Darin Kennedy's Blog, page 12

Widgets and Doodads and Gizmos, oh my!

Welcome to my second post of 2014. Thanks to the tireless efforts of J. Matthew Saunders (check out his blog),  I now have new stuff on each blog post. Wonder at the ability to leave “Likes”. Feast your eyes upon the various social media outlets these blog posts can now be foisted upon. Check out the awesome way it automatically sends my blog posts to Facebook, Twitter, Saskatchewan, Lower Dahomey, Mars, and the West Side of Alpha Centauri (because who ever visits the East Side of Alpha Centauri, anyway?)

All joking aside, I am putting this post up mostly as a test. We’ll see if it ends up where it is going. I will be interested to start watching blog stats, shares, likes, etc. as I have never had these capabilities before. So, everybody, social media away. Apparently, I’ll be watching.

Darin

 

State of the Onion – January 2014

No tears, please…

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.

Takes long breaks between appearances? Sure.

Almost Tom Scholz like in its capacity to make you wait for the next entry? Possibly. (Though hopefully my latest entry will be less disappointing than Boston’s…)

But ending? Never. (Or at least hopefully not for a VERY long time)

A lot of people were posting about New Year’s Resolutions. I want to post about goals. Resolutions are things you either succeed or fail at. Goals are things you strive to attain. And trust me… I know how to strive.

A little about what’s going on with me. Just finished up my first week of call for 2014. Taking care of the new mom’s and babies in the hospital as well as the sick kids that come from the three clinics we cover. You want fun? Try taking care of seven different babies between 1 and 12 months old that all have bronchiolitis and try to keep them all straight. But seriously, back to full time clinic work tomorrow. Had two full weeks off in December as well as this past week with mostly inpatient duties and got a lot of writing done. And that’s where the focus of the rest of this blog post will remain.

I was asked this week by one of my residents if I NaNoWriMo. I had to answer – not really. Between the doctoring, eating, sleeping, Thanksgiving, and general business of the season, November just never seems to be the month for me to get anything done. I did sign up for this “write 50,000 words in 30 days” challenge and kept painstaking track of said words. However, by the end of the month, I had put down a whopping 9637 words. These were good words and many or most of them will stay, but the purported goal of being within striking distance of the end of my “Operation: Ghost Story” manuscript were shipwrecked on the rocks of a busy November.

Come December with a bit of time off and it’s different story. Proud to say I knocked out 25,000 words this December (technically 7 Dec – 5 Jan, but who’s counting, right? – besides me, of course), bringing the manuscript up to about 65K and hopefully about 15-20K from typing “THE END”. As stated above, it’s back to full time fun at work tomorrow morning, but I was excited to get that much done in a month, likely the most I’ve ever done in a month, though I could be wrong on that front.

As for the first two projects, my literary agent, Stacey Donaghy, of Donaghy Literary group continues to shop those projects to various publishers trying to find the right editors for those books. Pawn’s Gambit is a bit on the back burner at the moment, but we’ve got some heavy hitters looking at The Mussorgsky Riddle and I keep my phone close at hand 24/7 waiting for the latest news. Fingers and other appendages all crossed appropriately. I think the only person more excited for me to finish “Operation: Ghost Story” than me is Stacey. She is truly the best and most supportive literary professional I could ever have imagined loving my stuff. Stacey – as you can see, I’m still working on it. ;-).

As far as short stories go, I’m still in the game there as well. As of the end of 2013, I have 15 stories published in various magazines and anthologies from a few different publishers, all of which you can check out earlier in this blog. 2014 is shaping up to be a great year. I already have two acceptances with the relatively new Emby Press, run by the incredibly devoted Miles Boothe. (Get it? Emby? Only took me about a year…) The focus of this press is stories about practitioners of one of the more dangerous professions, that of Monster Hunter. My story, “The Long Game,” will appear in Blood Trails from Emby Press early in 2014, and will feature my new character, Gabriel O’Connor, the Immortal Hunter. Another story, “Midnight Screening,” was just accepted today into Reconstructing the Monster which Miles will likely have out before the end of the year. This story features a vampire and a werewolf in line to see a movie and discussing how Hollywood has their respective attributes all wrong and is a little more tongue in cheek than my usual stuff. I have another story in with Emby called “Middle Ground” which again stars the illustrious Mr. O’Connor in a story, shall we say, a bit more steampunk. Should hear on that one in about a week. I have an April Sullivan story in with Dark Oak Press for their Big Bad II Anthology and another quite strange story in with Dark Hall Press for their Cosmic Horror Anthology and am eagerly awaiting hearing back on both of those. The Dark Hall story was my first attempt at something a little Lovecraftian. I suppose the readers will let me know if I succeeded. Mr. Renehan’s (Dark Hall) prompts tend to bring out the darker side of Darin… I have a steampunk story awaiting Dark Oak to open up their doors to that genre for the year.

