S.K. Nicholls's Blog, page 48
May 26, 2014
Hero Teaser Excerpt: Luke Callindor the Aspiring Hero
Once you start this you may not want to stop. Great fantasy story!
Originally posted on Legends of Windemere:
This is part of Luke Callindor’s debut in Legends of Windemere: Beginning of a Hero available on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents.
Cover Art by
Jason Pedersen
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Filed under: Uncategorized
May 25, 2014
Book Release & Special Offer
Release of the Scrolls of Scion by T.J. Therien! Get it for your reader now at a reduced price.
Originally posted on The Scrolls of Sion:
To celebrate my birthday and my Novel’s launch and to protest what Quebec politicians say I can’t do, I will be offering “The Scrolls of Sion: Rise of the Dark Queen” for 40% off the cover price for the first week. That’s right instead of the $4.99 list price; you can get “Scrolls” for $2.99 with the use of the code provided in the brackets. (MU39L) Offer valid May 25th 2014- June 1st 2014.
Feel free to share this post. Get the word out. There’s a deal to be had.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/434284
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May 24, 2014
Writing Process: The Halfway Point
A short while back a friend and fellow blogger invited me to participate a writing process blog tour. Shamefully, I never got around to answering those few questions, and acquiring two more participants.
You see, my writing process is not very well defined. I have never claimed to be an expert. I am learning every day and honing my craft as I venture on this journey. We all do. It’s a never ending process, learning.
For example, I thought of myself as a panster, a linear writer. When I wrote my last book, I sat down and passionately went from beginning to end without much thought to structure. I wanted to write out the story. I told it as it was in my mind, letting the characters develop as I went along with the storyline unfolding. I didn’t use an outline. Chapters were long, some covering years.
This novel is different. It has patterns, almost like a formula. I had to complete a fairly involved outline to manage the details, so now I am using that to guide the storyline. Basically, I am taking that outline and fleshing out the facts and the descriptions, adding the words. There is a distinctive rhythm to it. Chapters are 1500 to 3000 words (+/- 100 or thereabouts), so even the longest are short. It tends to run 1500, 3000, 1500, 1500, 3000, 1500, 1500, 3000, in alternating POV between the detective and the sidekick for the first half. I have become a plotter, maybe it is the nature of the work.
Now that the detective and his future sidekick are about to be together, I’m not sure what’s going to happen with word counts or POV. Primarily the detective’s POV, with the story continuing to be told in third person narration. Here’s the Scrivener outliner of what I have so far. The binder on the left is filling; the synopsis window on the top right corner holds the fish skeleton of the novel. As you can see, the green lines indicate lots of progress. I am about halfway finished by my best guesstimate at fifteen chapters and 31,500 words.
In the editor mode, I have the fish skeleton to refer to as I move along. I would show you my corkboard, but I have added some character sketches and profiles which would be spoilers, and I don’t want to ruin it for you.
I started this in November, put it aside in December in frustration, and did not pick it up again until May 4th. I worked on “Surviving Sister” for a few months, but did not make much progress on that story.
I don’t have a name for this WIP, but I’m thinking about something along the lines of “Leisure Lagoon and the Asian Moon” or “Alliance Lagoon”, “Paradise Saigon”, “Hot City Cold Case”, “Cold Case Hot Nights”, “Murdered Before Midnight”, “Cold Blood in Paradise”, “Cold Case Hot Play”, “The Jernigan Connection”, “Naked Revenge”, “Naked Malice”, “Naked Evidence”…I dunno. I’m still playing with that. I want it fairly short. I am thinking of using the last three as series titles for the first three books. It would work well for the stories I have in mind.
Any one of those make you want to read the book blurb?
My writing process is obsessive. I don’t know how the rest of you writers out there process the information for your books in your head, but I can tell you what happens to me.
I can sit down and write 3000 words naturally flowing one day, and struggle over one sentence the next. I am averaging about 1700 words a day. But the actual word count is not the struggle. The struggle is in my head. Despite having an outline, which has been extremely valuable (thank you Carrie Rubin), there is always something going on in my head. ALWAYS!
