Topheth

NaNoWriMo Days 7 and 8

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Word count day 7:   3,766
Word count day 8:  +  221 (So far)
Total word count:   12,441

For some reason, I just can’t get started today. I’ve got ideas. I kinda know what’s happening now with The Tree of Liberty, and after the election I’ve been rather re-motivated. Like so many Constitution-lovers, I fear the future, too. Maybe more so now than ever.  The guiding concept behind Jefferson’s Road was giving the Left an excuse to do what they’ve always dreamt about doing: turning the U.S.A. into the U.S.S.R. Now it looks like they’ll go for that even without the excuse. Now they believe they have a mandate, for crying out loud. And what with the Republicans gleefully accepting defeat yet again, there’s little to stop them.

Except us, of course. And that’s gonna get ugly.

I don’t want to turn this into a political rant. I’ve got a whole series for that. But I am grieving. Maybe that’s what’s keeping me from putting words on a page. I don’t know.

Topheth is coming along nicely as well. Cranked out some serious verbage on that last night. It’s another dark, grim story in Janelle Becker’s world. I hope those of you who liked The Coppersmith will give her another go in this book. Should be fun!

All right, enough. I just wanted to get the update in. I’ve got about twenty minutes of the day left, and I need another 900 words or so to reach my target goal. I’m getting back to work, now.

NaNoWrimo Days 3-6

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Day three – 1,829 words.

Day four – Goose Egg. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Then again, it is the Lord’s Day. Spent time with the family after church and watched Blue Like Jazz that evening. Loved what Don Miller had to say about being truth-tellers rather than salesmen when it comes to faith and God.

Day five – 1,485 words. A little lean, but climbing back in the saddle. The rest of Monday was spent at co-op, where I could only generate a measly 35 words… due largely to interruptions and tiredness.

Day six – 1,586 words so far. I’ll be able to crank some more out after I get some sleep from the overnight (and after voting is done.).

As it stands right now, Topheth has about 60K words written, and The Tree of Liberty has 45K. I’ve written about 4.3K words on Topheth, and 3.95K words on Tree. Of course, that’ll all change when I get some more to do this.  I’m 1,745 words off my goal for the day. I hope to get back ahead, and then capitalize on my third overnight tomorrow to gain some serious mileage before next Sunday rolls around. Then maybe I won’t fall quite so far behind. On a positive note, we’ve only got one more week of co-op left, so I’ll recover most Mondays in the month as well.

NanoWrimo Day 2

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Word count: 3,355.

I spent the bulk of my writing time finishing the revised outline to Topheth. The story has grown in such complexity from when I first began it five years ago. It might take longer to wrap up, if only because there’s so much more depth to it than I’d originally imagined. Nevertheless, I’m going to endeavor to complete the book in October no matter what.

I’ll be returning to The Tree of Liberty with today’s efforts.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

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Word count update: 2,615.

Most of that went to The Tree of Liberty. I did finish the next chapter of Topheth, however, and realized something significant: I am so far off my old outline that there’s no hope of recovery. No matter, the story is far better now. But it does mean I’m gonna have to map out the rest of the story sometime today if I’m going to finish it this month.

And So It Begins…

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Yay! It’s National November Writing Month!

Egads! It’s National November Writing Month! One thousand, six hundred sixty seven words a day for thirty days straight.

The good news is: I finished the new outline for Tree of Liberty, which means I should be well positioned to git er done before the end of the month. The bad news is: between Tree and Topheth, I’ve got about 55,000 words needed to finish both books. Thus, I’m going to be busy. Very busy.

And, of course, nothing changes during November. I still have to work full time. We still have a major holiday to contend with. I still have to produce a sermon for church every week (and no, none of that writing counts towards NaNo.). And I still have co-op lessons to write.

On top of that, I’ll be teaching my course on how to publish independently at the Webster Public Library on Tuesdays, November 13 and 20 from 6:30-close.

At any rate, if you want to follow my progress, you can check how I’m doing here on the blog, or at IndieAuthors.com, where I’ll be posting daily updates.

Planning Ahead…

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So I’ve agreed (in principle, at least) to use this year’s NaNoWriMo to finish The Tree of Liberty and Topheth… and if I have any time left in December, to wrap up In The Widening Gyre as well.

The Tree of Liberty has been giving me particular fits. I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say the whole thing feels like I’ve been swimming through mud. It just doesn’t have that particular urgency to it that I expect it to have. Thing is, I know exactly where this story is going and how the whole series ends, but I’m just sorta stuck right now.

