David R. Michael's Blog, page 39

The Summoning Fire – Preview

Chapter 2
Before the Fire
Reese-Anne


      Reese sheathed the katana. There was no need to wipe the blade—and doing so would likely prove painful at best, maiming at worst. The old witch-woman's blood had long since been absorbed by the black blade. Maybe its edge, normally invisible, a blur along the line between life and death, still glinted red, still thirsty. Or maybe that was Reese's imagination.
      It wasn't hard to believe, though, that both she and the katana were thirsty, wanting blood, demanding vengeance.
      She stood there, long hair hanging loose in front of her face, left hand holding the sheathed blade, right hand empty but close to the pistol grip of the shotgun that hung by a black strap from her shoulder, looking down into the lifeless eyes of the old witch-woman for another long minute.
      The pool of blood under the woman was smaller than it should have been considering the length of the wound that Reese had opened up in her mid-section. Reese wondered if the blade accounted for that. Or if there were another reason.
      You are the key, Reese-anne, the witch had said, blood running down her chin as she spoke. No blood was on the woman's face now, and the wrinkled skin seemed to have been smoothed, made younger as if death had taken off some of the weight of her years.
      Reese didn't want to be a key. She wanted Sam back.
      The black eyes of the dead woman didn't respond.
      The woman had startled Reese, stepping in front of her from out of the crowd. Then angered her by using a name unheard since her long ago childhood. Reese-anne. The name conjured up suppressed memories of … pain. Pain made more acute because with the name Reese remembered her life before Hell on Earth. Mother smiling, hugging her. Father, proud of her, holding her hand. When she had been happy. Before she died inside.
      And so she had struck, running the woman through—
      No. That wasn't it. Reese decided she owed the dead woman at least that much honesty, even if only in her own mind.
      Reese had killed the woman, without thinking, a reflex, unconcerned and unconnected with any consequences, an attack born of a need to kill something, anything, and maybe everything. Because Sam was dead. Sam had been killed by the Old Man. And when Sam died the rest of Reese had seemed to die too—not that there had been much left.
      Reese-anne had been dead for over a decade before Reese met Sam. And Reese had been on the way out, and intent on taking as much and as many with her as she could. That is, when she could be reminded that there was anything or anyone other than herself and her own pain.
      Self-centered. Self-involved. Self hating.
      She wondered what Sam had possibly seen in her that night, the two of them sitting in the police holding cell, joined only by a bond of bars and shared assault.
      That was the Reese who had stood up from the gutter, reminded of who she had been before Sam—who she was again—by a dirty urchin who tried to steel the weapons the Old Man had left with her. She only wondered why she hadn't killed the boy. The old Reese would've. But she had let him go.
The old Reese had been there, though, when the witch-woman stepped up. And the old Reese struck. Deep and hard and fatal.
      "You died," Reese said aloud to the corpse on the sidewalk, "because I should have." Her voice became a shout. At the dead woman. At the Old Man. "You should've killed me." Neither one responded.
      Accept my sacrifice, the woman had said, as she died. The words came back to Reese as if in response. As if the old witch had known what Reese would say. Hope is born of little sacrifices, the witch had continued. Accept me … mine. You are the key, Reese-anne.
      Reese shook her head, trying to shake out the woman's words. People didn't die for anyone. Only because of them.
      Around her the pedestrians of the night had resumed their traffic on the sidewalk. They gave Reese and the corpse at her feet a wide berth, but now that Reese had put her sword away the space around her was closing. Some people stared at her, or at the corpse, but no one stopped. She and the body of the witch-woman were just momentary curiosities in the night of Hell on Earth, and would soon be forgotten.
      Reese wished she could forget.
      She walked away from the witch-woman. Behind her, she could sense the bottomfeeders move in to search the body, to fight over the valuables, if any, and the clothes, and the shoes, and, finally, the body itself.
      She should have died. But here she was, walking around, armed. And dangerous.
      You have to face him.
      Reese nodded to the memory of the witch-woman's voice. She knew who the woman meant, who she had to face.
      Moving against the Old Man was suicide. She understood suicide. Welcomed it, even. So she kept walking, taking one step after the other.
      The woman had seemed … worried … as if there had been some chance that Reese might not have been willing to die attacking the Old Man.
      She knew the Old Man meant to use Sam's blood for—something—in the morning. The bastard told her that himself, and laughed when she lunged at him, held back by four of his flunky devils, the claws of their hands digging into her flesh. Before he had her thrown out into the street with both her shotgun and Sam's katana, mocking her.
      Reese kept walking.
