Gettin'er Done

Now that I have the second part of the rewrite out of the way, I can focus on more mundane matters.
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Today I'll be taking the car in for some much needed maintenance and repairs. I'll actually enjoy that since I can kick back and read while they're fixing the car. A whole morning of nothing but me, a book, and a nearby snack machine.
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Bliss!
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Next I need to finish up The Barrow Wolf. I'll probably start working on that tonight. There is no real rush on it...the anthology it's slated to be submitted for doesn't even close till this autumn...but I don't like to leave a piece lying around where it might be forgotten. Better to finish it while it's still fresh. That way I will also have two short stories, two flash fictions, and most of one rewrite already done this year. I don't want to fall behind.
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Busy! Busy! Busy!

Semi-done

Well, that's a pleasant surprise.

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I actually worked my way through the edit of The Cistern. I finished right before having to go pick up my daughter. I'll read through it again, seeing if I can spot any obvious screw ups, then I'll send it off this evening.

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Then I guess I'll start editing The Barrow Wolf. I think I'm going to tweak the ending just a little, but leave it largely alone. Mainly I need to fix a bunch of bad word usage, and one page where the pronouns ran wild. It was pretty graphic, and both the proofreaders I used for this one winced at it.

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Hopefully, either my copy of "Pandora's Nightmare" or "Proxies of Fate" will arrive soon so I can relax the gray cells and do a little reading. Either would be fine. I just need to unwind before junmping into the next project.

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I'm very sleepy, which is ridiculous since I have slept almost as much as I've been awake the past few days. But here I sit, trying to keep my eyes open. It's probably just that my schedule got thrown all out of whack. Regardless, it's not going to be easy staying awake.

Time to Shake This Off

It's five in the morning, and I just woke up from another nine hours of sleep. I haven't been awake for a twelve hour stretch in the past two days. Something is definitely up.
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Other than a general feeling of gloom, I felt okay so I don't know if it was something physical or not. Either way, I need to shake it off and move on. I didn't get anything done yesterday, so I have to crawl back on the wagon again today and get some stuff done.
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I have Stinkerbell's therapy today, so I'll need to pick her up from her school at noon and take her. I only have a couple of thousand words left to go on The Cistern rewrite, so I need to try and get that done. The house isn't in "horrible" shape (at least by our sadly lacking standards), but it could sure use some work.
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Oh well, it's just about time to start getting around and making the kids lunches for school. I'll try and have a little more productive day today, and shake this malaise off.

Ugh

Crawled out of bed in time to pick up the boy from school, and get the girl off the school bus. The boy did his homework and is now playing Ratatoille, the girl is cheering him on from the sidelines.

I'm staring blearily at the computer.

I'll see if my head clears enough to write this afternoon. My schedule is all out of whack now. Blech!

Work Proceeds

I'm now at the nine thousand, three hundred word mark on "The Cistern" rewrite, and plugging along. It's still the same story, with a little more detail thrown in in some areas, and things glossed over a little in other areas. I think I can salvage it.
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Still thinking about the ending of "The Barrow Wolf." I'm debating tweaking it just a tad, to make it's ending a little more compromising, without really changing much. I have to stay true to the characters, and the truths that make them who they are.
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Then I need to turn my attention to a couple of short story ideas I'm dwelling on for a future anthology. I can't devote too much time to them yet, at least not until this edit is done, but it's always good to flesh out ideas. And then there is always Argiope screaming in the background for my attention. I've been killing the same three drug runners for three weeks now, and they're getting tired of it. I need to get that scene finished.
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So I"m currently juggling three projects while doing the prep work for two more. Heck, I didn't work this hard shoveling uranium ore back at the old ore mill. Which brings up another thing I've been thinking about...
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...I haven't set any stories in New Mexico yet. I spent a significant part of my life out there, and it's a great setting, but so far I've pretty much stuck to either Texas or the world of Khrem. It might be time to broaden my scope soon.
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Oh well. Back to the grind. The kids have school tomorrow, so sometime tonight I need to pack their lunches and have their stuff ready to go in the morning.
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Ta.
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UPDATE: I'm now at eleven thousand, two hundred words and I'm stopping to sleep on the situation. The monster of the story is making his grand appearance, and I think I can do it better than I did the first time around. This is a good place to pause. I have my nights and days backwards again, so I'll have to straighten that out by tomorrow when I'll need to take Stinkerbell to her therapist. That means I'll probably snooze today, then try and get some sleep tonight as well...which means I won't get a huge amount of writing done. We'll see though. Things always work out different than I expect on these things.

