Pssst… over here.

Hard to believe I almost forgot my password.  It’s only been– what?– how many months now?

No excuses.  I stopped blogging.  I finished with my first novel, and I quit writing altogether.  Definitely not a good thing to do for an aspiring author.  Life got busy and my priorities changed for a while there.  New work environment, wife graduating and starting teaching.  My kids are getting older, but are as fun as ever.

So here I am, hanging my head in shame.

Forgiveness?

I’m not sure I want it.  I made the decision.  I’ll live with it.

Now I’m trying to move my life back to writing.  I found I’m the most happy when I’m at the keyboard (typing, not surfing), or giving/getting a critique.  It’s more than just the acceptance of the characters that live in my head.  It’s that their stories bring people entertainment or value of some sort.

I’ve started a new project that I want to set the fire under.  It’s urban fantasy but leaning towards horror.  The work title is Knight Terrors.  I’d give more detail, but the story is still coming to me.  As the world shows more to me, I’ll post back with things I feel need to be posted.

Or not.

I give no promises.  For the moment, the best thing for my writing is to keep it guilt free.  That means if I say I’ll post weekly and forget, I’ll feel bad.  When I feel bad, I avoid whatever I’m feeling bad about.  That would be writing.  Sure, it would be writing a blog, but I’d associate it with writing almost anything at all.  I can’t have that, now can I?

So.  I hope to be here more often.  If you feel the urge, drop me a comment.  Knowing that there’s an audience is a motivation to keep coming back.

May your dreams be safe and your lives adventurous.

Ending the Hiatus

This month tends to get crazy around the house. Within the span of five weeks, all four of us have birthdays. My son turned six. My daughter, fourteen. My wife, twenty-seven. In two days time I will be a whopping thirty-two years old. Sprinkled within those four dates are also a father-in-law, nieces and nephews, and a few friends. So if I’m not attending a birthday party, I’m either hosting one or planning one. The current tally is: Attended=1, Hosted=2, Guest of Honor=0. As the month goes on, I’ll keep you abreast of that total.

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During a rare moment of quiet this chaotic month, I managed to slip away to see one of my favorite authors on his most recent book tour. This month Jim Butcher released his tenth book in the Dresden Files series, Small Favor.  For about a half an hour he answered questions and related amusing stories.  A few of them I’ve heard from previous signings I’ve been to.  One thing I found interesting that heard for the first time that day was how many drafts his books go through before reaching the everyday reader.  Seven.

There’s his first draft.  Then he makes his own revisions.  Then it goes to some beta readers, and he makes changes according to them.  Then off to his agent and more revisions.  From there it’s to the editor and a fifth round of edits.  The publisher and then the copy editor bring the tally to seven.  By that count he has seven versions of every book that he has written.

It was an enjoyable afternoon, and I’ll probably see him again if he should happen tour through this town for later books.

A Not-So-Pleasant Shade of Green

I recently read a blog post at Purple Hearts talking about envy.  In Jessica’s blog she tells how she, on occasion, feels envy for her fellow authors and their publishing credits.  More importantly it’s about how she in turn uses the envy to help motivate herself into writing more.  While I commend her on finding motivation where she can, I have to respectfully disagree.

Although envy might not be as poisonous as jealousy, the lingering aftertaste can make any amount of success bitter.  Let me explain what I mean.

When I write, I do it because I have a story to tell.  A message I want people to hear.   In some way or another it is unique in either subject or conveyance (I should hope anyways).  Once envy takes a hold, I’m no longer focusing on my unique work, but instead focusing on other’s unique work.  The danger in that is altering your own work to sound like the unique works of those you were busy being envious over.

I know it’s hard being on the outside looking in, wanting so bad to be included.  Stop and think for a moment.  What would you rather have, changing who you are and what you write so one day you could possibly be accepted by your peers, but know inside you would feel untrue to yourself, or would you rather continue creating the work that is uniquely you and gain the admiration from your peers, bring that party to you instead?

I know which I’d rather have.

It is human to have and deal with these emotions.  Letting them go and moving on takes more effort, but ultimately does ourselves better.

Time for Change

Change is definitely in the air. First, my daughter’s school called me on Friday to tell me they want to move her up to the advanced classes starting today. She’s so nervous that she’s making herself think she’s sick. There’s no fever and she’s not puking, so she’s going to school. I know it’s hard to change classes in the fourth quarter, but we talked it over this weekend and we all agreed that this is the best thing for her. She’s bored in her regular classes. If she has any homework, it’s done in a matter of minutes. Come on, her last presentation was on Expressionism and she managed to tie in Existentialism into it. Her instructors said that that was a difficult feat for a college student, and she pulled it off with exceeding marks. That’s pretty impressive for a thirteen year-old. I know I’m coming from a biased view point, but still.