So, with that as all the layers of the onion, my goals for 2014:

1) To finish Operation: Ghost Story by early spring so Stacey can get to work at doing what she does best.

2) To work with Stacey in whatever way possible to promote the first two projects to help bring them to light.

3) To write my April Sullivan novella and keep the tales of my wonderful little Necromancer For Hire rolling. (Poor Gavin…)

4) To write two more Gabriel O’Connor shorts for Miles’s Deep Sea and Superhero Monster Hunter anthologies. (Superhero one is already underway…)

5) To write everyday to the best of my ability. Any forward progress is forward progress.

And with that, it’s almost midnight. Time for Darin to hit the sack. To everyone, Happy New Years and may your 2014 be all you want it to be.

No.

All you dare it to be.

Darin

 

 

Do we really want our favorite books made into movies? What about books we’ve written?

Just got back from an early screening of Ender’s Game. Overall enjoyed the movie, but it got me to thinking about books and movies.

First thing, there may be spoilers in this blog, so if you plan to see the movie or if you haven’t read the book, you may want to stop reading this post for the time being…

Second thing, this blog is not meant to in any way promote, bring down, or even to pertain to anyone’s particular feelings about the author, Orson Scott Card. Regardless of Mr. Card’s politics, Ender’s Game has always been and still is one of my favorite books. If you have an axe to grind about Mr. Card, please do it elsewhere.

Now with those two things out of the way, on to the topic at hand.

So, going into the theater tonight, I was excited to see this movie. I always loved this story, the fast paced read, the surprise ending, the inevitability of the ending. As the book shows the slow development of a child into a soldier, a tactician, and a leader, I was wondering how they would capture that in the movie. To my notion, they tried, but kind of fell down on the job. Only two of Ender’s many battle scenarios from the book are shown in the movie. The close camaraderie that builds between him and his army is reduced to just a few scenes, making the part where they all come back together at the end to be his army in the big climax seem a little hollow. In fact, that’s how I would describe the entire movie. Hollow. Was it cool seeing Ender? Valentine? Petra? Battle school? Buggers? Yes, on all counts. But at the end, when Ender looks at Graff and says “It’s how we win that’s important”, I wanted to tell the writers of the movie, “It’s how we get to the end that matters.” Does the movie have most of the important plot points? Yes. Good special effects? Yes. Good casting? Sure. The writing was a little stilted, but all in all it hits the marks. Still, the heart was missing. I felt like I was watching the highlight show of what should have been a six hour mini-series.

Now, it’s never possible to get it exactly right, but getting the heart of something is the key. Say what you will about The Lord of the Rings movies, they get the heart of Tolkien pretty darn good, even if there are entire swaths of story left out, some very wisely. Still, those three movies tell a cohesive story that is quite enjoyable. The Wizard of Oz, the same. This can be done right.

As I was seeing this with my writer friend, Bethany, we couldn’t help but  wonder if we would actually would want a novel we wrote turned into a movie. If I got a movie that captured the heart of my story, or possibly something like a series (like The Walking Dead) to bring my novel to life, I would be ecstatic. As I walked out of the theater tonight, though, I couldn’t help but wonder what Mr. Card thought of his most famous book being given what I consider relatively short shrift.

That being said, if anyone in Hollywood wants to chat about any of my stories, I will be glad to meet with you.

And with that, it’s nearly 1 am, and I have to be functional tomorrow. To bed with me! Happy Wednesday everyone!

