Finally!

I was pretty sure this day would eventually come, but I had no idea when. And I guess I didn't really expect it to be today, but that's how life works.

I'm pleased to say I finally had an agent request to see the first part of the manuscript for Kricket's Song. It's by no means a guarantee of representation, but at least I seem to have a query letter that works in getting an agent to look at my book. The agent is one who I regard to be one of the best in the business, so it's quite a victory in my opinion. Hopefully, even if he turns down the book, he'll at least give me some ideas on why, and that advice will be worth its weight in gold.

In the meantime, I'm progressing with the military sci-fi thriller project. I had named it Darkness, but after some consideration, I've renamed it Into the Shade. I've written the first two chapters, and hope to outline and write chapters three and four shortly.

That's it for today. I've got about a million other things to attend to. When it rains, it pours. Thanks for reading!

Once More Into the Breach!

Well, I've gone and done it again. That's right, I sent another query letter for Kricket's Song. Either I'm brave, a sucker for punishment, or downright insane.

Sometimes that's how I feel, anyway. This is my fifth in the latest round of query letters. Three have met with form rejections so far. I feel really good about this one (I've felt good about most of the previous ones, too, or I wouldn't have sent them). Instead of agonizing over whether the query letter was good or not, I was able to hammer it out in 18 minutes, with another 20 or so spent on proof reading and revising. I think my latest round of research on query letters and my most recent attempts at writing new ones are finally paying off. It's still a nerve-wracking experience, but at least it's not as time-consuming as it used to be.

In other writing news, I've completed character bios and a basic plot outline for my new military sci-fi thriller Darkness. That title may end up getting changed. I hope to start writing the rough draft today after looking over the plot outline again and possibly making a few tweaks. You can keep track of the progress in the "Active Projects" box on the right side of this blog.

Thanks everyone for reading, and don't forget to check out @BryanRDurkin on Twitter. I'll follow you if you follow me! I'm positive I'm chock full of all kinds of insight at 140 characters or less...

Darkness

Two things on the agenda today.

First, just sent out another query letter for Kricket's Song, the third in this most recent round of querying. The current tally is now waiting on 2, Form Reject on 1. If you're ever curious about how many rejections I've gotten and number of query letters currently still out, you can check my tall on the right side of this blog, under the "Active Projects" tab.

Second, I'd like to introduce a new project I'm working on, tentatively titled Darkness. It would probably be most accurately classified as dark military science fiction. Think of the movie Pitch Black crossed with Halo and you'll get the feel I'm aiming for. The idea has been bouncing around in my head since 2008 at least, but I'm finally starting to flesh out characters and plot for it. I'm not ready to give away all the fun details, but I'll share a rough draft of the log line or "pitch" I have for it so far:

"After murdering her commanding officer, a decorated Marine veteran is shipped to a prison planet where her violent fellow inmates aren't the only threat. The military's most covert project is based on her new home world, and the planet itself guards a terrifying, bloodthirsty secret."

The overarching themes I'll be dealing with through the plot involve why we fight, how we deal with the darkness inside us and around us, and why we cling to our ideals even when real life seems to have shown us how pointless those ideals are. These themes are inspired by some of my real life experiences, as well as my imagination just running wild.

That's it for today! Thanks for having a read.

Reboot...Again

I'm back. I'm like that dud round you keep tossing on the ground, and yet, I somehow end up back in your magazine. Or that really annoying writer with the uninteresting blog who keeps promising this year he will finally get published. Yeah...I went there.

Regardless, here I am, again. 2013 was not as productive a year as I had hoped it would be. The early months started out great, with Kricket's Key nearing 75% completion. I did a bunch of query letter drafts for Kricket's Song. The folks at Absolute Write put my drafts through the wringer, and while I got a lot of helpful advice, I reached the point where I felt like I wasn't improving anymore. So the only thing left was to start querying agents again.

And then, summer started early for me. I got a promotion in my summer job which led to me starting work about a month early, and there were plenty of fires, so I ended up working some pretty long weeks. Then I ended up in Israel for a couple weeks, a week-long hunting trip in Arizona after that. Then it was the holidays, and family, and one thing after another, behold--it's 2014!

Yeah I know, excuses, excuses...

I wasn't entirely unproductive, just mostly. Remember those 8 drafts of query letters I talked about in the last post? That became 14. And now, using a completely different draft, I've sent out another query letter, and I hope to hear some good news soon. Or it could just be another Form-R. We'll see. Kricket's Song also got put through another round of very light polishing, just cleaning up some overly long phrases and using stronger action verbs. After being away from the manuscript for the better part of six months, fifteen minutes of work on the first chapter left me feeling immensely more positive about it.

