Five Links Friday 1/31/14

I'm back with another Five links for the weekend...

1. You're busy, I'm busy, everyone's busy.  Here's a short video from one of my heroes, Brian Tracy, giving 4 Time Management Tips For Work-Life Balance.

2. If you've read any of my posting in the last week, you'll see I'm cleaning up one of my in-process novels.  Here's an article from Charissa Weaks with some pointers on what to do when you get stuck in the middle.

3. Here's a list of The All-Time Greatest Horror Writers from ranker.com.  Not sure how many of them I agree with, but it's an interesting list for sure.

4. The hardest thing about writing, even harder than editing, is marketing.  You can't just write.  You can't just publish.  You have to get your stuff out there for someone to see.  But maybe it's not as difficult as it seems.  Maybe it's just your mindset.

5. This is kind of cool.  It's an older article, but I just found it today:  34 Writing Tips That Will Make You a Better Writer from dailywritingtips.com.

That's all folks.  Hope you found something you could use here and hope you have a great weekend.

Bald Girls and Big Space Ships

I watched a movie.  Sadly, I haven't done that in a while.  I've been on a big Star Trek kick for the last couple of years, watching Enterprise and then Voyager on Netflix.  I'm currently sleeping through the first season of Deep Space Nine.  I hate it.  I know everyone says it gets better, but good God, it's boring. This "getting better" better happen soon.

Anyhow, the only movie from TOS/TNG that I haven't see was the first one:  Star Trek I: The Motion Picture. Everyone I know who's ever seen it says it sucked.  Way too slow, way too boring.  And I know I put off watching it for decades because it just looks like it wouldn't be any good.  There's the ugly uniforms, the bald chick, and the fact that it's over two hours long.

But it just couldn't be any worse than DS9, right? So yesterday when the kids went down, I started it up.  And I liked it!  It was almost like taking 2001: A Space Odyssey and using the cast of Star Trek: TOS with the music from The Next Generation.  I had no idea that TNG's music came from this.  Very cool.  Anyhow, the concept was neat and the visuals were great.  It would have made a really good origin story to the Borg, if they wanted to go that direction later on.  And to everyone who says it's too slow, allow me to point you to another move called Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  Not exactly a JJ Abrams action movie either.

In other news, I saw the cover of an anthology from Garden Gnome Publication coming out next week(ish) that includes one of my stories.  It looks awesome.  They did great job; I can't wait to get my copy.

I managed to work on the novel revision a little last night, but nothing spectacular.  I'm still going through and making comments with MS Word, which is a great feature for working on revisions, even large-scale ones.

I'm off work tomorrow so I might make tonight a late night and really get some work done.  If you see my kids tell them to sleep in :)

A Broken Thumb and a Question

I'm home with the kids today, so I stayed up a little later than normal last night.  I didn't make a ton of progress on the novel revision, but I did get through a couple of pages.

I also resubmitted a short story and did and author interview, so it definitely wasn't a wasted night.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is that I'm pretty sure my thumb is broken.  It's hurt ever since I bumped it into the wall moving some furniture a couple of months ago.  This 10 below weather totally aggravates it and makes it hard to type.  Woe is me, right?  :)

I've got to say that keeping track of my progress here is really keeping me disciplined and writing every day.  I seriously might get this novel cleaned up on time.

I do have a question for anyone reading this.  It's about what kind of language works for transition to different times, such as a scene in the past or skipping ahead to the future. 

I'll use two examples.

First, I have a short story that opens with a scene to set things up that happens six years before the rest of the story.  If this was a movie, it would be easy to transition.  A black screen with white text reading "Six Years Later" would suffice.  But how can you do that in writing without sounding cheesy?

The second example is in the novel.  The opening chapter introduces four characters.  The next chapter introduces two more characters, but it takes place two days before the events in the opening scene.  I can't find a good way to get that across.  "Two days before such-and-such happened..." just sounds forced to me.  I really don't want to rearange the scenes because the two-days-ago part is great for introducing the two characters it's supposed to introduce, but not an effective way to start the novel.

Oh well, leave a comment if you have any tips.

And with that, I've probably rambled on long enough.  Tonight, I'm planning to get through another ten pages or so and no matter what, time will be put aside for both my wife and I to hit the treadmill or, even better, make it to the gym.

Finding stuff to fix

I set a 10:00 curfew for myself last night, and almost did it.  I crawled into bed at 10:08 and managed to avoid waking the baby.  She did get up at 4:00 though, and I think my wife said she had to give her a bottle at midnight too.