Darin

Today’s Blog features Clay Gilbert, Author of Annah – Children of Evohe

 

 

 

 

Welcome to today’s guest blog, featuring author Clay Gilbert, in celebration of the release of his newest work, Annah – Children of Evohe

 

I know Clay from Facebook where we bonded over our mutual appreciation of the ouvre of The Alan Parsons Project, among other interests.

I certainly wish him well with the publication this new book. You can follow along on his blog tour per the list below.

Also – check out Clay’s website: Annah’s World – childrenofevohe.com- This is the official site for the Children of Evohe series, and has a character blog featuring Annah’s own commentary about her world and her people, designed to fill in narrative gaps before and between the volumes of the series.  It also contains information about the series, author, and publisher.

 

SYNOPSIS for Annah

Annah, a young female of a world on the Edge of the Sea of Stars named Evohe, feels there is no place for her among her people.  She is seen as strange both for her appearance, which is different than that thought to be normal for an eighteen-cycle old seed-maiden, and for her dreams, not of finding a mate and making a homeplace and a family with him, but of exploring the Sea of Stars that she looks up at every night and longs to see.  Her parents lie at rest in the Elder Grove deep in the woods near her homeground, and, since the passing of Lilliane, the elder who had been her guardian since she was fourteen cycles old, Annah has lived alone; the ‘girl who walks with no one.’

She remains alone until the night she sees a great fire streak from the starry sky above her parents’ homeground and, following its path, finds the wreckage of what she knows from the shared Memories of her people is a star-vessel of the sort her own people had once traveled in.  Inside the ruined craft, she finds a human male, badly injured and close to death.  Torn between the Memories that tell her the people of Earth were responsible for the near-extinction of her own world and the voice of Spirit that insists all life is the same, she nurses him back to health, finding in the human Gary Holder a mirror of her own search for belonging and desire for a larger purpose. Their growing connection, and the Evoetians’ sense of humans as enemies, sets in motion a chain of events that may either destroy Annah’s world a second time, or lead to a new future of understanding:  a new age of the Shapers.

Annah is the first novel in Clay Gilbert’s science-fiction series Children of Evohe, published by Rara Avis, an imprint of PDMI Publishing.  Annah is due for release on September 15, 2013, and is expected to be followed by Annah’s Exile in 2014 and Children of Evohe in 2015.

 

Clay Gilbert lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he divides his time between writing, teaching English for Strayer University, and working across the electronic sea of the Internet as the Chief Editor for PDMI Publishing.  He believes, as Annah does, that it takes many notes to make up the Song of the World, and that the understanding of differences between people, nations and cultures holds perhaps the most important key to the future.   This book, he hopes, will help make a difference in that.  He shares his living and writing space with his cat, Bella, and his ball python, Andy.  He is currently at work on Annah’s Exile, Book Two of Children of Evohe, also coming soon from PDMI.

 

From Seeds to Starlight

A Virtual Blog Tour Celebrating the Release of “Annah: Children of Evohe Book One”, the new novel by Clay Gilbert

Oct 15-Nov 15, 2013

 

Oct 15 –Release Date: Annah’s World/childrenofevohe.com and Facebook.com

Oct. 16 Daven Anderson

Oct 17 Sirena Robinson

Oct 18 JD Brown

Oct. 19 Elizabeth Mueller/elizabethmueller.blogspot.com

Oct 20 Virginia Lori Jennings

Oct 22 writersandauthors.blogspot.com Interview with Jo Linsdell-Feliciani.

Oct. 23 Cindy Koepp

Oct. 24 Dean Bonner

Oct. 26 Victoria’s Reading Alcove/Victoria Adams

Oct. 28 Darin Kennedy

Nov. 1 Seeds and Starlight on the Road: Book Signing and Reading at Dragon Quills Comic Books in Gadsden, Alabama

Nov 2 Aspie Catholic/Jason Thayer

Nov 10  Anya Martin

Nov. 13 Stacey Haggard Brewer and Bobbi St. Jean

Nov. 15  Live Twitter Interview Hosted by Virginia L. Jennings

“Tom Roan’s Widow”

Ghost Anthology

Sep 2013 – Dark Hall Press

A ghost haunts the small town of Butler, Tennessee,

and she’s not particularly nice to strangers.

