Plot turning and sleep tossing.

Made the mistake of starting to think about my plot to Faerylander last night.

Couldn't sleep all night.

Thing is, I like about 80% of Nearly Human.

But it starts off with the wrong tone, has some duplicate scenes, and it has a plot twist that I can't quite swallow.

So I started trying to figure out how to fix the tonal problem first, and it came back to plot, plot, plot.

So rather than just start writing, I'm going to think about plot for a few days, see if I can't combine some chapters and characters and the get the main character introduced in a much more sympathetic appearance.

Writing in a vacuum.

I'm trying to decide what book I want to work on next.

I think it is going to be Faerylander.  Which will be a real experiment.  I've already written a complete book, so the question will be -- how far is the new book going to stray from the original book?

I more or less already have the premise and the characters and even most of the plot, I just want to try a fresh approach.

I've also been working off and on with Led to the Slaughter.  I've added about 4000 words of historical detail.  I'm almost done there, maybe a few more additions.  I'm trying to set up a system where I don't look at a manuscript for a month or two after I finish, and only then come back and give it a rewrite.

I rearranged the beginning 30 pages of the Led to the Slaughter, based on someone's suggestion -- same content but moving the chapters around.   I can see how in theory the new arrangement works, but I still like the original version.

I've got enough finished material to feed the publishing pipeline, so I can afford to be patient and try to gain some perspective.



I've been distracted over the last month or two with the reality of trying to get my creative efforts out there where people can actually read them. -- I want to get back to writing without any concern about publishing.  I can write on my own, but publishing requires the help of others -- along with their convenient timelines, not mine.

I spent probably ten months of the last year doing nothing but writing, and I was very productive, and I kind of want to get back to that mode, even if it is writing in a vacuum.

Finished Blood of Gold.

The Vampire Evolution Trilogy is complete!

I finished Blood of Gold yesterday.

The first book, Death of an Immortal has been online for 8 months.  The second book, Rule of Vampire is done and I'm just waiting for my tech guy Aaron to recover from his travels and find time to help me do the last bit of formatting that will let me post it on Amazon and Smashwords.

At least the first draft of Blood of Gold is done -- which means it will happen.  I mean, I could post what I've already written, but I want to let it be edited and give myself time to make improvements.

But it is more or less done.

I like it.

Not to get all mystical, but it feels like this comes from somewhere else, like the story exists and all I'm doing is transcribing it.  Like it deserves to exist.  Like these characters are somehow real.

Meanwhile, I get such a sense of fulfillment and relief from finishing and liking what I've done, that I feel a euphoria.   I mean it doesn't come easy.   I get in the middle of these stories and think, "What the hell have you gotten into?"

But you know what?   I've been steady and diligent and expended a huge amount of time and energy on it and so it happened.

I'm very grateful that this creative urge came over me after so many years.  I mean, I don't regret having my retailer career, and there wasn't really any choice anyway.

But I seem to be making up for lost time.  A few more years of this, and I'll have a whole career worth of material created.

Taking 25 years off gave me a chance to think about what I wanted to accomplish, to work out the best work process, to look back and figure out what I did wrong and right the first time.

Being financially secure gives me the confidence to dive into this and not emerge for weeks and months at a time.  But there is something to show for it all at the end, and I'm very very glad that this happening.

It's total bonus.  I want to keep doing it.

Every book is a work in progress.

I'm beginning to understand that until a book is actually at the printers (if ever...) , it's a work in progress.

My goal is to have Led to the Slaughter as good as I can make it.

I recently had a 'professional' offer a one-sentence critique that instantly had me rethinking the beginning -- in a way I hadn't even thought of before, but which obviously made it better.  Basically, it was simply putting the second chapter as the fifth, and the fourth chapter as the second. An easy fix, like I said, but one I hadn't even thought.

Unfortunately, most people you ask for help see the earlier part of the process, instead of the latter.  You show people stuff, and there are things wrong about them and you fix them, but the earlier readers never see the fixing.  Almost by definition, before publishing, everyone will have seen a version that wasn't the final version.

