Yesterday, as I was going about yard work and dog-sitting and writing, I looked ahead to what I would write today, and kind of settled on a health issue rather than my normal Sunday Christianity post. I'm in the midst of a health experiment, having stopped my rheumatoid arthritis medicine, and am feeling ill effects from that.
But today at church was such a wonderful day, both in worship service and in Life Group, I should probably write about them. Our pastor preached from Luke 14, about the cost of being a Christian, comparing this to the normal mode of evangelism that stresses how salvation is free. It is free; but costs come afterwards. Good stuff.
Or, I should probably write about our Life Group. This was Marion's week to teach, and he did so from Acts 17, about the Apostle Paul's time in Athens. This got us into a number of good discussions, which ended up, somehow, on works of charity, and how best to accomplish them in a way that we knew would do some good. The Samaritan's Feet event from last Wednesday had much discussion. Paul's changing methods to fit the situation he found himself in also took our discussion time.
Then, I thought about saying a little about my writing. My other blog is about my writing life, but, in case I have readers here who don't read there, from time to time I say something about my writing here. If I wrote about that, I'd say my latest novel, Headshots, will be available for pre-order at Amazon in a couple of days, and available for purchase as an e-book in a week to ten days.
Having such a wide range of topics to write on, and being unable to decide, I guess I won't write much more than what I already have. It's a good Sunday. I hope all my readers are well.
Showing posts with label Headshots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Headshots. Show all posts
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Family Time
This has been a different holiday weekend, sort of. July 6 is the birthday of my mother-in-law, Esther Moler Cheney Barnes. So we are normally close to home on this weekend, spending time with her. It's no. 89 this year, so next year will be a big one.
This year our weekend included work. Friday Lynda and I worked in the yard. I'm still working on clearing away from the tree trimming, while Lynda is planting flowers and vegetables in pots. She has some nice flower arrangements, as well as two pepper and four tomato plans, all in pots. Next year, possibly, I'll have prepared some ground down in the back yard for a real garden, but this year it's just pots.
I drug a bunch of leafy branches far down into the woods. Cleared off the outer-most row of brush piles. then I hauled some from the upper part of the backyard to the street and loaded the pickup to take to the stump dump. I rested a while, then trimmed some of our front bushes, which were way overdue for trimming. They look good, though I only got about half of them trimmed. Next Saturday, perhaps, I'll get to the rest. Lynda also planted some hosta in the planter under the overhanging windows.
Saturday we did more of the same, though not as much and not as long. All in all, the front yard is looking good, and the backyard doesn't look quite so much like a disaster zone. Two more weekends of similar production, with a few hours of evening work, and the two yards will be in pretty good shape.
We also watched our neighbor's little dog this weekend, which has been enjoyable. He's easy to take care of. In fact, he seems to like being alone in the day time, so we just left him in his house most of the day and kept him here at night.
Lynda's two step sisters and their families came to town, one from Kansas City and one from OKC, for the birthday celebration. They all came over for supper last night. Ten of us gathered around our dining room table for taco salad and fruit salad for dessert. We had expected only eight, but two who weren't coming did. One family of four stayed with us last night. That gave me less time to prepare for Life Group lesson today, but that worked out okay, as we had to cut off the lesson a little early so we could head to the restaurant for the last part of the birthday celebration.
I'm full of Bob Evan's Sunshine Skillet breakfast. Would love to take a nap, but I know that as soon as I lay on the couch the to-do list will pop up in my mind and I'll be too restless to sleep. So, onward now to finish dropped plot lines in Headshots. Then maybe I'll take some time to format In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People for a paperback edition. Then, maybe, I'll work a little on my budgeting spreadsheet. Or maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow night.
So many things to do, most good choices. I guess I just like to keep busy.
This year our weekend included work. Friday Lynda and I worked in the yard. I'm still working on clearing away from the tree trimming, while Lynda is planting flowers and vegetables in pots. She has some nice flower arrangements, as well as two pepper and four tomato plans, all in pots. Next year, possibly, I'll have prepared some ground down in the back yard for a real garden, but this year it's just pots.
I drug a bunch of leafy branches far down into the woods. Cleared off the outer-most row of brush piles. then I hauled some from the upper part of the backyard to the street and loaded the pickup to take to the stump dump. I rested a while, then trimmed some of our front bushes, which were way overdue for trimming. They look good, though I only got about half of them trimmed. Next Saturday, perhaps, I'll get to the rest. Lynda also planted some hosta in the planter under the overhanging windows.
Saturday we did more of the same, though not as much and not as long. All in all, the front yard is looking good, and the backyard doesn't look quite so much like a disaster zone. Two more weekends of similar production, with a few hours of evening work, and the two yards will be in pretty good shape.
We also watched our neighbor's little dog this weekend, which has been enjoyable. He's easy to take care of. In fact, he seems to like being alone in the day time, so we just left him in his house most of the day and kept him here at night.
Lynda's two step sisters and their families came to town, one from Kansas City and one from OKC, for the birthday celebration. They all came over for supper last night. Ten of us gathered around our dining room table for taco salad and fruit salad for dessert. We had expected only eight, but two who weren't coming did. One family of four stayed with us last night. That gave me less time to prepare for Life Group lesson today, but that worked out okay, as we had to cut off the lesson a little early so we could head to the restaurant for the last part of the birthday celebration.
I'm full of Bob Evan's Sunshine Skillet breakfast. Would love to take a nap, but I know that as soon as I lay on the couch the to-do list will pop up in my mind and I'll be too restless to sleep. So, onward now to finish dropped plot lines in Headshots. Then maybe I'll take some time to format In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People for a paperback edition. Then, maybe, I'll work a little on my budgeting spreadsheet. Or maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow night.
So many things to do, most good choices. I guess I just like to keep busy.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Genre Focus Disorder - is it real?
I've said it before: I have Genre Focus Disorder (GFD). I called it by another name before, but GFD seems more appropriate. The experts in the publishing business say you should stick to one genre. Make a name for yourself in it, carve out a niche, become known, build an audience, and you'll do better. If you write in multiple genres, fans from one genre most likely won't follow you into another genre, and you will have to build separate audiences, carve out multiple niches.
On the other hand, some publishing veterans say experimenting with different genres during your pre-published time is acceptable. Once you sell something, however, use all your efforts to concentrate on that. This is said more from a trade publishing perspective than a self-publishing perspective, but it somewhat applies to the latter as well.
For me, however, I've found I have to write whatever I have inspiration for. I have mapped out books and short stories into the future that will probably consume all my writing time till old age claims it. I write sort of how water, when released from a container or hits land during precipitation, runs downhill or seeks its own level. That's good for productivity, but probably not so good for audience building and sales. Since I'm self-publishing, when I complete something, I publish. The 16 items I've self-published so far are in ten different genres. Of course, genre definition is difficult to pin down. Another person reading all my pieces may say they are in only eight genres.
Only eight?
So what has happened this year in my GFD? In March I published Thomas Carlyle's Edinburgh Encyclopedia Articles. This was not for sales, though I've sold three copies. It was for practice at editing, formatting, cover creation, all things publishing, and it helped fulfill my fasciation with this Victorian behemoth. It was good practice. But what happened afterwards? Ideas for four different follow-ups to it came to mind, one of them book-length. That one wouldn't let me go. For three weeks I worked feverishly at it: researching the subject, contacting people, obtaining copies of documents old and new, and putting a bunch of stuff in a MS Word document. At the end of the three weeks time I had a book diary with many entries, and a file that is probably 70 percent of the eventual book, though subject to formatting. At that point I said "This is madness" and went back to other projects. But by that time the GFD attack had run its course.
