P.C. Haring's Blog, page 8

Countdown to Slipspace: Harbinger

Hello there!

I am very pleased to report that the final stages are well under way for the release of Slipspace: Harbinger!   This past week has seen the both the cover art and the eBook layout finalized.   Review copies have also been sent out to the first round of reviewers.   On that note, if you know of any reviewers who might be interested in an independently published space opera, please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an E-mail with some contact information.

Stay tuned!  There’s more to come.  In the next few days and weeks I’ll be revealing the cover, announcing the live date, and possibly teasing you with an excerpt or two.   Though not necessarily in that order.

Until then!

Welcome to P.C. Haring.net v.2.0

 

Hello there and welcome to P.C. Haring.net!

This is version 2.0 and I’m glad you’re here!   Although it is up and running now, this site is still under development and expansion over the coming days, weeks and months.   As always P.C. Haring.net will be the home of all my written and audio work.  It will also, eventually serve as the home of Off The Deep End Multimedia’s web presence.

More news and content is coming soon.  But in the meantime, feel free to connect with me on social media.  The links to the right point you to my personal sites around the web.  If you are interested, there is a Facebook page for the Fans of P.C. Haring, which can be accessed here- The Fans of P.C. Haring on Facebook

 

Because I can….

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Unvagueing the Vague

So, if you were hanging around my Facebook page on September 1, 2015, you might have seen the following post –

A tough day today and its not even dinner. Been left with a lot to think about.   My thanks to  Jen ,  Tee Morris ,  Veronica Giguere , and my friend Melissa in particular for helping me through the latest fight with my insecurities.   Fear not, my friends. All is well. Just too much to detail out at the moment.

Pretty vague, I know, and the post I put up the following day, to try and clarify/expand on it, did no benefit and after another random hit of the facebook ‘memories’ posting, I went 3 for three on vaguebooking.   Now, two months later, I am finally ready to unvauge that post, and to get into some detail.

John Lenon once said “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans,” and until this past summer, I don’t think I had a proper appreciation for those words.

When I produced the full cast of CYBROSIS in 2008 and 2009, my life was in a completely different place than it is today. It was a lot less active and I had considerably more time on my hands. Six years later, this is no longer the case. Both my personal life and my day job demands have grown in ways I never anticipated and the endless hours I once had, are quickly drying up.

Case in point, the full cast of Slipspace Harbinger has been ‘in production’ for the better part of a year and a half already, and all I have to show for it is two chapters complete. At this rate, if nothing changed, production would take two decades if not longer.   It has been a slog, and has thus far produced more stress and frustration than joy and accomplishment and after a while, it felt more like a stressful chore than a fun vocational project. Add to that the lack of writing new content while I fight the production clock and the fact that as I get older, my personal life will only get more complex, and you, dear reader, can see where this is going.

With all of this in mind, I have chosen to cancel the full cast audio production of Slispace Harbinger.

This was not an easy decision. Those closest to me who saw me through this thought process will tell you I was wrecked for days while I mulled it over, came to the decision and then assimilated it. I feel as though I have failed. I have failed myself, the amazing cast, and most importantly, I have failed you.

It has been almost six years since the first chapter of CYBROSIS went live. In this business, a six year gap might as well be a death knell, unless your name is Martin or Rowling. As I looked at the cause of that gap, aside from a two year break due to professional certifications, I realized the main cause of the issue, was finding time to work with the audio.   It was an untenable situation, one that was stressing me out far more than I realized and something that needed to be addressed.

So… where does that leave things? If I’m not full cast podcasting my fiction, what’s left? Well…. Quite a bit.

First, the audio portion of my fiction is NOT dead.   It is just changing.   Yes, the full cast will not be happening, however I will, eventually, contract the audio to third party narrators and will produce a single narrator read of my works.   This production will still take time (and cash), but once it gets moving, will take far less time than full cast.

