Melding of Minds

When there is no writing, then it’s time to write, yeah?

That was me last night.  The novel was in the can, so to speak, and up for sale.  No more to do there, so what’s next?  As someone may say to me, “Shouldn’t you be writing?”

I’ve spoke about doing this erotic fantasy story just for laughs–and money, don’t forget the money–so I figured, what the hell, might as well get my project started.  That meant firing up the Big Scrivener and setting up the story.  I do this all the time; it’s become second nature for me.

Therefor the project was created, the story named, and . . . well, this is where it gets to be fun.  Most of the time I’ll start plotting things out just a bit.  By “plotting” I mean I set up chapter cards and put some meta data on each card to give me an idea as to what’s going to happen at that point in the story.  It’s not like I’m deciding at that point what’s going to happen right down to the moment, but it’s a good way to figure out the main focus of the scene.

This time, though, I wanted to try something else.  With one of the recent updates of Scrivener came the ability to import mind maps into your project.  I’ve played with FreeMind, which is a great mind mapping tool, and I like using it to see if my ideas for a story–or, like the first time I used it, for a new chapter–are going to work, or if they’re way off base.

A few weeks back I decided to map out Fantasies in Harmony because I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to make any sense.  So I did a couple of hours of thinking through what I wanted to in the story, and mapped the action out.  When I was finished I had a story, more or less, in mind mapped metadata.

Given that I had a mind map, and given that I could import that into Scrivener, I was curious to see what would happen.  I mean, if it didn’t work out well, I could always delete stuff.  So I found the Import option, selected Mind Map to import, and hit the Okay button–

All sorts of stuff appeared in the document:  lots of note cards with nothing written inside.  I was a bit confused, so I deleted everything and tried it again, getting the same results.  I’m expecting to see the visual map in my document, and here I’m getting all these note cards–

That’s when it hit me:  every card corresponded to an idea I’d placed in my mind map.  When I imported the map, Scrivener broke out every idea and turned them into their own scene–so now, if I wanted to elaborate on those ideas, all I had to do was write up what actually happened.

I’d just opened up a whole new world of possibilities for doing my stories.

All those notes have been moved under the scenes I was creating.  Given how Scrivener compiles scenes, I could actually write everything in short scenes and put it all together in the compile.  Which I’m considering doing–

Hey, I can have my fun while writing, can’t I?

Designing the Unseen Imagined

Though the book is up, there are issues–things I should have seen, but didn’t take care of before hitting the “Upload” button.  Never fear; I’ll have everything sorted out this week.  I hope.

In the meantime I’m playing with other things:  concepts, story setups, that sort of thing.  I need to get a Scrivener project set up for my next story, but as one person told me, I should take it easy least I burn out.  Ha!  I laugh at burning out–don’t I?  Already I’m starting to feel like a lazy git because I’m not really working on anything.  That’s a bad habit to get into, because you end up beating yourself up for the silliest things, and before you know it you’re obsessing over every damn thing that comes your way.

Must.not.do.

One of the things I’ve been on about is trying to imagine a school I built for one story–a story that could be called fan fiction of a sort–and how I can bring it over into a new world that it completely mine.  There will be a number of changes to the layout and functionality of the joint, but the one thing I want to keep is a huge, grand building that sits somewhere between small castle and grand edifice.  For now we’ll call it the Grand Hall, and when it was originally conceived, it was part cathedral, part meeting place, part protected school.

It’s really big, is what I want to say.

I’ve always had this image in my head about the building, and the layout.  Entryway; central hall in the middle; Hospital on the second, third, and fourth floors on the left, administration on the right; library to the far end; basements below.  It’s a huge building, though probably not much bigger that most modern buildings.  It’s just that in my mind’s eye, I can see it being a very shadowy place, full of darkness and light beams, and during the evening, enduring silence.  (Not to be confused with The Silence, who may be there anyway.)

As much as I’ve seen this place in my head, I should be able to lay out the floor place, right?  Guess again, Gilbert.

I started a layout last night, starting with the central meeting hall.  That place it meant to be huge, about one hundred fifty feet by fifty. Then I moved outside that point of reference, and . . .

Nothing.

