Ryan Schneider's Blog, page 6

Game of Thrones meets Dune?

"Game of Thrones meets Dune?"  You be the judge. Award-winning author Nicholas C. Rossis is heating up the charts in the realm of epic fantasy and sci-fi. For a strictly limited time, you can get the first novel of his best-selling series, Pearseus, for FREE. What is it about? It's New Year's Eve, the year of 2099, but the distinguished guests aboard the Pearseus won't get to countdown seconds; soon they'll be counting bodies and survivors after the spaceship's crash landing on another planet.

The good news? The planet is seemingly hospitable both in resources and in terms of the natives' attitude towards earthlings.

The bad news? They might have come on this planet bare of possessions, but what they haven't been able to shed are the shortcomings of their human nature. Will that be the sole threat to a unified future, or is the new land and its first inhabitants not as innocent as they look?

Schism is the prequel to the Amazon best-selling series, Pearseus. To get your free copy, just visit  nicholasrossis.com

Today's Typo #9

Roselle Park councilwoman quits over 'Christmas' tree lighting

"It came down to the addition of a single word..."
It certainly did.In the first sentence of the article.
Full article here:http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2015/12/roselle_park_councilwoman_quits_over_tree_lighting.html

10 Questions with Writer Gwyneth Jones (@AnnHalam)

This Author Spotlightfeatures
Gwyneth Jones
author of
Grasshopper's Child



Gwyneth Jones was born in Manchester, England. She took an undergraduate degree at the University of Sussex, in History of Ideas (with Latin), specializing in seventeenth-century Europe, which gave her a taste for studying the structure of  scientific revolutions, and societies (scientific and otherwise) in phase transition; a background that still resonates in her work. 
She's written many genre novels for teenagers, mostly using the pseudonym Ann Halam, and several highly regarded science fiction novels for adults, notably the Aleutian Trilogy: White Queen, North Wind, and Phoenix Café; Life, the fictional biography of a woman scientist of genius, and the ‘near-future fantasy’ series, Bold As Love based on alternative cultures, horrific new science, revolution and rock music in a darkening world. 
Collections of her critical writings and essays ‘Deconstructing The Starships’ and ‘Imagination/Space’ appeared in 1999 and 2011 respectively. She has also published short story collections, ‘The Universe Of Things’, ‘The Buonarotti Quartet’ (USA), and ‘Gravegoods’ (UK).
Among other honors she has won the Arthur C. Clarke award, the Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the BSFA short story award, the Children Of The Night award, and the Pilgrim Lifetime Achievement award for SF criticism. Several stories and essays are available free on line at http://www.gwynethjones.uk/ . She practices yoga, and has done some extreme tourism in her time. Hobbies include watching old movies, playing Zelda and staring out of the window.
1.How did you get into writing and why do you write?
My father told terrific bedtime stories. His best work was based on a fairytale (lots of variants, but it’s the one where a girl discovers she once had seven brothers, who were turned into crows and driven away: and she sets off in search of them). Instead of heading straight for the happy ending, after a short sequence of perils, the adventures just went on and on. We loved it.  When I took over from my dad I added my own twists to the formula. I kept the folklore, but I mixed-in science fiction, and er, popular cultural references. The Avengers, our favourite tv programme, was a great source of inspiration. I’m still doing the same now. I wrote my first story for pay (children’s page in our local newspaper) when I was fourteen. When I found out that I loved shaping and crafting a story that would stay on the page, even more than I loved making it up as I went along, I was hooked for life. Why do I write? Really it’s always for my own entertainment first. But I think any proper craftsperson should be able to say that.
Janis Ian has said something like “practicing the arts isn’t a way to make a living, it’s a way to make life bearable”. I think that’s a good corrective to the idea that you have to be making money or your writing is worthless. But I’d say “wonderful”, instead of “bearable”.
2.What do you like best (or least) about writing?
Getting stuck. That will do for least and best. It’s agonising when something isn’t working, and you just can’t see how to fix the problem. Bliss when suddenly it all glides into place. Not infrequently, this miracle happens overnight. Our dreams, Aristotle said, are the continuation of our thoughts in sleep. Without the anxious censor of conscious attention,  problem solving is so much easier sometimes.
3.What is your writing process? IE do you outline? Do you stick to a daily word or page count, write 7 days a week, etc?
I have a compelling idea. That’s absolutely essential. You can unpack a whole story from a single good idea. Then I hack out an outline,  ruthlessly forcing myself to get the story  from A to B, some way or other. Then I start writing. I write very fast,  and then I revise endlessly. Sometimes I get obsessed, and  I will write night and day, 7 days a week. Other times I’ll have a sensible schedule. There’s no set pattern.
4.Who are some other writers you read and admire, regardless of whether they are commercially “successful?”
Off the top of my head: Charlotteand Emily Brontë (I’ve just been re-reading the Brontës)  Karen Jay Fowler, Monica Byrne, Nalo Hopinkson. Scarlett Thomas is a great discovery. Donna Tartt. I also love H.P Lovecraft, Arthur Machen and Sheridan Le Fanu. I’ve just finished reading Cixin Liu’s “The Three Body Problem”. It’s not perfect, but I enjoyed it very much. Ken Liu did a great job on the translation: I was so glad he let the book, the characters and the storytelling stay properly Chinese.
5.Should the question mark in the above question be inside or outside the quotes?
You don’t need the quotes & that solves that.
6.What’s your stance on the Oxford Comma?
Huh? I googled it (actually I didn’t Google it, I use a search engine that doesn’t track me). There certainly does seem to be an issue! Punctuation is something I may take up, and try to understand, when I’m very old and wise. Until then, I just throw in a lot of those little marks at first, and take most of them out again in the final draft.
7.What is your book Grasshopper’s Child about and how did it come to fruition?
The Grasshopper’s Child is about a young girl, Heidi Ryan, whose sweet, feckless father has been murdered. Her mother, who has mental health issues, is the obvious suspect, and Heidi has legally become the property of the loan company, to pay off her father’s debts. She’s sent to be the slavey-housekeeper for an eccentric old couple, in a seaside village (in Sussex where I live), and meets the other reject teens in the area. Able-bodied teens are sent off to compulsory agricultural labour camps, because there’s no power for the machinery any more. It’s a mystery, a horror story, and a futuristic thriller, set in the same world as my Bold As Love series, but this time it’s about young adults, their friendships, and how they cope in a terrifying future that (in many ways) might well be ours. Although the three main Bold As Love characters do have cameo roles.
I tried to get it published traditionally, or mainstreamly, but in the end I had to accept it couldn’t be done, not without changes I didn’t want to make. So I brought it out myself.
8.What’s your current writing project?
I’m doing a sci-fi novella for Tor.com, and I’ve signed up to write a monograph on Joanna Russ for the University of Illinois New Masters Of Science Fiction series. The reading for the latter is going to keep me pretty busy for a while.
9.What book(s) are you currently reading?
The Brontës’ Web Of Childhood, Fannie Elizabeth RatchfordA Shepherd’s Life, James RebanksA River Runs Again, Meera Subramanian
And my bedtime story is The Lord Of The Rings. I haven’t read TLOR for a long, long time. It’s a bit disconcerting, like going back to where you lived as a child. Everything does seem smaller. But I’m still finding a lot to like, and to admire.
10.Who or what inspires your writing?
Everything, anything. If it’s happening to me; if it’s happening to my world, I’m probably getting fleeting ideas for a story about it. When one of these ideas becomes compelling, that’s when I start writing something new.
Finally, is there anything you’d care to add? Please also include where people can read your published stories, buy your book, etc.
A lot of my books,  including The Bold As Love series, The Grasshopper’s Child, and my “Ann Halam” ghost stories, are available as my own re-edited ebooks, in the usual retail venues. I also have some books with The Aqueduct Press http://www.aqueductpress.com/authors/GwynethJones.phpYou can read stories & novel samples free online, and find out more about all my books, at my website http://www.gwynethjones.uk/
Email:  gwyneth.jones@ntlworld.com  Websites: http://www.boldaslove.co.uk http://www.gwynethjones.uk/
Gwyneth Jones tweets at @AnnHalam


Thank you, Gwyneth, for sharing your books and your writing life with us. Please visit with us again in the future when you have new books to share.
There you have it, gang. Words of wisdom from another big-time, award-winning writer. Be sure to visit Gwyneth's website to check out her free samples and purchase a copy of Grasshopper's Child today!

#NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 30 ... WINNER!

Day 30

Yay!
I wrote a lot and reached 74,802 words when it was time to validate the manuscript on the NaNoWriMo website. I actually signed up for NaNoWriMo this year on November 3rd, three days after it began. I therefore wondered if I could continue NaNoWriMo for an additional 3 days, writing until December 3rd, which would give me a chance to actually complete the novel. 
My first goal was to write 50,000 words.
My second goal was to reach 60,000 words.
My third goal was to complete the novel. I'm very close.
So those three days would've helped a lot.
I therefore contacted Grant Faulkner on Twitter. Grant is the Executive Director of NaNoWriMo. I figured he would know. So I asked him if the three-day rule would apply (start from the bottom):

Grant was very gracious and of course the whole thing was very tongue-in-cheek. Thanks, Grant, for being a good sport!
So, the writing continues. I didn't get started writing today as early as I would have liked (today was grocery today), but as of 1:30 a.m., I've written 10,084 words. I'm almost certain that is a one-day Personal Best for me. The manuscript total word count as of now is 84,884.
The goal now is to string together as many of these 10K-word days as possible consecutively.
So how did your #NaNoWriMo2015 wrap up?
No matter what, just as Grant said in his tweet, KEEP WRITING!!!!!
"A writer writes. Always!"

#NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 29

Day 29
6000 words today. Trying to get the book complete... so trying... was up til 4:00 a.m. again.
Still tomorrow...
Still tomorrow...
Still tomorrow.........

#NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 28

Day 28
Yesterday was an interesting day of writing.
I didn't get started as soon as I would have liked, but I still managed to get 4859 words, bringing the novel's total to 61,054.
That means I accomplished my goal of reaching 50,000 words.
I also accomplished my goal of reaching 60,000 words.
My final goal is to complete the novel.
I have no idea how many words the completed novel will come out to. Doesn't really matter. I'm thinking maybe another 15,000 - 20,000.
The question now is if I can complete the story between now and tomorrow. Because as stated above, the goal was to complete the novel during NaNoWriMo, to see if I could do it.
I had to stay up til 4:00 a.m. to accomplish yesterday's writing session. And I've written about 2000 words so far today. But it's no longer about word count so much as it is honoring the wishes of the story and its players.
So two days left in this year's NaNoWriMo.
I hope you're accomplishing your goal(s).
Keep writing.
You can do it.

#NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Days 26 & 27

Days 26 & 27
This will be a quick blog post. We should all be putting the majority of our time, thought, focus, strength, courage, belief, and love for what we do into our story, for we have THREE more days, including today.
The past two days have been good days of writing; 5000 words both days. My word count is now 56,195, so once I've uploaded the manuscript it will qualify for "winning". Yay!
But my goal was to not only write (at least) 60,000 words but to also FINISH my novel during NaNoWriMo. That remains a possibility. Hence the brevity of this post.  Three days... Less than 4000 words to reach 60,000... But the story definitely won't be complete in 4000 words. Maybe 14,000. Maybe. Probably more like 24,000, which would require 8000 words each day for the next three days.500-1000 words per hour means that would require 8 to 16 hours of writing per day. That's a lot.
How many words do you have remaining? Do the math; divide it by three to determine how many words you need to write each day, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
You can do it.
Print two copies of this Writer At Work thing and put one directly in front of your face where you write and the other one on the door of the room in which you write.


And here's a pretty Love Calendar made by someone named Margie I found on Google. Thanks, Margie!!!

NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 25

Day 25
First, HAPPY THANKSGIVING if you're in the USA. For those outside the USA, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HAPPY AUTUMN, HAPPY THURSDAY!
Second, NaNoWriMo2015 is quickly wrapping up.Less than a week to go. I hope everyone is on track to reach 50k. I'm still aiming for 60k. We'll see what happens in the coming days. My goal is to finish this book and have it be 60,000 words. But we'll see what the story dictates, as the story is ultimately the final arbiter of word count. I don't believe in artificially-imposed word counts based on industry standards. If your YA Romance is 130,000 words and the plot and story and characterization are solid, then there's no need to edit your manuscript down to 80,000 words merely because of the perception that young adults aren't capable of reading anything longer than 80,000 words. That is stupid. Order of the Phoenix is quite long. That's only one example.
But at this stage, don't worry or even think too much about word counts. Focus on letting your characters roam about and say all kinds of weird stuff. Let the story tell itself. The word count will fall into place later.
Finally, I feel it is important to discuss back-ups. Are you guys backing up your data? You've spent nearly a month writing a new novel, which is an impressive feat. So make sure you have it backed up and saved in at least two places. At least once a week, at a MINIMUM, save it to your external hard drive if that's what you do. Save it to your USB drive/SD card every day or two after writing if that's what you do, if perhaps you have a little flash drive or SD card especially for your writing. Email it to yourself. That's what I did a minute ago. I sent myself an email with seven different files attached, all pertaining to this NaNoWriMo2015 project. I'm not certain which of those seven documents I've added to since my previous back-up; certainly the outline document, the first draft document, perhaps also the character outline document... So it's easier to simply highlight all seven in the folder and attach them to an email and send them to myself. Each time I do this, I write Back-up #2, #3, #4, etc in the subject of the email. That way, if you ever need to access the data, you simply go back to the most recent email, the one with the highest #, and open it in order to grab what you want. Easy.
Having your data backed up offers peace of mind. Do it regularly. If you're not already, BEGIN NOW. Right this minute. Go do it and come back to this blog post. If you're already conducting regular back-ups, well done; continue to do so. My friend and fellow writer Harvey Noble always says that he recommends backing up the writing at the close of each day's writing session. It is a way to protect the art you've just created. It is also a symbolic act of honoring your craft.
So, we'll move on from here. (Harvey often says that, too.)
NaNoWriMo2015 Day 26 today. We should be at or above 43,333 words as of today. Four more days!!! Can you believe it! But don't focus on that; focus on continuing to write. You can do it!

#NaNoWriMo2015 Diary -- Day 24

Day 24
Holy schnikeys, day 24!!!
Wow. It was just day... 5 not that long ago.
Writing today was good... 2119 words, which brought me to 42,523. Not as far along as I'd hoped, but still ahead of schedule.
There were several days of research, a lot of listening to music and reading about music, mostly from the 80s, and trying to get the prose just so.
Today I finally pushed past that chunk of research-dependent story and wrote the next scene, which at first I was thrilled and frightened by, and which I then questioned if it should even be in the story at all, but which I went ahead and wrote. Lo and behold I am amazed at what took shape. Not yet sure how it's all going to fit together, but that's not something to fret over now.
Now is the time to go for it, to let the story rip, to push through the dreaded middle everyone is always whining about.
I don't want to get into all that. Focus on having fun and continuing to follow your characters around all day, transcribing what they do, where they go, what they say, etc etc, and everything will be fine.
You can do it.

Free Kindle Book Promo! Everville: The Fall of Brackenbone -- Now through 11/28/15

I wanted to let you all know that my friend and fellow writer Roy Huff is having a Free Kindle Book promo for his fourth book, Everville: The Fall of Brackenbone ASIN B00WWO1CC2.

He is also having a 99 cents Kindle Countdown Deal in the UK & US for Everville: Books 1-3 Boxed set 11/22/15 - 11/28/15 to coincide with the Free Promo of Book four.


Grab your copy today, right now, while you're here thinking about it. It'll give you something good to read after eating all that turkey.

If you haven't seen the promo on Twitter @evervillefans already, check it out.


Also, the last day of the promo is Roy's 39th birthday (and Thanksgiving).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Roy!