I write for hours, or I write for minutes, but all in-between (and during) there are thoughts about plot, exposition, character, conflict, motive, climax, resolution, setting, humor, seriousness, and so on, bouncing around in my mind. I write a while, I get up and pace, go smoke a cigarette, have a bite to eat, try to take a nap, go to the grocery store, drive across town…all the while thinking, thinking, thinking, of what to write next and how to write it. Then I return to the keyboard, minutes or hours later, and write. Now, consider there are two interconnected plots. Of course there is reading and revising…which goes on constantly…even with a first draft, because I cannot let it go until I feel it’s right.
It’s an obsession.
It never goes away. And when I am not thinking about this book, I am thinking about the next one.
So that’s my writing process. Later, I’ll tell you about my research process, which is also a part of my writing process, and is very deep, even for things that might seem quite shallow.
Filed under: Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: halfway point, obsession, progress, titles, writing process
May 22, 2014
The End of Racism
I really think this should be Freshly Pressed. The isms are with us and always will be. It doesn’t make it right, just true.
Originally posted on KingMidget's Ramblings:
To hear the Republican Party and the right wing tell it, apparently racism is dead in this country. The scourge has been eliminated and the only reason we still talk about race in this country is because us liberals and President Obama insist on continuing to discuss it.
Hooray! Racism is dead! Hooray! Racism is dead! Chant it with me. Racism is dead! Racism is dead! Racism is dead!
Okay, maybe not.
I read an article earlier this week that tried to make the argument that racism is just not that big of a deal in this country anymore. (Unfortunately, I did not save the link and simply don’t remember enough details to find it again.) One of the examples the writer used to justify his thesis was that Jeff Sessions, who is a conservative Republican Senator from the South invited an African-American gentlemen to speak at the National Prayer…
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Crime Novel/Murder Mystery Setting
My work in progress is a crime novel/murder mystery. It is set in both Orlando and at a fictional resort I created that was inspired by my family’s resort near Kissimmee, Florida. I posted this link on my Facebook page (there’s a little thingy you can click on to the right over here if you have not joined that club yet, JSYK), I am posting it here also. My apologies if you feel you are being spammed, but we’re a proud bunch.
If you have not seen this already, you may enjoy. Most of my followers know my family has a nudist resort here in Florida. This article Ted Hadley, my cousin, posted on the website, is a good history of the Cove, although my Aunt Pete gave me a slightly different history. I could add more to the story…like how my hometown reacted when I let the cat out of the bag that Uncle Jim had a nudist resort instead of a Standard Oil Company in Florida. It’s a cool article if you’re into history, comes with photographs. Thanks to my artist friend Dave Winarchik for bringing this to my attention.
Jim Hadley was my mother’s mother’s brother.
Check it out!
http://www.cypresscoveresort.com/HTML/History.htm
Filed under: Articles, Healthy Lifestyle, Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: crime novel, Cypress Cove, history, murder mystery, Nudist resort, Setting, WIP
May 21, 2014
But Tell Me, Where Do The Children Play?
I feel this way about writing in general, not just sci fi/fantasy. censorship appalls me. Reading is what guides us on our journey through life.
Originally posted on mishaburnett:
Science fiction used to be the home of dangerous ideas.
Growing up in the 1960′s and 1970′s, I needed that. I was a strange child, with few friends and no close connections. I didn’t fit in anywhere, not at home, not at school, not in the suburban residential neighborhood that I wandered through, lonely as a cloud.
Pretty much the only place that I could feel I belonged was the library. I read voraciously, and I discovered an entire class of books that dealt with the strange, the things that didn’t fit. The things like me.
From science fiction I learned that I was not alone, not sui generis. Other people had the same kind of oddball corkscrew mind I had. Because science fiction (and fantasy, although my hometown library didn’t make that distinction and put everything that was set someplace else in one section) wasn’t supposed to be
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Feedback Needed on Excerpt Dialogue
My protagonist, Richard, the detective, just slammed a suspect down on the ground after a chase through the ghetto. He’s trying to question him. The guy is Jamaican. He speaks primarily patois. What I need to know is whether or not I have Americanized the language enough for the average person to understand enough of what happened without feeling too alienated. I want it to be authentic. It won’t spoil the plot to read it.
“Bumbo! Wah di rass, mon!” the man sputtered, through gasping breaths.
“Don’t give me that patois shit,” Richard panted. “I know you’ve been in this country at least ten years.”