I got as far as laying out where the staircases are–and, now that I think about it, shouldn’t be–and then I looked at the plan on the screen before me and thought, “Shit, man, this place is huge.”  That was as true as anything gets, because it is a big building.  With all sorts of things hidden in its black corners.

And I’ve not even thought of what the basements look like.

Everyone gets those moments when they realize they have hold of something that might be a bit too much for them to control, and this is one of those moments.  It’s not that I won’t figure out the design, it’s just that it’s going to be something that takes a bit of time–just like when I was doing three dimensional designs of spaceships.  Or writing a huge novel.

Don’t rush the scale.  Like a mountain, you climb it slowly.

You’ll get to the summit eventually.

The Foundations Upon the New

Lets get this out of the way right now:  Her Demonic Majesty is finished.  I received the finished edited manuscript yesterday afternoon, and I had it ported into Scrivener, and chapters updated, by five-thirty in the afternoon.  (Or as my friends in the rest of the world would say, 17:30.  Audrey and Cytheria would say that, too, just because.)  Today I write the dedication page and start getting the Table of Contents in place, and all that remains is the upload and publication.

So this part of my writing life is almost over.  Though, really, it’ll never be over,  because this will become my first published novel, and that’s something you sort of look at with a bit of nostalgia   ”Remember when you published Demonic Majesty back in ’13?”  ”Oh, yeah:  that thing was a bitch to finish.  Pass me some caviar. . .”  Just kidding:  I don’t care for caviar.  I’d probably be drinking some European beer instead.

I’ve already had someone ask when I’m going to have the book up on Kindle.  My reply was, “Soon”.  I want my accounts in order, I need to run it through the Smashwords meat grinder–there are still a few steps remaining, but it’s going to be soon.  Before the end of the month, I think.  If not next weekend, then maybe Memorial Day weekend.  But soon.

Which means, I’m already on to the next thing . . .

I’ve not started writing yet, but I’m doing a lot of thinking, and not a bit of world building.  I have my erotic cabin story to start setting up–yes, I’m still doing that–and I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this new world I’m creating, one with all the strange things that really happen in the world, but no one knows about.  Scoff and say it’s been done already, but I don’t care, it’s a world for a couple of my favorite characters, and I’m going there.

I began looking at the layout of the interior of Cape Ann, and under satellite it doesn’t look too bad, but when you switch over to a terrain map–geez, oh, is it rough!  It’s not a simple expanse of level ground; it’s rocky and hilly, and a perfect place for people with unusual skills to have built a place of higher learning.

Now I’m getting into the things I like, because making maps of places is something I dearly love, and once I begin getting ideas about how the Institute should appear, I’ll come up with some very interesting things.  At least I hope they’re interesting:  I’d hate to put a lot of work into this stuff, then have it ignored–

Ah, who cares?  It’s what I want to do.  World building is something every writer should do now and then, and have a blast throughout the creation.  And if you manage to root it a bit of reality, then it becomes an even greater world, because you’re interfacing the possible with the maybe-impossible, and it doesn’t get much better than that.

So much to do, so little time to get it done.  You’d swear I do this for a living.

Stretched Out Before the Future

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about writers, its that we’re a stubborn, yet fearful, bunch.  We’ll get into a project and stick to it until the bitter end–and then, when the end is in sight, refuse to let go of the creature we’ve spawned.

Over the last year I’ve noticed that there are two things that seem to scare writers the most:  research and editing.  Research has always been a friend, and editing is slowly becoming a welcomed roommate.  But why do these fill our hearts with fear?

Editing is something that seems to get the better of us each time.  I read it a little today, when someone asked, “When do I know my novel is perfect?”  One might as well say, “When can I let my children go out into the world?”  For some people that answer is always, “Never,” and they hang onto their rugrats like they were bars of platinum–at least until they realize that they’re thirty-five and spend entirely too much time on the “Kawaii Crossplay” website, and maybe it’s time to throw their ass into the street.
Perfection is a will-o’-the-wisp:  you’ll never find it because it doesn’t exist.  Or, better yet, for my science fiction writer friends, it’s like getting to 1c, the speed of light.  You can get close, closer, closest; you can get to .999999c; you can push those engines all you want for decades, but you’ll never hit 1.0c.  Not gonna happen, at least not in this universe.

