It Was Only Last Year . . .

This weekend was such a busy one that I missed a date.  It might not seem like a lot, least not to you, but it means a great deal to me.

But rather than me tell you about it, please read the post from 26 July, 2011.

In case you didn’t read the post–and I think some of you will cheat and pass that link, even though I can see who is reading and who isn’t–that was an important post for me.

That was the post that said I’d finally had enough, and I was writing a story.  That story eventually became Kuntilanak, my self-published story that is just waiting for you to rush over and buy it.

Those were crazy days.  I started writing every day, getting my music set up for the morning before getting into the story.  Then I’d write and anally keep track of my word counts, and my words per hour production.  I’d blog about what I’d done.  Then, in the afternoon, Trusty Editor^tm would show up, and we’d go over the manuscript, looking for errors.

After a month I had a twenty-five thousand word story, a small horror story set on the island of Bali, with two protagonist who are not your everyday ghost busters.  I mean, the woman isn’t even seen taking a shower.  What kind of horror story is that?

Something more important happened then, however.  After I published the story in September, I decided to do something insane.  Not only was I getting ready for NaNoWriMo, but I started writing an erotic story that was later sold as Captivate and Control.  And I kept writing.  I’ve edited, I’ve written, and edited, and written . . .

I’ve even submitted a couple of things.  One rejected, one still in limbo, but they were/are out there.

I’m doing it.  I’m writing.

It’s been an interesting year.  All sorts of things have changed since that day last July.  Trusty Editor^tm isn’t around as much as they used to be, because things are always changing, but I still see them from time to time.

I’m working, and it’s keeping me very busy–and a little crazy.  There’s been a lot of ups and downs, but I’m still moving forward.

Mostly, I’m writing.  I’ve written nearly every day since, be it new material, or editing.  Take last night:  worked on Diners at the Memory’s End, and knocked off nine hundred fifty words, finished Part Fourteen, drove the story up over forty-three thousand words . . . all nice and neat, the way I like things.  Only four more parts to write, maybe ten thousand words, and this story is over.

It’s been a long story, and a long write.  Longer than I expected it to go, probably because this has been The Summer of Change, and when you talk about something putting a spin on your head, this has been the summer.

I still have a month to go, too.

I’ve got my priorities set up.  I’ve got things to do.  Maybe a year from now, I’ll write about something else . . . like being a near-famous writer.

One can only work towards the dream.

The Silent Howl

Today I’m blank.  I really am.

This is one of those mornings where there is nothing coming to the forefront, that I’m not feeling inspired to do something.  Trying to come up with a title–not much luck this morning.  That’s one think I always do:  get a title before I do anything else.  There are a few writers who do that, or at least used to do that.  One of the few stories I didn’t do that with was Kuntilanak; another was Captivate and Control.  Funny thing is, both of those stories are published, while other stuff is languishing in the computer.

Which reminds me:  today I find another publisher to whom I can send Her Demonic Majesty.  It’s been two weeks since I received the rejection notice, and that’s two weeks that the story hasn’t done anything but gather electronic dust.  Can’t let them sit around and do nothing, can we?  After all, if you do, then you find they can’t bedazzle an audience.  They do no one any good if the only people who see them are you, and your close circle of friends.

No, it has to get out there, because, damn it, it’s a good story.  It doesn’t do to keep it locked away.  It will see the light of day.

There was more action on the Diners front as well.  I was intending to get some real time on it last night, but I was phoned, and then I was PMed, and before you knew it, I was pushing 9:30 PM and I needed to do some fast writing.  The funny thing is, I was sort of rambling as bit.  When I think about what I wrote last night, it makes me think that I may have said the same thing a couple of times, only in different ways.  Why?  Distractions.  I get that.  I get that a lot these days.

Part of the issues I have at the moment–the lease is coming up on The Undisclosed Location.  They want to give me a break on another six months, but I’m not ready for that.  I think I’m going to do another month, and then see what happens.  I have to speak with the people after work today, get that into motion . . . then back to this hole to do whatever it is I do at night when I’m not doing anything else.

