Tag Archives: Writing

There will be new books

First, short story time.

I’ve been working through some mental bullshit. Some of you know that. I may or may not have been clear about it on the blog in the past. It is what it is.

Artistic work, being what it is, relies on being able to clear away that mental bullshit (or harness it) for that time period in which you’re creating. You have to be able to lose yourself in what you’re doing, especially if you’re writing. If you can’t lose yourself in the story your creating, and you allow your real life to intrude, it becomes harder and harder to make progress.

These are my word counts for the past six years. Read ’em and weep.

2012: 256k
2013: 199k
2014: 51k
2015: 49k
2016: 39k
2017: 32k
2018: 16k

Can you guess what happened? The voice of a person close to me took up residence in my head, and once it was there, I couldn’t get it out. Fear made the voice stronger and stronger until it choked me.

This person never intended this to happen to me. They never actually said the things that echoed within the confines of my skull. But I let them in, magnified them, and they became my own personal writing hell to the point where I was wondering if I was a writer anymore, or even if I wanted to be.

I’ve been on the cusp of solving this problem for a couple months, now. I could feel it. It was palpable. I just didn’t know exactly when.

Until this past Monday.

An event occurred, something that was a bit stressful, but generally not earth shattering. I’m keeping the details private, because the person involved may not want them public, but it set things in motion inside me. It was the push I needed.

The unwanted voice in my head that I couldn’t get rid of? It’s gone. The fear and stress associated with it? Gone. I wrote 1100 words on Tuesday, 2600 words on Wednesday, 3200 words on Thursday, 3100 words on Friday, and 1400 words on a fairly hectic Saturday. More than eleven thousand words this week. Compare that to all of 2018. The 3200 words on Thursday? They were the most words I’d written in a single day in three and a half years, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s writing.

All because I was able to exorcise a voice from my head that I’d magnified into a mammoth, frightening demon that was sucking the life out of me.

Don’t let negative voices into your head. Ignore people who have opinions about your work or about what you should be doing, especially if they choose to share them with you without your asking. Even if they are close to you. Especially if they are close to you. Your art and well-being are more important than their uninformed opinions.

Now, story time is over. On to the part of this post that sort of resembles the title.

I’m working on a new fantasy series, tentatively titled Sorcerer’s Bane. The first book is done (it was done over a year ago). The second book will hit the half-way mark on Monday or Tuesday, and there will be at least three more after that. The release date of the first book is tentatively scheduled for the end of April. Pre-orders for the other titles in the series may become available at that time, but the plans for that are subject to change.

Following Sorcerer’s Bane, I’ll be writing a few more Grim Repo novels. These will likely be about 20% longer than Parted Out, and like Sorcerer’s Bane, will come out one after the other until the story arc is finished.

And then, following the Grim Repo books, I’m finally going to finish A Wizard’s Work. The reason I’m putting off until later is that both the Sorcerer’s Bane books and the Grim Repo books are much shorter than the AWW books will be, and I want to be sure I’m in a good writing rhythm before tackling them.

I may sprinkle in some other short projects here and there, but for the most part I will be focusing on these three series for the next year to year and a half.

If it sounds like a lot, it is a lot. It sounds daunting, to be honest, when I write it all out, but like they say, you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

And you write series one book at a time. I’m going to have one hell of a good time.

This is the day where everything changes

This is the day where everything changes.

I’m not about to tell you that today is going to be an amazing progress day. Whatever progress there is will be fine. The measure of success is the effort expended and the intent followed.

Remember the goal. The goal is to give yourself choices. The goal is to produce.

Remember the plan. Work like you know you can. Enjoy the process. Focus on what’s in front of you.

Keep gratitude in mind. Others will fight you and fear you and fear for you, and that’s because they are not you. Be grateful that they care. Be grateful that you are capable of doing your thing.

Be patient. Whatever the accomplishment, it is but a step on the road. We suffer setbacks. A setback is not the end of the road, but the beginning of another step.

What Do You Want To Do? Why Aren’t You Doing It?

I read this last week:

Mostly because a friend wrote it, but I’m also sort of fascinated by the topic.

I’m too close to it/the person to be a good judge of whether the book is good or worthwhile, but he said something in the book, and then said it again at lunch on Saturday that really sort of tweaked my brain a little bit.

Paraphrasing, “You’ve got to want it.”

I had another friend at the writer lunch who was there for the first time, so he was asking Blaze all sorts of questions (and Blaze likes to hold court). He asked Blaze how he managed to write so much, and Blaze said, “because I want to”.

And it just kind of clicked with me.

Why don’t we all write more? Because we choose to do other things.

In most cases.