You can edit and rewrite and re-edit your story all you want, but in your own eyes, that sucker will never hit the level of perfection you’ve set for yourself.  You’ll drive yourself nuts trying to get it to where you’re finally convinced you can publish it–right after this last polish–

I look at editing like I look at action scenes:  I try to keep it as short as possible.  Try to get the story where you want it during the first draft, get rid of the typos in the first edit, clean up the story, plot holes and all, in the second, and go over it again to make sure you have things right.  Let someone else look at it, then edit again where needed.  After that, get it out to a house for a look-see, or start formatting it for self-publication.

It’s time to put it in the street.

Then there’s research . . . oh, my.  This seems to scare writers more than editing.  (If a sampling of a few ebooks is any indication, there are a lot of scared writers out there, ba-da-boom!)  I love research, because this is where you learn stuff.  Even if you think you know everything there is to know about a subject you’re going to weave a story around, you’ll find something new that’s gonna surprise you.  I had this happen when I was writing Her Demonic Majesty, and the bit of information I discovered when I was about seven chapters into the book helped change an important scene for me, and developed how the MagicPunk City of Chicago should feel.  What I found was completely unknown to me, but not anymore, since I have that information bookmarked in the Scrivener project.

Take all the time you want for research–up to a point, that is, because if you stretch research out for too long, you’re still looking for that level of perfection you’ll never find.  That final bit of data is keeping you from the real thing you’re suppose to do, and that’s write.

Wouldn’t want to be accused of shirking your duties now, would you?

One Line, Two Line, Blue Line, Green Line

World building is a wonderful thing, because you never know where it’s going to take you.

If there is one thing I love about developing intricate stories, it’s world building.  For my unpublished Transporter series, I created some fourteen hundred years of history to play in, and began thinking about how I got from Point A to Point Z.  For Her Demonic Majesty I kept my action local to Chicago, but I imagined it as part of a huge conurbation known as The Pentagram, and it became necessary to build some terminology and rules around magic in the world.  Lately I’ve dug into building viable world around other stars, and then integrating them into stories–such as what I did in Diners at the Memory’s End, where I built a system around a K Class star so I could have an interesting couple of paragraphs in the story.

I’m getting into some world building for a story, something revolving around a couple of characters another person and I created for a game a long while back.  I’m trying to pull them out of one universe and put them into another, and it’s involving a bit of brain work, because I’m having to change everything.  Not that changing everything is a bad thing, because I get rid of a universe that essentially turned your characters into a form of fan fiction, and I put these characters into a world that they own.

I’m all about owning.

One of the things I have is an idea where my kids from Europe–where the two main characters are from–fly over to Boston, where they’ll attend a private school somewhere close.  So, they fly out of somewhere in Europe and head to Logan Airport, after which . . .

That brought up the question:  how do I move a gaggle of kids from Logan Airport to some super private school out on Cape Ann?  Well, there are buses that could do the job, and originally I thought about that, but then I started using the Google Maps on Logan and–what’s that?  It’s a train station!

See, I wanted to get my kidlettes to Salem, and from there I could take them by bus to Cape Ann, because trains are cool, no?  Sure.  Only one problem:  the train outside the never goes to Salem.  It stops at a rail-head about ten miles north, far short of the Witch Capital.

See, though, this is the age of the Internet, and all one has to do is Google “How to get from Logan Airport to Salem by train,” and you’re catapulted into a world where answers are there for the taking.  Like the one that said you have to take the subway from the Airport over to the Government Center, then catch the line to North Station, and from there you’re on your way.

One MBTA subway map later, and I see they’re right:  take the Blue Line to the Green Line, and from there you’re off to the train station, and from there you’re off to Salem . . .

So now I had my kids on the way to Salem, where I was going to put them on buses for the trip out to Cape Ann.  So I’m looking at the area on Google Maps using satellite view, and–what’s this?  This line cutting through the woods?  Why, it’s a train track.  So back to the MBTA site and after a quick check of the train schedules–yep, there’s a commuter train that head out to the cape.

Which gives me other ideas . . .

Not only do I love world building, but did I mention I love the Internet?

It can take me to so many places I’ve never been, all so I can others along.

From the Mountain to the Island

It’s warm outside, the sun is out, work has slowed down a bit, and my novel is back from proofing.  All is good in Cassieville.

