Won't be doing much writing next weekend. Going to the coast with my wife, a small city named Pismo beach for those non Calif.. Beautiful beach even though it has the usual tourist traps. But Our Church. Valley Christian Center is having it's yearly Marriage retreat. This year there won't be as many meetings but we are still staying for two nights. No Sunday morning breakfast at the neat restaurant either. That one I will miss at least.
But it's still worth going to. :)
We weren't able to go last year because the church didn't have the retreat out of town, and because of my Mother-In-Law, I wrote a couple of blogs venting on that. She still doesn't understand why we want to go again. And seems to still think we're going to spend as much money as a real vacation but she will babysit our daughter this year.
I'm tempted to take the laptop in case there is a time while my wife watches a bit of TV in the evening as we have done in the past.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A religious post Jesus saves
I haven't had many of these, this might be my first one but it's needed.
Jeremy Camp has out a new song called “Jesus Saves”. I was kinda surprised by it. It’s an old fashioned term we don’t use much but at the same time it is right. Jesus does save. No doubt about it. He sings about how Jesus saves and from what. Not only God’s judgment and hell but from ourselves. Our hurts and emotional baggage we all carry. Hell is real and having our sins forgiven is great news and the main reasons Jesus came but the rest of it is very Good News also and still works.
So in one way Jesus saves will never go out of fashion because it will always be true and always needed.
working on new user name
I might change my user writing name. I have tree choices. One I will part on a business card if I ever sell another story so I could use that one but I kind alike the other two.
My writing
Been a while since I said anything about my own writing.
I sent in one story to Writer's of the Future first quarter contest. Sent a story for Quarter 2 to a group on hatrack writer's forum to look over. That story has already been torn apart on Universe's forum which is part of Baen's Bar so hopefully it won't need that much work.
Anyway I now have 76,000 words on Bright Lights my Nano novel. I hope to have it done in a month to two months. I will need someone to help find the nitpicks:typos, wrong words, bad grammar etc., but it will be ready to go. Or so I hope.
Then I will have to decide what to do with it. Go the usual route of looking for an agent, go straight to a publisher, or go epublishing. Agents aren't what they used to be and there a lot of bad stories out there esp. with the new ones.
And somewhere I need to send out 13 stories. I decided where I just have to do it.
And decide on another one I haven't sent out yet so it would be 14.
And I still have a ton of ideas for stories I need to work on, plus two I have to redo and another two to four to finish sometime. Sigh--I need two days off.
I sent in one story to Writer's of the Future first quarter contest. Sent a story for Quarter 2 to a group on hatrack writer's forum to look over. That story has already been torn apart on Universe's forum which is part of Baen's Bar so hopefully it won't need that much work.
Anyway I now have 76,000 words on Bright Lights my Nano novel. I hope to have it done in a month to two months. I will need someone to help find the nitpicks:typos, wrong words, bad grammar etc., but it will be ready to go. Or so I hope.
Then I will have to decide what to do with it. Go the usual route of looking for an agent, go straight to a publisher, or go epublishing. Agents aren't what they used to be and there a lot of bad stories out there esp. with the new ones.
And somewhere I need to send out 13 stories. I decided where I just have to do it.
And decide on another one I haven't sent out yet so it would be 14.
And I still have a ton of ideas for stories I need to work on, plus two I have to redo and another two to four to finish sometime. Sigh--I need two days off.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
More stuff
I really need to update this more often. Whoever is reading this send a note to remind me :)
Just kidding.
Anyway, Reading Cook's latest Garrett novel as I believe I have stated. I am taking my time, reading another book at the same time, since it will be a while before the next one comes out. For a while it seemed to be okay. I think I posted here that I wondered if this one was Ghost Written. Just by the way it started...very short chapters and some of it didn't seem like Cook but most of it does seem like him. Except for this point. I don't want to say too much but Garrett makes one comment about his girl friends sanity-she may actually be a slightly crazy- which is okay but than what seems to me out of the blue he comes out with something else that makes it a whole lot worse. I went huh where did that come from? Again this doesn't seem like Cook but he could have been in a hurry or gotten lazy while writing this one.
My Nano novel is up 76,000 words. I am about to send the first chapter to chapter exchange group made up of Hatrack people. Hatrack is a writers forum connected with Intergalactic Medicine Show. Orsen Scott Card's online mag. And I will be going over the other chapters adding a couple conversations, descriptions, changing things etc..
I just finished over an hour of deciding what stories to send out where. I haven't sent any out in months. Shame on me. But now I have 13 stories decided on. A couple of new markets like basement stories in that list but older ones like Analog and Asimov's is missing. I have only one to send them and that one is out at Writer's Of The Future contest. Well, I do have another but it needs to be cleaned up.
A couple of other things I will add later.
Just kidding.
Anyway, Reading Cook's latest Garrett novel as I believe I have stated. I am taking my time, reading another book at the same time, since it will be a while before the next one comes out. For a while it seemed to be okay. I think I posted here that I wondered if this one was Ghost Written. Just by the way it started...very short chapters and some of it didn't seem like Cook but most of it does seem like him. Except for this point. I don't want to say too much but Garrett makes one comment about his girl friends sanity-she may actually be a slightly crazy- which is okay but than what seems to me out of the blue he comes out with something else that makes it a whole lot worse. I went huh where did that come from? Again this doesn't seem like Cook but he could have been in a hurry or gotten lazy while writing this one.
My Nano novel is up 76,000 words. I am about to send the first chapter to chapter exchange group made up of Hatrack people. Hatrack is a writers forum connected with Intergalactic Medicine Show. Orsen Scott Card's online mag. And I will be going over the other chapters adding a couple conversations, descriptions, changing things etc..
I just finished over an hour of deciding what stories to send out where. I haven't sent any out in months. Shame on me. But now I have 13 stories decided on. A couple of new markets like basement stories in that list but older ones like Analog and Asimov's is missing. I have only one to send them and that one is out at Writer's Of The Future contest. Well, I do have another but it needs to be cleaned up.
A couple of other things I will add later.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
More on the ST Calendar
The very first picture by the artist, Mark Rademaker, inspired me.
January's pic is of a starship with two circles around the aft end. Both are proton excelleraters, using a different method of create a wrap bubble. But my idea is that instead of an Excellerater being built underground, build one around a spaceship for power. Hmmm, all kinds of possibilities there. Not sure when I would get to the story and/or novel but as I said all types of possibilities.
Calendars
Every year for the last few I've put up two calendars near my computer. One is of Eagles...not the band, not the team...as well as one called Star Trek: Ships Of The Line. The second one is obviously is of starships, even though they sneak a shuttle in there every so often. And not just the various Enterprises but some that have a secondary character or never used at all.
This has been going on for around five years. The first one has a great shot of Voyager flying through a lightning storm right above an ocean. Besides the fact that there's a reason I have something for Voyager, which you can find out about on the side, I have a scene just like it in my first novel. Of course it's not Voyager or any other Star Trek ship but still it's amazing how similar the two scenes are.
There's even a book out with, I think, the first three years of pics and a half page story that goes with each pic. I would have loved to do those half page descriptions.
So now to what I want to say, I wish they would have a calendar like that for SF over all. I would love one with a month with David Weber's Honer Harrington ships. Of course all the ships look pretty much the same in that universe. But there could be one from David Drake's Lt. Leary series, maybe from R.M. Meluch's Merrimack series. I'm sure they could find another nine.
This has been going on for around five years. The first one has a great shot of Voyager flying through a lightning storm right above an ocean. Besides the fact that there's a reason I have something for Voyager, which you can find out about on the side, I have a scene just like it in my first novel. Of course it's not Voyager or any other Star Trek ship but still it's amazing how similar the two scenes are.
There's even a book out with, I think, the first three years of pics and a half page story that goes with each pic. I would have loved to do those half page descriptions.
So now to what I want to say, I wish they would have a calendar like that for SF over all. I would love one with a month with David Weber's Honer Harrington ships. Of course all the ships look pretty much the same in that universe. But there could be one from David Drake's Lt. Leary series, maybe from R.M. Meluch's Merrimack series. I'm sure they could find another nine.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
More Misc stuff and Nano novel update
I got interrupted with my last post so here is what I was going to say.
The opening of the Garrett book has a lot of chapters one to two pages long. It caused problems with getting into the book. And the first few pages do not feel like Cook. He might have been in a hurry or it could be because of the tiny chapters. Or maybe he used a ghost writer. It happens even with some of the better long term pros, I hear. But in either case I started another book because I was reading Cook's book to fast. It will be a long time before the next Garrett book comes out, I don't want to read it that fast. Quite a few pages into the book and it starts to feel like Cook's writing and at the same time the chapters start to get longer.
----------
Now for some new stuff. I still would love to go to a writing workshop. Of course being excepted would be a problem and so would the money depending on where and how long it is. I have some money saved for one. Dean Wesley Smith has a workshop in March he said I could go to, if there are still openings by now. And I believe I have the money for it. It's not so much about writing as it is about how to write and the business of writing. I believe some of it would be sort of boring because I know some things about the business side. How much would be boring I don't know, I imagine half but that could be way off. Dean doesn't think I can handle the first stage writing workshop. It involves tons of writing in a short period of time. I think I would do better than he thinks. I have written under pressure before but on the other hand not on this scale. I might do better than he thinks but not as good as I think.
But there's still one big personal problem that would keep me from going. It's not money, it's not being able to take time off from work or any other of the usual excuses. I'm ashamed to say what it is.
And I'm sort of proud to say that I now have a tiny bit over 70,000 words on my NaNo novel. That's good, but at the same time. I have one more scene to write and most probably clarifying a few small scenes and descriptions and I don't think I will be able to get it over 80,000 words. That depends on the scene too. I figure it will be somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 words. I could be wrong as I was wrong about the new ending I did. That had a whole lot more words than I figured it would. But I shall see. I may have to add the scene where she finds out about who her mother really is, I was hoping to save it for the next book.
Hopefully there will be more soon.
The opening of the Garrett book has a lot of chapters one to two pages long. It caused problems with getting into the book. And the first few pages do not feel like Cook. He might have been in a hurry or it could be because of the tiny chapters. Or maybe he used a ghost writer. It happens even with some of the better long term pros, I hear. But in either case I started another book because I was reading Cook's book to fast. It will be a long time before the next Garrett book comes out, I don't want to read it that fast. Quite a few pages into the book and it starts to feel like Cook's writing and at the same time the chapters start to get longer.
----------
Now for some new stuff. I still would love to go to a writing workshop. Of course being excepted would be a problem and so would the money depending on where and how long it is. I have some money saved for one. Dean Wesley Smith has a workshop in March he said I could go to, if there are still openings by now. And I believe I have the money for it. It's not so much about writing as it is about how to write and the business of writing. I believe some of it would be sort of boring because I know some things about the business side. How much would be boring I don't know, I imagine half but that could be way off. Dean doesn't think I can handle the first stage writing workshop. It involves tons of writing in a short period of time. I think I would do better than he thinks. I have written under pressure before but on the other hand not on this scale. I might do better than he thinks but not as good as I think.
But there's still one big personal problem that would keep me from going. It's not money, it's not being able to take time off from work or any other of the usual excuses. I'm ashamed to say what it is.
And I'm sort of proud to say that I now have a tiny bit over 70,000 words on my NaNo novel. That's good, but at the same time. I have one more scene to write and most probably clarifying a few small scenes and descriptions and I don't think I will be able to get it over 80,000 words. That depends on the scene too. I figure it will be somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 words. I could be wrong as I was wrong about the new ending I did. That had a whole lot more words than I figured it would. But I shall see. I may have to add the scene where she finds out about who her mother really is, I was hoping to save it for the next book.
Hopefully there will be more soon.
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