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.

Tuesdays for me aren’t that good of a writing day usually. It’s hard to get into the swing of things when at best you’ve had four hours of sleep and enough caffeine in the morning to kill an elephant. If I get out over one hundred words, I am ecstatic. Usually, it’s caffeine, blog, mutter, novel, quit, Xbox – but today I thought I would do something different. Today, I worked on the novel first and my word count is now 32,493! Today I put down 1,560 – an increase by…well… yeah, a huge number (look, if I was good in math, I’d be a scientist, but I’m not – OK?). So now when I am normally showing those Covenant Elites who’s the boss, I am writing this blog. Hey – it seems to work and who knows, it might mean the beginning of a more productive time for me. Sure, I am way over deadline for this – I should be done with it by the end of September, not dragging to the end of the second act. Then again, I am not obsessing over the deadlines because:

1. I have enough deadlines, time limits and other things going on in my dreaded real job to worry about. I don’t need to add on to it.
   
2. The real stuff I need to worry about as far as this novel goes is making sure it is the best that it can be before the first round of edits start.
   
3. Why worry about deadlines now? That’s why I am self-publishing, right? To be the master of my domain, the captain of my ship, the housecat sitting in front of the TV so the human can see more of glorious me (some personal experience on that one)!
   

As for the novel itself – Tyro had a bit of ‘Serpent in the Garden‘ moment that I found to be unexpected. While Tyro is supposed to be the one that uses her wits more than her muscles, I don’t normally see her as being guile in this manner. I usually associate that in my mind with Aevar. However, it does fit with what Tyro has rattling around in her head and how she is accessing and using those memories. The good news is, by the end of this week I should have this chapter done and by the end of next week the second act should be finished and we can take a small breather to allow the characters some time to enjoy their escape. Not a whole lot mind you – this is something I am writing.

This Friday (in breathless anticipation) I am trying to decide which movie I want to see at night: Arang, Mama, or Grace. I am leaning towards Grace because there I did start it a while back and just never finished it. I might do that and double down on the popcorn (while I have a popcorn popper, I just like having a bowl of white cheddar popcorn… or better yet – kettle corn!) for that night.

Well, look at that – I still have some time to act as a plasma bolt catcher. Have a good day and I’ll try to duck slightly faster than the speed of light.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I discovered this guy while tooling about the Internet. Yeah, I have a small weakness for nerdcore and other affiliated musical styles – everything can’t be just thrash and soundtracks. This weekend was pleasant; I got to watch American Mary in hopes of restarting the Friday Night Movie tradition. I will review it in the last part of this blog if you’re interested. I also watched a baseball game (Nattitude!) and did some laundry… a normal weekend.

The escape chapter has been started and there is an interesting development – one that I didn’t come up with in the outline – happening in the first part of the chapter. I am looking forward to working this out in my head. This is going to make Aevar a lot more dangerous in the long term… hey; I think I have the antagonist for the third book. Now I just need a plot to go along with it and I’ll be OK. I like the initial idea that kicks this chapter off: Tyro learning the concept of freedom from having the information from the Great Book being passed into her. The idea I had was that Aevar also had some of that knowledge passed into him as well, and he was carving bits of it into his resting bier, but changing the way the lettering looked so that it wasn’t apparent to anyone who would come in and take an interest to the carving. Tyro picked up on it because she has enough of the original script in her to help her see past Aevar’s code. What she is going to get, however isn’t going to be more sunshine, freedom and happy thoughts. What Aevar is scratching with his claw is what makes him Aevar… an ushabit dedicated to only fulfilling his Master’s will, especially if that will involving carving up people. Whether or not Tyro is going to have these new passages have some sort of influence on her, I am not entirely sure. This is one of the joys of being a hybrid writer. I know all the big details and I am thrilled when the characters take me a little off the beaten path.

Now, as to the movie American Mary. Well… it was there. It wasn’t the best horror film I’ve seen in a while, but it wasn’t the worst. I just felt that it was a plot in search of a theme – not denigrate any of the acting – that was superb, but the rest of the movie just seemed to be one scene after another with nothing really connecting it. I’d give it 5 out of 10. Now, the movies I am looking forward to seeing are: Elysium, Europa Report, Gravity and The Hollow Crown. I am a sucker for Sci-fi and English period pieces, so I can’t wait for these to come out – that and Sharlto Copely is a joy to watch. Since I get paid this week, I am going to catch one of these and give a review.