      She had to admit, to herself and to the dead witch-woman, that there had been a moment, maybe long minutes stretching into hours, when she had lain there in the gutter, not seeing the people walking around her, avoiding looking at her, feeling the bottomfeeders circling her, human vultures making sure she wouldn't fight back before they moved in, when she had considered just laying there until she died.
      And then she had thought of escape. But only for an instant. There could be no escape in Hell on Earth, and Suburbia—
      Reese didn't know if she could live in the place where tourists came from. Nor did she think they would let her live there.
      Still, the pictures she had seen, and some of the tourists she had met, reminded her of what life had been like before Hell Erupted and begun the painful beating, raping, killing conversion of the innocent child Reese-anne into the killer woman Reese.
      Reese carried the shotgun in her right hand as she walked, holding the pistol grip. In her left she carried Sam's katana, holding it by the scabbard, just below the hilt.
      The crowds on the sidewalks parted for her. Maybe it was the weapons. Maybe it was the blood on her face. Maybe it was the way she stared at anyone who dared to look at her and wished them dead.
      If the witch-woman had really wanted to help her, Reese thought, she would have told Reese where the Old Man was going to be in the morning, where she could find the bastard. The least the witch could've done was to point the way to the end. Because there could be no hope for Reese. And keys only opened doors. Or locked them.
      The old woman had wasted her life and her last breaths. Reese didn't know where the Old Man was going to be, but she knew where to go to find out.
      The line of men and women and devils and undead and whatever the Hell else standing outside the Smoking Pit, the Old Man's posh nightclub, didn't move aside for her. Many of them were already dead, and most of them had been waiting for at least an hour to get in. Weapons and deathwishes didn't impress them. They stood their ground and glared back at Reese.
      "Back of the line, bitch," said a woman, either a vampire or a fashion-impaired wannabe, dressed in glittering green.
      Reese lifted the shotgun and put it in the vampire's face. "I don't have time to kill you properly," she said. "But I can make you damn ugly. And," she added, "the blast would ruin your dress." She looked at the man next to the woman, but kept the barrel of the gun rock steady at the woman's pert nose. "And your suit."
      The people in line gave her more dark looks but grudgingly moved aside. Reese held the gun at waist level as she walked through the crowd. She ignored the comments and curses thrown at her. Being called bitch, whore, cunt, and worse didn't bother her. She knew what she was. Everyone else was just guessing.
      The bouncer at the door recognized her. "Reese," he said, his face going pale under the red neon lights, either from seeing her or from the gun she thrust in his face. Maybe both. "The Old Man's not—"
      "I know where he's not," Reese said, tapping him under the chin with the end of the sawed off barrel, forcing him back against the big door he had been guarding with its billboard announcing the Cannibal Sluts in concert—"Tonight Only!" "I want to know where he is. Or where he will be, tomorrow."
      "I don't know—"
      "Then you're not much fucking use to me, are you?" She pushed his chin up with the barrel, angling the barrel so the shot would go through his brain, what there was of it.
      "Wait!" Sweat showed on his bald head. "I mean, hang on, I'll get Rockhasp." His left hand was trying to find the doorknob. He would have a hard time opening the door, though, since it was his own weight, pinned there by Reese's shotgun, that he would have to pull against.
      "Campbell's not here?"
      "No—"
      "I can talk to Rock without you," she said, and bared her teeth at him in a smile. She shifted her grip on the shotgun and tightened her finger on the trigger.
      "The Skymoon Room," the bouncer shouted, talking as fast as he could with the barrel under his chin. "The Old Man—I heard him tell Rock—he went to the Cain's Mark—"
      Reese nodded, then pushed the shotgun up harder, forcing him to stop talking, to rise up on his toes. His breath came in hard gasps as his bulk hung on the end of her gun.
      She should kill him. Her finger was on the trigger, waiting to squeeze that last little bit that would spray the contents of his thick head all over the door and up the outside wall of the Smoking Pit.
      "Reese," he choked out. "Don't—I told you—"
      "Shut up," Reese said. "Just shut up."
      She wanted to kill him. Because Sam was dead. Because she had killed the old woman. This scumbag didn't deserve better than either of them.
      But she couldn't.
      In her head she saw the old woman, heard the woman say, Reese-anne.
      Reese rammed the hilt of the katana into the bouncer's sternum, then stepped aside as he doubled over choking and gagging. She turned and walked away, ignoring the stares of the club's patrons.
      The Old Man had killed Sam in front of her, then left her alive with both her shotgun and Sam's katana. He had to know Reese was coming for him. He had to know she would find out where he was.
      He would be expecting her.
      Going up against the Old Man was suicide. Or close enough as suited Reese just fine.
 




