Hello all. Sorry if my post sounded abrupt last time, but the 28th is a hard day for me. I am back and sadly I can’t give you a novel update because I spend the day trying to get my anti-virus updated and this company has made it eye-bleedingly difficult. I am going to write over the weekend and gain a little ground. I’ve figured out what Tyro is going to remember and I’m going to do another flashback before getting back to the present day. I’m looking forward to it, more so that I am going to give Nysa a break from what I was going to originally. We will see.

I’m looking forward to this long holiday weekend (which I am getting paid for, thankfully) to be able to get more novelizing done and still have some time for the important things: Borderlands 2 (going to get GOTY for the PC) and maybe a movie or two. I still have to watch Grace and The Last Exorcism so I might do that Saturday night with some popcorn. No rum, sadly…I’ve only got a few dollars to my name after I get gas and have paid the bills. So rum its going to be a next week sort of thing.

I have gotten a couple of plot bunnies for a swords & sorcery. One of them concerns the cost of magic in this world and I had the idea of a sorceress just known as The Woman. The idea that she had to give up her true identity in order to gain more power for contracts with other beings. The more she gives up, the more power she gets. I’m trying to stay away from the traditional ‘pound of flesh’ sort of thing because that’s been done to death. So the idea I had wad she’s giving up parts of her identity — giving up her family name, for example and the stakes keep going up from there. In our society, our button of identity is more grounded in a data set rather than something like a family name. Look at it this way: how much of your personal reputation would you give up for say… the power to heal yourself from injury that would kill someone else? Where in that scramble for power are you going to draw the line? To ruin the punchline for a favorite joke: “He don’t chase rabbits.” could be the personal limit for some people, but not others. Right now I’m just working on this when I should be working on either the novel or on another project. At least it gives me a chance to get used to using this Swype keyboard.

Well, back to faking interest. I hope y’all have a good holiday weekend.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

No post today.

Today was further proof that I need sleep. I couldn’t settle down until 4:00 AM and got up at 10:00 AM to deal with the people to clean the gutters. After that was done, I tried to get something done, but only managed a couple hundred words… and I am having a change of heart concerning one character’s departure from the book.  For this of you interested or want to give feedback, read on.

There is a character in the first book named Nysa. I’m sure I’ve mentioned her a couple of times. Well, in the first mental run through of the novel, and she was going to have a very tragic death at the hands of angry villagers (fire, pitchforks and the such). It was going to be the first death that was going to shake the group to the core as they left, proving to the ushabit that the world they are in now isn’t all sunshine and happy work. I liked that idea, trying to keep up the notion that anyone can die. However, there have been some changes from in between what was in my head and what’s ending up on paper. I’ve already killed off one character and now I’m in the cool-down part of the novel, so less action, more character development. So, I’m thinking of giving Nysa a more romantic send-off. Letting her elect to remain behind in the happy village, leaving behind Marah and the others to go on. The relationship between Marah and Nysa is supposed to be more one resembling mother/daughter rather than any sort of romantic interests. Of course, Nysa is still a stitched together corpse animated by magic and had her mind shattered at the hands of her very creator – so there is still a little bit of a squick factor to be looked at. Would like to get some sort of feed back on this: we had one main character death in the previous chapter, would another one make this book seem to swerve in G. R. R. Martin territory, or will it outside that there is no such thing at safety in this series?

In other news, I went out to a ballgame and got a light sunburn on the left side of my face. It was a good day as I got to spend it outside with some relative peace. The team lost, but since I had no money on it, it’s no big loss to me. Football season starts soon, and I am going to get the satellite train package to get every game of my favorite team (for a change) rather than relying on the networks to cut in on the last 5 minutes of a game. Seriously guys, there are other teams than Patriots, Packers, Cowboys, Redskins, Ravens, Saints and every other team other than the Panthers, Jaguars and the Bills. I’m looking at you Fox. Yes, you.

I should get back to work, or at least back to faking it.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

Well, I finally got it!

I feel like I can fire someone from this chair and it would stick.

My back is happy and I feel a lot more productive in this (firing people aside). I am also hoping that this will translate into a higher word count, or at least, the ability to write for longer than fifteen minutes before having to get up and walk around in an effort to stave off the impending back ache. I need to also get my hands on one of the rubber mats to make it easier to get in and out, and I am also looking at a cheap desk to replace the one I have here just so I can have some more room in the living room to move about.

The novel is starting to take an argumentative turn, bringing to mind this saying by Victor Hugo: Slaves would be tyrants were the chance theirs. While I know that Tyro is trying to come out from under the shadow of the Master’s influence, but she’s being a little hard-nosed about it. Thankfully, Ghislain is there to maintain the peace (3 words at a time) and I am feeling that it’s about time to get them to the Happy Village™ and lighten up the mood a bit more. Maybe even get some romance in there between a couple of the characters. Not going to say who, but I want to try to move things along in an unexpected direction. I hope I did that in one of Tyro’s memory flashbacks (entitled in my head: ‘You weren’t going to eat that, were you?’) and I hope to keep it going along throughout the series… as soon as I have finished figuring out what’s going to happen in the third book… which I still have no idea what to do. I am not going to panic until I get halfway through book two. Given the pace that I am writing book one; I should have plenty of time until I get halfway through book two.