So we're a little sleep-deprived, but at least not crazy sleep-deprived like yesterday.

I only spent about about a half hour last night going over the manuscript for the unnamed second novel, but I did find a couple of things that need to be fixed before it's ready for anyone to read.  The first one is pretty minor and can be dealt with later.  It just involves the timing of the way a couple of characters are introduced.

The second one is big though.  One of the central protagonists is a goth(ish) teenage girl.  She's not really an all out rebel, just your typical introvert who doesn't really fit in.  The problem is, after about two pages of her, I wanted to kill her.  My God she's annoying.  Total drama queen.  Like Laurie Strode in that ridiculously terrible sequel to Rob Zombie's Halloween.  Okay maybe not that bad, but bad enough that if she isn't completely rewritten, she'll do major damage to the novel.

Now, it's okay if she's a little immature and whiny.  Here development as a character and coming of age is a big part of the novel.  But you just can't have a novel staring a character so irritating that even the author hates her.

So there are my thoughts or progress report or whatever for last night.  The deadline for ABNA looks to be March 2, so I've got plenty of time to fix this character.  I just go a little caught off guard that I'd write a character like that and make her a "good guy."

Tonight I'll keep going through the first draft and maybe even hit the treadmill after we get the kids their baths.

A Mad Scientist and a Quck ABNA Update

If you saw the link I posted earlier, my story "A Bad Case of Rabies" was published in Mad Scientist Journal today.

This worked out pretty well.  Mad Scientist Journal is a really fun concept, where they publish a new short story every week, told from the perspective of a "mad scientist."  I had been trying to come up with something to send them over the last year, but all of my ideas seemed to fall flat before I could even get a few sentences out.

But then something cool happened.  "Rabies" came back with a personal rejection note from another publisher.  The feedback basically said that it was a fine story, but they wanted to know what caused the situation that sets up the story.  I thought about for a little while and then it hit me that when the narrator returns home at the beginning of the story, he could be the cause of it.  He could even be a "mad scientist."  It fit so well with the storyline that I quickly edited it to fit the MSJ guidelines (first person, etc.) and got it sent off.

This just goes to show how important it is to really pay attention to any feedback you get with a rejection letter.  I would have never considered modifying this story to make it fit in MSJ if it wouldn't have been for that feedback.

Now switching topics to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest...  I worked on the novel last night.  In fact, I worked on it like an idiot saying up till almost 2:00 AM.  Our baby generally gets up around 5, so do the math to figure out how zombie-like I am today.

I made some good progress on the novel though.  I read through the first chapter, which is about ten pages long.  This first reading is mostly to get a better feel for the novel.  I read it with a pad of paper and took notes, writing down the characters' names and traits.  I also made notes on timelines and basic plot points.

I'm not really focusing too much on the writing during this first read-through.  The important goal right now is to make sure I've got a solid plot structure and I can worry about the copy-editing after that.

So that's it for now.  I'm hoping to go through another ten pages or so tonight, and then hit the bed for a solid six or seven hours of sleep.

Mad Scientist Journal, Issue 1/27/14

My short story "A Bad Case of Rabies" was published online today at Mad Scientist Journal with illustrations by Luke Spooner.  It's available free on their site right now and will be reprinted in their quarterly anthology later this year.

Read online at Mad Scientist Journal

Why not do ABNA?

So my current plan is to complete another revision of Holy Fudgesicles* and then freshen up my query letter, revisit my synopsis, and start querying by mid-February. There are also a few more short stories I need to finish up and get out there because they're not doing anyone any good sitting in my pending stories folder. If you think about it, having short stories sitting on your hard drive instead of on an editor's desk is like having money hidden under your mattress instead of in the S&P 500.  There's no return if you don't invest.

* Everyone hates that title except me. I should probably do something about that. Convince them with force? Or pick another title? Hmm.

Anyhow, I've got a lot of work to do this year, so I decided my only logical move is to take my second novel and submit it to annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest this year. In 2012, Holy Fudgesicles got to the second round, which was awesome, but in 2013 it got nowhere, which wasn't awesome. I don't plan to submit that novel again this year since it really is time I get down and serious and get it some representation.

And that brings us to my second novel. I think it will be a great candidate for ABNA in either the YA or Fantasy categories.

There are a couple of obstacles I'll need to overcome. For starters, this was a 2011 NaNoWriMo novel, meaning it's exactly 50,000 words long. This is a problem because looking over the outline I can already tell it should be closer to 70,000 words. There are a lot of details that need to be fleshed out.

I've also got the problem that I'm dealing with a first (and I mean first) draft that I haven't really even thought about in a couple of years. This will need some revisions. Major revisions.  Like hours and hours of revisions.

I've got no title and at least two big plot holes to fill. But the contest doesn't open until February 16, so I've got almost a month to clean this thing up.

Actually, I'm looking forward to the challenge.  Maybe writing under will help me evolve.

I also wanted to say that if you're sitting on an unpublished novel, I'd recommend giving ABNA a try. It's fun and frightening at the same time, which is everything writing fiction should be. If you do choose to enter the contest, drop me a line. Maybe we can start a struggling novelist support group or something.

Until then, I'll track my progress here and see where it goes. 

Five Links Friday 1/24/14

Back with some (mostly) writing related links worth sharing.

1. Dealing with writer's block?  Allen Taylor has some advice on How To End Writer’s Block In 5 Minutes.

2. I'm going to hit the queries again in the next month or so, just as soon as I finish this current revision.  Query letters are difficult, and I'm assuming mine still needs some work (otherwise I'd have an agent by now, lol.)  Anyhow, here's an article from Writer's Digest with tips on how to write the bio section of your query letter.

3.  Moving onto reading instead of writing, check out this link from Buzzfeed on 16 Books To Read Before They Hit Theaters This Year.  I've got to say, some of those look pretty good, but a few of them look like stinkers as well.

4. Tor.com takes a look at one of my favorite authors, Clive Barker, and what he's been up to lately: Inspiration, Interrupted: Chiliad: A Meditation by Clive Barker

5. And finally, here's an article by Bruce Van Horn that I want you to read over, think about all weekend, and then take what you learned back with you to work on Monday.  Seriously.  He asks, "Would you hire you to do the job you do right now?"   What a sobering thought.  Give it a look.

So that's all for now.  Stay warm and have a great weekend.  I also wanted to mention that I've got a new short story coming out on Monday, so check back then for the info on that.  See ya!

Five Links Friday 1/17/14

Back with five links...

1. Author Jeri Westerson looks at what you need to do before your book hits print in Are Ready to be Published?  Here are Five Things You Need. 

2. One thing I often wonder about with my unpublished novels is whether or not it's a good idea to get an independent editor.  Here are 9 Ways to Vet an Independent Book Editor

3. I'm not considering self-publishing at this point in the game, but for those of you who are, you should definitely read this article:  The Author Exploitation Business from David Gaughran's blog.

4. Onto a different topic, check out this article on success: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality And Future from David Duane Wilson.

5. And finally, I thought this was a pretty interesting article from The Atlantic: How to Spot A Narcissist Online.  And I don't think they mean Lex Luger.

Have a great weekend--a great three day weekend for those of us working in the public sector :)

New Realm Magazine Sept 2013

A little behind schedule, but the September 2013 issue of New Realm has been published.  It includes my short story, "About that Demon on my Shoulder..."

Five Links Friday 1/10/14

Hey!  January is already a third of the way through, so I hope you're making the most of it.  Here are some links to get you through the weekend.

1. If you want to be successful, it's up to you.  Here are 8 Lies that Sabotage Success and How to Stop Them.

2. Got Rejection Dejection?  Chuck Sambuchino gives some things to consider when your writing is rejected.

3. Speaking of rejections, I've had a couple of editors tell me there's not enough conflict in my stories.  Well, conflict doesn't always mean fight.  Here are 7 Types of Narrative Conflict to think about.

4. So how do you write a best seller?  Allow these computer scientists to you how: Computer Algorithm Seeks To Crack Code Of Fiction Bestsellers.

5. And finally, here are 21 Harsh But Eye-Opening Writing Tips From Great Authors.

I'm out.  As always, have a great weekend.

Five Links Friday 1/3/14

It's been a while, but I'm back with Five Links Friday.

1. With the start of a new year, K.M. Weiland has 10 Easy Writing Resolutions for 2014

2. Molly Greene asks a few other writers What's on a Writer's Bucket List in 2014?

3. Author James Scott Bell does a whole bunch of short clips with writing tips.  Give 'em a look at his YouTube page.

4. Rachel Thompson has another great post on her blog showing us Why Authors Should Avoid Discussing Politics and Religion.  And I couldn't agree more.

5. And in a completely unrelated post, here's an interesting article from The Atlantic: How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood

That's it for now.  Check back soon and I hope you have a wonderful 2014!