OK, I was having a dream and this is one of the rare dreams that I remember somewhat upon waking. What I remember the most is someone dressed in the Marine’s dress blue uniform opening a door and telling me that he had an important announcement…and then he started barking. In that dream, I said two things: ‘What the hell is this?’ and ‘Goddamn it…’ shortly before waking up to my neighbor’s dogs barking. It’s not often that I react to things in my dreams like that. Then again, those dogs get under my nerves rather quickly.

The stump continues to come out of the ground in Tyro’s novel. I am looking to finally get that thing ripped out this Saturday (this Friday I have to get a gift for someone’s birthday) and hopefully get to Nysa’s big honkin’ panic attack by next week to close out the chapter. Next up would the bandits and the ushabit hitting the road again – in other words: break’s over, back to misery. This novel is taking a little longer than I would like (I should be done by now…) but I am also trying to make this the best novel since this is going to be the Big One. As far as the Nanowrimo project, I’ve started to outline it to get ready for November. This one is going to be done at the same time the Tyro Project is being done – just to see if I can do it and I honestly get a kick out of doing Nanowrimo. Maybe this will be the first time I’ll finish it two years concurrently. I need to try to find that clipboard with the stickers from 2009. Anyways – the Nanowrimo project is a romance in the same realm as Tyro (if I had to put it into a time line, it would be in between Unbound and Unchained [books 1 and 2]), and I am trying to think of some ways where I can go a different route as far as the romance tropes – other than the main character is a mousy male and the main female lead is more aggressive. The visual reference I have for the leads is for the male Daniel Radcliff from post-Harry Potter and for the female Ronda Rousey (yes, in my head she is also the face for Marah in Tyro’s novel – it’s not like I have to pay her anything. If you have an idea for a muscular but still somewhat feminine looking blonde woman – please send it to me). I’m wandering around the idea of there being a consummation, but no lasting relationship on the part of the female lead (no names yet) and the male lead being OK with that. I just don’t want to do a by-the-numbers romance. Then again, I should probably know what the numbers are, shouldn’t I? Anyways, I am going to write and finish that during November so I can hopefully have a couple of other things out there beyond my first book.

Well, I need to go catch dinner. Hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

The seasons are starting to turn here in the land of bourbon, horses and basketball. I can tell because I am not waking up in a pool of my own sweat. Sorry, but I am fat and the summers here are a little harsh on me.

Me and my twin brother Enrique enjoying an afternoon ride.

Those poor mopeds…

Taking advantage of the cooler nights, I have started walking again – not like the multi-mile affairs I did when growing up (Saturdays had me walking no less than nine miles) but just 2 miles in about 40 minutes. A little exercise here and there to hopefully get down to my fighting weight of below a teaspoon of neutron star for the swimsuit season next year and I promise you no speedos.

Enough of that – as I was walking last night, I was trying to work on a system of magic that would be fairly unique. With that in mind, I wanted to think of another way of categorizing magic – particularly magic that involved the human body (this is for my so-bad-it’s-gonna-be-great s&s books), and I had the idea of organizing everything into elements – yes, I know about the four classical elements and even about the five Chinese elements (wood, metal, fire, air, water). I thought it would be a good way to organize other magical abilities: The Ways of the Body (breath, blood, bone, flesh) or The Trials of Darkness (speaking, holding, calling, summoning). There would be different groups that would be better at such things than others, and would control that information similar to the guilds in Medieval Europe (or like the modern crime families). That would work out in giving the character known only as The Woman a bit of a rep as someone who’s very talented and the only one who could speak to these different families as equals. Just something I am tossing about.

Tyro continues along at its mopey pace. I’m going to try to get the tree out of the ground this Saturday and maybe write a little something involving Nysa and Galter to show the fear of the ‘demons’ to the normal people:

IT WILL SWALLOW YOUR SOUL

There’s your spoiler for the first novel: Tyro and the other ushabit think that trees are demons that the Master keeps at bay to protect his servants. Interesting story behind that idea – which I think I’ve already discussed. If I haven’t I will tell it to you tomorrow. Right now, I just need to get that stump out of the ground, get the apples harvested and await the coming of the bandits to close out the chapter. With the writing group coming this Saturday, I am hoping that I can use some of that momentum (or sleep deprivation) to carry off this chapter and try to get back on track.