Her Demonic Majesty came back yesterday afternoon, and the woman who proofed it had a few comments that we discussed online.  I was a little worried, mind you, because I thought a slam was coming, but she set me to ease, and went into her topics.

First, she loved the story.  That was the one that surprised me the most, because this novel was way outside what she normally reads, and for her to tell me it was a “page turner”, that left me in a good mood.

Second, she asked me if I knew I’d left the novel open for more stories.  I told her, yes, I knew, and I’d already thought of other stories.  She told me that she wanted to know more about the characters, in particular Jeannette, and I let her know that there may be more to come.

Third, she didn’t like the first chapter.  She thought it was slow and plodding, and there was too much exposition.  She suggested I cut it by half, and get readers into the action as quickly as possible.

And I agreed with her . . .

The first chapter of Her Demonic Majesty has always bothered me because I felt I was taking too much time getting to, as my friend told me, the action.  But I didn’t want to mess around with it, because then I’m getting into the area of second guessing, and you can ruin yourself with that stuff.  She told me what I needed to hear, and it didn’t upset me in the least.

Oh, and she said she now understood the title of the book, and it was a good thing I didn’t change it.  I knew you’d see it my way eventually . . .

With all that behind me, I made all the corrections she noted, and started rewriting chapter one:  just created another text card in Scrivener that was a duplicate of the first chapter, then added another fresh card to it, and began cutting and pasting what I wanted to keep, and adding what I needed to say to make it sensible.

By tonight I should have the chapter together, and I can begin editing it into shape.  By tomorrow–maybe I’ll have it ready.

By this weekend I’ll have a novel that’s ready to publish.

This is how it should feel, that you have something worthwhile, and it looks good, it’s got great covers, it isn’t full of typos:  it’s what a novel should be.  Now I need to get the table of contents ready, do my dedication page–there will be one–and decide if I want to upload it over Memorial Day weekend, or wait until the first weekend in June?

Once I have that, I can start thinking about my other ideas–like my erotic camping in the cabin story, or the idea I’ve been considering about a couple of older characters, moving them to a new world where they can learn to be all they can be–in a magical and super sort of sense, that is.  I’ve already figured out where their center of higher education will be located, and I’ve taken Annie and Kerry and moved them from the mountain of Maine to the islands of Massachusetts–no, really, you have to wait and see, because I’ve got it down so nicely.

I’m in a great mood–

Which is why I’m waiting until tomorrow to school someone . . .

Genrely Me

If you write, you tend to write certain stories.  I don’t, for some reason:  I have a published horror story, as well as one of erotica, and I’m getting ready to publish something that’s science fiction.  But most other writers I know do; they write romance, or science fiction, or paranormal, or young adult.  They get into their groove and go with it–

Assuming they know what that groove actually is.

I had a conversation with a writer friend of mine a few days back, and they were trying to figure out the genre for their story.  Now, lets get this out of the way:  they write science fiction.  But when they were looking at all the sub-genres that are offered for self-publishing, they found there were–well, it ain’t just science fiction, let me tell you:

 

FIC028000 FICTION / Science Fiction / General
FIC028010 FICTION / Science Fiction / Action & Adventure
FIC028070 FICTION / Science Fiction / Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic
FIC028040 FICTION / Science Fiction / Collections & Anthologies
FIC028020 FICTION / Science Fiction / Hard Science Fiction
FIC028050 FICTION / Science Fiction / Military
FIC028030 FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera
FIC028060 FICTION / Science Fiction / Steampunk
FIC028080 FICTION / Science Fiction / Time Travel

 

Sure, you have “Science Fiction, General,” which could be your “regular” science fiction, but what about the rest?  I think about my Transporting series, and where it would fit in that group.  There is time travel, but it’s not really time travel fiction.  It’s hard, but not what I’d call Hard Science Fiction.  There’s action, but not something that would fall under FIC0218010.

Truth is, my Transporting stories are character driven, and all the sci fi trappings are sort of grist for the mill.  Stuff is just there because in that future, who cares about how a warp drive works, you get in the freakin’ ship and go.  I’d probably file my stories under “General” and be done with it.

The problem we have here is that if you don’t have your book in the right spot, it might not sell.  Sure, your story might be about something happening at the end of the world, but is it “Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic”, or is it “Action & Adventure”?  Or is it something else that’s not there?

