02/20/2013 Writing Wednesday!

Hello everyone and welcome back! I hope the week has started treating you well. It's strange, I realized that it's already at the 19th and my brain had to take a couple double-takes. That just seems a bit ridiculous to me. That means there's less than 10 days left in this month already, which is crazy.

In order to follow with the theme, let's talk about time progression today. This is something that you must be aware of in regards to both yourself and also your potential reader. Now how much time passes in the story is not something that I personally figure out before I begin writing. Rather I have a rough estimate of how much time would logically pass and we see if that's what happens. There are points when the amount of time that passes will be important to the plot, and in those cases it's imperative that you are focused on that. If you say something will happen in three days, just to make your lift somewhat easier, make some kind of marker on the page where that was said, then each time someone goes to sleep put another one, that way when you are at the point when the event is supposed to happen you know that you're in the right place.

In those situations I recommend to only go through each individual day no more than five times. You can mention the other days, of course, and you can skip around too, but the reason why I say that is rather simple; not every day is going to be exciting. If you have something that's going to happen in say a week, yes the characters are going to be preparing for it while at the same time dealing with a bunch of other stuff in order to make things interesting, however, there is likely going to be at least one day where all they do is prepare, and (try to) go about their daily lives. Sometimes that can be interesting too, but that doesn't mean you need to go into detail about each and every day. At points it's perfectly fine to just say that they went about their normal routine and tried to keep themselves focused and not fill 10s of pages with each day. That's a lot of work for an author that they might not necessarily need to make.

Something else that's important is to keep the reader in mind too during those points. You as the author might think three days of preparation is awesome, but is your reader going to care about every single detail, or when it gets to the point where the characters are repeating their actions throughout the day to make sure everything's in place while they wait? Not necessarily. I'm not saying it never happens, but in general, especially if the characters finish all their prep before the specified time, it's perfectly acceptable to just skip ahead at that point. Now having at least one day where things are calm and normal before the storm might be nice too, especially since it does help build a sense of what the characters are all fighting for.

One thing that always seems kind of awkward for me as an author is to have someone point out the progression of time. It seems weird, mostly because it's a strange conversation to have with everyone. How often does a friend come up to you and said 'Remember that thing that happened six months ago? Yeah that was weird, and also awesome.' in normal conversation? That's because it generally doesn't happen. People tend to remember what happened to them six months ago, at least if it's that significant of an event. However, there has to be some kind of explainer saying that time has passed and also how much. Whether it's a person pointing it out, or somewhere in the narrative, it needs to be done. Especially in the case of a sequel, because there needs to be some kind of indicator that tells how far the characters have come since we've last seen them. I'll just admit it's sometimes kind of a weird thing to put in as dialogue.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today. I hope the week has been treating you all well. For now though, I will be back here on Friday with my normal blog! Until then, have a great rest of the week!

02/15/2013 Fantastic Friday!

Hello everyone! I hope this week has treated you all well. I feel like I've done something to angry some usually benevolent being, but I won't let that get in what way of what needs to happen here!

Today I bring you 'Exo' by Brent Meske. It's a short story written in present tense that follows a soldier going through what should be a normal mission onto another planet. He's part of a special forces unit that exists because frankly sometimes a job needs to be done without a nuclear device.

Sometimes there's a job that is too dangerous for your standard solider, but there's something too important for it to just be blasted away at a safe distance. That's where the Exo Corps come in; go in, usually to hostile enemy territory, take care of business, and then get out. There's nothing but danger, anxiety, and the constant worry of being shot in the back and never having the home base know about it. Only the best and the one who have no where else to go are brought into the Exo Corps, which means that not even they know what's going to happen when they go out.

'Exo' is available for free on Smashwords, so please go check it out. I picked this story because sometimes you just need a hard sci-fi military story to get you through your week. After a rough week sometimes you just want action and this story bring it. With Starship Toopers vibes it also is a bit nostalgic for those of us who remember what it was like before things became sequels and reboots. So please come check it out and tell everyone you know and love.

I appreciate everyone coming by this week. Seeing the little counter go up was a highlight within all the crazy. When I came by to write out the post we were at 4999 visits. That is fantastic, and I want to thank all of you for that kind of support. I will be back on Wednesday, as Monday is a holiday and I need a day to just let my brain turn off. Thanks so much and I'll see you all next week!

