Getting the blog back together or, The Writing Process tour

I was flattered when my friend and colleague, Lisa Peers, invited me to join this blog hop on the writing process. I gave her debut novel, 'Love and Other B-Sides' a four-star review primarily because I thought a four-star review would be more trusted than a five-star one. That, and I am sort of a prickly pain in the ass.

Whenever I sit down to write I feel like I know more about how not to do it than how to approach it, but perhaps you can learn something from my mistakes.

What am I working on?
Too much, which may be part of my problem. First of all, I have three stories posted on Amazon, published through Kindle Direct Publishing. They are, in no particular order: Unclaimed, a fantasy/sci-fi short story featuring an eventual series character, Keegan; Keeper of the Dead, a fantasy/horror story about an aging warrior battling his own (and someone else's) demons; and A Better Way, a modern satirical thriller about a regular guy named Darryl Johnson whose life goes horribly awry. Unclaimed is the only one that has sold so far. It has only a few reviews, but they are five-stars and it is, in my humble opinion, the weakest of the three. Sorry, Keegan. Maybe next time.

Next up, I have another fantasy short story, Two Cows Too Many, to hit the cyber stores soon. After that, Lady of the Lake, featuring another series character, a modern mystery based in part on my past as an editor and reporter of a major weekly newspaper chain here in Metro Detroit. Charlie Morton, the POV character, is like I used to be, only smarter and funnier.

I am slogging my way through another fantasy short story, The Sigilist, and only last night discovered one major problem and how to fix it. Then I have another Keegan story, Three Sacrifices, that will need to be rewritten. Also, I have at least one novel I'd like to finish and post before the end of the year, either a Charlie Morton story (probably) or one of the three first draft fantasy novels I have tucked away on my flash drive.

I write on this blog sporadically as well as on two practice fiction blogs, one a fantasy series, the other strictly sci-fi, based on the space adventures of my bored cat. Feel free to check them out, but I warn you they are just first drafts, proofed only for spelling.

How does my writing differ from others in its genre?
The quick answer to this (I hope) is humor. I think spending more than a dozen years in the news field has given me a good ear for dialogue, too. There are other former newspaper writers who have turned to fiction, of course, but I deliberately didn't go the way they did, with novels or stories set in major cities. My protagonists are not very heroic; they often don't know what they're doing, or why. They are small-timers living in a small time world tackling problems that most of us face.

Why do I write what I do?
Entertainment, mostly. The stories come to me and I feel obligated to get them down. I am, however, taking a more serious look at what I do and why I am doing it (or why I want to, at any rate), because I feel it's important to have some kind of message hidden among the one-liners and snappy comebacks. A Better Way in particular has a few thought-provoking lines tucked away in Darryl's non-linear ramblings. He's like a Billy Joel song that way.

How does my writing process work?
I alluded to this in the beginning. The short answer is, I'm still working on that part.

I had a dream, once, a silly little dream, that I could write a short story a week and get them published. This was based on my optimum writing speed of about 1,700 words an hour for two hours every day. I've backed off from that because of age, infirmary and common sense. Writing is hard work; good writing, even more so.  I still think it is important to write every day and I am using this blog post to jump start my efforts again.

My concept is simple: spend the first hour editing one work, the second hour writing a different one. The idea is to gradually get into the creative mind set while you're fixing your mistakes during your first hour. I've tried two different versions of this: The Rooster Plan (from 5-7 a.m.) and the Owl Plan (from 10 to midnight). Both have their challenges, lack of sleep chief among them, and neither have exactly taken flight. Not that a rooster can fly, but you get the idea.

Who's next?
I have never met @NatRusso, but I liked him enough to ask if I could include him at the end of this and he graciously agreed. You can find all sorts of information about him and his work here. (As you can see, his Writing Process blog was actually posted before mine. His book, Necromancer Awakening, is among the current top-sellers on Amazon. I've started it and have been impressed so far (I sense another four-star review coming). Also, he is a good writer to follow on twitter because he finds a good mixture of advice, marketing and general conversation.

Also, check out the work of an old friend who writes as PJ Lincoln. Like me, he's another former newspaper guy who has a growing collection of fiction published through Amazon and elsewhere.

Thanks for stopping in. Feel free to share, leave a comment, download a story and post a review!

