Stuart Aken's Blog, page 306

Writing: What? Only 1500 Words?

Okay, so I missed my 2000 target today. But, I didn't get home until late, had a quick bit to eat (got to keep the engine stoked) and sat down to write, turning out 1500 words and taking a new twist in the story along the way. It's still going great. But I need to rest after work, so that will have to do for tonight. See what I manage tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I've answered the most pressing emails and posted a few necessary comments here and there. But that's me done for the evening now.
I must try to find one of those word target gizmos to place on the blog to track my progress.

Tonight's picture is of Bufos Bay, Crete. Wish I was in that warm sunshine.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Fabrication

Image via Wikipedia
Fabrication: noun - the process of constructing or making something; a structure; inventing a lie, forging a document; a false statement, a forgery.
'The Conservative Party spokeman's statement about the previous party's activity in government was pure fabrication from beginning to end.'
This great poster is from 1909.

Writing: 2300 Words Toward the Target

Another day almost done, another long weekend closing. But, I managed to make my target, with 2300 words completed before breakfast. Tomorrow, of course, I'm back in the office and Tuesday, being my long day, is not the best day for output. Still, we'll see what the morrow brings.
I've also done 5 of the new character profiles and hyperlinked them to the timeline, so I can keep a check on consistency. The story has taken an exciting turn for one of the threads in particular and I'm enjoying the telling of the tale.
I've organised another 3 author interviews today and made preparations for several more blog posts, as well as updating the Writing Contests page again. Worth a visit if you'd like the chance to win some cash for your works of written genius. Talking of visits; I've been blogging seriously for coming up to a year. The counter for pageviews is close to 25,000 for the year. If you feel like inviting a few friends to pay a visit, I might just reach that target by the end of the month and make it for the full year. That would be great.
Now, however, enough for the day. Preparation for tomorrow's attendance at the office, and some quality time spent with my wife, I think.
Today's picture is of Sissi harbour, Crete, where I spent a great holiday a couple of years ago.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Amend or emend

 'Little Driffield Pond'Amend or emend: 'To amend is to change; to emend is to correct' is sometimes considered the difference between these two words, but the reality is that, in some cases, they are interchangeable.Amend: verb – to correct, reform or convert;  to free something from fault; to correct errors in the text of a document etc.; repair or make good something broken or damaged, restore; heal or cure a sick person or a disease; make better, improve; reform yourself; abandon faults and evil ways. Emend: verb – to alter a text to remove errors and corruptions; to make free from faults, correct, rectify.Generally speaking, 'amend' is the catchall word and 'emend' is used in reference to the correction of a manuscript or spoken statement.
'Failure to amend you bad habits will result in disaster for you and those who count themselves your friends.'
'Andrew took pains to be accurate as he used his journalistic skills to emend the statement due to be released by the head of the Party.'

Writing: 2700 Words and a Dozen Characters

After yesterday's self-imposed challenge, I awoke to a dead phone line and therefore no internet connection this morning. This allowed me the freedom to do 1300 words before breakfast. Once I'd taken Valerie to her bowls match just up the road, I returned and did another 1400 words. Because two of my main characters are now entering lands that have not been previously visited in the books, I needed some new characters. I start this with pictures, then names, and then write a bio file for each. I managed to select the necessary pictures (I have a database of about 1,000 or so people shots culled from the web over the years) then chose the name (I have a file of about 150 made-up names for the fantasy - these are all spares, so I chose from that. Haven't yet got round to doing the bios, but will start that tomorrow, since it's a Bank Holiday here.
The internet connection returned around 17;30 so I've been dealing with all that correspondence. Now I'm off to spend the rest of the evening with my wife.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Ear

Image via Wikipedia
Ear: noun - organ of hearing in all animals; an imagined organ of hearing of the mind or heart; an object like the external ear in appearance, shape, or position; handle of a drinking vessel, bottle; projection on a tool or piece of machinery, serving as support or handle.
'Prince Charles is often unfairly mocked because his ears stick out, as if this is something over which he has control.'

Writing: 1500 Words Again

The burning question is this: will I manage to get book 2 of the epic fantasy finished as a first draft before I go on holiday for 2 weeks? It would be a shame to have a break of that length before the whole story is down on paper, but it would be excellent to have the break once the story is complete in its first form. So, I'll have to consistently turn out enough words to complete book 2 by 6 July. That's 39 days to write enough words to take me to a proposed total of 200,000. I have around 120,000 at present. 80,000 in 39 days is a little over 2000 a day. Looks like I'll have to really knuckle down to this.
Today, in spite of my current bout of fatigue, I managed 1500. Tomorrow I'll have to start on the target and allow other things to slide a little. Less time on the groups and posts, more time on the story. But I'll continue with the Daily Word Spot and any author interviews, of course. I'll also do a short post on the WIP to keep you informed of progress.
Wish me luck. I'm going to need it!

Featuring The Indie Book Blogger

The Indie Book Blogger is run by Scott Poe. Here are his words about how the project started and what he does there.
My wife bought me a Kindle for this past Christmas and she probably still regrets it. I had played with the kindle app on my phone for a few months before getting the real thing, but that had been mainly mainstream authors. I had just begun to look into lesser known authors mainly because of the $0.99 price tag that a lot of their books had on Amazon. I started playing around in the forums and finding out a little bit more about the indie author community. In January I started my own thread on the Amazon forums, Looking to read and review indie fantasy books  that was basically welcoming authors to pitch their books to me and if I liked it I would write a review. I started to actually interact with a few authors on a regular basis and really relished the sense of community that everyone enjoys. I learned how much of a struggle it is to get any attention at all paid to your books when there are thousands of authors targeting the relatively small readership that enjoys indie stories. I started my blog to bring a little bit more attention to the authors by posting my reviews, including links to their pages and other works, and doing interviews. I truly enjoyed getting to know a lot of wonderful people and feeling like I was helping a little bit. My blog began in late January and I have gotten about 8000 hits so far. I have done several interviews with some great authors and recently have started hosting guest blogs to help authors market to a little bit of a new audience. I have also posted 57 reviews on Amazon since January and I try to read 10-15 books a month. There have been a few authors that have given me exclusive coupons or sneak peeks at their upcoming work and I feel extremely honored by their generosity. I really love being a part of such a great community even though I have no thoughts of ever writing anything of my own.
You can find the Indie Book Blogger here: http://indiebookblogger.blogspot.com/
Thank you, Scott, for a valuable service to both writers and readers.
If other book bloggers would like to spread the word about their sites here on my blog, please contact me and we'll see what we can do together. There's a handy 'Contact me' link at the top of the page, just under the welcome message.

Stuart's Daily Word Spot: Applicability

Image via Wikipedia
Applicability: noun – relevance of a matter or issue because it is applicable to the subject at hand
'I can't see the applicability of your argument to the discussion at hand: I mean, in what way is freedom of speech related to how a woman styles her hair?'There is also a literary meaning to this word: J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings is credited with coining the term when asked once too often whether his epic fantasy was an allegory for World War II. He said it wasn't, but could see how readers might apply such an interpretation to the text without losing anything.  

Missing Followers

If anyone visiting is trying to 'Follow' the blog and can't use the Networked Blogs link, please be patient. The problem of the missing Followers has been reported to Google and should be fixed soon, I hope.