There are two things I’m going to try, beyond just plowing through it in November. One, I want to strip the whole thing back down to outline (and I’ve never outlined a Jefferson’s Road story before), and see if I can’t figure out how to speed things up. The second is an insight my son gave me last night (And I don’t know how he recognized this). In the first two books, my main character, Peter Baird, is primarily reacting to what’s going on around him. He does act and make choices, of course, but he’s essentially a reactive character. In this book, I’ve been using him more as an actor, less as a re-actor (there’s a nuclear joke in there somewhere. Like, maybe that’s why the book has no energy? Guffaw.). So maybe the character himself has been resisting what I’ve been trying to do with him. It’s something to consider, at least.

Topheth is steaming along fine. I should have no real problems finishing it… so long as I can keep the heat on (shameless pun).

In the meantime, I’ve finally started successfully outlining the next Jonathan Munro Adventure. I’ve been wanting to do a story that takes place in Russia called The Music of The Spheres, but until this morning, I just didn’t have a good sense of what happens. But I picked up my pen and paper around 10:00 this morning, and now I’ve got almost six handwritten pages of outline done, with lots and lots of stuff happening that’ll keep it going right on till the end, I expect. This is good, because the second Jonathan Munro book comes out next Spring, and I wanted to have a third one ready to send off to my editor as soon as it does. This will give me a head start for the new year, and I should be able to get the whole thing finished in plenty of time.

So for the rest of the day, I’ll be writing up the outline for The Music of The Spheres, and then tearing into The Tree of Liberty.

As an aside, in a few weeks I’ll be teaching a class on Tuesday nights at the Webster Public Library for how to publish independently. We’ll be meeting in the common area on November 13th and November 20th from 6:30 on. The cost is $20 apiece if you want to attend, but I’ll basically be teaching how to design covers, publish, and promote online. It’s the same material I’m presenting in our homeschooling co-op, just taught in two, two hour sessions instead of eight thirty-five minute classes.

Somethin’s Happening Here…

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What it is ain’t exactly clear.

What is clear is that The Coppersmith is seriously taking off in the rankings. This is the latest from Amazon, as of 4:35 am on Tuesday, September 4th:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,012 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

That I’ve even cracked the Top 100 in two categories is nothing short of amazing. Part of it, doubtless, is the little hiccup with Amazon’s price matching. Seems Diesel Books was still offering The Coppersmith for sale at their site, a discrepency which has since been rectified. I’m unaware of the book selling anywhere else at the moment. So for the past day or so, people have been getting the book at a serious discount. Maybe that’s led to the sales. It certainly hasn’t hurt my rankings.

Regardless, I’m hard at work on the sequel, and I hope to have it done… before the month is out? We’ll see. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have something more to offer all these readers!

The latest from my over-caffeinated head

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Just finished the latest chapter of In the Widening Gyre, and it’s available here for those following along.

I’ve been busy with several projects – no longer writing just one book exclusively. I do believe that particular strategy was effective for a while, but at some point I just got too bogged down in a single story (and too distracted by the others clamoring for attention) for it to remain viable. So now I’m back, plugging away not only at Gyre, but also at Jefferson’s Road: The Tree of Liberty, Topheth, and a UFO novel called Descent that I started a few years ago and never did anything with. I toy with it now and again, and I’ve made real progress on the story. Don’t expect it’ll be finished until some time after the end of the world (ie: 2012), so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Topheth is proceeding well. I’m a little better than half-done at this point, and I think I’ll be entering that phase of “hurtling toward the climax” quite soon. This is the book I’ve been vetting through my Wednesday night Writer’s class. I generally get high marks on the book, so I think we’ll see it finished soon. Janelle Becker has a number of books in her story that are waiting to be told. Hopefully, Topheth will help launch her series in to full gear.

Gyre is a little better than half done. Tonight I wrapped up chapter sixteen out of twenty-seven planned, and we crossed the 50k mark in word count. I may do a little more work on it this evening, but I wanted to get the next installment out to you as soon as it was finished.

Confession Of The Obvious: Anger is driving the inspiration behind Jefferson’s Road.  My own anger at the federal government’s incursions on our liberties, and my own fear of that same anger churning away in me (and in others). Writing is my best outlet for it. I know this, because after the Robert’s decision came down on the Affordable Care Act, I found myself suddenly reinvigorated to finish The Tree of Liberty. I cranked out a chapter and a half on it just this afternoon. Not only that, but now I have a pretty clear sense of what happens in the middle and how to get to the end (as well as how to prep up for the fourth installment).

Thing is, I know I’m not the only one thinking or feeling this way. I read the news articles on it and the comments that follow, and all I can tell you is that people are seriously pissed off by this. John Roberts joked about needing to hide in a concrete bunker. From the comments I’ve seen, that might not be a bad idea. Not that I’m encouraging violence against him or against any of our elected officials. But I’ve said this before: we’re not the ones driving the bus off the cliff. This country’s getting more and more like a powder-keg every day, and if things don’t change soon, the Marxists and Anarchists are going to get their revolution. They just won’t like the way it ends. Of course, no one is gonna like it when everything hits the fan, which is something I want to be sure I express in Tree.

This book does present a challenge to me–one I’ll be addressing in the next part of the book (we’re nearly finished with Act II), and that is that the second revolution/civil war to strike won’t be fought on convenient geographic lines like North/South. It’ll be an ideological free for all, and the country will fragment because the ties of faith, community, and a vision of what it means to be an American are no longer held in common by our people. We’re going to fragment into new tribes who’ll then fight each other. I don’t want to give too much away–but that’s something I know I have to start portraying in this book. It’ll be something that will take the next three books to iron out. I expect I’ll try to describe a way to knit us back together again either in A More Perfect Union or in the final mile of the road, We The People. But that’s farther down the road than I can see right now.

Strategy-wise, I want to make you aware of two developments. One, I’ve learned a lot about “how to publish” since starting this journey, and lately I’ve been reformatting the interior files to my print books and uploading new versions of them to CreateSpace. The new formats look a lot better, and I have made slight modifications to some of the stories – minor tweaks and edits (and maybe a typo or two) that don’t really change the stories but just improve the writing. This should be done in the next couple of weeks. Secondly, I’ve decided that the next books I release will be print first, followed by kindle, then by Smashwords 90 days later. Yes, this means I’ll be taking advantage of the KDP Select program. I took a “wait and see” approach when it first came out, but a number of my author friends have had a lot of success with it that it just makes sense to give it a try. I’ll keep anything currently released via Smashwords still available through those channels, but new material is going to go exclusive to Amazon for 90 days. If this works the way I hope it does, then I’ll keep with that strategy throughout 2013 as well (assuming the Mayans were as wrong as Harold Camping). My hope–and I feel like I’m on the cusp of a major breakthrough here–is that I’ll be able to begin dropping back hours at work as my writing career takes off. Even if I can get to the point where I just work a normal forty hours (sans second job and sans overtime), that’ll be huge. Naturally, I want to do this full time. We’ll see how it plays out, of course.

Goodness, I need to post more often. This was a long one. Sorry! I’ve got to get back to writing now.

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Back in the Saddle…

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So it’s been better than a month, I think, since I’ve posted anything on the blog. I’d like to say I’ve spent all that time writing, but that’s not precisely true. Part of the delay has been dealing with family issues. We recently lost my father-in-law, and things like that can really take the wind out of your sails. I think, for the most part, however, I just ran a little too dry.

I don’t know what it is about reading, but I find that if I don’t do it often enough/frequently enough, I get into these modes where I just lose all passion for writing. That’s kinda what I went through. Not sure it qualifies as genuine writer’s block or not, but what difference does it make? I didn’t do much writing. I did, however, read a lot of Stephen King. Been clawing my way through The Dark Tower series. I’m about to start book six this week.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I didn’t do any writing. In fact, I took a look at an old friend I haven’t touched in a while and started working on a novel that’s been sidelined for a few years. I’ve actually pressed out a couple of chapters on it in the last few days, and I think just spending some time playing with a non-committal book (is there such a thing?) really helped get the kinks out. I’ll tell you more about the book later.

I’ve also managed to finish the fifteenth chapter of In the Widening Gyre while I was at it. I’ve posted it here if you want to take a look. As always, I appreciate any comments or feedback you have. And on top of this, I’ve also started work on a third novel – a Christmas book that’s been churning around in my head for the last three years.

Trying out different stories and playing with new characters is helping me keep going. I mean, if I’m so stuck onGyre orJefferson’s Road that I can’t make any real progress, I might as well make progress somewhere else.

So now I have twelve different novels in various stages of completion. That’s in addition to the seven that I’ve already completed. Between those dozen novels, I have 193,000 words written. Five of those novels are below 10K words. Four are between 11K and 20K words. And the final three are approximately 24K, 40K, and 49K words. What does this mean for finishing anything any time soon? Absolutely nothing. I know, however, that I’ll keep pushing away at all of them (mostly focusing on roughly six or seven of them at any given time) until I can start releasing them to press.

The good news is this: I’m having fun again. I’m enjoying writing once more. I think, honestly, that’s been the biggest problem I faced these past two months. It stopped being fun. And as much as writing should be a business and should be hard work (and it is all those things), it should be fun as well. After all, no one is holding a gun to my head. Not even the fans of Jefferson’s Road (though I’m starting to think some of them might like to!).

I will make this commitment to you and to myself, that these three books will be finished this year: Jefferson’s Road: The Tree of Liberty, Topheth, and In the Widening Gyre. And probably a few more, if I can keep at it.

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This is the “potential” cover for the next Janelle Becker book. It’s called Topheth and is about a serial arsonist burning churches.

The story is taking a little while longer to write than I’d anticipated. For some reason, I’ve had a  hard time getting into it, even though I think the work is quite good. I suppose this is where discipline comes in. BIC is a hard taskmaster!