So now I'm going to start the push on query letters once again, and see if I can't find an agent who will work with me. I'm also hoping to get back to work on Kricket's Key and perhaps another, unrelated project, just so I don't have all my bullets in one gun...or is that all my eggs in one basket... I like my analogy better.

If you read this blog, thanks. Sincerely. I like to think I'm a decent enough fiction writer, but when it comes to the social media thing, it's obviously not my forte. But I do appreciate every read I get! Here's to lots more this year!

Happy New Year!

Query Letter Hell: The Return

I apologize, in a sort of formal, noncommittal way, about not posting here recently. May has been very busy for me in a variety of ways. I started my summer firefighting job again, about three weeks earlier than expected, and it's been keeping me pretty busy. In addition, I've also been finishing up some beta-reading projects for a couple of fellow writers. It was a process that was educational and useful for me, and I hope it was for them, as well.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Kricket's Song got some modifications, mostly in the form of a couple of scene additions that further develop the relationship between Jonah and Mouse as best friends, as well as some things that I hope help clarify why Jonah is risking his life trying to find Katerina--when, in all honesty, she's not presented as the perfect fiancee to begin with.

I also got a much needed new perspective on my query letter efforts. As I've lamented on here before, 8 different drafts of query letters (maybe more) have met with form rejections or no responses. I haven't sent that many queries, numerically speaking. But I HAVE done considerable research on the agents, and the book itself has gone through significant polishing and editing, and had been vetted for any major flaws. So I feel like if I had a good query letter, I would've gotten at least a personalized rejection or two. That leads me to believe my query letter itself probably isn't up to par. Hence, following the much needed new perspective, I've written a 9th query letter draft. I've submitted it to Query Letter Hell on Absolute Write, and I guess we'll see what sort of response I get. I'm hoping it's at least apparent the new draft isn't a first attempt at a query letter. I'm also hoping more than one person can agree on what's wrong with it. Last time I tried QLH, I had ten different people saying ten different things, and some of those contradicted each other.

In the meantime, this summer is looking to be a very busy one. I will continue doing my best to write, on Kricket's Song as needed, as well as getting some forward momentum going with Kricket's Key once again (the first draft). I'm also brainstorming a couple other projects for down the road.

As for what will happen after summer, well, that's anyone's guess. I might find a new job, or I might end up unemployed with nothing but time. And I just might go on a little epic quest of my own. Here's hoping.

Updates and Inspirations

Being unemployed has one benefit: it allows me to spend more time on writing-related stuff, and still slack off an awful lot. But as much slacking as I've been doing (too much), I have been doing a lot of writing-related work. One of the most obvious bits of progress, of course, is this blog. As you can see, I've changed the colors somewhat, hopefully making it easier for folks to read. That white on black scheme I had going looked snazzy, but it was hard even for me to read.

I know the masses aren't exactly craving updates on my works in progress, since I'm not famous or anything, but I'll share anyway. I really feel like Kricket's Song is finally going from "good" to "great." My latest attempts to recruit beta readers were actually successful, and they've provided some very helpful feedback. Miraculously, they pointed out the same flaw in the book. For those of you who've been through this process, you're probably aware that this is a good thing, because it doesn't always work like that. You get five beta readers and get five different opinions. Awesome. Which one do you go with? But when you get different people saying the same thing, now you know what to work on!

So, I'm doing a lot of revising and editing. Thankfully, the changes don't require major rewrites, just an extra short scene here and there, a little bit better description of the main character's thoughts and emotions, and improving how he interacts and relates to the other characters. The revisions have yet to go back to the betas, as I'm still working on them, but I feel like they make Kricket's Song a lot better. Hopefully good enough to at least get a nibble from some agents the next time I try querying.

I've also been doing beta reading for three other writers. It's a lot of work, but they're helping me, so I enjoy helping them, and it's getting me to read more. I'm also learning from the experience, and that's always a good thing.

I really jumped the gun with trying to query before finding good beta readers. Don't make the same mistake I did! Shop around until you find some. It will save you a lot of time and grief. And no, your family and friends don't count.

Finally, I want to just briefly mention some of the things that inspire me while writing. As with everything else I've mentioned regarding the writing process, inspiration varies greatly from person to person.

