… until the birthday vacation! A week and a half of caring less about my job than I do now and catching up on hockey and Sleepy Hollow for me! I was finally able to watch the pilot and I am going to give you my review of what I have seen so far.

This is entertaining but lazy writing. The book of Revelation has been used to death. Same thing with the Four Horseman – while I don’t find it hard to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the show, there is just the standard fallbacks for the show: religious conspiracy, the Bible, and misrepresented witches. Do I have any better ideas? Give me a minute. Let me watch a little bit more (yeah…poor me) and see what I could do. Some of you are going to say that I should have to see the rest of the series, and I intend to and if I have to eat a serving of crow then hand me my good fork. Just from the first blush – lazy. Don’t get me started on the kung-fu priest…

You may notice that there is no rambling about the nanowrimo project here; I’m still working out some things in my head so they’re not quite ready for the Internet yet. Tyro’s novel has been laying back untouched for the past few days, but I am going to go back to that. Right now, she’s trying to dig out a rock with the help of the hunda Looks-Afar. They are about going to get back on the road with the Master’s agents hot on their heels. They’ve had some good time in the village, and they’re going to be one short, but it’s time for them to go and get along with the rest of the story. I am hoping that the slight break will work out well for the novel. Speaking of novels – the first one has gotten an artist for the cover. I am going to get the money together to pay her and send what she needs. I am hoping for a release in the first of the year. It’s finally coming together!

I haven’t seen any movies in the theatre recently, but when my vacation comes around I am going to go see Gravity and might even see it in 3-D. Mostly, I am looking forward to the time off. The job is hectic and I know it’s going to get more-so with Christmas coming and the tree vendors. My advice? Use cash. Please. I beg you.

As the weather gets colder, I am considering getting some Death Wish coffee and stock up for winter. I need something that’s going to wake me up and keep me warm. Oh, and Borderlands 2 has some new DLC coming out Tuesday and I am going to buy it then and save it until Saturday. I should also get the updates so that I can get the characters up to level 72.

Well, I should get to work on the novel…or get some coffee. Either or. Have a good day and thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello, all. I am trying to get the rest of the outline done for today, maybe even finish up act three on Saturday in between the writer’s group, painting the ceiling tiles, cooking and maybe getting caught up on hockey and Sleepy Hollow. Right now, I’m at the library because the house is getting to be far too distracting. I got up much earlier than usual and I am finding it hard to get any mental purchase on the outline – or any other project really. Today, I am just going to chat openly about the outlining project and see what sticks in my head.

Right now, what’s going on is a bridge between the incident at the travel house and the discovery of either Danny’s hijacker or The Maw. I want to reveal a little bit about Ronda and what is driving her to help Danny. She is Touched, so she knows about the culture of the Rahsaya and one of the bigger taboos is that if you take someone’s body, you ward the spirit you displaced. Ideally, you put the spirit in a pocket dimension (work with me in this one) so that it is not aware of the time that has passed or that anything has happened. Rahsaya want as little attention drawn to them as possible. What the hijacker did was the moral equivalent of carjacking. Ronda is really sensitive about this not only because of her background (her father was a village elder and raised her with a very strict sense of right and wrong), but this was done to her a couple of times – several times by her own mother as a sort of punishment, which is why she’s is warded as heavily as she is. I am also going to try to start stirring the first few romantic notions in this scene, but I am unsure how to go about that. Danny is the squishy type – certainly not the person that we would think that Ronda would fall for. We would assume she would be following Brock around – someone who is strong and self-reliant. Danny certainly has a lot more respect for Ronda after finding out that her mother used that ability to keep her in line. They ride along in silence after that revelation.

Bleh. I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I think I am going to call it a day and let my mind wander about with this while I am at work. Sorry, y’all – I was hoping that getting to the library would help, but I think today is going to be a total wash-out. I did get a little done, but it’s not the massive amount I was hoping for. I will come back to the library later on and use it as an office, but I think I’ll just stick to my usual waking schedule since it’s close to the interstate and I can go from here right to work.

As always, thank you for reading. Next time will be better, I promise.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Well, Art Bell‘s show last night was rough…but not so rough that I wasn’t able to get some sleep. The last several ones were from older shows, but the newer ones at the beginning? Brr…

OK – the outline is marching along. I finished Chapter Five (with the female character saying the soon to be classic line: ‘I’ve earned something strong in a mug and between my legs.’) and I am working on Chapter Six – I got a lot done Monday, I don’t anticipate getting that much further today only because it’s Tuesday and the first full week of the month – Statement Week for those in the business. I try to at least get half way through the chapter and I might have to end the act and move on to the main part of the conflict.

As far as Tyro goes – we’re still working with the hunda and this might be one of the shorter chapters. Once the hunda has introduced himself and Nysa goes away from the group, then runs back screaming about the Kheru-Ta. The group runs away with the hunda following behind. This is going to be coming back to the ‘pushing my characters to the brink of agony’ school of writing. I think we’ve had enough of a break in the action to give everyone their breath back. Now, it’s time to get them running again.

It was slow last night, so I thought I would take all the projects I was working on and put them in a spreadsheet. It’s a way of keeping track of what’s getting worked on, what’s getting outline and what’s sitting in a corner and quietly withering away. On the bright side, I am going to be busy for a while (not counting opened series – I have at least 34 books to be worked on, thankfully there is only one open-ended series) which is a good sign since I read somewhere that the people who are writing and self-publishing they have a lot of things out there. So, I am hoping to get at least half of them done (especially the tent pole series) before I die. All the more reason to get back into walking after work since the weather is a little cooler, so I won’t have to towel myself off afterwards. Which would be nice for a small change to be able to sit down at the computer immediately afterwards.

I can’t wait for NanoWrimo! I am going to get through this one and might even try to finish the whole novel before the deadline. This particular season I am going to work on two projects on the same time – it’s not like I am going to run out of ideas anytime soon. I am also going to use this month to see if I can do two books at the same time. If I can do that, then I can get a higher sort of output and get a lot of things out the door as it were. Seriously – my largest single series is going to be George R. R. Martin-esque in size with five books and each book is going to be a minimum of 250,000 words, which means I am going to be working on that for several years, so I want to balance that with something short in order to keep things going. The goal I have is best summed up by one of Stalin’s maxims: Quantity has a quality all its own. I just hope it works.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I was able to finish editing the novel… well, maybe finish is too strong a word. Abandoned is a better word. Yes, abandoned is far more accurate term for what happened Saturday. Now, I am looking for beta readers. What is a beta reader you ask? A beta reader was explained to me as someone who reads a piece and points out places where the story can be shored up here and there. The phrase that was offered up to me as an explanation was: ‘read it like you hate it’ – the idea being that the beta reader who hates it will be looking for problems to point out with glee and abandon. The final word count was around the 65K range and I was looking at the final count to be 85K, so I’ve got 20K words worth of room to play with (…and that was my math trick for the day!) and I want to really flesh out the book. I don’t know if there is going to be a sequel – I did leave it open for that and I have some older ideas that I can fold into that particular world. If you are reading this particular blog and (I haven’t already pestered you to the point of distraction) want to volunteer to be a beta reader for this project, leave a comment on the blog with an email address and I’ll send you a copy.

Now, onto the outline – this novel outline is surprising me. Someone may say: but Mr. Apathy, you’re the writer: how the heck can something you’re creating be surprising to you? First: call me Seething…Mr. Apathy is my dad. Second: yes, the characters can surprise me because in my head, they are fully formed people. I’m just there writing everything down as fast as I can. Given that this is pen and paper writing, it’s a slow process for me and why I’m using only a green ink pen is beyond me.

Not pictured: Hand cramps.

I am going to continue with the outline and hopefully get it finished before the end of October (3 weeks until vacation!) so I can go from it right to NanoWrimo with little holding me back as far as time, sleep and other infirmities of the flesh.

Tyro’s novel continues along at its pace. I have begun introducing the hunda and Looks-Afar which will signal the end of the happy times there and the ushabit’s further running from their Master. I am kinda looking forward to this in as much as its going to further along the story and with any luck, I have gotten past my 200 or 300 word count days and can get back to the 1,000 to 1,500 word counts and finish this novel a lot sooner than I am anticipating. I am still aiming for 2014 to be the year that I release one novel. If I get lucky, I might release two and hopefully get out of the hole I’m in right now.

And on a personal note: The father of a good friend of mine is currently having severe health issues in the hospital. Prayers for his speedy and complete recovery will be welcomed.

I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… why we haven’t gotten a decent H. P. Lovecraft film. They’re remaking Godzilla (found the trailer) and Guillermo del Toro left At The Mountains of Madness to do Pacific Rim, but there are no big budget adaptions for anything directly from Lovecraft. Holy Cow, why not? It’s not like he’s been a minor influence in horror in the past 90 years. It’s not like it’s filled with impractical effects. Even if you have to go the low budget route – there is a lot you can do with just the atmosphere. Oh, well – we will have to just quietly hope and pray to our slumbering Lord beneath the waves.