“Yuh got di wrong guy, mon.”
“Now, how do you know that when you haven’t heard what I have to say?” Richard didn’t wait for an answer. “You can start by telling me what you were doin in Melbourne July 4th, 2005. Tropical Border House Inn.”
“Long time ago, too nuff, too nuff.”
“You’re going to think I’m messin in your business if you don’t start talkin.”
“Mi cannot breath, lemme up.”
“Can you stay in one place?”
“I and I done nuh ting wrong.”
“How do you say, ‘badman ting?’”
“No sah, no sah. Ten year ago mi a young man makin love.”
“How’d that go?” Richard asked. He eased up on his back just a bit and released his head roughly, yanking off hair as he did. “Tell me about Maria. You remember her? Latina girl married to former mayor Timothy Morrison? Did she piss you off? Did she dump you? Did she tell you she couldn’t fuck you anymore so you decided to make sure she couldn’t fuck anybody? Did you stab her to death, or did she accidentally fall on your knife?”
The man heaved, “Yuh a chat bagga nonsense. Easy nuh. Lemme up.”
“I’m chill man, you do the talkin.” Richard eased off Jason’s back and released his left arm. They sat up in the midst of the field, knees up, with the sun beating down, wiping away the sweat and the sand and catching their breath.
“Sumady Murda. Yuh no mi sah, no sah. Hol it dung, mon. Mi and mi dupes en gayls meet at Firestone Club, pretty gyals from di Leisure Lagoon, pretty gyals. She give mi di hotel and di day. Mi dunno she married. She wonna mi eat unda sheet. She wanna cock it up pan me. I and I to di hotel on di day. She bring di babies and givem candies. Pum pum tun up. Rude gayl jus wanna have good times. Timothy Morrison, dat one be di ball an chain. And she all broughtupsy. She say big tings a gwaan. No woman, no cry. Put di babies en di car. I and I come home di mornin. See it pan di news, pan di televsion.”
“So you just met and screwed? Consoled her. With the kids there?”
“Awoah! Di lil babe an di boy. Jus di boy watch cartoons, eat di candy. Di babe sleeping, Nuh one hour.”
“You couldn’t come forward, tell what you knew?”
“Look a mi, mon, an sit en di white mon prison? Yuh gotta Jamaican mon, no mi suh. I and I nuh know he di brinks, Morrison, till mi read en di papers. Mi done no ting wrong cept by di mon, nuh by mi.”
“Jason Pauly, you don’t run no more,” Richard said while standing. He stuffed his hand in his pocket and relaxed his fist. “You stay around. If you do nuh ting wrong, you’ll be okay, but don’t run.” He brushed the dirt from his jeans, “I will find you, mother fucka” he added. He walked away leaving the man sitting in the sand.
Filed under: Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: Americanized, dialogue, feedback, patois
Hitting the Wall
I hit a plot dilemma yesterday and got stuck. Took me a while to figure that one out. Finally broke down and wrote out an outline for the remainder of the book, mind maps of research, more details. This is a picture of my work space. A long while back, when I first started with Scrivener, I took a picture of my desk all nice and clean and organized. Still using Scrivener, and the WIP is neatly filed, but can’t say the desk has stayed very well organized.
It’s a work space filled with mind maps, outlines, notes, tools.
Rocket scientist is in Baltimore. Was up at 5 am working on my plot dilemma. Woke up around 9 am with a sore throat, stuffy head, coughing till I peed myself, vomiting, illness. Had the sick granddaughter over on Sunday for 8 hours. So, we know where this came from. Bless her heart. Today is the daughter’s birthday, middle child, she is thirty three. Damn, I feel old.
Have spent the afternoon writing down patois phrases I know and researching others. Got a Jamaican suspect. Feel pretty good about where I am going with this now. Asians, Hispanics, cowboys, suits, bikers. A colorful cast of characters for my detective and his sidekick, no doubt about it.
It’s a fun write, and I am hoping it will be a fun read. Much different than anything I have written before. Not nearly as serious, although there are serious crimes. This writing requires a transition in styles for me and I do find myself slipping back into old patterns.
My work in the past has been praised for attention to detail, and the novel is filled with descriptive details, but I have to be careful not to get too windy or verbose. We’ll just have to see how the beta readers feel about it when that time comes.