Stalking macaroni and cheese

"Nobody stalks macaroni and cheese," is one of my favorite lines from 'A Better Way,' a story I published recently on Amazon.com.




Subtle and silly in its own right, it sums up the bewilderment Darryl Johnson feels as he realizes the strange occurrence that keep happening around him are all related and that he has somehow offended some very powerful people.


I have a mild affinity for this story, which I started writing a few years ago. I took the name of the main character from my late cousin, but that's where the similarities between real Darryl and fictional Darryl end. Fictional Darryl is in a world of trouble and he doesn't realize it; he is a regular guy with a wandering thought process that was a challenge to write. Indeed, his thought process was so random and filled with a bizarre kind of stream-of-consciousness wool-gathering that the story was once three times as long as the final version (you're welcome for that, those who read it).


The story itself was based on three things: the title, which came from a Ben Harper song, an upside-down stamp and the disquieting feelings I had about the action of our government (and our willingness to accept those actions) in the wake of the 2011 terrorist attacks. Okay. I may as well admit it here, too. It was also partially based on a fart joke.


It was initially designed to be a pure satire, but it took on a darker tone in the week or so before I finally published it and I included some observations about the state of corporate America. I still think the comedic elements hold up, and I like the way little bits of universal truth peek through the seams when you are not expecting them. (Wait long enough, Darryl muses, and God will eventually turn you into everything you once mocked.)


Real Darryl's funeral, if you'll forgive my own wandering thoughts for a moment, was such an inspiring and unexpected affair that it will be recreated, in some fashion, in a forthcoming novel entitled The Other Side of Goodbye. Real Darryl was a regular guy like fictional Darryl: a mail carrier, volunteer firefighter and a pilot, but his funeral procession required the cooperative efforts of three different policing agencies to manage, it was so long and it reminded me that we all, each and every one of us, deserve to be celebrated.


Thanks for reading.

"I'm not looking back, but I want to look around me now..."

So it is now three weeks into the New Year, and I see that I have only contributed one entry to this blog and, even worse, haven't kept up on my writing, at all.

That's not good—not when my main personal goal for 2013 (call it a New Year's Resolution, if you must) is to finally get into a regular writing routine and get published. It is a lofty goal, but I know I can't do one without doing the other.

This, then, is an attempt to outline all the projects I have bouncing around in my head and on various thumb drives, so that I can prioritize them, finish them, cross them off and move on. It will also serve to further motivate me, because there is power in telling other people your goals. It gives strength to those visions and the people you confide in can help hold you accountable on those days when you cannot. In no particular order:
 
Short term projects (short stories):

·         Unclaimed, a fantasy story featuring a series character (circulating)

·         A Better Way, a mystery/thriller/satire (working on second draft)*

·         Short Drive To Nowhere, a mystery (first draft complete)

·         Two Cows Too Many, a fantasy/mystery story (rejected once, needs an update)

·         Keeper of the Dead, a fantasy/horror story (rejected twice, needs an update)

·         The Sigilist, a fantasy story (first draft complete)

·         Three Sacrifices, a fantasy story featuring series character from Unclaimed (first draft complete)

·         Ogre Tells a Story, a fantasy/allegory (barely under way)

·         Protector, an old fantasy story (first draft complete, possibly worth a new look)

 
Mid-to-long-term projects:

·         The Forgotten Man, a Charlie Morton mystery (first draft complete. Rewrite as graphic novel script?)

 
Long term projects (novels):

·         Rynik’s Revenge, a fantasy (meant to be one book, but the first draft came in at 300,000 words)

·         Short Drive to Nowhere (novel version of story, first draft complete)

·         The Other Side of Goodbye (prequel to SDTN, concept, few scenes only)

·         The Fading of Harvey Puckett, a mystery/horror story about Alzheimer’s Disease and an old curse (concept, prologue sketched out, a few characters)

·         The Midnight Train (or Sunset Train), mystery/thriller sequel to ‘Fading’ (concept only)

·         Out of the Rain, character piece based loosely on northern community (concept, a few characters)

·         The Last Day, a mystery based on an interview I once had with a ‘freelance priest’ who serves as an interim pastor at troubled churches across the country (concept only)

·         The Herald of South Haven, a fantasy/allegory based on my experience as a newspaper reporter and editor (concept, synopsis finished)

·         The Hive, a science fiction story based on my lawn at my old house in Wayne (teeming with life, none of it friendly; concept only, jotted down in a fit of rage)

·         12 Hours to Prattville, a mystery/thriller about an internet romance gone very wrong (concept, a few scenes sketched)

 
Longest term project:

·         The complete story of fantasy series character from Unclaimed and Three Sacrifices. (World under construction, a few outlines, characters, gods

 
Ongoing projects:

·         I have my two practice blogs about Alice and Esmiralda, along with this one.