October 1^st marks the beginning of the hockey season, I’ve got my money ready to buy the season from NHL.com and finally enjoy watching all the games. My favorite team? The Phoenix Coyotes. You have to admire a man who came out to the deserts of Arizona and said: you know what this place needs? A pro hockey team!

Well, I need to get to work. I hope you all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… and it was magnificent! I was turned on to Art Bell when I begin working third shift for an insurance company as a tape librarian (one of the best jobs I had as a temp). I brought in a radio and I was just cruising through the AM dial and I heard someone talk about the JKF conspiracy (conspiracy theories are a bit of a fascination with me). I stopped at that point and I continued to listen to the Art Bell Show whenever I got the chance. When he left the air, I was hurt and slightly confused – like discovering that your best friend had moved away by going to his house and finding it boarded up. I tried George Noory and the whole Coast to Coast thing…but it wasn’t the same. Seriously, he went into topics that I didn’t stomach at all. I had some older episodes recorded, so I’d listen to those when I got the chance – but now he’s back! I was able to use my subscription to use my subscription to Sirius for what it was intended for, but there are some problems I am going to have to try to fix:

1. Sirius will log me out automatically if there is no activity on the computer. This makes no sense.
   
2. My internet connection has been spotty and as a result, I am getting dropped and have to restart the player. I should call the cable company about that.
   

Other than that – I like what I have! I’m going to try to listen to it on the sly at work and see if I can record it on my main PC.

As far as Tyro goes, I am going to get that tree ripped out of the ground and hopefully move on to some other parts of the novel. I am ready to work now and I guess that I will have to take the low yield days with the high. I am still tinkering in my head as far as the Nanowrimo project goes – I’m going to hammer out an outline this weekend (in between writer’s group and groceries) and get everything lined up for it so I can start running on 11/1 at 12:00:00. I am going to try to keep up Tyro’s novel and the Nanowrimo at the same time and complete the Nanowrimo novel within the time frame (11/31). If I am lucky, I’ll get one done and get it out there by next year. It is a goal to get a novel finished and out there in the wild after the first of the year. I can do this. With one, I just need to finish the editing, get someone to beta read it and get some artwork together. More than likely that’s the one that will hit Amazon, but I would like to see the Nanowrimo novel get out as well. I just have to focus and get through it.

Well, I’m going to listen to the first hour and a half of the show and have some late breakfast. I hope everyone has a good day for a Tuesday.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

ART BELL IS BACK TONIGHT!

I’ve gotten my SiriusXM membership active and I made sure that I could record it when I went to sleep (I’m going to be at work when it comes on, so I can only get the last two hours, but it repeats again at 2AM). I have been waiting for this all month. I am so excited about tonight – still tempted to call in, but I know that means I would have to give up one of my remaining vacation days, and I am not going to sacrifice my birthday week. Really looking forward to it tonight. Yeah – my life is like that. Doesn’t take much to get me excited.

Anyways – I am going to go back to the Tyro novel, but I’ve been thinking about another swords-n-sorcery idea, but I am trying to find something original to it. Something about a mercenary company, but I’m trying to think of a new angle – something that hasn’t been done before. I was thinking about the main character being a new draftee sent to the paymaster for training. Y’know – something like Gilroy: Tactical Accountant!… but not as lame sounding. As far as I can tell, there has been nothing about what really runs a mercenary company: the money. A lot of fantasy when dealing with the swords and sorcery parts stick to just that: swords and sorcery. I am looking for something different to hang the story’s hat on. Sure, there will be the usual cavalcade of fantastic creatures, spells, enchanted weapons and chainmail bikinis – but I am looking to tell a different story. I have the plot itself from a game I’ve been wanting to run for a while, but I have never been able to find people to hang on long enough for it. I don’t want to say anything else right now because I don’t want to spoil it. Now, if you’re panicking that I have forgotten about Tyro – let me assure you that I haven’t, but I have found this to be the best way to corral plot bunnies.

