It's 12:48 on Friday September 3, 2010

The wrinkles only go where the smiles have been.

Roll With It

“You going to be around later? Thinking of taking a quick flight around a little later if you want to ride along.”

Such an innocent question.
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April 11, 2010 | Filed Under Writing | 2 Comments 

Where Do You Write?

As I write this, my 2 dogs are barking outside; 4 kids are arguing over what music to listen to on the kids’ computer; 3 or 4 others are in the TV room watching something, and the other two are upstairs. It’s a noisy environment to write in.

My desktop computer has internet access, which means Facebook, Global Affairs, and all sorts of news and writings sites, as well as several games that have recently caught my attention. There are plenty of distractions there to keep me from being productive.

With all the noise and distractions, where’s a person to write?

One thing that’s helped me tremendously, I think, is a laptop computer. My wife and I bought a used Dell Inspiron 6000 several months ago, and we decided then that this was going to be for business use only. The only games installed are those that came with Windows. We’ve got wi-fi in the house, and the laptop came with wi-fi capability, so there are still the potential distractions of the internet. But I find that for some reason I can control what I do on the ‘Net when I’m on the laptop better than I can when I’m on the desktop.

The other capability the laptop has given me is that I can go elsewhere and still be productive. When I was away from the house, I used to use my Palm T|X and an infrared keyboard, but the Palm is getting old, and the infrared capability has died. I had considered trying to get it fixed, but we got the laptop first, and this is serving me well. At the moment, I’m hiding in the basement, which has reduced the noise considerably.

I also have an MP3 player that serves me well. My wife and kids got me a set of active noise-cancelling headphones for Christmas. I find I can put those on, kick off a random playlist on the MP3 player, and crank out words like there’s no tomorrow. When I’m in public, like waiting for the kids at the local rec center, I find that headphones not only make it easier to hear the music, but they tend to deter others from casual conversation better than earbuds. I’m not sure why that is, but I happily exploit it on occasion.

So where do you write best? What works for you?

February 21, 2010 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

California Drivin’

I have a question that came up as I’m working on The Sad Girl, and I bet one of my occasional readers can help me.

A couple of people are going to drive from San Diego to San Francisco. I know it’s an 8-10 hour drive one way, but they’ve only really got the weekend to get up there, meet someone, and get back. They’re thinking about heading out early on a Friday evening.

What makes more sense for them? I-5? 101?

What about LA traffic? What’s the best way around or through there?

Neither person is a California native, but they’ve both been there for a while. The driver has probably been in California for 10 years or so; the passenger for about 4, off and on.

Comments or suggestions? Where might they stop if they leave Friday night? Give me some local color!

February 17, 2010 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

Expanding My Horizons

Now that I’ve finished a first draft on my first novel, I’m working on outlining the second. As the first passes around to a few readers, and the plot develops in the second, I’ve become concerned about the track I seem to be following. Don’t Stop Believin’ wanders through the adult entertainment industry – exotic dancing. Sad Girl is heading down an even darker path: human trafficking. Are these really topics that belong in Christian fiction, I asked myself, several times. Am I really glorifying God?

I posed a version of that question to my friend/editor Joy, and she pointed me to several authors: Brandilyn Collins, Dee Henderson, Terri Blackstock, among others. I’ve read a few of Dee’s works, and just finished Terri’s Cape Refuge (and liked it a lot). Dee’s O’Malley series involves a violent stalker. Cape Refuge opens with a double murder. Collins writes Christian suspense. Can I do this?

Brandilyn had a great post the other day about a great fan letter, which in turn linked to a not-so-great fan letter, and that one was the one that really moved me. It was especially heartening to get an encouraging comment from Brandilyn on Facebook.

So I’ve been reading Brandilyn’s blog on a regular basis lately, and today there was a link to Mike Duran’s excellent blog, Decomposing. He’s got some great posts about some topics I’ve really been struggling with, so I’ve got some reading to do. Between his and Brandilyn’s blog, and the AFCW reading lists (social issues and author comparison, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Faith, Writing | 1 Comment 

Decisions, Decisions

I’ve been trying to outline my latest book. I want to develop “The Sad Girl” into a full-length novel, because I think it will be a good story. But it’s taken a very dark turn at the moment. I’m not above writing a dark story about an ugly topic, but at the moment, I haven’t found a Christian aspect to the story.

