Make backups!

Finished Edit 2. Then my Windows computer crashed.  It’s stuck on the Administrator screen, and I’ve tried safe mode, all sorts of fixes I found on the net.

Luckily, Homecoming is on my Mac (which is what I’m typing from right now). The good news is that I saved Blood From A Stone on a flash drive; the bad news is that it’s in .doc format, not Scrivener.

I have a feeling that my computer guy is just going to wipe the drive and start new. I have not realized how boring my life is without my computer. At least I have the Mac and my iPad/iPhone if necessary.

Luckily, I made backups of my novels; however, I redid Brothers of the Zodiac and have lost all that information.  Unfortunately, due to xmas and budgetary constraints, I can’t fix it until after xmas.

I’ll be going to bed a lot earlier.

I had an idea for a story, which I outlined and did beats for. Part of me wants to do it, but part of me doesn’t really care; my heart’s not into it. I need another neat story to get into. Maybe War Mage’s rewrite?

Edit…2

Survived the vacation. Received my batch of second edits to Homecoming. The editor wants more description. In this, I must disagree.

I hate, hate, HATE, text blocks of description. I write like a journalist. I write dialogue, short paragraphs, rapid-fire sentences. I don’t describe in my storytelling because I feel that it drags down the story. Setting, yeah, maybe I need to describe that more, but people? I’m really not good at describing faces in detail, and I’m not good with describing people, either. My strength is the dialogue.

While I was on vacation, I came up with a pretty romance that I might do under my real name. It’s about a mermaid that doesn’t know she’s a mermaid because her father has kept her from the sea all her life. She lives in land-locked Nebraska where there is no salt water. She gets a hankering to go to the ocean and heads east, finds the son of a fishing trawler off the South Carolina coast, and they fall in love, until she falls into the ocean and becomes a mermaid. The mer-people find her and the really handsome mer-prince wants her to stay, but she feels obligated to go back to the sea captain’s son…

It’s written to a formula from a book I read. If I become a paranormal/YA romance writer, I know I can make money off that (romance readers are insatiable!). I went to the Barnes & Noble store in Florida and saw five book cases of Sci/Fi, and six book cases of YA, two with YA/Romance only. Three bookcases of magick, and I couldn’t find the writing books anywhere (Good thing. I don’t need any more of those.)

I want to write Toxicon’s story, too, flesh it out into a better short story and put it out there to introduce the Teen Guardians in a novel or novella. That would be under Jake’s name.

Well, I’m off to see what the second batch of edits is going to be.

PS, finished NaNo before I left, 50,068 words. I’ll clean it up and probably do something with it, because it’s actually pretty good.

Branding/Platform

Finished NaNo last week. I think the story is solid to actually do something with. Maybe I’ll fix it up and send it out, but I’m not in a hurry to do so.

So what I’ve been doing since then is working again on Brothers of the Zodiac. I finally put together a timeline for each of the Brothers and their lives, I also found a Hymn to Ishtar and I’m using that instead of the Descent of Inanna to the Underworld ad the introductory pieces. I’m still using astrological terms for their story titles.

I have to work on a platform, getting together a mailing list for when Homecoming comes out, and also when the next book comes out. I’m writing under a pseudonym, Jake Logan, because guys have a better chance of actually getting books sold than girls. Maybe if I write a boy/girl romance or some such, I’ll use my real name, but for the sci-fi/fantasy stories it’s better if I pretend to be a guy. However, if it takes off, I’m screwed.

Not to complain about that!

My audience is male, mostly gay male. I plan on using Jake Logan as an m/m erotica/romance writer too. I know that some women read m/m romance, but I shouldn’t put my name on it because then I’m not “authentic”. Heck, I’m not authentic with a pseudonym, either, now that I think about it.

But the object here is to sell books, and I’m trying to think of the best way to market them. If it means I need to be a man, then so be it. (Should I be a transgendered male?)

I’m going to be setting up a website for Jake and a mailing list and blog for him. Hopefully the book comes out and I get tons of readers! I doubt it, but it’s good to dream.

Nanowrimo prep

usually I walk into national novel writing month facing a blank page. This time I had a plan.

I had an idea for a novel three weeks before NaNoWriMo was set to start. It is based on some brainstorming for two words that I got through Storymatic, a game that consists of cards with the character and action. In this case it was

  • fashion designer
  • an historical reenactment gone awry

after brainstorming, I came up with the character of an ex-Army Ranger, older, retired, who likes rocking the cradle by going out with younger men. This Army guy had a want to be a fashion designer ex-boyfriend. During a World War II reenactment, a murder occurs in the ex-boyfriend was arrested. Army ranger guy feels bad and decides to help the guy out.

However I didn’t think that that would be enough to carry a novel. I outlined the main plot. Then I came up with two subplots: a runaway niece, and a matchmaker.  I got some index cards and wrote out the outline for the main story, then wrote out the subplot stories and interspersed them with the main plot.

That took all of a day.

I still had a little over 2 weeks to figure this out.  So I sat down and did character freewrites whenever I had a chance for the main characters: Protagonist, antagonist, the niece, the matchmaker, the ex-boyfriend.  I also answered detailed questions for the protagonist and the antagonist.

When I started NaNoWriMo, I did 10K words on the first day.  Mind you, I dictated it, but I walked in with a generally clear idea of what to say and how to say it.  Of course, I’m a pantser at heart, so I’ve gone off the outline a couple of times.

Right now, I’m at almost 41K words.  I’m at the climax, and I’m not sure if I can milk it for another 10K words, so I can see myself going back and doing text walls of description.

Write what you know

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately, mostly having to do with magic. When I was younger I was a pagan, one of the ones that was deeply into the environment, natural healing, all that kind of stuff.

Then I grew up.

I realized that there was better living through chemistry. I was chronically depressed. I was on the assorted medications for depression. I still wrote but a lot of my articles and stories were about other people. They were about how I’d dealt with other people and what they meant to me.

So the tattoo that I got, the second tattoo that I got, the one with the star and the crow, which was my name, Starcrowe, I outgrew it and put it aside.  I had a story that went along with my “initiation”, that I was initiated in the faerie tradition.if you’re familiar with Wicca you would know that 1) they wouldn’t let a girl be initiated in the faerie tradition, and 2) in the early 1990s there wasn’t any. Being a Sagittarius, I lied.

I made up an initiation based on the Gardnerian tradition, an initiation that I did attend as a spectator. It was all hogwash. Now I confess that I never had in initiation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not a witch. In fact I hate that term. It still has so many negative connotations, that I don’t like to call myself a witch. I don’t like to call myself Wiccan either. And I don’t like to call myself a pagan.

I prefer to call myself a mage or magician. Unfortunately wizards are for males, and unless I want to be transgender I can’t take that.  I’ve heard the term “chaos magician”, it sounds pretty close to what I am. I’m eclectic, but I’d like to think that I’m gray not necessarily white or black.

?nyway, what does this have to do with writing? Most of what it has to do with writing is the fact that my most recent novel is using magic, but mostly magic from the Key of Solomon and old Hermetic traditions.  Personally I hate Hermetic traditions, because they’re so secretive. They think that what they know shouldn’t be given out to the masses. I don’t trust them, I don’t like them. However, I’m a Unitarian, and if you believe in it and you like it, all the more power to you.

So anyway, I’ve gone back to my old roots with Wicca and with chaos magicians. However I don’t consider myself a Wiccan. There are some things that I will use modern society for, such as my depression, and my other health problems; but there are other things that I feel I can work with.

what I’m working on right now, or at least for Nanowrimo, is going to be a murder mystery. No paranormal involved. Just a straight up murder mystery that has to do with some gay guys. I’ve done an outline, and I’ve done some cards planning out what each scene is going to be. If I do any more details than that, then I’m not going to want to write the story.

I’m chomping at the bit in order to get the story started. But I have to wait until next week. I plan on dictating it just like I’m dictating this. Amazing isn’t it? I’ll do some writing at work probably, dictated into my normal routine. I’m not going to watch TV anymore, and I’m going to try and do 8 min. of writing in the morning. This is based on the 8 min. habit by Monica Leonnel, that I just finished reading last night.  If I can do 20 min. of writing based on a card reading, then I suppose I can do 8 min. of writing based on a prompt somewhere.

I’m debating whether or not to post my story here or somewhere else. I don’t know whether to post it on 800 words, or to establish a new blog just for this. Maybe I’ll do it on 800 words, because I have fans there.

Pictures!

logo

This is my new logo.  I love it, and it’ll be on my business cards once I get the cash to get business cards.

HC book cover

This is my book cover.  The book has just been sent to the publisher.  We’re hoping to get it published and out there on October 1.  I need a few copies for myself, to sell to the people at work.

Marc Ducrow did the artwork for the book cover and the logo.  If you have a chance, and need graphic art done for your book or logo, contact him.  He’s on twitter @MarcDucrowart

 

When the outline’s too short

I outline, barely, what I need to do when I write.  I just started to outline with these past two novels.  Normally I’m a total pantser, and I write whatever the muse tells me to do.

So I did a very general outline when I first started War Mage.  It was like “Meets dragons”, “Black Lions”, “Meets <Ware>”.  Then I go off and write.

It seems, sometimes, that the characters do their own thing.  Okay, I let them, figuring that’s what rewriting is for.

I’m deep in the middle of the first draft, transcribing it as I’m going along.  Already one entire scene appeared out of nowhere (because I wasn’t utilizing a character enough) into the second draft, and a huge scene that I wrote in one 2-hour stretch disappeared.  I’m not sure if I’ll use that scene or not. Ever.

Today, I listened to a podcast that I won’t listen to anymore because the hostess takes over the entire conversation for blocks of minutes leaving her guests to say, “Oh, that’s nice.”   The hostess, of course, said that nobody makes their characters grow in romance fiction anymore.  And that got me to thinking, did I make Brent grow at all?  Because right now, War Mage reads like a series of vignettes, a bunch of scenes, where he’s reporting on what’s happening but we don’t get what he thinks.  Hell, half of the people he talks to have no names.

Like the scene I wrote last night – it’s total reporting of what happened.  No inner dialogue, no reaction on his part.  And it was supposed to be a powerful scene.

This is what I’m deathly afraid of.  I’ve made a two-dimensional main character.

So once I transcribe the first/second draft, I’ll try to make him grow.

But in the meantime, my outline is getting too short.  What does this mean?

I have to brainstorm.  This is where index cards come in handy.  Because I’m a character-driven writer, I start stories with characters, not plot (sometimes I have a Point A to Point B story, and nothing in between).

I’m going to try this:  I’ll get some index cards and write a backstory, quick and dirty.  Name, age, where they’re from, what branch/division/company they’re in, physical description.  How they interacted with MC.  I should have a nice healthy stack.

Then I’ll pull one out.  Would this character show up again?  If so, how?  What would he do next with Brent?

If nothing comes to mind, I have some writing prompt books and a couple of characterization books to help me through.

Plot will find its way out then.

Oh, by the way, I’m up to 23K words.  I do have a bare bones of a plot, but, like I said, the outline is getting too short and there’s no end in sight.

 

No plot? Big problem

13,000 words into the new novel, and I still have no idea what the plot is.

So far I have introduced:

  • Dragons
  • Marines
  • FOB Blessing
  • Black Lions

I will admit I’m swiping from some books I’m reading in addition to Fighting Season a documentary on Direct TV about the war in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, I think, it takes place after my character is there.

A book I’m reading, Siren’s Song, is about one first lieutenant platoon leader in the Kunar Provence.  It takes place in 2008, but it mentioned FOB Blessing which I was happy to see.  FOB Blessing must have been there for quite some time by the time Siren gets there; it’s relatively new when my MC is there.

-Usually by 5K words, I have a plot.  Or at least a theme.  Here, I got nuthin’ but an outline.

It bothers me.  It bothers me that 13K words are going to be a total waste.

Cold Feet

Book One’s cover is off to the artist, and I can only  hope that he’ll have it done in time.  However, as I’m going through Book One, I’m wondering whether or not it’s actually any good.  It’s honestly not my best work in the world.

Now, Book Two…that cover’s coming out nicely and that story is flowing well (though I have no idea where it’s going).  Should I not even bother with Book One and instead try to put out Book Two?

Why did the dragons join the Americans?  Are they the only dragons?  What can an RPG do to one (we’ll find that out), and what can Brent do?

What about the press?  How come they’re not in there in force?

Some questions for my book journal, I think.

Maybe it’s the honeymoon of Book Two, that since this one’s going so well, it’s going to be better.  It is going to be better.  7000 words into it and I’m liking the outline so far.  But 7000 words of only dragons is not going to carry this – I have to think of something else.