My mental state isn’t the best, I know that.  I’m writing better when I’m back up to The Real Home.  A lot of it is just the environment.  When I need a break, I can always come downstairs and talk with someone, or flip on the TV, or just go take a nap if I need it.  Here, I can’t do that.  There is no getting away from what I have.  As my Muse might say, “It is what it is.”

It’s solitary, is what it is.  But when I came here, I knew it would be.  I’ve done a lot here, there is no hiding that.

But I can do more.

It’s time to move forward.

Watch and Learn

Really, no, last night I did something I haven’t done–well, like, ever.  I watched TV on my computer.

Allow me to explain:

I was writing last night:  Part Thirteen of Diners at the Memory’s End.  And it was coming along very well.  I like the vibe I’ve set up with Albert and Cytheria at this point, as she gives him a bit of a history lesson about his little college study partner.  Now, part of this–the part before I had to look at something on TV–involved me doing some more research as I went along:  namely, I need some information on neuroscience.  Found some very interesting information . . .

Oh, wait:  I was doing research before that, too.  And I was doing it while fielding questions from one of my writing friends.  She was asking we what I was up to, and I told her, “Oh, looking up some Celtic Goddesses.”  I needed some names, and while I knew of a couple that I wanted to us, I’m not very good when it comes to spelling their name–or even remembering how to spell them–so it was time for research.

When I was done with that little bit, I had Arianrhod, Rhiannon, Ceridwen, Blodeuedd, Branwen in my story–with Modron and Morrigan watching over all those nice ladies.  (As a side note:  Annie and Kerry know three of those names very well . . . very well, indeed.)

So, all this going on while I’m writing–and then I come to the part I referred to above.  Cytheria asks Albert if he knows about something that was particular to Welsh history.  Albert rattles off a description that sounds like he could be reading it right off the computer; which, given some of their nano-modifications, he could.  And Cytheria is very surprised that he knew that, and even asked if he’d looked it up while they sat there. Albert tells her, “Hey, I got it covered:  I once watched this on TV back when I was a kid.”

That’s when the TV part, for me, came in.

Albert was referring to something he’d seen on the show Night Gallery, which I, too, watched as a kid.  The thing is, the episode in question, I didn’t remember it all that well.

But this is the 21^st Century, and damn near anything you want can be found on the Internet, so I hit Google, put in the name of the episode I’m looking for, and . . . well, now:  there you are, out on Hulu.

Mind you, I’ve never used Hulu before, so I wasn’t certain how well the episode was going to come across on my Beast, the six year old laptop I use at home.  When the episode first started streaming, I began getting a Max Headroom-like stutter every fifteen seconds, but quickly realized that was being caused by my streaming radio app.  Shut down the radio, and everything settled down, and I watched the episode.

To be able to see something like that, something I haven’t seen in forty years . . . it was a nice moment.  For I hadn’t remembered much about the episode, one I’d seen only one time before, and even though this was being done for research, it was sort of nice and relaxing to kick back with big of history.

I even managed to write a little while the ads were on.  Not much, but a little.

So there:  research.  I use it all the time, even while I’m writing.  This is why I get a little cranky whenever someone goes, “Hey, I need the name of a town in Utah that might be an Indian name.  Who can help me out?” and I type in a modified version of that question and come up with something in like fifteen seconds . . . really, whether or not I give them the link depends on (1) was sort of mood I’m in, and (2) what sort of friend they are.

Research, people:  you wanna write, you wanna do it.

Yogyakarta Bound

Last night was one of my nights out.  I don’t get a lot, but they do come now and then.  I couldn’t stay out as late as I normally do, because I have to depart for The Undisclosed Location rather early today–about 8 AM my time, rather than 5 PM or so, as I normally do–because of work related . . . “stuff”.  That’s all I’ll say on that matter.

When I drive home–this time, about 11:30 PM–the roads are somewhat clear, and I my thoughts can race along with my vehicle.  This latest time, the roads were really clear, and it was pretty much a long stretch of flying through the darkness.  The last month or so, there hasn’t been a lot there to race; the thoughts have been empty, with no inspiration or feel present.