The Summoning Fire Edition


Price




Trade paperback (Amazon)


$9.99




Kindle edition (Amazon)


$3.99




Nook edition (B&N)


$3.99




Ebook (Smashwords)


$3.99




 

Writing Progress Report

 
Writing progress report for the week starting Monday, December 20, 2010.
 








Writing Project


Words




Monday








Tuesday


Tween 2011 development.







Wednesday








Thursday


Tween 2011 development.







Friday


Edited "Afterimage".







Saturday








Sunday


Edited "Afterimage".

















Total








 








Marketing/Submission




Monday


Posted TSF and HG giveaway links on Guns & Magic and FB.
Updated promo thread for HG on KB, MR, and NB.
Updated promo thread for TSF on KB, MR, and NB.




Tuesday


Posted HG info/link in the Amazon "Horses" community.




Wednesday





Thursday





Friday


Uploaded NBSS to Barnes & Noble PubIt.
Uploaded Serene Morning to Barnes & Noble PubIt.
Uploaded "Nostalgia" to B&N PubIt.
Uploaded "Baptism" to B&N PubIt.




Saturday





Sunday


Posted a 5-page preview of Horse Girl to Guns & Magic.




 
Reading List

Tripwire by Lee Child.

 

The Girl Who Ran With Horses – Preview

Chapter 1
Welcome Home, Stevie
 
STEVIE BUCKBEE SPENT the third wasted day of her summer vacation staring out the window at the passing Oklahoma countryside. She twisted in her seat, still trying to find a comfortable position, but no longer expecting to find one. The velour of the seat had been cracked by years of sun, and the springs worn out by Aunt Mary's oversized behind.
       "Do you need to use the bathroom?" Uncle Rick asked.
       "No," Stevie said. She didn't look at Uncle Rick. She continued to stare out the window of the car.
       Ninety minutes into the trip home, and the only words Uncle Rick had spoken to her had been whether she had to pee. Once just before they pulled out of Uncle Rick's and Aunt Mary's Tulsa driveway. And just now.
       "See if you can hold it another fifteen to twenty minutes," Uncle Rick said. "We're almost to McAlester."
       "I'm fine," Stevie said.
       Even after ten months of living in the same house, she and Uncle Rick hadn't developed any better than a functional relationship. If Aunt Mary had been in the car, the woman would have kept up a running chatter, whether anyone in the car responded or not. If her cousin April had come along, Stevie would've had someone to talk to, or at least to put between herself and her Aunt and Uncle. Eleven year old April was only two years younger than Stevie, but she had no memory of Stevie's mother, and no reason to feel uncomfortable around her cousin.
       But Aunt Mary and cousins April, Kate, and Scottie had waved good-bye earlier, staying home today, packing suitcases and getting the family SUV ready for a summer roadtrip. So Stevie and Uncle Rick had the car to themselves.
       Sullen silence wasn't so bad, Stevie figured. It could've been worse.
       The previous Sunday, Dad had said he would drive up Thursday morning to get Stevie, take her home. Today was Saturday. Thursday evening, hours after he had been scheduled to arrive, he called to say he couldn't make it, he would be there tomorrow to get her. Tomorrow came and went with Stevie still in Tulsa, waiting. Dad called again Friday night to ask would Rick and Mary be able to drive her down to Antlers?
       Uncle Rick had been livid, shouting into the phone that his family was leaving on a trip on Saturday and they didn't have time– Stopping himself, his jaw clenched, Uncle Rick handed the phone to Aunt Mary, sent a hard glare at Stevie–as if it was her fault, somehow–and stomped out of the living room, leaving Aunt Mary to work out a compromise with Dad.
       Stevie heard only Aunt Mary's side of the conversation, but she could imagine Dad's short, simple, "No. I can't." Offering no explanation, just the repeated negation of a promise. Silent on his end of the phone while Aunt Mary, his younger sister, offered possible options until one of them met his approval. Finally, it had been decided that Uncle Rick would drive Stevie as far as McAlester, where Blake, Stevie's eighteen year old brother, would meet them and take Stevie the rest of the way.
       So, yeah, Uncle Rick was upset at Dad. Stevie understood. As happy as she was to be almost home, she was upset at Dad, as well. Two days of her summer, gone, and another ticking away.
       She tried not to think about it. Because she still had time. Lots of summer remained ahead of her.
She would spend day after day with her horses, especially with Jack Rabbit and Rain and, maybe, Buckaroo. Of the three, Rain was the only one with training or experience in barrel racing, other than practice runs by Dad and Blake. But Rain was also the oldest, as old as Blake. Not too old for barrel racing, but Stevie wanted to train and race Jack Rabbit. He was her horse. Her first horse that was really hers, not a hand-me-down like Rain. And proof that Dad didn't break all his promises.
       The daughter of a horse rancher and a competitive barrel racer, Stevie had never raced, had never had her own horse until Dad bought Jack Rabbit for her while she spent the school year in Tulsa. After Edwin's funeral, before Dad sent her to Tulsa with Aunt Mary and Uncle Rick, Dad had promised she would race this summer, and that he would buy her a gelding to train and race with. That her first week with Jack Rabbit over spring break had started so disastrously didn't phase her.
