Joaquín Ramon Herrera's Blog: Fireflies in an Ocean of Night

Secret Collision

Hi! I don't know if I've told you, but I finished the rewrite of 'Secret Visions in the Valley of Night' [working title], and submitted it to a Lee & Low contest for the New Vision award.

Also, I write more regularly about my work here. Honestly, this site is so poorly designed that I spend way too much time just looking for simple functions like "Write Blog," and "Add Currently Reading." There is no toolbar, the links are small and randomly placed. It really is a mess, and I say that as a designer. Not to criticize goodreads.com endlessly, but in hopes they read it. And say 'wow,' our site would have much more use if it were cleaner, and more intuitive and redundant.'

And try to bring the post editor into current Wordpress standards, or closer if you can. WYSIWYG, etc.

I promise to try and make that my last rant about this site's GUI. But really, people!

Anyway, I'll still come here and write. But I will write more frequently at my writing blog. Thank you!

Oh, and my twitter account I've begun using finally, is here.

Out of Print, Still in Style

What a surprise. I checked the status of my first book today on a whim. I don't look after it too often. Both the Spanish and the English versions went out of print a while ago, and I don't collect any royalties, so there's really no need. But it looks like in the absence of a second print run, it has become a bit of a novelty/collector’s item.

It debuted at $11.99 USD in 2005, and it’s selling now for $36 - $70 online. $70!! And just to think, Amazon undercut all the book merchants and was letting it go for $8 or so, originally. HA!

EDIT: It seems to fluctuate. I'm not sure what that means. I looked at it the next day, and it was selling for up to $189. Pretty wild.

I don't get any of that money anymore. Still, I was left with a happy feeling. I'm proud of that little book, imperfect as it is! And even without advertising or any kind of publicity, let alone further printing runs, it grows in value.

Also, the good news is that I can point to this when I shop around the novel I just finished. Horris (the narrator and star of my first book) is a key character in this one, as well.

I always believed in ya, Horris.

Secret Visions

Hey, hey, it's been a while. Life is nuts. I'm always happy when I make time to get back into my fiction writing. And lately I've really been making good progress on a rewrite from the ground up of my very first novel. I mentioned it here, and said it "is a Horror/Fantasy story, a quest story of sorts. Perhaps if you blended The Lord of the Rings (minus the military/political content) with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a few old Russian folk tales, you'd get close." And I suppose that does a good enough job, if you simply must have those sorts of comparisons. Yikes. It's usually a mistake to set up expectations and I don't care for it. But I've also come from a world of filmmaking, where you must be able to pitch your story in such a way!

Anyway, I'm on Chapter 18 now, on pg. 123. Of course, it will undergo more shifting until the final edit. Right now the working title is Secret Visions in the Valley of Night.

I'm feeling really good about the way it moves, and the reshaping I've done to it. I'm coming toward the end, and it is all organically weaving together and building in pitch. I've been into the 3rd act before and felt them empty, when you try to prop up things or create them to make it more dramatic, but its contrived. That's not the case this time.

I wasn't sure I'd pick it up again. I don't have too much of a problem writing a book off if I feel it was good for a learning process, but wants too much work or time to be finished well. Usually it's better to just move forward rather than hover over an old lesson endlessly. But when I picked up this rewrite I began last year...I was impressed. As a reader, I could feel the pace and tension unfolding in my chest. I realized a good story was shaping up, and it made no sense to abandon it. I'm glad now I made that decision.

I find myself nearing the end of the book now, and ready to begin writing book two. It's that kind of story. And that will be exciting because that will be fresh writing. No rewrite of any sort. But my mind is filled with all the characters and the flow of this story, so I imagine the pages will write themselves, pretty much.

Good to see ya, talk soon!

JRH

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OH: PS. Goodreads has probably the worst interface for writing re WYSIWYG etc. This site is a mess. It took me five minutes to figure out how to post a blog post, it's not coherent design, and this text box post editor is so perfunctory and basic it feels like I'm in 1998 or something, when you have to write all your HTML out by hand. Come on, Goodreads. You want your authors to post here, please catch up to the times.

Goings on.

I have stalled on my reading of Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. Why? Because my Internet is an evil tempter. Internet really is a threat to the creative process. So much energy is (potentially) poured away. Artists and Writers need to be very careful.

But at least I've been hard at work on my own fiction. I finished writing a Fiction/Fantasy 214pp novel, which I must call my 'first novel,' although it is the second I've written. It happens to be the first one I'm satisfied with. Currently, I've sent it out to a circle of friends to provide me with a first line of feedback, as I'm not currently represented by/working with an editor. When I have it polished to my enthusiastic approval, I will shop it around to publishers.

The other, which technically was my first, sat for ten years, in a mess of a state. I essentially gave it up, chalked it up to experience back in 2005. But then I missed writing and dug it up to read, once more, the feedback I got from two profs I had (one at SCCC, one at NYU Film). In 2005, I simply didn't have the chops yet to rework it, though I definitely felt the material deserved it.

But I took from it the basic outline, most of the characters, and the story itself. It's a good story. And I've been rewriting it from scratch. I finished chapter 8 last night, and the children all loved it. (We read them each chapter after I've finished it; they are my first line of feedback.) This current book is a Horror/Fantasy story, a quest story of sorts. Perhaps if you blended The Lord of the Rings (minus the military/political content) with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a few old Russian folk tales, you'd get close. But it's still original enough that this doesn't accurately describe it.

I'm very happy with both works and can't wait to publish them, and see what you think.

Pithy Tither. Sermonizer. Nun, the wiser.

There are good reasons that "Fredicine" is not a part of your Doctor's vocabulary. Name one.