Not last night.  No, not this time.  I had thought, good thoughts . . .

It was time to think of Yogjakarta.

Now, this probably doesn’t mean anything to you.  Some of you, the more geography minded, will recognize the name of a city on the island of Java in Indonesia; some of you might even know the city resides within it’s own special district, or that it sits some 28 kilometers from Mount Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia, and the city is pretty much flipping off Merapi on a daily basis, daring it to take them out.

What none of you know, at least until now, is that my NaNoWriMo novel is going there.

Last year I wrote Kuntilanak, a horror story that I self published.  And, yes, it’s a good horror story, one you can find on Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.  Originally I was going to write it for a Halloween collection, but after being told the collection was really looking for things about a thousand words long, I decided to strike out on my own because, at that point, I’d already figured on a story that was going to run over fifteen thousand words.

The rest is, as they say, history.

So a while back I started thinking about what I could do for NaNo.  I’m still not certain if I can do it, but I’m going to give it a try.  Why?  Because I want to.  I did it last year, try it again this year.  And it allows me more grist for the mill that might be publication, so why not?

But what to do?  Well, last year I had the notion that maybe I should continue the story of the characters from Kuntilanak, bring them back together and let them ponder another supernatural mystery.  And that’s what I wanted to do . . .

Only last night, the idea began jelling.

I knew how to get my healer from Bali onto the scene.  I figured out how he could meet up with his friend, the woman who is a paranormal investigator and a Muslim.  I figured out much of the set up.  I figured out how the mystery could develop, and how things that shouldn’t be transpiring in Jogyakarta did.

Pretty good for just thirty minutes of driving.

So now, I gotta do a time line.  I gotta do my research.  And, I gotta come up with a title.  ”Cause, you know, November isn’t that far away.

It’s the 21^st Century, and you gotta be ready–if you wanna write.

Songs in the Key of Fantasy

In terms of the week I’ve had, yesterday wasn’t that bad.  Yes, I felt like I was dragging a little, but I was writing.  Between blogging and my WiP, I managed about two thousand words.  Oh, and I wrote another two thousand word guest post that should be up later on another blog.

Considering I feel like I have the Chest Buster roaming around inside me, that’s not too bad.

I finally finished Part Eleven of Diners at the Memory’s End.  It was helpful to get some of what I was feeling out, but unlike my, Cytheria is very cool under fire.  She just blows things up and doesn’t get all that worked up over it.  Well, she did upset a bit:  just ask the exploding dummy at the end.  But she knew it was take it out on something inanimate, or you might end up smoking someone close to you.  Or you could break down a building.  Decisions, decisions.

So now I can move on to Part Twelve, and that means there are only six more parts remaining to write.  At least two of those are going to be big, and those will likely be the parts that kick this story up over fifty thousand words.  Me, wordy?  Surely you jest!  But this is going to hit the short novel limit once more, and I don’t have a problem with that.  Hey, where else can you get the most bang for your $2.99?  If and when it gets published, that is . . .

In the meantime, I let my mind drift last night.  Because that’s what I do when I need to do something that doesn’t involve thinking.

I got to thinking about Kerry.

I’ve written about Kerry more than a few times, but of late he’s been missing in action.  A lot of that is because I’ve been so busy with my other writing, and trying to publish things, that he took a back seat to the action.  Plus, I’ve been feeling sort of sad about him, because there are things I would love to say about him and his lovely girlfriend, Annie, but I can’t seem to find the voice for these things.  It’s one of those things where I want to say something in words, but I can’t find the words.

And for a while, I assumed I might not ever.  There are tales here, but I’m not sure I can ever tell them.  But one never knows, so it doesn’t do to think about them.

But last night he was on my mind.  I was listening to music . . . see, one of the covens supports an annual talent show around Ostara, and while Kerry can’t sing all that well–autotuning is the way to go, even if it’s magical–but he loves to perform.  He loves being on the stage and put it out there for all to see.  Yes, he’s not a very assuming person:  in fact, if he could, he’d stay in the background all the time.