She’s not the only one with good news in the house. My wife has received a letter of intent for a position she’s been stalking for the last little while. She can’t get an actual job offer until she graduates in about a month. No graduation, no job. Not that that’s going to be a problem. She graduating in the top five percent.

Yesterday my son celebrated his sixth birthday. We all had so much fun. We deemed it a water party. All the kids showed up in swim attire and I got to soak them with Super Soakers and pelt them with water balloons. They loved it as much as I did. There’s a little known secret I’m about to share with you. If ever you’re feeling down, a little sad with life, spray a kid with water. It’s so rejuvenating. They laugh. You laugh. All is good in the world.

I needed that burst of life, too. I was feeling down about my lack of writing. I steal scraps of time as I can manage, but life can get so hectic and those scraps never seem to manifest. I knew this heading into this year. Time was going to be limited for me. I need to savor what I can get and remember that my time will be coming. Now that my wife is finishing school, my time to finish will be coming up shortly. All the time and energy I’ve been putting into the job I care nothing about can finally be put behind me. Well, in a year or so at any rate.

There hasn’t been a phone call or party in my honor this weekend, but I know that change is coming for me, too. y writing will take off. The agents will be impressed. The publishers will bid over my manuscript. They will laugh. I will laugh. All will be good in the world.

Write, Write, Write

Three things I’ve failed to do in the last week. I’ve lost focus. I know it’s not writer’s block. I’m of a mind like Neil Gaiman, who claimed at last summer’s Comic-Con in San Diego, that writer’s block doesn’t exist. Writers merely get stuck, at which point you should write something else. Later an idea will occur, and you can go back to that previous story. When I heard that, it made so much sense to me. Here’s a link to a video some made of A Spotlight on Neil Gaiman. I haven’t watched it all the through.  I think it could be the entire panel.  The image is shaky, but the sound is okay. In any case, I’m not at a lack of any ideas. I have many that I want to get out. The problem is, I haven’t thought any one of those ideas out all the way. I need to brainstorm on what I want to say in those stories. Once I do that, I should be able to write straight through them. I spent so much time on the one novel, I think I forgot how I spark new stories. I know the process is different for every person. In fact, it might be different for each story by the same person. I will try again tonight.

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This morning I read a blog by Rachel Caine on publishers and agents. It’s worth a read for anyone interested. I hope to be on the road to finding an agent this summer. I’m sure in the following months I will be scouring the web for all the information I can gather.

And a Happy St. Patty’s Day to You

This is one of the days of the year I wish I was Irish.  Of the seventy-odd other nationalities that make up gene pool, the Irish is not among them.  So what did I do about that.  I found myself a nice Irish woman and married her.  She keeps me on my toes almost every day.  Just one of the many reasons why I love her.  Okay, enough with the gushing.  I’m starting to embarrass myself.

I’m not sure what my fascination is with the Irish.  It could be the accents, the red hair, their beautiful land, the colorful folklore, or the Guinness.  It could even be their entirely stereotypical portrayal in American media.  Whatever the case, I’ve got my green on, tickets to see Flogging Molly (which I bought for Valentine’s Day for my wife), and trying my damnedest not to do my horrible Irish accent.  Even though it seems to be deemed a drinking holiday around here, I will not be partaking.  It’s Monday and I like to drive.

Another little tid-bit about today.  This was when my son’s original delivery date was.  Of course he waited another week before finally deciding he was ready to be birthed.  That ended up putting all four of our birthdays (my wife, kids, and me) within a five week stretch.  There’s also other extended family that falls within that same time frame, at least three that I can think of at the moment.

So.  Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day.  Try not to do anything that I wouldn’t do.  Find a designated driver and have a wonderful time.

I will hopefully get back to writing this week.

Migraine Madness

They don’t happen all that often, but when they do, look out. I feel like the inside of my head wants to burst free. It always starts with my eyes. A little pin prick really. A spot as if I just caught a glimpse of the sun, but it doesn’t go away. It grows. Wherever the spot is in my vision, I can’t see. When I close my eyes, I can still see this spot. This could go on indefinitely unless I take some ibuprofen or the like. Once I get some meds in me, maybe a half an hour to an hour, the vision thingy goes away.