       Her hand went to the scar on her lip before she could stop it. She forced her hand back to her lap, held it there with other hand while her lip tingled.
       That hadn't been Jack Rabbit's fault. Not entirely. She and Blake had both messed up. Besides, only a trace of the split remained, where the metalshod hoof of Jack Rabbit hit her, split her lip, nearly broke her nose, loosened her front teeth, and gave her a mild concussion, sent her flying backwards to land in the dust of the corral. She had lived around horses all her life and should've known better than to walk behind a skittish horse. It had been more embarrassing than painful. And it had hurt a lot.
       Thrown and kicked, spending hours in the emergency room getting stitched up and scanned, and then wasting most of a week on her back as both Dad and Blake alternated between hovering over her, blaming themselves, blaming her, blaming Jack Rabbit, and refusing to let her do anything lest she hurt herself. Spring Break had not gone as planned.
       Horse and rider had to get to used to each other, she had told both Blake and Dad over and over, until they finally allowed her and Jack Rabbit some time for riding and bonding–with Blake and Dad looking on like mother hens. Too long ago, and too short a time.
       Summer, though, had finally arrived, if a couple days late. Three months that she could spend in her real home, with Blake and Dad. And, more importantly, with Jack Rabbit.
       She and Jack Rabbit would race at rodeos and exhibitions and any other event in Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas that offered barrel racing. In her dreams, she and Jack Rabbit won all of the races. But in the real world, she was prepared to place as low as third or fourth in the first few races, as she and Jack Rabbit found their stride together.
       For the past two months, she had scoured the Web looking for listings of barrel racing events from June through August. Her first list contained one hundred seventeen events in ten states, encompassing a region from New Mexico to Louisiana to Iowa to Wyoming. The first time she mentioned her list to Dad, over the phone, she heard him choke on his drink and spend two full minutes coughing. She took the hint and narrowed the list down to only thirteen events, just a bit more than one a week for the entire summer. She had sent Dad and Blake emails with the final list, but she had also made four printouts of the list, one each for her, Blake and Dad, plus another for posting on the fridge.
       A line of horse farms passed by on her side of the car, and pulled Stevie's attention back to the present. The heat of the Oklahoma summer had settled in, making the June morning hot and sticky outside the air-conditioning of the car, but there were still a few horses standing in the corrals and pastures, heads down, munching on green grass, or heads up, looking around.
       As she watched, all the horses brought their heads up and turned to the highway. Looking at the car.
       At her.
       Stevie sat up, feeling an unexpected surge in her chest, her heart pounding, her eyes locked to those of a bay mare with a long black mane and three white socks. Stevie blinked, but when she opened her eyes again, she knew that the horse still looked at her. Hundreds of yards away, moving past at seventy miles an hour. Stevie shook her head. She had to be imagining it.
       As if it heard her, the mare blew out–impossibly, she seemed to hear the blow, feel it on her cheek–and shook its head. And Stevie could feel the eyes of the mare and the other horses looking at her. Not at the highway, not at the cars. At her.
       "Looking at the horses?" Uncle Rick asked, distracting her.
       "What?" Stevie asked, then added, "Yes." She turned back to the window.
       They had passed the horses, left them behind. She could feel the distance between her and the bay mare growing, whatever connection they had shared fading. Her heart slowed. Had she imagined it?
       A green highway sign flashed by, announcing "McAlester 11″ in white letters that sparkled in the late morning sun.
       Another fifteen minutes, and she would see Blake. Tall, gangly, tanned, with perpetual sunstreaks in his hair. Good looking too, in a dorky, brother kind of way. Not as good looking as Edwin had been. None of them had been as good looking as Edwin. Not Blake, not Dad, and certainly not Stevie. Edwin had looked more like Mom than any of them …
       Stevie let those thoughts drift away. Let the tightness that squeezed her heart loosen. Before the tears could come. Tears for Edwin. Not Mom.
       She resisted the urge to wipe at her eyes. Uncle Rick would probably think … whatever it was the man thought. Probably ask her–again–if she could hold it until they got to the McDonald's where Blake waited for them.
       Ten minutes to Blake. She would be glad to see him. She was always glad to see Blake.
       And then another hour–maybe less, the way Blake drove–and she would be home, with Jack Rabbit and the rest of her horses, and all the horses stabled at the ranch, for the first time in two months.
       They passed a few more ranches and fields with horses. Stevie didn't feel the same connection as she had with the bay mare, but as she watched, each of the horses turned to the highway and watched her on her way home.
       She tried to remember if horses always did that…
 