So I completed three other projects. One was my novel, a sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I had been working on it since October (I think), so it was good to get it out of the way. Then I did the work of formatting The Gutter Chronicles for print and publishing it. That was okay as it was always on the schedule. The next thing on my publishing schedule was to add "It Happened At The Burger Joint" to my items for sale, which I did. My schedule then was a little imprecise. I could pick up the novel sequel, Headshots, and edit it. I could work on the next short story in the Danny Tompkins series, or the next short story in the Sharon Williams series. Those were on the to-do list, and made sense. I knocked out the Tompkins story, and published it this past Monday. Even made my own cover.
But then, GFD reared. Actually it reared even before I had finished the short story, "Saturday Haircuts, Tuesday Funeral". I was in Little Rock last week for a two day conference, and was in the hotel room in the evenings without much to do. I had brought a number of things with me to fill my time, as I always do, not knowing for sure what I'll want to work on. One of them was a volume of the Annals of America series. I used this series to find source material for my book Documenting America. When I published that in 2011 I saw it as the start to a possible series. I thought the next one would be from the civil war era, and the one after that would be from the pre-constitution era, focusing on the development of the constitution. But I had no hurry in doing either. Well, I suppose the civil war one could be considered subject to a deadline, since we are in the period of the civil war sesquicentennial and books about it might do better if released then.
But really, it wasn't necessary to work on this. I had my completed novel manuscript with me, and could begin editing in the quiet of the hotel. But the civil war book wouldn't let me go. I spent the first evening scanning documents in the Annals, and figuring out which ones to use as source material. I know how long I want the book, how long I want each chapter to be, thus how many chapters I need, and, knowing a fair amount of civil war history, know what subjects are needed. In one long evening, including getting to bed much too late (but who can sleep when GFD is at its strongest), I had the whole book planned, all but six or seven of the source documents identified, and even some specific parts of some source documents marked for extraction. I thought, Ah, GFD has now run its course. Back to my publishing schedule.
Not so. Monday and Tuesday of this week I was prohibited from working outside (I have much yard work to do) due to a combination of rain and a fall resulting in minor injuries. So what did I do? Instead of picking up and editing the novel, I worked on finding more source documents for the civil war book! And this morning I created the Word file. It is now officially a writing project. The pull of this book has become very great over the last week. What's going to happen for the rest of the week?
I really need to get back to my novel. I'd like to have that published in July, and need to give it two full rounds of edits before doing so, maybe even three rounds. I'm hoping to begin editing it this weekend, maybe by reading it aloud with my wife. So that gives me only a couple of days to allow GFD to run wild. I can handle that. Perhaps it will burn out. Then, when the civil war book comes up in the publishing schedule, which is maybe in October, I'll have a nice start to it and be able to build on. GFD flare-up concluded.
Except, I may have found a cover illustrator for my poetry book, Father Daughter Day. Which means I'll have work to do on it. Argh! Is there no end to it?
On the other hand, some publishing veterans say experimenting with different genres during your pre-published time is acceptable. Once you sell something, however, use all your efforts to concentrate on that. This is said more from a trade publishing perspective than a self-publishing perspective, but it somewhat applies to the latter as well.
For me, however, I've found I have to write whatever I have inspiration for. I have mapped out books and short stories into the future that will probably consume all my writing time till old age claims it. I write sort of how water, when released from a container or hits land during precipitation, runs downhill or seeks its own level. That's good for productivity, but probably not so good for audience building and sales. Since I'm self-publishing, when I complete something, I publish. The 16 items I've self-published so far are in ten different genres. Of course, genre definition is difficult to pin down. Another person reading all my pieces may say they are in only eight genres.
Only eight?
So what has happened this year in my GFD? In March I published Thomas Carlyle's Edinburgh Encyclopedia Articles. This was not for sales, though I've sold three copies. It was for practice at editing, formatting, cover creation, all things publishing, and it helped fulfill my fasciation with this Victorian behemoth. It was good practice. But what happened afterwards? Ideas for four different follow-ups to it came to mind, one of them book-length. That one wouldn't let me go. For three weeks I worked feverishly at it: researching the subject, contacting people, obtaining copies of documents old and new, and putting a bunch of stuff in a MS Word document. At the end of the three weeks time I had a book diary with many entries, and a file that is probably 70 percent of the eventual book, though subject to formatting. At that point I said "This is madness" and went back to other projects. But by that time the GFD attack had run its course.
So I completed three other projects. One was my novel, a sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I had been working on it since October (I think), so it was good to get it out of the way. Then I did the work of formatting The Gutter Chronicles for print and publishing it. That was okay as it was always on the schedule. The next thing on my publishing schedule was to add "It Happened At The Burger Joint" to my items for sale, which I did. My schedule then was a little imprecise. I could pick up the novel sequel, Headshots, and edit it. I could work on the next short story in the Danny Tompkins series, or the next short story in the Sharon Williams series. Those were on the to-do list, and made sense. I knocked out the Tompkins story, and published it this past Monday. Even made my own cover.
But then, GFD reared. Actually it reared even before I had finished the short story, "Saturday Haircuts, Tuesday Funeral". I was in Little Rock last week for a two day conference, and was in the hotel room in the evenings without much to do. I had brought a number of things with me to fill my time, as I always do, not knowing for sure what I'll want to work on. One of them was a volume of the Annals of America series. I used this series to find source material for my book Documenting America. When I published that in 2011 I saw it as the start to a possible series. I thought the next one would be from the civil war era, and the one after that would be from the pre-constitution era, focusing on the development of the constitution. But I had no hurry in doing either. Well, I suppose the civil war one could be considered subject to a deadline, since we are in the period of the civil war sesquicentennial and books about it might do better if released then.
But really, it wasn't necessary to work on this. I had my completed novel manuscript with me, and could begin editing in the quiet of the hotel. But the civil war book wouldn't let me go. I spent the first evening scanning documents in the Annals, and figuring out which ones to use as source material. I know how long I want the book, how long I want each chapter to be, thus how many chapters I need, and, knowing a fair amount of civil war history, know what subjects are needed. In one long evening, including getting to bed much too late (but who can sleep when GFD is at its strongest), I had the whole book planned, all but six or seven of the source documents identified, and even some specific parts of some source documents marked for extraction. I thought, Ah, GFD has now run its course. Back to my publishing schedule.
Not so. Monday and Tuesday of this week I was prohibited from working outside (I have much yard work to do) due to a combination of rain and a fall resulting in minor injuries. So what did I do? Instead of picking up and editing the novel, I worked on finding more source documents for the civil war book! And this morning I created the Word file. It is now officially a writing project. The pull of this book has become very great over the last week. What's going to happen for the rest of the week?
I really need to get back to my novel. I'd like to have that published in July, and need to give it two full rounds of edits before doing so, maybe even three rounds. I'm hoping to begin editing it this weekend, maybe by reading it aloud with my wife. So that gives me only a couple of days to allow GFD to run wild. I can handle that. Perhaps it will burn out. Then, when the civil war book comes up in the publishing schedule, which is maybe in October, I'll have a nice start to it and be able to build on. GFD flare-up concluded.
