A blog post with actual words in it

Writing stuff:

1. I'm working on a novella.  I am pleased with the progress I've made in the last couple of hours.
2. For some reason, I don't look upon self-publishing novellas and short stories on the Kindle with as much disdain as I do novels.  By that, I mean self-publishing my own stuff.  Other people can and do self-publish worthwhile things on the Kindle all the time.
3. An idea I've been kicking around with another writer/reviewer is a series of 10-12 linked novellas, published as a serial novel on the Kindle.  Then, we'd do a paper copy of the entire series/season, as it were, possibly doing a Kickstarter to raise money for kick ass artwork.

In non-writing news, Brittany and I had this exchange the other day:

B: Why does that weird old lady part her jeep by the side of the street and sit in it.

D: She told me she patrols the neighborhood two or three times a day to make sure nothing bad is happening.

B: Wow, I didn't know our neighborhood was that dangerous.

D: The hasn't been a robbery in 25 years so we should thank her.

B: Glad she risks her life like that.

D: It's the criminals that are risking their lives when they step on her turf.

Recentish updates

1. I don't think I've mentioned it but I've made some money via photography in the last few weeks.  I took a family portrait for my cousin and sold three photos on Society6.  My invitation to the Millionaire's Club has not yet arrived in the mail, however.
2. I interviewed my favorite living crime writer, Lawrence Block, on my book blog last month.  If I'd known how approachable he was, I would have attempted it years earlier.
3. My new camera is pretty damn sweet.  60x optical zoom?  Just wait until I get my lens adaptor so I can slap my closeup lens on it.  If you thought my macros were frightening before...
4. I'm done with winter.  Too bad more of it is going to shit all over the region starting tomorrow afternoon.

Day 15 - Horse? What Horse?

Still haven't written anymore.  I'd say I was derailed last night by having to replace a door knob and unable to focus on much else besides Doctor Who after watching The Night of the Doctor but I'd be lying.  I just was not in the mood to work on what I've started.

I was talking it over with a friend and said that I think my problem with writing (and sometimes reading) fantasy is that I'm a pretty analytical person and a lot of fantasy requires suspension of disbelief and/or ignoring logical flaws.  For example, if Gandalf had a deal with the giant eagles, why was it necessary for the Hobbits to walk all the way to Mount Doom and throw the ring in when they could have flown?

So, I'm going to finish the opening episode of Steelgrave and then get back to writing crime.  I reread the Banker's Bride fragment I had on my computer yesterday and actually felt excited about getting back on it.  Also, I had some ideas I want to work into the next draft of Between Hell and a Hard Place.  I'm going to work in another suspect.

In other news, Mystic River was great and now I have to see the movie.  Until my last remaining unread Pelecanos book arrives, I'm reading The Insect Cookbook, a Netgalley find that I'm pretty excited about.  I may have to cook up a recipe and blog about it at some point.

Day 12 - Novel? What Novel?

So... How about that local sports team?  I haven't written much in the past few days.  Britt's working six nights in a row starting Thursday so I'll be attacking the work in progress with a vengeance.  I've ironed out some wrinkles and I'm just about ready to saddle up once again.

My "novel" will now be comprised of five (or seven) linked novellas.

In other news, I've read a couple ARCs and am only two books from reaching my goal of 130.  I'm currently reading Mystic River by Dennis Lehane and the 130th book will be What It Was by George Pelecanos, which is also the final book of George Pelecanos I need to read before I can add "Read the complete works of George Pelecanos in 2013" to my geek resume.

In other news, I interviewed Lawrence Block on my book blog today.  I'd say this is the crowning achievement as a book reviewer so far.

Day 7 - The Eureka Moment

For some reason, I had the idea to combine the ex-girlfriend and the bill collector characters earlier, which serves two purposes: to give Jonah a reason to return to Mayfair and also to fill him in on some of the happenings while he's been gone.  Things are back on track-ish.

I'm still planning on doing the linked short story thing and I should be able to recycle most of the material I've already written.  It also solves the "Why are you investigating some missing kids when your mother hasn't been seen in three months?" problem I was wrestling with earlier.

Day 7 - Circling The Drain

I woke up this morning knowing I would probably not do any writing today.  Even though I fixed the first chapter, it's still not working of me.  My main character still isn't active enough. I keep wanting to say "Your mother is missing, asshole!  Stop drinking with your best friend from high school."

Another thing that bothers me about the way it is now, Jonah's mother was grooming him to take her place before he ran off.  If that is the case, he should know more about his heritage and the weird goings on in town, not to mention the existence of the portal.

I'm thinking about structuring it into seven 10k chunks, like seven linked Doctor Who episodes.  It seems like his mother should pass him the torch fairly early on, not halfway through the damn book.

Anyway, I'll chew on this stuff today.  Considering I didn't start until the 11th last time I completed a NaNoWriMo event, I'm not too worried about it.

I have broken one of the NaNoWriMo Commandments!

I'm not sure which number it is but today, I broke one of the NaNoWriMo Commandments: Thou Shalt Not Revise.

Since the first day, a couple things were bothering me about the first chapter and I figured it out on the commute home.  In the old setup, Jonah's high school sweetheart shows up and asks him to find her missing cousin and then casually mentions no one has seen his mother in weeks.  It just didn't ring true to me.  On the way home, I decided that a bill collector tracks him down because his mother hasn't paid her bills in three months.  When he gets to his home town, he learns about the missing girls.

Well, two hours later and I'm back on track.  Due to writing some new material and recycling as much of the old material as I could, I only lost about two hundred words.  I'm feeling good despite spending this evenings writing time mending the space time continuum to accomodate these changes.

Back in the day, I used to post my in progress NaNoWriMo projects in the writing section of my Goodreads page.  I'm thinking about doing that again and taking them down in December.  The extra encouragement gives me a little more incentive to write.