I mean, I can say I want to write 4000 words a day, but when it comes down to it, do I really? If I really do, then why am I not doing it?

Some people have obligations that cut down on their available time – sick parents, kids, jobs, and the like, and, so, yeah, probably can’t write 4 hours a day to get to that 4k words/day mark.

But the rest of us could probably find the time, if that’s what we truly wanted.

And people can talk all they want about leaving time to rest/relax, etc… but without any judgement laid upon it, that’s a choice they make. It’s not good or bad, they’d just rather spend the weekend or the evening doing something other than writing.

I say I know what I want. I say I want to write, and I say I want to write a lot, but the choices I make don’t always align with what I say I want.

So what does that mean? Does that mean I’m easily distracted, or does that mean I don’t really want to spend that time writing?

I think it’s quite a bit more complex than that, but it’s difficult not to ask that question when I start thinking about what I want vs the choices I’m making.

A lot of the time, I think I’m not consciously making choices. I’m running on autopilot, and autopilot takes me where the flying is the easiest path to take in the moment, without looking further ahead to see what might end up in my way.

My goal right now is to make conscious choices about what I’m doing. I need to get off auto-pilot and start flying manual. Sure, the ride may be a little bit bumpier, but it will probably get me where I want to go, and it’ll likely be more exciting, too.

Where I’m At!

Today, I finished up porting over all the importers for TrackerBox Mac. I start on the interface on Monday. There were a lot more of them than I remembered (Amazon KDP has 9 importers all by itself), and a few of them required some very specific support code.

In my afternoons (after busting away at TrackerBox in the mornings), I’ve slowly been working on getting a new novella ready for publication. Making Up Lost Time is the first of what I hope to be multiple stories published this year. I know I’ve teased this shit in the past, over and over, but I really have some hope that I’m coming out of this long slow period. I won’t be spoiling what I’m planning to work on, or how much I hope to get done, but I can assure you, it’ll be more than I got done last year (at least when it comes to writing).

Finished October And Other Updates

This morning, quite unexpectedly, October came to an end. I’d felt like I had started moving toward an ending a few days ago, but I didn’t think I’d stumble over it quite this soon. I would have said, when I woke up this morning, that there were at least a couple days left.

But in my second session today, things wrapped themselves up in ways I hadn’t expected, and I found myself with no more story to write.

October is, I think, a much more subtle story than I’ve written previously. It certainly isn’t like anything else I’ve done. It’s going to sit for a couple weeks before I get down to reading it and learning just what I’ve perpetrated on the world. I’ll probably let it go until just after I release Minders. It’ll be released at the end of September, just in time for you to read it in… October.

Coming up, next, though, is Minders. This bio-tech thriller/superhero origin story will be out Thursday, May 29th in most online stores. I’ve ordered what should be the last of proof copies, and if it’s in good shape, which I expect it to be, I’ll be spending Memorial Day weekend uploading it everywhere.

There’s one more thing. Parted Out: Grim Repo Files #2 has a release date, too. July 29, 2014. I’m really excited to get these books out, finally. It’s been a long, hard year, but things are finally coming together.

Tomorrow morning, I pick up where I left off on Bloodweave. I’m excited about it, too. I can’t wait to learn what Robert, Angela, Gerard, Nina, and Demetrius are going to do.

The New Year (A Bit Late)

I’ve been absent for quite some time. All sorts of life type things ruined my plans for November and December. I did manage to write every day, but it was at a snail’s pace.

But, 2012 taken as a whole turned out better from a writing standpoint than 2011 by a large margin, and I’m hoping to do the same again for 2013. I have big plans for this year, which include finishing up the A Wizard’s Work series and writing the next Lords of Genova book. This year is all about working on the series that I have in progress. It’s ridiculous for some of you to have to wait upwards of two years for the next book in a series because I can’t stop myself from writing up every new idea that I come up with. So, along with those two series I already mentioned, there will be another novella or two for Grim Repo, and another Zombies Ate My Mom novella, too (that one is already started).

I’ve decided to remove the individual book progress meters from the site in favor of an overall yearly progress meter, but even that might go at some point. The only real measure of how well I am doing is the number of projects I get finished.

So, what will you get this year, for sure (unless I get hit by a bus)? Here’s the list, in expected order:

A Tower Without Doors (Novella)
Fragments (AWW #2)
Minders (working title for a standalone short novel)
Coercer’s Lament (Lords #2)
Grim Repo 2
Reworked (AWW #3)
Zombies Ate My Mom 2

I have plans for other titles beyond these, but I’m not ready to divulge them. I will say, though, that if I don’t get hit by a bus, I think you will be pleased.