The Girl Who Ran With Horses Edition


Price




Trade paperback (Amazon)


$9.99




Kindle edition (Amazon)


$3.99




Nook edition (Barnes & Noble)


$3.99




Ebook (Smashwords)


$3.99




 

Celebrating Christmas on the Moon

 
by David Michael
 
Batler watched Stacy finish her mural by signing it with a large, slanted "S" in the lower right corner of the window. The lunar landscape outside the window had been transformed into a winter wonderland, complete with a snowman and a scattering of snow-covered fir trees.
 
"I didn't know you were an artist," Batler said.
 
Stacy jumped. "Batler," she said, putting her left hand to her heart. "I didn't hear you walk up." She stepped back and gestured to the window. "What do you think?"
 
Batler opened his mouth, but then Stacy said, "Wait! You're standing in the wrong place." She looked Batler up and down. "You're what? 185 centimeters?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I tried to make the viewing angle work for anyone." She paced off a distance from the plane of the window. She squatted and used tape to mark an "X" on the floor, then wrote "185″ in the center of the "X". She straightened and pointed. "Stand here."
 
"I'm on my way to a meeting–"
 
"Stand here," Stacy said again. "You have plenty of time."
 
Feeling put upon, but seeing no gracious way to not stand there, Batler did as he was told.
 
"Wow," he said as the view changed from a quaint drawing overlaid on a picture window into a handcrafted hologram utilizing the existing scene. The rugged lunar peaks had been softened by heavy snow caps, and their gray slopes covered with a blanket of evergreens. Puffy clouds floated in the vacuum above the peaks. The snowman stood proudly beside the power relay station, while fir trees sprouted in various places around the complex grounds.
 
"Thanks," said Stacy. "If I can impress you, the rest of the station's going to love it."
 
"I just didn't know you were an artist," Batler said, trying to figure out if he had been complimented or insulted. "How come you've never done anything like this before?"
 