OK – got three-quarters through the fourth chapter yesterday and should finish that part of the outline today. I started to introduce Ronda (remember these are placeholder names – put away your lawyers) and will get more into her (heh,heh,heh) as the tale goes on. I’ve been thinking about how most romance novels end with the guy and the girl getting together in the long term, but what if the pair do just nothing more than hook-up a few times and then go their separate ways? Maybe – but that seems like that would violate the HAE rule in romance. Well, we’ll see what pops up in the outline.

Finally finished Tyro’s eighth chapter and have started on the next one – and I got to introduce the hunda in general and Looks-Afar specifically. The hunda are intelligent, telepathic dogs. Looks-Afar is a young hunda and decides to follow Tyro (…or as he puts it ‘You’re my sidekick!’) along for the books. He’s going to be another touchstone character, someone that we can compare and contrast the ‘normal’ life with the ‘ushabit’ life. Looks-Afar is also going to be a bit of a comic relief himself, or at least he isn’t going to be as serious as some of the other characters. The hunda are the only thing that is from the original draft I wrote those many, many years ago. Hopefully, it will work out better than the first time. They were just here and there, now I am trying to make one a full character in the story.

I feel exhausted today and I don’t know why. Oh, wait – yes, I do. I’m a light sleeper on a late shift and I live near a grocery store, so everyone has to make their pilgrimage by my bedroom window and complain about ‘some motherfucker gonna get his shit taken out’. You might ask why I don’t have the windows closed. I will respond with: I do. The people here just talk that loud. I think I am going to try to lie down for a few minutes and get a quick nap before writing, or I might just sleep until 4:00 and shower and hop out the door.

Well, I hope your day is better than mine.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

First: The cartoon

This man is a National Treasure.

I had a really good day yesterday – it got nice and slow about an hour and half into work, so I was able to get a lot of outlining done: finished chapters two and three. I am getting ready to charge into chapter four with the capture of the criminal and off to pursue the Maw – the inhuman (relatively speaking… they’re all inhuman) rahsaya and the untold riches. One thing I am also going to do is also introduce the clay and its protective properties in the chapter with the bandit – also give Danny a chance to start to shine a little in the book, or at least the notion that he can shine…or at least not tarnish too badly. Given that today is Thursday, I am hoping to make it through Chapter Four, introduce the love interest (place name is Rhonda, for this woman) and try to get along with the romance and/or the action… or both. We’ll see.

OK – as far as Tyro goes, I finally got the chickens good and scared and have started to move to the end of the chapter. I will need to re-write something because I inadvertently switched POV from Galter to Nysa, but I’ll do that this weekend. I just need to keep everything going and close this chapter and get to the flight in Chapter Nine. Yes, Nysa is going to stay behind in the village because they will have a better chance to hide one of them than all of them – especially Ghislain. For a mental image: think of a 275 lbs. bodybuilder with a body almost like a gorilla. Yeah – you try shoving him into a closet. With this, I am getting back into the peril of being ushabit. Oh, I also have to remember to introduce the hunda Looks-Afar in this chapter. I am looking forward to a little more levity before the sturm-und-drang. You’d almost think I am not looking forward to it…but I am, since it means I am getting closer to ending this novel and moving on to the second one.

I am also going to edit the finished novel and trick some suckers ask some brave souls to give it a good beta read. I had one person give it a once over and she gave me some good notes: more tension between the main characters and liked the descriptions and gave it a generally good review. I am going to give it to a couple of other people and see what they say. If the consensus is that the characters need more inter-personal conflict, I’ll see what I can do. I am aiming for a Kindle release at the beginning of the year, with hopefully a dead tree version coming three months later… hopefully. After that novel is finished, I will work on Tyro’s series to get it finished and maybe pick up another neglected novel – maybe poor, patient I/O Error. If I can get through doing two novels at the same time with Unbound and A Heart of Clay, I might make that a permanent model just so I can clear out a lot of the debris in my head. I’ve read articles about the writers with publish on Kindle and the secret to their success is quantity. I’m hoping to use that strategy to get out of where I am now and into writing full time.

Speaking of which, I should get to that hunda.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

PS: To the lady with the laser beam eyes – hope your dad gets better.

Here is a version of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” done as a ragtime tune. In my defense, I am a fan of Richard Cheese and covers in general so this is firmly in my wheel well. Thanks to the lovely and peppy Jennifer Riddle for bringing this to my attention. Thanks, Jen!