So the danger is that you expose your work too soon.  You may think it's finished, but someone can point something out and you realize, no -- there is more to do.

I'm proud of myself for actually being patient.  I waited until I thought I had written something good enough to put online -- Death of an Immortal.  I think Rule of Vampire is probably even better.  I'm hoping Blood of Gold will be as good as the first two.

Thing is, I also feel like I sometimes need to be impulsive or nothing happens.  I take risk when I'm ready to take risk, not when it makes the most sense.

So my goal is to have have all three books of Vampire Evolution as good as I can make them, and have them edited.  I've pretty much done that so far.

My goal is to completely rewrite Faerylander, and then follow it up with a string of books which are as good as I can make them.

My goal is to make sure that both Sometimes a Dragon and Deviltree are improved and as good as I can make them.

And my goal is to make sure that my Lore fantasy trilogy is completely thought out and finished before I publish them.

Because they are digital, this is all up to me.

Again, I'm kind of proud of myself for not rushing things.  I mentioned to Linda that I wish I'd spent just a little more time on just the last chapter of Death of an Immortal, not that it's bad but that I could have added maybe a couple hundred words.  Also, that I wished that Lara could've worked on it.

Thing is, I didn't really feel that until I pushed to button.  Pushing the button automatically puts the wholw process into a different perspective.  Hard to explain.  And of course, Lara wasn't even around back then.

But with online, I can still adjust things slightly.  I can have Lara do an editing job on an already published book, because it is still all digital.

I've told myself I'll allow one chance at changes, and that I can't change anything substantial, and that it will just be a little cleaning up.  Anything more than that and I'll feel like I've broken faith with the reader.

Meanwhile, while it's true writing a digital book is a trial and error process, publishing a physical book wouldn't be.  Publishing is all or nothing, get one chance.  It's like having a job and getting fired after every mistake.  No way to learn.

What Dwight Newton used to say about the Pulps was -- they learned while they were writing.

So I just have to keep trying to muddle through, with a combination of impulse (or it won't get done) and patience (waiting until it can be done right.)

That last should be my mantra:   Keep trying to muddle through, with a combination of impulse (or it won't get done) and patience (waiting until it can be done right.)

Faerylander.

Here I am, trying to finish up Blood of Gold, and a new story is pressing itself on me.

Surprisingly enough, it's an old story that wants to be rewritten -- Nearly Human, which I have now decided to call Faerylander.

When the beginning of the story presses itself on you while you're brushing your teeth, then you know it wants to come out.  I thought I was still debating whether I really wanted to do that.  My subconscious is saying, "Hell, yeah!"  I always obey my subconscious in all things.

Patience!  I'll be done with Blood of Gold either today or tomorrow.  Wait, dammit!  Come back when I'm ready!

I can't believe I'm going to do this -- but I've decided that no words are sacrosanct simply because I wrote them -- not even when I struggled with them.

I want to keep the characters, the basic premise, even most of the plot.  I want to shift the plot, make it more believable.  And I especially want to change the tone.  I'm also going to try for a deep 3rd person.  I can't stray too much from the style of Wolflander, however.

I'm going with more of the basic faery creatures -- dwarfs, gnomes, elves, along with the made up critters.  I'm going to have to read Wolflander to see what I can get away with.

Rather than try to go back and "fix" what I've done, I decided because of the quick way I write, that I'd be better off starting from scratch.  I have to remember -- there are always more words where those came from.

All the books I've written since Nearly Human have a much easier style, and I think I need to stick with that.  Nearly Human just doesn't work, and while I improved it with each rewrite the book has such fundamental flaws that there simply isn't any way to make it really good.

I'm betting I can make a very readable book by simply starting from scratch.

The plot thickens.

Or rather, gets complicated.

I'm trying to wrap up three books worth of story threads and character fates.  It's not over the top, I don't think.  It works.  But for the first time, I'm losing tracks of things.  I dropped a character completely by accident, though it was easy enough to put her back in.

It's just that I'm now trying to manage the events of over 200,000 words.  How did I describe that character?  What was that character's name?

I've never kept notes or graphs because I've always been able to keep it in my head.  Because most of my books are around 70,000 words,  I could always keep the whole story on track.

But this is three books worth of plot I'm trying to wrap up.

I know that I'm on track, but I also know that I'm going to have to go back and check a bunch of things.  My editor may really earn her money with this book.

It's like being able to juggle.  3 items, no problem.  4 or 5, easy.  6, 7 getting a little harder, 8, 9 oops. dropped one.

Anyway, I'm going to have to go over this a few times, try to catch what I left out and what I need to add.  Something I'm realizing is that each book is a little different.  Some need more rewriting than others, some I'm more willing to do more rewriting than others.  (Unfortunately, not always the same books.)

Paying the price.

I pretty much spent the whole summer indoors.

At first it was because of the heat.  Then it was because I was writing.  Then both.

But as the summer comes to a close, the inside-my-head tapes of "Get out there and do something!" get louder and louder.

Back in my old writing career, it seemed like writing would stop at summer and the holidays.  This time, I am writing right through all obstacles.

Here's the thing.  Ever since I got in this writing groove, which started almost exactly one year ago, I've been afraid to let it go.  Who am I to turn down this munificence?

I'm not saying it's all great, but it feels like it's pretty good.

I decided to pay the price, as long as the creativity kept coming.  I mean, it is an unusual thing, to say the least.  And it's still coming.

Paying the price --  I'm hardly reading, I think I gaining weight, I don't watch much TV. I barely touched the garden, the dust level on my desk has turned into dust bunnies.

I'm not getting any younger, and I'm feeling the urge very strongly, so I'm just going to keep doing it no matter the price. 

Got back the edited Rule of Vampire.

Got back the edited version of Rule of Vampire and it looks good.  Lara is very diligent, catching most of the mistakes, cleaning it up, and suggesting alternative phrasing.  I pretty much accept 95% of her suggestions, as well as try to clear up anything she points out that might be a problem.

The book reads well.  In some ways, it is probably the best thing I've done so far.

I'm thinking of asking Lara to go back and edit Death of an Immortal.  Not that there is anything wrong with it, but if she catches even a few mistakes, it might be worth it.  Have the whole trilogy professionally edited.

So Rule of Vampire will be put up on Amazon and Smashwords as soon as Aaron Leis and I can get together and format it correctly.  Sometime next week, for sure.

I also started in on the ending of Blood of Gold, the third book of the Vampire Evolution Trilogy, so pretty soon I will have completed one of the major goals of my life:  To write a trilogy!

I didn't expect it to be a Vampire Trilogy, but there you go.

I think Blood of Gold will be ready around January of 2014.

My sister-in-law Sherry said,  "I don't know how you do it!"

"Simple," I answered.  "Start with an active lifestyle and write all the time.  Then subtract the active lifestyle..."

Starting from scratch.

I can't believe I'm even contemplating this. 

I'm very much considering redoing Nearly Human.  Throwing away an entire year worth of work.  That is -- not even referring to the previous attempt, just write it from scratch.  Hide the original manuscript under the mattress, pretend it doesn't exist.

I like the ideas, the world, the characters of this story -- I just don't think the writing is as good as the stuff that came after that, and I think the plot pulled a clunker.

I pretty much like everything I've written after Nearly Human.  Starting with The Reluctant Wizard, I seemed to figure out -- to remember -- how to do it, along with the new and improved working process.

But I wouldn't have gotten there without Nearly Human.  Having to rewrite, rethink, restart that first book over and over again was like a training exercise, necessary for me to progress.

But it shows all the patches.  It clunks.  It runs along fine for a while, and then has an eye-rolling development.  And if I'm rolling my eyes, I know the customer will roll his or her eyes because I have a very high suspension of disbelief.

So I'm thinking of just starting from scratch.  It doesn't scare me, it kind of seems exciting.  I write very fast and smoothly now, and I want that sensation with this book.  Rather than try to "fix" it, I think I'd be better off just starting all over again.  When I'm done, I can lift passages, phrases, whatever I think is particularly good and put them in the new book.

But not until I'm done. 

Yes, it's very hard to throw away a year's worth of hard work.  But I want to feel good about whatever I release -- and I want to continue this series with these characters and scenario.  In fact, I've already written a second book, Wolflander, that I feel much more comfortable about.

In honor of the restart, I'm also going to change the name:  Faerylander is the new title.  (To go along with Wolflander, and the intended Ghostlander and Xenolander, etc. etc.)

So the series will be called Nearly Human, rather than the first book.


I still have to write the ending of Blood of Gold first, so we'll see how I feel after that, but right now, it seems like the right thing to do.

I've always gone my own way.

More and more, I'm thinking the ebook route is right for me.

For one thing, I'm writing so much faster than the old traditional route could manage.  It's always been a once a year pace for publishers -- and it takes a year even from the moment of acceptance before a book can come out.

I suppose one could try to do both, though agents and publishers usually want you -- not just your one book -- on contract.  If they are going to invest time and money on you, they want the rights to the next book and the next.  Standard and understandable.

But I want to write what I want to write when I want to write it.  I don't want to stick one genre.  

I don't know if I try the agent route that it won't be more of a test of the current industry than it is of my own writing. 

But the main thing is, I don't think there is any need.

 Besides, they can find me that way, if needs be. 

Much like the store, I've always gone my own way.  Just hoped that people would find me and appreciate what I'm trying to do.

The idea of a clear open field I can enter without permission, without having to wait, is so appealing that it more or less unlocked my creative energies -- going through the old constipated systems might just slow me down, make me doubt myself, and keep me from following my inclinations.

Hard to argue with the amount of material I've produced over the last year.

Content is king.  Everything else comes after.

Finished plotting.

Took another 3 chapters of Led to the Slaughter to writer's group last night.  Grasping at straws, but when I finished Pam said, "That was really good."  I know, I know.  That's what people always say, right?  But not really, not voluntarily out of turn, not in a genuine voice.

I'll take whatever small encouragements I can get.

In the course of rewriting this week, I thought it was really good too.  And I don't normally think that about my own work. Usually I have much more doubt.

I worked out the ending of Blood of Gold yesterday, and I got an euphoric creative rush.   I think the surprise at the end is sufficient to justify all the rest.  Now I just need to sit down and finish the book, and therefore the trilogy, starting Friday.

Why do I #%^# with my routine?

Doing stuff I'll talk about later, no doubt.  Sort has thrown me off my routine.

I've been trying to come up with the last four or five chapters of Blood of Gold.  It's not just the end of that book, but the end of an entire trilogy.  So it has to kill.

I have a very vague Good versus Evil ending, but not the particulars.  Or how to make it special.  So that's how I'm going to spend today.  Walking around muttering to myself until it clicks.

Yesterday I did some rewriting on Led to the Slaughter.  Added some historical details.  Made many of the changes that the writer's group recommended.  Both things I wanted to do.

I always say I don't like rewriting -- but I should say, of course I rewrite.  All the freaking time.  Always the doubt though that I should do more.  I'm afraid of messing with it, frankly, so I try to have a light touch.  But it always seems like I could do more.  So I just have to decide when to let it go.

Why do I fuck with my routine?  I love my routine.

A drive in a thunderstorm.

So Linda and I pick yesterday of all days to go visit the high lakes.  Linda wanted to check out Sparks Lake because she's gotten a sudden hankering to go kayaking.  She's going out with a friend this week to rent a kayak and see if she likes it.  I think I'm going to wait until she finds out if she likes it.

Anyway, arrived at the shores just as the storm hit, and there was a mad scramble out of the water.  Looked like something from a Spielberg movie.

Kept driving though, dropping by Elk and then stopping for a snack at Cultis.  The restaurant was full of young people, who I figured was probably the summer crew up there, but not too many other people.

I'm amazed I haven't been up there in ages.  I usually head east, for some reason when I want to go out into nature.  Even if I want woods, I tend to prefer the Ochoco's for some reason.  Less visited, I suppose.

I spent most of my youth outside -- both in the summers and the winters.  Now that I'm adult, there is nothing to keep me from doing the same thing.

But whereas most kids probably grow up wishing they could do all these extra curriculer activities, my youth was packed with them.  My mother insisted.  She couldn't stand us sitting around, for any reason.

I have a theory that most kids grow up and go:  "Now I'm adult, I can do anything I want.  I can go out and do all these recreational things I want."

Me:  "Now I'm adult, I can do anything I want.  I can sit and my room and read all day..."

"Signs of Recovery."

I won't argue with the Bulletin headline.  After all, it's been 5 - 6 years since we started going down the rabbit hole and you have to start up sometime. 

It's interesting what remains static -- the solid waste statistic.  How to read that?  That actual garbage producing activity is not happening?

That would go with the other graph I've always thought was most important for jobs -- the building permits, which are slowly -- ever so slowly --- going up.

The airport and lodging numbers once again point out the importance of tourism for Central Oregon -- I think that's what saved us from the worse.  Those statistics never went down as much and have trended upward.

So the graph that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the charts is the housing units sold.  Again, houses selling without being reflected in the job statistics just says to me that the overflow is slowly being sold off to retiree's.  That's my guess.

Which then all loops back to my contention that the economy of Bend is based fundamentally on tourism and retirement.

Which finally brings back the jobs, which while increasing are probably mostly service jobs.

Fair enough?

Hollywood in the 40's.

I've been reading a book about Hollywood in the 40's, "City of Nets" by Otto Friedrich.  (I've mostly been reading non-fiction since I started writing, with a few mysteries thrown in.)

Even though the author says he's trying to elucidate some of the less known stories of that era, I'm not sure what it says about my consumption of Hollywood lore that I've heard of most of them.

But one thing that really stands out is how accidentally the Classics happened, how many compromises and last minute changes and artistic choices were made that we now take for granted and which we can't imagine being any other way.

A kind of running joke that Humphrey Bogart keeps taking roles that George Raft turns down -- until finally he's had enough.  "I'm not doing Casablanca!!!" (Supposedly one of the reasons he was so sarcastic in the movie was because he hated being in it.)

I grew up with three channels on TV, and on most of the late nights and weekends they showed black and white movies from the 40's and 50's.  All the great film noir were being shown back then.  Just lucky that they hadn't decided yet than any crap color film from the 60's was better than classics from the 40's.  (Even creaky 30's movies...)

Anyway, so much of what is now written in celluloid legend forever was sometimes haphazardly done, a cast off, a happy accident.

What it says to me is -- keep writing, keep doing what comes to you, and it may be what works and it may not be what works and you may not know until you've done it.

Taking a short break from writing.

I'm probably only 10 writing days from finishing Blood of Gold, but I decided to take a one week break.  I don't have a clear idea of the climax of the book, and I didn't want to forge ahead without giving myself a chance to think about it.

Going to do chores and other things that fall by the wayside when I'm writing.  When I'm writing a book, it completely takes over my life, pretty much 24 hours a day, I'm wandering around in a creative fog.

This feels like a vacation!

Answering Steve's problems with vampires.

So after posting his nice review, Steve Perry also had some problems with the whole idea of vampires, so I thought I should answer him.

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com/

Dear Steve,

Oh, boy.  I think you're wrong about this in so many ways I'm not sure where to start.  I'm not mad, I just think you're off-base.  I hope you don't mind a good argument.

First of all, I didn't plan to defend myself on this.  I think when a writer asks for critique, he should accept it gracefully and gratefully.

However, since you aired your criticisms to the public, I feel like I should answer.

So let's start with the picture on the top of your blog.

What is that posture?  I've never seen anything like that outside a yoga class.  What is the purpose of it, besides looking dramatic?  Have you ever actually held such a gothic and non-utilitarian knife as the one this character is holding?  Have you ever actually seen one?  The character is ridiculously air-brushed handsome, not much like any real person I've seen outside of fashion ads.  Oh, am I to believe he "never misses?"

No doubt he's a lover of women, a killer of men, an expert in all things martial, and probably a gourmet cook.

This isn't meant to be an attack -- but to point out that all genres have their tropes which the people who like those genres accept, but which from the outside can look iffy.

What I'm trying to say here is, James Bond isn't real.  Jack Reacher isn't real.  Travis McGee was so laconic that he was catatonic.  Spenser is a ridiculously accomplished P.I., so expert in all things that I couldn't stand him.  Earl Swagger, bless his hard bitten little heart, doesn't exist.

Vampires aren't real.

There probably will never be intergalactic fleets  zipping around the universe, or time travel machines, nor will we get "beamed up."

Most western fights were messy, back-shooting, unequal affairs.  Most cops never fire their weapons in the line of duty.  Most martial art fights would probably stop after one or two heavy hits.  Most guys beat up as much as they are in movies wouldn't get out of bed for a week.

A cop who never fires his gun makes for a boring cop story.

What I'm trying to say is, you're drawing the lines as to what you find believable that seem somewhat arbitrary.

Here's the thing.  If you found a body in a motel room with two puncture wounds drained of blood -- you wouldn't think it was a vampire, Steve.  I doubt you would believe in vampires until one had its fangs in your neck.

You would think, as do the characters in my story, that it is some nutcase who either thinks he is a vampire and/or is mimicking one.

So I have set the premise of my story that vampires are rare, that they destroy the evidence usually (they even have a rule about it) and that this is an unusual circumstance.

It reminds me of my wife who will sometimes lean over in the middle of some fantastical movie and say, "That part isn't believable."

"That part isn't believable?  But the part where he's flying around and bouncing off bullets is?"

All genres ask that you "suspend your disbelief."  All genres, granted, ask that you make it believable within the parameters of your premise. But certain things are given.

"Make it believable within the parameters of your premise."

As a bookstore owner, I have all types of readers.  Some can't suspend their disbelief enough to even read fiction.  Others draw the line at genre.  Still others draw the line at comics.

So as much as I like modern SF, for instance, I've gotten to the point where when they start drawing technological rabbits out of hats, it's no more believable than zombies or vampires.

Besides -- vampires?   I mean, really?

When I was a little boy, I was watching Sea Hunt, with Lloyd Bridges, and my dad made the comment that the character had more adventures in one episode than most cops would ever have in their entire lives.

I've always remembered that.  Always known that what I read is mostly ridiculous.

But also ridiculously entertaining.

Villainous schemes.

With DC's villains month, they have put about half of the money I've tried so hard to save up for taxes, at risk.

I'm way overextended if this thing doesn't pan out.

For all this risk, they have allocated so severely that I'll see maybe a 20% bump in sales on those titles.  Because I don't know what is going to happen, I've ordered more of the 2D regular covers than I really want to, because I don't want to disappoint the customers.

It isn't about the sales, it's about the customers.

They've put me in a position where I simply can't do the job I promised my customers I would do.

I mean I can say it's an "Act of (DC) God" and maybe they'll forgive me.

I will be able to return the 2D covers, but I have to pay for them and absorb that cashflow hit for at least a couple of months -- which happen to coincide with my taxes.

It was unnecessary and could have been planned better.

A cool review of my book by Steve Perry.

I've been conversing online with writer Steve Perry in Portland, author of more than 50 science fiction books, his best known being the Matador series.

He's been very encouraging to me, giving me nuts and bolts advice.

He's been kind enough to post a review on his blog, http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com/ 


Take away blurb?

"...if you like your undead to be more along the lines of  Fright Night  than you do Twilight, these will be your cup of gore ..."

Both books covers, for contrast.

The third book will use the same design, with variations.

Do me a HUGE favor and go buy my first book from either Amazon or Smashwords.  You might like it!