Except, I may have found a cover illustrator for my poetry book, Father Daughter Day. Which means I'll have work to do on it. Argh! Is there no end to it?
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Writing Energizes Me, Publishing Tires Me
I usually write my writing posts at my writing blog and save this blog for various life, liberty, and pursuit of whatever type posts, but possibly this is one that's relevant to both.
Last Saturday I wrote "the end" on my latest novel. Headshots is a sequel to my baseball novel, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I thought Headshots would be around 80,000 words; it ended up being around 87,400. So I wasn't too far off. The last 20,000 words came out fairly quickly, at a rate of over 1,000 per hour when I was working on it. Some of those scenes I had played out in my mind many times. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get the right characters at the right place at the right time. That seemed to go well.
Of course, editing is still ahead of me. I've read through it, in its incomplete form, twice. The first time was when I was around 50,000 words in, and struggling with the sagging middle. I was unsure of the timeline, unsure about several subplots, unsure about which character had done which thing. So I read it carefully and made an outline and timeline. The second reading was when I was about 70,000 words in. I wanted to make sure those things added after the first reading made sense, and had plugged the holes I'd found. After completing the text I went through the mark-up from the second reading and typed those edits. I finished that last Sunday.
Now, Headshots is sitting for a week or two, while I'm taking a break from it. While all my writing time went to the novel, various other publishing tasks went by the wayside. Now is the time to pick them up and complete them. For the last three evenings I've been working on the print edition of The Gutter Chronicles, my workplace humor novella. Hmm, it's about 43,000 words. Is it a novel or a novella? Monday night I formatted the interior. That's actually not that hard to do. I do it in words. Since the chapters have titles, I wanted to use the right hand page header as the chapter title, while the left had page header remained the book title, with page numbers at the bottom. Word lets you do this without too much trouble, though making sure blank pages are really blank, without headers and footers, is something to watch for.
Then I created a table of contents with the page numbers supplied by Word. Then I chose the page size (I use 5.5x8.5 for most of my paperbacks), then set the margins. That brought me to a page by page review, making sure the margins looked good, the page breaks looked good, indents were correct, etc. I found one place where I had to change indents. That took all the time I had to spend on Monday evening.
Tuesday I went to work on the cover. I already had an e-book cover. So next was to create a canvas of the right size in G.I.M.P., put the e-book cover in, add a back cover, add a spine, make sure they were all sized correctly and put in the right place. Without going into too much detail, I had much trouble with it on Tuesday night. The front and back covers came together okay, but I couldn't get the text for the spine to work properly. Couldn't rotate it and place it where it needed to be. I had managed to do this when I made the print cover for my Thomas Carlyle book, but that happened almost by accident rather than by design, and I couldn't replicate it. So I went to PowerPoint and created the spine, saved it as a graphic image, and loaded into the G.I.M.P. cover, resized and placed. Easy peasy.
I did that Wednesday, and uploaded the interior and cover to CreateSpace, did all the metadata type stuff, and submitted. Today I learned it meets all CS's technical specifications, and I can order prints. So yea! I've done well learning the technical requirements for a print book.
But what I find is that those publishing type tasks really sap my energy. I come upstairs from The Dungeon and find I have little energy to do anything else. This is different from when I'm writing, or editing. After three hours doing that I'm pumped up, ready to go on to the next task. After three hours of publishing work I'm ready to collapse in a chair and do nothing. I suppose that shows I'm more suited to be a writer than a publisher. Interior formatting I don't mind; that's an exciting challenge. But covers and the whole submittal process is what does me in.
I suppose many endeavors in life are like that. Some are energizing, some sapping. My day job tends to be energizing. In it I do a lot of things I like, and feel energized upon completion. I also have to do some things I don't enjoy so much, and these sap the energy out of me. On the whole there's more that I like than that I don't.
They say if you love your job it's not really work. I love civil engineering in the type of job I have now. I love writing. I do publishing tasks because I don't have money to subcontract them out, so I have to do them myself. Possibly these tasks will become more enjoyable over time, and I'll find them energizing. That's beginning to happen at work, as after teaching training classes I don't feel quite as drained as I used to. I won't say I'm energized, but my response is definitely moving toward the energized end of the spectrum. Will it ever get that way with publishing tasks? I'll have to do it a bunch more times before I'll know.
Last Saturday I wrote "the end" on my latest novel. Headshots is a sequel to my baseball novel, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I thought Headshots would be around 80,000 words; it ended up being around 87,400. So I wasn't too far off. The last 20,000 words came out fairly quickly, at a rate of over 1,000 per hour when I was working on it. Some of those scenes I had played out in my mind many times. It was just a matter of figuring out how to get the right characters at the right place at the right time. That seemed to go well.
Of course, editing is still ahead of me. I've read through it, in its incomplete form, twice. The first time was when I was around 50,000 words in, and struggling with the sagging middle. I was unsure of the timeline, unsure about several subplots, unsure about which character had done which thing. So I read it carefully and made an outline and timeline. The second reading was when I was about 70,000 words in. I wanted to make sure those things added after the first reading made sense, and had plugged the holes I'd found. After completing the text I went through the mark-up from the second reading and typed those edits. I finished that last Sunday.
Now, Headshots is sitting for a week or two, while I'm taking a break from it. While all my writing time went to the novel, various other publishing tasks went by the wayside. Now is the time to pick them up and complete them. For the last three evenings I've been working on the print edition of The Gutter Chronicles, my workplace humor novella. Hmm, it's about 43,000 words. Is it a novel or a novella? Monday night I formatted the interior. That's actually not that hard to do. I do it in words. Since the chapters have titles, I wanted to use the right hand page header as the chapter title, while the left had page header remained the book title, with page numbers at the bottom. Word lets you do this without too much trouble, though making sure blank pages are really blank, without headers and footers, is something to watch for.
Then I created a table of contents with the page numbers supplied by Word. Then I chose the page size (I use 5.5x8.5 for most of my paperbacks), then set the margins. That brought me to a page by page review, making sure the margins looked good, the page breaks looked good, indents were correct, etc. I found one place where I had to change indents. That took all the time I had to spend on Monday evening.
Tuesday I went to work on the cover. I already had an e-book cover. So next was to create a canvas of the right size in G.I.M.P., put the e-book cover in, add a back cover, add a spine, make sure they were all sized correctly and put in the right place. Without going into too much detail, I had much trouble with it on Tuesday night. The front and back covers came together okay, but I couldn't get the text for the spine to work properly. Couldn't rotate it and place it where it needed to be. I had managed to do this when I made the print cover for my Thomas Carlyle book, but that happened almost by accident rather than by design, and I couldn't replicate it. So I went to PowerPoint and created the spine, saved it as a graphic image, and loaded into the G.I.M.P. cover, resized and placed. Easy peasy.
I did that Wednesday, and uploaded the interior and cover to CreateSpace, did all the metadata type stuff, and submitted. Today I learned it meets all CS's technical specifications, and I can order prints. So yea! I've done well learning the technical requirements for a print book.
But what I find is that those publishing type tasks really sap my energy. I come upstairs from The Dungeon and find I have little energy to do anything else. This is different from when I'm writing, or editing. After three hours doing that I'm pumped up, ready to go on to the next task. After three hours of publishing work I'm ready to collapse in a chair and do nothing. I suppose that shows I'm more suited to be a writer than a publisher. Interior formatting I don't mind; that's an exciting challenge. But covers and the whole submittal process is what does me in.