Gah – I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately, mostly because I’m more of a night person and the neighbors down the street feel the need to start their arguing early in the morning to get it out of the way. Seriously, I hit the sack at 2:30 AM (and that’s me going to be early, kids) but I’ll end up waking up a couple of hours later and I can’t get back to sleep until 6 or 7 AM… about when the sun starts to rise and the Joads get their yell on. I might experiment with getting some earplugs and using that to block out the morning and set my alarm to vibrate and sleep in a t-shirt with a pocket in it to make sure I get up on time. Well, enough of this, let me watch Breaking Bad and get ready for work.

I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Today is Thursday the 12th, so you all know what that means. Yes, National “Not My Fault! Day” will be here before you know it. Black cats are lined up to waltz across your path in a conga line of misfortune at the stroke of midnight.

This week as far as writing has been concerned, but I am going to take this weekend and shrug it off. I think that one of the issues that has been plaguing me has been the little things in this one book and casting an eye towards NaNoWrimo in a month and a half. I am thinking about writing “Heart of Clay” (a romance, stop laughing) and trying to get that one finished in time for some light editing over the holidays. I’m still going to finish the Tyro novel in the same breath. So, I will be dividing my time in between the two books and hopefully get them both into some sort of working order.

Speaking of working order, Tyro’s third novel totters towards completion. I like having some sort of musical theme for the novel I’m working on. With Tyro’s first novel, it’s “Truth and Reconciliation Suite” from Halo. The second novel has “Sorceror” by Marilyn Martin. For the third novel, and this was found by happy accident, I have this piece as the theme. It really hits on Tyro’s quandary in the third novel: she knows that she has more to do, but she isn’t sure as to how to get there or even if she can (or should) ask for help. Give it a listen, leave an opinion or tell me to get bent (I’m lonely).

I get paid tomorrow and I think that rather than living it up, I am going to lay low as it were. I want to save up some cash to get myself a Chromebook (the gadgets are my vice) for my birthday. Besides, I’ve got some plumber issues to take care of this weekend. I would love to put that off for later, but this is one of those things that isn’t going to wait. I will spare you, dear reader, the grisly details.

Oh, with Thanksgiving coming, my idea for dinner is going to be simple: home made pizza. Yes…turkey pizza. Simple, quick and its going to be delicious. If you ask nicely, I’ll even save you a slice.

Well, have to go back to work and finishing reading this “Order of the Stick” archive. How y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

I don’t know what it is with this chapter, but it’s coming in small drips and drabs. All the ushabit have to do is pull out a stump, but it’s faster to pull out the stump than write about it. I’m wondering if it’s just that there is no great external conflict – no bullets, no bombs, no bleeding. It’s an important scene to let us see the ushabit from someone else’s eyes, but it’s just so slow in coming out. I managed to get the 1,500 out yesterday, but it took me almost all the morning for me to do that. I am considering stepping away and working on it in my head a little more before putting it down on paper. Right now, I have written for about an hour and a half and managed to get only 364 words out. Yeah, I’m doggin’ it again. I think I’ll just write this blog and call it a day. As much as that little voice inside me keeps screaming to finish, I know that the more I just sit there and putter around, the more frustrated I get and the more frustrated I get the less productive I am at the screen. A couple of people have suggested that I might skip ahead to the next scene and just keep moving, but I am afraid that I am going to forget that I skipped something after I send it to Amazon (an irrational fear, I know – my editor will more than likely catch that and ask me where the rest is, but I am trying to lessen her load as much as possible).

