Archives: Writing

Book News

gate in the seaWith the first novel of my new series now in my editor’s hands, I started to work revising my rough draft of book 2 — only to get a brainstorm last week about how to address some lingering concerns I had.

I figured out how to fix up the smallest point of view arc, consisting of three chapters, to make them far more compelling, and then made the adjustments to the next to last chapter necessitated by changes to those three. And now I’m feeling more confident about the work in progress than I have in any book since The Bones of the Old Ones.

Dabir and Asim Return

skelosFor the first time this year I’ve sold a short story. I’m delighted to relay that the upcoming Skelos magazine will be carrying a never-before-published Dabir and Asim story in its second issue! You can see magazine details here and there is, briefly, still time to get in on its kickstarter.

I still fully plan to finish writing at least one more Dabir and Asim novel. If I can actually maintain the pace with this current set of drafts, I hope to find time to create a new Dabir and Asim every other year or so and market it as an e-book. That’s assuming that the next one sells, and that ANY of my next books sell, of course. I think they will, I plan for them to sell, but one does have to be realistic about these things.

Chandlering Around

ladyinlakeBetween a whole lot of revising, thinking about revising, and a mess of home repairs and organizational stuff, spending much time updating the site has felt like a luxury. I hope to be a little more active here in the coming weeks, but I can’t guarantee it.

To wind down in the evenings I’ve continued dipping into various books and short story collections. Typically, while I’m revising, I re-read favorite authors to remind myself of great techniques, and so I’ve been reading some Raymond Chandler short stories. It’s not quite re-reading in some of the cases, because many of them are new to me. And I’ve discovered that the lyricism present in the novels and later stories isn’t as prevalent in his early work, as you’d probably figure. To really soak up the best of his style I’ll probably start re-reading Farewell, My Lovely over the weekend.

In the meantime, though, here’s a link to an interesting essay about Chandler’s revision process. If you haven’t read The Long Goodbye (or even if, like me, you haven’t read it recently) some of it might be too particular to be of use — but there are other details that should be of interest to any writer.

I find that I’m also curious about the work of writer Mike Coggins, who wrote the rather fascinating essay. My to-be-read pile is tottering already, but I like the essay well enough I’ll probably look into his books.

Writing Flurries

hulk computerI finished the rough draft of a new novel, the second in the sequence of three I’m developing. I used the same process I used to write the new sections of the first novel (of this new trilogy) and it worked even better this time:

  1. First, know the characters and what they want
  2. Outline the events I’m most interested in seeing, arising from clashing character motivation
  3. Sketch out the arcs (this book has two major POV and three minor)
  4. Pick an arc and start drafting.

I started my novel career by writing books  deliberately drafted to sound as though one person were sharing a story with you, the listener. It’s been a bit of a shift to write novels with multiple points of view, but I’ve gotten more and more practiced with it. 

Writing Away

Front 2Once again, you’d be right in thinking that lack of posts means that I’m nose to the grind stone. I’m hoping to get a rough draft of the newest book done before the end of the month, and I think I’ll make it. In this case, some sections are very rough — little more than a few stage directions and some dialogue. Oddly enough, even writing this way sometimes things go slow. For the last few days, for example, it’s been like pulling teeth to get scenes written. On the other hand, once I rough out the scene, I know it’s mostly right — after years of trial and error I am finally better at NOT writing a detailed scene which will later be cut.

Also, in the mornings before I wake the family, when I usually write blog posts, I’ve been playing Lock ‘N Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy, a World War II tactical board game. Even though it’s a two person game I’ve been having a lot of fun running it against myself. It deserves a post on its own, and I’ll probably get to that later this week.

I wish I could tell you when the newest series will debut. The first book has some great feedback from my beta readers that I’m dying to implement, but I’m really waiting to hear from editorial before I do anything. When I finish this second book, though, I’ll probably place it on the window sill to cool a little and go back and edit book one for a couple of weeks. Then, fingers crossed, I can whip book two into shape and hopefully write and revise book three before the end of the year.

At some point there I hope to know when it will be in print, which is news I’ll happily share with you.

Skelos Magazine

raidersSo here’s a cool thing: a kickstarter for a brand new sword-and-sorcery e-zine from some real sword-and-sorcery experts. The mag’s going to be called Skelos, and it’s masterminded by none other than Mark Finn, Chris Gruber, and Jeffrey Shanks, Robert E. Howard scholars all. Hearing that these three are behind it fills me with glee — I look forward to reading whatever treasures they unearth, and, heck, I look forward to submitting some day as well.

I hope you’ll join me in backing this one.

In other news, I’m closing on the conclusion of the second major arc of my new book. It seems hard for me to believe, but I might actually be finished with the rough draft for the whole thing by the end of the month. This arc should conclude no later than early next week, and then I’ve got a couple of chapters from minor arcs to draft. This is pretty rough still, and some of it is mostly framework with dialogue, but it feels solid. I suppose I’ll know how solid after I let it sit unread for a few weeks and return to it. A writer’s fear is always that it’s much, much worse than you think it is…

More Drafting Thoughts

Howard ZebrasIn writing about rough drafts the other day I realized that I breezed over an important step — outlining.

I’ve discussed outlining on the site before (just search through my Writing posts if you’re curious) and I’ve yet to settle on any one outlining technique that I use ALL the time. I find that different approaches work in different instances.

For instance, on the Paizo books I used very detailed outlines that went on for some 10k words. I’ve scaled that way back for the current books and right now it seems to be working. I think about the main arcs and threads, who’s in them, what the challenges are, and what happens when, jot that down to make sure I’ve got track of it, and then start drafting (this is AFTER I know who the characters are, what they want, and, particularly, what the villain wants).

Rough Drafts

hulk computerI’ve continued to experiment with rough draft methods. The goal is, naturally, to get the rough draft close so that you make as few passes as possible between rough and final.

Sometimes I can get a scene pretty much right the first time, as happened with one chapter in my first published novel, or as happened with individual scenes since then, with increasing frequency. It’s one measure by which I can tell I’m getting to be a more proficient writer.

More often, though, a draft requires multiple passes. I aim for the former but plan for the latter. Here are the steps I’ve started following.

House Rules

P handbookIf you’re not a tabletop gamer or have no interest in tabletop gaming you should read no further unless you want to be bored or roll your eyes.

Long-time visitors are probably aware that I’ve been gaming off and on since junior high in the ’70s, when I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons by my old friend Sean Connelly. Sometimes a couple of years will pass, but I always seem to come back to gaming, attracted by the allure of group storytelling and the camaraderie of sitting around with friends and family.

While I’ve been curious about the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons and even read through the new system books, I already had Castles & Crusades, and I remain attached to it, possibly because I’m sort of tired of learning new systems but also because it works quite well. Here’s an articulate essay on just what C&C is and how it works, if you’re curious. (I also like that you really don’t need anything more to run C&C than the Player’s Handbook and the Monsters & Treasure book. The C&C version of the DM’s guide, the Castlekeeper’s Guide, has alternate rules and add-ons, but isn’t at all necessary for running the game.)

Hard Writing Lessons 6 – Head Games

hulk thinkI’ve been writing fiction since I was in grade school, and I noticed the other day that my first published novel hit the bookstores in 2009, which is a lot further back than I realized. Yet I don’t remotely feel like I’ve “figured it all out.” I’m still re-learning a lot of lessons even as I learn new ones. To be a good writer, I think you have to constantly pay attention to story structure and characters not only in chosen genres but in others as well, not to mention other media… and then there’s studying human nature and history and… well, I could digress, but let me get this back on point.

Yesterday I was revising a scene about 30 thousand words into the next book right after I’ve switched to a new point of view character. He’s not new to the readers, but we’ve never had his PoV and we haven’t seen him yet in THIS particular book. So naturally I started with him alone and in the middle of a sort of self-assessment to get readers up to speed about what he’s doing now and what he’s thinking about.