For me, it's usually music. I like to listen to it while I write, at a volume that I can hear, but not so loud as to distract me or make concentration difficult. The kind of music I listen to usually depends on the genre I'm writing at the time.

Fantasy:
Epic Score (Gabriel Shadid and Tobias Marberger)
Abney Park - For steampunk/fantasy
Future World Music
Two Steps From Hell
Jo Blankenburg

Science Fiction:
Front Line Assembly - For military sci-fi, dark, post apocalyptic
Video Game Soundtracks - Such as Halo, Deus Ex
Bjorn Lynne - Colony

Before I start writing a manuscript, pictures can also inspire me. I like to find pictures of people that look similar to major characters. I also look for pictures that inspire certain settings or scenes within the book itself. I save these in folders with the files for the WIP itself, for easy reference. It adds a little color to all the black and white notes. I also often get ideas for completely unrelated projects, which I keep for future reference.

Every writer should find something that inspires them and keeps them motivated, not just for the initial idea, but through the project as a whole. We've all experienced that initial flash of excitement, and then the motivation drains away after we start. For me, moving music helps me to keep forward progress going. Well defined characters and an interested world help me keep from getting stuck, or running into "writer's block."

I hope, if nothing else, this will inspire you to figure out what keeps you motivated for the long haul.

Still Have Free Copies...

Good news for those of you who may be thinking you've missed out on a free copy of "Abyss": you haven't! I've still got some free copies to give away, and they'll be available until I post otherwise. In order to get your free copy, see the two posts directly below this one.

In other news, Kricket's Key continues to progress nicely, quickly approaching the 2/3 mark toward completion. I sent another query letter out for Kricket's Song. Here's hoping that nets at least a nibble.

Also, thanks to my brother, David, for helping me promote my science fiction short story "Abyss." Thanks to his efforts, the story ranks #91 in Kindle sci-fi short stories, and 44,765 overall on the site. That's way up from its original 200K+ ranking!

Stay tuned for more of my less promotion-y posts in the coming days. Next up, I'll be talking about my outlining process, both for a book as a whole, and for specific chapters.

No Rest for the Writer

It's true I've been silent for a couple weeks on this blog, but I haven't been idle when it comes to writing. In fact, I've actually been a bit busier than I thought I would be. I'll break down what I've been up to recently, and then I want to share a writing tool that has helped me in my latest works in progress.

As you no doubt know by now, my science fiction short "Abyss" has been published on Amazon Kindle. I've promoted it through this blog, Facebook, friends and family, and via the Absolute Write group I'm a member of. Beyond that, I really don't know how else to promote it. I lack funding, so I can't do anything fancy. Despite the lack of promotion, it has sold 11 copies (that's a ton, I know...more than last time I posted anyway), and it has received a five-star rating after three reviews. So it may not be getting read a lot, but those who do read it like it, which makes me happy.

The bulk of my work in the past couple weeks has been on Kricket's Key, the sequel to Kricket's Song. After finishing chapter thirteen of the rough draft manuscript, I decided to finally face the issue that's been nagging at me since about chapter five: I got so caught up in making forward progress that I was forgetting to start subplots, the characters weren't acting like themselves, and the whole project was lacking the color and depth I'd wanted to give it. Eventually, I realized it was nothing like what I wanted it to be, and simply pushing ahead would only make it harder to correct in the long run. Thus, I abandoned the first draft, and went back to rewrite it.

The main plot is staying entirely the same. However, I've added in a couple subplots, added a new character, and removed an old character who was no longer doing anything for the story. I'm in the middle of chapter three right now, and I'm much happier with how it's going. It shouldn't take me long to get back to where I was with the first draft, and push on into new territory.

And, as always, I'm jotting down ideas for other projects or random things that currently don't have a home.

Now let me share a tool I've been using, particularly in Kricket's Key, that has helped me with some of the shortcomings I identified in earlier works. One of the issues that was brought up by beta readers for Kricket's Song was that my settings weren't always well-described. I did well visually, but I tended to ignore the other senses. In order to combat this, I read a book on fleshing out setting, and I created a sort of impromptu "setting form" which helps me layout all aspects of an important setting. I fill out the form before I begin writing scenes that take place in the setting, so that I can refer to it as I'm writing. The main issue I have is not that I don't think about the various aspects of setting, it's just that I forget to mention them as I'm writing. This helps remind me to include them. Here is the form:

Project: (This is where I put the title or working title of the overall work)

            Scene: (For example, "Macy gets first look at the prison planet")

Overall Atmosphere (Dark, Desolate, Bright, Foreboding, etc.): (Here I put some adjectives which describe the general feel of the scene...these are "first impressions."

