Category: writing

“Plots have I laid!”

Whew!  Finished the ‘script’ that I’ll be using with my Powerpoint slides in twelve days at my presentation on Creative Writing & Self-Publishing at Ohayocon.  I’ve much ground to cover, and – since I’ll be a little drunk – cannot allow myself to get side-tracked, so I’ll have a written script in-hand to keep me on the rails.  I’ll likely as not tweak it a little, but that’s one less thing to fret over.

Have to work a short shift tomorrow (ironically with the woman who’ll be starring in the music video I need to finish) so perhaps I can take all my hand-written direction notes for what I’m provisionally calling “Lightning Across Clearest Blue” and type them up and get them to the rest of the team.

What?  Work on ‘Cursed Hearts’?  Never heard of it.

Continue reading ““Plots have I laid!”” →

Not dead; but dreaming

Haven’t posted as, honestly, there was nothing to say.

Work continues on Cursed Hearts, slowly (it would be oh-so simple to turn it into a novella of 30k words; I’m resisting that impulse.  For now).

I’ve the outline of what looks to be a 11-slide Powerpoint presentation for my Creating Writing/Self-publishing panel at Ohayocon in mid-January.  After a year of watching Milo speeches, I find myself using his voice in my head as I write.

This morning made a re-revision to the images I’m thinking of using in a fan-video; a joint venture of 3-AR Studios LLC and Star Art Works LLC.  I need that in the hands of my collaborators no later than a week from today so they can add/delete/change it.

It’s fascinating to me that the world of Machine Civilization I’ve created is open and flexible enough to swallow all of my other works.  As a former Systems Engineer, I’m absurdly pleased about that.

Christmas break for my girls, so no shuttling them about pools.  I’m hoping for productive evenings this next two weeks.

Ii don’t care that CH is a commercial product (well, yes, I do; that’s not my point) so I’m going to continue sharing snippets here. Continue reading “Not dead; but dreaming” →

Curtain falls; curtain rises

NaNoWriMo passed yesterday.  As I expected, I was no-where near finished, much less to 50k words.  Which is fine:  I’ve many other things pressing for my time, and I’m finding the characters engaging and the genre a good challenge, so I don’t want to rush.  Still:  deadlines.  So, I think I’ll set Christmas as my writing stop-date.  As I’m guesstimating that this one will be a little longer than my first two – maybe 65k words – that’ll give me January to… hang on, something just came in on my ‘writer’ email….

Oh.  It appears my one-hour panel, ‘Creative Writing and Self-Publishing’ for Ohayocon 2017, in Columbus, Ohio, has been approved.  Sure be nice if I could give a more current example than 10-month old Echoes of Family Lost.  Hmmm.  January 15th….

‘Scuse me:  I need to go make some coffee for tonight.  I’d best see how Maya gets her memory back so she can start killing people again.  Cheerio!

Dogging My Steps

Good news:  second biopsy on dog came back as a polyp.  No cancer.  Bad news:  second biopsy on dog came back as a polyp; so it might regrow like some tanjed weed if the surgeon didn’t get it all, branch-and-root.  *sigh* Time will tell.  Otherwise, Lucky Star is doing fine.

Accepting the fail of another NNWM is relaxing:  my pacing of writing is much more like what I was doing over the summer with Defiant… about 500 words a night with the occasional ~1200 word burst.  The story is much less forced and much more like my usual pedestrian* style.  I’m happier about that.  Not that I don’t have an hard deadline:  I finally got round to seeing the longer trailer for Ghost in the Shell.  Never read the manga, never saw any of the animated movies.  So, a show about machines and what it means to be a person.  Nope, I got nothing on that.  Better have Cursed Hearts published before that comes out!

*No, really.  I actually have Chris and Cat wandering around UCSD campus… Continue reading “Dogging My Steps” →

Xenophon

Or, rather, I made it past 10,000 word count.  I’m not going to make it to 50k by the end of the month, though.  My wife was kind enough to point out that, two years ago when I wrote “The Fourth Law” in 23 days, I was also working part-time.  I’d forgotten that part.  The whole husband/father plus day-job thing (putting aside my dog getting his sinuses trenched out) is a little nerve wracking..

It’s not all bad news:  no matter when I finish (mid-December, hopefully) I do plan to finish; I’m finding the dynamic between Chris and Cat very engaging.  I’ve laid down some plot markers that won’t be picked up for some time… one, not till the last scene.  After some great advice from Friend Will about horror scenes, I’m looking forwards to Maya’s next victim.  Of course, that won’t be for awhile:  I needed (and found) a way to put her in a box, so to speak.  Otherwise, she takes the next flight from Japan to San Diego and kills my other characters.  Over at 13k words.  Fortunately for my story, she’s a typical Oriental woman when behind the wheel.  Bye, bye for a bit, Maya!

I’ve a little time before making dinner, so I’ll see if I can get Chris enrolled in his classes.  That should generate some secondary and tertiary characters, which is good.  I’d like a scene at La Jolla beach, but I’ve already called out Chris’ scars from his modifications….  That’s it!  I’ll do it at night!  Everyone goes to see some bioluminescent algae bloom; perfect!  When he steps into the water, the light moves away from him (metaphors up to ’11!’).

And right there is how this happens.

