Posts Tagged ‘writing’

An Unusual Tie-In

Posted: July 27, 2009 in General
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I really enjoyed the first season of ‘Castle’ (as much for the humour as for Nathan Fillion), and am looking forward to the second one – and as a hopeful author would love to have the success that Richard Castle has on the show.

Now I hear that there is to be a highly unusual, yet quite funny tie-in to the show. ‘Richard Castle’ (Nathan Fillion’s character) is to be releasing the novel, Heat Wave, that he was penning on the show, which will be starring Nikki Heat, the character based on Kate Beckett (as played by Stana Katic).

A fictional author writing a novel about a fictional character based on another fictional character? Its almost so surreal its genius.

Editing Day

Posted: July 26, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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For whatever reason, I seem to have a blind spot when it comes to editing. I can read a draft through five times and not noticed a glaringly obvious error, and then still miss it on the sixth go. It is not that I can’t spell; I’m fairly good at that. I think it may be that I read the story rather than edit it.

But today I’m setting the goal of going through every word, every line of all the stories on the site, probably 60,000 words worth and editing them until my eyes bleed.

And then tomorrow I will find something I missed.

The Gift Rewrite Complete

Posted: July 25, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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Just finished doing the rewrite of The Gift (though I need to come up with a bit better name for it). Took five days and totals 15,000 words.

Next step is to do the editing and polishing. That may take almost as long, depending on time available.

Surging Forward

Posted: July 24, 2009 in writing update
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When I sat down at the end of yesterday and did a word count I was quite staggered by it – 5500 words in total. I was not expecting as much, not after the stop-start nature that much of the day and compounded by having to have an hour long lie down in the middle of the day to try and shake off a nagging headache.

It was only after dinner that I really got into the swing of things, with a solid two and a half to three hour block of writing that was happily lacking any distractions. Got most of that word count done in that period. Only makes me wonder what I could have achieved if the whole day was like that.

That pushed the word total to date for The Gift to 10,000 and I’ve only used up about 2/3rds of the rough draft. I’m not going to have as much time today as yesterday, but hopefully by the weekend the rewrite will be done and next week comes the polishing and editing.

I’m rather happy with the speed it is coming along at though, and the story itself, even though I know I have to fix up a bit of an info dump that occurs at one place

Coming Up Next

Posted: July 23, 2009 in Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, writing update
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Now that the latest two stories have been finished and added to the site, time to catalogue what is next on the To Do list.

On the website side of things, I need to keep slowly adding to the Worlds of Mist and Shadows page, expanding on it, and to also finish off writing the background notes on all of the short stories. So far about half of them are done.

The older stories need another minor re-edit and a slight modification to their layout, but that isn’t a priority as of now.

Story wise, the main aim is for the moment to finish the rewrite of The Gift and to make it ready to post. So far I have done almost 4750 words of the rewrite and that from just 1900 words of the rough draft. Given the rough draft was 7300 words long, I should easily reach between the 15,000 and 20,000 word mark I was aiming for for this story. It is probably going to take a few days to do that much output – unless I get lucky and manage to string together a couple of those 5K word days.

Beyond that I need to return to the plotting of Tears of the Moon and get working on the proper draft of that, as well as working on some more short stories. There are five more of them partially mapped out or started, including part three of Cara’s Choice and follow up stories for the android Ray, the Minotaur Nhaqosa and the Braega/Tudhala setting.

Lots to do, which is good.

Welcome To the Mist and Shadows

Posted: July 22, 2009 in General
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WELCOME TO MY WORLD

This website is part writing journal, part blog and part repository of stories both of adventure and fantastical in nature.

As a writing journal it tracks projects I am working on, their progress, ideas, updates and all other things writing related.

As a blog it features things of interest to me; sometimes they will tie in with my writing, other times not.

As a repository of my stories, it provides links to my stories of a variety of types, ranging from flash fiction to novels, though mostly short stories and novelettes for now. It also contains a wide variety of genres within the sf/f field – sci fi, steampunk, gunpowder fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy and more.  They can be found in the Pure Escapism part of the website.

What is in the name you ask? It ties in with the main setting of my writings and, while hints and references may have cropped up in some of the stories, the true meaning behind it is a mystery for another day.

Enjoy your visit and please feel free to browse and comment.

Future Portents Completed

Posted: July 21, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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A second short story has had its editing complete today and been posted on the site.

Future Portents is a stand along story, set in the core world of the Mist and Shadows setting, Sharael. It is a bit of a different story, set at the dawn of the bronze age, when stone was beginning to give way to copper and then to bronze. It fits, chronologically, in between the time of the stories The Cahuac Cycle and those of The Maedari Book of Deeds.

The origins of it took place many years ago, but that initial story no longer worked for this setting, at least the second half of it, which required a total rewrite.

That second half may not make a lot of sense in parts;yet. It is in a way foreshadowing events yet to come and which will be revealed in other stories as I go along.

The Merchant’s Legacy Completed

Posted: July 21, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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I have finished off the editing for the latest short story in the Pure Escapism collection; The Merchant’s Legacy.

This is a follow up to the short story The Pit, though picks up the action some time afterwards and follows Nhaqosa, the giant white Minotaur and escaped gladiator, as he seeks the long roads to his home. The lands that he and his followers tread though are in the grip of drought and lawlessness, beset by bandits and monsters and seldom does he find a welcome. A chance encounter with the merchant Kythias may change all that…

It is the longest of the stories to date, coming in at around 11,000 words in length. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, and the character of Nhaqosa. He is a fierce warrior when he needs to be, yet has a gentle side to him and at times can be a touch philosophical. I look forward to writing more stories with him in it in the future.

Rewrite Done

Posted: July 20, 2009 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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Just finished the rewrite of The Merchant’s Legacy. Turned a 7400 word rough draft into 10700 words. Quite happy with the way it turned out.

Next trick is the extensive editing needed for it, and the other recently completed short story, Future Portents, and then I can make the available to read, hopefully in a few days.

And then comes a long list of other things that need doing. But one thing at a time

Procrastination And Goal Setting

Posted: July 19, 2009 in writing update
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As I have mentioned before I’m something of a procrastinator when it comes to writing, and I don’t really set goals or plot out things properly, which adds to that problem.

When it comes to writing I’ve always been a bit of a seat-of-pantser, just having a vague idea and going with it. Oddly, this stands in stark contrast with how I go about world building, in which I do a lot of planning.

I think I’ve realised that though I may write as a pantser, I am in reality a plotter and that is why I don’t get as much done as I should. I’m changing that, and as a result am making some progress – I’ve known the plots of most of the short stories I’ve written in the last few months and have been able to churn out quite a few and, while I haven’t done much written work on Tears of the Mountain yet I am confident given how much of the plot I have already figured out.

I have also read a post by Merrilee Faber on her blog recently, talking about the techniques of writing and the setting of goals. It certainly did nail the problem I’ve had for most of the year – my goals have been far too long term and made of vague generalities; ie write a novel.

What I should have been doing was setting smaller, more concrete goals, but more of them. And so I shall.

The post itself is here and is worth a read, whether you are a panster or a plotter.

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