Well, I need to see if Tyro goes all axe-crazy or just plain crazy.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

I am starting to wake up now, thankfully. It’s Friday here, so I’m about 6 hours away from the weekend reprieve and hopefully I can keep the momentum going for the novel through Saturday where I can try to make up a little lost ground. I am now aiming for a finish to this in November and looking to a spring release. Just so long as I can keep the momentum going. Coffee will be the fuel for the new era.

Speaking of momentum… I have been trying to avoid a lot of the clichés in fantasy settings, and – wow, it’s making for an interesting story. Well, I am trying to avoid what I think are clichés. All I’m really doing is when I come to a point where I think I could go two ways, and then go the way that I wouldn’t take. So far, taking the lesser path has gotten me a new wrinkle on one of the secondary characters and has set up a great opportunity to look at the relationship between the protagonist and one of the more important secondary characters (Tyro and Ghislain). I’m hoping to get something close to a love story, but limit the physical aspects to a cuddle here and there, but nothing more than that (if you read the novel, you’ll see why). I am also still trying to work on the third book while writing the first one and finalizing the outline for the second one. I’m concerned that I only have an opening scene and a one word summary (your secret word for today: apotheosis. If you hear the secret word, you know what to do kids? That’s right! Scream really loud! Good luck in trying to maneuver someone into using that word.) while the second book is almost ready to go. I would like to be able to go from second book right into third – given the amount of time it takes me to write, this really shouldn’t be a problem… I’ll try to do the best I can, maybe I’ll just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. If it works for pasta, it should for literature, right?

In a little over a month, Art Bell makes his return to radio and I cannot be happier. I am thinking about subscribing to the service to get him. I had been listening to old shows on the Internet, but the server got shut down. I found u7radio and tuned in when I could. Using my streaming radio player was problematic, because it would find the first server and not the third that had Art Bell’s show on it. Well, now that he’s returning to the airwaves… kinda… I am going to pony up the $20.00 a month to listen to him on Sirius. As a side benefit, I also get NFL games on the radio, so I can finally get a full season of my favorite team!

OK – the caffeine is kicking in, so it’s off to have Tyro pick the body of a dead man. Hey – it’s a living.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

Well, it looks like in spite of the week’s best efforts; I am going to survive it. I managed to get in last night, have some more peach cobbler and played some M:tG on X-Box:

Yes, I can be obnoxiously successful in something.

Tyro and her issues with Nysa are going to hopefully come to a head today. The thing of it is that while I want Tyro to be successful, but not too successful. I don’t want her to be a Mary Sue. She had her bright moment in the stick ball game in getting out of the library, so maybe it’s high time for her to stumble a bit – perhaps the whole Nysa getting fixed kerfluffle would be a good time for her to screw up… not a royal ‘you fool, what have you done!‘ screw up, but something that can show that she does have some flaws. So, I am going to work on that and Nysa’s dialog today. Yep, the babbling must flow.

I also need to get a new chair for this desk. The soreness is getting very painful and not just in my back, but in my neck as well. When I get paid, I’m going to splurge for a new chair (something with a high back) and I might even get a new desk, something smaller so that I can sit with my back to a wall (insert symbolism here) and maybe get some work done without getting distracted by the piles of paper on the desk and other things – bills for example. Yeah…I gotta pay those too.

I am sorry, but I am going to have to cut this short. My head is hurting on top of my back and neck, so I have to step away and get some aspirin. I should also get to the novel before I have to stop have lunch and leave for work. I promise the next one will be longer.

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy

… really, who’s reading this thing anyways? 😀

That’s right – 200 posts. If I have been religious about this, I should have reached this mile stone months ago, since I’m not here I am. I am amazed at how this has come along from my random ranting to ranting with a purpose.

Speaking of purpose…

The novel continues along, although I didn’t hit my mark yesterday – I will try to get to it today and maybe even go a little over. The growing tension between Aevar and Tyro continues, but I fear that it’s going to be a letdown when they do square off later in the book, but I will have to admit that it’s interesting to bring these two together. Anyways – I am going to try to get at least halfway through the chapter. So this will be a short posting since I have to get to work.

Now – on to the breaking rule to celebrate post 200.

Me – you can figure out who is who:

Hammer jokes always sound funnier in your head rather than aloud

Well – here’s to another 200!

Sincerely,

Seething Apathy