“The Catastrophic Christmas Party” is now out for Kindle!

Well – Catastrophic Christmas Party is going to be released in December, but it might be closer to Christmas as I get the last little things lined up. Amazon does not make it easy to format your work for print – should I even do print? It’s about 40K words, barely a novel. I haven’t sold enough copies in either format to really give it a good study. Part of me is about to say that I should make it Kindle exclusive, but then I’ve run into people that say “I don’t buy Kindle books, only real books”. I might still do the paperback option this one time, but start going to only Kindle with another book or series.

Speaking of looming deadlines, I apologize for missing last Thursday. It was a hectic day and I never really got around to typing the blog, and honestly it would have just been me saying I’m writing the novel, about a third of the way finished and I’ve started outlining my next super big project. Just like what I’ve done today. At the very least, I am consistent.

As the year winds down, I’m going to go dark for a couple of weeks while I try to finish up the book, wrap gifts without losing fingers and watch a horror movie at Christmas (this year the movie is ‘Suitable Flesh’ with Heather Graham). I might even get lucky and watch more than one if the wife lets me.

This is a short post, I know – but there isn’t anything really new on the horizon until the beginning of the year. So, be safe this holiday season have some egg nog and leave out some cookies for Santa.

Well, as I am writing this blog post, I’ve done about 60,000 words on the novel Voices Abroad. I can’t tell you how giddy I am for not only getting this far in the novel, but for getting to 50,000 words in about nineteen days. I kept to my schedule, and now I’m one day away from meeting the goal of 50,000 words in thirty days and writing more than I have ever written before for a novel. Is it finished? Nope. I still have about 35,000 more words to do, but now I can slack off on the work count a little bit. Maybe either do 450 three times a day or do 650 twice a day and reclaim either the mornings or lunch time for reading and research. I really want to make sure I get the Gothic setting right for the novel – not my next one. That’s going to be The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show. That one is going to get started in January.

It’s been a hard time, but somewhat fun this November. I’m aiming for next year to hit par – 1,700 words a day – everyday in a self-contained novel. I don’t think there are enough of those out there in fantasy, especially. Everything must be a three or five or seven novel series. I don’t mind it if the series is finished. I would like to have a novel that’s a self-contained, one-shot story. Something I can read one time, and possibly pick up again if I’m bored. Of course, I’m saying this as I try to stretch out one character’s story from three to five books. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Next year is going to be the Year of Fantasy. I am only going to focus on finishing up two projects: The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show and The Ushabit Series. I might do a small novel for Nanowrimo next year, but most of my energy is going to finishing these long standing, longer suffering books. I might end up just restarting The Ushabit series from scratch with the outline and all that. I seem to write better when I have everything planned out in advance. Medicine Show is too far into itself to be re-done, so I’m going to muddle through it as best as I can and get it edited down after I get The Show Must Go On edited…which I may get that started next year. I know I’ve brought Serve Me Now to my writer’s group…but it doesn’t feel good to me. I think I rushed it to get done and out. Might just rip the whole thing down and restart it.

Thank you all for bearing with me this November while I engage in temporary madness. I’ll get back to the regular blogging schedule in time to take a week off for Christmas. Stay safe, have fun and I’ll see you in the next.

Nanowrimo has me wiped today. Have a kitten.

By the time you are reading this, I will be up to my hips in Nanowrimo…again. I think this is the fifteenth time I’ve done this, but this will be the third time I’ve won (God willing). Of course, the only thing I get for winning is bags under my eyes and a manuscript that needs some love and doctoring. But, hey – I don’t do these things because they are easy. I do them because they are hard.

Do I recommend Nanowrimo to everyone? Only if you want to see what it takes to be a dedicated writer now. I’m crazy and driven to do this. I’m one of those people that says ‘do it’ to anyone who says they wanted to be a writer. Go for it. Take this November to fire up your word processor and write 1700 words a day – about maybe two hours of time. You can miss a couple of shows. You don’t have to speak to your spouse all the time. Your pets can take care of themselves. Write to soothe the muse.

This blog is going to be a little short because I do have to get in my word count for the day, and I wanted to touch base a little. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d abandoned the blog again. Updates will come, but there won’t be a lot to it, sadly.

So – bear with me this month, keep writing and I will look forward to a more substantial update / after action report come December.

Today is going to be a bit of a rest day for me. Only going to work on the outline at work, and when I come home, I’ve got laundry to do. I’m starting to feel a little burned out on writing the outline, and I know I am not going to get it finished in time for Nanowrimo. I’ve got a good third of the book outlined, so it’s not like I am going into this without some sort of plan. Not that it’s stopped me before.

The whole thing is daunting, really. While, yes – I’ve finished books in less time, but there is something different about this one that I can’t really put my finger on. I’m not dreading it…maybe a little intimidated by the idea of a hard deadline. Also – I have an idea for another horror novel that I might pick up in a while (horror is a subset of fantasy, right?). It all seems larger than me to accomplish, but I am going to try anyways. The worst that can happen is I don’t finish it by my deadline of December 31^st, with days off for Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas.

I can do it.

On other things, my mini painting has gotten a little better. I’m not going to worry about layering, glazes and the 3-D look. I am just going to paint for me. I’m not going to compete in contests, I’m not doing commissions. This is as close as I am going to get to a visual artistic medium, and to he honest – this is for mini I am going to use in my D&D games. No one cares.

I don’t know why I am feeling so anxious about Nanowrimo this time around. I’ve won it a couple of times now, I’ve been in it longer than I can remember, but it seems really larger than me this time. Maybe it’s because I am really throwing myself into it this year. Going to all the write-ins, getting up earlier to get an extra hour of writing in and working in three writing periods (morning, lunch and after work).

I’m sure it’ll all smooth itself out when November 1^st rolls around and I am clicking away on the keyboard. Wish me luck.

I promise to get back to the goofiness next time around.

I never thought I would say this – but I am beginning to like outlining.

Maybe it’s the fatigue talking from getting up at 4 A.M. I started serious outlining with Catastrophic Christmas Party because I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget any of the (hopefully) funny scenes. I found myself sticking to the outline, which was a simple ‘one-page-one-chapter’ outline that was concentrated enough for me to put in what I wanted to happen in the chapter, but vague enough to let me come up with what should happen.

Now, I am doing a more detailed outline for my Nanowrimo project. It’s really good for giving me a roadmap because I like to wander if left to my own devices, and in that wandering forget some scenes I really needed.

When I started, I figured that if I wrote it in my head, and then just transferred that to paper, that would be enough. Ha! I found myself wandering all over the place, often ending up with a thematically far different story than what I started out with. Not a good outcome for someone trying totrain themselves to hold to a deadline. I mean – does Stephen King outline?

I also had his problem of ending stories. So the outline more importantly tells me when to start wrapping things up.

So, from here on out, I am going to outline every novel I start…except the ones I’ve already started and have stubbornly not finished. You know – everything else I have done.

With this outline coming along and taking up a lot of my time, I need to figure out how to balance it and revise Christmas Party for the December release. I haven’t gotten the manuscript back from Nancy, but writing the Nano project is going to take up a lot of my time. It might end up being a Sunday only thing, since that’s the one consistent slow day I have. I just hope I can get it done in that amount of time. I might not wait for Nancy to finish reading it, I should go on ahead and hop on it.

Other than my hair being on fire with all these projects, I am doing well. A little tired from going back to waking up at 4 A.M. to try to get some outlining or blogging done. By the way, this blog is brought to you by Death Wish Coffee. Death Wish Coffee – Sleep is for the Weak!

I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of fall. This has been a mild summer, don’t you think? I also hope that this winter will be mild as well. At least my car has heat in it for a change. Never skimp on a car, folks. That’s the only bit of wisdom I can share with some certainty.

That’s all for now, hope to hear from you soon and I’ll catch you in the next one.