Dis Ease

Wife and daughters in Mason, Ohio for a swim meet.  I stayed behind to retrieve our pup post-surgery.  Prior to that, I went looking for shoes (once every 5 years; failed.  Ordered from ebay), 3 loads of laundry, put towels everywhere for incoming dog, mulched leaves in backyard, restocked at foodstore.

Then, got dog.  Drive home, carrying dog about.  Early dinner, convince dog to take meds hidden in pork, short walk, bed.

Oh.  What didn’t happen?  7500 words, that’s what didn’t happen.

Continue reading “Dis Ease” →

Writing Horror

I don’t think I’ve a hand for this, either.  I had my wife read the part I just wrote, in italics, below.  She wandered off muttering “I like your romance, better.”  As if I can effing write romance stories!  She praises me with faint damns.

The taxi sat silently in its parking space at the small lot at Okadama Airport. The driver’s side seat was fully reclined, allowing Maya more easy access to the driver’s brain. After finding clothes and money at Neuroi, she’d taken the rail south into Sapporo city. At the main rail station, she’d wandered about until locating the cab station and asked a driver to take her to the airport. Arriving at Okadama, it matched nothing in the memories she’d eaten. The driver said the big airport was an hour to the south, but she’d not been specific! Would she like to pay for a drive there, too?

She’d reached around from the back seat and crushed his windpipe. Maya thought about the next step, ignoring the gurgling as the man slowly choked to death. She scowled slightly; had she not killed him, he could have driven her to the other airport! Ah.

She would learn to drive a car.

She left the vehicle and looked about. There: a small bamboo patch. She inspected and rejected several shoots until she found one of just the right size. Returning to the back seat of the car, she shut the door and dropped the driver’s seat back. He was almost dead.

Maya tore out his left eyeball. With a sharp drop of her right fist, she rammed the bamboo tube through the back of his eye socket. Oxygen deprivation kept him from fighting back more than feebly. Wrenching the shoot up and left, she put her mouth to it and began sucking his brains out.

See what I mean:  clinical.  This isn’t an horror story, it’s an autopsy report.  I don’t know what to do to ‘scare’ the reader.  Yes, yes:  I chose something outside my comfort zone to push me as a writer, but maybe I shouldn’t have done that in combination with NNWM!  The other half of the story, with Chris and Cat, is coming along nicely:  romance!  Well, sort of.  Too much exposition, but cleaning that up is what December is for.

Official Word Count:  9032.

NNWM – Jumpstarting

I say jumpstarting as I’m taking a still-born idea from over a year ago and using those characters and location as a rough framework for this novel.  Re-writing and re-editing (yes, I know:  editing is for December; but if I didn’t do it now, I couldn’t have used any of that material) gave me about 1,000 words, gratis. There was a NNWM Write-In here at the Licking County Public Library – although I’m the only one here – and in the past 90 min, I was able to add another 1,000.  Good first day.  It’s my typical “start the story in the middle” approach, and even then, I’m jumping about with flashbacks.  Still not quite got the hang of horror writing, but I’m sure I’ll work something out.  The closing of what I did today is below the fold.

Continue reading “NNWM – Jumpstarting” →

Countdown to November

This weekend shall be the calm before the storm… mostly spent doing laundry and vacuuming about the house.

November 1:  there’s a NNWM write-in at my local library.  I’m hoping to stop by after work, from 1745 to 1900.  They say “Bring your writing materials, inspiration, and an open mind.”  So I’m bring Nichole (the laptop I’m using now) and coffee & bourbon.  And I’ve always an open mind; just don’t talk your PoMoTranzi crap around me.

November 2:  Parent-Teacher Conference for Daughter #2.  I wonder if her homework about the election where she wrote “Hillary is pro-death,” and “Her closest advisor is Huma Abedin, who is also her lesbian lover” will come up in conversation?

November 3rd:  Some meeting from 1800-1900 about the church’s Xmas Bazaar.  I’ll sit in the back and try to write.

November 4th:  MILO in Columbus! W00t!  If there’s a meet-and-greet I’ll present him with copies of my books!

Let’s have a nice, death-and-tumor-free month.  For all of us.

RIP, Steven Den Beste

One of the greats has passed.

I’d read all of his posts on his political-military blog, USS Clueless, for years.  When he started posting review of Japanese animations, I thought he was losing his mind.  Turned out, he was showing me a world I’d not imagined.

As a family, we started watching dubbed anime.  Then subbed.  We went to anime conventions (usually the whole family cosplaying).  We started reading manga.  I started playing visual novels; then I made one; then two more.  I began to write traditional novels – much of who’s source material came from the years of anime stories in  my head.  I wrote more novels.

Would I have wandered into anime were it not for Steven?  Possibly.  But not with his intellectual rigor.  To this day, his analysis of Haibane Renmei -still my favorite anime – is breathtaking in its complexity.  The few times I posted comments to his website, or communicated with him directly, he was courteous and polite.  A gentleman.

The impact of his life upon mine is incalculable.  I was not close enough to call him a friend, but certainly a mentor.  My world, and the whole world, shall  be a darker place at his passing.

Aside:  Steven was an atheist, but not militantly so; not like a vegan.  I do have to smile, just a little, thinking about how his Exit Interview – with Someone he didn’t believe in – is going right now.  I shall have a Mass said for him.