And the stage is where he does one of his craziest things every . . . but that’s another story.

I miss all that.  It was a good trip down memory lane last night.  I really need more of those, because when we can’t remember our past, we can’t ever see where we are going.

I need to see a lot in the months to come.

Reality Bending

You don’t know what I saw yesterday.  Believe me.  You don’t.

Yesterday was a game changer.  I’m not ready to talk about it yet, but lets just say this:  something was bound to give, and give it did in a very big way.  So much so I didn’t even feel the passage of time for most of the day.  So much so that I wasn’t certain what day it was today.

Let’s just say there will come a time when I do talk.  Maybe in a week, maybe in a month.  But it will come.

What do talk about, then?

Rejection.

After a month of being out with a publishing company, I finally received an email regarding one of my novels–specifically, my NaNo Novel.  I knew it was a long shot to get it out there, but I went for it anyway–

The letter was a rejection.  Not what they’re looking for, maybe not be sellable, various things like that.   At least it wasn’t a, “Your book sucks, why are you wasting our time?” sort of letter.  I went ahead and set it up as a milestone on my Author’s Page, because it is.  It’s not the good sort of milestone you want to see, but if you write, and if you’re serious about wanting to be published, then you’re going to see these.

See, it means you’re trying.  Every time you send a manuscript out, there’s a 50-50 chance it’s going to come back to you mutilated and stomped upon.  Someone isn’t going to like it.  Some suit may say it’s not going to sell.  Some editor may tell you the characters are unlikable.  Doesn’t matter.  There will be a reason, and one of those reasons may be that your work does blow just a little–or a lot.  Maybe you have to work at it a little harder.

I spoke with The Muse a little yesterday, and she said, “If there weren’t rejections, there’d be a lot more books out there.”  She hasn’t been roaming about Smashwords of late–ba, da, boom!  But true enough.  There are a lot of things out there driving the sales of books these days, and I’d say I’ve got a one in four chance of getting any story published any time I send out a manuscript.

So what is next?  Find another publisher.  As Isaac Asimov stated, ”You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you’re working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success–but only if you persist.”  Since the Good Doctor knew a little something about sending manuscripts out, it’s advice to take to heart.  It’s one thing to say you’re writing for yourself, but you should only do that for yourself first:  you gotta remember, you’re also writing for the gallery, and it’s not fair to keep them in the dark.

So, onward.  I’ll start looking for another publisher today, check their submission guidelines, then get something prepped for them.  Gotta do it, ’cause I gotta get that story published.

It might take a while for anyone to admit it, but there are people out there just waiting to read this novel.

I can’t keep them waiting.

Two by Two, Hands Aren’t Blue

It’s a strange morning up at The Real Home.  Not because of anything particular, but due, in part, to things I’m doing–

I submitted Her Demonic Majesty to a publisher.  My nerves are suitably wracked.

I began working on the submission yesterday afternoon, after running around and taking our new teenager to a Japanese restaurant for lunch.  I read over the guidelines, and . . .

Let me tell you.  The publisher I’d selected, they were very particular about how they wanted everything formatted, laid out, what they wanted from you.  And when you read about how, just getting one thing wrong will likely have your submission getting sent to the trash bin–yeah, damn.  You get those rattlers in your tummy.

It was almost too much to deal with yesterday afternoon.  I got the boiler plate for the submission in place.  I added some of the information needed.  I formatted the manuscript and renamed it as they wanted.

But that wasn’t the part that bothered me the most.  Oh, no:

I had to write the synopsis.

The publisher wanted three things:  an author’s bio, a short synopsis, and a long synopsis of the whole novel.  The bio and short synopsis–not a problem.  We’re talking book blurbs here.  But a page or two of the whole novel?  Damn, that was some writing.  Not that I don’t know the story, but telling it to another person, and doing so in a way that’s going to overwhelm them with detail–that was something I’d never done before.

