'A Taste' and Other Happenings

It's been quite a time since I've updated my blog, but that's okay. I've been busy with the good stuff... writing.

First and foremost, I am excited to say that my short story, A Taste, has been published in the December issue of an awesome magazine called Under the Bed magazine. You can download it to your Kindle, Nook or directly from the magazine's website. No matter what your source, please be kind and leave a review!

In my drunken state of euphoria, I'm giving away The Death Bump, another short story of mine. You can download it here. If you like what you read, I definitely encourage you to buy the December issue of Under the Bed magazine.

In other news... NaNoWriMo went very well. I managed to get over 60k worth of words done in The Sorcerer's Paragon: Book 2. My goal was to write 2k words a day, and I made sure that I stuck to it. I think outlining the entire book beforehand helped a great deal. I used the snowflake method, a method that I described in an earlier post.

As I mentioned in that post, I followed the snowflake method to the letter. While it had its positives, I have to admit that in the long run (in my case anyway), the negatives piled up higher. I got the point where I was so concerned with hitting each part of the outline that my character's own voice got a bit muted in the process. I ignored his input. I didn't let him lead the dance, which was stupid on my part because it is, after all, his dance. The poor guy is little more than a marionette on a string, a cardboard cutout going through the motions instead of being a living, breathing entity. The whole damn thing discouraged me enough to put the WIP aside for the time being.

But that's okay. It's only temporary. I'll fix it sooner than later. And besides, it gave me incentive to begin something that has been thickening in my mind for quite some time, something that I'm really excited about. I began drafting another story that I'm calling Air for the time being. Eventually, I'll go back to Book 2 and complete the first draft, but I feel like I need to get some of Air on virtual paper. This one will be done in the pantser mentality. I have an idea of where I want it to go and a very rough idea of how the characters might get there. I have some of their back story figured out, but I'm looking forward to being surprised by them.

Ok. Back to NaNoWriMo and lessons learned. I learned the importance of sticking to a schedule. Even when my muse decided to leave me by the wayside, even when I was feeling as creative as a freakin' rock, I forced myself to sit at my desk and simply put one word after another until I reached my daily goal. Sometimes the tap refused to loosen, and I struggled for each and every drop. Other times the words poured out like a flood onto the paper. No matter what, I didn't call it a day until I got my 2k words down.

I think I can sum up the importance of keeping to a writing schedule by leaving you with two very good quotes from two very good authors.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

- Stephen King


“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.”

― W. Somerset Maugham


Good stuff, right? That's all for now!


Thanks for reading!

-- Tim

Ding Ding Ding...It is Time...It Is Time for an Outline!

Ah July! It's a love/hate thing. I love it because it's my birth month, I have off of work for the 4th and there's always mowers humming and charcoal burning somewhere. That crap gets me all sentimental and nostalgic...picnics by the creek with my elders when I was a kid, Creedence crackling over the radio, etc...

Then there's the HATE part. Yes, it's in caps on purpose. July's ugly side means swamp-ass turned up to 11 and a sticky hotness that makes breathing seem like I'm trying to suck in air through a tube filled with putrid, moist gym socks. It means gnats, mosquitoes and having the kids complain about getting to bed while it's still light out. Goodbye comfortably-drinking-coffee-on-the-deck-in-the-early-morn. Hello sunburn and heatstroke!

By midsummer, I always yearn for Fall. This year is no different, though I do have an additional reason to be apprehensive of July and giddy for next season: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

NaNoWriMo is basically this: Write a 50,000 novel in one month. You have from November 1st to 11:59:59pm on November 30th to do it...definitely no small feat. I've never participated in it before, and I am really excited to give it a shot. Should I "win" and surpass 49,999 words, I get, above all, bragging rights. I believe they also give out a certificate and web badge that marks the accomplishment.

Now, how the hell am I supposed to write so much in so little time when I've been working on my first novel, "The Sorcerer's Paragon" for over a year? I am floating about halfway through its second draft. Some days I feel like I'm equipped with a paddle and get through quite a bit. Other days, I'm treading water with merely my cupped, wrinkled hands. What I need for NaNoWriMo is a freakin' outboard motor!

Well, I think I found said motor. It has a name, and that name is outlining. This is where my new apprehension of July comes from. Many moons ago, I slated July to be the month (come hell or high water) that I would gently push my WIPs to the side and squeeze in outlining for book two in preparation for NaNoWriMo...and here we are. Time to figure out a way to get this outline junk out of the way.

Mind you that outlining is, in a way, new to me. I wrote "The Sorcerer's Paragon" from the seat of my pants. I took an intriguing idea and set it free to sodomize MS Word to its heart's content. My role was to just hang on for the ride. This led to an experience that was fun as hell to write, but I'm paying for it now. The story has grown to something a bit more complex than I originally anticipated, and I'm pretty sure that outlining my ideas prior to starting the first draft would have helped tremendously.

I've researched lots of different outline methods, tried a few and finally settled on the snowflake method. To quote the famous Al Bundy, I'm going to "Throw it in the oven and see if it bakes", "Run it up the flagpole and see if it waves"..."Put it in bed with Madonna and see if she sleeps with it."

I'm not going to go into too much detail, but in a nutshell, you start with a one sentence summary of your story and then expand it to a paragraph. You do the same with your main characters. Then you just keep expanding...building it out a little at a time until it evolves into the skeleton of your story. Supposedly it allows you to find and fix flaws before you even begin your first draft, and that makes sense to me. Many times, I found myself sifting through the first draft of "The Sorcerer's Paragon" pissed off at how the chapters refused to line up. A lot of rewrites and rethinking was necessary to get the flow I wanted. I'm still going through that process. If outlining can help me there...I'm in!

The panser side of my brain is a bit upset at me. It yells out, "I call B.S.! You enjoy the surprises hidden in every carriage return! Abort! Abort!"

I scream back, thwarting its logic, "I'm still finding surprises as I flesh out the outline! Shut up, damn you!" Then I awkwardly drop my head as people begin to stare.

As Chuck Wendig says, "To me this is the same dilemma of whether or not you want to know the sex of your baby before it’s born — to me, it’s still a surprise if I learn that fact at 20 weeks and that gives me another 20 weeks to figure out what kind of clothes to buy the little critter."

If you want to read more about the snowflake method, here is it is broken down in steps. I may very well get halfway through it and find it useless, but at the moment I'm digging it. Whatever happens, I'll be sure to let you know.

The hope is that my outline for book two will be done by early to mid August. Then I can concentrate on completing the second and subsequent drafts of book one. When November hits...I'll be ready! I'll be sitting on my deck, watching the rust-colored leaves dance their way down to the frosty ground as my cup 'o Joe breathes steamy breaths into the chilled morning air.

Thanks for reading!


-- Tim