From On the Road

Not a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movie… I hope. Who remembers them besides me?

We’re back in the land of no internetz, well except for Panera Bread. In Norfolk, on the way to meet the grandson at The Mouse, in Florida. He, with parental units, will arrive Sunday, the same day we plan to get there. While he goes by plane (school vacation is all he has), we’re driving, hence the intermediate stops, here at Gramma’s house and then outside Savannah. Us old people don’t want to drive all that long any more, LOL.

As for writing, my job for now, I’ve finally finished up two critiques for wonderful people that I can’t say any more about since their work isn’t public yet. I’ll try to let you know when they’re available.

Freedom Does Matter has a review on Goodreads. I’m not sure about the proprieties of reposting, but it’s linked from my book page, here. She discusses Mercenaries, too. Sales are existent, but countable on hands so far.

The third book, which has gone through maybe ten titles starting with Background Check, is currently called Connections for now. I’m trying to find a photo or two I can work both the English and Spanish words into. I have, two days ago, finished a major revision, recommended by my readers, and I’m letting it stew for a week or so, till we return home at the end of the month. If I can get it read again, I’m hopeful for an April release. I’ll post more about that later, along with some ideas for the cover. Reaction is always welcome.

The fourth book, working title Coda?, will be coming up for more work now that I’ve set Connections aside. Lessons learned from Connections are being applied, and that should make the story both stronger and clearer. But new scenes are required! It’s about 70Kwords now; the goal is 110K +/-, similar to Freedom and Connections.

I don’t believe I mentioned it before, but the hand-hewn map I used in the front matter of all the Mercenaries books describing the Nest, has been redrawn by Tommi Salama, find him at tommisalama (at) gmail.com. I think he did a great job; he’s looking at another map of the Nest, used in the reference material section, again, of all the books. You could find a worse cartographer. He does graphic design as well.

There are interesting posts at Ramblings of a Grumpy Old Man, . Try it and see if you like it.


Your thoughts and comments are always welcome!

It's December, so NaNoWriMo is Over

Yes, NaNoWriMo is history for another November. With 60K words validated, they declared me a Winner. So, good job, me. And Even Better Job to all the other NaNoWriMo’s who won, who came close, even those who wrote a word. Less of a better job to those who thought about it but didn’t actually get a word written. Better luck next time, which I think is in April, if enough people donate. Shameless plug: I gave to them, Not much, but what I could afford. If you can, throw something their way.

So what did that 60K words accomplish? Draft .7 of a front to back treatment of Coda?, the next story in the Mercenaries stories. There are rough spots—Hoo, boy, are there rough spots!— and the 60K will balloon to 85 or 90K by the time the pieces now marked with either an ^ or an … are added, and the roughness smoothed a little.

Description: Losses mount quickly as Beckie makes what she believes to be an unforgivable error, and has to live with the consequences. In that process, she meets an old friend, an acquaintance, and a new friend. Will her decisions lead to the life she’d hoping for?

 I’m having trouble putting any detail into the description, to avoid spoilers.

I will put Coda? aside for a while now, and work on (not necessarily in this order): Adapt the Past (the new title for Background Check), three different authors' stories I’m in various stages of critting, and trying to wrangle some reviews for Freedom Does Matter.

Another shameless plug: Edward L. Cote, one of the contributors to Twelve Worlds, has published his first book, a YA novella entitled Violet Skies. It’s available for Kindle and in paper at Amazon,  and at Smashwords in epub format. I liked it the first time I critiqued it, and it’s gotten better since. Disclaimer: I did the ebook formatting, so if you find a problem with the mobi or the epub versions, sing out to me. I’ve copied the description below for your enlightenment.

Taya Mindaerel and her mother, the Oracle of the Prairie Winds, must flee their home or face certain death at the hands of a dark hunter and his man-eating horse. Their journey takes them to Aurum, the City of Gold, where they seek the aid of the Great Magus Olbinaar.

On the way they meet three allies- Alex, a vagabond; Brand, a master swordsman, and Ogger, a wild creature. They will need all the help they can get to surmount all the obstacles in their path.

In the city, however, they learn that their journey has just begun.

Violet Skies is the first book in a YA series of the same name. Each book is a novella, short and easy to read. This is a fresh twist on classic fantasy, but it keeps its essential nature intact. The writing focuses on compelling characters first and appeals to fans and critics of the genre alike. Influences ranging from anime to Zelazny combine in a way familiar yet unique.

Comments are always welcome.

I Pulled the Trigger Today.

No, this isn’t a gun control rant.

Freedom Does Matter should be live at Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo as you read this. I have the paper version in process at CreateSpace, but due to proofing and shipping, that will be longer.

Now, on to complete the third Mercenaries book, Background Check, which I’m thinking of renaming Love, Consequences, Love, or Unintended Consequences, or something I’ve not yet considered.

Finally, to prepare for NaNoWriMo, I’ve been researching the story after BC; named Coda. I feel pretty confident in that name sticking, and hope to get more than half of it done in November.

Update October 5: Added the link for Kobo. I expect the paperback version to be available next month, due to my schedule.

My Muse is Back and There’s Gonna be Trouble

(with apologies to The Angels and Robert Feldman, Gerald Goldstein and Richard Gottehre)

The muse flitted in during one of the wonderful summer days we had last week (that weather continues, yay!) and to say she was disappointed in my progress, or more accurately, the lack thereof, would be an epic understatement. First, she threatened to go on permanent vacation—something about going where her talents could be utilized—but then she said “Dummy! You wrote the story about Beckie and Amy and Ian because you know them. Don’t you think knowing Piero (he’s the villain of Background Check) would resolve your misunderstandings about where I’m trying to point you in this ending. Which sucks, by the way.”

She’s not much on mincing words. However, even I can see the light when the carbon-arc strikes and the harsh blue-white beam shines in my face. I’m writing a side story that won’t get directly included, but will inform me about the way Piero acts and the things he needs and wants. Before she left, the muse nodded sagely and said “That should solve that little problem. I’ll be back.” After a pause, “Probably.”

So far, about a thousand words done on “Piero’s Story”. I expect it to be five or so thousand. Since it’s not part of the book, some things can be hinted at or glossed over as long as I understand where his head’s at as a result. Since it is a reference, more telling is acceptable here than otherwise.

Do you find this type of exercise helpful to you as you create characters who, while not part of a continuing series cast, are still critical? As every character you introduce must be.

As usual, your comments are welcome.

It's Been a While

That would be my fault. Between the heat and laying a new patio and critiquing three manuscripts as the parts become available and of course working on two of my own stories, well, I sloughed off writing for the blog.

According to Kristen Lamb, that’s a sign of indecision, or lack of sticktoitivness (spell check doesn't like that one) or something equally obnoxious. I have no problem with that assessment; unfortunately, it seems perfectly reasonable.

However, just because the muse flittered away for her holiday in the midst of Boston's heat wave, and I’m having trouble deciphering her notes, those aren’t good excuses. For neglecting either the blog or the ending of Background Check. So I’m going to work at both those things.

For the patio, shown in progress,

we selected Belgard's Urbana 3 Piece in Sable. To finish will take another week, weather permitting, of digging, spreading the base, laying the stones and then ’grouting’ the joints. A little clean-up around the edges and on to restaining the deck. Never ends, right?

I am trying an experiment with Freedom Does Matter, hopefully to go live in the next couple of weeks. Based on a perceived lack of interest in Mercenaries: A Love Story which i’m attributing to a combination of the description and the cover, I sent a candidate description to an editor, and am awaiting his feedback. While waiting, i’m doing yet another read-thru for typos and excess words. We’ve already shown the cover (top right), so we’ll see what difference these make. With the editor’s permission, when we finish  I’ll post the exchanges and results for your edification.

As I implied above, Background Check is nearly complete. However, the last scenes are giving me a fit. Too slow, and not enough action for the closure. But rather than navel-gazing, I need to look at the run-up to the end, and just go ahead and finish it. Then revise as necessary!

Comments are always welcome. More to come.

It's not ignoring you if I'm working... Right?

It's been a while since I posted anything here. If you've been waiting with bated breath, I apologize. I've been busy, not only with householdy kinds of tasks--as all us househusbands, and virtually all women, are aware--but some writing related ones as well.

