Debra R. Borys's Blog
September 29, 2023
October 20, 2022
Two Years Later
113,000 words and two years later, The Wizard Within is finally complete. The editing and rewriting and critiquing is done for now and I have turned to the hard part, finding a home for the new born book. This time I am following the traditional publishing footsteps rather than self-publishing options. I believe in this book and hope to find readers who agree with me. Watch for progress reports at www.Debra-R-Borys.com. In the meantime, enjoy the few excerpts posted here.Yes, I have been absent from this site for a long time. This is why:
Chapter 47: Seattle’s Darth Vader
Eli paused at a fallen tree trunk that had been set up as a rustic bench. Sitting, he lowered his head to his hands and tried to sort through the swirling thoughts in his head. The least frustrating data that popped up was all the new information Robert and Rahul had given them. Primarily the existence of Magic, Quintessence, as a sentient being.
He…
View original post 131 more words
May 22, 2021
Guided Spontaneity
My dog Sophie and I really enjoy our morning walks. If it was up to her and I let her do what she wanted she would walk all over the neighborhood for who knows how long and enjoy every single minute of it. With no thought to the fact that she might get lost, or get too tired and thirsty to get home in time to satisfy those needs.
When the weather is bad or I’m not feeling good or I don’t have a lot of time I make sure we get back in plenty of time by deciding which route we take, how many blocks we go around, and how quickly we walk. This is not as pleasant for Sophie or for me but it still gives her a walk while also giving me the time I need to do things.
The best walks, though, are days when we have the time and the weather is gorgeous and we can split the difference between the other two types of walks. Sophie has loads of choice as to which side of the street she walks on, how fast she wants to walk, what direction she wants to take. I even occasionally let her lay in one of her favorite yards for several minutes as she looks around and observes everything in the surroundings.
I use gentle guidance commands and leash tugs to keep the walk from being too long or dangerous, but I mostly let her choose when to go, where to go, and how long to contemplate the universe from a fresh patch of green grass.
I think that’s the way I want to approach my life. Free will to make my choices and choose my path but I am in favor of having a little gentle guidance along the way keep me from going too far astray.
February 10, 2021
Jinx!
Okay, I may have jinxed myself with my last post. “The words are actually working,” I posted. And: “Wizard is not only going well, but it is still fun!”
Fun is relative, I guess. And I am still very excited and hopeful about the Wizard Within. I still believe it has great potential. But three chapters into Part II and the plotting is snarled.
I have lots of notes, lots of expectations, lots of ideas, and I know where it’s going. That, at least, is an advantage I haven’t always had in the past. My concern right now is WHICH scenes to pick, where to put them, and am I blindly missing something that is vital to getting to the resolution?
I have always been mostly a panster when I write. For those who don’t know, it means someone who goes with the flow instead of following a figured-out-in-advance, rigidly plotted outline. Yet I really like things organized in most of the rest of my life. Spreadsheets, To Do lists, Reminders set on my electronic calendar.
The Wizard Within is much more plotted and planned than my usual stories. I had fun creating elaborate back stories for the characters and deciding what rules this magical world should follow. That, I think is responsible for why writing the scenes went so well at first.
Part II, though, relies mostly on what I want to happen going forward, not revealing the world I created before I began writing. I now have to make the kinds of decisions that I did when creating the backstory. So that means rereading and reworking my notes and scene ideas, moving chapters around, coming up with new ideas and making sure old ideas still work.
In other words, writing Part II is a lot like starting a whole new book, which I hadn’t anticipated. I will get there, but I have to allow myself time to do more prep work and subconscious wool-gathering to get this right. I know I’ll get there. I will, I just need to trust in that.
In the meanwhile, here’s a link to an excerpt from Chapter 5 that I put on Birthing the Next Book:
“Why are you here, son? What brought you?”
Birthing the Next Book
December 19, 2020
The Wizard Within: Part 1
I did it. Sort of. I finished Part I of my new book, The Wizard Within. I shouldn’t celebrate yet, I suppose, because it’s usually halfway through or thereabouts that gets tough when I’m writing. And since I plan this book to have three parts, I’m really only 1/3 through it.
Still, though, 40,000 words would have been considered almost halfway through most of my other manuscripts which average 80,000 words or less. And not only do I still feel confident that the writing is going well, but I am actually still enjoying doing it.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it isn’t taking forever. Life does still get in the way and when I do sit down in front of the laptop I might only get a thousand words or so down. The point is, though, that the words are actually “working.” I mean, there have been times with past projects when I forced myself to write so many words before giving up for the day, but I was pulling teeth to do so, and not always satisfied with the final.product.
But Wizard is not only going well, but it is still fun! Seriously fun like it used to be when I had no idea what I was doing, and didn’t care if what I was writing was stuff others would enjoy reading.
This book, though, this one I feel confident people WILL enjoy reading. I can’t wait to finish, share it with the world, and see if I’m right about that.
A shadow crowded his vision, moved in as he lost focus. “I don’t know,” he said. Then darkness flooded him like black ink spilled in bloody water.
October 27, 2020
The More Things Change
If you are a writer, you know that sometimes the original concept of a story–the original draft even–may often vary considerably from the final product. We may have to leave behind words we spent hours crafting, or ideas that we loved that no longer fit the plot of the story.
It’s hard to let go of some of those gems, which is why I posted a scene from The Wizard Within that will never appear in the final book, and, in fact, has information in it that is no longer applicable to the story.
I still hope it’s as fun to read as it was to write. Click through to read the rest.
Spoilers. Not Spoilers
October 16, 2020
I Bit My Nails
Bella over at The TBR Pile Loved Cry Baby Cry, giving it a five start review. The book will also be in the TBR’s book of the month contest at the end of October. So go on over to TBR PIle to check it out.
“Well, I was not expected that. [sic] The cover and title didn’t really grab me. The blurb totally interested me and then I started reading. That’s where things get crazy intense and so good. This story is about a reporter, Jo who is trying to help Lily. She’s a young girl whose childhood has been nothing but heartbreak and hurt. What follows is a mystery of a murdered girl and a newborn who is born into a twisted world. I found the whole idea fascination. The author managed to weave a story so that I had a hard time putting it down. I had to find out what happened! Each character has such a unique voice, even the secondarys. I snorted, I cried, I bit my nails. Oh my God, this book is a total, 100% must read. Don’t let the cheesy cover and title fool you. Cry Baby Cry is a gem and it MUST be on your to be read list!”
Bella at the TBR Pile
October 12, 2020
The Magic Within
I’ve decided I’m far enough along in my latest manuscript that I’m going to start posting excerpts from it on my Birthing the Next Book blog. I’m really excited about this new project and enjoy writing it more than I have anything else in a long while.
While it’s not exactly a part of the Street Stories Suspense novel series, it is inspired by those books. I have simply added a bit of magic. A quote I have posted on the site I’ve created for the new book, The Magic Within, adequately voices what I feel in my heart is true in real life. This new book is my attempt to express that belief.
The universe is full of magical things,
Eden Phillpotts: “A Shadow Passes” 1919
patiently waiting for our wits to grow stronger
June 23, 2020
Highly Recommended!
[image error]
[image error]I really liked Booker. He was always trying to do the right thing. I liked the side characters and the mystery was really good. I found the other disappearances very intriguing. Jo was a little harder to like but she’s going through a lot so I think the stress made her character ornery. This is the third book in the series and I had no problem following the story.- The TBR Pile
May 2, 2020
Down the Rabbit Hole
Photo by Natasha Bishop https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The-rabbit-hole-natasha-bishop.jpg
A recurring theme was running through my head this morning during my walk with the dog. How does a person decide which laws are reasonable and helpful and should be followed and which laws trample on their rights?
The first example that came to mind was related to a couple of car chase news stories I read earlier. Why do some people think having a speed limit is a good idea but preventing people from congregating on beaches during a pandemic is tyranny? Both are done in the spirit of minimizing the risk to people. Speed limits are intended to limit the number of accidents (which causes injury and death) just like social distancing minimizes the risk of getting the virus (which causes sickness and death).
The logical answer would seem to be that acceptable laws do more good than bad. So how we do find that out for sure? Research surely will work, right? Congregate the data and see what the stats are. Except these days our research resources are endless and conflicting. Forget the fact that we tend to believe sources that already prove our opinion. Even if you have no opinion, or really, really want a correct answer, trying to figure out which “experts” to believe can leave you confused and frustrated.
Even if pursuing a fact-driven decision, individual opinion is going to sway your bottom line. Say law #1 has data proving (yes, let’s do the unimaginable and pretend there is 0% possibility that this data is faulty) that when the law is followed there are 51% fewer fatalities than when not followed. Data shows that law #2 only results in 49% fewer deaths. Do you decide that #1 is doing the job it needs to do, so keep it, and #2 is not? Are both saving enough lives to be worth it to you? Neither? How you decide that is quite possibly going to be different than the next person.
Here’s another example… On second thought, I’ve decided I’m not going to do that. Because there’s another factor in our decision-making process: trigger issues. Some topics are so controversial and/or so personal that just mentioning them—go ahead, I bet you can think of at least one, just don’t say it out loud—just mentioning them, I say, will sidetrack this whole conversation and take us down a different tunnel that is long and arduous and dark and, ugh, just so endless.
Not that the rabbit hole I tripped into this morning has a bottom to it. Maybe it does. Maybe you have found an answer, but does that mean everyone else has? And if they have, is their answer the same as yours?
Anarchists exist that are in favor of letting chaos reign. Thankfully, most of us don’t think chaos sounds like a very pleasant place to live. Finding balance is the hard part. Letting other people pick their own tipping point is even harder. Laws, whether chiseled in stone like the Constitution, or temporary injunctions like the stay-at-home executive orders, are humanity’s attempt to maintain that balance, and results in a lot of swaying and side-stepping just like a tightrope walker adjusting their footing or pole position while they tiptoe to the other side. And to mix metaphors, one size does not fit all.
How do I end a musing like this long spiral into confusion? Maybe all I can do is hope—wish is probably a better word, hope gives humans a little more credit than I’m feeling we deserve right now—that we will keep our heads in the game at least as often as we do our hearts. While the diversity of our individualities results in a lot of divisive pushing and pulling, our contrasts are one way to keep civilization from losing its balance and falling into a hole that we will never, ever be able to get out of.
![[image error]](https://debraborys.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/smokey.gif){kind=link}
![[image error]](https://debraborys.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/tbr-5star-logo.jpg){kind=link}