That’s when the pain starts.

My brain tries to flex inside my skull, stressing my temples. Lace in traces of nausea and you have a migraine cocktail. More ibuprofen doesn’t really do anything aside from making me tired. That’s no good while I’m working. So I suffer through. The second I walk through the door at home, I kiss my family and head straight for bed. I get nudged up up once for food and more pills. Sometimes I risk watching a little television, but usually watching TV doesn’t quite work with your eyes shut.

Writing you ask? That takes more concentration than anything else. My head protests at the thought. I might be able to see through the pain enough to get a pen in hand. But with all my strength concentrating on that, I would be too tense to let the creativity flow freely. The best I can do is remember the feeling and use it in a story sometime later when the pain is behind me.

Now it’s the next day and I don’t feel like the two hemispheres of my brain are warring. They might have reached a truce, or they could be laying plans to sneak attack later today. There’s no way of telling. I’m all for the peace. There’s more benefit in that for all.

And So It Goes

Life can get so busy when you’re not expecting it.  Those times you are expecting it, it tends to be even busier.  I had hoped to have at least one of the three short stories I’ve started, finished by last weekend.  No luck.

I’ve gotten far with one though.  I might try to finish it tonight.  It’s a little darker than I feel right at the moment, so I might need to put it off for a day or two.  Then again, who knows what my mood will be like by this evening.  Another of the three ideas I know I’m going to shelf for a while.  At the time I thought of it, I knew it would be a great story.  I still think it is a great story, but I can’t get myself into it.  So it goes back into the idea file for some later consideration.  The third idea stems directly from my current job and a previous world I created.  “Fantasy Farce” I call it.  The first story is called Ogreman Industries.  The gist of it was a job interview gone awry.  I’m considering revising it and posting it here.  Check back for updates.  The new story, as yet untitled, will have to do with a certain job within Ogreman Industries.  I laugh to myself whenever I think about it, which doesn’t necessarily mean it would be funny to anyone else.

So there you have it.  A list of things to write.   A novel to revise.  So little time to get them all done.  Whatever I do manage to complete, I will be sure to let you know.

Voice

I ran into somewhat of a problem last night while writing. I have this great idea for a story. For the last little while I’ve made some notes here and there waiting for the day I could finally put it to paper. Last night was my chance. I clocked out from work, came home to change, kissed my family and headed out to the coffee shop. All went well until I was about two pages in.

I couldn’t find the voice. At least not a believable, attention grabbing voice. I tried switching the point of view from limited third to first. Whatever I gained in voice and insight, I lost equally in characterization and narration. Both situations I can fix with a rewrite, but but I’m still unconvinced on which route to take. I might just end up writing two stories and see which one is better.

So if you’re keeping score, it’s currently short stories: 3, Stephen:0.

*sigh*

Oh, well. I could wallow in self-defeat or get over it and start writing some more. Who knows? I could come up with an entirely different idea today. I’d be happy to accept.

One More Week

This week I’ll tackle those short stories running around in my head.  As for that other novel-length story, I’m going to have to let that one sit and simmer a bit longer.  It has great potential, but it still lacks something that can’t quite put my finger on yet.  I’m sure if I sat and wrote it out I could come up with it.  Unfortunately, I have other things that need attending to, Raven’s Mark being in the forefront of them.

After this week I will start revisions.  I can’t wait any longer.  I believe my eyes are “fresh” enough to start from the beginning.  It’s been almost three years since some of the material has been written.  Really it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.  Most of it I wrote within the last year.  I also need to add about 15,000 words to the manuscript.  That shouldn’t be too hard.  I already know of three scenes that need to be added and about a half a dozen that need to be expanded.  I’ll make sure to keep you up to date on my progress.  I hope to be done with revisions by June.  I’m not actually sure how long it will take or how long it should take.  What I do know is I would like to market it this summer.

I see myself moving to the next stage in my writing life.  It’s a little intimidating to be honest.  Well, with an underlining thrill to go along with it.  Up to this point I’ve only written and only for a limited audience at that.  The few people that have been gracious enough to read it and give helpful feedback (The Amys come to mind), I owe much of my gratitude.  Now I’m expanding to a beta readership, soon to be followed by query letters and the like.

Regardless if anything comes of it or not, I have plans to write the second installment of Raven’s Mark.  Followed by a third.  Now that first is done and out of the way, the second two shouldn’t take as long to complete.  A set might even be easier to sell than just the one.  It’ll show I have the self-motivation to continue writing, not just a one book wonder.