On other news, I have started walking again after work. Just a couple of miles down to the library and past the post office – not a whole lot but it is exercise and a lot more than what I was doing a week ago (nothing). With the weather cooling down somewhat, I hope I will come home looking less and less like someone threw me in a pool on a lark. I also am going to register the rare complaint about Apple TV: they’re not updating The Colbert Report as they should. When I check on the feed through my subscriptions, it only shows the episode from the 4^th. When I go through as if I am going to purchase more episodes, I can find them all. It’s frustrating that I have to go through all of these different pages on the TV just to get to the show I want. I’m thinking about not renewing the pass and just trying it on Hulu Plus – it’s a less than a multi-pass ($7.99 a month versus $20.00) and I don’t miss anything. Don’t get me wrong – Apple TV is great, but I don’t like the idea of missing shows just because they’re tucked away somewhere else. Speaking of shows, I should go on ahead and grab the season pass to Sons of Anarchy and Ghost Adventures. Yes – I watch some of those ghost hunter shows. It helps me get ideas for a novel I might write one of these days.

Well, I am off to shower and get ready for work. I hope y’all have a good day.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello all.  Got my 1,500 out today, but I ran out of time to write anything in the blog. I’ve been doggin’ it (as my uncle would say) for the past few days and I finally got the inertia up to carry me across the finish line. I’m working on chapter eight, still I’m having a bit of a time getting the chapter going mostly because I’m having a change in POV from the ushabit to the happy villagers. I’m doing this because I think the reader can use the break from the sturm und drang and we get to see them act in what we would consider a natural environment. I might end up moving the scene with the bandits (when we see Nysa perform a Master Class wig-out) to the next chapter and have the scene with the Master’s soldiers either as an interlude out just take it out completely. I might do the later since I don’t want to have the influence of the Master suite up very often…which reminds me I need to write the interlude that introduces Lady Khepri. Got to have that gun on the mantle.

Other than that, there is little else going on. I’m getting ready for NanoWriMo and I might take the opportunity to do a quick one-off novel (perhaps a romance?), just to give Tyro and company a bit of a break. Also give myself a chance to work on a different part of the same world. I should probably redraw the map at some point just to keep everything looking better. The hand drawn map I have is from a future map of the US, and you can tell its from the US. Maybe if I get some spare time, I should research it and try to make it as realistic as possible.

Drat. Back to work.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy

I had a good weekend, I got a new toy from work (apparently, if you a good job, you get points towards getting little gadgets and I’ve apparently done 8,000 points of a good job) a lot sooner than I expected. I do have some good writer news to detail below, but I am going to save that. There is not a whole lot to detail here – I had a decent, restful weekend and I am ready to get back into the novel.

Well, the problem I was having with the third Tyro novel was that I had a theme (apotheosis) and an opening scene, but nothing else. When I was writing the outline for the second book I wanted to add a secondary character that was introduced in the first book (I’m actually getting to that point in the manuscript) by the name of Lady Khepri: the newest member of the Ahaut Taui and potentially a rival to Tyro’s former Master. I wanted her in the second book to act as a foil to the antagonist, Siva. So, I wrote the outline and I kept forgetting that Khepri was there, supposedly pushing Tyro along against both Siva and the court of Daergal. I can see why – Khepri was meant to be the antagonist in the third book. The theme behind the first book is escape, the second one is freedom and the third is apotheosis. Khepri is Tyro’s dirty funhouse mirror in that regard: she’s obtained apotheosis by undergoing the steps to join the Ahaut Taui, but she has none of the morality. Tyro has the morality by the third book, but she’s reluctant to accept that power. So, instead of Lady Khepri trying to get on Tyro’s good side in the second book in order to try to claim her as her own ushabit, I am going to have an ushabit planted there by Lady Khepri to keep tabs on Siva and stumble onto Tyro by accident. I think that would work out a little better.

Wow – summer is pretty much over except for the sweating in the last few days and now we are coming to fall. I am starting the countdown to my last vacation: the last week in October – of which I think I’m only going to get the last four days rather than the week and a half I asked for originally. Not bad, at least it’s time off and I am not going to work on my birthday. I might even try to gather the nerve to ask someone to have lunch with me on that day. But I’m looking too far ahead for such a thing. I just need to focus on this week and getting this chapter finished… and maybe getting some DLC for Borderlands 2 and maybe watching another episode of Attack on Titan.