How the Setting Relates to the Senses: (This is where I get into the specifics as they relate to all five senses. There's no "right" way to fill this out. Sometimes I use single words or phrases, sometimes full sentences. The idea is to picture yourself in the setting you're trying to describe, and the list everything you can think of as it relates to the specific sense. I mean everything. This doesn't mean you'll actually use everything, but it will give you a pool of things to pick and choose from.)

Sight:

Sound:

Touch/Feel:

Taste:

Smell: 

So far, I've found that using this form helps me remember to include different details about settings, which creates a more thorough picture for the reader to become immersed in. It's short and to the point, and can be invaluable when you're cruising along and want to throw in a detail or two about the setting. You've already thought it out before hand, so you don't have to kill your forward momentum by starting a whole new brainstorming session.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Back to the grind!

167,858!

167,858: That's the rank "Abyss" currently enjoys in the Amazon kindle market. I'm in the top 200,000! Hey, at least it HAS a rank, right? It's out there. People are reading it. 8 of them so far. Only one of them was a family member.

Hopefully you can tell that the above is all tongue in cheek. I didn't expect my short story to become a huge seller. The hope is that I'll get my name out there, some people will read it, maybe later some more will. Eventually, if I put something significant out there (say, one of my novels), they'll recognize my name and buy it, and the fan base grows from there. That's the idea, anyway. Who knows if it'll work.

Now that "Abyss" is out there, most of my writing efforts have been concentrated on Kricket's Key. Progress is moving along nicely. I'm about one-third of the way to my word-count goal. This book is probably going to need even more rewriting and editing than the last one. I don't think I'm doing as well with describing the characters or the action. It's hard to put a lot of effort into it, when I don't even know if I'll be able to get an agent for the first one. The querying remains the most frustrating task of this whole business, the one thing that seems to be holding me up.

But...have to keep writing. It's the only way to get better, the only way to have a chance of getting published for real.

Thanks for reading my blog. And if you're one of the 8 people who've read "Abyss" and you enjoyed it, please leave a review on Amazon! That's really the only way I have to drive sales there right now. I'm still learning about marketing. More later!

Still Alive...Still Writing

Yes, I am still here. For better or worse.

Summer proved to be pretty busy for me. I actually got to fight some fires this fire season. However, it kept me away from the internet for most of the time. I did, however, have time to do some serious editing and polishing on Kricket's Song, and I can now say with confidence that it is complete. Over the summer, I have been querying continuously for it. These efforts have largely met with rejections, with 7 queries still unanswered and in the wind. I remain convinced that this is due to my inability to write a decent query letter, despite my repeated attempts at revising and polishing the letter.

With Kricket's Song complete, I've turned much of my attention to the sequel, Kricket's Key. Even though this new book is a sequel, it's important to understand that the first book is completely standalone. Yes, it leaves things open for a continuation, but you don't need to read the second book in order for the story of the first book to be complete. In order to read the second book, it's probably advisable that you've read the first book as well, but I'm trying to make it so that's not necessary.  Kricket's Key continues with many of the same characters from the first book, including Jonah, Skip, and Mouse. There are a couple new characters (including a Guv officer) and some old characters in new forms. It will expand the world I started building in the first book, and will further explore the technologies and magics introduced earlier. The Guv gets even more brutal, and the Grounders are back to cause yet more havoc.

I've also gone back to one of my science fiction short stories, "Abyss." I actually finished it this time around, and did some serious edits to polish it up and cut out unnecessary fluff. Instead of trying to sell it to a sci-fi magazine (which I don't think my stories are really suited for, anyway), I've decided to publish it on Amazon's Kindle, and see how it fares there. Right now, the manuscript is edited, polished, and formatted for Kindle, and I'm currently working with an artist to develop a nice cover for it. When it goes live on Kindle, I'll be sure to make mention of it here. I really don't know what to expect as far as how it will perform on Kindle, but I figure it might help get my name out a bit. If it goes well, I may try to publish some other shorts. I may even end up publishing a book here, if I just can't find an agent. We'll see.

So that's where I'm at for now. I'll try to get back into regular updates on this blog, but it will depend on how much writing I can accomplish. Hopefully more than I have recently.

Jumping the Gun - Again?