Further, abandoning the idea of full cast, as well as the associated idea of releasing all formats of my books at the same time, has freed me up to push on text releases.   With that in mind, over the last two months, I have gone over the next full length novel – Slipspace Harbinger for a final polish edit.   As of yesterday, it is now in the hands of my copy editor.   Layout and cover design is on tap for early 2016 and with a little bit of luck, I am projecting that this title will be available for sale in May of 2016. The audio production of the book is penciled in, however there is no time table on it as of yet, as that will depend on funding.   But when that audio does release, I intend to make it available in multiple formats.

There’s also been a bit of behind the scenes planning and organizing. I’ve been consolidating my ideas and brainstorms, and putting schedules and budgets into place so that as we move into 2016, the work I produce through Off The Deep End Multimedia will drop on a much more regular basis.

Funding is a concern, yes.  At this time there are no plans for a paetron or a kickstarter, however I will NOT rule those out for sometime in the future.   There is also the possibility that I may come back to the mic for a more regular non-fiction based podcast.   However, that is still in very early stages of brainstorming at this time.

So, that’s about it, for now. There is more to come as I finalize the timeline for the Harbinger release and things currently on the drawing board crystalize and develop.

 

Until then!

Beneath Northumberland

Taking pity on the plucky intern in the Archives of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences might not have been the best choice for Agent Brandon Hill. What seemed like a simple kindness has brought him to the bottom of the Northumberland Straight, and into a very peculiar kind of Canadian danger.

The Center Track 003 – De-railed

I have a confession to make.

I haven’t written anything in months.

Truth.

I had some excellent momentum coming out of the Smokey Writers Retreat I attended back in February and when that week of being away from the world produced 25,000 words in Huntress (my now four times re-started work in process), I thought I had cleared the hurdle this story had presented to me. But I was wrong.

Despite my efforts to write on my train commute to and from my office, and despite my efforts to force myself to write, even when I didn’t feel up to it, I fell off the wagon. Yes, life got in the way. My health got screwy; my treatment needed time to work. (Yes I’m fine, no nothing disastrous is going to happen to me any time soon.) But even though that, I could have found time to plunk down 250 words a day. Hell this blog post so far is 160. But I didn’t . I chose not to. I wrote here and there, yes. But when it came down to a disciplined writing regime, I didn’t even try.

I had hoped that Balticon would give me that push I needed. The weekend was awesome and I have no major complaints about the Balticon weekend. But the creative explosion I had been counting on… did not happen.

Yes, I’ve been working. I’ve been recording narration for the next podcast like mad and should be on track to be wrapped with recording before Mid-June. Production will take time, but at least the audio will have been recorded.

But written composition of fiction… has been flat lined.   I’ve fallen out of the habit, lost what little discipline I had developed and I have once again, fallen off the horse.

So, it’s back to basics. The idea of jumping back in and plunking down 750 words a day is daunting, given how long I’ve been out of it. So I’m back to it from square one. Huntress needs to be finished even if it is utter crap. I’ve left myself a few tidbits to work with and I can pick up where I left off. I’m resetting my quota to 250 words a day, and I’ll work up to the 750 mark I want.   Hopefully… I can get back on the horse.

Time will tell.

Balticon Test

This is a test post to be deleted

#WritingWednesday – Retreating

Hello out there in the internets!  As I compose this, I am only a day back in town after an amazing ten day vacation.  I started in the Washington DC area visiting Tee Morris, Philippa Ballantine, and K.T. Bryski (who herself was in town visiting Tee and Pip and no this was not coinciedence).  My foray into the nation’s capital was brief, far more so than I would have liked, however the brevity of my thirteen hour visit was both unavoiadable and necessary.

The following morning, I piled into the car with Pip and KT and we made the drive from DC to just outside of Pigeon forge Tennessee for the second annual Smokey Writers retreat.  I was very excited to be invitedfor the second year, and have been really looking forward to this trip ever since preliminary planning began almost a year ago.

The group rented out a cabin in the smokey mountains for the week, brought in enough food to feed a small army, enough alchohol to have a LOT of stories to tell, and tucked in for the better part of a week to write and share our creative energies with like minded individuals.