02/13/2013 Writing Wednesday!

Hello again everyone! I hope your day is seeing you well and that your week has also been fun and eventful so far. Mine has been partially full of irritation at a certain insect problem that won't seem to go away, but other than that things are going pretty well. Let's just hope that the rest of the week lightens up just as much!

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I'd like to talk about love and romance in your stories. This has a wide range of possibilities and almost every story in existence has some sort of romantic/love interest in it on some level and even if it's just showing the bonds between two people and not necessarily their love for each other in a physical sense, it's something that lends an important aspect to the story and needs to be handled just as carefully as the rest of what you're doing.

Depending on what you're writing, the idea of the love/romanticcan take many different forms. In the end is will always be the thing that has a lot, if not the most influence on a character's actions and if you're going to include that into your story you need to be prepared for that. This is another one of those times when you need to take the characters that are involved in the romantic bond and make sure they are all 'real' people. I mean that in the sense that they have motivations, hopes, emotions, and weaknesses. So many times a love interest has been captured in order to make the hero do something the villain wants, or they've been put in danger and the hero needs to decide whether or help them or to go help...oh I don't know, let's say Moe. This isn't just a cliche that authors use because they're lazy, this is something that's done to humanize the protagonist and make the reader actually sit and think about what decision they'd make if they were in the same situation as the hero.

There's also the other side to it though; where the love interest isn't so much of a crutch, but more of a crucial part of the hero's life. There are a lot of people who will throw out the word 'destined' like it's made of chocolate, but that isn't so much of a bad thing if you don't smash it into people's faces repeatedly like a brick wall. Yes two people can be destined to be together, and it can be awesome, but that doesn't mean anymore than 'they will get together at some point' because frankly destiny is a fickle jerk and you can play with it to your hearts content. Yes the destined couple got together and shared their moments of love and passion, but what happens next week when Gary VonEvilstein summons forth the Doomsday Meteor and Frank needs to choose between saving his destined lover or the lives of all humanity? You can still have people be destined to be together and have drama. It can work, especially if you don't use the fact they're bound by destiny as a desu ex machina, because love doesn't always conquer all, but man can it do some kickass things when someone's motivated.

You also want to make sure not to beat people with a stick about how someone is the love interest. Yes it's fine to show that the main character things the person is attractive, yes it's fine to have them flirt, yes it's fine to have a scene where they kiss, hold hands, or even go to the bedroom or couch or whatever and decide to consummate their relationship. All of these things are fine as long as it doesn't take away from the rest of the story as a whole. I've seen it before where the love story comes out screaming and everything else becomes background, and what that does is it makes it so your reader starts missing very important things that are happening elsewhere. The two characters don't need to be joined at the hip, but also the main character (and realistically the love interest too) need to be able to exist separately from each other. If you have a scene where Frank (we're using him again) needs to go to a secret government debriefing for how to stop Gary VonEvilstein's army of robotic Kill-O-Trons, have him actually focus on the meeting and not on what his lover is making for dinner. Yes he can be concerned for her safety, but don't have him obsess over it.

All in all, the last thing about the romantic sub-plot that you need to remember is that it's supposed to keep the hero grounded and have something that is vaguely normal in their lives. When all of the craziness is happening outside, the romantic side of things is somewhere the hero can go and feel safe, comfortable, and normal. Yes this is why it's always such a big motivation for the villains to take from them, but that's also why it's important for the heroes to protect it. It's important to them because it's what they need to feel 'normal' and a lot of the times the heroes wouldn't be without that thing to hold on to. It's why Superman goes with Lois Lane (New 52 being ignored for a second), or why in my own story Amelia married Enrico. Yes their lives are all extraordinary, but there's the one thing that can make the whole world better, and man is it fantastic.

Thanks everyone for stopping by again today. I'll be back again on Friday with my normal review. I also hope that no matter what your Valentine's Day is nice and that you get chocolate. Not necessarily from a secret love or a non-secret loved one, but because chocolate is awesome and makes everyone happy. Unless you don't like chocolate, then I hope you get your equivalent. Until then, I'll see you all Friday!

02/11/2013 Magnificent Monday!

Greetings everyone and welcome back! I hope the weekend treated you well and that you are back here all bright-eyed and either ready to face the day or ready for the second shot of whatever type of beverage helps you wake up in the morning. I'm not here to judge. Luckily (or unluckily) for me I am still in the waking up phase of the morning, so I'm sure this is bound to be interesting.

Now that my job is permanent I have been looking at the possibilities that the future holds. It's really interesting and kind of scary to start thinking seriously about a few things, the biggest of which is buying a house. I don't like renting, and I will tell anyone who asks me (and some that don't ask) my opinion about it. It's awkward for me to live in a building, with my own space, but still worry that I'm going to do something that disturbs the 2 or 3 people that are right next to me. I'm not a loud person in general, but I'm always afraid that the neighbors won't think of it that way. Not to mention it makes having a cat that voices his separation anxiety by meowing as loud as he possibly can kind of nerve racking.

I have finally made it through the half-way point of 'Daughter of the Shackled King's notebook. If my estimations are correct the final page count once it's typed should be around the 120 - 135 range, which isn't bad and actually not nearly as short as I was expecting. It's not the 202 page epic that 'The Light Rises' is, but I'm not upset about the page count by any means. It'll be nice when I'm actually done with it too, mostly because it's taken so long to get to that point and I'd like to get something else tossed on the editing pile. I'm still working out some kinks in my head while waiting to hear back from my alpha-reader about 'Through the Broken Mirror' so the other stories that I have available have taken the leader.

Just a reminder for anyone out there, 'The Light Rises' is available pretty much everyone buy Amazon, so please go check it out and tell everyone about it. I'm really happy with the new edition and would like people to get a chance to see it.

Thanks again to everyone for stopping by. It looks like we're getting close to 5000 views. That is a ridiculous number to me and I am excited that we're getting so close to it. I hope we can get there by the end of the week, and I'll be keeping an eye on it while trying to figure out what sort of special thing to do to celebrate. In the meantime though, please have a good start to your week and I'll see you back here on Wednesday!

02/08/2013 Fantastic Friday!

Hello everyone! I hope your week treated you all well. I think mine could have been a little nicer, but not having to actually work for the first two days was nice. For now though I am going to enjoy the fact it's the end of my week and I don't have to work tomorrow.

Today I bring you 'I Can Fly' by Sherri Cornelius. Most of the times pick-up lines are all some level of cheesy, at least all the ones I've heard, and that was the same for Warren. That was until he heard about Edith, when he told her he could fly her first reaction was to be angry and accuse him of trying to trick her. He knows they're meant to be together and he wants to prove it to her.

Warren doesn't know why he can fly, or how long he'd been able to. Like most abilities it was discovered by accident, and for so long he'd been convinced he was alone. However, now that he isn't he wants to prove to Edith that he isn't like the other orderlies in the hospital, and that he is someone that can be trusted. The problem is that not everyone believes they are meant to be together and Warren must win Edith's trust while discovering that there maybe more out there like them.

I picked this story today because quite frankly, deep down inside I love a good story about people going after their destined person. Also, as you all know, I like super powers. Something tells me this story is an introduction to a much bigger idea as well, so I hope the author has some fun with that. The story is little story of hope to enjoy after a week that may have seemed a little rough around the edges.

'I Can Fly' is available on Smashwords for absolutely free, so please go check it out and put it on your reading device. It's also short so that should give you enough time to download it and also read it on either your break or lunch. So I hope you all help the author out and take a look at it.

Thanks everyone for stopping by today, I really appreciate the warm welcome that I've gotten back. I think our number of views has gone up as well, so that is really encouraging. My friend told me that someone purchased her book too, which is great because the purpose of this blog is to help authors and I'm glad that I was able to do that. For now though, I'll be back on Monday, so I hope you all have a great weekend!

02/05/2013 Writing Wednesday!

Hello everyone and welcome back! I am now officially permanent at my job, which is a huge relief for so many reasons. I'm hoping it will give me a chance to lower my stress levels significantly so that I can work on other things, like writing, a bit more. Monday and Tuesday were 'orientation' days, so now I am going back to my normal schedule, which is quite nice too.

We're already into February this year, which is kind of surprising since I keep hearing people say January. I've mentioned before that the passage of time is always kind of surprising for writers, since a lot of time is spent being so focused on something that when you look at the clock you realize you forgot to eat. This happens with video games too, so I think it's something everyone can relate too on some level. I've mentioned before that the passage of time can also freak some writers out, because the brain tends to forget gaps whether they're on purpose or by accident. So I will say again, don't panic!

One of the nice things about being an independent author is being able to make your own schedule. Not that you shouldn't still have some kind of schedule to keep yourself on some kind of track, and I'll talk about that in a minute. The thing you don't have however is the obligation to follow the guidelines of a contract regarding how many and when your books are going to be released. Admittedly I know that not all contracts are like this, because quite frankly it's a contract and you are going to be the one negotiating some of the terms, but some of them are and that can add a world of stress to someone's life.

Not to say that schedules of some kind aren't important, because they are. If you just decide 'I'm going to write a book! I'll get to it someday!' then I have terrible news for you; you probably aren't actually going to get around to writing the book. I don't want to sound negative, or like a terrible person, but think of it like a New Years Resolution; you say you're going to lose weight, and you are all excited and going in head-first, and in the first couple weeks you're doing really well, but then you start to taper off and by mid-February you're back to not losing weight. You can use this same concept with writing, and I've seen it happen to a lot of people.

You can make it work though! It's actually, also, a similar way to handling a New Years Resolution and actually keeping it. You need to schedule it out, even if it's just a vague one, but you do. The schedule will include but is not limited to; character creation, world creation, timeline creation, research, outline creation, and finally writing. That may seem like a lot that needs to be done before the actual writing begins, but if you go into your story without knowing all of that then you are going to hit a wall really fast. Admittedly some of the research portion can be done on the fly; I can't tell you how many times I've gotten to a part, fairly confident in my knowledge of useless crap, only to stop and start questioning myself before I actually go to write it. That's perfectly fine, so don't get upset if you have to do that.

Once you get to the writing portion then it's time for a new psuedo-schedule. I say 'psuedo-schedule' because that is exactly what it is. You have an idea of what you want to do, but you also need to figure out he pace that's safe for you to work at in conjunction with whatever else your life has thrown at you. Remember people also have families, work, pets, and other aspects of life that will demand attention as well. This 'schedule' is more of a hopeful period of time in which you plan on writing a book. Don't get discouraged when that period of time becomes over a year. Writing a book is hard and very time consuming, so please keep at it no matter what.

Thanks everyone for stopping by again. Remember, you can check out my books, available at Smashwords whenever you like. 'Uncrossed Paths' is 100% free and is the brief character backstory introduction and 'The Light Rises' is full-length and $2.99. Please tell everyone you know and love and I'll be back on Friday!

02/04/2013 Magnificent Monday!

Hello everyone! I hope the weekend treated you all well. I believe overall mine was a success, though I feel like I was rather unproductive. That's probably for the best though, since I have been making fairly good progress in my mission to get 'Daughter of the Shackled King' transposed and I don't want to push myself too far.

My weekend was rather enjoyable, even if I did have to work. Mostly because there was a puppy, and they tend to make any experience better, even working. It's great to be actually permanent now, and not just because it means that my levels of stress can finally be lowered. It's also nice because of the level of security it brings, so knowing that I work somewhere stable, with (fantastic) benefits so that I can get things taken care of, and also the ability to actually plan for the future is awesome. Oh, and also plan to do a few frivolous things like turn my car a different color is nice too.

I feel bad about the lack of progress I've been making on 'Through the Broken Mirror' and it's not because of a lack of interest. I am waiting for a read through to be completed so that I know if the style I'm using for it is working or not, since it is different than my usual, and I want to know that before I dive back into it. I don't want to get the story finished only to have someone read it and tell me that it doesn't work/make sense/is dumb. It has given me a chance to work on 'Daughter of the Shackled King' more, which is nice, but I'm not very good at that waiting thing.

For now though I will keep my head held up high and keep in truckin' because that's all that can be done. I also got my taxes done, and I really can't wait to get that extra bit of money to go into the 'make my car pretty fund', that alone will take care of a majority of those expenses for it. I just wish that all that stupid tax stuff in the capitol hadn't sucked and now it'll take forever for me to actually get that refund.

Oh well, I do hope you all have a great start to your work. I get to go to the 'New Employee Orientation' so that should prove to be a bit excited. It's weird to think that I'm a new employee even though I've been there since August, but that's cool. I heard it's a bunch of back-story on the company, and everyone knows that I'm a sucker for that. I hope it's interesting! Until then, I'll see you all back here on Wednesday!