven’t been writing much.  Firstly, I lost my diary in this abyss that is my house.  For three days I didn’t write anything.

Second, I was writing on 800 Words, but realized that I now have way too many characters to write about (over 30).  They all want their stories told, so they’re all being skimmed.  I don’t like that.  I need to concentrate on one or two.

I end up not playing them well online, either.  Firefighter, one of the more recent ones, is a character I want to explore more.  He has a past, has past lovers, is older than the teens, is a little skeeved by magic.  He considers himself a mutant but he’s more Science than a mutant, since the chemicals he found himself exposed to were what woke up his mutation.

Other characters exist, from Knight and Grim to new ones like Breathe and Heavy Metal.  It’s just that…I can’t seem to sit down and write a long piece.  I want to write a novel.  It gives me a purpose.  But I’m not even coming up with short pieces, never mind long ones.

The conscience wants to, but the mind is tired.  I can’t come up with things.  I need to either read more than writing books, watch more TV than the news.  But whenever I do watch TV (fiction), I consider it a waste of time because I’m not actually doing anything.  Yet, in Bird by Bird (or one of those books), the author says that when you do that, you are refilling the well.  Plowing through the George R. R. Martin books is a bad idea at the moment, because I’m stuck reading that one book, that one author – who’s really good, but not a master.  I want to read other books, but I notice I start them and I don’t finish them.  The only one I finished recently is Daywalker, and it was horrible.  I tried to read Called (note: both book covers look very much the same) but I couldn’t get past the fourth chapter.  I wanted to.  But it didn’t hold my interest.

Speaking of which, I have my friend, who is not my beta reader, plowing through the first 30 pages or so of Grimaulkin.  It might be that many pages; I gave her a handful and told her to read it.  Unfortunately, I’ve lost my beta reader due to depression.  My friend read the first page as I was in the kitchen, and she said, “Gee.  Nothing like starting in the middle.”  That’s how books start these days.  She likes old fashioned books like some others of her generation, but the people who are buying books – maybe not physical books, but things to read on their Kindle – are younger than me and her.  They want to get right in the thick of things.

Because of that, I have to write short.  I have to write in front of a green screen, like Gone Girl.  The big reason I stopped reading that story is because I was getting really sick of the vitriol of the husband.  Chapter after chapter, he talked about how evil his wife was.  And chapter after chapter, the wife steps in and talks about how good she is.  Both of them are yuppies that are full of themselves, and once their jobs are gone, are lost little piranhas, eating each other alive.  In Gone Girl, there is hardly any description.

Is this what people want in their fiction?  Why do I have to go by how the New Yorker people write their fiction, especially if I don’t like it myself?

Now Write! Sherry Ellis, ed.

This is a series of books that have exercises in them for writers.  I will admit, at first, I was skeptical, but some of the exercises I think I’ll be able to use.  I know this book I will be able to use.

A couple of the exercises I like are “The Collage” and “The Wedding Cake”.  I tried those and enjoyed them immensely.  I did have a writing notebook that I kept beside me where ever I had a table, but when NaNo started, I had just one notebook and kept that with me.  In that notebook I would have the summary of what I did the day before, so that if I had a chance to sit down and write in it, I could.  I plan on keeping that as my writing journal.

Anyway, back to the book.  Most of the articles are by teachers, or by people who have published books that I’ve never heard of.  I suppose it’s more for literary fiction than the kind of genre I read and write in (urban fantasy).  Regardless, pick up this book, and you will find that these exercises will help you with characterization and give you great ideas.  They might be junk, but at least they’re good ideas.