Update 5/10 - 5/16

Books Read: 3

Words Written: 12,603

I'm having a hard time this month, finding my usual balance between writing, reading and the rest of my life. I don't know why that is... though it could just be the weather, heating up and making my brain go addled. It's certainly something....

I am at 41 books read for the year. That's 19 ahead of schedule according to GoodReads. The site wants me to update my goals, but I'm totally being contrary about it... mostly because I'm the sort of person who sets a goal and then I do everything I can to get it done WAY ahead of time. That way, if something unexpected comes up, I don't have to worry about missing my goal in the end.

All the while, I'm trying to figure out a blog option that lets me get back to posting more. I've got a backlog of reviews I might be dumping on you sometime soon. The week of reviews approaches!!!

The next big thing not directly related to writing, etc, that I'll be working on is redoing my inspiration ladder. It's cluttered, and confused. I need it to get focused for the projects I'm presently focusing on... so I'll be pulling it all down and putting it back up in a better order.... soon. I'll probably post pictures when I get around to that.


And I'm going to leave you with this link to a photo set on tumblr about failing at art. It is amazing, and is completely necessary to remember at times, no matter what art you create.

Enemies of a Sort Promo

Update: First 9 days of May

Words written: 10,050

Books Read: 6

This month has gotten off to a weird start. I’ve gone past my reading goal for the entire month in just over a week, but I’m definitely lagging on the writing. Hopefully we’ll see a change in that next week!

Today starts a 3 day push to finish a draft, so that should add to the word coffers!

I hope you’re all having a great reading or writing month… and I hope mine improves vastly!

A Few Questions That Came Up About Flynn Monroe Series

After my announcement last Wednesday I got a few questions via email and other sources. I thought I'd answer the two most common here on the blog:

 

Are you self publishing? Why?

Yes, I am self publishing the Flynn Monroe series. I chose to do so for a few reasons.

1) At this point I’ve written a few of the books out to a first draft – ugly messes that they are – and one of those is #5 in this series. If I were to do the traditional publishing route, you likely wouldn’t get a chance to read the fifth novel in this series for seven years. That is a long time to wait for a book I’ve already written. In that, maybe I’m being a little selfish.

2) Freedom. Traditional publishing has so much to offer an author. I will never deny that. But for this series, I wanted a bit of freedom I don’t think I would have found with any of the traditional houses. I wanted the freedom to put out 3-4 books a year, instead of waiting a full year between them. I wanted to work with a specific graphic designer (a friend) for the covers, etc. But most of all, I wanted to control the digital aspect of these novels in a way I don’t think is currently possible with traditional publishing.

3) Traditional publishing is all about numbers. Consider for a moment that science fiction is not one of the ‘money makers’ in the industry right now. That golden age has passed. Now, consider the fact that I’m writing a space western, a niche of a niche, the combination of two dying genres. The likelihood of a publisher taking a chance on me… well, Flynn’s novels probably have a better chance of making it into orbit. But I’m not here to make a million bucks, I’m here to write the stories in my head and in my heart, and if you love them too, I couldn’t be happier. Now

Why is the publication date a month instead of a specific day?

In traditional publishing, there is a large amount of lag time. This is there so the publisher can sell the book to retailers, schedule time with a printer and print the copies, and send advanced copies out for review. When self publishing, that’s not necessary.

The only thing keeping that book from getting to you is me writing it, and the proofing stages. But I don’t want to put something out that isn’t any good. So I’m going to take my time with those aspects. Basically, I’ll publish the book when I’ve read it through enough times that I hate it, and am pretty sure I’ve caught everything (though I know I won’t get everything).

And that is why the publication dates are only narrowed down to the month, even at this stage of the process.

 

Review: Coda by Emma Trevayne

Coda

Emma Trevayne

YA Cyberpunk Dystopian with a (heart)beat

Paperback, 320 pages

Published by Running Press Kids

Released May 7, 2013

My Summary:

Music is a mandatory drug for a society trapped in what was once New York City. Plugged in to the addictive lifeblood of the web, Anthem is a conduit, feeding his life-force into the power reserves of the city. He’s an addict - everyone is - but he's special, he and his friends have a band on the side making illegal music. When the man that brought them all together is killed, Anthem realizes the government is even less benevolent than he originally thought, and with the help of his band mates, a sympathetic club owner, and a word-of-web hacker ring, they use their music to start a revolution… but it all goes wrong.

My Review:

To be fair, there was little chance I was going to dislike a cyberpunk novel about music as a drug. But I honestly wasn’t expecting what I got.

And that was something truly magical.

This book kicked me right in the feels a few times. Any novel that can get me on the verge of tears is pretty astounding. And this one kept my heart in my throat in that awful-good way.

The structure of the novel was a little odd. It starts off with a lot of set up, but Emma was creating a vastly different world (and yet not terribly so), so that’s to be expected.  And the newness of the world never felt like it was dragging the story down. It was put forth in a manner that  kept me from realizing there was something odd about it until I was already past the point of no return. And by then, I really didn’t care.

Though the book centers around music in a very complete way, I was surprised to not see any actual lyrics. In their place, we find long paragraphs of italicized “experience” scenes, where you feel the fluid awareness and confusion of the music coursing through anthem.

Buy, Borrow, Brush Past:

Seriously, kids, pick this one up. It’s totally a Buy! I’m only sad I’ll have to wait so long for the second book!

Coming Soon: The Flynn Monroe Series

I’ve been talking about my Space Westerns for a while, and now I have some BIG NEWS!

You’ll get to read them.

After a long discussion, a heavy dose of planning, and a heap of focus, I’ve begun the process of publishing my space western series.

I’ll release a novella in July, followed in August by the first book in the Flynn Monroe Series.

2013 Publication Schedule:

(These dates are a best guess. They may come out sooner – if that happens, I’ll let you know.)

July – Enemies of a Sort (A Flynn Monroe Novella)

August – Book 1: The Betrayal of Flynn Monroe

December – Book 2: The Reformation of Tyler Harris

I have more books planned (and even one already written that’s a ways down the line) and as I get them closer to being finished, I’ll be adding them to the list on the newly created Flynn Monroe page up at the top. Expect Book 3 in 2014.

First Drafts are Made of Suck

I started up revisions again this last week, and I do find that first drafts are just entirely atrocious. With this one… and with some others (including one that defies logic at every turn and is on its fourth time in my revision pile) I get this overwhelming thought:

How can so much suck get crammed into something so small as this manuscript/chapter/page/sentence.

(Please note: words are rarely big enough on their own to hold much suck.)

But the thing is, First drafts are not just made of suck. They’re made for suck. You’ve got this idea in your head and your brain isn’t ordered and perfect. It’s thought soup. It takes looking at the whole picture after a first round at attempting to organize it that lets us see the flaws in our first attempt and fix them.

Update and a Change of Pace

Words written: 21,353
Books Read: 1 (Ya Horror)

I got a bit more done on the writing front this week. It puts me about 1000 words away from where I need to be in my monthly average to reach my million w/c goal, so that's great, considering I have three more dedicated writing days this month!

The bottom - and subsequently empty - row in the above cutout of my monthly spreadsheet is for the project I'm supposed to be working on right now. But I just haven't been feeling it, and I'd rather work on things that I know I'll make progress on than stare at a wip and see no movement.


And now, for that change of pace.... I'm focusing on a big project (one made up of itty bitty projects that will all join together to make something I  hope is awesome). I'll have news about that... soon, I think. But because of this undertaking, I've not had the chance to get to writing blogs for a while - as you can tell, I'm sure by the lack of posts. So, I'm going to be absent for a little while. Sure I'll probably pop in here and there... And I'll be putting up these update posts still - so I can come back in 10 years and ask myself what the heck I was doing - but the other content will show up whenever I've got a moment and a thought worth talking about.

I'll still be putting up reviews when I can. Basically, I'll be around... but you might not see much of me ;)

Hope you've all had a wonderful writing/reading week! And I hope the rest of April goes great!

An Update & a Break in Focus

Words Written: 29,276

Because I took a timeout this week from my “focus” and dug into some othre stuff, I managed to get a much larger w/c in. Which resulted in Wednesday’s Pile-up! To be fair, I probably would have ended up with the pile-up this month anyway, but I think the weekend’s bumbling definitely was for the best - as far as getting drafts sorted goes.

Books Read: 3

I read Neverwhere after posting a call on my personal FB page for someone to tell me what to read while I waited for a book I'd won from a friend (we've got a workout wager) to arrive. I told people to shout out book names, and the first person to shout-out for a book I owned and had yet to read would be the winner.

Which is why my bestie in Colorado won. If anyone knows my bookshelf half as well as me, it's her. A close second came from my brother's girlfriend in Portland, so after I finish Anna Dressed In Blood (the book I won), I'll be starting Mistborn.

With all the bad things happening in my personal sphere (Some really awful things have happened this week in my home town), and in the world at large, I needed a break from the awfulness of real life, so I grabbed a two book series from Julia Quinn to keep my mind off the bad things. It worked decently enough.

Review: The Dead Town

The Dead Town

(Frankenstein Book 5)

By Dean Koontz

Modern Day Frankenstein in Rural Montana

Paperback, 402 pages

Published by Bantam

Released on May 24, 2011

My Summary:

The final volume in the struggle to keep Victor Frankenstein/Helios/Leben from destroying humanity.

My Review:

I can’t help but feel like Koontz brainstormed tow different ideas… and rather than choosing one, he wrote them both and found a way to tack them together.

As with books thee and four, this one needed more Jocko. For all the other faults of the books, I would read another one, if I was promised that at least half the chapters were from Jocko’s perspective.

This volume definitely demanded suspension of disbelief – even more so than the others. Shift that into overdrive if you want to get enjoyment out of the ending, otherwise you’re going to be side eyeing the page.

I don’t know why Koontz chooses to introduce new perspective characters fifty chapters into the final book in a series.

The books were too repetitive. I felt like each chapter spent too much time stagnating on the things that had happened in the previous chapter before moving on, and it made me feel like Koontz thinks his readers have no capacity for memory. If these five books had been fully edited  to deal with the repetitiveness, I think these could have been an amazing two books. Instead of a redundant five.

Buy, Borrow, Brush Past:

At this point, I’d suggest simply reading the first three and calling it good.