I didn't post in March, pretty much because I wasn't doing any serious work on my writing projects in March. Part of this was due to an increasingly busy work schedule (almost 1,000 students on property last week alone!), and part of it was due to the fact that was worn out and depressed with the whole query letter writing debacle. You may have noted I've already received one rejection for Kricket's Song, and I have one other query still out, with a response due back any time now. That's probably not a reflection on the book itself, but rather my query letter skills, which are still fledgling, I'm sure.

One of the big issues my beta reader brought up was that I don't fully establish setting in some of the scenes, and the reader is left guessing as to what exactly the physical setting is like. I read a book on how to establish setting, and now that I better understand how important it is to a novel--even a novel where the settings are mostly made-up--I'm actually a little excited to see how I can improve my settings. The key, of course, is to not go overboard with descriptions, and to somehow incorporate a vivid setting with the flow of good writing. Kricket's Song needs some work with that, and I've already done some of that.

My beta reader also brought up another issue, mainly that some of the "bad guys" really didn't seem all that believable or scary. The consequences for the main characters in encountering these bad guys aren't all that serious, and by about a third of the way through the book, the reader didn't feel all that concerned that the good guys would come out okay. That's definitely not the track I was aiming for, and I won't go into all the reasons I think it ended up coming out that way. The point is, I agree with what the beta reader has said, and now I have to figure out how to fix that.

My solution, right now, is to go back and rewrite some of the key scenes in which the main characters encounter these bad guys, and to rework some of the results of those encounters. The bad guys are going to conduct business a bit differently, and their efforts won't be as ineffective as before. A very important character is going to end up permanently maimed, and a secondary character is going to end up dead about halfway through the book. These changes will, of course, profoundly affect everything that comes after them. However, it's almost as if this new track I'm taking was really the one I had intended all along, because as I'm working these rewrites, I'm finding that all the elements I need are already there. I just have to tweak some of the details and rearrange some of the wording. Relatively speaking, these rewrites are going to be minor, I think. I'm already about 20% of the way through them, and I just started them today. We'll see if I remain this optimistic tomorrow!

All this to say, yes, I'm still working on Kricket's Song, and I think the end result will be even better than it was before. I kind of have the hunch that these issues are all that remain in keeping it from being a publishable book. But I'm still an amateur, and it's just a hunch. Time will tell. In the meantime, I won't be sending out any queries, as I want the product to be as finished and polished as I can get it before I try to sell it. And, the query letter may well be looked at again. THAT I am NOT looking forward to.

But one thing at a time, right?

So What's Up? Part II

Yes, there's been a long silence from me. No, I haven't been idle. I may have been procrastinating a little. But that's beside the point.

I've compiled a big list of agents, and now I'm narrowing the list down to determine who will be my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tier choices and so on. So far, that project is going well. It looks like I'll have somewhere over 30 agents to choose from, and a few are standing out as the ones I'd definitely like to query first. It's a tedious process, but one that I feel is necessary if I'm to set myself apart from the thousands of other would-be authors who barrage agents with tons of misguided queries every day. Hopefully, after the ill-timed fiasco that was The Serenity Solution, I've learned some valuable things that will better equip me for this particular quest.

A query letter is a BIG DEAL. Sometimes I feel like too much attention is given to it. Sometimes I see query letters that look ho-hum, and yet landed a writer a great contract. Other times I see query letters that get me all excited, and yet they've failed after the writer put a TON of effort into it. I think just about every would-be author out there has questioned the validity of a query letter and has yanked out more than a little hair over it. I know I have. But, I think that maybe, just maybe, I've finally written a query letter that isn't complete junk. It might be a little wordy. I might be approaching it wrong. I might have broken every query letter convention. I may not have sufficiently answered or focused on "Mod So-and-So's" almighty three questions. About 20,273 doubts plague me.

And yet, it's about time to press the trigger and hope my aim is good.

My synopsis probably needs work. I may entirely rewrite Chapter One of Kricket's Song because I'm not confident I've established conflict, setting, and character well enough. Etc.

And so I forge ahead, and I take a little more slack out of the trigger.

One of these days, I'll hit the target dead center.

So What's Up?

It's been a little while since I've posted, and even though things look quiet right now, there actually has been progress on Kricket's Song. So here's what's going on.

As you know, I've completed the initial editing/polishing phase on the manuscript. It can no longer be considered a "rough draft." It's starting to take a shape resembling what it should be when you pick it up on the bookshelf in a store. But, before you (or I) start getting excited...well, there's still a really long way to go before that happens.

I've started compiling a list of agents that I might like to query. Right now, it's just a very large and general list; I'll need to narrow it down and figure out which agents would be my top picks before I start sending out query letters. And that brings me to my next point: actually writing a query letter. I've written three drafts so far, and I've been receiving critiques on it from some of my fellow writers at Absolute Write. They've brought up some very good points and made some good suggestions. The problem is, it seems like every time I address an issue, it either raises more issues, or un-fixes an issue I'd previous thought fixed.

Also, after an initially unsuccessful appeal for some beta readers, I finally did find one person who was willing to take the first chapter. Again, he made some suggestions and critiques, and it appears I still have work to do on the manuscript itself. The good news is, this wasn't unexpected. Also, the changes should be too difficult to effect. The bad news is...well, there's still more work to do!

But all in all, progress is being made, so that's good. I've also been brainstorming some more for Kricket's Key and I think I'm making some progress with that particular plot puzzle. Hopefully, as I get the kinks worked out with Kricket's Song, I'll be able to turn my focus more and more to Key, but that may yet be some time down the road.

I'll keep you updated!

And Now, For the Scary Part

A little behind schedule, but I finally finished the Read Through/Polish of the manuscript for Kricket's Song. As I wrote the rough draft, I discovered I had a lot of bad habits when it comes to writing. I tend to use certain sentence structures way to much, and of those, a few are quite clumsy. I also have a tendency to use too many adverbs and adjectives. The polish was an attempt to get rid of as many of those errors as possible, and I think I did a good job of it.

In total, I eliminated almost 2,400 words from the manuscript that served no purpose whatsoever, other than to clutter things up. The current word count now totals just over 95K, and I think it's ready to go out to beta readers. So, tomorrow, I'll be contacting the two people who've already volunteered, and I'll be looking for others as well. While the beta readers have it, I'll be working on creating a query letter and a synopsis for the book. I'll also be researching agents I'd like to query. Hopefully I can get that process rolling very soon! It'd be nice to have an agent before summer, so that he/she can be working on selling it to a publisher while I'm wandering around the woods firefighting.

I'll also be working on getting a more concrete plot outline and character sheets drawn up for the next book, tentatively titled Kricket's Key. I've had enough ideas trickling in over the past couple months that it shouldn't be too hard, and most of my characters are drawn up already. Just need to change their motivations and goals for this new book. There will, however, be some other characters entering the equation.

That's about all for now; I hope to have more updates on the process soon!

Momentum, or Lack Thereof

Momentum is one of a writer's best allies. When you're making good, consistent progress, you can see your goal drawing closer. This provides motivation, which produces more progress, which continues to build the momentum and, therefore, the motivation. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. When there's very little progress, there's less motivation to continue with the process, even when the next step of that process is relatively easy.

In this case, the process involves going through my manuscript chapter by chapter, polishing up the writing and eliminating as many unnecessary words as possible, clarifying things, and generally trying to make it professional without making it come across as "writerly." So far, I've eliminated almost 1,000 unnecessary words from the manuscript, and I'm not even halfway through it yet. I'm sure my beta readers, when they get it, will point out a lot more to me.

Getting the ball rolling again after the holidays was more difficult than I'd hoped. After I got back from visiting my parents, I went right into a six-day work week. Immediately after that, I traveled back home to pick up something I ordered in Oregon before Christmas, but didn't come in before I had to get back to work. Tomorrow, I'll be making my way back to Nevada again--which means no writing will get done until Thursday at the earliest. And then, you guessed it, I'm back to work again! I got some polishing done today, but it's slow going. I'm about 38% of the way through the manuscript, and I hope to have it done before January is over, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, ideas and inspiration continues to develop for the next Kricket book, as well as ideas for the overall story arc that may end up taking three or even four books to completely play out. The challenge will be keeping these books complete in their own right so that I don't fall into the trap of being a new writer trying to market a series. But, as they say, "Write what you want and worry about the rest later." And right now, what I want to write is Kricket.

So...nyah.

Happy New Year!

So yeah, I know it's a couple days late, bu whatever. I've had more important things to do. Like prepping for the zombie apocalypse. And attending a wedding in the Arizona. And...stuff. But, Happy New Year to everyone, most especially the plethora of my faithful readers!

This is going to be a short post. I finally got started on the final read-through of Kricket's Song, albeit a week or so later than I might have liked. I don't think it's going to take me very long, but it's certainly going to require me to pay close attention to what I'm doing. I'm just trying to polish it, working to get rid of excessive words, make things that are unclear more clear, and essentially trying not to look like an amateur with the writing.

