This morning, I continue officially writing two Novellas at the same time for two different Series. One of them, Skyjacker, I’ve set my goal to 1000 words a day, minimum. Only once since I started have I failed to reach that goal. Even the most difficult days (weekends mostly) I managed to find time in my day to complete the task and more. Beginning yesterday, I took up Spell Thief, fantasy Novella Series. After writing around between 1500 and 2000 words in Starjacker, I wrote five hundred in Spell Thief. This morning, I wrote 500 words in Spell Thief, no problem. My Achievable goal for that Novella has been reached. I can now move on to write in Starjacker. Lest I forget, I started this post. Another thing I need to do is edit Chennizzi.
(1) Starjacker, Part I of Knowledge’s Ashes is 14,246 words in length. (2) Old God’s Shadow, Part I of Spell Thief 8772 words.
I now, some people will call me seven kinds of fool for writing o novels at the same time. But, hey, it can’t hurt to try.
Monday’s post was late because I forgot to publish. Yesterday, I wrote most of a new chapter 1 of Starjackers, and set up a series in Medium (You need to do another) and now I am trying to catch up.
I lost count of how much I wrote today, though I appear to be around 1500+ words on StarJackers. I also added the Romance subplot. Ven Aleyo has changed from my original idea and is now a Subspecies living on the colony of Venice, a mostly water world with cites built around the few pieces of ground that rise above the waves of floating cities. As I see the planet, It is an old world where plate tectonics has ceased.
In Medium, I have created to Series that are used to showcase the articles and stories. I am happy with those.
Wow. I made a snap decision to finish Spell Thief as another Novella, eventually reaching about 35 thousand words. It took me a bit to get into it, but once I started, I think it came along very well. Spell Thief was going to be the first of a fantasy series, anyway, and it is a perfect match to Starjackers. I am setting my goal with Spell Thief to 500 words a day.
Today, I wrote well in excess of 2000 words. I admit that I am very happy where things are heading. I really want to reach a point where I have several books in Amazon, and hopefully start bringing in a bit of money.
Sundays are tough, it’s family you know. I want to stay on task, to make my goal, and today I did. But Sundays are difficult. We went to a movie today. We cooked. We hung out together. Tonight the boys went to see Glass.
Adventures in publishing: A reader found an error in Shift. Got it fixed, but I have learned a serious lesson. Editors make mistakes and writer’s pay for them. I need to work much harder with editing from the beginning.
I reached 1099 words today, and wrote a thousand words.
Seventy-five-hundred words into the first Novella of a trilogy, writing my first big disaster, with all kinds of conflict and I realize I do not know who the antagonist is. Of course, neither does my protagonist, but that is no excuse. I am neither a character in the story or a reader. How can I write a good disaster if I can not put a name to the instigator of the loss? Perhaps disasters should be explained. Segway to the Snowflake Method.
Snowflake is an outlining method that divides the novel into four parts. Each of the first three parts ends in a disaster where the character faces a disaster, and metaphorically or in reality is slapped in the forehead with failure and reevaluates his entire life as he sees it. I may have exaggerated there, of course, but if you take each of these disasters and call them setbacks, you will get to a more conventional way of teaching outlining. I highly suggest that writers check out his Snowflake Method. It may not be for you, but it teaches a great way to think of novel writing. Oh, and Pantsers, I suggest you get the book, also. No, no, no, I don’t mean you should give up your way of writing. While Pantsing a novel or a short story, or editing said works, they are a great way of thinking out where your character is in the story.
In my case, I have the novella plotted out, I know how it will end, I know there are two groups after what he doesn’t know he has, and Eureka. I now know who the the Antagonist is in the first novella. It is right there in my plans as a subplot. Now, I know that it is critical.
The best way to work out a story problem when you slam hour nose against it is to write it out. Got to run.
Stay tuned for the Knowledge’s Ashes Universe Part I: Starjacker.
One day I’m dancing in the rain and singing “Everything’s coming up roses,” and the next there is this headache dead center of my third eye. But that is no excuse. Time to write, tickle the keyboard, drive the nib of my men into my wrist and bleed fiction. So bear with me, please, several things I want to do.
Plot+Character=Theme Using Them in writing.
The first goal is to work on an article for Medium on a theme in literature. I have been avoiding this like the plague. (Cliche alert!) Going on, I think I am going to use this as a sounding board for my understanding of the subject, which I admit is not very significant. The image above, which I saw posted by a friend and writer, Anna Dobritt, author of the Ravynwyng Chronicles, links together three critical aspects of literature. I have a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and no teacher ever explained it to me in this way. Before, I remained blind to the theme, thinking of it as the “moral of the story,” which it is not. One of the primary themes in Harry Potter was
NOTE: I did not get far with this today. Tomorrow, I will make progress.
“Literary theorist Roger Fowler notes that: “A theme is always a subject, but a subject is not always a theme: a theme is not usually thought of as the occasion of a work of art, but rather a branch of the subject which is indirectly expressed through the recurrence of certain events, images or symbols. We apprehend the theme by inference – it is the rationale of the images and symbols, not their quantity.” Harry Potter and the surprisingly poignant literary theme
Writer’s Log Supplemental: 1648 wrote 1521 words on the Novella. it is going very well. I even succeeded in screwing around for a while. Next month, I intend to take Randall’s Bootcamp and use it to write a sequel to Shift.