A question also came up at the same time:  what is this “New Adult” genre?  I had to look that one up as well, ’cause I had no idea.  Come to find out, it’s for people “From their early twenties until about the age of thirty.”  Are we talkin’ people who have crawled out of the Valley of Young Adult, but whom aren’t ready for Full-on Drama?  Or is this another bullshit grouping so publishing houses and pigeonhole a writer’s work more efficiently?

I remember Stephen King once saying his agent was worried he’d get pegged as “a horror writer”.  I’m certain he wasn’t saying that for very long, however, because that horror kept the money rolling.  These days, however, with self-publishing in full-swing, it’s not so much being pegged, it’s finding the damn peg to hang your story upon.

The writing game is hard enough without having to think about what sort of story someone says you’ve actually written.  As it is, some writers just scatershot their stories into a genre and hope for the best.  Others do their research and select that which they think is best.

Me?

I just write.

You’ll know where to find my work.

 

Backwards to the Summit

A year ago, something strange happened.  I wrote this post.

I didn’t there was anything out of the ordinary about that post.  In fact, I dashed it off early in the morning before heading off to The Hole That Was My Job, located at The Undisclosed Location.  I was up early because I was having trouble sleeping, probably because of the cold that was developing that day, and would remain with me the entire month of May and well into June.

I popped it off, went to work, then went to dinner.  When I returned home and fired up the computer, I checked my stats–

The post had seen over two hundred views, and that day ended up becoming the most on-site views I’ve ever received.

I’ve tried hard to figure out what it was that drew all those people to my website.  I don’t think it was the tags, or how it appeared on Google, or even the subject.  The reason for the popularity is puzzling, because I’ve written far better posts than that, and they’ve had to go begging for hits like an out of work bicycle messenger who hocked his single-gear speed buggy for meth and is now hovering above the rocky bottom.

It’s strange how things like that happen.  You can bust your butt over something that you think is going to set the world on fire, and the collective sighs of a tiny group of readers can be overwhelming.  At the opposite end of the spectrum are those things you dash out almost as an afterthought, and your fans lose their shit in rapture-like ecstasy.

Stories are like that.  You put your heart into something that seems to speak to you in special ways, and it seems the indifference is suffocating–then you have some fun with a story that’s not meant to be taken too seriously, and you watch the money roll in.  Now, I don’t think that’s going to happen with my next story, but the way things work in my life, who knows?

I started putting my next story together last night.  Right now the title is about as original as it gets:  Cabin Fever.  As in, “I gotta fever, and the only prescription is hot women having sex!”  It’s the sort of simple title that can catch an eye, though it seems as if there are way too many cabins with fevers on Smashwords, so I’m going to need to rethink my approach.

I have the names of my characters, and a short outline of their lives.  It was while I was playing with this that I discovered something about the Scrivener Name Generator:  once you have your selected names in the “short list” box, you can transfer that list to an existing card or folder, and then play with the contents as you see fit–or even append the name at the end of a line currently being written.  That’s a function that I’d not played with, and now that I know it exists, when I need a quick name, and I throw it in and create a character card for that person at the same time.

This is how I go about getting a story ready:  I develop, I do my research, I lay things out.

And then, when I’m ready . . .

I see to things really get laid.

Cake or History

When you have little to do, your nights get a lot longer.  I ran into that last night, while I looked for something to occupy my time while I had . . . nothing to . . . write.  *sigh*

There was some good news, however:  the woman looking at the full manuscript for Her Demonic Majesty told me she found one typo per page for the first few pages, then didn’t see anything for like a full chapter.  After all the freaking out about how I was a total failure at getting my editing done, this made me feel a hell of a lot better.  At this point I just wait for her to finish her reading, and her markings, and do what is needed when the manuscript comes back.

So I played around.  One half of my mind was trying to figure out how to import images into Scrivener, and the other was working on an idea for a story.  It helped that I was in my Story Ideas project, where I jot down ideas when they come to me, and try to flesh them out little by little when the mood strikes.  So I was in the right place to mull over two ideas . . .