There's a particular document I've found very helpful at this stage of the project, entitled "Hunting Down the Pleonasms" by Allen Guthrie. You can find a reproduction of the document here. It's been reproduced with permission, and I think just about any writer will find it immensely helpful. A lot of it is stuff that we already "know," but that we seem to forget when we get into the heat of writing. I even went so far as to take the advice of printing it out and taping it on the wall next to my computer. I read through it every now and then, usually before I start a writing session, and it's started to get ingrained in my brain--which can only help my writing! I'll also put this link as a permanent one on the right side of my blog.

So anyway, that's where I'm at with Kricket's Song. Once I've finished this polishing session, it will be ready for beta readers. I've already had a couple members from the Absolute Write Water Cooler volunteer to read it for me, so I'm very excited about that. Victims are good, but victims who volunteer are even better! Oh, did I say that out loud...?

Season's Greetings and Kricket Update

First of all, I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I know it's a little late, but I've been traveling to be with family for the holidays. It'll be busy, but certainly better than spending it alone. I also want to take a moment to wish both of my brothers a very special Christmas; they'll both be spending it away from their families. It's because of guys like them that we can still celebrate Christmas in many areas of the world.

On to Kricket news, I've finished most of the major edits I wanted to accomplish. I still need to figure out how I'm going to rewrite the first few paragraphs of Chapter One. It won't be a major change, but still, it needs to be done right! Once I've done that and let the manuscript sit for a few days, I'll be reading through the whole thing again to look for typos, and to generally clean up the writing, so that it's nice, polished, and not amateurish. At least, that's the hope.

So again, Merry Christmas, and see you all next time!

Kricket Rough Draft Completed

You read it correctly! I finished the rough draft for Kricket's Song on 12-11-11. Final word count was 97,767. This was quite a bit over the original 90K word count I'd planned for, but not quite as high as I was afraid it might go. According to my research, somewhere between 80 and 90K is what agents are looking for from new writers, but 97K isn't so far out of the ballpark as to not be feasible. The word count will, of course, change before I submit it to agents.

So what's next for Kricket's Song? Well, I've got a list of about 23 edits that need to take place before I have the basic story the way I want it. Some of these were things that changed as I wrote the manuscript, some were ideas that I got after I'd already written those parts, and some where things that I just plain forgot to write in. I'm currently about 30% done with those edits, and I hope to have them done within the next few days, before I get started on my Christmas break.

After the initial edits, I'm going to let the manuscript sit for awhile. If I do any writing at all, it'll be on something completely unrelated to Kricket's Song. If I go back and read through it looking for errors right now, I'll only see what I want to see, instead of what's actually there. So I'll give my brain a break and look at it with fresh eyes a couple weeks later.

After I read through it and polish it up as best as I can, it'll then go to beta readers, who will give me yet another perspective. While the beta readers have it, I'll be researching agents, drafting a query letter, and all the other little things that need to happen for a manuscript to be ready for submission. And after that...well, I guess we'll see!

I already have a LOT of ideas for the sequel to Kricket's Song (although Kricket's Song is designed to be a standalone plot), but I don't have a definite plot laid out for it yet. Right now, that's slated to be my next major project, but we'll see how things go before I officially put it on my active projects list.

As always, I'll try to keep this site updated with my progress. I know it's been awhile since I last posted. My excuse is, I've been busy at work, and all my spare creative energy has gone into the push to get this rough draft done. But let's be honest: blogging is boring when I've got nothing to blog about. I'm not one of those guys that talks about something just to be talking. So, when I have something talk about, I'll post again!

The End is Nigh...

The end of the first draft of Kricket's Song, that is!

Yes, yes, I know, I haven't posted in like three weeks. Maybe more. I'm going to make a blatantly obvious excuse here, and say that it's because I was focusing so much of my creative effort on Kricket's Song. And that's at least partly true. For those of you who haven't been watching the little progress gauge over there on the right side of the blog, it's been positively skyrocketing upward. The first draft is literally approaching the final stages!

I'm excited about it, if you couldn't tell. Creatively speaking, I've been eating, sleeping, drinking, and breathing Kricket's Song for much of the past seven months (seven months tomorrow!). It's been an absolute joy to work on, but I'm excited to get it done. I don't think it's going to require any major rewrites, and the flaws that I've identified already have solutions waiting to be implemented, for the most part. Of course, this is a noob talking, so I could be wrong. I'm not worried about THAT just yet.