Going to take some Benadryl, some Nasacort spray and try to get a nap now. I’ll be writing again tonight.
27,976 words!
Filed under: Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: characters, cold, desk, disorganization, hitting the wall, outline, plot, research, schedule, stress, work space, working through a plot dilemma
May 19, 2014
Legends of Windemere Vol. 1-4 Giveaway! 2 People Can Win All 4 Paperbacks!
Here’s a way to start a new fantasy series if you haven’t already gotten hooked. Win all four!
Originally posted on Legends of Windemere:
(The widget didn’t work, so I’m going to keep this up as a sticky post until the end of June. Thank you to everyone who enters the contest and spreads the word.)
Goodreads Book Giveaway
by Charles E. Yallowitz
Giveaway ends June 30, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to win
Filed under: Uncategorized
Progress and a Clever Crime Writer: Tim Baker
I have been working on writing this crime novel steady since May 4th, even though I had the first three chapters, which I rewrote, done back in November. The ideas for this novel have been in my head for about ten years. I trashed all that—the three chapters not part of the current novel—keeping an old file of those first person chapters. The original was in the murder victim’s husband’s POV…which made no sense. But I knew that character and the plan was to have a murder mystery, not a crime novel. I pull little details from that file from time to time.
After I decided on a detective novel (NOT police procedural) and put the novel in the detective’s POV along with Brandi’s, the sidekick he doesn’t want to have, she also needed a POV. I don’t stick exactly to an alternating POV, but their chapters, thus far, have been clearly and specifically their chapters.
They haven’t been together much for the first half of the novel. Now it is coming upon a part where they will need to be. I am hoping their voices are well developed enough by this point not to be too confusing. The narration is third person, so I’m feeling pretty comfortable.
I now stand at 26,439 words, and I am about half way through the story I am telling. My husband is over eager. He has helped me along, when asked for details, but only read the first chapter, so far. He is an avid crime novel /murder mystery reader and loved the last one, but likes this rewrite much better.
My word count comes to about 2644 per day, over ten working days, but I am writing on weekends too, so it’s really not that many in a day. Add five more weekend days and you get more like 1767 words per day. I know some days it is only 300-500, and others are well over 3000, so who is to say what a word count is worth?
I do try to keep chapters to around 1500 words for short ones and around 3000 for a few longer ones. That has more to do with the rhythm of the read and the pace than anything else. So far, I am up to Chapter Thirteen and about in the middle of that. I am guessing less than thirty chapters.
An author my husband, the rocket scientist, has been reading is Tim Baker. His work is similar to Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen. Both authors I love. In many ways, I think Tim Baker’s work shows more cleverness. The rocket scientist reads me chapters out loud from time to time, and I am anxious to read his work myself. I’ll be reading and reviewing later.
One thing he did, and I plan to communicate with him about this, is published a short story written by another author at the end of one of his books. The story was the result of a contest he held. I am supposing he already had a fan base built up, and beta readers, or other bloggers who were interested enough to participate.
The story was knee slapping hilarious and was like a piece of fan fiction relative to his characters, but using a topic he selected. The topic was “death”. The writer who won the contest and was published in his work made fun of what might have been a plot hole, his use of commas (or improper use), and other such sillies. It involved a dead body left to rot in a character’s house. How much fun is that!?
I don’t know how he would feel if I stole his idea. I would like to mull over the details on how he set that up with him and see if he would mind if I tried something like that in the future. I would need a fan base first. So I am talking way along in the series. It really shows the camaraderie of self-published authors to promote and exchange ideas like that. I love it. It’s exciting to see that sort of mutual support. The story was great and I can’t wait to download his stuff on my iPad. I’ll never get my husband’s away from him.
Here are some of his titles if you want to check him out. We found that we have to put both his author name and the title into Amazon to pull up some of his older works. There are a few authors by that name so make certain you have the correct Tim Baker. I really don’t know if he’s still writing. I think his last novel was published in 2011. Of course, he could just be serving time somewhere. Ha!
Filed under: Book Reviews and Books, Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: accountability, camaraderie, cleverness, contest, fan fiction, independent author, progress, promoting other author's work, Tim Baker, word counts