Didn’t do that much outlining yesterday because it was Tuesday and the opening day of NHL, so I watched the first game of the season. My team premieres tonight, but I am going to save that for a Saturday so I can watch it uninterrupted. I got Danny back to the village and he’s going to find his body again, and this time whoever is in his body is going to try to declare a truce. Of course, there are other reasons for the truce (the wraiths hot on the heels of Danny and the horse he rode in – you read that right), but mostly I am trying to keep this story from being sidetracked too badly. This scene is unfolding in my head as a bit of a nod to my horror roots with the different wraiths walking through bodies and trying to find the rahsaya. This could be one of the more intense scenes in the book, hopefully not one to discourage romance readers. I just need to get the outline worked on today – since it’s Wednesday, I am hoping to have more time than I did yesterday… but I have little hope as it’s Statement Week and we’re also doing some big conversion that is more than likely going to be a larger headache for everyone else other than Tech / PC Support. I might have ducked a bullet on this one.

Nysa is in the coop and the chickens are about to have their big panic. They’ve been warming up to this day for a while. After the big panic to close out the chapter, I get to go to the next chapter and start introducing new characters and getting them out of the safe village and into the not-so-safe-village. After all, I have to keep this thing going. Well, I just realized something – if Nysa stays in the village, and the reason the other ushabit flee is because the Kheru-Ta have managed to track them down… what happens to Nysa if she stays? I can’t have her die – she needs to show up in the third book. Well, I might have a second interlude with Hagan and the Kheru-Ta with their leader… who is not going to be mentioned because I want whatever little surprise I have coming. Please cue insidious laughter…now…

So – I am going to do outlines, novels on the weekday and on the weekend, I am going to finish (no, really) editing the first novel The Quietest Heart, I think I have a few pages left and I am going to send it to the beta readers… so I am taking volunteers. Just drop a comment here with an e-mail address and I’ll give you a .pdf of the novel. Speaking of .pdfs – I got a copy of Amy Valenti’s Hidden Heat – I love it! She is one of my favorite writers and definitely worth the time to read her works. I will say this, she does write adult material, so you are now duly warned… or teased, which ever works for you.

I am off to the chicken coop to scare a pre-processed omelet or two. Hope you have a good day, too.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

First: I am going to give you this link for inspiration.

Second: The outline is coming along…when I can find the time in between calls. Danny (the placeholder name) has been yanked out of his body and is now trying to get back into it. I am getting ready to introduce the idea of the wraiths – people who have lost their bodies and now just exist. Of course, just existing – not having any sort of sensory input beyond the need to return to one’s own body – is a sorry state to be in and I am going to get Danny back to his real body as quickly as possible. I can see a huge distraction coming with that, so I am going to try to nip it in the bud (I also see some good plots for later on, so I am going to table that for later) and keep on the main track of the story. Yeah – that’s a big problem I have: I’ll get started on something, find something cool and expand on that and suddenly what was going to be a one-shot novel has ballooned up to a three trilogy series like a weight-lifter on anabolics (Tyro – I’m looking at you). I am still looking to get the second act done by the end of the week, so I might have to come home from work and scribble some ideas down after the walk rather than sit down and watch Attack on Titan (holy cow that is not for children!). I am still jazzed up about this and Tyro’s story – which will get Nysa in with the chickens today and hopefully end the chapter so I can finally introduce the next character: Looks-Afar the hunda. The hunda are intelligent, telepathic dogs – based off of a story that one of my teachers told the class about Rhodesian ridgeback puppies he was keeping. He set up a toddler pen, but one or two puppies would get out – the walls were higher than they could jump, and there was nothing else in the pen that could be used as a ladder. So he set up a camera in front of the pen and recorded what they did while he was gone. He put the loose puppies back in their pen and rewound the tape and watched it. A puppy would sit at the base of the wall with his back to the others. Another puppy would run up the back of the seated puppy and jump over. That’s right – the puppies were helping each other over the wall. They showed more organizational abilities and planning than most people. I heard that tale and filed it away in the back of my head until I started the second draft of the Tyro novel and I thought it would be nice to have a non-human companion for her: something that doesn’t quite relate to being human like everyone else, but can relate better to the world at large.

I should get to Tyro so I can introduce Looks-Afar. I hope y’all have a good day.

Oh – of note, if you look to the right, you will see that I have put up links to any books that I am selling. With any luck, I am going to have a second link there soon!

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Breaking Bad is over and that, good gentlemen and kind ladies, is how you end a series. I am definitely going to buy the whole series when it comes out. Also – getting it on iTunes to be able to enjoy it immediately. It is one of the best series out there… a far better way to end it than certain others that have wrapped up in TV Land recently. I also got to celebrate someone’s birthday:

She was so happy to have me take her picture; she didn’t shoot lasers from her eyes at me.

The outline for the NaNoWriMo is coming along now with the changes. I finished the first act (which was only one chapter) and I am getting into the second act today. I might even get into the third act as early as Thursday and will definitely get it done by mid-October. A little polishing and I will be ready to rip into it on November 1^st at 12:00:01 and hopefully complete it by November 31^st at 11:59:59. Right now, I am getting ready to reveal possessed-Danny and free-range-Danny and get into the meat of the story. I have the premise of why Danny got tossed out of his body. Since only one other writer sort reads this, I’ll bounce the idea around here and see what happens.

One: this particular book takes place on a world where my other big fantasy series exists. There are a race of beings called the Rahsaya which are to put very simply floating clouds of self-organized magical energy (OK, two other series – one of which I am going to put out soon just to get it out there) and they have the ability to possess something, either people or objects. The great things of lore are objects that are possessed by one of the Rahsaya (either by choice, or by being bound), since when they do that, they can confer great abilities and powers to whatever they possess. For all of their spiffy abilities, they have several weaknesses: when they are out and free-floating, they are more vulnerable to the predations of their own kind – think of how an amoeba consumes something, now imagine you can hear the screams. Once absorbed, the predator has all the abilities and memories of the consumed. The second is clay that they call…something that I can’t remember, but it is proof against the Rahsaya. They can’t use raw power against it – but they can channel their power through it. Think of it like lead, but toxic to the touch. Now, if the Rahsaya are inside something, or someone, they can avoid the worst of the clay. They can touch it, use it and even get into it, but their raw power can’t still affect it. It can be mixed into other things – added to iron, ground into wood and whatever – and they can be used against the Rahsaya and wound them if a weapon. It can also trap one of them inside an object if added. This is why the Rahsaya in the story possesses the main character to avoid the main antagonist: a fairly strong and very, very predatory Rahsaya. The protagonist has a store of the clay far away, but it needs someone to hide in and take it to the clay. That’s the crux of the story. Good? Bad? Every sort of criticism is welcome… I’ll even take the snark.

So, I need to get to the other novel which is coming along better now – Nysa is going to mill about with the chickens and everyone is finally discover that there is something not right about these people to close out the chapter. I hope to finish this one by the end of the week and finish October very strong since I will be doing double duty during November.

Have a good day y’all.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

PS: If you look to the left, you will see a link to my first work: Four Bits and a Dollar. Feel free to buy a copy… or two… or ten, I’m not choosy.

… when she says this. I was working on it yesterday in between calls and no matter what I did, I couldn’t feel satisfied with it enough to justifying continuing.

Drastic? Yes, but if you had read it you’d probably volunteer to hold the lighter.

So I am completely re-doing it (if you zoom in enough, you can see the notes and where it went awry) and going to try it again in between plumber visits and the Bacchanalia I have been invited to for tomorrow. Maybe today and tomorrow I can make up enough lost ground.

Here’s the problem: the hero (a very squishy everyman sort of person) is one of those reluctant types. In the outline, he was so reluctant, there was no real reason for him to leave and he had no problems with saying so. While part of the drama would be to have the hero dragged out of his comfort zone and face off against the villain and come back home better for it… but the character was not going to go anywhere – no matter how dire the danger was presented, nor how great the wealth offered, our hero was going to stay in the counting house until he died of old age. So, I went out and bought some lighter fluid and contemplated adding to the local haze. Then – inspiration hit me… one, in the form of an officer cruising by the house as I was going to dump the bottle of fluid in a glass bowl with the book and set it all on fire and the notion about possession.

Whenever I have read something dealing with possession (and I am guilty of doing this too), it’s usually shown that there is enough room – either head room or soul room – for two (or more in my book) distinct forms: the form of the possessor and the form of the possessed. While they may fight, bitch, complain or cooperate – there is always room enough. So I asked myself: what if when the main character is possessed by the spirit, he’s displaced? Now things started to fall quickly into place. Now the character has a reason to leave – his body is walking away and making a mess of things to begin with and he notes that the farther away his body is from his now bodiless spirit, the worse things feel for him. There could be other problems with this: he can’t be the only one who’s had this happen to him. He could find a particular ability to put himself into someone else’s body and displacing that person. He could run into a group of displaced people who have completely lost their bodies. This makes for a much better story and there are many more conflicts to undertake. I am excited again about this outline and I hope that today is a slow day enough for me to get into it. I am not really changing any of the characters: we’re going to have Village Cutie, Brock, Danny, Auntie and Bruce (not their real names – anyone who’s read my work know that I have a specific scheme for names, these are place names. Who the heck would name their kid Village Cutie? Not me.). I might even start with the names and use the right ones for the outline just so I can have something to refer to in the text.

By Golly – I am looking forward to this.

I need to get hopping on this.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy