Bill Talcott's Blog

This Writing Thing

It’s been years since I wrote my first story. I had done a lot of reading back then and just finished John Varley’s Millennium. I read the back cover where Mr. Varley went on to mention that he was living the dream, lucky to be writing for a living. Mr. Varley came across as some everyday guy I could run into at the gas station. Hell, he could be out mowing the lawn next door. I had read several of Mr. Varley’s novels and wondered if I could write something from start to finish.

They Were Gods was the culmination of a lot of ideas floating around in my head at the time. It is a blasphemous story that I’m sure I’ll catch a lot of hell for when or if I ever get around to finishing it. It is the story of a young man named Jason Taurez. He discovers he can see the past through the eyes of his ancestors and learns that he is the direct descendant of one of  the twelve Apostles. He learns that his grandfather Nicholas and his four-year old daughter Samantha have the same ability. The exception with Samantha is that she has other abilities that others know about and want to exploit.

They Were Gods seemed to be taking a while to write. Perhaps it’s because I’m a terrible writer. I look at that shit sometimes and cringe. Regardless, I grew tired of writing a story that I was having a difficult time finishing and I also had ideas for another story. A short story that I could probably get through in about twenty to thirty pages. I wanted to write it to entertain a group of friends I played games with online. I originally called it the Undead. It was a futuristic story about a group of mercenaries who called the Undead. It ended up taking me sixty some pages to complete. It had an ending but was really left open for more. The most important thing about the Undead was that I proved to myself that I could write something from start to finish and have it make sense. Someone in the group said it was good, but because of the way I had ended it he asked me if I was going to finish it. I had more ideas for the story so I did.  Someone else suggested that it might be mistaken for a vampire story. So I changed the name of the Undead to The Mission.

Years later I would go back and clean up the story. Kindle Publishing was growing in popularity So I thought I would give it a try, publish my own novel. I enjoyed a little success with The Mission. People thought I was more successful with the book than I actually was. I was good at getting the word out there about the book and those who weren’t buying it thought that everyone else was. I even picked up a few reviews for the book and with the exception of one, most of the reviews I received were either fair or really good. The worst wasn’t even really a review. It was an e-mail from an on-line reviewer named Peggy. She claimed that the writing was so fucking bad that it wasn’t even ready for a review. Except to e-mail to give me this bit of information she refused to waste her time. I have to admit, she kinda put a cannon ball through my hull. I was sinking but then toward the end of that day, I received two more reviews for the book at Amazon’s site. A good three star review and one that was a solid five stars. I said to myself, “Fuck Peggy. What the hell does that bitch know?” When it was all done and said, I think I may have made a whole thirty American dollars off of The Mission. I think I blew that paying for lunch one day.

Since then I’ve written Shield of Health. It is the prequel to The Mission. One of a couple of things I’ve learned about writing prequels is that it’s fucking hard. There are so many ways to screw things up. Writing a sequel is easy. You just continue from where you left off but with a prequel, you have to steer your story toward the beginning of one that is already there. And it better jive! It’s like having two crews start on the same pipeline at separate ends, only to find that they are miles apart when they are supposed to come together. I was lucky.  I came close to really screwing it all up a couple of times but my editor kept me inline with the rest of the story. Shield of Health was okay and there are things I liked about the story but I will never do another prequel again.

The other thing I’ve learned? Is that I can do a piss-poor job of coming up with names for a book. Shield of Health sounds like some manual for a government health plan.

My next story, and yeah, I’m just going to call it a story. To call it a book just means that I’m going to have to market it and do all that shit myself. The time I spent online trying to push The Mission was one of the many reasons that Shield of Health didn’t turn out to be the book I had hoped it would be. I mean, how the hell am I suppose to write anything when I spend all my time pushing my own shit?

The Mission and Shield of Health are both part of a series I call Remnants of the Past. I can feel and see the third book in this series. Twenty years later, the main character David has betrayed the ideals of his father for the needs of the people on the Home World. He is king and also the single father of a teenage girl. Struggling to raise her alone, he feels that he has failed her as a father. The third part of this story will take us back to Valdorion where David’s will try to leave his daughter with her grandfather, Casey Evans. But she’s not going to let her father off the hook that easily. At this point I’m just calling the story the Third in the Series. I’m gonna try to do a better at naming this one but who knows.

One thing I’ve decided to do is to write the Third for myself. I wrote The Mission just to prove something to myself and I enjoyed writing it. I enjoyed putting the pieces together and creating the characters. Everything I have written after The Mission felt pushed, like I was just doing something to get it out there and be a part of that world of independent writing. When I wrote The Mission I had no plans for it at all. There were times I wondered who would read that shit anyways. I think when I’m done with the Third I might just give it away at Smashwords. But that’ll probably be a while. But for now, I’ll just plug away and continue to do this writing thing

Cleaning Up After Myself

A little over a year ago I got my book back from Trish, my editor only to see what a half-ass job I had done writing it. My problem was that I was in a hurry to put something out there. Actually, there were a lot of problems. Things weren’t going so well at work and after years of dealing with that mess, I was just burned out. I could barely see what I had written. It wasn’t until a month or so later when she had given the story back to me that I could see what a screwed up mess it was. I didn’t give Trish a whole hell of a lot to work with.

I spent the next year cleaning up the story. There were times when I thought I was wasting my time. Did the first book in the series need a prequel? Often I asked myself who would read this shit and then other times when I actually thought the story was pretty damn good. But hell, I went through all that when I wrote The Mission. So, with some encouragement from Trish, I hung in there and turned Shield of Health into something she could work with.

The payoff is Shield of Health. It turned out to be a damn good story and addition to my Remnants of the Past series. Apparently, The Mission did need a prequel. And who knows, maybe I’ll visit my own blog a little more than I have in the past. Most of all, I just want Tricia Kristufek to know how thankful I am for her services. You’ve earned a place in the story, Killzone.

Deadlines Come and Go

I don’t even want to look at the date of my last post. It has been a while, I know. Chances are, it had something to do with the release of Shield of Health, the next book in my Remnants of the past series. I probably said something to how the book was going to come out at the end November or the beginning of December. Or maybe I set deadlines for myself during each of those months. Okay, I actually set quite a few deadlines that I blew through. What can I say? Well, I can say that never again will I set a deadline for anything I write. Shield of Health was not ready for any of the deadlines I set for it. I’m not sure how good the story will be when it is released , you’ll have to be the judge of that. But I do know that when I release it, I’ll feel right about it. As right as I can feel.

I learned a lot while writing Shield of Health. The first would be to concentrate on writing one story at a time. The second would be not to push it. Writing your story is done best on your own terms. The third? Don’t become a slave to it. Don’t put aside the rest of your life, and those things that made you the person who was capable of writing such fantastic things in the first place. The biggest reason for this major gap between posts was that I’ve been spending time with my family and getting back to playing an occasional video game lately. That’s not to say that I haven’t been working on Shield of Health, cause I have. Thanks to a lot of help from Trisha Kristufek, the rewrite is coming along nicely. Can’t say for sure when it’ll be done but it will get there. And because I’ve decided to take my time with it, it’ll be a much better story for it.

You are all Great! Stay true to yourself.

Immersion

Since giving the Shield of Health to Tricia Kristufek for editing I have kept myself busy with other things besides writing. I have worked with my Son-in-law, Brad, who by the way plays Birdseye in Shield of Health. I’ll explain in a minute. But anyways, Birdseye was instrumental in coming up with the shield you see being used as my profile pic on FB. I have jumped into a few video games. I do not seem to do enough of that lately. I have also spent time with my family. I always look forward to seeing my granddaughter. Her smile has captured my heart. There was the day I spent with my wife tasting wine.

The series, Remnants of the Past is a story set in a universe dominated by a warrior race of people from the planet Avexia, or the Home World as it is also referred to in the story. Most people on the Home World strive to become soldiers in the Combined Armies. Others forge their own paths and become Mercenaries. Mercenaries use aliases to protect their identities and their families. The crazy thing about the aliases I use in the story is that they are aliases used by friends while playing games online. Birdseye is my son-in-law and someone I have fought alongside with in many games.

During the time spent after handing Shield of Health over to my Editor, I have had ideas for the next book in the series. Right now I call it, Alone I Break. I have even scribbled out notes and played with the first few paragraphs of the story. I have scenes playing out in my head. Sometime after the launch of Shield of Health, I will begin writing and immerse myself in the third book in the series. I will stand on the bridge of a battle cruiser and watch the view screen as we move into orbit around some distant world. I will be there on Valdorion when Andrea meets her grandfather, Casey Evans, for the first time. I will see the good and evil my characters are capable of. I will know their triumphs and their defeats. I will share in their laughter and I will write sorrow that will make my heart ache and bring tears to my eyes. I will experience their loss and feel their pain. I will live and die on the pages of what I write.

 

 

The First Sentence, That first word.

 

I told myself when I was finished with Shield of Health that I would take a break before writing the final volume in my Remnants of the Past series. One thing I have learned about writing is that you do not necessarily have to be sitting in front of your word processor to be participating in the writing process. There is a lot of thinking about it that takes place anywhere and everywhere. That break I thought I was going to take, never really happened. I posted on Facebook this morning the title to the final piece in the Remnants of the Past series. Alone I break.  I also announced that I would be using LibreOffice Writer in Linux Ubuntu 12.04 to write Alone I break. A bold move? you bet, but hey, I am writing this from my Firefox browser on my Ubuntu desktop right now!

So hey, all I have to do now is write the first sentence and figure out that first word.

 

Something Clicked

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the third book in my Remnants of the Past series. There has been something I have needed to figure out. I have final scenes in my head and a lot of ideas as to how I’m going to get there, but there was one piece of the puzzle that I couldn’t put together. Then it came to me during a conversation with a friend of mine today. Since then I have developed a scene that I cannot wait to put in the book. Our young hero will one day return to Valdorion. There, he will discover Remnants of the Past.

 

Get your copy of The Mission!

Everything that goes into it

What does it take to get a Novel out there to the reading public? Quite a bit, actually. I have recently turned my manuscript for my latest novel, Shield of Health, over to my editor, Tricia Kristufek. I guess I never really gave much thought to what she does. I mean she checks grammar, spelling, sentence structure and all of that, right? Of course she does, but I had the opportunity to catch her while she was working on the story and what caught me by surprise was that she was going back to the first novel in the series, The Mission and checking for consistency in the story; making sure things jived. I have to say that I was impressed and glad to know that my editor is just as concerned about the details of my story as I am.

I am glad to know that Tricia Kristufek is a part of my team, making sure that my story will be everything that it can be.  If this sounds like a testimonial, it is only because I am a firm believer in pointing out when someone is doing a phenomenal job.

I would highly recommend Tricia’s service as an editor to anyone who is looking to have their manuscript look its best. Tricia Kristufek.com/

What to Do?

 

Last night I gave my manuscript for Shield of Health to my editor, Tricia Kristufek. Shield of Health is the second book in my Remnants of the Past series. The first book, The Mission is really a book that stands on its own and in a way, Shield of Health stands on its own as well. Even so, the story will continue and come to an end in the third book. I still have to decide on a title for it. The Mission and Shield of Health feel totally different from each other and it’ll be interesting to see how the first two books in the Remnants series will influence the third. All characters in the first and second books carry a lot baggage with them, Remnants of the Past, so to speak. I have even considered that David, or Darkblood, as he was named by Banshee, will deal with Post Traumatic Stress through his life. There will be a new character and she will be there for him. What she will learn before the end of the third book was that he was always there for her and that he will give up so much of himself to make sure things fall into place for her.

What I am hoping is that my writing skills have improved a little and that Tricia will not have to spend an ungodly amount of time fixing Shield of Health. While she works on my manuscript I am going to be working on a book cover, Hopefully, I will be able to get this book out by Thanksgiving. Who knows? maybe sooner. Regardless before the end of the year and with the help of Tricia Kristufek and the support of my family, I will have a finished product that I hope will stand up to my first book.

There is always that time in between books, where you start writing the next, where ideas float around in your head. And there are a lot of ideas. I like to let them stew a bit before they coalesces. I have to say though, it is kind of weird, this period where I am not actually writing a story. I find myself asking, What to Do?

 

 

A little something from the Shield of Health.

Vince’s com band created a tingling sensation in his arm, letting him know a call was coming through. He quickly became aggravated with the sensation and wished he could figure out how to make the damn thing just chime or beep. Anything other than the tingling would have been fine. He set his fork down on his tray and raised his wrist up to his mouth. “Yeah, what is it?” he asked, trying to hide the frustration in his voice

Banshee’s voice sounded like it was being transmitted over a cheap toy. She picked up on his frustration. “The tingling thing again, huh?”

Along with her voice, Vince thought he could hear some laughter in the background. “No, Boss. It’s nothing.”

“Grim, I’m going to need you at the weapon’s console.”

“Is there a problem?”

“It’s probably nothing but I think I would like you up here all the same.”

“I’m on my way.” As Vince went to put his tray in the sanitizer his arm tingled once more. “Damn it!” he shouted, trying to rub the sensation from his forearm. He quickly brought his wrist up to his mouth. “What!” This time, the frustration in his voice was unmistakable.

It was Banshee again. “Sorry, Grim. I meant to call someone else.” Not only did she do a poor job of hiding her own laughter but the laughter in the background had been driven to a level of hysteria.

It was then that Vince realized that he was at the butt end of a joke. He took a deep breath to regain his composure. “I’m on my way, Boss.” After closing the channel on the com band, the Grim Reaper made his way toward the bridge.

 

That was just a little something from Shield of Health, my upcoming novel from the Remnants of the Past series.

Polishing it Up.

Just taking a break from polishing up the story I finished not too long ago. Spent the day in front of my netbook making sure everything jives and that nothing contradicts itself. So what do I do on my break? I sit down at the computer in my dungeon and write this post. Either I am always on break or I’m always working. I can’t tell the difference. Well anyways, Shield of Health is shaping up to be a good story and I’m looking forward to seeing it released. When I pass Shield of Health off to my editor, I will begin work on the book cover. I have some great Ideas for that. Well, at least I think they are great. You can be the judge of that after the release of the book.

As I get closer to releasing Shield of Health, I am going to need to come up with ways o promote it. I’ve never been a savvy promoter so I’ve been giving some consideration to someone who could represent my work. Perhaps in the future this could be a reality. Right now, I think I am really going to take myself out on the deck and take a real break. Catch you all later.