Eight Thousand Words In

I'm better than halfway through "The Cistern" now, and Cargill is slithering down the tight shaft into the chamber below the hill. I'm trying to play down the ropes a little, but it's also going to be a matter of playing up other angles. When I'm done, the idea is for it to pretty much read the same as before but not be quite so confusing.

One of the things I'm trying to preserve is the sense of "process" when it comes to Cargill. He is a man of method and skill, and I want to preserve that. I don't mind simplifying things some, but I don't want to get away from the things he does. I only want to do it for clarification.

I woke up a little bummed out this morning. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's chemical or something...but Nate has a case of the blues at the moment.Oh well, when you can't even figure out why you're depressed, it can't be that serious. Right?

Status Update

Plugging away on rewriting The Cistern, while kids climb on me like a jungle gym.Progress is slow, but will hopefully improve tonight after bedtime.

Also currently digesting feedback on The Barrow Wolf. Had one proofreader offer some concerns about the ending, and will check with the others to see if perhaps some tweaks are in order.

I intend to take the boy to see a movie today..."How to Train Your Dragon" or something like that. It's getting solid good reviews, and it's been a while since I've taken him anywhere.

That's it for the moment.

Thrills! Chills! Excitement! Romance!

Have you even noticed what interesting lives writers have in the movies and on TV? Wanna see the reality?

In this thrilling episode, I'm struggling with writer's block while trying to revise a novel I've already written! Oohhh! Ahhhhh! Meanwhile my son is tempting me with a cookie, despite my wheat allergy. Ooohh! Danger!

Yeah.

Sometimes I wonder how I can stand all this glamor and still be conscious. And the excitement! It's a real thrill ride! (especially when I notice that the four year old has been quiet for too long).

Yep, you too can quit your day job and live the dream!

Rewriting The Cistern

So I have reached the point of the edit where I quit just accepting small changes in the syntax and punctuation, and dive off into actually rewriting.

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There is a certain point of the story that simply doesn't work for about half the readers. And the only way to fix it is going to be going in with a butcher knife and excising the whole mass. Then I'll have to replace it with something different, but still fits into the story as a whole. This is goingt to be a real challenge.

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At the moment, I have Cargill indulging in internal dialogue with his former self, as opposed to just musing like he was in the first set of drafts. A bit of argument between Mr. Cargill and Mr. Chance...so to speak. I'm not totally sold on the idea, and will have to back up and read it after a day just to see if I think it really works.

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That's the problem with rewriting. You're trying to achieve a goal you have already written, but now trying to write in a different way without changing anything.

Toiling for Great Justice

Back to work on The Cistern.

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Basically, I'm transcribing the entire first part of the story, with corrections, before reaching a certain part...where I will simply start rewriting it. So I'm basically writing a novella all over again, and trying to do it in a tight timeframe. Which basically means I'm really busy.

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Sigh.

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This writing gig is turning out to be work. It was supposed to just be a matter of me turning out pearls of literature and the world beating a path to my doorstep with offers of money and celebrity. So far, my door appears to be path free. Hmmm....

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Oh well, back to work.

And So It Begins Again

The edit for Part 2 of The Ways of Khrem, titled The Cistern, has come in.

It's pretty much what I feared.

There was a part to this story that made about half my proofreaders eyes glaze over, and my editor has put herself firmly in their camp.

In the scene in question, Cargill is launching a rescue of a young boy who has fallen down a narrow hole into a cistern below. To do this, he pulls on his former knowledge as a burgler and thief to use a system of ropes in the rescue. Unfortunately, I was losing a lot of my readers with the descriptions of what he was doing. I had already simplified the process once at the request of the proofreaders, but it still is losing people.

So now I need to rethink things. I'm going to work on coming up with a telling that is much simpler, yet preserves that emphasis on Cargills skills and expertise. I also need to keep all three ropes as the rescue simply wouldn't work without them. Each ends up performing a specific function in the story, and the removal of one makes the whole scene crumble. So this is going to take a deft touch.

I think I need to de-emphasize the ropes without removing them. That will likely be the approach I try first.

