Finished it and other WIPs

Yay, I finished "Storm Born".  The Bad guy is defeated, probably never to return but no one knows what happened to the assistant, in fact he may have been forgotten. But I decided to make him the strange book- occultic store owner who bugged my MC at one point. And relationships have been repaired--mostly and my MC has made friends with a rather mean unicorn and decided his wizard acquaintance was more of a friend  after all.

I do need to split part of chapter fourteen and make it fifteen. But the novel is long enough and will be even longer once I do the revision and add things like the description and name of the city the action takes place in.


I haven't done much work on the second revision of Bright Lights though. Maybe half a chapter.


Did some work on New Mage. I think I may go with another chapter. I thought the next one would be it but I think something else has to happen even though I'm not sure what. Something to do with the relationship with her friends and probably some type of danger scene. I haven't had one for a chapter at least.

Oh So close and ???

Am ever so close to finishing “Storm Born” I mean like half page or less but maybe not. I had been thinking of putting in an extra tiny bit at the end when my MC tries to return a couple of unicorn horns the bad guy was using. I decided an epilogue would be good for that. 

I am almost done with the part I have been saving in my brain for six months, at least, for the end. I’m not quite sure what order it should go in but I guess I will go with whatever order comes out unless I change my mind later.

And I thought I was done with the revision of Bright Lights as I mentioned in an earlier post but I need to send chapt four out to the group that is critiquing it and I found a couple of sentences that needed commas so I went back over it. I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed some other changes it needed. I’m not sure I got all the commas right but we shall see. Hopefully the critiquers will see an improvement but the guy who does one of the best jobs decided to take a break. 

E-reader

Finally decided I will be getting a e-reader. Probably the Nook Color. I will use whatever money I get for my birthday at the end of June and some of my workshop money...not sure if I will ever be going on one anyway because of my circumstances.

e-stories

Finally started to clean up one of my older stories to sell online. But I have to decide if I want to wait 'till I have a whole set, at least five, or sell just the one. It could take me six months to do eleven stories like I originally wanted to do.  Maybe I will try five, that seems to be a good number.

My writing time

Just felt like explaining how much time I have to write. And why it takes so long for me to do a story these days.

Currently I have maybe half the time to write as I used to. When I wrote my first novel I had time to work on it, work on short stories and even do a little playing around each day.  But now I barely have time to work on one project at a time, two if I discipline myself. So since I'm working on two novels--actually three but I'm working on that one during lunch and afternoon break at work--my short stories have been sitting and my ideas are still just that.  I do work on one short story during the morning break at work but that's barely enough time. 

I have two unfinished stories waiting on in my WIP file, two other stories that I need to revise, one I need to remake.  That last one was changed stuff added to please some people who critted it--not here--and I decided to redo the original story. I will take out what I added and make that a separate story.  One of those story ideas is one I got from my wife's crafts and will probably be very short maybe flash whenever I get to it.

Recently some of my writing time has been cut back even more, have to do some badly needed yard work, and circumstances have changed to cut two to three hours of my Saturday writing time. 

Yet another one And...

Got the latest rejection from Fantasy and Science Fiction. My story couldn't grab him-him being the assistant editor that takes a first look at the stories. He, has three ways if saying no. One which I get the most of course says "The story couldn't grab my interest" but there is one that says "The story couldn't keep my interest", there's a third phrase I can't recall.

Of course most of my stories can't grab his interest I wrote them. I don't if he has one like this but I would love one that says something like.."didn't grab my interest but it almost did, you're doing better." But I have to do better to get something like that.



And I'm reading "Way of the Wizard" an anthology edited by John Joseph Adams a long time story editor. I sent in six to eight stories but none got more than the basic rejection. I'm finding it harder to read the stories than I thought it would be. Especially the second by someone else who has succeeded with the markets I have failed with. That includes Lifepod. An audio market.

Wonder if he has a web site. Most probably and I wonder if he would mind a couple of questions. (shoulder shrug) maybe yes maybe no.

Finished a revision

Indeed, I finished the revision for Bright Lights my NaNo novle.


But I won't have time to relax; it will be time to start the second one, with all of the good advice I have gotten on the first three chapters...good even though I wanted to argue-discuss a couple of points. I must have misphrased a couple responses for one person evidently thought I was upset at his comments. If I was upset it was because I needed those comments. But some people don't seem to like discussions anymore. 

On one of my novels

I know what the second and third books in the Mew Mage series will be about. The second book is an idea I got from "Playing Dead" by John Levitt. The third one will be her and her brother going of the person who raped and killed their sister. That was revealed in the back ground. 


Yeah, I know I don't have the first book finished much less sold or published and I know the basics of the next two books. 

Dream

Last night I had what I call an adventure dream. This one was Urban Fantasy setting. Only problem is that I can't recall anything else. It did seem to be a YA story though. But it was short and only would have made up one scene but it could have triggered my Muse. It could have been an interesting story but oh well. Surprisingly I don't have many UF dreams.

I have had a couple with characters from certain books, Like Harry Dresden and a combo of Joanne Walker and possibly Genevieve Scelan

went book hunting today

I went to B&N because, while checking out their e-books, I noticed the next one in a space opera series was out. I found it but couldn't believe it, the blasted thing is in hardback. Something like the sixth one in a series and they switch to hardback I hate it when the do that.  UGH.

I did find another one I noticed on the e-books list and its as it should be, in paperback.


Found a third book which happened to be the third one in a series but decided to wait for that one.

Found they put out a Star Trek Temporal group book. With our two favorite time bureaucrats in the book though they seem to be good field agents.

Again more on my writing

I started the last chapter on "Storm Born" In fact I'm sending my MC in to confront the bad guy and to stop him. Not sure everything that will happen but I think I will be finished in two weeks. Unless it gets so hot I decide not to take my laptop to work. But it will be very soon even then.

And they way I am working on just the revision of my "Bright Lights" novel I will be done with that within two weeks also-if I don't play or procrastinate too much it will be sooner.  Then I have to start over again with all of the crits I have received...there's a lot of them of course.

And in the process I have to figure out my chapters. I have split a couple 11,000 plus word chapters up and will probably do two more but I'm afraid the new files have gotten a little confused. I didn't keep track of them as I should have.

Agents and contracts

First of all Agents have changed in the last few years. A lot of them won't, while others can't anymore, help the writer.  They help the publisher if anyone.

And I don't know how many people who read this blog will be signing a book contract soon but in case there are some:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/05/2011/dont-sign-dumb-contracts

Don't Sign Dumb Contracts Just because it's your first book sold. Or for that matter even if its the twentieth book sold.

Writer's Of The Future comment

Joni from WotF has said that we are getting new HM certificates this year.


I really don't care that much... I used to be able to get to the HM stage by myself but now I need two groups helping me with crits.


She states that the Awards dinner has been taking up too much of her time so she hasn't been able to mail them out yet, she will be busy launching careers and The Dinner....Some good writers there but it won't be my career.


But on a positive note WotF's art work has been doing great lately. They did a right nice job on the snail mail invites, I wish I could get a copy for my wallpaper, so the Certificates might be really nice to look at.

Grammar book

Since, I'm still have big time problems with grammar--I still find it hard to believe that my grammar slipped as much as it did over the years but it did--I bought a new grammar book.

"Painless Grammar' By Rebecca Elliot, Ph.D

She wrote it for school students. and that is evident but she also explains certain things better than even the "Idiot's Guide To Grammar". And she points out that even though certain sentences are technically Okay, there might be better way to say it.


So if you are having problems with grammar try it. I don't know if it will do me very much good, nothing seems to, even though I have read the comma section twice and the "Wacky Words We Love tO misuse" section once. I will be reading both a lot of times as well as other sections.

Dean Wesley Smith thinks I've come a long way with my grammar but obviously not enough.

And one another subject kinda of related, looks like passive verbs is an area where even though I thought I was doing better in, I'm not.