Why do I love Science Fiction?

      Lots of reasons actually. I love being able to stretch my imagination and explore interesting and esoteric concepts. I like extrapolating political and scientific developments into the future. I like the fact that we can take things from history and manipulate them into a story idea for a different colonial world. I like the idea of starflight and starships and maybe even faster than light travel. I know that last one is a stretch, but I love the idea. I am constantly watching the scientific circles for someone to come up with an idea that will allow for faster than light travel. I like the idea of a future for mankind, spread out among the stars, not just trapped on one world. I like that some of the concepts I've seen writer's come up actually blow my mind!

It's much easier to edit someone else's work!

      This week I had something nice happen. I connected with a new writing partner! I'm very excited about it. She is a little farther along in the writer metamorphosis, she has two novels completed already, but has agreed to work with me. We shared some of our chapters and did line edits for each other and it was very eye-opening. I met her over on Natalie Whipple's blog: http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/ 


      She set up a Writing Buddy matching thing, which seems to have really taken off and is no longer on her sight. I feel very fortunate to have wandered over there at the right time. 

Valentine's Day Tribute - How I turned my Military SF into a PR Space Opera

      When I started planning the current WIP, I didn't have any romance in mind at all. It was going to be straight up Military SF. I don't think I even had any major female characters. As the ideas percolated I changed the sex of one of my major characters to a female, and then hit on the idea for my MC as a vampire and the entire scope of the book changed completely as did the POV. I had in mind to do a first person story from the vampires POV.


      A lot of time passed in the real world while all these gyrations were going on and in the midst of it my wife started reading again. When I say she started reading again I mean she started reading voraciously. It all happened more or less simultaneously with me trying to develop my story arc. She started really getting into the paranormal romance books.

Stop Twittering and Work on Your Novel!

      I've really gotten into twitter in the past couple of months after having an account for several years and doing nothing with it. Once I started adding people to follow it started to get a lot more interesting and then I found that other writers hang out on there and people blog about writing, how to do it better, how to publish a book, how to find an agent etc. Even some agents blog and twitter and you can learn from them too.

      

      There is also the self-publishing crowd, and there is lots of advice on how to do it and why you should or shouldn't do it. There still seems to be a bit of stigma attached to self-publishing because so much drek is making it on Amazon and other sites for easy download. Some of these are obvious by the crappy book covers or poorly written descriptions, but some of it sneaks under the RADAR and clogs up the path for really good books. I'm still torn about self-publishing. You have a lot more control over timing and price-points and book covers etc. You lose out in marketing and the "Cheese-touch" of self-publishing. All of these things are side issues to actually finishing the novel though.

What's in a name?

     I have a question for you writer’s and aspiring writers out there…do names matter?

     I know there are many approaches to actually writing a novel from outlining to discovery, and every iteration between those poles. NaNoWriMo taught me to write every day, and I’ve read over and over again that when you write you should just keep going, letting it flow out the right side of your brain and fix it later in the editing phase. But my brain is already full and if I learn something new I have to forget something to make room for it, and I have no idea what that lost tidbit is going to be. It might be the great idea I had for the edit that I didn’t take the time to fix earlier.

Housekeeping

I did a little work on the first chapter tonight, as I really wasn't in the mood to write.  I feel like it's much tighter now and probably close to being a finished as I'm going to get it before I sent out the MS to my alpha readers.


I posted the new version on the CH 1 Exerpt/Bulletproof Soul Page.  I would love to see some comments ( I think).


Been reading a lot about eBooks taking the lead in sales.  The push to self-publish is getting stronger and stronger.  I'm really undecided at this point on which way to go.  I don't think I'll be pumping out more than two books a year once I'm doing this exclusively, but who knows.  Timing is a factor if you can really pump them out.  The slower, established publishing model may work just fine for me, assuming I can sell the book to an old school publishing house.  I'll cross that bridge when the time comes, it may be a pretty clear course by then.


Clear Ether!

What makes good writing?

      I downloaded a free version of Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper on my iPhone Kindle app. I read the entire series many moons ago when I was a young man and my recollection of the story doesn't match the reality I'm faced with reading it now. I remember the characters and the setting as being quite awe inspiring, and they are, but the prose are so heavy and overblown with description and obtuse phrasing that it's very distracting from an author's perspective.

      I am starting to get the feeling that reading now is going to be like riding on an airliner is for me. I fly large jets for a living and I'm not a great passenger now, as I know what every noise is. I really don't want the flight attendant to ask me if there is anyone onboard that can fly a jet. I find that spending the last couple of years writing and learning about writing has made me acutely aware of story and prose. I still enjoy well written books as much as the next person, maybe even more than before, but if the writing is marginal I have a much lower tolerance now.

Week in Review 17-23 Jan

It was a struggle this week for blogging and writing.  I did manage to get 3000 words this week and passed the 400 page mark, but begrudgingly.  I am in the climax and trying to get it right, and its coming a little at a time.  My muse can be stubborn at times.  That coupled with work and home events kept my mind from any productive blogging, if there is such a thing.  The grand total right now sits at 96100 words.