Stacy shrugged. "Didn't have time last year. Plus, most of the windows were still shuttered."
 
"It's not like you have to wait for an Earthside holiday, you know."
 
"Thanks again. I think. Earthside holiday? What's that supposed to mean?"
 
It was Batler's turn to shrug. In his own head it made perfect sense, but he felt self-conscious trying to explain it to anyone else, especially a–to Stacy. "It's just, well, it's never going to snow on the Moon."
 
Stacy just looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
 
"Well it's not," Batler said. "And this is a new world. We should create our own traditions, our own holidays."
 
Stacy looked at her watch. "Batler, it's too early in the morning for this much deep thinking."
 
"And that's another thing. Why do you call it morning? The sun isn't due to rise for another 9 days." Stacy's expression began to slide from bemused to bored. Batler rushed on, trying to forestall the inevitable. "I feel like we're stuck in the past, struggling to build the future using antiquated terms and old technology–and observing old, unrelated holidays. It's like we're forever trying to do something new and yet maintaining backwards compatibility at the same time."
 
"How old are you, Batler?"
 
"What's that got to do with anything?"
 
"The problem with you bright young kids that never believed in Santa Clause is that you never had to face the crushing disillusionment of learning the truth. You never believed in fairy tales, so you never learned they weren't true."
 
"That's not true …"
 
Stacy held up a hand. "You still believe in the fairy tale of starting over from scratch. Of building a better, two-point-oh world by throwing out everything that we have and building it all 'right' this time, using what we know now. It's a common affliction of us geeks."
 
"You're not a geek …"
 
"And you're very sweet when you're not being a pompous ass. But to anyone outside of this facility, to anyone still on Earth, we are all geeks, eggheads, nerds, et cetera."
 
"It's just," Batler started, then stopped. "It's just that we could move forward so much faster if … if we didn't have to maintain the old …"
 
Stacy chuckled. "And you think ditching Christmas up here on the Moon is going to help?"
 
"Yes," Batler said, then paused. "No. Maybe …  maybe we'd come up with something better, a holiday that makes sense to us."
 
"So … did you want us to just do nothing while we're finding this new holiday?"
 
"But that's the root of the problem," Batler said. "If we keep celebrating the holiday, it'll never go away. We're reinforcing it each time. How can we create a new holiday, a new anything, if we never get rid of the old?"
 
"Maybe all the old stuff isn't so bad," Stacy said, looking at her watch again. "Didn't you say you had a meeting to get to?"
 
Batler felt his face flush. He had said too much, again, and said it badly, again, and was being dismissed. "Yeah, I better go." He turned to walk away.
 
"Batler," Stacy said behind him.
 
He paused, looked back at her. "What?"
 
Stacy smiled. "Merry Christmas."
 
# # #
 
Full Moon with Santa Hat photo borrowed from BayerNYC on Flickr.
 

A Race? Or a Sound Thrashing?

 

This week, sales of The Girl Who Ran With Horses caught up with sales of The Summoning Fire. And then passed them.
 
To put it another way: It took less than a month for The Girl Who Ran With Horses to match and then exceed sales of The Summoning Fire–which had a 2 month head start.
 
I'd like to think that the two books will get locked in a neck-to-neck, dead-heat of a race. Maybe even a horse race. Ahem.
 
Odds are, though, little Stevie is going to give big, bad Reese one hell of an asskicking… At least in the short term.
 
I think The Summoning Fire is still trying to find its market, while The Girl Who Ran With Horses has a more well-defined market (and has both "girl" and "horses" in its title; how brilliant was that?). These are still the early days of my indie writing career, though. Over the months and years to come, the two books might even out with neither girl nor woman a clear "winner". I'm looking forward to finding out.
 
For those who like details:

The Summoning Fire – 24 copies (6 paperback, 18 ebook) since 28 September  2010
The Girl Who Ran With Horses – 28 copies (22 paperback, 6 ebook) since 29 November 2010

 
So, yeah, neither of them is a "bestseller" yet. Stay tuned, though…
 
-David
 

Testing My Limits by Scaring Myself

 
One of the things about my Big Plans for 2011 is that I'm doing something I haven't done in a while: I'm testing my limits.
 