So, off to have a seamstress measure a gorilla for some clothes. It’ll make sense later on, I promise.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Hello all, this has been a bit of a low productivity week for me. Barely got any decent word count on my novel and the blog is languishing. This weekend is going to be a bit of a reset for me. I’m going to work on the novel a little bit more this Saturday. I’ve been falling behind, but I am getting to a good spot in the lull and I am looking forward to giving a character a happy(ish) ending for a change. The next chapter after this one is going to be from the POV of one of the villagers. This will go on for a while to hopefully give us a better look at how odd the ushabit are compared to the regular people.

I don’t know about you, but this week has been a little bleh for me. I’ve just been out of sorts. I can explain one day (for myself), but the other days are an oddity. It’s one of the fears I have about going into writing full-time. I am afraid that I’m going to sit in front of the computer and just have nothing to show for it, so I’ll get up and do something else. Tomorrow told around…then a week… then a month… I don’t know what I would do at that point. Well, I’ll agonize over that when I get to that point in my life.

I am happy that Art Bell is coming back in less than two weeks. I got a subscription for Sirius satellite radio and I am going to get the radio the next time I get paid and upgrade my subscription so I get everything…including the channel for my favorite football team and hockey team. I should also look into getting a new desk. The one I have blocks the for easy into the living room when I am at it. So, there’s a smaller desk for sale that should be able to fit in the same space, but I can slide my chair next to the for rather than in front of it. When all is set, I will supply a picture.

Nothing new here, really. I will enable to return to the regular blog tomorrow and maybe have some better news.

Sincerely,
Seething Apathy.

…and to my European friends, happy Monday! I get the day off (for those of you who don’t work in a call center, public holidays are not guaranteed) today, so I am going to use this day to write some more on the novel at a leisurely pace to day. I’m going to hit the word count, but I am not going to do it with an eye on the clock like I normally do. First, I am going to finish the dishes and run off to the grocery store to get the chicken for the dinner tonight – I am so happy that I am getting dinner not only at 6:00 PM, but it’s not a sandwich! I am getting a half pound of orange chicken and a half pound of General Tso’s chicken (love the General as much as I love the Colonel) and cook up some rice. I might even have enough cash (chicken is going to cost about $7.00) to get some lettuce to make a salad as well. I certain that the shock of a healthy dinner won’t kill me, however – I will see if they have tapioca pudding to ameliorate the effects of all those toxic vitamins being put into my body. 😀

The novel creeps about as it wants. The group has managed to get into the friendly village and now I am trying to figure out (and I know this is the least of my problems at the moment) how the language that the humans speak should sound. I am thinking about using Gothic language since the names I am using for the humans are Germanic in origin. I just need to get my hands on a couple of dictionaries and make up a grammar – like I did with Tyro’s language that we’re only going to read two paragraphs of in the whole book. The reason why I am picking a dead language is that for a region in the world (and this does come into play in the book) I used Russian names and Googled translations from English into Russian. My thinking was: hey, how many people are going to speak Russian and read my stuff? The same thought process I had when I decided to use Hindi as a language for the Rahsaya, but make my own grammar. I’m not Tolkein. I can’t make a language out of whole cloth. I’m neither that smart, nor am I an Oxford Don (which kinda go hand in hand – see? Not smart at all).

Did I mention that we have one person who speaks Russian and another that more than likely knows Hindi? Why can’t I hit these kinds of odds in the lottery? Seriously.

Anyway – in an effort to keep going, I am writing what is to be in the foreign language in red bold to remind me that I need to add it in later on. The villagers are friendly and going to give the ushabit food which they really don’t need and clothes to protect their modesty (I keep forgetting they are wearing loincloths and wrappings across the women’s chest). I am hoping that today I can get them through the chapter and maybe start to work on the chapter where the ushabit starting learning about the habits of the villagers – particularly about working.

Well, I should get to work… on those dishes and more than likely scoot to the store to get everything. Hopefully the deli won’t close early. If it does…well… there is always Penn Station.

Have a good Labor Day y’all.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy