Wow! This week’s been quite productive! 9435 words!

It’s been so long since I’ve sat my butt in the chair to write that I wasn’t certain about my abilities any more. Rather than set the goal at a thousand and fail, I set it at five hundred. Since January 1st, all but two of the days I’ve written has been over a thousand! Yay, me! I think for March 1st, I’ll reset my goal to 1k/day.

The second Sanguire novel, Lady Mistress is at the thirty-eight thousand mark. I’m shooting for eighty thousand words, but I think it’ll go over a bit. I’m at the stage in the novel where scenes are spawning new scenes, expanding things beyond the outline. Not too awful, really, when the first book, The Strange Path clocked in at eighty-eight grand. Continue Reading…

Thanks to Fran for reminding me to get a move on and update this site!  LOL!  Seems I’m a total slacker these days (which everyone here knows at this point, I think.)

The Sanguire novel is complete.  It went out on April Fool’s Day (no foolin’!) to Daw.  No word yet, but I wasn’t expecting it.  Their website states three months before a response, so I’ll wait until July before moving forward.

Edits to Iditarod are fair-to-middling.  We’ve moved into another apartment, and getting time to write has been difficult.  We’re still skirting around boxes and luggage and whatnot.  Tomorrow afternoon, the overflow goes to a storage unit (thank the gods!)  It’ll be nice to actually see the new floor, doncha know?  In any case, it’s been a little rough attempting to insert back story and alcoholism into characters that were initially trouble-free…  I will get there, though.
Work has been hectic, but what’s new?  The economy sucks, and more people are being hit hard.  It hasn’t helped that I volunteered to be the Safety Committee chair person.  I’ve been taking a lot of OSHA training courses to catch up to current regulations.  It’s been over ten years since I’ve done this job!  LOL!

Reading has taken up the rest of my time, mostly J/7 fanfic online.  Hmmm…  Can’t remember when I last picked up a book.  April?  March?  Ah, well.  I’ve about exhausted the online opportunities, anyway.   Just foolin’ around, I’ve written a first chapter to a J/7 fanfic.  We’ll see how it goes.

And recently?  Two words:  Star Trek  OMGs!  Whether or not you enjoy Trek, you really should see this flick.  Those that are into the series (especially the original) will have a great time!  Anyone who doesn’t care one way or the other will still enjoy themselves with the action packed movie.  Go.  NOW!

I’ll leave you with a snippet from that J/7 fanfic:

Tuvok studied her weary frame. He knew she’d never lie to him – though that didn’t preclude her from lying to herself. Unlike Vulcans, Humans needed to speak of their emotions with others for their continued good health. Voyager’s current circumstances didn’t allow her this opportunity. She held a rigid set of protocols when it came to command, something he had always respected regardless of her occasional brash actions. He suspected it was this inflexibility that caused her to remain aloof from the rest of the crew, and it was this emotional distance that caused her harm.

Of all the individuals aboard, he was the only one close enough to qualify as a friend. They had a long history that, while beginning on a somewhat adversarial note, had deepened into esteem and loyalty. Despite his distaste for the messy necessity of Human emotional discourse, he saw no other option than to elicit such a conversation. Over the past six years, Janeway had become more and more withdrawn. If the ship and crew were to survive their sojourn into the Delta Quadrant, they needed their captain mentally and emotionally sound.

“Kathryn.”

Her eyebrows shot up at his use of her given name. She blinked at him, biting the inside of her lower lip in what he knew as a subtle nervous gesture.

“It is 0326 hours. You are not scheduled for duty until 0800. You are in full uniform, imbibing in what I believe is your second cup of coffee.” A quick, skittish expression crossed her face. “Correction, your third.”

An unrepentant grin teased the corners of her lips. “Busted, am I?”

He drew himself up with a deep breath. “That would be an adequate term.”

Have a great month, folks!  See you on Facebook.

I promised myself that I’d update this blog at least once a month.  I mean, why pay for a website that never gets updated? Waste of money—and with the economy in shambles, I can’t affort to let what I have leak away.

So … Happy February!  LOL!

The first Sanguire book is still in my hot little hands. I’ve been scouring it for recurring words, thereby beefing up the narrative. (At least I hope that’s the end result.) My wife has suggested that I’m procrastinating (true) because I’m afraid to send it out… Well, okay. She knows me pretty well after two decades. There might be a small iota of truth in that belief… Oh, alright, alright! I confess! I have a very wide yellow streak!

To that end, my personal deadline is the end of this month. If it’s not out by March 1st, everybody who reads this has my permission to nag, rag, cajole me, and beat me about the head and shoulders until it is in the mail.

Besides, Iditarod is beginning to burn a hole in my mind. I can’t ofer it to my publisher until it’s rewritten…

Speaking of procrastination, I’ve certainly found a lot of things to assist me in the endeavor! Singe Yule, we’ve acquired a Wii console, the Wii Fit board, and Band in a Box with Guitar Hero. Ah, bliss! We haven’t had a gaming cosole since the kids were little (read ‘fifteen plus years’!) I’ve already burned through Guitar Hero World Tour on the easy setting. The medium level is a pain! Whew. (Please blame this particular distraction on my best friend who hooked me on it last month.)

And then there’s Facebook and, by extension, Mafia Wars. Again, this isn’t entirely my fault. Certain individuals lured me there, and then stooped to addict me to the game. (Linda… Steph… uh huh.) So, that’s been a distraction, too.

Finally, there’s the Obsidian Fleet, a conglomeration of PBEM and SMS Star Trek role-playing simulations. After months of research—reading mission posts, studying ships and personnel, etc.—I’ve joined up. I’m playing a security officer on board a small vessel patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone. I’ve only had access to their forum fo a week, but I think I made an excellent decision. My TrekGeek yearnings have been soothed, and I now have a venue to vet future characters. (The one I’ve created is one I have in mind for a future space smuggler series. By running her against other people in different situations, I can better write her in a book.)

So, that’s my month in a nutshell (no peanuts!) Hope everyone else is a little more motivated than me these days!  LOL!  I’ll try to curb my growing gaming habits.

Take care!

What with the economy crashing, the hundreds and thousands of jobs going by the wayside, and the looming homelessness occurring in our society these days, my best wish for everyone is to maintain…  I hope we all can keep the money rolling enough to pay the necessary bills, to buy the food for ourselves and see to our loved ones, and that families and friends band together to support each other during these difficult times.  I wish everyone the best possible year!
~~~

Snow in Portland, Oregon was actually fun the first day or so.  Haven’t seen a blizzard like that since I was living in Idaho as a child.  I’m glad I was home for the worst of the snow days.

Our Yule celebration began on Mother’s Night.  My wife and I lit our Yule candle at sunset (though you couldn’t tell it from the dark outside!)  We swapped our gifts that night, and had a quiet evening together.  I found a box of cards at Powell’s earlier in the month, and we went through them for a couple of hours.  It’s amazing how many surprises we had for each other after twenty years together.  (The number of questions we answered for each other wasn’t surprising.  LOL!)

I stayed up the entire night on vigil, mostly reading.  I’ve found a new post-apocalyptic series my S.M. Stirling that takes place in Oregon.  The Emberverse series.  Very cool.  I highly recommend them.   When not reading, I downloaded music from iTunes with my gift cards.  WOOT!
The next day—with the worst of the snow coming down—was the feast.  Oddly enough, we had quite a few show up, despite the weather.  We thought we’d only have those invited within the apartment complex, but one showed up from several blocks away, and another couple drove in the white stuff to get there.  We watched lots of movies, visited with friends, and everyone left stuffed to the gills.
~~~
The next two weeks in my neck of the woods were chaotic at best.  When not snowed in at home, I was snowed in at work.  (Thank the gods I work in the hotel industry!) All I could do at work was wish I was home, and at home stare out the window wishing I could leave the house and do something.
As a result, I’m about two weeks behind on my edits.  I’m still working on repeated words—the current one I’m working on is ‘was’.  Ugh!  It’s only used 868 times according to Concorder!  I’m only on page sixteen of the Sanguire manuscript, and have pared the couple dozen down to three…  Only three hundred pages to go!

Speaking of which, I should get back to work…

It’s been far too long since I’ve been here, but the absence was necessary.

To be honest, I hated to post another ‘haven’t-written-a-damned-thing-yet’ entry, so decided not to post anything at all.  It’s one thing to say you’re confident the writer’s block will move on.  I found it’s quite another to be it.  The more I said that I wasn’t concerned with the lack of motivation, the more worried I became.  What a vicious cycle!

I’m happy to report that in May of this year, I began the final rewrites of the first Sanguire novel.  They are now complete.  I finished the last of the major editing today, and plan to go through a concordance of the 90k words tomorrow in search of oft repeated phrases.

I nearly chickened out of my original intent to submit it to a major market.  Thanks to KG McGregor, Steph Solomon-Lopez, Medora MacDougal, and a host of others, my waning self-assurance was bolstered…  On the first business day of the new year, this manuscript goes off to Tor.

In the meantime, my next major project is to begin the Iditarod rewrites.  I don’t want to jinx myself by reporting my progress.  I’ve had far too many false starts over the years.  Not giving progress reports somehow kept me on track, and I’ll do the same here.  I will attempt to be a bit more communicative, however.  (Don’t quote me on that!)

Until next time!

Going great here!  As of now, I’m completely out of the Catering department at my hotel.  I’m a fully trained Loss Prevention officer instead.  Security is a wonderful department!  I’ve had time to THINK!

Just yesterday alone, I completely restructured Sanguire.  jrosestar, thanks for calling off the bet!  That entire novel is now defunct.  No more editing of it, and no submitting it to Tor.  The next one must be written, and sent instead.

I’ve also realized what my hang up was with Orphan Maker.  The Loomis I’ve created would never have acted that way in a joint town meeting.  Maybe when she was younger and more confident, but the trauma in her life broke her.  She wouldn’t stand up in front of everybody and their brother to discuss the way things should be going.  She’d take aside a member or two of the council and talk to them instead.

I set her up this way when the city kids arrived at the church—Loomis didn’t speak until someone demanded her opinion.  She holds a LOT of power with the townsfolk, but doesn’t use it often.  Doesn’t see that she has any.

So that last scene or two is going out the window (with the current version of Sanguire.)    What ELSE can I come up with?

You know who you are…

I’ve finished the hard copy edits of Sanguire.  Today I start working backwards through the manuscript—ala Holly Lisle’s ‘One Pass Edit’ process—to guarantee one physical sense on every page.

How far have you gotten?

The last day… sniff

Believable and Lovable Evil

How do you write believable villians taking over your story?  Can you make them evil and still lovable?

Mary Rosenblum, David D. Levine, Todd McCaffrey, phyllis irene radford

– motivation is primary for a villain.  He is a hero in his own book.

– “Fanaticism isn’t about faith.  It’s about control.” radford – evil ruler – usually in power long before the story begins – in power because the people allow him to remain in power – WHY? – if motivation is primary, choice is secondary.  He chose to be the bad guy – WHY? – not so much a villain as an anti-hero – Story idea – Main Characters are enemies for valid and known reasons.  Storyline follows one who becomes more sympathetic with the other, seeing that the villified and demonized enemy just ain’t so… – “The villain does the wrong thing for all the right reasons.” Levine – build up the villain.  The hero will grow to overcome what the villain does.  The bigger the villain, the bigger the hero.  (Note: spend more time explaining Shonal in Azrael.  Create a REAL villain for Sanguire. – using the Achille’s Heel isn’t a very satisfying conclusion or confrontation (which I used in Castle Walls.) – setting up conflict – two people each want something VERY badly … and each oppose the other.  As far as romance goes, it helps to boost this in the beginning between the MCs, but it has to be lessened to allow a romance to develop. – Warprize and Warsport by Elizabeth Vahn (sp?)

I attended one other panel about the economics of immortality.  It was… kinda boring.  The questions the panelists focused on were about extending human life into the 150’s rather than immortality.  With my work on the Sanguire and such, the whole conversation was pretty worthless to me.

Such ended Orycon 28.  Now I’ve got a year to go for 29!  UGH!

Hel, lazy month, too. Slept ten and a half hours last night. Didn’t even get up every couple of hours as is my wont. Then I took a two hour nap later in the morning. Not sure what the deal is; the last few days at work have been blissfull as far as the lack of physical labor required on my part. Sure am wiped out, though.

Been reading . . . a LOT, as can be seen by my Now Reading column to the right on my homepage. I have a vague sense of guilt for not writing or editing anything, but there’s no urgency, no inspiration. I’ve got a list of thirty plus ideas to work on, but none have really caught my eye.

Oh, yeah, a reminder for those of you involved in the Sanguire reading – you’ve got a week until the deadline. (That’s a laugh. Like I’m going to rush to deal with it . . .)

Done! Complete! YAY!

Born of Silence now awaits the eager attention of a half dozen first readers. Total wordcount for today was 16,376.

I have 2 weeks before vacation . . . and lots of books to be reading until I leave! Woot!

Thanks to all who volunteered. All bets are down and the wheel is spinning.

I hope to complete the final draft by Sunday night. Monday afternoon at the latest. I’m trying to get a section of my site password protected so y’all can download it from there, but it’s proving to be a pain. I might find some other way to hook you up.

Now, off to bed. MTX dose last night and I’m really, really tired, per usual.

Total word count for today is a whopping 20,992. Edited seven chapters in the last five hours. It’s enough. No more today. My elbows aren’t happy with me.

Anybody else?

It hasn’t even been a week and I’m posting already! What a concept!

Wednesday through Friday I rested up from Hel Month at work. Ran a few errands but mostly hung out at home with The Song of Ice and Fire series previously mentioned. Just started book four and have heard that the author plans seven. Good series if you like gritty realism in your fantasy tales.

Saturday my dad came for a visit from Idaho. He’s moving to Texas in a few months. I visit Idaho once every 5 years (if that.) Maybe he’s worried he’ll never see me again . . . LOL! We had a wonderful time roaming downtown. My dad’s a retired computer programmer analyst who will NEVER switch to a Mac. But I got him into an Apple store! LOLOL! Damn! Wish I had a camera so I could blackmail him with my brothers.

Sunday was my wife’s birthday, and I read, watched DVDs, and ran out to get her a speaker system for her iPod. Then I consolidated our music selections on her computer and transferred her iPod to her iBook instead of her eMac. The eMac will soon be on its way to parts unknown since she uses the iBook much more frequently.

Today I wrote the new intro to chapter nineteen of Born of Silence. Then edited like a mad woman. Whipped out four chapters of edits to the tune of 11,884 words. (Kids, don’t try this at home.) The next ten scenes are flat out edits. Then one more scene with some serious changes before I wing my way through the last nine scenes.

Anybody out there haven’t read any of my Sanguire stories? I’m going to need a first reader or six to tell me if it all goes together and works or not.

...so good.

Spent yesterday reading through the first seventeen and a half chapters of Born of Silence. Also went in to my audiologist to have my hearing checked and the aids looked over. The aids are doing fine and dandy, but the hearing is worse. I’ve got a name and number for an ear, nose, & throat specialist. The audiologist says that the outer ear appears physically fine and the inner ear has loss, but not to the extent of the total hearing loss. There’s a possibility that some correction might be attainable.

Then she asked me about my name. Usually this is followed by, “Are you Native American?” Totally blew me away when she asked instead, “Do you write books?” LOL! I’ve never had anyone recognize my name from my books before when I wasn’t at a convention. It was rather surreal!

Topped off the evening by breaking in our new propane grill. I’ve never cooked with gas before, so it was an education. The burgers turned out pretty well. (I used a recipe I found on The Food Network.) Grilled one ear of corn as an experiment; it turned out rather well. Next week I’m going to try chicken.

Today I finished the last of the reading and wrote 1153 words to finish out chapter eighteen. I’ve got at least one, maybe two more scenes to write from scratch before I get into the light editing phase. If it hadn’t been for that damned flu, I’d be completely finished with this, dammit!

Last week I reviewed the final .pdf of Castle Walls. That means it’ll be out soon! YAY!

Flu’s over. YAY!

When to my rhematologist last week . . . No more Plaquanel. YAY!

I have the next two days off. YAY!

I’ve been reading and not writing. BOO! George R. R. Martin’s latest installment finally came out last year, and my wife got me all four books for Yule. I really haven’t had much time to read. (Even with the flu, I was too miserable to do more than stare at the television.) I’ve just completed the first book, A Game of Thrones. It’s been awhile since I’ve read them, but… oh, the memories.

Can I just say that Sansa Stark is an idiot bubblehead?

Thank you.

Tomorrow I plan to revisit my new writing haunt, the Urban Grind, for a mocha and some quality time with the Born of Silence manuscript. Maybe I can get my butt back on track and finish this puppy once and for all.