Don’t Stop Believin has a strong religious story arc, despite the adult entertainment background. One of the main characters learns about God’s love for her, and then make some difficult decisions about how to deal with the changes salvation brings into her life. Even if a Christian publisher won’t accept it as-is, I think it could be re-written without too much difficulty into an acceptable story.

I haven’t found that angle yet for Sad Girl yet. But I have some time ago determined that I’m not going to write a book that doesn’t glorify God in some way so I need to pay attention to that as I continue the outlining process. I’m still learning about the main character, named Danny Cumberland, and his girlfriend Teresa Chadwick, so maybe there are some things they haven’t told me about themselves yet. I hope so. It’s disconcerting to think about putting so much effort into a story that I won’t be able to write.

January 23, 2010 | Filed Under Faith, Writing | Leave a Comment 

6 Years, 10 Months, 18 Days

Two thousand, five hundred and twenty-four days.

Three hundred and sixty weeks.

101, 380 words.

Actually, no. I’m off by two words. Forgot to count “The End.”

Yes, roughly 60,576 hours later, Don’t Stop Believin’ is done, or at least the first draft is. Time to back up that file, and start thinking about another story or two before I start rewriting this one.

It’s been an interesting week, quite honestly. My mother-in-law passed away Friday, on her ex-husband’s birthday, which turned out to be the day after I wrote the last words. The moment itself was…humbling, and surreal. My first thought was, “Holy crap, I’m really done.”

It was certainly an intriguing journey. In the real world, I’ve changed jobs twice, and added a child to my family. In the book, two people have died, one gave her life to Christ, and another is almost there. It took me almost seven years to tell a story that only spans 65 days. That worked out to 151 days of actual writing, spread out over the aforementioned 2,524 days, or about once every 16 days. When I was writing, I was cranking out an average of about 670 words a day. But there were long stretches of no writing, for different reasons. Most of the time, I blamed my muse for no longer speaking to me. In her defense, I didn’t really try speaking to her, so it’s fair for her to keep quiet, I suppose. Ah well.

For the next few days, no more writing. Visitation is Tuesday, and the funeral is Wednesday. It’ll be a long week. I’ve already got the basics for the next story in mind. It’s a short I wrote a couple of years ago, and I think it’s worth turning into a novel. At least I hope it is.

January 16, 2010 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

Sagavanirktok

That’s a river in the North Slope region of Alaska. It’s an Eskimo word meaning “strong current.”

I love strange place names. One of my favorite books is Passing Gas, a book about strangely names places in the US.

This AP article touches on some of the strangely named places in Alaska, like Eek, Chicken, and Mishap Creek. Neat stuff.

April 16, 2008 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

Fat wash manuring

AKA fun with anagrams.

Hope all you lexophiles enjoy it.

July 12, 2006 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

Writing Again!

I”m not sure what my problem is with my WIP. I just checked my records, and up until about two months ago, I was averaging just about 460 words a day, as was writing pretty steadily – at least every other day. Then it just stopped. Did the story really dry up, or was I just getting lazy? The more I’m thinking about it, I vote for lazy. I say that because it occurred to me last night that I’ve been looking at my writing as a hobby, not as anything really serious, like an occupation or job, or source of income. When I sent an email out to several people about the Blog Fiction Project, I even made light of my writing. Heck, more people who know me know that I’m a Christian than know about my writing, and I don’t broadcast my faith (which is another issue I need to work on, but that’s a different post).

Anyway, last night as I was watching the kids take their baths, I got just over 400 words written, and it feels like I’ve got a lot to say today, so maybe I’m finally getting serious about it.

June 26, 2005 | Filed Under Writing | 3 Comments 

Thanks

I wanted to say thanks to all who visited during the Going Twice Blog Fiction project. I’m looking forward to the next one, whenever that may be.

I hope you all took the time to read the stories. There are some great writers out there, even if we are a violent bunch!

June 16, 2005 | Filed Under Writing | Leave a Comment 

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