Category Archives: novel

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Interludes

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WRITING 02Time for a blog post in which a lot is going on but almost nothing is, you know, actually happening. First Reader still has the manuscript for The War God’s Son and probably will for another week or two. Once she’s done I’ll be ready to look at the book again and possibly get the submission draft together. I would really like to get that done before the end of November, though realistically even if I do, that’s very close to the time that publishing shuts down for December, so it’s unlikely I’ll get a decision on the book until January at the earliest. The only reason I think it may be that soon is that the publisher knows the book’s on its way and might be able to expedite things. We’ll see.

Since it turns out my brain is still too fried from TWGS to write anything else for a bit, I’ve used the time to try and get the print version files of All the Gates of Hell ready instead, though I’ve hit a couple of snags with the formatting. That is, the template I’ve used twice before with no issues is now getting reported with errors that I don’t believe are errors. Computers are great, except when they aren’t. I’ll get it sorted out and put up a notice when the physical book is available, since I know not everyone is a big fan of ebooks. I am, but I also acknowledge that there’s just something special about a “real” book, and I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon, if ever. Provided the coming apocalypse leaves us with at least a Gutenberg-era level of technology. If we’re back to the stone age, all bets are off.

 

P.S. Yes, I know I misspelled “lama” in my last post. Or rather used the homonym rather than the proper word. Or was confusing the Dalai Lama with Wally Llama. My mind works that way sometimes.

Time Mis-Management

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Bkack Kath's Daughter-2I finished the second draft of The War God’s Son late Friday night. Sometimes projects need a third or more drafts before I dare show them to First Reader, but in this case I can’t think of anything else the book needs, so once I have it printed out the manuscript goes to First Reader for one of the more perilous phases of the project. Yes, I know, but First Reader is Old School, and wants a physical object to tear into. You can’t scribble or hack through paragraphs in phosphors…well, actually you can, but it’s just not as satisfying. So there will be a paper copy, which I will—hopefully—convert back into a finished book once she’s had her way with it. This, naturally, will not happen overnight. So right now I’ve got a little free time–by which I mean writing time not already spoken for–and thus my next problem.

I need to decide how to spend that time. I left the sequel to Black Kath’s Daughter hanging fire because the above project got its priority upgraded. But, to be clear, BKD+ is a personal project and so there are no actual deadlines on it. There are a few people waiting on it, and I do hate to keep them waiting, so I could get back to that while First Reader has her say on TWGS. On the other hand I haven’t written a short story in over six months while I was drafting TWGS. I think I’m getting withdrawal twinges, and I wouldn’t mind using the time to satisfy my short fiction jones.

Must think about this, but not too long since I don’t have all the time in the world and I could end up doing neither. If anyone reading this has an opinion, I’d like to hear it.

Muse and Writer Dialogue #9

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LucilleMUSE and WRITER Dialogues #9

 
 
FADE IN
 

 A room that passes for an office. There are bookshelves on one wall, a motley assortment of carvings, signed storyboards, and framed magazine covers on the free wall space. On the far wall is a medieval-style heraldic wall display of a cockatrice and a banner in bad Latin “Pullus non Est.”  Horizontal files sit beneath the window.  The computer desk is on the wall nearest the door, facing away from the window. Beside that is a printer on a stand. In the base of that is a PC and a PS3. On the right wall hang three guitars. There would be four, except WRITER, currently sitting at the desk, is strumming one of them.

Enter the MUSE. She looks like a Greek goddess, except when she doesn’t. Right now she tends to morph between goddess and rocker chick.

WRITER: Can’t you make up your mind?

MUSE:  You’re one to talk. And why are you torturing that poor guitar?

WRITER (Holds up guitar in question): Beauty, isn’t it? A Michael Kelly Deuce
            Phoenix, semi-hollowbody. They don’t make them anymore.

MUSE: I didn’t ask what it was, I asked why you were torturing it. Are you channeling Dick Cheney?

WRITER: Don’t be silly, and I’m not “torturing it.” I’m practicing a 12-bar blues shuffle.

MUSE: Same thing, from where I stand. Didn’t George Carlin once say that white people got no business playing the blues, ever?

WRITER: If BB King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, “Sonnyboy” Edwards,  etc. didn’t have a problem with Stevie Ray Vaughn, why should you?

MUSE: You’re not Stevie Ray Vaughn.

WRITER: It’s your job to encourage my artistic pursuits, not throw cold water. And even SRV had to learn.

MUSE:  Speaking of which, isn’t it about time you got your butt back to work on the rewrite of The War God’s Son?

WRITER: Almost. There’s still some continuity research to do.

MUSE: You’re stalling.

WRITER: Am not. I had the final battle location way too far south. Plus I had
            assumed that Yoshiie led the final campaign alone. Not so. His father,
Yoriyoshi, was present as well. Which does, as you well know, affect the middle
section.

MUSE: Really? The old guy was pushing eighty.

WRITER: Tough old bird. But I do have to reconcile how he was seeing portents of
            victory back in Kamakura when he was supposed to be in Mutsu. The only
            primary source is 1) Rare and 2) In Japanese. Sansome only goes so far, but
            I’ll get what I need.

MUSE: Well…okay. But that’s not a proper D major, you know.

WRITER: I do know. It’s a D7. Next I’ll practice the turnaround. Want to heckle?

MUSE: I’ll pass. Just be gentle with that poor guitar, okay?

WRITER: I’ll do my best.

MUSE: You better. Otherwise we’re both wasting our time.

 
FADE OUT.
 
 
 

All the Gates of Hell

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All the Gates of Hell-Cover-KYIHAfter finishing the first draft of The War God’s Son I’ve been clearing the decks a bit and wanted to get a personal project that’s been hanging fire for a while done and out before I need to plunge back into 1062AD Japan, because once I’m there I won’t be much good for anything else until the rewrite is done.

All the Gates of Hell

Kindle

Nook

I also plan to do a print edition, but that takes more time than I have right now so it will have to wait a bit. I hope I can get to that before the end of the year. We’ll see. As for the book itself, I rather think of it as a paranormal anti-romance. That’s  not a real category, but maybe it should be:

“Legal Assistant Jin Lee Hannigan thought she had problems enough as a single woman in rundown Medias, Mississippi. That was before Jin meets a homeless man on Pepper Street who just happens to be the  King of Hell, and learns that she’s really the mortal incarnation of Guan Shi Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, charged with the rescue of unfortunates trapped in the various — and nasty — hells scattered around the cosmos. That doesn’t even turn out to be her biggest problem. It seems that the Goddess of Mercy is on the run and in hiding, which is why she incarnated as a mortal human in the first place. Hiding from what?

Love.

But why would anyone fear love? Jin already knows that love is powerful, but what she has to learn, and fast, is that the wrong kind of love is also potentially the most destructive force in all the universe and–even more important–how to stop it.”

Marathon, Meet Cliff

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WRITING 02Finishing a novel first draft feels a little like running a marathon only to fall off a cliff at the end of it. You’re rather at loose ends, flailing around. Sometimes there’s even a thud at the end of the fall which is, as others have noted for the male writers, probably as close to post-partum depression as we’ll ever experience. All by way of saying that the first draft of The War God’s Son is complete. I finished it last week with one 8000 word session and a late night of small continuity tweaks that I wanted to make while they were fresh in my mind. I was pretty much spot on as to what the length would be, right at 92000 words. As I said, I don’t do doorstops, but the publisher I have in mind is happy with the length. I tend to put in as much as I take out on subsequent drafts, so the final length might not be that different. Continue reading →