Off to the beta reader

“Homecoming” is finished, and off to the beta reader.

This week I’m paying the artist for the cover, that I hope he can get done in a month.

Next month, I’ll be out of survivor’s benefits, so I won’t be able to do a lot of the things I used to.  Like commission artwork.  The more I go through my budget, the more depressed I get.  I’m not thinking that the book will make money hand over fist – it would be nice, but I don’t think so.

Steven sent me a royalty calculator, and it would be nice if I sold ten books, but I doubt that I would.  I didn’t the last time.  I have to come up with an author page for Amazon.  I have to prepare myself for getting possibly interviewed.

Launch date is October 1.

Man, I’m nervous.

Book 1, which is Book 2, which could be Book 1

I’m puttering along on War Mage, and decided that I’m going to have to publish these out of order.  I’m going to call this one “Homecoming: a War Mage novel” and it will be 2nd in the order of the books, but first to be published.

Something like this was done with the Repairman Jack series.  Books were published out of order.  I suspect that putting them in order will be a challenge for the reader.

The other option is that I start the series with this story, and have him go back to Afghanistan, and continue the series there.  I could do short stories of when he first starts with the team.  In this book I state that he never worked with the Marines, but the Marines are going to be the ones who have the dragons.

Of course there’s going to be dragons!

I think I’m going to have this artist do the work.  I have a picture and position in mind,   I just need to come up with someone that he looks like.

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…

Dead Iron

I tried.  Believe me, I tried to like this book.  I was already almost half way through it, and then…

poof.

It didn’t hold my interest anymore.  I tried to pick it up after I finally got a light for my bed, but I didn’t care.  I didn’t want to know about the witch and her husband, the Strange and what it wanted.  I eventually didn’t care about the lone-wolf (literally) hunter, either.

That’s too bad.

Ugh.

It seems my muses don’t like me sick.

I have been feeling out of sorts for the past month, sleeping a lot, even falling asleep at work.  My writing has suffered.  I can’t focus.

Today has been the worst so far.  Dizzy, joint pain, earache, waking up at 3 a.m…called into work this morning which is the first time in years.  Hopefully I will get some amoxicillin and then go on with my life.

But why so tired?  Why so out of breath when I do the simplest things?  Why so dizzy?  Do I have to pass out in order for anyone to do anything?

Sorry.  Will write about writing next time, I promise.

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.