One of the ideas has to do with a . . . lets call it “fantasy smut” story I wanted to write for Camp NaNo July.  It all came about during a discussion with another writer, where we were making fun of some of the stories that show up on Smashwords–you know, stories about incestuous stepkids, werewolf breeding, and horny unicorns looking for wimmin.  It was during one of those discussions that I went, “Screw these losers:  I can write something like this, only it’ll be Better!” and then my mind started working.

I used to write strange, fetishy fiction, so coming up with something that would involve sex and fantasy shouldn’t be a problem.  I have the characters in my mind–borrowing liberally from friends I know, and who have already been told they’ll be in a story–I have the location set, I have the sex ready to roll.  I do need a title, though, and a set up, which is what I was thinking about last night.  And a little bit this morning when birds woke me at four AM.

I’m considering just “doing it” and writing the story the month of May.  It shouldn’t take much to do, and shouldn’t be that long.  Actually, I’m going to keep it short, or as short as possible.  It’s going to be all about Teh Sexy, so character development is out.  Okay, maybe a little development, because I don’t write smut.

The other thing I was working on was a time line for another story idea.  I posted it on my Facebook wall last night, because I do things like that.  What I was plotting out was a “What If?” sort of alternate history of space from the 1960′s through the 1970′s.  I didn’t include everything in the time line; I was mostly adding missions that never flew but could have, so that I could establish a different history for those who grew up in that time–namely, the characters in my possible story.

I love doing alternate history, and while it might not be something that a few people would consider realistic–hey, it’s my universe!  Get your own alternate space history!

Don’t you just love having an imagination?

Cascading Realities

Another chapter down, another step closer to publication.  Tonight there will be the largest chapter of Part Three, but this one is clean, it’s good, and I don’t believe I’ll have a lot of work ahead of me.

Tonight will be a good night.

I had a little talk out last night about the fears I was feeling, the ones I spoke of yesterday.  That’s pretty much past now, because why dwell on it?  The novel will sell, or it won’t.  If I’m going to freak over the fact that the hard work will amount to nothing in return–that’s the curse of every creative project.  The world is full of people who’ve been ignored by the Honey Boo Boo crowd, and given that most people these days feel that entertainment is too–what’s the phrase?  Oh, yeah:  Hard to Understand, don’t expect to see trends change anytime soon.

So keep on keeping.  It’s what keeps the dream alive.

Speaking of dreams, I’m already thinking about what comes next.

I have two works lined up that could be ready to go by the middle of the summer.  In June I will write something for Camp NaNo–yes, I’m going to find a cabin and hang with my gurlz while I write tales of sexual depravity–but the rest of the time can be spent on editing and ebook formatting.  While I want to keep the new material coming, I need to get the old out, least they just sit there and sing Pictures of Lily while I stare at their unpublished goodness.  (If you know your Who, you’ll get the reference.  If not, just ask.)

Replacements I’ve just finished editing, and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to get it out.  It’s one of the stories I have on tap to publish this year, and it could be a quick, easy turn around for me because of the length.  But there’s another I want to get out as well, and it’s been waiting in the wings for a year to see the light of day–

I’m talking Couples Dance.

This strange little novel was something I sent out almost a year ago, with no comments from the publisher beyond asking to see the full manuscript.  I’ve contacted them a couple of times since then, and there will be a third time, after which I’m going to put the ball in play and get it ready for my own publishing attempt.

Being a short novel I can sell it at novella prices, and being that it’s erotic horror–is that such a thing?–that could make it even more of a draw than my other stories.  Yes, I’m already thinking marketing, because there is sex inside, but there’s also a couple of visits to the library, and not to do the hot looking girl in glasses on the shelf where Poe is kept.  This means the people looking for hot, non-stop sex will have to take a break a read a chapter where someone is tortured–

Oh, did I say that?  My bad.

Anyway, the road trip continues.

Looks like I’ll be pulling into The Stanley next . . .

Imagination Chainsaw

Some people may say I’m crazy, but that’s just talk.  Do I get a bit obsessive?  Not that much, but it does happen?  Do I worry?  As much as anyone else–okay, maybe a little more in some places.

Is the fear starting to hit me over this novel release?  You betcha.

