On my Request List: A Kick in the Behind

Writing is hard. It takes resolve to sit at the computer and tap out inspiration.

It wasn't always that way especially at the beginning. 

My first 20 K word count was fan fic that took a couple of weeks. An original manuscript of 102 K followed. I had the first draft in three months, and the sequel of about 30 thousand in a month. I started and finished my second ms, Wilder Mage, in four months.

The Adamant was completed in six months.

Mage Revealed, sequel to Wilder, in eight months.

See the trend here?

My buckle-down-and-get-it-done flitted off into the aether, lost among the shiny objects and squirrels. The road I'm on leads to the junction of Used To Be and What If. I know I’d have lots of company—writers who gave up and quit—but dang, I really don’t want to end up there.

And so, I am taking the advice of Stephen King and CharityBradford and putting on a new shield of Gumption.

Number ten on Stephen King’s list of twenty writing tips:

“You have three months. The first draft of a book—even a long one—should take no more than three months, the length of a season.”

That’s about a thousand words a day and not out of the range of a professional writer. It is do-able.

Charity has a excellent writerly goad called Birth of a Novel.

Every Friday you post a quick update on how you're doing on your writing projects. It can be combined with Camp Nano or whatever personal goals you've set.
All you need is a line or two added to the beginning or end of whatever post you already had planned for the day.Then visit the others in the list to encourage them to keep moving forward.

I have several projects orphaned due to neglect. 

Chimera Mage-27,099
The Adamant-First Edits
Of Oak and Dragons-102,000, re-write
Diamond Black-8834 

Time waits on no one. Ambition doesn’t grow on trees. And I am running out of both. 

It is time to be what I once was, a writer.

IWSG - Sequels, Shimmer, and Syfy

IWSG—Insecure Writers Support Group: The Final Frontier.

These are the continuing voyages of the Ninja Captain, AJC. His mission, to explore all new writing venues, to seek out new authors and new blogs. 

To boldly go where no blogateer has gone before.

Coming together on the first Wednesday of every month for a virtual pat on the back. 

IWSG. To sequel or not to sequel? That is the question.

Of Adamant and Fire

With a manuscript of a new book series in first edits, I wonder now if I really want to make it into a multiple books. I could tie up the characters and empathize The End to make it hit a wall. Or leave it as it is despite not knowing where it is headed.

It is a quandary.

Shimmer. Matthew Keith has a new book out that dives into the mysteries of the lost colony of Roanoke. 

July, 1587

115 men, women, and children vanished from the Island Colony of Roanoke with no explanation. The only clue left was a single word carved into a post on the fence surrounding the village: “CROATOAN”.

This is their story, and the story of the family who was the cause of the colony's downfall.

Shimmer follows Alexander Croatoan, the modern-day descendant of a man whose brilliance undid an entire community, as well as his family for generations after.

Movies and TV. Dominion on SyFy channel starts its second season on July 9th. It has an interesting yet disturbing

premise. 

God vanishes and in his absence the archangel Gabriel and his army of lower angels wage war against mankind, believing them to be the cause of God's absence. 

Archangel Michael has chosen to side with humanity against Gabriel, living among humans in the fortified city of Vega (once Las Vegas) until the time a prophesied savior appears to save mankind - courtesy Wikipedia.

Gobs of plot holes in this rather cool series and too many clichéd tropes. But it is my guilty pleasure of the month.

Since the script could be improved, clearly the hunk-factor is part of the allure. Examples:

Tom Wisdom as Archangel Michael

Carl Beukes as Gabriel

And Christopher Egan—Eragon, Letters to Juliet—as the Chosen One.

Agents. New agents, Rebecca Stead, The Book Group and Lena Yarbrough at InkWell.

Ms. Stead is interested in young adult and childrens. Ms Yarbrough in commercial, literary, and nonfiction.

News in Book World. How can Harper Lee top To Kill a Mockingbird? And who hasn't pre-ordered her second book in fifty-five years, Go Set a Watchman?

Do you like reading series? How about writing multiple books of the same universe. How you seen Dominion and isn't Michael...well, hot?