Just as a bit of a question to everyone here who reads this: what would you like to see in this blog going towards the future. Yes, I do plan on using this as a platform to shill my wares, but I don’t want it to be a blatant cash grab (that’s what the writing is for). Mostly, this journal is a way of getting things off my chest that I can’t say publicly – did you think my mom held me aloft and said ‘what a darling baby boy – let’s name him Seething Apathy’, did you? Yeah – I try to sell my stuff, so my real name isn’t the closely kept secret I would like to think it is, but it’s not public knowledge either. So – wandering back to the original question: what would you like to see here other than my meandering prose?

I need to head out and get cleaned up for work, so y’all can chew on that for a minute. Leave any suggestions in the comments and tips by the jar.

Thank and I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello everyone. I was concerned about getting my word count down for today on the novel that I ran out of time to do an entry today. So, I’m writing a quick one today just to let people know I am alive and to adjust accordingly.

I think I found the problem with my cresting and falling productivity: sleep. Yesterday, I managed to go to bed earlier than Tuesday. Waking up this morning was a lot easier and I was at least able to finally get going and got to the magic number (1,530 for a total of 40,305) today. It’s still a little lighter than the previous chapter and I was able to set up another one of the ushabit’s superstitions concerning the dead. Oddly enough, I was able to have a light moment with one of the main character’s memories and a sweet moment between two characters. All in all, not a bad day.

I should get back to work. After all, they’re pretending to pay me, I should pretend to work.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

If there is anyone out there an expert on psychology (not abnormal, mind you – I can hear you yelling at your computer screens. Stop it, you’re disturbing the others at work), I am curious as to whether or not the theory of ego depletion plays into work efficiency. I have noticed that when I am writing, I tend to have a day where everything is zipping along, a day when I struggle to get out the basic word count and a day that I feel I should close up shop early to avoid giving myself a concussion from banging my head on the desk. I used to think that it was because I needed to warm up, which is why I continue this blog. Today? Sure, I slept in a little bit and I might be getting my caffeine ration a little later, but even yesterday I did the same thing – the large difference being breakfast was cereal instead of pop-tarts. I highly doubt that the entirety of my writing career is going to hinge on the notion that my novels are fueled by peanut-butter cocoa cereal rather than a fudge Pop-Tart knock-off. Back to ego depletion: I am curious if all of this is just because I throw so much into the first day, that I drag through the second day and I feel the need to charge up on the third day – sprinting like Usain Bolt rather than looking to the long haul like Haile Gebrselassie. I’m eating lunch right now (oh, the Healthy Choice Top Chef Café Steamers are wonderful! Get one now. Right now. Turn this thing off and get one) and starting to feel good. I might go back and try to get at least half the word count done today. I went over by 236 on Monday and Tuesday, so if I do half today and really hard charge Thursday and Friday, I will be able to hopefully average out. Then again, I also had to deal with a dick at work, so the stress from that might be carrying over.

Anyway – in the novel I am in a rare lull. The main characters are free and heading to the first village so we get some much needed down time in between disasters. I think with this particular part, I ‘ll have Tyro delve a little more into her past memories now that she has the time to concentrate on it. The previous couple of chapters it was referred to in a passive sense just because I had to keep the action going at times. Now that we’re a little more sedate, I want to give her the chance to get to know the other voices in her head… wow – that sounded a lot less crazy-town in my head, but you get the idea. I don’t want the other personalities to turn into some sort of deus ex machina (or would that be deus ex memor?), but rather show how they have contributed to the development of her personality. I guess that part of the problems I’m having with this is that I’m trying to develop the voices on the fly. I have a name and what they did, but the rest of them aren’t as well fleshed out. Maybe I should work on that while I seem to be in a lull here as far as writing.

I should go on ahead and post this so I can try to save the last 45 minutes before I have to go to work and pray I don’t have to hear from that dick again. Oh, I need to remember to get the rest of those podcasts Archived through dropbox in case I Wanted to take them with me to work today. Dirk wants to raid my comedy podcasts.

Have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all!  Just a quick note to say that this was one of the hardest Tuesdays to get through as far as writing goes. Usually, it takes me only 3 hours to write the 1,500 words needed to inch my novel along. Today it to the whole 5 and I worked all the way up to the final hour before I had to shower and get ready for work. I am not a fan of those days. Because that makes it more like work rather than fun. On the bright side, I did finish chapter 6 and the second act is winding down. Chapter 7 it’s going to be the main characters write thing through the emotional impact of their flight, marked with the character Nysa having a very colorful emotional meltdown. That was fun to write, I’ll admit. It of all the dialogue I write, Nysa’s is the most challenging because of the way she speaks. She doesn’t call any of the ushabit by their name. Ghislain is referred to as either stone or mountain, Tyro is water (usually a river or the ocean), Marah is metal (and the only one who do doesn’t have a secondary tag), Aevar is referred to as a hunting bird and Nysa when referring to herself is always fire. I also use a website to get her syntax different, but I might use something else in the re-write. I don’t know. I’m still loving the novel, so this bodes well for me.