I suppose many endeavors in life are like that. Some are energizing, some sapping. My day job tends to be energizing. In it I do a lot of things I like, and feel energized upon completion. I also have to do some things I don't enjoy so much, and these sap the energy out of me. On the whole there's more that I like than that I don't.
They say if you love your job it's not really work. I love civil engineering in the type of job I have now. I love writing. I do publishing tasks because I don't have money to subcontract them out, so I have to do them myself. Possibly these tasks will become more enjoyable over time, and I'll find them energizing. That's beginning to happen at work, as after teaching training classes I don't feel quite as drained as I used to. I won't say I'm energized, but my response is definitely moving toward the energized end of the spectrum. Will it ever get that way with publishing tasks? I'll have to do it a bunch more times before I'll know.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Scene by Scene
[It's Friday. I should be posting at the blog on my author site, but it's still broken (see yesterday's post). So I'm posting that here. Perhaps some day I'll figure out how to fix the other site and add this to it.]
Yesterday I taught a noon hour class at the office, on construction administration procedures. Nineteen people attended in the room and more by video conference. It was the fourth and last day of an exercise that I call a construction simulation. I created a construction admin situation (based, actually, on a real world problem that came up some years ago), had people register to participate, then bombarded them with e-mails and letters from a contractor, that contractor's consultant, their developer client, and even for one the contractor's attorney. For three days I was fully engaged in sending and responding to the exercise e-mails sent me by the participants. The class went well, but I was exhausted physically and mentally afterwards.
So at home last night, I heated leftover soup for the wife and me to eat, then we walked our 1.3 mile course, then I sat down at the laptop (because my desktop is still not out of the shop yet; hopefully today) and began typing on Headshots. I had my choice of going back in the manuscript and typing the edits I marked on the last read-through, or working on new material. I chose to do new material, starting a new scene in a new chapter, but in sequence from where I left off last time. I started the evening with the manuscript standing at 72,078 words.
Unfortunately I really labored with the scene. It's set in Sublette, Kansas, and at a farm in Haskell County Kansas, where the hero has just come back home to after another successful baseball season. This is the end game in the novel. Bad things will soon be happening. It's time for the young Mr. Thompson to step up and protect all that is dear to him. Does he have it in him? We'll see, but first I need to get the right mix of bad guys and good guys in position for the climax scene, or maybe scenes—let's call it the climax event. How to get them all there?
I had given this some thought, but not a lot. As I sat at the computer and paused for a moment an idea came to me on how to get one of the bad guys to Sublette. I started typing. Fifty words later I paused again. The idea had run its course. I "shelled out," to use an old computer term, to a mindless computer game for a while. I came back to the scene and wrote another hundred words, then shelled out again. Back and forth I went. I think on one cycle I managed to type 200 words before my brain said "Enough" and I had to quit writing.
What was the problem? The TV was on for a while, on a news channel. But I soon turned that off so I had no distractions. The scene wasn't particularly difficult to write. It was from omniscient point of view, whereas most of the book is third-person limited point of view. It was a healthy mix of narrative and dialog, with no new characters.
I concluded that the problem was mental exhaustion. Too much mental activity over the last few days. Better to finish this one scene as best I could and leave it alone. Edit it later. I did so, finishing in about 50 minutes total, and just over 700 words. After the wife and I started our nightly reading aloud, currently in The Sign of the Four, which is the second Sherlock Holmes novel by A. Conan Doyle. I started off reading it and could barely stay awake.
An hour later we had muddled through one long-ish chapter, punctuated by a couple of breaks to stand up, move around, and get some juices flowing. By 11:00 p.m. I was in bed, earlier than normal. Clearly I was tired.
So, I'm in the end game of Headshots. I have maybe 10,000 more words to write, I think. At 700 words a day that will take about two weeks to finish. Hopefully I can do better than that, especially over this three day weekend. I'd love to be able to post next Tuesday: "First draft is complete!"
Yesterday I taught a noon hour class at the office, on construction administration procedures. Nineteen people attended in the room and more by video conference. It was the fourth and last day of an exercise that I call a construction simulation. I created a construction admin situation (based, actually, on a real world problem that came up some years ago), had people register to participate, then bombarded them with e-mails and letters from a contractor, that contractor's consultant, their developer client, and even for one the contractor's attorney. For three days I was fully engaged in sending and responding to the exercise e-mails sent me by the participants. The class went well, but I was exhausted physically and mentally afterwards.
So at home last night, I heated leftover soup for the wife and me to eat, then we walked our 1.3 mile course, then I sat down at the laptop (because my desktop is still not out of the shop yet; hopefully today) and began typing on Headshots. I had my choice of going back in the manuscript and typing the edits I marked on the last read-through, or working on new material. I chose to do new material, starting a new scene in a new chapter, but in sequence from where I left off last time. I started the evening with the manuscript standing at 72,078 words.
Unfortunately I really labored with the scene. It's set in Sublette, Kansas, and at a farm in Haskell County Kansas, where the hero has just come back home to after another successful baseball season. This is the end game in the novel. Bad things will soon be happening. It's time for the young Mr. Thompson to step up and protect all that is dear to him. Does he have it in him? We'll see, but first I need to get the right mix of bad guys and good guys in position for the climax scene, or maybe scenes—let's call it the climax event. How to get them all there?
I had given this some thought, but not a lot. As I sat at the computer and paused for a moment an idea came to me on how to get one of the bad guys to Sublette. I started typing. Fifty words later I paused again. The idea had run its course. I "shelled out," to use an old computer term, to a mindless computer game for a while. I came back to the scene and wrote another hundred words, then shelled out again. Back and forth I went. I think on one cycle I managed to type 200 words before my brain said "Enough" and I had to quit writing.
What was the problem? The TV was on for a while, on a news channel. But I soon turned that off so I had no distractions. The scene wasn't particularly difficult to write. It was from omniscient point of view, whereas most of the book is third-person limited point of view. It was a healthy mix of narrative and dialog, with no new characters.
I concluded that the problem was mental exhaustion. Too much mental activity over the last few days. Better to finish this one scene as best I could and leave it alone. Edit it later. I did so, finishing in about 50 minutes total, and just over 700 words. After the wife and I started our nightly reading aloud, currently in The Sign of the Four, which is the second Sherlock Holmes novel by A. Conan Doyle. I started off reading it and could barely stay awake.
An hour later we had muddled through one long-ish chapter, punctuated by a couple of breaks to stand up, move around, and get some juices flowing. By 11:00 p.m. I was in bed, earlier than normal. Clearly I was tired.
So, I'm in the end game of Headshots. I have maybe 10,000 more words to write, I think. At 700 words a day that will take about two weeks to finish. Hopefully I can do better than that, especially over this three day weekend. I'd love to be able to post next Tuesday: "First draft is complete!"
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Writing—but not
This past weekend I was up a little early for a Saturday. I could tell Lynda was in the deepest part of her sleep cycle, and likely wouldn't be up for a while. My desktop computer, which is where I do most of my volume writing, was at the medic (still is) for an operating system transplant and other related computer health issues. All that was available for me to type on was the Dell Inspiron laptop. I don't much like typing on this, or any, laptop. But the house was quiet, I didn't have a lot of outside work to do, so I decided to write away.
I began by rereading a good chunk of the last two chapters I'd written, making a few edits as I went. I took note of two fill-in scenes that were needed. One was already marked as to subject, the other wasn't. What had I intended there? My plans were to read the novel during the weekend, so I put aside trying to figure out what that scene would be and set to writing new material.
An hour and a half later, when Lynda was up and I was reaching a good stopping point, I had about 1,800 words written. That was a good output for that much time, I reckoned. And on a laptop, not a desktop! I was quite pleased, and went outside for my home maintenance tasks, clearing a mound of oak pollen from gutter shields, driveway, and sidewalk; weeding in the rock front yard; clearing deadfall sticks from the front yard; sweeping the garage. Maybe a few more tasks.
After this was lunch. I knew I should walk after that, but all the up and down ladder work getting to the gutters had me tuckered out. I laid my head back in my reading chair and fell asleep. It was only a short nap, and I was ready for the next thing. Lynda was at the laptop, but that was okay, as I thought I should get to my reading. I went to the Florida room, ensconced with my printed manuscript, a box of crackers, and coffee. Two or three hours later I was 100 pages into the 237 page manuscript. I was reading for the purpose of refreshing my mind on the plot. However, if I found a typo I marked it (about 5); if I saw a place indicated for more information I supplied it (if I could); if I encountered awkward wording I edited it.
The evening gave me no chance to get to either writing or manuscript reading, between preparing to teach Life Group lesson the next day and reading aloud with Lynda. Sunday began with church, lunch, and my 3.1 miles walk. After a brief cool-down I was back in the room and at work reading. By 6:30 p.m. I had the full manuscript read and marked, and a pretty good idea of where the plot needed to go. I even had the subject of that other fill-in scene identified.
Alas, Monday night gave me no time to work on the text. Still no desktop so sharing the laptop. We were reading A Study In Scarlet aloud, and were within striking distance of finishing it, so we did. Tonight, hopefully, I'll get back to the writing. When I left off Saturday I was a little over 70,000 total words, with 1,500 of them in what I call the book ending section. I had been thinking all along that this book would be 70,000 to 80,000 words, with the ending section taking up 15,000 to 20,000 of those. I'm not too far off, it seems. Right now I'd guess it will come in around 85,000 words, perhaps a little higher. That will be slightly shorter than the predecessor book, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.
The end is in sight. But I've said that before. I really hoped to have it published by now. Alas, I'm a month or two away still. But it's inching closer. Ideas have gelled for the front cover, and some are starting to come for the back cover.
Yes, the end is in sight.
I began by rereading a good chunk of the last two chapters I'd written, making a few edits as I went. I took note of two fill-in scenes that were needed. One was already marked as to subject, the other wasn't. What had I intended there? My plans were to read the novel during the weekend, so I put aside trying to figure out what that scene would be and set to writing new material.
An hour and a half later, when Lynda was up and I was reaching a good stopping point, I had about 1,800 words written. That was a good output for that much time, I reckoned. And on a laptop, not a desktop! I was quite pleased, and went outside for my home maintenance tasks, clearing a mound of oak pollen from gutter shields, driveway, and sidewalk; weeding in the rock front yard; clearing deadfall sticks from the front yard; sweeping the garage. Maybe a few more tasks.
After this was lunch. I knew I should walk after that, but all the up and down ladder work getting to the gutters had me tuckered out. I laid my head back in my reading chair and fell asleep. It was only a short nap, and I was ready for the next thing. Lynda was at the laptop, but that was okay, as I thought I should get to my reading. I went to the Florida room, ensconced with my printed manuscript, a box of crackers, and coffee. Two or three hours later I was 100 pages into the 237 page manuscript. I was reading for the purpose of refreshing my mind on the plot. However, if I found a typo I marked it (about 5); if I saw a place indicated for more information I supplied it (if I could); if I encountered awkward wording I edited it.
The evening gave me no chance to get to either writing or manuscript reading, between preparing to teach Life Group lesson the next day and reading aloud with Lynda. Sunday began with church, lunch, and my 3.1 miles walk. After a brief cool-down I was back in the room and at work reading. By 6:30 p.m. I had the full manuscript read and marked, and a pretty good idea of where the plot needed to go. I even had the subject of that other fill-in scene identified.
Alas, Monday night gave me no time to work on the text. Still no desktop so sharing the laptop. We were reading A Study In Scarlet aloud, and were within striking distance of finishing it, so we did. Tonight, hopefully, I'll get back to the writing. When I left off Saturday I was a little over 70,000 total words, with 1,500 of them in what I call the book ending section. I had been thinking all along that this book would be 70,000 to 80,000 words, with the ending section taking up 15,000 to 20,000 of those. I'm not too far off, it seems. Right now I'd guess it will come in around 85,000 words, perhaps a little higher. That will be slightly shorter than the predecessor book, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.
The end is in sight. But I've said that before. I really hoped to have it published by now. Alas, I'm a month or two away still. But it's inching closer. Ideas have gelled for the front cover, and some are starting to come for the back cover.
Yes, the end is in sight.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Update on "Headshots"
I’m writing this in a word processor, intending to paste it
into my blog entry page when I get home. For some reason I’m not able to log
into my blog from work any more. I can view it, but I can’t log in. Possibly
it’s a temporary glitch on our end, or maybe on Wordpress’s end. Whatever, I’ll
write this in Word and see if I can publish it later. [Update: I got home and discovered the problem wasn't with Internet Explorer, because the exact same thing happened when I tried to log in with Chrome. So it appears my other blog, a Wordpress blog, is broken. Not just my blog, but the website as well, because the login is for all of them. So I'm going to post this on my other blog, a day late.]
Work has been very slow of late on my novel-in-progress, Headshots. I’ve written about this in the past, describing the genesis of it, the premise, the difficulties I found in writing a sequel, the struggle to deal with the sagging middle, etc. I realize I don’t have too many fans out there clamoring for the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. But a few will be interested.
Work has been very slow of late on my novel-in-progress, Headshots. I’ve written about this in the past, describing the genesis of it, the premise, the difficulties I found in writing a sequel, the struggle to deal with the sagging middle, etc. I realize I don’t have too many fans out there clamoring for the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. But a few will be interested.
Headshots stands at about 67,000 words. I last worked on it
on April 28th. At that time I completed a couple of fill-in scenes, picking up
lost plot threads and advancing them. I feel pretty good about most of those
threads. I have one more to go, about a freelance reporter who is kidnapped by
the Mafia. I never really resolved her situation, even with two fill-in scenes.
I wasn’t sure how to complete that. The way now seems clear, however, and I can
use that as a means to tie back into the Mafia guy who ordered her killed, send
him into a rage, into his end game.
And, except for that one more fill-in scene, that’s where
I’m at: the end game. Ronny Thompson, the protagonist, will finish his second
full season in the majors. His injuries prevented him from doing the incredible
heroics of his first season, but he still performed well. He has to make the
decision on whether to have immediate surgery on his shoulder, or to put it off
due to things going on in his home life (Oh how do I say this without revealing
the whole plot?). This part of the book is fairly well laid out. I have to
gather main characters all in an out of the way place, but I have that figured
out. I have to have the protagonist himself cause something that he has to
overcome as the major event in the end game, but I’ve figured that out.
So what I’m saying is that from this point on the plot is
very clear to me. I think it’s going to take 15,000 to 20,000 words to run it
out. That will bring the book in somewhere around 85,000 words, or maybe
90,000. That’s right where FTSP was. That’s a little longer than I expected it
to be. I’ll blame it on the freelance reporter.
Unfortunately, except for bits and snatches, life is going
to be hectic for the next ten days or so. I don’t really expect to be able to
begin work on this section of the book until perhaps May 17th. At that point, I
think I can finish it in not more than three weeks.
So when will the book be available? Well, after completion
of the first draft, there’s simmering, cover design, two rounds of edits, final
typing of those edits, maybe one last read through. Then I’ll have it read by
beta readers, perhaps just a couple. Then incorporate what they suggest and
publish. Some of these things go on simultaneously, such as the cover design
and maybe even the beta reading and the editing. I’m not going to do a launch
team with this novel. I found that too difficult with Operation Lotus Sunday. All in all, this comes out to having Headshots for sale sometime around the
first of July, or even a week or two after that. That’s two months later than I
had originally hoped for, but the best I could do.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Milestones in the last week
That's what's happened to me: several milestones over the last five days. I don't know that my brain will allow me to make a lengthy discussion of these, so let me list then, then come back to them and see if I have the wherewithal to add commentary.
Concerning the 5K, I need to make it clear that I participated, I didn't run. One of the routes I take on one or two weekend days is 5K, so I knew I could finish it. Based on that route, I was hoping to beat 50 minutes in the competition. Then last week I went to the track and did a two mile hard run, to see how I might do. Based on that I had an unofficial goal of 48 minutes. I finished the event with a time of 45:44, last among men in my age group, but I felt good about it. I jogged about a minute or two during the race, maybe even three minutes, and that seemed enough to help me get my time down.
I discussed G.I.M.P. in my other blog, and won't take too long here. It's a graphics editing program, not at all intuitive to use. Over four days of the last seven I worked my way through it, and was able to put together a cover for the print version of Thomas Carlyle's Edinburgh Encyclopedia Articles. I turned that in Tuesday night, and Wednesday afternoon received the e-mail from CreateSpace saying that the cover (as well as the interior, which I had already formatted a few days before) met all specs needed for printing, and they could proceed. So my first print cover was acceptable. I ordered the print, and can't wait to see how it looks on the book.
With my blood sugar measurements as low as they've been for years, and still trending down, the doctor was wanting to give me four months between check-ups instead of the normal three. But that doesn't work so well for prescriptions filled on a quarterly basis. So I suggested that I continue to come in for my lab work quarterly, but that I see him every six months. If the labs show any sign of trouble, either his office or I can schedule a visit. He thought that was a good idea, so it's done. I won't see the doc again, except for the labs, until October, which will be my annual physical.
And, one other thing that's positive this week is getting up to three book sales for the month. I sold one e-copy of Documenting America, one print copy at work of Operation Lotus Sunday, and an e-copy of the Carlyle encyclopedia book. I'm not really expecting to sell many of this oddball, public domain book, and to sell even one so soon after publication is good.
So I'm feeling good about things right now. Next will be to finish my novel-in-progress, to make a proper cover for The Gutter Chronicles (including a print cover), and to do a print cover for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Then it's onward to who knows what after that.
- Participated in my first 5K event last Saturday, April 5
- Was able to learn G.I.M.P. enough to be able to create a cover for a print book
- Had a good enough regular check-up at the doctor that he has reduced the frequency of my check-ups to every six months instead of three months.
- Figured out two sticky problems at work. Neither is done yet, but the way is clear to both of them.
- Had the book cover I created accepted by CreateSpace, and I was able to order the proof copy.
Concerning the 5K, I need to make it clear that I participated, I didn't run. One of the routes I take on one or two weekend days is 5K, so I knew I could finish it. Based on that route, I was hoping to beat 50 minutes in the competition. Then last week I went to the track and did a two mile hard run, to see how I might do. Based on that I had an unofficial goal of 48 minutes. I finished the event with a time of 45:44, last among men in my age group, but I felt good about it. I jogged about a minute or two during the race, maybe even three minutes, and that seemed enough to help me get my time down.
I discussed G.I.M.P. in my other blog, and won't take too long here. It's a graphics editing program, not at all intuitive to use. Over four days of the last seven I worked my way through it, and was able to put together a cover for the print version of Thomas Carlyle's Edinburgh Encyclopedia Articles. I turned that in Tuesday night, and Wednesday afternoon received the e-mail from CreateSpace saying that the cover (as well as the interior, which I had already formatted a few days before) met all specs needed for printing, and they could proceed. So my first print cover was acceptable. I ordered the print, and can't wait to see how it looks on the book.
With my blood sugar measurements as low as they've been for years, and still trending down, the doctor was wanting to give me four months between check-ups instead of the normal three. But that doesn't work so well for prescriptions filled on a quarterly basis. So I suggested that I continue to come in for my lab work quarterly, but that I see him every six months. If the labs show any sign of trouble, either his office or I can schedule a visit. He thought that was a good idea, so it's done. I won't see the doc again, except for the labs, until October, which will be my annual physical.
And, one other thing that's positive this week is getting up to three book sales for the month. I sold one e-copy of Documenting America, one print copy at work of Operation Lotus Sunday, and an e-copy of the Carlyle encyclopedia book. I'm not really expecting to sell many of this oddball, public domain book, and to sell even one so soon after publication is good.
So I'm feeling good about things right now. Next will be to finish my novel-in-progress, to make a proper cover for The Gutter Chronicles (including a print cover), and to do a print cover for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Then it's onward to who knows what after that.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Calm on a Windy Day
Yesterday I went to church alone, as Lynda had a bad night. We received a call in the night from the police saying that paramedics were en-route to her mom's apartment, having been called by Lynda's brother, who happens to be staying here right now. All is well; it was a low blood sugar attack, and she recovered quickly. I was able to get back to sleep, but Lynda wasn't.
But I prate. As I say I was alone at church. When I left the car at the church parking lot I was amazed at the strong wind. When I know there's not going to be any severe weather I tend not to pay a lot of attention. I listen for the predicted high and low, and the chance of precip, but not a whole lot else. Consequently I wasn't aware we were going to be in a windstorm.
There I go, prating again. When I left church almost three hours later the winds were even stronger. Now it seemed like a normal day on the Kansas prairie. Yes, when we go back to Lynda's hometown, out near Dodge City on the Kansas High Plains, the wind is constant. So different than in Arkansas, at least northwest Arkansas where I live and work. Most of the time we are calm, or at most have light breezes. That's especially true in Bella Vista. We are a community built on hills and valleys, about you would expect in the foothills of the Ozarks region. Bentonville, where I work, about fifteen miles from the house, is in contrast on an "upland" plateau, and can have a little more wind. Still, it's not much more. Most of the time when I walk around the commercial subdivision on noon hours I don't have wind to fight.
I'm prating again. Can't stick to the subject today. So yesterday, Sunday, we had this unusual sunny day wind storm. Yes, by the time I arrived home after church it was a full out windstorm. Maybe 30 mph sustained winds with gusts to forty or more. Lynda was sleeping when I got home, or at least in bed and quiet, so I stayed quiet. Took my tie off, fixed a sandwich, added some Cheetos to the plate, and headed to The Dungeon. My plans were to eat slowly over a half hour or so, and begin writing early. I would listen for Lynda and go upstairs and see her when she got up.
Outside the Dungeon windows, looking into our backyard, the wind blew and blew. A.A. Milne would call it a blustery day, and would have to have Pooh help Piglet from blowing away. My friends in Rhode Island would call it a wicked wind, and expect it to be along the shore. I tried to think of a good adjective to use for the wind that was causing branches to dance outside my window. A howling wind? Perhaps, though I think of that more at night. A fierce wind? It was that, though without the precipitation and with the cloudless sky fierce didn't seem right.
Alas, I had nothing to do but write. The day before, Saturday, I had spent mostly on personal paperwork followed by paperwork for our home business, stock trading. I left myself with around two hours for writing. Still, even though I wasn't sure about what my scenes were to be, I dug in. Re-reading what's I'd written last weekend, my memory came back and realized I had to complete a scene I left hanging. A Chicago Cubs' player had been mugged outside a restaurant in downtown Chicago. The reporter, John Lind, didn't think it was a random mugging and was to confront the player in the hospital to find out what was going on. Lind was already suspicious about this player. I wrote that scene, which gave me an idea for another in the same chapter. When my time was up I had about 1,300 words added.
That's not a bad production for that amount of time. I had set a goal of 3,000 words on Saturday and 3,000 on Sunday, knowing I almost never achieve that kind of production. Also knowing I was to be working on the sagging middle, and not having any clue what was coming next. By sagging middle I mean that part of the novel between the first and second plot points. It's supposed to be rising action, where the hero is going through trials and growing as a result, but with the big trial coming at the second plot point. This is one of the hardest parts to write. How do you keep the action going without topping what's to come? How do you keep the reader's interest. How do you pace it so that you have scenes and sequels, action and reaction?
That was Saturday. Now, on Sunday, I really didn't have a clue of what would come next. I had just had a chapter where everyone was talking; not much was happening in terms of bodies moving, people physically interacting. What do I write next? This has happened to me before. In this book, where I have about eight different points of view with four or five main plot lines, I knew I needed to see what plot line I'd dropped and get back to it with a point of view I hadn't used for a while. To do that I had to read. So, with sandwich in hand, chips at the ready, the wind howling outside, but feeling amazingly calm within, I began reading the last few chapters and reviewing notes I'd taken.
I quickly saw it was time to have a scene in Sarah's point of view, and that whatever was going to happen with Ronny's and Sarah's reconciliation it was time to bring it up. Or to complete it. I'd alluded to it a couple of chapters back. So those two matched, though I needed to make it happen with some conflict. I figured out what I needed to do, and began to write. I heard Lynda moving around upstairs, but waited until I finished the scene to go up and see her and get some coffee, the sandwich and chips long gone.
Coming back to the computer, I noticed the wind still howling, still moving tree branches—big tree branches. Still looking for action, I realized I hadn't yet wrote about a retaliatory murder by one Mafia organization against the other. Or rather, on Saturday I alluded to this murder and introduced the character who would do it. So now I had the murder take place, off camera, and added a scene in the next chapter where the suspect was cornered by S.W.A.T. teams and the FBI. I wrote that, and completed a scene about Ronny and Sarah. I then started a scene from Ronny's point of view where he is going to make an important decision.
I looked out at the wind, and realized the sun had set and it was getting dark. Close to 6:00 p.m. now. Time to close up shop for the day. If Lynda had been gone I'd probably have written another hour and done the scene with Ronny. But as it was I had another 2,500 words written, with a weekend total of just over 3,800. I was happy.
So what does the wind have to do with all of this? Absolutely nothing, except that it was so strong I decided not to go for an afternoon walk, giving me full time to work on the book. It was blustery outside, but calm inside. I'm satisfied with all that I accomplished. On the book, with my paperwork, and being able to be in corporate worship with fellow believers I know and love.
But I prate. As I say I was alone at church. When I left the car at the church parking lot I was amazed at the strong wind. When I know there's not going to be any severe weather I tend not to pay a lot of attention. I listen for the predicted high and low, and the chance of precip, but not a whole lot else. Consequently I wasn't aware we were going to be in a windstorm.
There I go, prating again. When I left church almost three hours later the winds were even stronger. Now it seemed like a normal day on the Kansas prairie. Yes, when we go back to Lynda's hometown, out near Dodge City on the Kansas High Plains, the wind is constant. So different than in Arkansas, at least northwest Arkansas where I live and work. Most of the time we are calm, or at most have light breezes. That's especially true in Bella Vista. We are a community built on hills and valleys, about you would expect in the foothills of the Ozarks region. Bentonville, where I work, about fifteen miles from the house, is in contrast on an "upland" plateau, and can have a little more wind. Still, it's not much more. Most of the time when I walk around the commercial subdivision on noon hours I don't have wind to fight.
I'm prating again. Can't stick to the subject today. So yesterday, Sunday, we had this unusual sunny day wind storm. Yes, by the time I arrived home after church it was a full out windstorm. Maybe 30 mph sustained winds with gusts to forty or more. Lynda was sleeping when I got home, or at least in bed and quiet, so I stayed quiet. Took my tie off, fixed a sandwich, added some Cheetos to the plate, and headed to The Dungeon. My plans were to eat slowly over a half hour or so, and begin writing early. I would listen for Lynda and go upstairs and see her when she got up.
Outside the Dungeon windows, looking into our backyard, the wind blew and blew. A.A. Milne would call it a blustery day, and would have to have Pooh help Piglet from blowing away. My friends in Rhode Island would call it a wicked wind, and expect it to be along the shore. I tried to think of a good adjective to use for the wind that was causing branches to dance outside my window. A howling wind? Perhaps, though I think of that more at night. A fierce wind? It was that, though without the precipitation and with the cloudless sky fierce didn't seem right.
Alas, I had nothing to do but write. The day before, Saturday, I had spent mostly on personal paperwork followed by paperwork for our home business, stock trading. I left myself with around two hours for writing. Still, even though I wasn't sure about what my scenes were to be, I dug in. Re-reading what's I'd written last weekend, my memory came back and realized I had to complete a scene I left hanging. A Chicago Cubs' player had been mugged outside a restaurant in downtown Chicago. The reporter, John Lind, didn't think it was a random mugging and was to confront the player in the hospital to find out what was going on. Lind was already suspicious about this player. I wrote that scene, which gave me an idea for another in the same chapter. When my time was up I had about 1,300 words added.
That's not a bad production for that amount of time. I had set a goal of 3,000 words on Saturday and 3,000 on Sunday, knowing I almost never achieve that kind of production. Also knowing I was to be working on the sagging middle, and not having any clue what was coming next. By sagging middle I mean that part of the novel between the first and second plot points. It's supposed to be rising action, where the hero is going through trials and growing as a result, but with the big trial coming at the second plot point. This is one of the hardest parts to write. How do you keep the action going without topping what's to come? How do you keep the reader's interest. How do you pace it so that you have scenes and sequels, action and reaction?
That was Saturday. Now, on Sunday, I really didn't have a clue of what would come next. I had just had a chapter where everyone was talking; not much was happening in terms of bodies moving, people physically interacting. What do I write next? This has happened to me before. In this book, where I have about eight different points of view with four or five main plot lines, I knew I needed to see what plot line I'd dropped and get back to it with a point of view I hadn't used for a while. To do that I had to read. So, with sandwich in hand, chips at the ready, the wind howling outside, but feeling amazingly calm within, I began reading the last few chapters and reviewing notes I'd taken.
I quickly saw it was time to have a scene in Sarah's point of view, and that whatever was going to happen with Ronny's and Sarah's reconciliation it was time to bring it up. Or to complete it. I'd alluded to it a couple of chapters back. So those two matched, though I needed to make it happen with some conflict. I figured out what I needed to do, and began to write. I heard Lynda moving around upstairs, but waited until I finished the scene to go up and see her and get some coffee, the sandwich and chips long gone.