Anyways, I've pretty much decided to rewrite this story from the beginning so I'll be working on this for a while. It needs it, because the story contains a lot of other little irritations that were the result of my inexperience at the time I wrote it. This will make it a cleaner and leaner story.

Rip Van Winkle Awakes

Sorry for the late blog update, folks. I just slept a little over eighteen hours.

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Yeah, eighteen hours.

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And I still feel like a garbage truck must have parked on me for part of that time. I think there is the wee chance I may have come down with something. I had been hacking and coughing for the past two or three days anyways.

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Anyways, I got the edit for part two of The Ways of Khrem back, and I have a lot of work ahead. I'm not really surprised. "The Cistern" had my proofreaders divided into two camps. Those who loved it, and those who had their eyes glaze over from the technical descriptions. So I sort of saw this coming. I'll need to figure out how to preserve what Cargill is doing to demonstrate how skilled he is, yet simplify things further for the reader who doesn't really want to get into "process." At the same time, the editor gave me a way to go forward, by showing me what was working in the previous parts. I'll see what I can do with that.

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Charlie also pointed out some things that needed work on "The Barrow Wolf." Overall, that story is much closer to completion. Of course, I've learned a lot about writing in the space between "The Cistern" and "The Barrow Wolf" so I wasn't as prone to making the same mistakes. Oh well, it's all good and it sure beats sitting around and staring at blank screens and wondering how to start. I'll be busy for the next week or so.

ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Monday morning, I finished up the first draft of "The Barrow Wolf" and printed it out. Got a copy out to one of my proofreaders, Charlie, and then pretty much turned into a zombie for the rest of the day. I was working my nights and days around to get back into a school schedule due to the kids. When Karla got home at seven, I went straight to bed.

Now it's two in the morning, and I'm awake. Not an ideal outcome, but acceptable. I should be in decent shape to drive Stinkerbell to her therapist this afternoon. Maybe I'll try and come up with another short story idea while waiting for the next novel edit to come in.

Maybe a horror story about a guy being slowly overcome by mold/fungus in his environment, and his own lethargy. Sort of a death by inertia scenario.

Meh.

Perhaps another short story set in the world of Khrem. That brings up a point, by the way. Do I just call it the world of Khrem? That's actually the name of the city that the novel takes place in. I have never given the world a name. Do people actually name their worlds? Wouldn't it really be just their own word for "earth?" I'll have to think about that, since I still have time to insert something before the final edit is done.

I need to shop for kids lunches too. I suppose I better do that before they get up. Hooray! Walmart at 3 A.M! Here I come!

Sunday Night/Monday Morning

I'm sitting at Denny's, drinking coffee (the Dr Pepper dispenser broke), reading "The Crows of Bedu," and now typing on my blog. Kind of a solitary writers night out.
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I've been having trouble finishing the first draft of my short story, so I figured reading another authors work might help my mind relax. Sometimes it's hard to get what you want on paper, even when you know what you're trying to say. And sometimes it's even worse when you're on the last page of the story. I'm a big believer in the ending being just right. Then I'm going to have to go back and work out some rough parts. There are some places it just doesn't flow right, and feels rushed. Reading your work out loud is a good way to find things like that.
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Tomorrow the kids go to school. Spring break is over. I imagine Rowan will be happy...after she gets over being grouchy about having to wake up early. Sheridan was enjoying his time at home more, but I think that's normal as they get older. I'll be up all night myself as I try to rotate my schedule around to school days again. Oh well, what must be done...must be done.
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Onwards and upwards.

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UPDATE: The first draft of "The Barrow Wolf" is now complete. It still needs work though. This is the first story taking place in the same world as Cargill of Khrem that I have written since finishing the novel. It takes place in a land clear across the continent from Khrem, in a country called Issil, and has nothing to do with the first novel other than sharing the same world and a monster Cargill briefly refers to in the prologue. I may go back and include an Issillian creature mentioned in the third part of "The Ways of Khrem," just for continuity sake. On the other hand, two charactors in the short story (if you can call eight thousand words a short story), Perisa and Magrit, are intended to show up in a later novel with Cargill down the road.

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I haven't yet decided the intended market for this story yet. I may very well offer it for free as a bonus on my future website. I'll have to think about it.

In the Clutches of the Evil Empire

So I spent more time on facebook today.

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I accepted lots of friendships, instant messaged with a couple of friends (one I haven't seen in a long time), learned the difference between "home" and "my wall," exchanged comments with other friends, then learned how to hide the results of games that it seems half the populace of facebook are playing.

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Yeah.

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I can see this is going to do wonders for my writing production. I'm an addictive personality who fought for years to give up smoking, wheat containing foods, and have even fought an addiction to soda pop of all things. Now my wife turns me on to the internet version of crack.

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Yeah, this is going to end well. Really...just wait and see.

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UPDATE: Drat! It turns out I was wrong about the pronunciation of Argiope after all, as demonstrated here. I'll have to think about this.

Oh NOES!!!

It was inevitable.
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I have fallen to the Evil Empire.
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I have gotten a Facebook account.
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I only plan on checking it once or twice a day, as this blog is my preferred form of communication with the world. But Facebook is a reality on the internet, and as an author I have to acknowledge it. The trick is just not to get sucked in.
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Therefore I have made the resolution to play none of their games, not to spend an inordinate amount of time there, and only check on it a couple times a day. On the other hand, I will also look into their advertising rates. Maybe I can get something positive out of this.

Hmmmmm....

There is more going on up there than some people realize...
UPDATE:

It turns out she knows quite a few words. Jump, walk, kiss, hug, cat, dog, her numbers, some colors, our names, etc. Some of the connections she would make were pure entertainment. I typed out E-A-T on the screen. She yelled "EAT!" then she stopped, got a big grin, and yelled "EAT KITTY!" She then turned and charged towards Nabiki, who apparently also understood more English than I thought because she tried to run six different ways at once before shooting off down the hall into the bedrooms.

Meanwhile...

Freebies

I have noticed that certain writers offer free stories on their websites. I've looked into that and read their reasoning for doing so. It is rather persuasive.

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Basically, the idea is to build up both exposure, and good will with a future audience. Some authors, for instance JA Konrath, have done this to great effect. Of course, nearly all agree that you need to be fairly prolific to pull this off with success. You have to write enough that giving a few stories away here and there won't kill you.

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On the plus side, I have been rather prolific over the past year and half. One novel, thirteen short stories, and two pieces of flash fiction. I should be finishing another short story over the next day or two, and I'm thirty thousand words into my next novel. So that's not too bad.

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The problem is that my novel is fantasy, and most of my short stories are horror. Readers who enjoyed The Ways of Khrem, and come looking at my future website to pick up a little "more of the same" would be in for a surprise...since the stories I have currently available to put on the website are all pretty much rural horror. Now the one I'm finishing up is fantasy, but that's just one.

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I don't want to overdo it either. As it would be nice to keep my hand in future anthologies of Pill Hill Press and LL Dreamspell. I do have a couple of stories that I have gotten the rights back on, and probably aren't suitable for resubmission elsewhere, but again they are rurul horror. I guess I'll have to either write some more fantasy fast, or go ahead and promote myself as a fantasy/horror writer right from the start.

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Oh well, I still have two months to think about this. But whatever I decide, I still need to write faster.

âr'jIu`pee

Whew!
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Karla asked me a question last night that sent me into a minor panic.
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"Are you sure you're pronouncing 'Argiope' correctly?" she wondered aloud...thus leaving me with the sick feeling I may have been giving my next novel a silly sounding name. Fortunately a little research revealed that I had the pronunciation correct, as the title of this post indicates.
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Thanks for the ulcer, Karla :P

Thinking about Promoting

So now that I have this book coming out in a couple of months or so...what do I do with it?
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I've invested a lot of time and effort in writing it, and put my best ideas into it. I think it's only right that I give it every chance to succeed. And the only way to do that is to let people know it's available, and try and get them interested in it.
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And that's called marketing.
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That means advertising, advertising, advertising. I'm going to need to make posters, bookmarks, ad banners, and go to conventions and meet people. I'm going to have to strategize how to get the name of that book, and a link to it's page on Amazon.com, in front of as many people as possible. I'm signed up for Apollocon with a table in the dealer's room already. I'll have to research other conventions in the area, and check them out. I'm going to have to look at how much banner ads cost on different websites. I need to come up with a website for the book itself. I need more ideas.
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And all the time I'm doing this I need to find time to write my next book. A writer who isn't producing, isn't building his future.
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I also managed to get my edit done on my two stories in the Pandora Anthology and send them back in, so that's another thing off my plate. Only found a couple of errors, but I still had to read through both stories slowly to find them. Still, that's done. Now I guess I can get back to writing "The Barrow Wolf," and researching advertising idea.
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On another note, Sheridan is back from spending three days and nights at his cousin's house and didn't really want to leave. He informed us numerous times that he was very, very sad...and he didn't know if he could wait until the next time he got to visit. He got to run around and play with three other little boys and I don't think he missed us one little bit. He does like to visit his relatives, especially his cousin.

By the Power of Nyquil!!!!

Ugh. I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday evening. So I took some Nyquil and went to bet early.

Thirteen hours later my wife pulls me out of bed to help her gather the trash. I didn't really want to get up then either. So now I'm staring bleary eyed at the computer while Rowan plays quietly at the table behind me. Ugh.

On a brighter note, Cherri Galbiati reserved us a corner table in the dealers room at Apollocon. We will both have a variety of books to peddle, so we should be able to offer the public a good choice. And with it being in the Dealers room, instead of the hall where a lot of the other authors are, we might have a better shot at a wall outlet to power our laptops with.

Anyways, there is a possibility my novel will be out by then. Woohoo!! So I'll have to keep tabs and get hold of samples of the artists coverwork as soon as possible so I can make posters and bookmarks. This is going to be soooo cool!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Hack! Cough! Ugh.

Another Major Milestone!

My publisher from Pill Hill Press just informed me that she has retained the services of an artist to do the cover of The Ways of Khrem. His name is David Burton, and his work can be found here.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what he comes up with.

To Sleep, Perchance to Snore

Didn't sleep well last night.

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For some reason my cat, Caraboo, was feeling affectionate and decided that I had far more important things to do than just sleep....like pet the cat. So I did. And fell asleep. Only to get a furry headbutt in the face. So I petted her again. And fell asleep. Only to get a purring cold nose in the ear. More petting ensued. Then some more sleep. Then she wriggled under the blanket, crept up my chest, and headbutted me under the chin. More petting, with plaintive requests to just let me sleep.

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She wasn't having it.

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Anyways. I finally earned myself a place in the kitty doghouse by tossing her out of bed and trying to get some sleep. Only now I was awake, and it took forever to get back to sleep.

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Ugh. So I'm redeyed and bleary today.

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Dropped Sheridan off to visit his cousin. He is thrilled, and was too busy playing console games to come tell us goodbye. Oh well, I hope he has a good time. That will only leave me with one child to watch, which will make it a lot easier to work on writing and stuff.

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Yay!

The Future is So Bright...

Had a writer's night out with Cherri Galbiati. I managed to avoid gluten this time, so I'm only guilty of an enormous calorie intake as opposed to any allergy infractions. Oh well, I'll just demand they have a skinny actor play me in the movie about my life.
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We had a good time, and have started planning for Apollocon in late June. We intend to get a booth in their dealers room, and sell our books. She will have her novels and anthologies, and I'll have some anthologies since my novel won't be out till later. But if I have artwork by then, I'll make some posters out of it to advertise.
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The main thing is, it sounds like fun. If you're going to promote, you might as well enjoy yourself while you're doing it.

Woohoo!

Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday toooo youuu!
Happy Birthday dear Karla!
Haaappy Biiirthdaaay tooo yoouuuuu!!!

Happy 39th to my lovely wife!
I love you much!

Odds and Ends

Spent the day doing a little artwork on the computer. Not bad, but if I would have used my head, I would have saved that background I created before writing on it and then saving it. Arggh! Oh well, lesson learned.

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Sheridan will be spending Sunday night thru Weds night at his Aunt Natasha's house, which means I may not lose my mind over Spring Break. Poor Natasha may be a different story.

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Karla is going to Revalcon for her birthday. I'll stay home and watch the kids so she can enjoy herself. I hope she has a blast.

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Not a lot else to report at the moment. Just the weekend coming up, which means I don't get a lot done. I think I'll spend it doing a little research on some stuff. More later.

Oh NOOOOooooooooOOOOOOooooooo!!!!!

The bus driver just told me that next week is Spring Break. I'm going to have the kids all week! Nobody told me about this!
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I'M DOOMED!!!

Stage One: Done

First edit of Part One has been sent off. It may be a few days until I get Part 2, so I need to change gears.

bgw,Word 2007's review function doesn't seem to like me very much. It kept changing the colors of the comment bubbles used by Pill Hill Press and me. Sometimes it would switch colors, resulting in confusion on my part...and sometimes it would give us both the same color, resulting in more confusion on my part. I hope what I sent them back is okay.

First I think I will go back to working on ideas for the bookcover. I drew one out but my drawing pretty much sucked. I think I'll go out to Denny's and try drawing a little more. If nothing else, do a redraw of my first idea so it will at least be recognizable in case I want to send it to the artist to show what I want.

Then I'll either try to whip out a short story or finish that scene in Argiope.

Oh well, back to the salt mines.

Wrapping Things Up

Yep, even Stinkerbell does her schoolwork.

Anyways, the editing on Part One of the Ways of Khrem is wrapping up, and I may very well be done tonight or Friday. That will feel good. Then I have an edit I need to do on two short stories I have in the upcoming Pandora's Nightmare anthology. Those won't take long at all.

Then, while I'm waiting for the second edit on The Ways of Khrem to come back, I guess I'll squeeze in some work on Argiope. I was right in the middle of a scene where a deal involving three drug runners has a couple of very unwelcome guests show up. I look forward to finishing that scene, inserting it, and then jumping back ahead to where I currently am in the story. I really do want to get Argiope done sometime this summer.

Then I'm considering a second visit to the great city of Khrem. Or maybe a few short stories. I kind of miss doing those.

The Edit Continues.

I ripped five pages out of a scene early in the book, and replaced it with four that told the story in a leaner, yet better way. I call that a good thing. I've also cleared an idea with my editor that will make a later scene in the same story work much better. These are two pieces of good news, because once I have these done then it's back to just squishing typos and mistakes. After that, I'll send this part back in. This weekend is now a reasonable goal.

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I went out to Denny's tonight and did a little studying on the writing industry. Ebooks are the way of the future, although I don't think print will ever completely fade. But more and more, the web is becoming the preferred means of distribution...which means the web will also be the best means of marketing. MacMillon may have won a battle with Amazon.com, but they are going to lose the war. It's inevitable. Clinging to old paradigms will be their downfall.

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Sheridan stayed home sick yesterday, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped, but I'm still on track. I hope he's feeling better today. He does to, since he missed his chance to be good at school and earn his first milkshake of the week. I told him he could try again today. He gets rewarded with milkshakes on Tuesday and Friday if he's good at school. Sometimes Weds too.

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Stinkerbell is coming along. She actually asked, "Help, Daddy!" when she wanted to get into the back yard, but couldn't get the screen door open. Yay!

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Oh well, the house is asleep so back to work.

World Building

When you write a fantasy novel, one of the first decisions you have to make is how important the world is to your story.

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Do you need to construct entire edifices, populate countries, design architecture, and evolve wildlife? Or do you leave the setting fairly simple and give it exotic names? Both actually have their merits.

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For The Ways of Khrem, I chose the first method. Khrem has unique architecture, creatures, and cultures...set against a main culture that is easy for the reader to assimilate. The differences between their reality and ours isn't all around the main charactor, they are something he stumbles into or encounters from time to time. Just often enough to remind the reader that here things are different.

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So the website will definitely include a location page, for places like Kingshead Square, Stoneforest Market, Godsvault Cathedral, and the Autarch. I will buy a sketchbook soon, and we will see if my hands still function good enough for rough artwork. And all this work will have another benefit. I have stories in mind for other parts of the world of Khrem. Stories with different charactors, in different settings. So this is a case where world building can show positive results for a long time.

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On a last note, the Great Quotation Mark Massacre came to an victorious end when Jessy (my publisher from Pill Hill Press) emailed with an idea how to change them all at once and standardize them. Thanks, Jessy.

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Oh well, back to work. Today I have to take Stinkerbell to therapy, so my computer time is limited.

Forging Onwards and Slaying Dragons.

Okay, maybe not slaying dragons...more like squishing quotation marks. Due to my using more than one machine to write this novel, my quotation marks vary throughout the book. Therefore I'm now going line to line, making them match.
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Ugh
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At least it's making me do a thorough check of each sentence as I hunt for problems. But this is taking a while. I'm about halfway though Part One now, so I'll probably be at this another night or two. And then I can focus on rewrites. That's not too bad. With a little effort, maybe I can have Part One ready to submit back sometime next week.
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On another front, I'm giving myself mental breaks by plotting the website. Above is a banner I made for it. It's just a placeholder until I see what the cover art and fonts are, but it serves it's purpose for now. Needless to say, Argiope has been put on temporary hold again while I work on this. Hopefully, it won't be for long.
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Ah well, back to the salt mine.
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DIE YOU INFERNAL QUOTATION MARKS FROM THE WRONG FONT!! I SHALL SLAY YOU ALL WITH MY TRUSTY SWOR...ERR...LAPTOP!

Back in the Saddle Again

After ingesting some gluten today, I was fuzzy headed for several hours but I managed to shake it off. It's odd, I had eaten several doses of gluten when celebrating my book getting accepted for publication without any ill effects. But this time it hit me like a brick between the eyes. Oh well, I'll just have to be more careful again.

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Anyways, I did manage to get some work done on the "Ways of Khrem" blogspot site. Cherri Galbiati sent me a link that showed me how to make pages for the blog, and I successfully accomplished that after tinkering around with it for a while. Then I even managed to install a custom background on it. I'm beginning to scare myself with all these acts of technical savvy. Regardless, it will still be months before that blog goes active, but I want it to be ready.

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Now I'm back to editing. Right now that's mainly a process of finding all the changes she has inserted and hitting the "accept change" button. They're mainly typos, bad word usage, or syntax errors. Also, due to the fact I made this manuscript on two different word processing programs, it has some font inconsistences that need fixing. Mainly with quotation marks. I'm going to have to hunt all those down and fix them.

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The few times I actually hit the "reject change" button is either in regards to dialogue where thats just what the charactor said, or in other situations where my breach of the rules was deliberate. For instance, I sometimes use sentence fragments on purpose, for effect.

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Anyways, back to work.

Taking the Night Off

No editing done last night.

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Instead, I went out to Denny's and read the book that arrived in the mail. It was "The Weaving", by Gerald Costlow. I give it high marks, since it was good enough to for me to relax and read the entire book through last evening.

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Tonight I will be good little writer and go back to editing. I need to finish up correcting all the typos so I can move to the rewrite phase.

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I've got the kids at home for the weekend though, so writing ends up taking a distant second for two days. That's okay, I imagine a break is good for me.

The Editing Begins

Well, I recieved my first edit back from Pill Hill Press, and I'm diving in. This is both exciting and tedious, enlightening and frustrating. But it's all for the purpose of making a better book. Anyways, I can see I'm going to be busy with this for a while.

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It's kind of odd coming back to this book again. Especially when I'm a third of the way into a different novel, but maybe this will help with that too.

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Anyways, I can see I'm going to be sucking down a lot of caffiene.

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That's all for now.

On Nate and the Spiders.

A writer friend pointed out to me that Argiope is not only my second novel, but also my second novel that in some way involves spiders. She made the point that I might want to avoid that theme in whatever my third novel is, just so I don't become known as the "spider author."

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She has a point.

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It wasn't ever intended to be that way, but that is the way it worked out. "Argiope" started out as a short story called "Picking Dewberries," which should be available later this year in LL Dreamspells first Nightmare Dreamspell anthology. It was only as I neared finishing the story that I realized I had a much larger story on my hands if I wanted to pursue it. And since it involve my favorite/most feared spider in the world, how could I resist?"

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As a child I had a fascination and horror of spiders, specifically tarantulas and "argiope aurantia". I used to feed the argiopes grasshoppers, but would have nightmares about being a grasshopper in one of their webs myself. Even as an adult, I had a horror of ever coming into actual physical contact with the things...especially after a traumatic childhood incident where that actually happened.

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So I guess I ended up unintentionally using my writing to work some demons out. I really don't like the idea of doing that, as it can pollute an otherwise good story with the author's internal hangups. But in this case, since it's just a minor phobia in regards to a specific thing, no harm was done.

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But my future monsters will be something else. Something that doesn't bother me personally.

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Maybe big snakes.

Mystery of the Green Mist Available.

Mystery of the Green Mist, by LL Dreamspell is now available at Amazon.com. They haven't gotten the artwork in place yet, but you CAN buy the book now.

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This book features one of my early works, and the only mystery story I have written to date. It is called "Between Friends." I've already read the galley proof and can recommend it to all mystery lovers. I hope everybody enjoys it.