As far as retreats go, (at least so far as I have come to understand as this was the first one I have attended) this 8 day event was quite laid back in terms of format and scheduling.  Approximately eight hours of every day was reserved as quiet time where the cabin turned into a designated writing space.  We shared our writing in small groups every night before dinner  and then sat back, relaxed and chilled out until the wee hours.

Personally, I had an amazing week.  I’ve always suspected that the occasional change of scenery and environment can be good for the creative muse and this past week has shown me the strongest evidence, that my susupicion was correct.  Of the 8 day retreat, only 6 and a half of them were productive for me in terms of writing, due mostly to travel issues and incliment weather.  (Driving in white out conditions in the mountains isn’t the best of ideas ya know…)  However ove the course of that week I plowed through over 25,000 words in the final first draft of Hunter.  (I realy need to find a better title).  Although scrapping and re-starting that piece was painful, the week or so of world building and re-designing of characters and plot elements provided invaluable and I’m proud of the first draft work thus far.  Edits will be needed, obviously, I’m comfortble enough with the piece to push forward with it.

Aside from the healthy chunk of words written, I got a small dose of the life of a full time writer. Granted, it wasa little more regimented than I suspect I’d be if this were my permanent vocation but it was a nice, safe and comfortable way for me to get a feel for it and get a sense of what I could actually do in terms of writing when I remained fully focused.

I’ll let you do the math and average out the word count if you’re so inclined, but suffice to say I already have.  I’ve seen the best production day as well as the worst, and I’m very excited by what it says about me as a writer.  Over the past few months, as I fight and wrangle with Hunter I have found myself wondering more and more if I had tapped out, if I had ran out of ideas worth turning into projects worth sharing.  This past week has proven that, at least for now, that answer is “no”.

New ideas are formulating.  Older half baked brainstorms are getting missing pieces fit in and I am very excited by what this creative re-charge has done for me and my outlook.

So, with all this said, where do I go from here?  What’s next?  Well- As you might imagine, dear reader, work on Hunter (REALLY need a better title) will continue.  The pace of the word count will slow, but nothing can be done about that and even with that in mind, I should be on track to finish the draft by mid July at the latest.  Also, now that I’m getting thigns caught up, and my scheudle is settling down (kinda), I look forward to firing up the studio mics once again and getting the production laptop set hard to work cruncing audio for Slipspace: Harbinger.

So, that’s it from me this week.  Tune in next week for another update as I get this proverbial train rolling down the tracks.

Until Next time!

#Writing Wednesday – The Center Track 002

The Ride in to work on 2/18/15

Today, my #WritingWednesday post intersects with the Center Track.  As I’m riding into the sunrise on my way to work, I find my mind wandering to where I will be three days from now.  I will be in the company of amazing friends, family by some definitions.  We’ll be chatting, joking, laughing and having a grand time as we pile into the car on our road trip.

I leave this weekend for a 10 day writing retreat.  It’s been in the works for the better part of a year.  I was very excited and honored to be invited and have been counting down the days like a kid in December waiting for Christmas to come, my anticipation growing with each passing day.    Come Friday morning I’m probably going to be so emotionally closed off at my day job they’re going to think I’m upset.  But I know the truth… I’m bursting at the seams and if I let it out… the genie won’t be re-bottled.

I’ll be taking three projects with me.

The first is the start of the final first draft of Huntress.  That title probably will change, but I’ve spent the past week re-tooling characters and brainstorming new plot threads.  It seems fitting to start this at the retreat and I expect that I can make a significant dent in word count and bury myself into it if I can stay focused long enough.

The second project is that I’ll be bringing the first draft of Virtuality: A Codename CIRIS Conspiracy with me for edits.  I don’t think it’s ready for beta readers quite yet and there are some parts I want to both re-write and clean up and it feels like a great partner to the Huntress draft, balancing the creative writing process of Huntress to a more analytical and critical review of a piece already put together.

Some of you might be wondering why I’m not bringing the Slipspace Book 2 edits, and that’s a pefectly valid question.  The bottom line there, is that I’m waiting to work up Book 2 until I’ve finished more production on Book 1.  I find that the podcast sometimes influences edits in the manuscript and on the off chance something important (or something minor that becomes important later) gets changed.  I want to make sure there’s consistency.

The third project is still classified, but I will tell you that it’s a Co-authored short story to be added to an anthology.  Both my Co-author and the Anthology’s Co-editor will be in attendance at this retreat and the opportunity to put three heads together (with a fourth potentially on skype) all in the same room at the same time is too good to not take advantage of.

I’m also taking some research with me.  While not an official project as yet, I am brainstorming some new ideas and will be taking research with me to help supplement those thoughts.  Mostly they’re in the form of both fiction and non fiction reading (thank you my Kindle App), but I fully anticipate having time for some quiet reading here and there.

And then of course there are the ideas that are going to crop up at the retreat that I’m totally unaware of as yet.  Looking forward to those too.

So… there it is.  The past week or two has been focused on preparation for the retreat and making sure I have my ideas and thoughts in order.  The actual word count this month has been anemically low thus far but with six days incoming of hard, intense writing and another three of travel that should afford me some productive time …  I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be making up for lost time in droves.

So… wish me luck and I’ll catch you later!

The Center Track – 0001

January 30, 2014

Today I begin this new blog series.  My day job recently changed and with that so to did my commuting.  Now instead of driving in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour each way to work, I now comfortably ride a commuter train.  More often than not I’m able to catch a train that is, in some way an express line to and from work.  When the train is ‘expressing’ it rides the center track, leaving the tracks on either side open for the local trains that stop at the stations mine bypasses.

The idea for this series is due in no small part to my friend and mentor, Tee Morris’ “Stranger on a Train” series and it is in that light that I now write.  Posts in “The Center Track” will be composed while on the train, they will be stream of thought, and they will be posted almost immediately after  writing them.  (or as soon as I can get the iPad to a WiFi Connection).  *Authors note Feb, 1 – This one is obviously delayed.* They will also be infrequent, though other blog posts will fill in those gaps, as this series fills in gaps for others.

Today I’m running late.  This is, of course, not ideal, but taking the later train into work has allowed me to experience the morning sunrise- something I haven’t seen or enjoyed in earnest in quite some time.  That’s the down side of the 6:00 AM commute in the midwestern winter.  It seems fitting in a way that is both highly cliche and some how proper, in my romanticized view of the world, fitting that I experience this today, because today is yet another new beginning.  

I will be scrapping Hunter and re-starting it for what I believe is the 6th time.

Writing this manuscript has been a slog, of that there’s no doubt.  But sometime earlier this week, as I was putting words down on the train I realized what was was wrong with the manuscript in it’s current form.  It wasn’t the setting nor was it the plot.  It wasn’t the characters nor was it the action.  It was the perspectivce.  The characters were simply on the wrong side.  I won’t go into a lot of detail on that, but when I realized that my characters needed a change in vocation in order to make this work properly, more pieces fell into place.  Yesterday after an impromptu brainstorm session with a friend and fellow author, more pieces fell into place and I realized that the book would need a new outline. 

I am okay with this.  Yes, it is a setback, but as I brainstorm the new details, the larger picture crystalizes in my head in a way I have yet to experience with this manuscript and as I start re-working things, I have vowed to myself that this will be the final time I re-start this manuscript.

Serously.  This is it.  

I need to either finish this project or move on.  I’m six attempts at a first draft into it, and if I can’t make it work this time, I’m going to drawer the concept and revisit it at a later date.  

I confess it’s a little frustrating to have to throw out potentially all of the 50,000 words I’ve written and start from scratch.  Sure some scenes will be salvagable and some will not.  But sometimes, this is the way the process works.  I’ve been very lucky to put together five manuscripts that have been relatively easy to do.  (coming soon!)  I suppose it’s okay that my sixth one is a highly stubborn piece.  I know two colleagues off the top of my head who are or were in similiar situations with one of their works in process.  So I know I”m in good company.  Sometimes this is the way it goes.  

So, as the train pulls in to the station, I’m looking at this as a challenge.  

Lets see if I can finally get this right.