I'm doing a couple of dedicated reader critiques for Critters, and another review for one of my beta readers, whose story is moving along with only a couple of minor adjustments needed... in my opinion! It's all my opinion!

In the past week, I've been working on formatting Becka Sutton's The Storm Child for e-book delivery. It's the second book in her series, The Dragon Wars, and like Land of Myth, the premier one, it reads well. I'll be able to recommend it... once I've delivered the files back to her and it's available. Watch her web site for news. Note, Land of Myth is available other places; check Becka's Books page for details.

I set a pretty low goal for the year, word count wise, 15Kwords per month, except 30K for April (Camp NaNo) and 50K for November (NaNoWriMo). That adds to 230K words. Even with that low target, I missed February and March. However, April went over enough to cover March's shortage.

The target for April was set to finish the first 'vomit' draft of Background Check. While I got just over 30k words into it, it's not quite finished, but the draft is at 108K words now, and I really thought I should be done at 100K. Oh well. Start at the beginning and write to the end. It will be what it will be. Or possibly, there's room to cut!

However, I set BC aside because one of my beta readers finally gave me the complaint that's bothered all the critters who've read Freedom No More--and that just before I built the ebook to send it to Amazon! Importantly, he used the words I needed to hear to recognize what the issue was. Since then, I've been rewriting the first arc of the story. It's certainly different; I hope people think it better.

He also thought it could do with more cutting. At 116K, I'm inclined to agree, but I'd taken 4 or 5Kwords out of it to get to 116. I've not checked it with the new first arc, but it doesn't feel any shorter.

The last thing--that I'm going to talk about, anyway--is that I finally got off my duff and used the CreateSpace account I'd set up almost a year ago to publish Mercnearies: A Love Story in paper. My 12Worlds friend Brian Drake blogged about his experience, and mine mirrored it. It is unbelievably easy! I'll do a separate post on the process, but this is the result:

Front and back. This version's available at both CreateSpace and Amazon.

Comments and questions are welcome.

New Pricing, in Anticipation

I'm planning to publish Freedom Does Matter by February 20, so I've dropped the price of Mercenaries: A Love Story to $2.99.

The new price is active at Amazon (click the cover in the sidebar), Smashwords and Kobo. Through Smashwords, it's available at Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. A warning: B&N hasn't caught up to the price reduction as of January 22, '13.

I dropped the price of Book One, also. It's only available at Amazon (sidebar). If you purchase it and email me, I'll get you a discounted price on the whole book so you won't get stiffed on it if (as I hope!) you want to read it all.

I'm planning to have the third Beckie and Ian story, Background Check (unless I change the name) out before NaNo. We'll see how that goes. NaNo will be for the fourth and perhaps last volume in that series.

Comments welcome.

Some Catch-up

While I'm in the midst of editing Freedom Does Matter and working out a plot detail in Background Check that research proved isn't likely to happen the way I had written (damned research!) I thought I'd share some reviews that I've posted since the last time I did this. Again, these are in the order posted to Amazon.

Let It Snow by Red Tash and others

Let it Snow! Season's Readings for a Super-Cool Yule! (Christmas book 2012) is an interesting, not quite eclectic, group of ten stories in the spec fiction genre. If you're familiar with these authors, this will be a welcome visit to their worlds and characters at this special time of year. If they are new to you, these stories provide a mostly fun, sometimes touching introduction to the unique worlds these authors have created.

While to me these all fit well under the spec fiction umbrella, that's not to say that they are all similar; they are assuredly not. The common thread is the Holiday Season, as the Foreward begins:
"Happy holidays and welcome to our quaint little holiday collection of zombies, crazies, fairies and treasure-hunters (and more)!" And snow, because here in the northern hemisphere, Holiday Season comes with snow... or the thought of it. The quote should give you an idea of the breadth good spec fiction can encompass.

For me, I hadn't heard of any of these authors, and I was happy to have a chance to expand my experience. Of the ten stories, nine were what I'd hoped for in opening this file. While the tenth story fit the collection: a story in the author's world set at a holiday dinner party, it was out of my comfort zone. Even at that, I think, for readers familiar with the world it is set in, it will add to their understanding and answer questions so far unanswered.

In the other nine stories, the characters brought me into their authors' worlds, whether a landfill, a mental "hospital" (it seemed that insane asylum would be a more appropriate, though non-PC, nomenclature), a parking lot in Arizona or a research lab in Southern California, and made the experience wonderful. Add to those an egotistical, arrogant dragon; how can you go wrong?

I started the book and for the first couple of pages, I worried that I didn't know enough about the back story to enjoy the stories. By the time I read another four pages, that fear was gone; I was thoroughly into the Landfill in Laurents County. I read straight through the collection--I did take a break to get a glass of water--and was sorry when 100% showed up at the bottom of the window. I wish I had sufficient funds to buy everything these guys write; it is good, with brilliant characters and clear settings.

I read this both on the Kindle for Mac app, and on the Kindle. In the desktop app, the cover looks quite nice; on the greyscale Kindle, almost as good. In the copy I read, there were a few typos and such; I marked the ones I noticed and put them in an email. A pleasant response came back, along with a note that they had been corrected, so you won't have to worry about those! I would have liked the table of contents to have entries for each of the stories, rather than just the midpoint, but not enough to mark it down.

I recommend this collection heartily to those who have read one or more of the authors, and even more willingly to adult fans of spec fiction who want to find new worlds. Buy it, read it. You'll laugh, and you'll cry.

Five Stars

Youth by JE Medrick

I was a little unsure about Youth. The main character, Louise, is even older than I, so I was leery. If that's also you, rest assured that this is a well-paced, moving story, with conflict aplenty. Most but not all of the conflict is based in Louise's family relationships, with her husband, with her children and their relationships with her and, to a lesser extent, each other.

Don't be confused; this is Louise's story, and I found it heartbreaking, uplifting and probably more true to life than I'd like to imagine.

Other than being a love story, I'm unsure of the genre. It could be considered science-fiction, in that the necessary things could exist, though they don't yet. Or fantasy, if you believe they can't exist, have no scientific basis. Let's call it speculative fiction and say it is an excellent example.

Ms Medrick's descriptions are not lush; they are just right, not slowing the necessarily measured pace of the story, but providing sufficient clues that the reader's imagination can fill details in.

I won't spoil the conclusions. I'll just say that Medrick has enlivened the whole story with interleaved questions (I'm loath to call it a mystery), and the answers will hopefully surprise and please the reader. They did me.

I read Youth on a Kindle; there were a few formatting errors which did not take me out of the story. It's a small thing, but there is no table of contents. When I opened it on my Kindle for Mac, it was as good as the Kindle, except that the cover looked very good in color. However, on the Kindle, one chapter's formatting is quite difficult to read, and I've taken one star for that. In the desktop app, that same chapter is formatted the way I assume it was intended. Even with that problem on the Kindle, it is a wonderful read, and I recommend it highly.

Four Stars

The Puppet Master by Jessie Sturman-Coombs

This is the second book in the Poker Face Series, the first is Poker Face. Ms Sturman has created a little piece of her own world in a British setting, and the results are incredible. Unlike the first, this story plays more to Ruby's internal struggles, making it wildly different from the first one. I'm not sure what's left for Ruby to explore, though I'm sure Ms Sturman is!

This book has as much conflict as you could ever want in a thriller, legal or not. In The Puppet Master (Poker Face), there's little of the legal, but a boatload of conflict, almost all due to Ruby herself, though there are villains, more easily despised than dealt with, to spice up the mix. I found myself quite anxious through the middle of the book as Ruby, Danny and Alessi work through a major course correction for her, largely because I couldn't figure out how she would get through it. Also, I wondered what would happen next, since it was too early in the book for this to be anything but the appetizer.

The main course, so to speak, was fully satisfying, and relieved almost all my tensions, and the dessert was a wonderful strawberry shortcake with a dollop of whipped cream atop. You may substitute your own favorite; it will be as satisfying to you.

The cover by Ivan Waldock is great and helps tie the series together.

I read Puppet Master on my Kindle, where it was easy to read. Like Poker Face, there are British phrasings and word choices, hardly surprising given Ms Sturman's British heritage, but none of them were more than a small bump in the road, so to speak. There are some grammar issues, mostly missing commas, that may cause someone like me to notice them, but should not interfere with enjoying the story. I opened it using Kindle for Mac; it was fine there as well.

I recommend Puppet Master to any reader looking for an intriguing thriller. If you're looking at this after having read Poker Face, what are you waiting for? If you haven't read Poker Face, this story will still work, but references may not make as much sense, and the relationships will be murky, I think.

Five Stars


Of course, you don't need to take my word for it, read these yourself and come to your own opinion. But I hope these comments intrigue you enough to look at these and perhaps purchase them your self... or something else by these authors.

The links are for the Kindle editions; if you are not a Kindle person, have no fear, just drop a note in the comments section and I'll find an alternate option for you. Any other comments are welcome as well.

Quelle surprise!

-->

Well, the end of the world has been delayed. Moving along.

Freedom Does Matter is being read by critters from Critters.org. I enjoy the feedback.

However, I’m not sure how to interpret some of the comments. For example, in one scene, Beckie’s been captured by a sheikh who’s not sure what to do with her. She’s on the beach with a Bedouin girl, talking. The beach is on the Mediterranean Sea, and it’s July, in the mid-morning. They have a guard, but in the sun, he’s fallen asleep. This point is made three times over the course of the scene. Beckie and the girl run away, and the reader questioned why the guard didn’t stop them.

So, I didn’t make it clear the guard was sleeping? Or, more likely, it didn’t register as important. But I don’t really want to beat the reader over the head with things like this: Hey, look here, this guy is sleeping so he won’t notice when the girls leave. I was afraid that three times was too many, so I’m just not sure how to fix this.

A different reader had a different problem in a different scene, but it boiled down to the same thing: missing a point that had been made earlier, so the current action doesn’t make sense.

How to strike the balance? Any thoughts on that?

I hasten to add that these same readers have made many useful suggestions, and I appreciate their help more than I can say. I guess it goes to show that while readers are intelligent, they are no more perfect than the writer.

Feedback on the part of Background Check I finished during NaNo was highly positive (if I took it as intended!), so far. Results are not all in. Now I have to figure out where the rest of the story goes, make it all neat and then do the minimal outlining that makes even the first draft a lot easier to both write, and I am reliably informed, read. Maybe I can get that done in less than a year!

Comments are welcome.

More Discipline Needed

I was going to title this The Downside of NaNoWriMo, but on further reflection, I realized that the problem wasn't NaNo, it's the way I reacted to it.

I finished NaNo with just over 50k words; about half what I think Background Check will need. Then, I went back to editing Freedom Does Matter and discovered it was hard to work on the characters' situations, having spent a month wrangling with their future selves. I knew where they were going and how the next months would play out for them... it was hard to focus on the present of the earlier story.

But this is my issue, not my characters', not my story's. Discipline, I think. I need to work on the current state of the novel, and leave the future for when I finish the present.

Has anyone else found this to be true, working on two stories with the same main characters at once? Comments welcome!

NaNo is done for this year!

I've not forgotten those of you who read my musings, but between everything else that had to be done by now and trying to get NaNoWriMo done successfully, I put all my energy there.

However, I finished NaNo today: three different word counts, depending on the software, but they were all over 50K: Scrivener reported 51051, OpenOffice thought 51211 and NaNo came in at 51005 with a certificate.

However, Background Check's not done. I think now it will run close to 85 or 90K words, so it's over halfway. Then of course, comes rewriting, editing, rewriting,... You get the picture. The big difference between Background Check and Freedom Does Matter, which I worked on last NaNo, is that I have completed over half the ms, instead of taking six months to do it. The end should come easier, once I finish up editing Freedom, and getting it up for sale.

Of course, there are other things, too. Covers. Critting for Critters.org. Editing for my beta readers. Ordinary things around the house, like digging out from the snow, which may be a more frequent occurrence this year. If we believe the weatherman. Writing more frequently for this blog. Spending time on twitter. Trying to guess what else might help.

Thanks for following. Comments welcome!

A Little Help

The muse didn't completely disappear; I have enough of an outline to start and perhaps finish NaNoWriMo writing Background Check, the third of the Mercenaries stories. Waiting for Halloween to be over.

I can start that because the second book is out for critting at Critters.org. It's been through my two beta readers. Thanks so much to them for their willingness to be abused, and point out when it happens. I made many of the changes they suggested; now we wait for additional suggestions.

I made a slight change to the title of the second book. It is now Freedom Does Matter.

If you've gotten to here, maybe you're wondering what help I'm looking for. This is pretty easy. Below, there are five thumbnails of possible covers for Freedom Does Matter. They should come out about the same as the one Amazon uses, so, do any attract interest? Do you like any of them? Is there one that seems better than the others? Let your opinions flow. Below the thumbnails is one full size image. Opinions welcome on it as well. The two with no text beyond the title would have that added.

Have at it!

The not quite full size image of the third one:

Thanks for any opinions you are willing to share. I'll be back in a day or so asking about the blurb.

I Miss Her

The Muse.

I've gone through the two beta readers' comments on Freedom No Matter, and made a long ton of changes based on their suggestions. I also gave them more work (that I hope they'll be able to fit into their schedules) asking if changes fit, and what did you mean by... and well, of course you're right, that was just [fill in your own inappropriate adjective].

I want to point out once again how much help these people give. In addition to taking the time just to read the work, they also mark errors, make suggestions, and tell me where they think the plot went astray. It's a lot of work, and I can't say how much I appreciate it. I'm sure every person writing is just as beholden to her or his beta readers; I just hope everyone remembers to say thanks, loud and clear! Even better: do an equally good job when asked to return the favor.

My readers have pointed out significant problems with my work. That's good. What's not so good is that it now falls to me to figure out how to correct them. In a day or two, I'll begin hitting Delete until I've found the focus that I slipped by earlier.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was waiting for my reader to finish before thinking I understood at least some of the issues at work (Focus, focus, focus!). The verdict is in: the second half is better than the first. The inflection point, Chapter 17, corresponds to my beginning to use a new tool. I hasten to add that the tool isn't as important as the provider wants us to think, but for me, it made it a lot easier to do what I haven't really ever done before: create an outline of the story before writing it.

I can hear the heads butting the desks and tables now. Of course the focus will be better when you know what you're writing. And on and on. Or perhaps the cry is: pantsers will rise again. Maybe.

The tool that made it easier for me to adapt is Aeon Timeline. I found that being able to outline in a chronological context made that part of the job both easier and more useful. I think, with my limited experience, it works better for more complicated story lines, or rather, it has more utility for those scenarios. It also links with Scrivener, back and forth, although I haven't figured our how to use that feature to its fullest. It's a Mac only tool right now; read the developer's blog about progress on the Windows platform.

Check out their websites, linked above. Trial versions are available if you think either of them might help you, too.

As for the Muse, she's been flitting in and out. We're working on the timeline for Background Check so I'll have a little structure when NaNoWriMo comes along. She also got me to start a short story completely unrelated to anything, but snuck out before saying how she thinks it should end. Working on that one, too.

Off She Goes: The Muse is Helping Others

Temporarily. She'll be back in November, anyway, and maybe earlier. We've been working on setting up the next story in the Mercenaries universe, now I've got the ugly first draft (and second, and in a few places third and fourth drafts) of Freedom No More complete.

It came out 110Kwords, and knowing someone besides me needs to see it to tell me what I've done wrong, I've sent it off to my beta readers. The feedback has already been swift and through!

It's to be expected. Still, I wish I wasn't putting at least the first one through so much pain. We have been discussing it, and I think I've finally realized what he means by "find your story!" Focus. Make sure I'm telling the story instead of wandering about in the weeds.

Easier said than done ( I love the weeds), but the second half (which he has yet to get to) may point to the root cause. I'll wait to see if the second half (after I changed horses in mid stream, in a manner of speaking) has the same level of problem as the part he's completed so far.

My other reader has been awesome busy, and just got started; I can't wait to see how that goes!

Do you plan to do  NaNoWriMo? I think the muse and I will try to get the first half of that next book through the keyboard. Tentative working title: Background Check.

More later.