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I should have several more anthologies containing my work by LL Dreamspell coming out this year. This is shaping up to be a big year for me.

Playing With Ideas

One of the things I definitely want to do is support "The Ways of Khrem" with a website. Now the question is, "What do I want on that website?"

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One idea is a beastiary.

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There are several creatures encountered in "The Ways of Khrem," and several more mentioned. In addition to that, one of the tomes that Cargill acquires is a volume called "Crewell's Beastiary." This is actually a multiple volume guide, but for the purposes of the website that's irrelevent.

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I was thinking that one of the pages of the website could be selections from "Crewell's Beastiary," and ones that referred to the creatures that Cargill encountered or alluded too. Creatures like the Issillian Barrow Wolf, the Bog Sprite, the Bardockian Dire Bison, the Spine Hound, and several others. It would be bonus material for the reader, to read up on if he visits the website. My hands aren't what they used to be, but maybe I can even supply some artwork.

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Other possibilities could be little pieces of flash fiction involving other residents of Khrem. Or maybe more quotes from the books Cargill owns, like the ones that head many of the chapters in novel.

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Maybe even, way down the road, a map of Khrem...but that would be a huge endeavor.

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I just know that if I'm going to build a fanbase for this novel and it's successors, then I need to treat that fanbase right.

Burf!

It seems that my digestive track is unhappy with me.
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I canceled Stinkerbell's therapy today, and I'm just sitting her trying to motivate myself to do something. I've been playing with images of medieval skylines, in hopes of being able to put together a rough approximate of what Khrem's skyline looks like.
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I got about seven hundred words written on Argiope last night. It's for a scene I need to insert back in an earlier part of the book. Progress on that book is slow, but steady.
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Ugh.

Success is scary

So now I have a novel accepted for publication.
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After the initial high has worn off, and the celebrations are done, where does that leave me?
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Pretty damn worried, to be honest.
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Now I've got a lot to learn, and a lot to figure out. I want to do a good job of supporting this novel, and I'm already studying how to make websites or a better blog. "The Ways of Khrem" will have it's own website when the time comes, and i intend to see to it that it has extra content for the reader. Artwork, story snippets, and I'm thinking a beastiary of the different monsters mentioned or encountered in the book may be included. Of course, i will have to coordinate with my publisher at Pill Hill Press over this.
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I'm also looking into different forms of advertising. I know that the resources of a small press are limited, and that they are counting on me to pull my weight in the marketing department. I'm willing to invest some time, effort, and money to give this book a chance to be a success. I'm studying how internet banners work, and looking into future fantasy and scifi conventions that I can attend.
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I also have to find time to keep writing. I'm hoping to get a thousand words on Argiope done tonight. I'm working on a scene that I need to insert back in an earlier part of the book. It's just something that makes sense, and also livens up a saggy part of the story. I'm hoping to get Argiope finished by this summer, and then move on to my next project. I'm considering that project to be "The Lords of Khrem." It would almost be like coming home.
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Oh well, I have a lot of work, studying, and possibly even artwork to do. My hands aren't what they used to be, but we'll see if I can still draw at a decent level.

So I Ate Half of Houston

In honor of selling my first novel, I suspended my diet for the weekend.

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Saturday night, we put the kids to bed. And then once we were sure they were sound asleep, we ordered pizza. (Rowan is allergic, like me). It was the first pizza I had in over a year, and it was so good that it almost brought a tear to my eye.

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Then the next day I took Sheridan out to eat in Old Town Spring and I had a chopped BBQ Sandwich. I chewed slowly, relishing each thick and luscious bite of the tangy sweet piece of heaven. It was like being a kid all over again.

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Finally, I went to Denny's with Cherri Galbiati and ordered a big, greasy, double meat-double cheese hamburger with a side of fries. I heroically worked my way through that towering spectacle of beefy extravagence. . . savoring each dripping mouthful of meaty goodness. Then a tall hot fudge sundae put the perfect sweet exclamation point to an already delightful meal.

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It was good.

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But now the feast is over, and the real world intrudes. Now I go back on my diet, abstaining from the sinful indulgence of high carb temptations. Now the harsh penitence of a gluten free regimen reasserts itself, and the extravagant folly of the weekend must be paid for.

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Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. I need to get published more often.

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I guess I better write another novel.