The buildup for the final climax is happening now, and within the next two or three chapters, Kricket's crew will be starting the final mission of mind-blowing epic awesomeness. Or at least, I HOPE it will be that good. I'm still estimating about 90,000 total words, which leaves me about 15,000 to go. I can't see it going more than a few thousand over, all told. That total will come back down some during editing, no doubt.

Regardless, the end of this stage is in sight. Then it'll be time to start planning the next book while I give Kricket a break. Then I'll be editing Kricket and getting it ready to submit to agents. I feel a lot more confident about this manuscript than I ever did with The Serenity Solution. The story really came together well, and while I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't need some serious polishing, I believe it holds a great deal of promise for the not-too-distant future.

My goal is to have the first draft done before the end of the year, which shouldn't be a problem at this pace. I'd like to have it ready to go to beta readers by the end of the year. Then I could possibly have it out to agents before spring of next year. We'll see, so stay tuned!

Those Who Should Know Better

We've all been in this position before. A book or movie you've been waiting for and looking forward to for a long time has finally come out. Or maybe you haven't really been looking forward to it, but you see it being advertised or stumble across it in the bookstore, and the cover is amazing, and you're familiar with other books in the same series or setting. And you're thinking, "Wow, this ought to be so cool." Then you sit down and read it or--in the case of movies--watch it. You get to about the halfway point, and it starts to sink in: it's not that great, and it's probably not going to get any better.

That's a real downer. Unfortunately, that's the position I've found myself in over the past few weeks while reading one of the newer books in the Halo series. Yes, that Halo, the X-Box game that is both famous and infamous the world 'round. Whether or not you're a fan of the games themselves, I'm personally a huge fan of the story behind the games. I've read all of the books, and while they weren't of the most amazing quality (few books based on video games are), they were generally well-written and entertaining, with one or two exceptions. Unfortunately, Halo: Evolutions set the bar for low quality in the series.

Evolutions is actually a collection of short stories set in the "Haloverse" by a variety of authors. Most I've never heard of before, but there are a couple of more well-known authors from the military sci-fi genre, including Karen Traviss and Eric Nylund, to name a few. Both Ms. Traviss' and Mr. Nylund's shorts were fairly good, but the majority of the other authors left me with one burning question: What criteria did they have to meet in order to get published in this book? It certainly wasn't quality of writing.

Now, I could spend an entire day going through the book and pulling out specific quotes to back up my claim, but I'm not going to do that. Also, to be perfectly honest, some of my gripes are purely subjective. My main complaint was that these authors made it painfully clear they had very little, if any, idea how professional soldiers behave on the battlefield. Sure, each soldier is different, each organization has a different level of quality. But when a pair of Spartan-IIs are bantering back and forth like a pair of 12-year-old wanna-be tough guys, it rather detracts from the business at hand, namely, slaughtering Covenant forces and protecting humanity from certain annihilation. There was also a lot of behavior that seemed very contrived, whether it was to force a plot point or a shabby attempt at characterization. One example: the Office of Naval Intelligence is always deceiving people on their own side, and always has an ulterior motive. Like the whole of ONI is comprised of nothing but scumbags.

Another distressing trend I discovered is that all the short stories ended just when it seemed things were finally starting to happen. Most often, it ended with the main character(s) getting abruptly shot in the head, stabbed in the back, or blown out of orbit. I got the impression that the authors had a good idea for their stories, but couldn't figure out how to develop it, and just when they seemed to pick up the thread and get it rolling, they realized they'd exceeded their word limit and they had to cut it off. And here's a purely subjective point for you: I get kind of depressed when 60% of the short stories end with the main character being killed or most likely killed. I understand that survival is no certain thing, especially not in the Haloverse, but I'd like to think that someone other than the Master Chief is capable of taking on the Covenant and living for at least a little while.

So, what's the whole point of this rant? I guess it boils down to poor research, lack of realistic characterization, and some poor plotting. I really expected more, especially from a franchise where the consumers are used to high quality. In today's publishing world, where it's becoming nearly impossible to get published, quality is a must. We can't afford to have shoddily written books flooding the market, when there are plenty of quality writers out there who can't get published because the numbers are against them.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

In other news, Kricket continues to progress well. I'm about two-thirds of the way done with the rough draft. I've gotten into a sort of unofficial contest with another writer from the Absolute Write Water Cooler (see links on right) to see who can finish our manuscripts first. The deadline is January 1st of next year. If I keep writing like this, I should be able to get it done by then. Here's hoping!