Needless to say, the nerves were jangling all the while.  I wrote, looked over what I wrote, edited, wrote a little more.  I wanted to get it as close to perfect as possible, and when you’re wondering if a misplaced word is going to blow your shot at getting a novel accepted, it sort of camps out in the back of your mind and drives you just a little crazy.

In the end, however, I finished everything.  I set up the email.  I attached the manuscript.  I got everything looking nice.

I clicked send and updated my author’s page on Facebook.

Now, I wait.  The publisher says I might need to wait 90 days, maybe 120 days.  But there will be a wait.  I can deal with that.

Gives me time to write.

That’s two novels I have out now, to different publishers.  Both are looking at the full manuscript, so there is hope that something could see the light of day.  Or both will be bought.  Or both could be rejected.

Hey, life, right?

So, with all my editing and query writing and submissions out of the way, there’s nothing else but new stories.  There was a little writing Friday night, but nothing yesterday.  Not that I didn’t expect that, because when you’re going to dawn to dusk, and beyond, you can’t expect to get a huge amount done.

But that’s not the case today.  So . . . more to Part Four.  More to Memory’s End.  More to another story that, one day, I’ll need to do another query for.

Write, edit, submit.  Ray Bradbury would be proud . . .

Candlelight Magic

Something strange happened this morning:  the alarm went off.

After weeks, maybe months, of getting up around 4 AM every day, drifting through the day in a half-daze, trying to stay awake at night . . . the alarm went off.

Right before that I was dreaming.  I dreamt that I was out with The Muse, my sexy little Muse, and we were riding behind a couple of guys going 85 mph on bikes, following them downhill in my old 1965 Mustang, before ending up on their porch to talk about the design of their machines . . .

And then we ended up back at a school dorm, preparing to give a performance of Richard III while eating cupcakes by the light of a single large candle, and as the time wound down to when we needed to leave for the theater, The Muse looked at me, her big brown eyes almost liquid in the light, and he kissed me, long and soft and slow.  ”This is our first candlelight dinner,” she said as the light faded–

The alarm then went off.

That last dream was vibrant, and something I needed for a long time.  I haven’t had a good dream in a long time, and last night I went to bed feeling a little down.  But I wake up, feeling–well, I don’t know.  Rejuvenated ain’t the word, but I feel better than I did last night.

I was like, after months of getting fitful sleep, The Muse came to me to reassure me everything was okay.

Her Demonic Majesty is done, finished, final draft in the box.  I realize now there is something I could to to polish off, but that’s for another day.  I need to check out the submission guidelines for developing a query letter for the, then develop it, then send it off.  That’s for this week.  At the latest, I’ll have it finished Saturday afternoon; at the soonest, I’ll finished by tonight.  Not all that concerned, because I know this sucker is going on, and my NaNo Novel is gonna see the light of day.

And just because I feel like it it, here’s my favorite part from the last chapter.  So, for your enjoyment, an excerpt from Her Demonic Majesty, the Coda, Copyright 2011, 2012, by Raymond Frazee, All Rights Reserved.  Enjoy:

 

She stopped at the top of the staircase leading to the 1st Floor. Jeannette gripped the banister tight while staring down the dim 2nd Floor hallway heading toward the East Wing. “Is everything around here always so goddamn dark?” she said in a whisper.

“That’s the way Merta liked it.” Chantel was walking up the stairs towards her. Jeannette didn’t bother asking how it was she heard her comment: She’s a demoness: she’s got supernatural hearing, that’s how. “Why are you asking? And whom are you asking?”

“I’m talking to myself,” Jeannette said. “Gotta be someone around here who listens to me.” She raised an eyebrow. “Is that okay?”

Chantel stopped three steps below the 2nd Floor landing. “Don’t make a habit of it,” she said. “People here will think you’re strange.”

“Hum . . .” It was hard not to crack a smile. “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want that.” Jeannette noticed there was something different about Chantel. “You’re wearing a dress.” Chantel’s outfit was red silk, with a heme line ending three inches above her knees, and showing considerable cleavage. Accessorized with black stockings and very high heeled red pumps, Jeannette could honestly say it was the first outfit she’d seen, since getting here, that resembled something from her old world.