I’m into the final set of chapters, and by the end of the week I’ll find myself with two or three left to edit and format.  This means that by Sunday Her Demonic Majesty will be ready for the ebook meat grinder, and by May 4^th there should be a new entry in my bibliography.  But the end isn’t here yet, and as I go through the story, I’m seeing sentences here and there that . . . well, they don’t set well with me.

Yes, I know what’s going on:  my mind is in Issac Asimov mode, where I’m editing the story, and I see a different way of doing things, and so while I’m here I’m going to change things just a little bit, and when this is over everything will be hunky dory.  Or so it should, but the Dear Doctor had a problem when it came to editing–namely, he had trouble finding a point at which to stop with some of work.  It has been said that John Campbell once took a story from him, telling Asimov it was fine, and that writers have trouble when it comes to deciding when their stories are “perfect’.

I know the story isn’t perfect, and this is why I’m doing an edit and formatting, and not a simple formatting.  I’m not altering plot, or cutting the hell out of chapters–in fact, I ended up adding about one hundred words to a chapter the other night, because something was in need of a bit of elaboration.

What I really need to do is take a chainsaw to my imagination, and stop seeing problems where they don’t exist.

Sure, there are things that need a bit of polish.  As a writer you should see that, and fix it where it’s needed.  But this morning, as I was on the Trek to the Paycheck, I started wondering if a line at the end of the chapter I was editing last night should exist, or if it should be excised.  This is where I get into trouble:  I see a problem, only it isn’t a problem, it’s a phantom that’s come to shake it’s bootie at me, and giggle the whole while, ’cause it’s only gonna tease, it ain’t ever going to give me a hug and tell me everything is great . . .

I’m close on this.  The novel publication is only a couple of weeks away, and as much as I want to get it right, I don’t want to fall into an obsessive hole where I’m constantly thinking that the novel isn’t perfect, and I’m setting myself up for a big fall.

No problems.  I know what must be done, and I’m doing it.

If I only looked as good as Juliet Starling, though . . .

Going For the Fun

Today starts the moment when I get serious about Her Demonic Majesty.  I want to get as much of Part Two finished this weekend, so by this time next week I can say everything’s ready for the various meat grinders, and all I have to do is write the various dedications, upload, and watch the money roll in.

About that last part . . .

Yesterday I was speaking with a friend, as I am want to do, and they asked me what I was doing to promote myself.  I mean, I have a novel coming out, I have access to Facebook and Twitter, so how am I getting the news out to my fans that I’ll have a novel published in a couple of weeks?

Good, legitimate questions.  I didn’t have an answer.  I should because I’ve been here before:  I have two published stories, and I’ve sort of done the promotion thing by visiting other blogs and giving an interview or two.  I know the game.

I just don’t play it well.

The writing part is easy; you sit, you think, you type, you edit.  There you have it:  a story.  It might be shit, but it’s you’re story, and you own it.  What happens after you get the stuff up, though?  That’s the hard part.  It’ hard because I haven’t actually had to get into that part that much.

My friend started giving me hints of things to do, things to try.  I listened, I took to heart.  And I’ve started the wheels rolling . . .

First off, I revamped my author’s page.  It looks nice and bright, with the new covers up, and there I’ll start sending out information about the project of the novel, and when it’ll see the light of publishing day.  I have my Twitter, and I should get to revamping it as well:  change the background picture, get the names changed to protect the innocent, so forth and so on.

One of the things writers could do for NaNo was post excerpts from their stories, and that’s another thing that’s coming.  Every day I can pull out a few hundred words from each chapter, and maybe get people interested in wanting to read the whole thing once they get their taste.  Not to mention, if there’s an error, someone can point it out.

I will do an interview, and it’s going to be done a little differently than some interviews, in that . . . wait, why tell you now?  Just wait until next week.  Then you’ll see.

There will be the obligatory giveaway of books.  Haven’t decided on how I’m going to do that yet, but I will.  And with two covers from which to choose, winners can decide which cover they like better.  Now if I could only get a third cover, I could have a trifecta!

What I want the most–besides sales–is to have fun.  I’ve done the blog hops; I’ve done the interview; I’ve sort of done everything short of putting begging people to buy my stories.  I want to do thing differently this time.  I want people to find and enjoy, and help build the base.  And if they buy this, then they’ll maybe buy the stories I wrote under that other name, too.

It’s the time to shine–

Lets burn bright.