Posts Tagged ‘Pure Escapism’

Had the best week of writing I’ve had for quite a long time. Churned out over 15,000 words in total, so easily made my 2K a day mark for the last week. I’m still a bit behind for the monthly total though, at 26K in the first 17 days.

6200 words of that were in the last two days. With everything else going on, left me feeling drained by days end, but rather happy as well.

So far three of the stories for Pure Escapism Volume Two are done – just need the fourth done, which will hopefully be today or tomorrow. Barring emergencies, I’d like to have it out by week’s end.

I’m changing the content of the upcoming second volume of Pure Escapism slightly. One of the short stories, namely The Village, hasn’t worked out as well as I would like, so I am pulling it out for now and, once it is fixed, it will appear in a later issue.

Replacing it is a short story that is perhaps the oldest one I’ve got that is worth reading – it dates back to ’91 or ’92, when I was still a teenager. To have something from my teenage years actually decent enough to read is a rarity.

The story was one I wrote for Writers Workshop class. I may actually have the original one around somewhere, but it would be hard to find, tough I remember the plot quite well. The story itself came from an exercise where we were shown a painting and had to write a story from it. The painting was of an old, slightly sad looking man, wearing a Spanish Conquistador style helmet with a red plume. The story itself is a bit different, which lends itself well to the more experimental feel of the second volume.

The story is called The Duel, and I look forward to it being available soon, once volume two is finally finished.

I’ve finished the edit/rewrite of the second of the short stories and have commenced on the third, and longest, of the four. Hopefully by next weekend I’ll be done and have volume two ready to go.

The edits, beside fixing spelling and grammar issues, also seem to add about 20% to the length of the stories from the rough drafts as parts get improved and expanded on.

Yesterday was a bit lacklustre. Had plenty of chances to do some writing but didn’t start until 8:15 at night. Waste of much of a day really. Still, I got a solid hour and a half in. Hopefully today is better.

Three to go.

Finished the rewrite/edit of the first of the four stories for Pure Escapism Volume Two. Need to get working hard on the rest and hopefully have them all finished soon.

It feels a bit surreal to be making this post, but I’ve had a review of Pure Escapism: Volume One.  A good one too, which almost makes it immodest to post.  To remain balanced I shall be obliged to post up a poor review as well, even if I have to write it myself.

The review comes from Mr. E. Patrick Dorris, who came across it at Smashwords.  He also writes there, with the series John Smith, World Jumper – more on which later. He is one of the highest rated authors by readers there too, which makes it a double honour. I encourage people to have a read of his story too.

His main review was on his blog, which can be read here. Part of what he says goes as follows;

As I have attempted to do with the John Smith, World Jumper series, Mr. Warwick seems to write in a fast paced, action oriented style while presenting characters that aren’t overly angsty and flawed like so many of today’s heroes.

I write what I like to read, and if others like it as well, that’s an added bonus. I guess I grew up reading a different era of heroes – sure, they had their problems, regrets, doubts and the like, by they didn’t descended into sullen, surly angst. They got out and did what needed doing without moping around the place. And because they were heroes, they often died in the process.

He also has a couple of shorter reviews of the first two stories at the webpage for Volume One.

For Cahuac and the Sun he wrote;

“Cahuac and the Sun,” the second story in the series reminded me so much of Native American myths (although clearly not set there, at least not in this universe) that I could see Mr. Warwick writing a believable mythological background for a world of his own making. It was completely original, but with themes and elements so familiar that if one slipped it into a book containing hunter-gatherer or early agriculturist myths, not many would suspect it was not authentic myth

This was exactly what I was aiming for, so it it pleasing to know it worked. A thing that wasn’t raised in the story, and really there was no need to, is that the people in question, the Aracan, aren’t even human. I am shortly planning on doing a post that will explain in a bit more detail where the story, and the Aracan came from, as they have had a fairly lengthy evolution to arrive at their current form.

Failed to make the quota yesterday sadly.  Didn’t even make 1K words.  Overall for the first five days I’ve managed 9075 words, so need to put in a good day today to catch up.

The goods news is the drafts for all four stories for the second volume fo Pure Escapism are now done, ready for editting, though in the case of The Village I think it will take some major editting.

Still, hopefully by the end of next week, it will be ready to go.

First two days of the June Challenge have gone well – around 4100 words written.  All of that so far is working towards the second volume of Pure Escapism.

Most of the work has been on The Hall of Black Trees, which to date is around 7300 words long and the first draft not yet completed.  It appears as if it will be the main piece for the volume, as the other stories aren’t going to turn out anywhere near its length.

Should have the rough drafts finished by weeks end at this rate, ready for editing.

Well, June is upon us, and with it winter down here in the southern hemisphere.

With it I am setting myself a new challenge – 2K a Day. For the next sixty days I plan to set myself the task of writing 2K words a day. I had initially planned for 3K a day, but thought that might be a little too optimistic. I shall certainly aim for that if I can, but the 2K mark will be the minimum.

The initial phase will be to finish off the short stories for the second volume of Pure Escapism. If I can keep that up rough drafts should be done by the end of the week. After that I will start work on other things, perhaps some of the stories for the third volume, but hopefully also getting back to working on a novel.

The good news is that I hit the mark for the first day, doing just a bit under 2100 words.