And so it begins... the Lion of the Dark, on Kindle

Oh, what a feeling.

I'm going through my favorite songs right now because I'm just beaming.

After a burst of inspiration a few weeks back while working on the (nearly finished) first draft of the three-part forthcoming novella series, The Crinkled Foil, through Deepwood Publishing, I got this crazy idea about vampires.

I'm not sure why, honestly. Maybe it was the coffee. Lion Kona usually gets me in an awesome mood. Best coffee I've ever had.

Maybe, it wasn't the coffee?

Perhaps it's because my family is NUTS about all things undead. Hannah, as you know, is a Twihard fan, and Shannon loves her some Zombie and Interview with the Vampire (which she can watch daily, if she was allowed to).

I enjoy the undead too... but in my own way.

Well, maybe it started there. Either way you slice it, I created this character named Leo. He's a dräcul vampire, which, in the mythos I've created, means a vampire didn't turn him by biting him. Being dräcul means he carries the gene for dräculism. And the story just went from there.

The official launch of the serial the Lion of the Dark is tomorrow, Monday, July 9, 2012, and will publish every second Monday of the month, unless for some blast of science fiction I've been recruited for the NASA shuttle program. Doubtful, but that would still be cool.

So, I'm beaming. I pre-released the first installment, Our Other Blood, not expecting it to be approved so quickly by Amazon, since the KDP site says 12 hours for the okay. Well, it got the okay within four hours of being uploaded toAmazon and the official e-mail notice about six hours later.

(In case you're wondering why I care about all these details, I'm journaling this part. A few weeks from now I'm going to forget all this experience as I'll be mind deep in writing the next few installments and working with my graphic artist to design the covers.

What's the story about? Teen angst. Leo hasn't completed his conversion from human to vampire in over a year, and as far as he's concerned the longer it takes the better. But, as he learns, supernatural delay comes with a cost.

Follow Leo monthly as he struggles with his supernatural powers, conflicts between family and friends, and most of all, himself. Should he finally take that plunge and just bite down? This and more to come...

To buy Our Other Blood, follow the link below. Thanks for reading and supporting indie authors.

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Blood-Lion-Dark-ebook/dp/B008IJRW74/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1341779376&sr=8-16&keywords=our+other+blood  

Nearing the end of the first draft

A few weeks back Shan and a few friends kinda suddenly got the same idea. They suggested, rather than update my story progress by a word count, I update my progress with a percentage. Got loads of feedback from that suggestion and it's actually a better way to express my process.

Posting my word count started to sound like I was boasting. Cuz some days I was able to write 3,000 words a night. Right?!? Crazy. Last year at this time if I got in 250 words that was a miracle.

If my math is accurate I've achieved 74 percent of the first draft. Feels good to see that. Real good, because I've written 100 percent two times now, once each for the first draft of the first and second part of the three-part series.

Well, that was before the publisher sent an e-mail telling me they've switched gears and decided to publish the story as a novella.

All by its lonesome, which may include the original short story, Intertwined...

I just about lost it.

To go from a short story to a novella within half a year seems magical all in itself.

With a little structural changes I'll easily be able to combine relevant scenes and turn them into chapters. No big deal. Sounds like a hassle but not really. Again, I write scenes. In fact my story folder has sub-folders, one for Notes, The Pitch (the story summary I queried Deepwood Publishing), Scenes, and WIP.

It paid off in dividends to be a little but organized. If you know me I have to work hard at it. Being organized is not my natural state. I'm a creative person and would rather spend my time, well, you know, creating...

The end of the first draft nears.

I'll take a few days off and then dive right into edits, and then the percent goes back to zero, and then back up to 100 and then it's off to the publisher for alpha reads and formatting. :)

In the Eye of the Storm

Wondering where I've been these past few months, since December???

Well, I've been writing.

As fast as my fingers can hit the keys, as often as I can stand to write, as often as I can squeeze in the time to actually write.

What am I writing??? The Crinkled Foil, a three-part series of short stories centered around the same cast of characters introduced in the short story, Intertwined, being published by Deepwood Publishing.

Intertwined was intended as a one-shot with some potential for continuing storylines. From this story grew The Crinkled Foil, which expands on characters in that story, as well as some new faces.

It's been a crazy twist of fate since Deepwood accepted that first short story. I find myself squeezing every minute I can to write, to think, to re-read the drafts I've written so far. I'm having fun.

And that's the point, even as the storm races, screaming, whirling around me as I budget my time to complete my first novella. If I had my druthers, The Crinkled Foil will be the first of many. Only time will tell.

Thanks for stopping by.

Setting some goals for myself

A shout out to fellow blogger Krista at itakethepen.blogspot.com.

I was reading her blog recently about setting goals and the importance about being flexible, because life has a funny way of distracting writers who are trying to write a story. Like who really wants to go to the grocery store? Or pump gas into the car?  Isn't there an app for that? No? There should be... :)

So, here's to setting some goals.

Goal 1: Writing is fun.

Goal 2: 1,000 words a night.

Phew! Now that I've got my goals etched in pixels, that short story doesn't seem such a daunting task after all!

Now... *taps chin* what adventures should these characters take?

*grins*

Having trouble developing characters in your story? Try this tip

I hit a stumbling block the other day as I was developing characters for my current WIP. As I started to flesh them out I began to realize something in my process that I hadn't noticed before. Maybe it was subconscious. Maybe it's because I lean toward a specific character type. I don't know why exactly but a light came on.

Most characters we create start out as a concept, in some form or another, and as we mold them with ideas and opinions and dialogue and all the other cultural nuances, they start to develop personalities, and start to make choices. I don't know about you, but I'll write a scene of dialogue for a character to familiarize myself with his or her voice. It helps to read it out loud too. :)

The other night I was crafting my WIP, and like I said, I stumbled onto something. There's no name for it. Just polarities, I suppose. I guess I could call it Four Square, but isn't that taken?

I digress...

Imagine a square split up into four quadrants. Quadrant I, or the upper right hand corner, is the character's Spirituality. To the left, in that upper corner, is the character's Leadership. Below that, in the lower left corner, is the character's Impulse (now opposite the character's Spirituality). And to the right, in that corner, is the character's Destiny (now opposite the character's Leadership). Draw a line between opposites. Cool, huh?

So what does all this have to do with a character in your story? It's just a reminder that whenever your character does something impulsive it pulls him away from his spirituality, and vice versa. The same is true of the character when he moves toward his destiny. He moves away from leadership. Because following one's destiny means following one's own path, not ahead of the path of others, although often a leader is made along the way... Aragorn, for example. It's also important to note that Spirituality and Destiny, share a side, as they face the outside world together. And, also, the same is true, as you move around the square. Spirituality + Leadership; Leadership + Impulse; Impulse + Destiny. See what I mean? You can start to see your character's struggles in these areas; your character's ability to cope or not cope.

Is your character not coping? Perhaps he's trying to lead his impulses. A lot of villains stay in this area if they never leave it. Remember, too, that this isn't some hard and fast categorization. It's just a tool to help you visualize how your character is moving through the story. It also doesn't mean that a character can't jump around between them in a single chapter. It can happen. This tool is just to give you some perspective on where the character might be in a conversation, or in his thoughts. If he's always spiritual, and moving toward his destiny, then he's far from his impulse and leadership. Also, a leader can be leading people toward destiny. But is it a safe voyage? That's all for you, er, the characters to decide.

Hope this helps. :)

World building from the map up...

A long time table-top RPG player and game master, I like me a good setting as much as I enjoy creating 'em. I would spend hours over a table with dozens of pencils and a stack of paper -- early on I used square-grid or hexagon-grid sheets, and then moved onto blank sheets.

It's important to say that world building from the map up is always a map in progress because at any given time you can draw a tighter map, focusing on a very specific area with fully-detailed roads, villages, towns, farms -- even that oak tree where young love blossoms.

My world building rarely begins with a coastline. Most of the time it starts as a few letters. An "M" to represent a mountain. See it? Two snowy white peaks... Then as I draw them I change up their size. The larger the M, the bigger the mountain. If I think of a name for the mountain range, I just jot it down somewhere nearby. Then, as I cluster them together I start to think about who would live there. Dwarves? Ogres? Bears? Snow leopards? Wolves? The list starts to form. Keep in mind they're just lists. This is world building, not an enemy list for your heroes. It's all in progress so at any time you can draw a line through any of those creatures, but never erase them. Ideas shouldn't be erased. They should be edited. Modified. Edited into a final draft, much like your story.

And as I would overlap those letter M's some of them get sent into the background. And as I did that I would jot down other enemies. You see the trigger here is what inhabitants and what creatures co-exist and which ones don't.

Eventually, I'll move into other geography. Rivers get the squiggle and bend, just like a letter S, snaking through the world. What might those rivers be like? Roaring, calm, shallow, deep, murky, a gate to the elemental plane of water? You see the goal of a map isn't to immediately define its function. It's to give you seeds...

A map is the place(s) in which your characters live and thrive. Civilizations build and fall over time. Within them are people busy in their routines, hopes and dreams. They have troubles, near and far, some visible, while others search for power.

The important thing to remember here is geography becomes a foundation, not a limitation.

Your characters might feel trapped by the conditions of their life--but that's human nature, not the order of the natural world. Think about why people live in a forest, a mountain, along a river or coastline. Do these people need resources? That's a given. More importantly, what are these people like? Peaceful? Warriors? Farmers? Builders? Or, are they refugees, driven out of their homeland there by some tyrant? Where they exiled as punishment? Or, have they always lived there, perennially, able to trace traditions to their first ancestors? And if they can, how do they? A town square? A monument?

As these details emerge in the map, so will the societies in which your characters live, their political views, cultural expressions, and ultimately the place that gives birth to the heroes that will shape the world as they journey through that map.

Seeds...

Pencils at the ready...

... and...

M...

Duck season. No, rabbit season... No, bird season

It's official.

I'm officially, unconditionally, anatomically, diabolically, irreverently, enslaved to twitter.

That is all.

Or, should I say, does nanonomicon want a cracker?

Stuff it, beakie!