If you’re travelling the Appalachian area,

be careful who you talk to.

It might just be your last conversation.

Home from Dragon*Con!

What a great weekend! Drove down to Atlanta for Dragon*Con on Friday and back up on Monday, so basically had just under 72 hours of fun with my tribe.

A quick recap:

Friday – Arrived around 3, went to Gail Martin’s reading which was awesome. She read from four or five of her books, including her upcoming urban fantasy, which sounds awesome. Immediately afterward in the same room, we had John Hartness’s reading which also served as a Big Bad Anthology party. This served as my very first convention panel, and at the biggest con on the East Coast nonetheless. About 20-30 in attendance, but hey, it’s a start! Glad to share that moment with John, Matthew Saunders, Nico Serene, Jay Requard, James R. Tuck, and Bobby Nash (who I hadn’t met before) as well as our publisher, Allan Gilbreath at Dark Oak Press!

After that we all tried to go to a second floor Mexican place on the corner by the Westin, but it was so packed that a) we couldn’t get a table big enough and had to leave so John could get to his next panel on time and b) there were so many people at the top of the escalator that they couldn’t get out of the way and we had to push the emergency stop button to prevent everyone from falling over like dominos!

Jay, Margo, Nico, Matthew, and I adjourned to our favorite Atlanta diner and proceeded to have waffles, bacon, and French toast for dinner then went to the “Main Event”. Our very own John Hartness was on a panel called “The Men of Urban Fantasy” with Jim Butcher. Yes. That Jim Butcher – Dresden Files – Codex Alera –  20 books or so and counting – yeah, that guy. It was very cool, especially the moment when John finished telling the story about his 4 foot talking lizard character in one book that John had to figure out how to get, well, some action –  but not in those words, as you can probably guess. Butcher was briefly speechless to which John added, “Follow that, Butcher!” To quote Barney Stinson it was legen – wait for it – keep waiting – almost there – dary! After many high-fives and laughter, the five of us adjourned to mine and Matthew’s room in the Westin and discussed the pros and cons of midichlorians (note – there are no pros) before joining John, Allan and others in the hotel bar to while away the night till about 1 am, at which point, Darin needed sleep… badly (obligatory Gauntlet reference)

Saturday – Matthew and I got up early and grabbed coffee before heading out to stand on the sidewalk of Atlanta at 9:15 to secure adequate viewing for the 2013 Dragon*Con parade. Here is a link from Geeks Are Sexy with better photos than the ones I took from the sidelines: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2013/09/0... This was a great time, though it was amusing watching the Atlanta police try to keep everyone out of the streets. Highlights included Zombie Village People, Steampunk Tetris, the Fruit of the Loom guys, Flav-a-Flav Deadpool, Boombox Stormtrooper, Surfer Batman, cool swordfighting reenactments, the Batmobile/Ecto1/Mach 5 driving by, Boxy Superheroes, Waldo on a Unicycle, and of course Kermit and Gonzo stormtroopers. No steampunk X-men this year, unfortunately. Very cool seeing my friend Amy Jo Maitland and her husband Paul out with the Space Marines (now famous in the last picture of the link above.) Also, Janine Spendlove as Princess Leia, complete with Mickey Mouse ears since Leia is technically a Disney Princess now.

Then it was off to the Dealer’s Room, where you can buy anything from leather corsets and steampunk goggles to posters with Darth Vader with the Death Star Memorial. (Was this an inappropriate take off of the famous Vietnam Memorial painting? Yes. Did I giggle just as inappropriately, and then feel bad about it? Yes.) Nothing I needed, but was fun to shop. Oh yeah, met a professional cosplayer. She was gorgeous, but her whole job is to dress up like superheroes, get her picture taken for posters and calendars, and stay in shape enough to look good enough doing it. Must be nice…

People watching was pretty incredible. Here’s just  a brief sampling.

Then lunch with Matthew and my friend Kevin at Hard Rock before heading off to the Hyatt to check out the art exhibit where we ran into Ernie and Asher de la Torre as well as Terry Kaden. Lots of fun hanging out with those guys and catching up.

