writing

The first chapter of my latest horror novel (titled: “Serve Me Now”) is not really the first chapter and that’s a good thing, because it was like pulling teeth to get it written in the first place. After it was finished (and I felt like I’d just climbed Everest with a 300 lbs. conjoined twin on my back), I let my wife read it. She said it wasn’t the best I’d written – which means it was a pile of hot garbage. I showed it to my writing group – they said I could do better. That definitely means it was a pile of hot garbage.

So, I went on ahead and wrote the second chapter. I figured that I could continue along with the book and just come back to the first chapter and rewrite it in the second draft. I let my wife read the second chapter, and she said it was a lot better – no shoehorning of things, no beating the reader about the head with certain concepts. I haven’t shown it to the writing group yet, but I’m sure they’re going to like it better than the first first chapter.

This is what it’s meant when the writing advice: kill your darlings is uttered. I kinda liked the first chapter. Sure, it was clunky, but I liked the opening of Leslie taking the cherry tomato from Brian’s salad. I liked that visual and how it set up the future of the book. However, the rest of the chapter was, as mentioned earlier, hot garbage. So…it got cut, but I am going to keep that scene with the cherry tomato to be used later. Maybe as a sign that the hunger is getting more intolerable for Leslie.

How was your writing experience?

I am continuing along with the novel, and the tooth-pulling has diminished, but not gone away. I’m concerned that the hunger is growing too rapidly so far. I really want it to be a source of dread – especially when it drives her to the point of legit insanity. Pacing is always a problem for me. Maybe I should bring that up to the writers group. Been writing since I was about seven, and I am still learning things. Never quit learning, kids.

The weather is getting better here, but I am not going to do any photography for a few more months. I want to make sure we’re not going to have a cold snap anytime soon. I’m still struggling to find a good subject, so right now I’m just working on technique. I need to get good soon, so I can make my own covers, I have so many ideas, but I need people to work on them with. Any local volunteers? I can guarantee a steak on one photoshoot.

Well, that’s all for now – sorry this is a little late, but my schedule’s been crazy. Check out the books on the right – I am going to be adding a couple more soon from favorite authors. Stay safe, stay dry and ta-ta for now.

Hello, everyone! I’m sorry I’ve been gone for so long, but I decided to step away from the keyboard after Nanowrimo just to recharge my batteries. I’m hoping that I can re-capture the energy of Nanowrimo and make it last a little longer (19 books longer to be exact). I won Nanowrimo as in I wrote 50,000 words in 22 days. It was a matter of getting few done during the morning, afternoon and after work. On the weekends and write-a-thons is when I could pull down some big numbers. I’m going to try to keep this schedule up with the help of caffeine.

Shown: Nanowrimo Energy

The book is coming along well, with the characters surprising me at almost every turn, but sticking (kinda) to the outline I wrote. I’m not a hardcore outliner. I’ll just have something to keep me going, and some note of good lines to fold in at appropriate times. I haven’t had a lot of writer’s block this go around. Mostly, if I got stuck, I would just skip ahead to another scene and figure it out later. This rarely happened, so I got most of the story done. Right now, I’m trying to write a convincing speech for the characters to rally behind and outlining the second book.

I’m feeling really good about this one. I’ve got a model for monetizing it, hopefully to get some breathing room and get this out of the ‘fervent hobbyist’ level. Most of the other things that I had I could only monetize when I was done with them. With this, I can submit it a chapter at a time and give out various short stories (provided I can write them. Short stories aren’t my strong suit) and build a subscription model through Patreon. At the end, I can gather all the chapters together and sell it as a complete book. I might even do that with Dirt Elf – once I get rid of the lame character aspect. I’ve got on already in the current work and I really don’t like repeating myself.

Well, other than that – everything is good here. I’m going to put up another posting soon, then take two weeks off for the holidays. Again, sorry for the spotty posting, but with Nanowrimo and December there really isn’t going to be much time for me. First of the year, however, I am going to go back to regular Thursday posting. Hope you all have a good holiday season and look forward to seeing you in the first of the year with good news!