Coming back to the computer, I noticed the wind still howling, still moving tree branches—big tree branches. Still looking for action, I realized I hadn't yet wrote about a retaliatory murder by one Mafia organization against the other. Or rather, on Saturday I alluded to this murder and introduced the character who would do it. So now I had the murder take place, off camera, and added a scene in the next chapter where the suspect was cornered by S.W.A.T. teams and the FBI. I wrote that, and completed a scene about Ronny and Sarah. I then started a scene from Ronny's point of view where he is going to make an important decision.
I looked out at the wind, and realized the sun had set and it was getting dark. Close to 6:00 p.m. now. Time to close up shop for the day. If Lynda had been gone I'd probably have written another hour and done the scene with Ronny. But as it was I had another 2,500 words written, with a weekend total of just over 3,800. I was happy.
So what does the wind have to do with all of this? Absolutely nothing, except that it was so strong I decided not to go for an afternoon walk, giving me full time to work on the book. It was blustery outside, but calm inside. I'm satisfied with all that I accomplished. On the book, with my paperwork, and being able to be in corporate worship with fellow believers I know and love.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Productivity—Not
The best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go astray.
Mine did over the snowy weekend. I left work on Thursday, the 5th, knowing that the storm that had already started was going to be major and that I would have a couple, or maybe a few, days at home of being shut in. What better things to do but write?
Alas, what I feared was also happening, which I didn't mention in my last post, came true. On Wednesday I felt the early stages of a cold coming on, but I ignored them. I get two colds a year, and I'd already had three in 2013 (including the flu back in January). So although the symptoms were there, I convinced myself it wasn't a cold.
But as the day progressed Thursday, the symptoms increased. By Thursday night I knew it was a cold, not as deep as some I've had, but still deep enough. Friday I did very little. The snow ended at noon, at 7 inches, just as was predicted. I got out and shoveled some of the driveway. Then I took a walk up to the highway, .65 miles away, to see conditions. The exertion may have been stupid, but I always think fresh air helps me to heal, so I did it. In the evening I was able to write a little on Headshots.
Saturday I was well somewhat improved, I thought. I shoveled some more of the drive, and again walked to the highway. Roads were awful, worse after a day of light traffic than they had been before. In the afternoon I was able to knuckle down and work some on my book. For the weekend I added about 2,400 words. That was below my goal, but given my physical status I wasn't unhappy with that. Our Christmas party that night was cancelled—not that we would have or could have gone.
Sunday we didn't try to go to church. I again shoveled on the driveway, finishing one lane up to the street. Then I walked down to the nearest convenience store, about 8/10th of a mile, picking up some things and finding somethings unavailable. I crossed the highway and the competitor didn't have those items either. I could see that roads were still really, really bad, and the decision to stay home was the right one. I called to the house and suggested Lynda walk out to join me on the return leg. She did so, but then decided to go on while I wen home. As she saw the condition of the roads she could see that my decision to not try to go to church was the right one.
By Sunday night the cold had moved into the coughing phase, and I coughed continuously. I knew I shouldn't be at work Monday. The combination of the cold and road conditions caused me to decide not to attempt going to work on Monday. I mostly rested on Monday, taking only a brief walk on the nearby streets to assess if I could get out on Tuesday. I concluded I could. Also my coughing was considerably better by the end of the day, so I knew I'd be going in on Tuesday. Got lots of rest on Monday, Sunday as well.
But I didn't do any new writing either of those days. As I was writing on Saturday I realized my writing has been so sporadic that I didn't remember what scenes I had. So I decided to print an read the whole book where it currently stands, doing light edits as I read, looking for overlap and gaps. I completed that by Monday evening: found a couple of gaps, and one area where there's a little overlap. Not as bad as I feared, but still some edits will be needed to fix it.
Tonight I typed all the edits to date, and closed one gap. I contemplated filling the other gap, but decided against it. That will be work for tomorrow night. Thursday is a Christmas party, so adding to the end of the book will have to wait until the weekend, hopefully Friday night. At last I feel like I'm getting warmed up. The word count stands at 19,108, which puts me well into the middle of the book. I have the next three chapters reasonably well planned out, so they should go quickly. With any luck I'll be over 25,000 words by this time next week.
Mine did over the snowy weekend. I left work on Thursday, the 5th, knowing that the storm that had already started was going to be major and that I would have a couple, or maybe a few, days at home of being shut in. What better things to do but write?
Alas, what I feared was also happening, which I didn't mention in my last post, came true. On Wednesday I felt the early stages of a cold coming on, but I ignored them. I get two colds a year, and I'd already had three in 2013 (including the flu back in January). So although the symptoms were there, I convinced myself it wasn't a cold.
But as the day progressed Thursday, the symptoms increased. By Thursday night I knew it was a cold, not as deep as some I've had, but still deep enough. Friday I did very little. The snow ended at noon, at 7 inches, just as was predicted. I got out and shoveled some of the driveway. Then I took a walk up to the highway, .65 miles away, to see conditions. The exertion may have been stupid, but I always think fresh air helps me to heal, so I did it. In the evening I was able to write a little on Headshots.
Saturday I was well somewhat improved, I thought. I shoveled some more of the drive, and again walked to the highway. Roads were awful, worse after a day of light traffic than they had been before. In the afternoon I was able to knuckle down and work some on my book. For the weekend I added about 2,400 words. That was below my goal, but given my physical status I wasn't unhappy with that. Our Christmas party that night was cancelled—not that we would have or could have gone.
Sunday we didn't try to go to church. I again shoveled on the driveway, finishing one lane up to the street. Then I walked down to the nearest convenience store, about 8/10th of a mile, picking up some things and finding somethings unavailable. I crossed the highway and the competitor didn't have those items either. I could see that roads were still really, really bad, and the decision to stay home was the right one. I called to the house and suggested Lynda walk out to join me on the return leg. She did so, but then decided to go on while I wen home. As she saw the condition of the roads she could see that my decision to not try to go to church was the right one.
By Sunday night the cold had moved into the coughing phase, and I coughed continuously. I knew I shouldn't be at work Monday. The combination of the cold and road conditions caused me to decide not to attempt going to work on Monday. I mostly rested on Monday, taking only a brief walk on the nearby streets to assess if I could get out on Tuesday. I concluded I could. Also my coughing was considerably better by the end of the day, so I knew I'd be going in on Tuesday. Got lots of rest on Monday, Sunday as well.
But I didn't do any new writing either of those days. As I was writing on Saturday I realized my writing has been so sporadic that I didn't remember what scenes I had. So I decided to print an read the whole book where it currently stands, doing light edits as I read, looking for overlap and gaps. I completed that by Monday evening: found a couple of gaps, and one area where there's a little overlap. Not as bad as I feared, but still some edits will be needed to fix it.
Tonight I typed all the edits to date, and closed one gap. I contemplated filling the other gap, but decided against it. That will be work for tomorrow night. Thursday is a Christmas party, so adding to the end of the book will have to wait until the weekend, hopefully Friday night. At last I feel like I'm getting warmed up. The word count stands at 19,108, which puts me well into the middle of the book. I have the next three chapters reasonably well planned out, so they should go quickly. With any luck I'll be over 25,000 words by this time next week.
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