Then it was off to the hotel to rest up for a minute so we could all have dinner at Beni Hana. Kellie Gibson took time off from planning her next world hopping trip to New Zealand to take a train up from Elsewhere, Atlanta and join us, which was TOTALLY awesome. Great dinner with Jay, Margo, Nico, David, George, Sarah, Matthew and Kellie, and good to see Michi and her boyfriend, Mark for a few minutes. Great to meet you, Mark. After dinner, Matthew, Kellie and I took off for the Marriott and people watch. More Doctors than you could shake a sonic screwdriver at, though one cosplayer dressed as the Fourth Doctor did give us some Jelly Babies. Great to see you Kellie! Have fun in Hobbiton!

I also met a third of Alpha Flight and posed with them as Puck (dwarf superhero, for the uninitiated – see pic at top of page). Lots of great people watching – which is, of course, why you go to Dragon*Con in the first place.

Oh yeah, Tim the Enchanter sicced his Killer Rabbit on me. It had BIG POINTY TEETH. Can’t forget that one.

Sunday – Woke up a bit tired, but got going quickly. Made a snap decision after coffee to go catch the Buffy panel with Kristine Sutherland (Buffy’s mom), Nicholas Brendan (Xander), and James Marsters (Spike). Brendan was a bit inappropriate (in a good way), Marsters rocked, but Sutherlan pwned the panel when one of the questions was how to stop a cockroach infestation. May I say it, Kristine Sutherland is the Linda Hamilton of the cockroach world. You had to be there, I suppose…

Then it was off to eat a quick bite to eat before going to see Adrian Paul at 1 o’clock. If you didn’t know, he played Duncan MacLeod for six years on the show Highlander, where he was immortal. What did I learn? That Adrian Paul actually is immortal. 15-20 years since the show went off the air and he looks EXACTLY the same. I might argue he even looks better. And what a gracious speaker. That was a ton of fun, right Jay?

Then it was off to the Celebrity room to meet some famous people. Stood in line for twenty minutes and actually got to meet Adrian Paul up close and personal. Yep. Definitley immortal. Also met the preacher from Walking Dead, Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket from Once Upon A Time (helped Blue Fairy with her cold), Mr. Fantastic from FF, Kristine Sutherland from Buffy, and saw George Takei, Ed Asner, John Barrowman, Laura Vandervoort and a slew of others. Still, meeting the Highlander was the highlight. (Does that make it the Highlighter???)

After a bit of people watching, I headed north out of Atlanta (yes, shock of shocks, I left the con for a minute) to go visit Jennifer Scully and her two lovely daughters. We had Mellow Mushroom pizza and pontificated for an hour on the favorite things of pirates. (What’s a pirate’s favorite sci-fi movie? Starrrrr Warrrrrrs!!!) Great to see you, Scully. Your book is on the way soon.

Then back to Dragon*Con to see the Barrage in the Garage, ummm… I mean the Violence in Urban Fantasy Panel. (Sings variation of Sesame Street song “One of these Panelists is not like the other.”

Then, utterly exhausted, the fab five adjourned again to our hotel room to again discuss midichlorions (still no pros) and other mid-series continuity shifts (the Planet Zeist?? What??) Then bed time for our last night.

Woke up this morning early, got some editing done over Starbucks, met and old school Doctor Who fan, then did some last minute shopping with Matthew. (Katie and Livvie – I got you something!!!) before loading up the car and heading north. Last stop? Cracker Barrel with Matthew and Nicole.

What a great weekend. And it’s not quite over. Took a day off tomorrow to recuperate from my vacation. 11 am tomorrow? 2 hour massage coming. Oh yeah.

Wednesday it’s back to work, but that’s still 36 hours away. Now the only question is, whatever will I eat for dinner tonight?

Oh, one last thing. If you saw anything cuter than this baby R2D2 this weekend, I would like to see it.

 

The Importance of Beta Readers

For the second week in a row, a Facebook status has tickled my brain enough to warrant evolving into a blog post.

And no, I’m not talking about the post about how the news of the death threats against Ben Affleck for being cast as Batman is just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.

I’m talking about something with which I am blessed with an abundance of, both in quantity and quality: beta readers.

