Dratted Timelines!

My first novel, The Ways of Khrem, was actually something of a hybrid between a novel and an anthology.  It had three distinct parts, each taking place one month after the other, in a fantasy world running on it's own lunar calender. Under those circumstances, keeping my timeline straight was easy.

Argiope is a true novel, set in modern day Texas, and covers a span of a little less than a year. Unfortunately, while doing a read through last night, I discovered I have screwed up the timeline. And it matters. I guess that's the peril of writing without an outline. So I'm going to have to sit down and draw a timeline, plot out the points of different events, and go back though the story I have so far and fix everything. It shouldn't take very long, a day or maybe two, and it's far better to do it now instead of going forward and making a complicated mess even worse.

Sigh, the joys of first drafts.

Of course, it's Halloween weekend. Lots of kids and things to do...and little time to write. But sometimes living these experiences and sharing them are part of writing too. There is always the temptation for the writer to retreat into his own world and write...and resent intrusion while doing that. But at the same time, it is from the life we get our stories, and we need to keep ourselves open to that to keep our writing alive...and our spouses happy.

Ah well, Happy Halloween!

Friday Milestone

I have just reached the seventy thousand word mark on Argiope. I might just actually finish this dang book after all! I still have a ways to go, since I figure this one will weigh in at a little over a hundred thousand words, but I'm getting there. It would really be sweet if I could finish and shelve the first draft to this at Christmas. My stated goal is sometime in January, but you know me...ever the optimist.

November is Nanowrimo month, where writers take the challenge to try and put out a fifty thousand word manuscript of any kind during the month. Somebody suggested to me that I might ought to take that challenge and use in an attempt to finish Argiope. Considering that I tried Nanowrimo last year, and accomplished getting the most spectacular case of writer's block to ever shut a word processor down, I don't think I will tempt fate by messing with it again. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.

Once I get the first draft done, I'll shelve it for a month or two just to let it cool and get out of my mind. Maybe during that time I can get a short story or two done. It wouldn't hurt to get another Shades or Tales of Nur up on the kindle store. Production, production, production. That's the name of this indie game. You have to get titles up on that virtual bookshelf. The more the better. But they still have to be good too.

Then after that month or two, I'll  pull it down and give it it's first edit. This first edit will be just to find logic bombs, character problems, plot problems, etc. To go through it and figure out what works and what doesn't. After that, I will send it off to my proofreaders for the second edit. They will do a combination of the same things I did during the first edit, plus the beginnings of syntax and text editing. Then, once I'm confident I have the story right, I'll settle in for the real editing. Making sure the writing is tight, getting rid of those  pesky -ly adverbs and passive voices. Double checking the spelling, grammer, syntax, etc..

Then, hopefully, I'll have a book.

Writing Books and Stuff

How passive can the main character of a story be?

That's one of the issues I'm working through while writing Argiope. Adam, the main character, is physically handicapped and being threatened by people with "superhuman" abilities. For much of the book, he really doesn't do much but get rescued. He's getting better, but when I start draft two on this work I'm really going to have a long look at Adam's passivity. Part of it is intentional, but I need to carefully weight to make sure I haven't overdone it.

Argiope differs from my first novel, The Ways of Khrem, in several ways.

1. Adam is a crippled petroleum engineer who just wants to find out what happened to his nephew and his family, while Cargill is a much more dynamic character even though he is "retired." Of course, Cargill has the appropriate skills to face his situations, while Adam starts off way over his head.

2. The Ways of Khrem really didn't have any strong female characters, other than a couple of flashback scenes with Cargill's dead lover. Argiope has several, both good and bad. I may actually need to cut one out or down (Adams lawyer ex-fiancee) just because I think she might be too strong a character for the minor role she plays. As it is that will still leave Olivia, who Adam describes as a "multi-talented hyper beauty with an IQ off the charts,"....and Maggie, a rather fearsome powerhouse of an antagonist who blasts her way through a police squad in a hospital in an effort to  terminate Adam. Strong female characters in this story = covered.

3. Both feature large spiders, but in entirely different roles.

4. The Ways of Khrem is a sword and sorcery book set in a fantasy city, while Argiope is a sci-fi/horror set in modern Texas.

5. Both feature strong supporting main male character's. Ways of Khrem has Captain Drayton, a sort of old fashioned good guy in a steel helmet, while Argiope has Antonio...picture Ricardo Montalban in a cream colored suit, a pony tail, and a straw hat...with a gun, of course.

So my second novel coming along, and really beginning to take shape. It just takes time.

Drudgery

It seems the laundry beckons.

The piles are starting to tower, and I suppose that when they get  to towering that something must be done. I'm not really in the mood to deal with towering laundry today...but I suppose that's kind of how it got to be towering in the first place. And since towering laundry is not good, I guess I will see about doing something to un-tower it.

One thing is these pesky kids. They have this habit of getting bigger and outgrowing their clothes. Then the clothes continue to get mixed in with the laundry, and continue to take up space. So they sort of get cycled. They get tried on. Then taken off when they don't fit. Then thrown in the laundry for some reason. Then washed. Then tried on. Then thrown in the laundry....and the circle of lint continues. We must be the only family on the planet who has measurable dead space in their laundry.

Why are things so complicated?

Oh well, I'm a little over sixty seven thousand words into Argiope now, so progress on that front is incremental but steady. Since previously there had been little  progress at all, I'll take it.

I don't have a lot else to write about today. I guess I don't lead a very interesting life. I'm going to have to think about that.

Laters.

Footballl and Stuff

Okay, lets face it. The Dallas Cowboys just aren't a very good football team this year. Romo has been making his offensive line look better than it is for too long now. Now that he's out for a big part of they year, I hope they don't use that as an excuse not to back up and critically examine the shortcomings of this team in certain areas. Pass protection, run blocking, and tackling being primary problems. They need to stop trying to bump runners down and learn to wrap up and tackle, just like football  players are taught in high school.

Oh well, at 1-5 their season is pretty much over and the only role they have left now is as spoilers. I wonder how high of a draft pick we will get next year.

On the writing front, I'm at 66,000 words on Argiope so progress plods along. I'm kind of forcing my way through a scene at the moment, just to get it written. I think it could be done much better but I've decided that my goal is to get that first draft done and worry about fixing things later.

Now begins my three grueling days of sitting at Starbucks every afternoon. Work, work, work.

Oh well, I'm still depressed over the Cowboys so I'm going to bed.

Yet Another Writers NIght Out

Cherri Galbiati and I went out for our weekly writer's night out last night, and it went pretty good. Cherri is still recovering from the Death Flu that I gave her a couple of weeks ago, but since I've already had it I wasn't worried. She's feeling better, but we both still have hacking coughs so we wheezed our opinions on the writing world at each other on this particular evening. Much was discussed, mainly on the matter of books morphing as you write them.

See, some writers write with strict outlines and already have the skeleton of the story finished before they set down and start writing the book. Cherri and I aren't that type of writer. We're that other type that have a vague idea what the story is all about, with a few clear mental images of scenes here and there. Then we string those scenes together and see if we end up with the book we started out with. Don't try this at home kids...we're professionals.

Also, I slept in way to late this Sunday and there is no way I would be able to fall to sleep at a decent time. So I'm just going to stay up Sunday night and write. Hopefully I can get enough done to get a little "ahead." There really isn't such a thing, but it feels good pretending there is.

We also discussed the difficulty of just focusing on one book. It gets really irritating when you've decided to put all other projects aside and focus on just that one story...and then all the ideas that start popping into your head are about every story but the one your working on. Heck, last night I had an idea for a shelved project called Daguerrotype, and it has been shelved a year.  Sheesh, I just need to get my muse to shut the hell up about all this other stuff and help me buckle down and finish Argiope. I want to have the first draft done in January.

So I have a goal.

Yay, me!

Suddenly, I'm 49

Somebody on Facebook just wished me Happy Birthday. I stared stupidly at the screen for a moment, wondering what they were talking about, then realized they were right. Just shy of half a century ago, I graced this planet.

I guess forty nine isn't really THAT old...although, come to think of it, I can remember when cars had fins, so that can't be good. Still, I get this feeling there has to be a mistake somewhere. I mean, at the age of forty nine I should be an adult, and all 'adulty' and stuff. I don't feel adulty. I feel fat and tired a lot, but I never really considered that to be the same thing. Maybe I've had an over glorified idea of what it's supposed to feel like being an adult.

Anyways, if I'm still counting them then I ain't dead yet...so that's something. That's a lot of candles, though. Maybe this year I won't even bother with the candles and just set the damn thing on fire. The kids would love it. Or maybe I'll just go out and eat Chinese food...good grief, how old do you have to be to have that for an idea of how to celebrate your birthday? This might be worse than I thought.

And speaking of senility. I went to Sheridan's camp out and watched him get his Bobcat badge at the bonfire beside the river. So what did I forget? The camera...that thing that is usually glued to me whenever I go somewhere with the kids. I had even freed up a lot of space on the memory card for the event, then forgot the  stupid camera. Argghh! It was a cool event too. Sheridan loved the snipe hunt.

So, I guess that's it for now. I'm all tired and sandy from the campout...and being forty-nine...so I guess I better get my rest. I need it.

Have a good weekend!

Weekends, Interviews, and Stuff

So I got a blog interview by T.L. Haddix. It's part of a series about writers who waited until over thirty to write, and I suppose I certainly qualify for that.

On another note, we are going to take Sheridan on a day trip to his Cub Scout camp out. We are going to only stay for the day, as we just aren't prepared for camp outs yet...especially with Rowan along. We are going to have to come up with a solution to that problem, because I don't want Sheridan having to miss out because of things like that.

I don't know if I will get much writing done this weekend. I'm currently finishing up a short scene in Argiope where Olivia has a short confrontation with an Elder and his wannabe nephew, then I begin the scene where Adam and Antonio have their first encounter with the "bad guys" on their own territory. So big scenes coming up there.

I've also been making a point to read more often. I had fallen out of that habit a few years back, probably about the time I started writing. I think it's a good idea to get back into it a little bit. Both for creative purposes, and for enjoyment. I guess everybody should stay up on whats going on in their field, and in my case the easiest way to do that is to read books. So now I have an account at Goodreads.

Anyways, I'll be out of the house all day Saturday, and have no idea what I'll be doing Sunday. So I guess I'll just wish everybody a happy weekend, and update on Monday.

Have fun!

Toiling For Great Justice

It's Friday...glorious Friday!

After three wearisome days of sipping mocha's at Starbucks while waiting for Rowan's therapy to let out, I finally get my one day of the week where the both the kids stay in school all day, and there are no Cub Scout meetings to prepare for in the evening. It's almost like a day off :)

I'll probably use it to write and do some laundry. I still have a cough, and the lingering effects of that cold kind of dragging at me, but the mountains of laundry that have accumulated during my illness are not impressed with my feelings on the unfairness of it all...and refuse to disappear of their own accord. Sigh. I'm sure this is bad for my sensitive artistic nature, or something like that.

Anyways, I'm at sixty two thousand words on Argiope so progress is slow but steady on that front. I can already tell this novel is going to be a mess when the first draft is finally finished, and is going to need heavy revision to correct for things like changes in writing style since I first started this book and shelved it last year, balancing of characters, character tweaks to the main character, and a complete rewrite of the prologue...but the main thing now is get the story done and all the rest is gravy.

As somebody once said (and I paraphrase)..."Nobody writes a good book, but some people rewrite great ones." I have learned that to be true, and one of the great unspoken truths of writing. That first draft must contain a good story, but it's going to take several more drafts to turn it into a good book.

Ah well, onwards and upwards!