Noticing Jeannette’s examination of her attire, Chantel said, “I’m not going outside today, so there’s no need to dress down.”

“The leather catsuit was dressing down?”

Chantel seemed surprised by Jeannette’s reaction. “Don’t women dress that way in your world?”

“Only if their name is Selena.” Jeannette headed down the stairs, with Chantel falling in next to her. “Do you always dress this way?”

“You mean in an alluring manner?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a succubus; it’s in my nature to present myself to others as an object of sexual desire.” She smirked. “It’s how I used to find—”

“Dinner?”

“The word I was going to use was ‘nourishment’.” Chantel was all deadly seriousness as they stepped into the 1st Floor foyer. “Have you made light of Diana’s feeding habits yet?”

“Yes: I’ve told her to lay off the bacon.” Jeannette held her tongue when she saw Lolita approaching with another person in tow. Once they were closer Jeannette recognized the person as Rebecca, their hapless victim from last night.

“Hi, guys.” Lolita slowly eased her guest forward. “You remember Rebecca?”

 

Gotta love those tender, heart-to-heart movements between a sorceress and her killer demoness.

So that’s done, and it’s on to Diners at the Memory’s End.  Part Three is almost finished, just gotta do that tonight, then move onto Part Four, and try to get that cranked out in the next couple of days.

The candle is burning.

Gotta keep that magic going.

Crazy Slow Computeritist

Today is one of those crazy mornings where everything seems to be moving through a glaze of syrup, or something.  Of course, “Today” is sort of a misnomer, when I’ve been up since 4:22 AM, and it’s just a little after 5 AM now, and The Clash is playing Pressure Drop this very moment, and my mind is swirling around from the effects of a little too much cognac.

I don’t know why I decided to have just a little bit more cognac than I had last night.  I know it’s not good for me, but . . . yeah, couldn’t help myself.  So I woke up with the mind a little fuzzy, and the brain sort of refusing to admit I’d done something to my body that I shouldn’t have.

This is probably why the computer is running so slow this morning.  I think it’d doing index rebuilds; it’s done this before, and it can get very annoying, because the disk light stays on the whole time, and every time I want to access something, the browser freezes, and you don’t know if you’re going to get what you want, or not.

At least it didn’t happen while I was editing last night.

I finished editing the penultimate chapter of Her Demonic Majesty last night, and that chapter . . . boy, do I remember it.  I had “won” NaNoWriMo about a week before, and I was this close to finishing the novel.  I knew what I was going to say in the last chapter, and all I had to do was get through this one–

And damned if Chapter Twenty Three was one of the hardest I had to write.

I knew what the problem was:  I had a picture of a local where I was going to stage a battle between two of my characters, and I was working up the words I was going to need to make the scene work–

And I had the hardest time getting the words to come out right.  I couldn’t.  I don’t know why that was the case, but I remember getting very frustrated looking for the words that would make this sucker sing.

It wasn’t singing; it felt like it was warbling Let’s Get Crazy in the shower.

The one thing that did come out of this chapters was my take on how to do combat.  This was my showdown between my antagonist and protagonist, and fur was going to fly.  Magic would get slung, fireballs cast, shit was gonna blow up real good . . .

Bah.  After I had so much trouble writing the first part of this chapter, I thought about what would really happen when you get to very powerful magic users together, and let them start throwing thaumaturgical energy at each other.  One would either get (A) a Micheal Bay Craptravaganza, or (B) something that wouldn’t last that long, because one person would get p0wned pretty quickly.

I went with the later.  I had my main character launch an attach that messed up the other character very quickly, then had her create an energy sword and go all Ryoko on the witch’s ass.  That taught me that sometimes, shorter is better, because dragging things out for dramatic effect isn’t always desired.

Sometimes you just want to get to the point.

The edit cleaned it up.  It’s not a perfect chapter, but it’s better than it was.  And it’s still short and sweet with the combat.  It gives me what I need, and what I hope the reader wants.

There’s only one more chapter to do, and I can move on to new material–

And a query letter.

Hey, this sucker’s been laying around long enough.  It’s time to put it to work.

Prepping For the Big Time

Fridays, how I loath you.  Had to drive home in a haze of mental feebleness that found me almost nodding off at the wheel a couple of times.  Believe me, that’s not something you want to do when you’ll blowing down the interstate at 80 mph.   But I made it home, I struggled to stay away, I felt sick, I felt crazy . . .

I felt like I had a lot of editing to do.

It was necessary to get Couples Dance ready to send out, and I went through the two chapters that required editing, Eight and Ten, and brought them up to a presentable speed.  Keep in mind, there was almost ten thousand words there that needed fixing, and I probably spent a good four or five hours going through those two chapters.  It was some crazy time writing, let me tell you, and I wasn’t sure if, with my head threatening to drop into my lap at any moment, that I should be ripping through so many words.

You might say I was inspired to get the document in better shape.  I know there are part of the novel that are probably a little wonky, but the publisher knows this isn’t quite the final draft–there is that caveat going for me.  Regardless how this matter goes, there will be a final edit.

But the fact they want to see the rest of the manuscript–always a good sign.  And to be honest, the parts that I added to the story, particularly Chapter Eight, will help crank up the weirdness factor they may be looking for.  We will see, I suppose.  Might take a week, or two, or three, but before June is over, I’ll either have a contract or a rejection.  Either is good, because it shows that I’m trying.  I’m submitting.  And if all you do is write and keep it to yourself, then you’re doing it wrong.

Get that stuff out there, kids.  You’ll feel better in the long run.

So manuscript goes out about 10 PM–what to do after that?  Write some more, naturally.

I didn’t want anymore editing–sorry, Jeannette–so I pulled up Diners at the Memory’s End, and launched into Part Three.  I didn’t thing I was going to get a lot done, because by this time my head was dropping into my lap, but I at least wanted to open up with a little on how Albert’s first day in class went.  It also gave me a chance to figure out some of the thing that might happen when it comes to a professor/student interface, and how assignments will be passed out . . . ah, it wasn’t always easy, but it was done.

The thing that was probably the biggest deal for me was renaming a pub.  Yeah, I’m like that.  So the part ended, 666 words later, with Albert sitting in a place named “The Lusty Librarian”, getting ready to reflect upon something.

This should be fun.

A lot of writing this past week, and a lot coming up.  I have something I need to do this weekend, and will likely get to it tonight, and I need to do a quick check on Part Two of Diners before handing it off to Cathy Brockman’s blog . . . jeez, this writing thing, it’s a lot of work, isn’t it?

You’d think it’s almost like a job!

The Verge Pipe

Oh, my mind it going in about a million different directions.  Not only did I wake up with the song, Bad Time, by Grand Funk Railroad, playing in my head, but my heart was going beata, beata, beata, like mad.  And this was going on at 3 AM local, which means it was all happening about 2 AM on my time lime.  This wibbly wobbly, timey wimey shit needs to come to an end.

What’s got me geared up?  A few things, really.  This week has been a read crazy one, mood wise.  I’ve felt like a puppet dancing around on a whole lot of strings, with a dozen marionettes pulling the damn things.

It’s wild, it infuriating, it’s wonderful.

I may have sold my first novel.

Yesterday was a suck day, I won’t lie.  I went to bed in a terrible mood, I woke up feeling blah, and the day dragged on.  I get home, flip on the computer, and get comfortable.  Cook a little dinner and bring up the browser.  Get into my email and . . .

Yeah, there’s a message there from the place I sent my query for Couples Dance last Friday night.

That sinking feeling in the gut picks up right away when you see it, because you know you know, in that very moment, you got Schrödinger’s cat by the tail.  You’ve either gonna win or lose, but you won’t know until you open that message.  Until that time, you’ve got both.

So I open and read, and . . .

What was sent to them was a package; synopsis, author bio, first chapter.  They liked it, because they asked to see the whole manuscript.  No offer of a buy, but as they say in this business:  you have their interest, and if they want to see the whole story, then they will likely make an offer.