No matter how awesome you think your writing is, no matter how many times you’ve pored over your poor beleaguered manuscript, no matter how perfect a proof reader you think you are, a good set of beta readers will prove you wrong.

Surround yourself with good beta readers and you will be a better writer. They will find your gaping plot holes, your enormous leaps in logic, your unintended character shifts, your penchant for using the same word three times in one paragraph, not to mention your (likely) many gaffes in spelling, grammar, historical accuracy, and writing in general.

Just going through a couple critiques on “Operation: Ghost Story” and getting some spot on recommendations from both the critiquers on that one.

My recommendations – get beta readers with different reading and writing backgrounds, ones you can trust with your “darlings” even as they are telling you which ones to assassinate, ones who know how to sprinkle a little sugar even as their rubbing salt in the wounds of your suddenly red manuscript, and ones who are reliable enough to get you what you need in somewhat of a timely manner.

I participate in both large and small critique groups. The small group provides focus and particular attention on a more detailed level, but a large critique group provides a different degree of “eyes on” and getting such a wide swath of readers to give you advice at once can be immensely helpful.

That being said, there are pitfalls here. Sending something that you’re not happy with first probably is a recipe for unhappiness because you are likely to have things pointed out to you that you already knew weren’t working and that can be a bit disheartening. (Part of why I haven’t looked at Ghost Story much in the last two months – still licking manuscript wounds from June!). Also, listening to every bit of advice and acting on it will drive you mad, especially when one individual likes a particular section and another hates the exact same section. Which way do you go? Who do you trust? Answer: trust yourself. At root, you are the creator, and all critique is just a suggestion (unless it comes from Stephen King, in which case, take it to heart).

As I said in my two Facebook posts, thanks to all my AWESOME beta reader and critique partners from now and the last ten years. From my first reader ,Lisa Postell during OIF1 in Iraq, up to my current two critique groups, you all have made me a better writer and my manuscripts much shinier (for all you Firefly fans out there). And with that, I will return to looking at suggested edits for Part I of “Operation: Ghost Story” – as always, with one or two grains of salt!

Happy Writing!

Darin

Sliding back into my pantser pants…

So, this started out as a couple of Facebook posts, but seems to have graduated into a full on blog post.

First, to those not familiar with the terms – What is a plotter and what is a pantser?

A plotter is someone who uses whatever method works for them – note cards, outlines, maps, wall charts, etc. – to map out their story in some kind of detail before they write the first word. As I understand it, Dan Brown is a plotter, and clearly that is working for him.

A pantser, on the other hand, is a writer who sits down at his blank screen/paper/stone tablet and just goes to town, writing down the story as it comes to them. They don’t plan out scenes, chapters, arcs. They just let the cards fall where they may, with certain caveats. For instance, I pretty much pantsed all of Pawn’s Gambit, but I did a lot of research on the topic of chess and chess history and the various areas of the world visited both before and during and after the writing. So to say I was driving without a plan would not be accurate. However, unlike a dyed-in-the-wool plotter, I didn’t know where every rest stop, gas station, and fast food joint along the way was located, and definitely didn’t have a GPS (that would have been so helpful). With Mussorgsky, I had to stop and plot out a little, and used a calendar of about 1 month since most of the story takes place in a September/October 4-5 weeks. Some of my characters were teachers and another a psychologist, neither of whom typically work on Saturdays, so I needed to know which days my people were at work and which days they were out and about. Don’t want to get called out on stuff like that. However, other than that, pretty much pantsed that one as well.

Plotters often say they don’t have to rewrite as much because late manuscript course changes that cause retrograde ripple phenomena occur in your story don’t happen as often when you plot. Also, because you have a very clear map as to where you are going, you get there faster. Plotters, I suspect, once they have their (evil?) plotting all done can finish a story pretty quickly. We could ask James Patterson’s dozens of co-writers, I suppose. (In case you were wondering, most of the time these days, Patterson outlines and the other dude/dudette on the cover writes the book.)

Pantsers on the other hand are out on the open sea, just stopping at whatever island looks pretty, with a general destination in mind (or at least that’s my method). This is sometimes called “discovery writing” since you kind of discover your story as you go. This, to me, is the most fun part of writing. Lots of cool stuff in both my novel length manuscripts would never have come to pass if I hadn’t been totally pantsing it. Take Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, for instance. I couldn’t have plotted out who they were going to be in a million years, but when I came to it, it was like I plotted it from the beginning. These happy accidents are, for me, what makes writing fun.

So, why all this jibber jabber? (said with Mr. T inflection, of course)

My sooper sekrit projekt, codenamed Operation: Ghost Story, seemed to be floundering the last few weeks (actually months). My critique group pointed out a lot of issues, my beginning wasn’t right, my main character’s motivations were unclear, and something just wasn’t clicking. So, after getting progressively more frustrated, I decided yesterday to trade in my pantser pants, slide into some plotter trousers (or culottes – thanks to Zoe for thinking I have the calves to pull that off), and see what would happen. I pulled out some 8 1/2 X 11 sheets of notebook paper, cut them into fours, and tried to do some note cards. This exercise lasted 15 minutes before I wanted to pull out my hair. Then I tried the note card feature on Scrivener – for all of five minutes. Considered tattooing myself with story elements like the guy from Memento or Michael Scofield from Prison Break, but that sounded far too painful. I sank into a maelstrom of doom, ennui, and self doubt. Not just yesterday, but for weeks, I had felt like I had forgotten how to write something longer than a short story. Kind of disheartening when you have at least novel/novellette length projects you would like to be working on.

The happy ending? Apparently what I needed was a good night’s sleep, three glasses of the sweetest tea I’ve ever had (and I was raised on Pizza Hut tea in Winston-Salem – Thanks Brixx!!!) and a white chocolate mocha at my favorite Starbucks. Today I churned out 2,000 words, fixed the opening 5-10% of the book (which was the part that was driving me so buggy), and still had enough oomph to write this little blog post.

In short, plotter trousers were returned to the store and I bought four new pairs of pantser pants (pictured above). Operation: Ghost Story, after a month or so of languishing untouched on my hard drive, is now back on the docket. Look out all you plotters, because like the tortoise in the classic race, I’m coming for you.

Big Bad Signing II (as opposed to Big Bad II Signing, which will, God willing, be next year… but I digress)

 

The forces of evil gathered today at The Last Word Bookstore. Kind of like The Breakfast Club, but instead of a brain, a princess, an athlete, a criminal, and a basket case, we had a zombie, a demon, a vampire, a djinn, a serial killer, and a fetish powered monster – or at least their creators.

This was the second outing of our intrepid band of storytellers and we had a great time. From 2-5 we chatted with readers, signed books, discussed wheelhouses (apparently), and generally made a not quite nuisance of ourselves. Thanks so much for everyone who came out on a rainy Saturday. (In Charlotte in the summer of 2013, who would’ve thought that could happen?) Whether you bought a book, or just gave us a metaphorical (or literal) high five, we appreciate it.

Now, all of us are putting our noses to the grindstone, for the call for submissions for The Big Bad II is on the horizon. If you see us at Starbucks/Caribou/our front porch typing and talking to ourselves, don’t worry. We’re okay.

What an awesome group of people to spend a Saturday afternoon with! Truly an honor to share pages with each and every one of you. May the words flow from your fingertips like a river and the adverbs fall from your manuscripts like lemmings from a cliff edge. And with that, I am off to write.

 

Big Bad Signing

Today was awesome! Eight of the thirty authors in The Big Bad: An Anthology of Evil, me among them, gathered at the Barnes & Noble in Columbia, SC from 4-6 for a signing. We sold about twenty-five copies and all signed each others books as well. It was a great time with lots of laughter, stories, great people, and for the first hour and a half, we were signing pretty much non-stop. Great times with Matthew Saunders and Miss Nico Serene on the way down with our own private Alapalooza. So great to see all the other authors and a big thanks to everyone who came out. Hope you enjoy all of our stories. Lastly, a special thanks to Sara Taylor Woods who organized the whole thing and gathered us together for this event.

At least the six of us that are local will be doing it again in August, this time at The Last Word bookstore in the University area of Charlotte. Will post here in a few weeks with the details! And with that, DK is signing off. It’s been a long day…