Writer’s Log Supplemental: 2156 An interesting evening, and I’ve made one serious decision. I have so many short stories, I intend to publish a book about 100 pages long. Thanks, Angela L. Lindseth. (Check out her published works. Sanity’s Threshold, Unconfined Delusions, and more.)
Just a short post today. Actually posted a piece of flash fiction earlier. I continued to write the novella and wrote 1340 words on the project, and you can add around 500 for the Flash. That is a good day, no matter what you think I am I am hitting my stride. The antidepressant I take–I am not ashamed–has allowed me to get my mind functioning. It is the fourth I have tried. The other three, over the years, had terrible side effects. I am having an amazing period of creativity, flash fiction, short stories, a Novella. I need to get back to editing “The Jungian Gate” and plan a novella sequel to Shift.
Goal: I am thinking I will edit and tighten up all my short stories and put them together into a book.
Well, I think this is it. It is about time to hit the sack. My late start this morning happened because I stayed up to one in the morning.
Started my morning with a visit to the Doctor. (You don’t really need to know.) It all came out fine, anyway, blood pressure 112/80, which is really good. I seem to have that in shape. I started by setting a couple of goals, came up with more ideas about promoting work, and wrote a piece of Flash Fiction, “An Unintentionally Embarrassing Morning.” (584 words) So, not bad at all. I wrote something, but I have not written on my main project, my next published work. So I am going to take this moment to say, “Get the Lead Out!”
Writer’s Log – Supplemental – 1217: Just a note. (1) I am going to start a blog to promote my Novella Series. It will be written by the main character. (2) I intend to do the same thing for Shift.
Writer’s Log Supplemental – 2304: Yea! Two days, with this new system, and I have finished a second scene and a total of 2418 words. Add those to the Flash Fiction Piece mentioned above. Even though I have the novel sort of planned out, I created a species of alien, The Tau Tepe, A species with three separate brains and three semi independent consciousnesses. I had not planned for that, and now I like the character’s idiosyncrasies. Not sure how it will influence changes in the rest of the novella and the series, but they will.
So the new system begins. I have begun writing Starjack, and complete 1067 words. It has shifted form my original vision. Captain Suri Oza is suffering form memory problems due to the use of a long sleep drug that drastically slows his metabolism, usually used with deep sleep tubes. Those on his ship were destroyed. He crawled in a body bag with the body of a friend and injected the drug as a beg middle finger to fate after his ship was damaged. His memories will dribble back to him over time. The person who shot him will be the last memory he will recover, somewhere near the end of the novella.
I have completed a one-sentence summary of all three Novellas, assigned working titles, and know how each novella ends. I have three main characters, and plan to make each character the POV character of one Novella.
NOVELLAS: Yes, yes, yes I will get around to my writer’s log, later. This is just a note covering my change in direction. since I am self-published, I’ve decided to write a series as Novellas. Each book will be between twenty thousand and forty thousand words. They will be complete, in that I will present a beginning, middle and end with rising action a climax and a denouement. (Yes, I am showing off my literary chops with that word.) But Each will be one part of a series of two or more books. That requires writing one thousand words a day. I can do that.
I also intend to continue blogging about writing. This blog will expand out to more than one page, covering my printed works. along with the blog here, I will publish at Medium at least once a week.
Honestly, I’ve never been that disciplined, but it is past the time that I learned. I’m old enough, and I’m good enough.
First Novella will be Starjackers. Watch this bog for more.
Good morning all you beautiful people! Woke a bit earlier this morning, and begin what has become a comforting ritual, beginning my Log. Putting words on a page may be tedious to some, but I find the quiet pop of keys falling, and the appearance of black letters on a white screen soothing in a way that escapes my definition. Of course, there is the annoyance of the occasional misspelled words or grammar mistake that I must fix, but that annoyance is more like biting into a peppercorn in a delicious meal, a rush of pepper than gone.
Shift, by Frank Darbe “Two o’clock in the fucking AM on a smoky night with no clouds and only the light from the overglow of distant fires, Toss sat on the goose seat of a Harley Sportster with his arms around the waist of a beautiful woman. He lived a young man’s dream, and all he could think about after hours of driving East was that his ass hurt from his knees to his neck.” Chapter 3: Chasing Ghosts Available at JaCol Publishing and Amazon
Writer’s Log – Supplemental – 1628: I wrote a Flash Fiction piece titled, “The Path Most Demanding” using the painting by Johann Georg von Meyer. 812 words.
Painting by Johann Georg von Meyer
A Writer’s Plan: So far, I have pursued this without a pl;an, other than published a book. Well I’ve done that and now I need to move on. I intend to try something a little different. Writing a series of Novella’s that will add up to a larger novel. Novella’s can be as short as 20,000 words and upwards to 40,000. I want to aim at 30,000 words. I can write one in thirty days or less. For a series, I can have each novel complete on its own, and series arcs.
I am already working on a Novella. I am going to make this either a duology or a trilogy. It will be Science Fiction of the Space Opera genre. It will run like a series of modules in a game, one leading to the next but each being independent, capable of standing alone.
Writer’s Log – Supplemental 01.13.2019-0048 I have written the basic background for the series of Novellas. I suspect it will be a Trilogy. The first novella will be the gathering of the three primary characters and their escape from Breakersbore in search of an ancient colony ship.
