Shannon Eichorn's Blog, page 4

ROU Bonus Material: Doppelgaenger

I wrote this during the last draft of Rights of Use, when I was trying to understand the Doppelgaenger’s motivation and state of mind.

The queens killed me like they did every little thing: artistically. Six incisions on each arm. One coiled around my wrist like a bracelet. Five more radiated away and up my arm, as if a charm on said bracelet glowed. They were arranged, of course, by size of Itavian heartworm, which is the only known vascular parasite to infect humans. Normally, these kind of parasites require mosquitoes to incubate larvae, I’m told, and normally, heartworms don’t infect humans. But these ones are special. They’re older than the Kemtewet species, having not been made by humans, as the Kem were, but coming from Earth, like all the humans, hence their name.

Some time after civilization left Earth, the Itavian heartworm mutated to infect humans. They weren’t a huge nuisance and were easily addressed by our ancient (post-Earth) medicine. They were almost wiped out.

Neith cultivates them, because Kem can serve the same role as the mosquito. And they clog up the symbiont’s vascular system, too. It’s a slow, painful, self-sustaining death for both host and tewet.

Unless somebody finds a teleporter.

That’s why it’s still not a big deal anywhere but here in the Central Palace, where there are both prisoners and queens—those who can be banned from teleport access.

The incisions where they implanted the adult worms were artistic in their prickly, seeping way. The injection sites for the larvae, less so, although they were geometric. A ring of five and a center. Five queens and the Empress.

Review: Trail of Lightning

4 stars

This book is a good read, ending in mild book hangover. It went by too fast. The plot was built solidly on characters being themselves and interacting with each other, with a deep theme of identity and relationships. Still, I wanted to explore the characters and their world more than the blinding pace allowed. The world building is a fresh brand of apocalyptic, with a new take on magic in urban fantasy. The characters were textured and immersive, and the dialogue flowed naturally. I read 75% of the book in the first sitting, but I was utterly captured on page 255. From that point, none of the relationships can be simple again. Recommended to anyone who loves urban fantasy but has trouble remembering which series is which; this one, you won’t forget.

Goodreads links for Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

NaNoWriMo 2018

I’m trying out my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which typically challenges new, would-be authors to write a complete first draft of a novel that’s 50,000 words long in the 30 days of November.

Ever since I heard of NaNo, I’ve had excuses:

I’m too busy with engineering school.
I’m too stressed at work.
I know I max out at 750 words in a work day; I’ll never make 1666.
I’m editing a book, and it’s not the right time to write that many new words.

This year felt right, even though I’m bending the “rules” to write draft “3” of a novel. I’m in a word-production mode, and I need to get them out fast.

And it’s working.

As you can see, I’m not making the NaNo count everyday, but I’m making a lot of progress a lot faster than I ever have. That’s worth celebrating.

Then again, I’m targeting Laws Among Friends to be 100k, right about as long as Rights of Use. Since the NaNo goal is 50k, I needed to set a higher goal for the book I actually plan to finish. Here’s me also not keeping track with the much lighter goal. And with a head start when I pregamed November.

But, as you can see on that last graph, I’m getting close to back on track for the long goal. This one estimates when I’ll cross over to meet the long goal by almost meeting the NaNo goal.

I think we all have an intuitive understanding of what days of the week just don’t work, but I wanted to see it. Especially because I have no justification for Thursdays or Mondays.

But this is the one I work off of. This is the one that uses real data and tells me whether I’m in danger of not hitting the total word count–or going over. The two-digit scene numbers are the ones that got added in the writing that weren’t planned: 4 of 10 so far–which is statistically huge. You can also see that the latest cumulative average word count per scene is in between the word counts needed for 90k and 100k–which is right where I need it to be.

Of course, that assumes that no more scenes get added and the average word count stays about the same. Both are bad assumptions, but this was a reasonably helpful tool during the last few revisions of Rights of Use, especially when Cleveland Writers Press asked for an extra 50% length in 3 months.

The last graph below shows why the “word count is the same” assumption is pretty bad. As you can see, scenes in Rights of Use (as of July 2017) were all over the place, anywhere from 65 words to 4,700 words. The cumulative average was highly influence by the beginning (as cumulative averages always are) and outliers (…what a surprise…), but this was the data (and motivation) I needed to make sure I hit the 95k – 110k range I was given.

Obviously, it didn’t make me structure my scenes consistently or any such nonsense, but it did encourage me to be more descriptive. Believe it or not, that’s what the book needed, going from draft 10 to draft 11.

I know I waste a lot of time on graphs, but believe it or not, this really motivates me. I’ve gotten much done because of it.

Now, back to the draft… I have another implantation to write.

Review: Steel Magic

4 stars

This book is suspenseful and fun: part adventure, part thriller, and part a collection of stable but messy relationships. The plot carried me through the pages, but the relatable characters kept me engaged. The world building is fresh and surprising and makes you think about the turns in this alternate history. The dialogue is sassy, pointed, and fun. This is a good book to fall in love with. Recommended as a new adult journey.

Find out more on Goodreads

 

Review: A Book Without Dragons

4 stars

This book makes you think about the tradeoffs of striving for peace, of “slaying dragons.” The plot is deceptively meandering. Be prepared for both pleasantness and gut wrenching. The main idea was unusual, well considered, and expertly executed. The characters were relatable and human, and the dialogue flowed naturally. It’s very well constructed and a worthwhile read, but I would have difficulty rereading it. If you need an escape that puts your problems in a perspective and asks you to reevaluate, this is it.

Find out more on Goodreads

 

Magical World of “Edits are Done”

Every time I repeat the phrase, “Edits are done,” I feel like I’ve stepped into a magical world. I’ve said this time after time, revision after revision, but there’s always been an unstated, “Until someone tells me I have to rewrite again.” The fact that this time it’s final (or as final as it gets before everyone has print copies in their hands) isn’t just an alternate reality.

This is straight-up magic.

It bends the laws that have governed my world since 2007, when I started revisions. Clearly, I have left the real world. This book really is going to be Done. Not next year. Not “sometime.”

August 28.

Then I can wholeheartedly move on to all the stories that had my heart in 2007, all the ones I spent all this time laying the foundation for. If I were traditionally publishing, a note of fear would chime in here, saying, “They’ll kill your project when it’s not good enough. They’ll tell you to move on, maybe now, and you have only one other heart-idea.”

But that’s not my reality, either. Now, the worst that will happen (and it will happen repeatedly) is that someone will tell me it’s not financially viable to continue the series.

I’ll be able to laugh at the series death spiral.

My writing doesn’t have to be financially viable. I can keep my day job if I have to. It’s a good place to be. And I can write book 11 for the last five people who want to experience it with me.

Maybe I won’t ever get there. Maybe I’ll find other heart-stories and get sidetracked. That decision will be in my hands. For once, the floor has dropped out from beneath my fear, and…

I’m back in the present, knowing that everyone else gets to start this wild ride with me at last.

June Status: Rights of Use

It’s been five months since the last status post. Since then, I’ve:

started a publishing company (www.astrainvicta.com)
gotten rights back for Rights of Use
started a mailing list
commissioned cover art from the immensely talented Mallory Rock of Rock Solid Book Design
worked through copy edits
tested out self-publishing with a short story, “This Alien Sympathy”
and started revising book 2, Laws Among Friends (and its three accompanying short stories)

It turns out that I love self publishing. I’m not saying I’m a control freak, but…

…but maybe the day-job project management work over the last few years rubbed off a little. And Karen M. Herkes‘s philosophy of “If I’m going to kill trees, it’s going to be beautiful.”

I started off intimidated by the self publishing process. There are so many how-to aids and so many people offering help, I figured it must have a lot of pitfalls. But once I got the tasks ordered and let it percolate in my brain? I hate to say it, but it’s really not rocket science. Like rocket science, it’s a goal with a series of steps that can be broken down into sub-steps and ancillary issues and decisions and trade-offs, and I’m very comfortable at that point.

It’s comforting knowing I can make all the aspects I care about nigh perfect. Sure, no one else is going to help (unless I pay them), but I can dig into all of it myself. Honestly, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

Wiki: The Grand Empire

The Grand Empire of [[who’s ruling today, again?]] is a three-planet system used as the Kemtewet penal colony.

Wiki: Tewet

Tewet are a species of genetically-engineered aliens adapted from aquatic parasites on a water world at (0.5, 0, 0). They were developed to be biological memory augmentation devices, but they developed unexpected self awareness after general release.

Most of the prototype variations died out or were eradicated except for the Kemtewet. Gertewet are all that remain of the general release.

Wiki: Kemtewet Empire Political Structure

The Kemtewet Empire is ruled by an Empress. The outlying worlds are comprised of five kingdoms. Each king has a capital world and manages five lords, who each manage three planets.

Control of the lords’ planets and kingdoms passes to whichever Kemtewet can hold it. Turnover is frequent, and lords and kings need no retirement plans. The Empress will rarely intercede.

The Empress assigns each king custody of a queen, who has no overt power and who is not permitted to vie for a fiefdom. However, only queens may vie for the Imperial throne. The throne changes hands by assassination, but the new Empress takes the name of Neith, such that these transitions of power are largely transparent to the Kemtewet public.