 
 
That's a lot. It's no wonder why it's difficult to get anything done because, looked at one the whole, it's overwhelming. What, then, do you do?

I'm reminded of a fire chief I once interviewed shortly after Hurricane Katrina. He took a crew down in the aftermath to help out in the clean up effort and my first comment to him was: obviously, we've seen the destruction on television, but I doubt those scenes really do it justice. What was that like, seeing it in person and how do you begin to even put a dent in that kind of destruction?

I had nearly answered my own question, but he was more succinct. You don't look at the entire catastrophe—that could get overwhelming. You look at your part of it and develop a series of tasks that, step by step, allow you to accomplish your goals. For example, his crew needed to get to a fire station. What was the first thing they had to do? Clear the road. To do that, they had to cut up a gigantic tree that lay across it. To do that, they needed a saw, and so on.

It's common sense when you look at it that way and it's applicable to just about anything in life (not just natural disasters). Break down whatever chaos you want to control in to manageable steps that will let you build some kind of momentum and confidence as you tackle the bigger task.

Now that I've reminded myself of that simple truth, here's what I'm going to do. (1). Resubmit Unclaimed to other markets. (2) Rework A Better Way and send that out. (3) Rework Keeper of the Dead—perhaps that should not be a fantasy story, but a gothic horror story, instead. All that would require is a few new names. Alternate fantasy and mystery short stories so that I've always got things circulating without overwhelming any particular market.

In the meantime, I will look into ePublishing, and decide if that's the direction I'd like to move into. (this will probably be the subject of a future blog). Ideally, I'd like to come up with a formula, a version of the 'three strikes and you're out' rule, that would have me submitting work to traditional markets, and self publishing them if they are not accepted there. We'll see.

I will also choose a longer work to fiddle around with, too, and post blogs more frequently. That should certainly keep me busy, given that I only have about two hours of free time every day. My goal is to spend one of those hours editing and the other writing. It should let me accomplish enough small tasks to keep me from looking back—or getting bogged down and discouraged.

So that's the plan for now. Any thoughts?

Writer stares with glassy eyes; defies the empty page

The email I was half-expecting came last week: Unclaimed, a short story that I had previously sent out under another name, was rejected by Lightspeed Magazine.

The email was cordial enough, considering it was a standard form rejection—as if the editor was worried about hurting my feelings. He didn't have anything to worry about there. I don't think rejections are a sad thing, at all. In fact, the way I see it, a rejection should be celebrated.

They are not indications that you are not good enough. They are not suggestions that you should give up, at all. They're just an acknowledgement that whatever piece of writing you submitted is not suitable for that outlet—whether it didn't strike a chord with the editor or won't fit within the genre.

Rejections are a sign of two things: first, that you have something in common with every other writer who has ever taken quill to ink, pencil to paper, or finger to keyboard.

Second, they are proof that you are out there trying. Both of those things are important to keep in mind, particularly during the early part of your writing career, which can be an exercise in loneliness and futility. It takes as much time to find your audience as it does to find your voice.

I was expecting the rejection of Unclaimed. I wasn't all that happy with it when I sent it out. That may sound like a self-imposed justification now, but it's the truth. I had to cut so much out of it to meet the word count that a good portion of the character and back story had to be sacrificed. As a result the narrative was choppy, the characters undeveloped. I probably would have passed on it, too.

So why send it, when even I didn't think it was good enough? To get things circulating, I guess. A quick rejection from that magazine meant it was okay to send out the longer, better, version elsewhere. Plus, it had been a while since I submitted anything, and I thought I could benefit from a renewed sense of focus.

I think I'm right on both accounts. Keegan, the main character in 'Unclaimed' is a series character. I've only written a few of his short tales, so far, and have only begun to sketch the outline for his life's story in my head—and I already feel sorry for the poor guy. He may make it to his happy ending, but I don't think any of his friends will survive to enjoy it with him.

In the meantime, I will keep plugging away, working at his character and others, undaunted by the little bumps along the way. That's good advice no matter who you are or what you're pursuing: whether it's being published, finding a new job or connecting with your future husband or wife. Keep it up. There are plenty of obstacles in life. You don’t have to be one of them.

 

 

"You won't get wise with the sleep still in your eyes..."

When I first set out to write The Prankster's Reward, I had a target of 120,000 words.

One of my main gripes about fantasy fiction is that it tends to take a writer 10 years and three or four 1,000 page books to tell a story and I didn't want to do that--not yet, anyway. I wanted to write a relatively compact adventure tale that would leave readers craving more but wouldn't take such a huge investment of time to get to the end.

More than eight months later, the novel is done. It comes in at about 85,000 words, which means my initial word count was fairly accurate. It will take a lot of work to make it even readable enough to get someone else's opinion on it. Most of that work will be in adding depth to the characters and providing the backstory to the things I revealed in the final chapter and epilogue.

I've learned quite a few things along the way, particularly in the last month, when I declared my own personal 'writing Waterloo' and told myself that if I didn't get any consistency in my writing, do it with any discipline at all, then I was just going to quit and admit that life had won. The goal was impossible. Save yourself the frustration and spend more time with the family. Perhaps you can take something away from my struggles.

First, I am too hard on myself. Looking back, it's amazing that I was able to finish it at all, giving everything that was going on in my life. A battle with blood sugar, documented here. The impending foreclosure (or, hopefully, short sale) of my house, which I've written about here under the tag 'the third miracle.' The care and recent passing of my father to early onset Alzheimer's. It is okay to let things like this eat into your time, but it is not okay to let them defeat. All things pass and, as Winston Churchill once said: If you're going through hell, keep going.

Second, I allowed my own story to drag on to the point where even I got bored with it. If you're not invested in something you're writing, how can the reader be? Henry David Thoreau, a guy who knew a thing or two about writing, advises us to 'strike while the iron is hot.' A writer who tries to tell his story after the passion has faded is like trying to iron a shirt with a cold brick. Or something to that effect.

As romantic and cool as it may sound to say you can write something as you go along, the reality is that it's a lot more practical to plan things out ahead of time. That way, a plot point that you suddenly think about in chapter 21 doesn't require writing chapters 3-17. When I go back to edit this novel--and by edit, I mean rewrite--I'll do it the right way. I'll have a full outline. Character sketches. Back stories. I will set up a desk in my garage, beyond the reach of my wifi, and close the door to all distractions.

And go back I will. Write I will. For at the end of myWaterloo, I had an 18-12 record for days writing vs. days non-writing, and I know can improve on that. It doesn't matter what's going on in your life. Your dreams are still out there, waiting patiently.

Grace and a grain of salt

My mom has often asked me where my creativity comes from. I never really thought about it; I’m just happy the stories come to me, regardless of the effort it takes to put them into words.

But it’s a good question. She can follow a pattern better than anyone. She can make a pant suit out of a discarded piece of fabric, knit you an afghan, build you a stuffed bear (complete with articulated joints), embroider a wall-hanging—and you should see some of the Halloween costumes. But creating completely new things isn’t really her thing.

Dad was a math guy; he worked with computers. Equations were his building blocks.

It wasn’t until the last few months that I really started to think about that question but when I did, the answer was pretty obvious:

I learned how to be creative by listening to my dad swear.

Now, he wasn’t given to much profanity. He wasn’t the kind of person to drop an ‘f’bomb the way some people say ‘Hi,’ or anything like that. He didn’t swear often, but when he did…

He put swear words together like a toddler building a toy train, cramming one word after another with reckless, free flowing abandon. He didn’t care if the words belonged together or not—he just wanted them to roll.

I’d give you examples, but we are in a house of worship—and guests, at that. Suffice it to say that the last thing my brothers, sister or I ever wanted to hear when we were growing up was a plaintive voice calling from the garage or the basement: “Can I get some help, please?”

Because dad, for all his gifts with the more…florid…forms of speech, was equally as gifted at making a simple job become more complicated—and therefore frustrating—than it needed to be.

But dad was basically a quiet guy. Humble. And, in his own way, passionate. He had a great sense of humor, albeit a slightly unusual one. Even that, he kept mostly to himself, laughing when appropriate and sliding a zinger in when it was least expected. His usual expressions—which we’ll get to later—were as smile-inducing as they were confounding.

He was the hardest working person I’ve ever known. He would go to work all day, deal with us afterward, then do chores until he collapsed onto the couch. If he ever complained, I never heard it. That trait served me well in the news business, but even I couldn’t hold a candle to it.

And he was a fighter, too. When he had cancer, he had so little regard for that disease that he told us all about it during a card game.

“I’m glad you’re all here,” he said. “I have cancer. Let’s make that trump. It’s your lead.” We just gaped at him, the cards drifting out of our hands like petals from a wilting flower. He got radiation treatment on his lunch break and then went back to work.

Heart disease took his mother and older brother, but when dad had a heart attack, he barely even noticed. He eventually went to an ER—four days later—and, when we expressed our shock and outrage at hearing that, he just shrugged his shoulders and said:

“I just thought I was tired.”

But, Alzheimer’s…

Well. What can you say about Alzheimer’s? There’s no weight set that’ll help you. Alzheimer’s doesn’t care how much cardio exercise you do. It scoffs at a proper diet the way…well, the way most of us scoff at a proper diet. You can’t really fight it.

And Dad was a math guy. A computer guy. Equations were his building blocks. There must’ve been a moment when he realized that this was an algorithm that had too many variables to solve.

At least in time for him.

So he fought it the only way he could: for the next victim. He was part of a research program at the University of Michigan and we had his brain donated to the same department for study. Nobody could figure out why it hit him so hard and took him so fast while he was alive. Maybe now…

I guess you could call it the gift that keeps on giving, against the thing that keeps on taking. Maybe it’ll give some other son more time with his dad, some other wife more time with her husband, a few more poker games and campfires.

That’s one thing we can take from all of this. As for the deeper lesson, well, I had to think long and hard on that. Everything has a purpose. Everything happens for a reason, right? Well, possible reason could there be for this, to take someone who worked so hard, asked for so little, wanted nothing more than a better life for his children and who offended no one?

I don’t know. I asked that question a lot. If there was an answer to that, I didn’t hear it.

I am left with this:

Sometimes, in our quest for miracles, we overlook the little blessings. The smiles. Inside jokes. Pats on the head. Simple things we see and discard all the time.

My dad was never overly affectionate. I never heard him say ‘I love you.’ But he showed me every day, if I had been smart enough to notice.

That is what I’d like you to take from this, from my dad. Love, real love, real passion: it doesn’t have to be spoken to be valid. It’s evident in the little things that we don’t even notice. A guy who will make his own sandwich out of the crusts of the bread, and then tell you it’s his favorite part. Or someone who spends his last buck on a pop for you, and tells you he’s not thirsty.

Recognize that for what it is. Smile back. Say ‘thank you.’ Or even, ‘I love you, too.’ Because in the end, you don’t know how much time you have. I think my dad would like that, if he knew at the end we all got him.

What he wouldn’t like is us all crying over his loss. He’d be embarrassed over all this fuss (but he’d appreciate the sandwiches). He was a fighter, you know. Cancer. Heart Disease. Alzheimer’s. He was 2-for3.  And he got an assist in #3, right? Don’t be sad. Mourn his passing, and pass on his legacy. Remember your blessings. You are loved, even if you don’t hear it.

And, if you want to pass on his legacy, here are some simple ways you can do it. The beauty of it is, they don’t really require—or perhaps ‘defy’ is a better way to say it—explanation. His expressions:

When someone says: can I ask you a question:

“Shoot Bruce, the air is full of pigeons.”

To this day, I have no idea who ‘Bruce’ was, or what questions have to do with pigeons. We never met anyone named Bruce and, even if the sky was indeed filled with pigeons, dad wouldn’t be able to shoot one, anyway.

When you take a turn faster than you have to:

“Wheel that taxi, Ponch!”

When you’re waiting to turn into or against traffic:

“What is this, a parade?”

Or as a general exclamation:

“Nice going, Clyde.”

Clyde. That was another guy. We never knew who Clyde was. But ‘Clyde’ was the pinnacle of all insults for my dad. It superseded all commonly known swear words or pejoratives. We never met Clyde or anything, but he must’ve really rubbed dad the wrong way at some point.

And, if you’re doing something that just is not going like you planned, before you start stringing together swear words, try this gem:

“Well, that’s enough to piss off the pope.”

Well. There was more, but I don't remember the ending I tacked onto it, and I'm surprised that I even made it that far. Thanks again for those that came or passed along their thoughts. And thanks for reading here.

"Come explore your dreams' creation; enter this world of imagination..."

I recently read an essay that outlined 70 mistakes you should avoid when writing a fantasy story. It was in the form of a test that, if answered properly, would tell you whether or not you should admit your novel is a rip off of Lord of the Rings and, therefore, abandon it. There are some interesting questions in it, too, along with some funny ones. Most were designed to tell whether you are writing a bunch of cliches patched together with cardboard characters, but I think you could get away with some 'mistakes' outlined in it and still come up with a convincing story.

And so, in a sense, Esmiralda was born.

She came to me grudgingly but insistently, first as a version of a male character I had conjured earlier, and later, as her concept came together, as a means of stringing together many different stories in different parts of the same world. My main gripe with most fantasy fiction is that it always seems to require at least three books that take you six years to get through to find out the end of the story. I always thought there was a market for smaller, localized struggles. They don't have to entail the end of the world, but perhaps the end of the world--figuratively, anyway--for a character or two that people care about. These conflicts could take place in the same world, but different parts of it. Maybe they're connected, maybe not. The common link between them would be Esmiralda, or people like her, who are given the task of recording them so that they are not lost to the vagaries of history.

Esmiralda, or Mira, as she'll be known by those close to her, is the fantasy equivalent of today's newspaper stringer; a freelance historian in search of a story to tell, a hero to document, a legend to immortalize. That she happens on a guy named Seymuhr is her misfortune. Seymuhr is one of those fantasy rules you shouldn't break. He is based on an old Dungeons & Dragons character, but don't hold that against him. This is not necessarily his story--it is Mira's as much as anyone's--and I am not entirely sure where I want to go with it. At first, I thought I would try to break as many other rules as I could, but then I imagined Mira's frank gaze; her eyebrows raised, arms crossed, foot tapping and wondered if she was telling me to quit selling my talents short with silly stories about space cats, goofy warriors and the like. So I wouldn't pay too much attention to the title (The Unlikely Hero) or the tagline ('The odd times and tragic end of Seymuhr Skullsquasher'). Those'll probably change.

Speaking of change, this concept is a bit of one for me, too. Usually I'll have a plot idea, or maybe even just an opening line, and I'll come up with a name and plug someone into it. I have none of that here; only a beginning sense of who Mira is and what drives her, and not much else. I will have to figure out who everyone is, where it all happens, and how to connect all the dots. I will practice things like dialogue, humor, action, suspense and description along the way. 

The picture (above) is of an attempt to keep things straight. It shows a as-yet-unnamed world where all of this takes place. Gradually, it'll be filled in and you may recognize some words and names of places--or variations of them. The map is pretty blank now. At the top right corner you'll see a mountain range, tentatively named The Spine, that borders a place called Azrok, where Seymuhr hails from. It's accessible only by a pass called Azrok's Heel. It is a brutal place. Azrok is named after the stern northern God whose name came to mind while walking 'Action Jack-son' recently, and seeing the way Jupiter and Venus have been prominent in the night sky: the fierce Eyes of Azrok, looking down on the land. I even composed a Warrior's Poem about them, which will make an appearance in the blog.

In the far left, you'll see a town tentatively named Dervish, where my current novel The Prankster's Reward takes place. There's a space next to that for a new panel because that'll eventually be filled, too. Dervish, by the way, is short for something, but I started the novel so long ago that I have forgotten what it was. A shortened version of a phrase that translated as either 'Wall of Wind' or 'Wall Against the Wind,' depending on your inflection.

In the meantime, feel free to check out, follow, share and comment on Mira's adventures. I hope it'll make for an interesting tale, a pleasant diversion. I look forward to your feedback.