I pushed against my limits–some–back in November when I participated in Nanowrimo. Not in the number of words I targeted each day (only 2000), but in writing every day, seven days a week. I know that's a limit, BTW. I learned it back in 2006 during A Short Story a Day. I can write every day … but not forever. 5-6 days a week is a better schedule for extended durations. And, really, for 2011, I'm hoping to be able to hit my goals in 4-5 days each week. I like doing (and need to do) "something different" on weekends. Call it a self-employment survival tactic (almost as important as having a good desk chair).
 
20,000 words per week is a solid bit of word production. Stretched across 5 days, that's 4000 words per day. I've done that before, most notably while writing the first draft of The Summoning Fire. I've never done it for a week, though. That'll be fun to push against.
 
I've tended to set my daily writing goals more in the 1000-1500 words per day range so that I can get the writing done in addition to everything else I have to do in a day. I wrote The Girl Who Ran With Horses about 1000 words at a time (though sometimes with long months in between days of writing). For 2011, I'm putting the writing first. Everything else is in addition to the writing.
 
Completing six novels is the more scary goal for me. I have my current project outlined to completion. And another non-linear-story-structure horror novel, as well, plotted from beginning to end. And that's it, so far. I have started plotting a tween girl paranormal novel, one that will be the first in a series, but I'm a long way from having the characters, setting and first story properly planned and ready to go. I expect I will have to write the non-linear horror novel this year simply because I'll need something to work on, but I want to work on the tween novel after I finish my current project. So I need to get that one ready.
 
That's 3 novels, leaving 3 more I'll have to plot out and, more importantly, finish in 2011. That's a bit of the somewhat scary part. I haven't worked on a novel from start to finish without some kind of gap (sometimes a long gap) since I finished The Summoning Fire. The Girl Who Ran With Horses got stalled due to self doubt for over 18 months. My current project got stalled for 3 years. Not so much from self doubt that time. I just had expected it to be a much quicker project, and I was in the middle of working on The Journal 5 and needed that to get done first. Anyway, I see working on a novel from beginning to end, nonstop, as the challenging part. Something I need to prove I can do again. And prove it five times in the new year. I expect that will be fun too. Much like riding in a rickety, wooden antique rollercoaster with worn out seat restraints is fun.
 
I haven't challenged myself this significantly since I launched A Short Story a Day. I'm excited. I get to see what I'm capable of.
 
-David
 

This Is Going to Affect My Writing…

 
My wife & I are now expecting our 3rd child. Due early summer 2011.
 
I guess I better get as many novels finished by then as I can.
 
-David
 

I Have Big Plans for 2011

Big plans. Plans that scare me more than a little bit.
 
I set somewhat ambitious goals for myself for 2010. Set them in December. Got started in January. And pretty much imploded immediately.
 
I suffered a crisis of confidence. Or faith. Or whatever.
 
Throughout the late winter and early spring I (very slowly) pulled together a list of publishers to send The Girl Who Ran With Horses. Then I (very slowly) started sending out queries. I found the process so emotionally draining that it interfered with my writing. A big part of the sluggishness and emotional drain was that I thought/feared I was wasting my time. I had (and still have) complete faith in the book. It's a good book (a couple people I don't even know say so too). But I had no faith in my ability to convince an editor that they should buy it. The whole process seemed like a waste of time, paper and postage. And I guess that's how it turned out. I made a list of 19 publishers to query, but I only actually submitted to 9 of those. And from those 9, I have 7 rejections, mostly form rejections. On the other hand, I'm glad I gave it a shot. Submitting to publishers was a goal for 2010, and I went for it.
 
I got my act back together in the early summer, though, and wrote throughout the summer and fall and into early December. It helped me, mentally and emotionally, when I decided that I was going to go indie with my writing. Once I made that decision, I knew why I was writing (which has plagued me off and on since 2005). I had a new goal, and I liked it. That said, indie publishing has created a whole new distraction from writing. One that I need to get more fully under control.
 
All told, I wrote an estimated 110,000 words in 2010, divided up between 13 short stories and 2 incomplete novels. That's not dreadful for a part-time writer, but it's far short of my goal for the year.
 
On the indie publishing side, I released 2 novels, 2 collections of flash fiction, and 2 short stories.
 
