Into the Darkness Comes to Light
Hello friends. I come bearing good news and free beer. Or at least one of those things. I have finished my fourth novel! After a whole lot of talk about it, I finally got off my butt and got to it. You see, that’s the biggest problem with being HADD. That’s Hobby-Attention Deficit Disorder. When you have HADD like I do, you can’t stick with one of your hobbies for more than a few months at a time. And what this amounts to, when you have like nineteen favorite hobbies, is that each of them cycles around every couple of years. Or more.
So I get into and out of hobbies like the wind. It’s ridiculous. I get so into one of them that I neglect all the rest. Well, writing, for me, is a hobby. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s one of my top three favorites. I am very, very passionate about it. But that doesn’t amount to anything. It still comes and goes with cyclical irregularity, like a fat guy through a turnstile. This is why back in October of 2014, I was telling friends and family that I hoped to have my fourth book completed by Christmas. Well, that was the last I touched it. October 6th of 2014. And, sadly, that was a weak day. I wrote 1762 words on that day.
Well, I finally got a fire under my feet last month, and decided I was going to get back to work on this, thinking this is probably my best work yet. My best novel so far. It just needed some TLC. (Tentative Literary Control). So on December 10th, I set about to rereading the entire work so far, to get back in touch with it. To catch back up to where everyone was, where they were going, what had happened, and what needed to happen. I finished that in two consecutive nights. And then with a notebook full of ideas, changes and additions, I set about to writing again.
Well that first night, December 11, I wrote 2293 words. Clearly not much more than that last time I had written. But hey, I had just spent the last couple of hours – hours I could have been writing – reading it. So at that point, I goaled myself with finishing the book in a month. I was going to write the balance of the book in one month. That was about half, as far as I could tell. I don’t aim for a certain page count, or word count for that matter. But I generally know going in about how many words it’s going to take to tell the story. This one looked to me from the beginning to be worth somewhere between 130 and 150 thousand words. Clearly, a big project. And up until October 6 of 2014, I had only written 70 thousand.
I had a big undertaking in front of me. But averaging around 3500-5000 words per day, I stayed in my office for lots of long hours, blasting Kings of Leon and drinking cheap scotch. I don’t like to get drunk while I write, but I sure like to drink my scotch. And a little buzz doesn’t do much to upset me. Here I must throw in a massive thank-you to my lovely red-haired wife, who allows me to write. This is a support a lot of people don’t know. This means she takes care of the kids, the laundry, the dishes, the cooking, the house… Wait. She does all that anyway.
Well, during the times when I’m writing, I close the office door and turn the music way up. It’s a whole bunch of absence. I’m committed. But I’m proud to say I got it done. From December 11th to January 10th, one exact and complete month, I wrote 81,000 words. My biggest weekend in there was just over twenty thousand. My biggest day was 9556. Oh wait. That was in the first two weeks of that month. On the last day, the evening I finished it, I wrote… are you ready for it? Okay. Here goes: I wrote 14,778 words. That’s the most I’ve ever written in one day. Huge, huge accomplishment. I was in the office for about eight hours that day. And that brought me to the end. January 10th, I wrote the last chapter.
The next evening I wrote the epilogue. I don’t count that when talking about completion of the book, mostly because it’s not completely necessary for the book to exist. I wanted it, and love it, and I’m glad I wrote it. But the book could totally have survived without it. That only took me about an hour to write, anyway.
So, with all that said, I’m happy to announce that it will be ready for publishing within the next few months. I’m looking at April of 2016. It’s time to get excited, friends! If you liked my other books, you will love this one. This is my best work yet. Callie and Walter at their finest. And they go through a lot in this book. They learn and discover a lot about themselves. They encounter and address questions you have had for many years. They answer questions you always ask me. “Are they ever gonna get together, Space?” Uh… I don’t know. I really don’t. Or didn’t. When I’m not putting on paper what they are currently doing, I don’t keep up with them. I couldn’t tell you what will happen to them any more than I could a real person. I’m not really in control of their destiny. I am just the conduit through which their actions are funneled to you, the reader. And believe me when I say I am sometimes as surprised as you are to see what happens to them.
It’s exciting to me to say this. But after my first 3441 words were written, on February 12, 2008 – almost eight years ago – I have finally brought to close my dream of going under the sea. I have been tossing this idea around in my head for over a decade. It’s crazy. I can now say I’ve been to Mars, back in time to the late 19th century, down missile silos and now, finally, to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. And I have to tell you, there’s a pretty good little hanger at the end – one that leaves open the possibility of another Callie Simmons book. Another mission, another journey. I’m excited to get back to it.
For now, I begin my fifth book – a standalone novel about the rise of a relationship between a dunce and a dancer. It’s not a romance. It’s a heart-breaker. But I’m already seeing signs that it will be the best thing I’ve ever written. I don’t dare ever compare myself to other writers. I’m not that arrogant. But I can tell you that I’m getting better. And this is the best stuff I’ve ever written. Stick around, friends. I promise this one won’t take eight years. And then you’ll get your fill of Callie, solving the world’s problems one monster at a time.
I'll let you know when it's out.
Into the Darkness
So I get into and out of hobbies like the wind. It’s ridiculous. I get so into one of them that I neglect all the rest. Well, writing, for me, is a hobby. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s one of my top three favorites. I am very, very passionate about it. But that doesn’t amount to anything. It still comes and goes with cyclical irregularity, like a fat guy through a turnstile. This is why back in October of 2014, I was telling friends and family that I hoped to have my fourth book completed by Christmas. Well, that was the last I touched it. October 6th of 2014. And, sadly, that was a weak day. I wrote 1762 words on that day.
Well, I finally got a fire under my feet last month, and decided I was going to get back to work on this, thinking this is probably my best work yet. My best novel so far. It just needed some TLC. (Tentative Literary Control). So on December 10th, I set about to rereading the entire work so far, to get back in touch with it. To catch back up to where everyone was, where they were going, what had happened, and what needed to happen. I finished that in two consecutive nights. And then with a notebook full of ideas, changes and additions, I set about to writing again.
Well that first night, December 11, I wrote 2293 words. Clearly not much more than that last time I had written. But hey, I had just spent the last couple of hours – hours I could have been writing – reading it. So at that point, I goaled myself with finishing the book in a month. I was going to write the balance of the book in one month. That was about half, as far as I could tell. I don’t aim for a certain page count, or word count for that matter. But I generally know going in about how many words it’s going to take to tell the story. This one looked to me from the beginning to be worth somewhere between 130 and 150 thousand words. Clearly, a big project. And up until October 6 of 2014, I had only written 70 thousand.
I had a big undertaking in front of me. But averaging around 3500-5000 words per day, I stayed in my office for lots of long hours, blasting Kings of Leon and drinking cheap scotch. I don’t like to get drunk while I write, but I sure like to drink my scotch. And a little buzz doesn’t do much to upset me. Here I must throw in a massive thank-you to my lovely red-haired wife, who allows me to write. This is a support a lot of people don’t know. This means she takes care of the kids, the laundry, the dishes, the cooking, the house… Wait. She does all that anyway.
Well, during the times when I’m writing, I close the office door and turn the music way up. It’s a whole bunch of absence. I’m committed. But I’m proud to say I got it done. From December 11th to January 10th, one exact and complete month, I wrote 81,000 words. My biggest weekend in there was just over twenty thousand. My biggest day was 9556. Oh wait. That was in the first two weeks of that month. On the last day, the evening I finished it, I wrote… are you ready for it? Okay. Here goes: I wrote 14,778 words. That’s the most I’ve ever written in one day. Huge, huge accomplishment. I was in the office for about eight hours that day. And that brought me to the end. January 10th, I wrote the last chapter.
The next evening I wrote the epilogue. I don’t count that when talking about completion of the book, mostly because it’s not completely necessary for the book to exist. I wanted it, and love it, and I’m glad I wrote it. But the book could totally have survived without it. That only took me about an hour to write, anyway.
So, with all that said, I’m happy to announce that it will be ready for publishing within the next few months. I’m looking at April of 2016. It’s time to get excited, friends! If you liked my other books, you will love this one. This is my best work yet. Callie and Walter at their finest. And they go through a lot in this book. They learn and discover a lot about themselves. They encounter and address questions you have had for many years. They answer questions you always ask me. “Are they ever gonna get together, Space?” Uh… I don’t know. I really don’t. Or didn’t. When I’m not putting on paper what they are currently doing, I don’t keep up with them. I couldn’t tell you what will happen to them any more than I could a real person. I’m not really in control of their destiny. I am just the conduit through which their actions are funneled to you, the reader. And believe me when I say I am sometimes as surprised as you are to see what happens to them.
It’s exciting to me to say this. But after my first 3441 words were written, on February 12, 2008 – almost eight years ago – I have finally brought to close my dream of going under the sea. I have been tossing this idea around in my head for over a decade. It’s crazy. I can now say I’ve been to Mars, back in time to the late 19th century, down missile silos and now, finally, to the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. And I have to tell you, there’s a pretty good little hanger at the end – one that leaves open the possibility of another Callie Simmons book. Another mission, another journey. I’m excited to get back to it.
For now, I begin my fifth book – a standalone novel about the rise of a relationship between a dunce and a dancer. It’s not a romance. It’s a heart-breaker. But I’m already seeing signs that it will be the best thing I’ve ever written. I don’t dare ever compare myself to other writers. I’m not that arrogant. But I can tell you that I’m getting better. And this is the best stuff I’ve ever written. Stick around, friends. I promise this one won’t take eight years. And then you’ll get your fill of Callie, solving the world’s problems one monster at a time.
I'll let you know when it's out.
Into the Darkness
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