I asked them a question about a couple of chapters, if they wanted me to clean them up, or just send them the whole damn thing, but either way, I’ll likely be sending off the novel for them to read this weekend.

This wasn’t suppose to be the first novel I sold.  I was suppose to sell something else, something I’ve been working on for a while, not something that I just whipped up on the spur of the moment, based upon a scene I had in my head after speaking with My Muse.  I was suppose to make my first novel sale with something I sweated out, and worked over for a very long time, not just write, edit, and send out a query because a writer I know beta read it, love it, and she wouldn’t let me let it sit.

It’s not sold, not yet, but I’d going to happen, because if this place wants to see the whole thing, then if they pass, the next house is gonna want it.

I’m on the verge of getting something.  Maybe big, maybe not.  But very soon I can say I’ve got a novel on the market, and it’s for sale, so go by it and tell me how much you love the damn thing.

I can’t know what success actually feels like, because I’ve had so little of it in my life.  But right now I’m feeling crazy.  I want this day over, so I can pack my stuff and go home.  I wanna get in my pajamas and have something stronger than tea.  I want to kick back, send off that manuscript, and keep my fingers crossed.

I want this damn thing to go somewhere.

In the immortal words of Bruce Springsteen, “It’s a town full of losers, I’m pullin’ outta here to win.”

I’ve got the keys in my hand–

Who’s comin’ with me?

Back at the Homestead

Interesting corollary between the two things I did last night.  What are those things, you ask?  Writing, what else?

I had my edits for Her Demonic Majesty, and then the new work I’m doing on Diners at the Memory’s End.  And it’s always back to the home with these groups . . .

One of the main points of Majesty involve enemy forces–aka, all these people pissed off at the person my main character has become–trying to take over an edifice known as The Castle.  They eventually do take it, but only after smacking down a bunch of gargoyles (sorry, guys), and having to deal with a huge number of deadly wards inside.  And even then . . . they don’t get to keep it, because the good guys come back and take it back.

Even though they have it back, the last few chapters of Part Three have them in fear they’d about to be attacked again.  So with the last few chapters to go, they marshal their forces, put the boots to the bad guys–who, in this world, aren’t nearly as bad as my main character is known to be, but just gray as hell–and reestablish themselves as the keeps of the keys of The Castle.

In Memory’s End, several major scenes take place back at the house.  It was the same way in Transporting, from whence these character first appeared.  There is a very nice little home, albeit a very strange one, and there are a number of things that revolve around the two main characters interacting with each other in this environment.  Sure, while I got them out of the house for Part Two of the story–and down to the cafe in their pajamas–but since they live in an arcology, it can be said they never really ventured very far from hearth and home.

Of course, there is also the question of one of the character’s in Memory’s End having access to his own–lets call it a Transatmospheric System Ship, which is a fancy way of saying, “You wanna see my spaceship?”, something one of my main characters does say to another woman.  It’s his sanctum, a place he calls his own, and while he doesn’t spend as much time aboard this craft as it was used in Transporting, it plays and important part in the development of Memory’s End.

Like it or not, in both stories I have a bunch of home-bodies.  In both cases the homes aren’t what you and I might conceive as a home, but there it is, they have places where they can fall back to, kick back, slip into something comfy, and relax.  Sure, one home has gargoyles sitting on the roof, waiting to kill anyone who gets stupid and tries to break in, and the other hangs off the side of a cliff with nothing but empty space for about a mile below, but they are homes.  They are sanctuaries for my characters, and boy, do they love them.

With all the moving back and forth that I’ve been doing the last few months, I can understand the need for a place where one can go and say, “This is mine.”  Right now, I don’t feel as if I have that.  I feel transitory, like I’m constantly in the process of going from one place to another.  I have nowhere I can really say is mine any longer.

Then again, it’s not the destination, is it?  It’s always the journey.  It’s always about how you get where you’re going.

My characters don’t know where they’re going, but I do.  They’re not always going to enjoy the journey, but they’ll come out stronger in the end.

As for my own journey–

Hey, I’m just getting started.  And it’s going to be interesting.