I didn't foresee 2010 going the way it has gone. But except for my low word count, I'm OK with the year as a whole. I've continued to experiment with my writing and storytelling. I've learned a lot about indie publishing and marketing. And I've even sold a few copies of my books.
 
So, yeah, I didn't hit my writing goals for 2010. But I had fun (mostly) and learned a lot.
 
For 2011, I've decided to double down. I have the opportunity to make writing and indie publishing my full time focus for 2011. It only makes sense to seize that opportunity and go for it.
 
I have 2 main writing goals for 2011:

Write 20,000 words per week.
Complete 6 novels by the end of the year.

 
If I hit the first goal, the second is easy.
 
Further, I plan to alternate writing young adult/tween novels with *not* YA/Tween novels. I liked it when my daughter read The Girl Who Ran With Horses. I want more of that.
 
I've decided not to set a word per day goal this year. Instead, I'm focusing on weekly production. One reason I'm doing this is that I expect to put off my publishing and marketing tasks for the week until after I've hit my 20K words. Otherwise, I tend to let marketing (and checking my sales) become an impediment. I need new novels completed more than I need another review or two lined up, and definitely more than I need to know if sold a copy or three today.
 
For 2011, I have separated my publishing goals from my writing goals. My writing goals are purely concerned with putting words down on paper one after the other until I reach "The End" of novel after novel. My publishing goals are secondary, concerned with putting all those words to proper use.
 
My publishing goals for 2011 are :

Publish my current outstanding "backlist" projects (1 novella, 2 collections, and [maybe] a novel).
Publish new novel manuscripts within 6 months of completing the first draft.
Publish new short stories within 3 months of completing the first draft.

 
I've come up with some "target sales numbers", as well. Those aren't goals, though, because I have no real control over sales. If/when I hit the first target, I'll set my sights on the next target, and so on. I'm going to check my sales more often than I should. That's a given. So it makes sense to have some kind of context for the numbers I see. My first target sales number is $250 in royalties per month. At that point, my "business" of writing and publishing becomes largely self-sustaining (and stops costs me out-of-pocket money). I came up with $250/month because it seems to cost about $500 to get a POD+ebook novel ready to go (cover, proofs, etc), and I want to release a new novel or collection every 2 months.
 
Are my goals for 2011 aggressive? Yes, they are. Agressive enough to scare me and excite me. This time I'm not trying to fit my writing into my normal schedule. No, this time I'm upending my schedule, rearranging it to make my writing the Most Important Thing. I haven't so completely rearranged my day-to-day routine since I quit-and-went-home to self-employed status nearly 12 years ago.
 
Monday morning, 3 January 2011, I start. It almost feels like I'm starting a new job. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can accomplish. Overall, It's a good feeling.
 
Happy writing!
 
-David
 

Win a FREE Signed Copy of The Girl Who Ran With Horses!

 

Enter through Friday, December 24, to win a FREE copy of The Girl Who Ran With Horses !
 
1 FREE signed copy of The Girl Who Ran With Horses in trade paperback will be given away.
 
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It's summer vacation and all 13-year-old Stevie Buckbee wants is to be close to her family again and to ride her horses–especially Jack Rabbit, her first horse all her own. But past tragedies threaten her plans before the summer has a chance to begin. Even as she discovers that she is somehow able to communicate with Jack Rabbit and the other horses on the family ranch, she finds she can no longer get through to her Dad and brother Blake. And what good is it to be able to run with the horses if no matter how fast and how far she runs, everything she knows and loves is lost?
 
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-David
 

Win a FREE Signed Copy of The Summoning Fire!

 

Enter through Friday, December 24, to win a FREE copy of The Summoning Fire!
 
1 FREE signed copy of The Summoning Fire in trade paperback will be given away.
 
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All Reese Howard has left is pain–and a pump-action shotgun. Sam is dead. The Old Man killed her right in front of Reese, a blood sacrifice to fuel his latest powerplay in Hell on Earth. Reese hopes the Old Man made a mistake, leaving her alive and armed. But she doubts it. He knows she's coming. The bastard has to know. Whatever. Reese plans to make him pay. And she plans to die trying.
 
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-David