I hope everyone has a good day. I’ve got to go back to work and fake some enthusiasm. Y’all take care.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy
Continue reading →

Well, my weekend was fun – got to chat some with the writer’s group and got some feedback on the first part of the chapter (oddly enough, it was good feedback for a very rough draft). I had pizza, bought the latest DLC for the copy of Borderlands 2 on my PC. All in all is was a very good weekend. Didn’t get any writing done, but I knew that was coming with the writing group/pizza party. Didn’t get to watch any movies, but then again – my first paycheck tends to go to the bills first. Anyway, enough of that. Oh, one more thing about the writer’s group – there is someone there who speaks Russian… which is the language I picked for anyone from the Tarjen region. I was hoping to avoid the ‘this isn’t how you write this’ by picking Russian – after all, how many people in Louisville speak Russian natively. Well – at least one and she’s in my writing group. I get those odds, but the Powerball odds? Nada.

Well, I just finished the latest installment of the novel and I am noticing that Tyro is being a lot more assertive than I thought she would be in the series. Then again, she is with the other ushabit, so I am guessing her assertiveness is a matter of ‘well, I’m the only one here who’s thinking about this’. I am certain that when she gets with the others in the story, she will be more docile – much to the exasperation of the other characters. I can’t wait to get to that part. I am almost done with this chapter, I just need to finish them getting through the demon thicket and finding some shelter for the night and resting. After that, they’re going to have a couple of well-deserved peaceful(ish) chapters before having to move on. Poor dears deserve it.

Well, everything else continues along at a pace. This is the dry week, so there is little trouble I can get into here. I did get the latest issue of the Lovecraft Horror e-zine so I will have something to read at work. I am trying to not buy any more books until I have finished the ones I have in my Kindle. I will wait until you finish laughing. So far, I’ve finished three books (The Alice in Deadlands trilogy – which I recommend) and working on a fourth. Up next is Dan Simmon’s Carrion Comfort, which I have read before and loved. I also have a biography of Pablo Escobar (Killing Pablo) and some works on the Soviet tactics in Afghanistan (The Bear Went Over the Mountain) and then I think I can finally sink my teeth into The Kushiel Trilogy (Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen and Kushiel’s Avatar) and finish it. If there is one fantasy series to pick up, it’s this one. Holy cow – if I can be that… luxurious in description, I would be happy.

Off to shower, lunch and work.

Hope y’all have good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all. I don’t think I will be doing much writing today because I am tired. As you know, I work an odd shift: 6pm-12am (not my idea) and when I get home I am still not ready to fall dead asleep, so I’ll stay up and go to various sites to muck around, or play a little Xbox so that it doesn’t think I’ve run off with that floozy PlayStation 3. Well, I decided to revisit an old friend:

There is a reason why it takes place in a city in Mozambique

This is not the reason why I am tired. I went to bed at 3:30, an hour later than I normally do. I normally get up at around 10:30 – still 6 good hours of sleep. Instead, my neighbor’s dog starts barking his head off at 7:00 and everything starts to happen: cars honking, people chatting at a volume reserved for shouting “Danger Close!” and that damn dog keeps barking. Seriously, I try to get back to sleep, but every time I close to falling asleep that dog starts barking at something. I am at the point now where if my eyes close they feel like they’re burning and try to roll back into my head. Yeah – I’m that tired, and I feel like this most of the time. Those dogs start barking early in the morning seemingly as soon as I get able to relax to rest. Anyone who’s seen me in real life may notice the bags under my eyes and the half-lidded look I give you. I’m not high, merely sleep deprived.

Sadly, I had to shower and get dressed for work after trying to take a 45 minute nap. This is going to be cut short again, but I promise that I will try to make up for it tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Anyone who was soul-crushingly disappointed in the Episodes One and Two of Star Wars needs to watch
this. I had similar ideas, but I have to admit – this is a lot better. I am trying to get together mentally together to get on to the next part of the novel. Ok – this is not working. Let me get some caffeine and try to get going here.

I am at the scene now where they are just about ready to escape. I am really charged up (well, as charged as up I can get on a lack of caffeine.) to get to this scene and get them out into the wider world. I am looking forward to throw them into the big change of culture that’s coming on the other side of that travel stone. With that and the chase into a city it will close the act, get everyone to the middle of the novel and give everyone a much needed break from the action.

Wow, I am out of it now. I should end this here (it being 1:30 PM here) and try to get my 1,500 in. I hope you all have a better day than me.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy.