Today

Today is the day to write. Not tomorrow,  cuz tomorrow never comes. Not yesterday,  cuz it's over and done with. TODAY IS THE DAY TO WRITE.

I setca goal for every day when I get up. The is set based on the activities scheduled. I fill the holes with WRITING TIME and the try to sneak some extra in when the day provides.

Today has three stints of writing, the longest if which is over an hour.

WRITE. NOW.

Life

How do you sit bottom in chair and keep on writing?  Do the ideas roll or do you have struggle with them like you were trying to roll one ton building blocks?  

'What if' questions get me moving.  What if this scene got violent, or didn't go the way I had been thinking, or two women walked in on it, or maybe just the good guy dropped his cell phone?   How would each of those change the outcome of the scene?

Currently working on a western.  Got the white hat into a situation where he was supposed to find a clue to the black hat and the treasure.  Instead, he left the plot arc and gound the bad guy dead and the treasure.  Now what.

Go write.

Okay, the first book is published

My new book, first published book, is out.

Puzzling Theology: https://smashwords.com/b/384312

Picture yourself a masterpiece hanging on the wall of Almighty God's Mansion. Picture now that masterpiece made into a jigsaw puzzle in a box. Picture a few billion puzzles just like yours dumped into a pile and tossed around by the winds of a hurricane.

NOW, PUT YOUR PUZZLE TOGETHER.

This book will tell you how.

For only $2.49 for the directions, the work is up to you.

Coming out in softcover before Christmas, I hope. 

If you read it, or even the free sample portion, please leave a review. Good or bad, I desire to learn and be better.

Nano and MY NEW BOOK

Okay, Saturday morning the 30th I had completed 50000+ words after a marathon run of 6,400 words on Friday.   Thank you for the applause.  

Now the better news is - ta da - my first book is out in ebook all formats.

PUZZLING THEOLOGY

Available at Smashwords.com for only $2.49.

PUZZLING THEOLOGY - Picture yourself as a masterpiece hanging on the wall of Almighty God's Mansion. Picture now that masterpiece made into a jigsaw puzzle in a box. Picture a few billion puzzles just like yours dumped in a pile and tossed around by the winds of a hurricane. 

NOW PUT YOUR PUZZLE TOGETHER.

This book will tell you how.

Behinder

Over 5000 words behind on my second attempt at nanowrimo. Won last year. But, hey, that's like 2300 words a day to win still. I can do it. Write.

Behind

Behind.

Nanowrimo

Nano you're eating my wrimo.

Nanowrimo

Nano you're eating my wrimo.

Nano

Nanowrimo running harder to keep up yhis year. Again November is becoming my busiest month. Try writing 1667 words a day,  travel 1000 miles a week , and put in 8 hours a day building . FUN HAS NO BOUNDS. Go write.

Covers

Got four books ready to pub on Smashwords and no covers. Need covers. This is a pain. One day soon I will just have to hire the expensive folks to do my covers.

Trash

Just trashed a story again. Added about 20,000 words to an old story from long ago and now its at 50 thousand words and still isn't clicking. So it will go back on the shelf until I get another wild hair and pick it up again. Have you ever trashed a book? Why?

Roads

Did you ever listen to the rythm of the road beneath your tires?  Perhaps it will tell me a story today. 12 hours of two lane road ahead. And miles to go before I sleep. 

You can get to writing.

LABOR DAY. 2013

No time to write.  On the road again. But, lots of time to think.

Get writing Thursday. I hope.

What Now?????

Editing is the pits. Three novels and a creative non fiction piece to the word 'end.' Personally edited three to five times. Still finding booboos. Yuk. A spell checker and grammar checker don't cover it. Eyes on the paper is all there is. Mine are crossed.

Because editing is so much of a bummer to me, I am trying to begin a new wip (work in progress), but nothing is working.  I have trashed four false starts. There is no hook coming to mind. Not a single plot shocker hits the paper. It's almost like I was afraid to have another manuscript to edit. Just the thought of which sends unwelcomed tingles up and down my spine like an electric shock. Never did like shocks.

Oh, well, I guess I'll just write. How about you?

Danged editors

Okay, so I went through 73000 words three times. The third time I found one widdle boohoo. So I hand it to my editor. I think she just makes up some of those corrections to spelling and all.  Can you imagine, she has never heard of a cold steal gun. 

Use an editor.

Now right, rite, or write, and then again wright. 

Looking for an artist

Been trying to find an artist, photo or brush, to do a couple of covers for me. Them folks is scarcer than hen's teeth and snake hips put together. These four covers are what's keeping me from ebook publishing all four of my current completed projects. Will pay $50 for art I can use.

Any takers?

Vacation

The time is here for a vacation. What does a writer do on vacation?  Edit, research, read, write, and occasionally indulge in activities with the family.  I am enjoying it all.

Endo

It is frequently enjoyable to come to the end of a writing project. There are four, count them, four on the shelf. I have enjoyed all four. Now I have a problem. WHAT'S NEXT?

There are 18 ideas in my notebooks.  Which one? I have not fleshed out the basic, one page plot line for any of them. The one sentence idea is there.

My solution - I will take the one I relate to best and just start writing.  Somewhere along the path to the end I will find a beginning.

Go write, quit hanging out on the net.

Lovin' It.

Editing is rough, but all in all I have chopped over 20,000 words and inserted over 22,500. All for the better. The manuscript is coming together pretty dog gone great in my opinion.

With this edit I have learned to edit on screen, which will save me a bunch of printer ink and paper. VENGEANCE is edited on paper and still requires all those changes to be inserted in the computer file which is a long slow process. With my new skill that will not be necessary any more.

What's stopping you, get writing.

More than boring

Editing is more than boring. It is challenging which is why I keep at it. My left brain is so hot the hair is missing on that side of my head. Of course, I am bald so all my hair is mssing, but it was a cute way of getting your attention. Did it work?

Oh, the tough part. I had to chop three pages of garbled scene and rewrite the whole section. Twenty-two pages later, it looks and reads great. Hey, I can be my own critic, can't I?

Just printed out the end of my book, "Arizona". It will sit on the shelf until August and then the editing begins on that 90,000 word tome. By the time I fill in a couple of scenes I haven't written yet, it should be over 100,000 words of action packed, romance, comedy, drama, cowboys, indians, banditos, politicians, and other crooks. But I don't want to give the story away. No spoilers here, this time.

Okay, the phone is ringing, my dogs want out, the wind is blowing, mama's on her way home, the baby is crying (woops no baby here, what is that), and I need to run.

So, go write.

Writing vs. Editing

I love to write.

I hate to edit.

It's not that I don't wanna chop my precious words and sentences apart, but more like editing is work. Editing is left brain and writing, for me at least, is very right brain.  After serious examination I am not sure I have a left brain. People tell me I even walk leaning to the right, could that be due to the void on the left side if my head. My political views are to the right, even extreme in some areas and disciplines. (Of course only those on the right think correctly, does that mean that as a thinker I have some left brain no matter how small?

Editing is bad for your mental health.

So go write.

Life Gets in the Way

Life has really been getting in the way of this blog and the rest of my writing. I have tried doing a tight calendar, which just isn't me, setting an appointed time to write every day. Life gets in the way. I tried making myself do an hour on the keys before I could do the things I like and, you guessed it, life got in the way.

My style is pantser and binges. I write what the voices tell me and when they are talking many words hit the page. For an organizational style, I use piles. There was a time the cleaning lady wanted to do the carpet in my office. I was devastated. Took me a week to repile my piles in the proper sequence and place.

BUT, it hasn't been super bad. God allows me to assist small churches to make repairs and there's a lot of need there. He also gives me the urge to get outdoors and hike or whatever. A small hike last week about did me in. Beautiful country for the first day and on the second, we stumbled through cedar dotted grasslands on old two rut roads covered with round rocks and pot holes. Had to stop in order to look up at the scenery which wasn't worth stopping for. Went camping and fishing, wind blew, temperature dropped, wind came up, and caught no fish. Did get a couple chapters of self editing

AND, I have 76,000 words toward my latest book, ARIZONA. Just wrapping up the war, the uprising, and the extortion to come to the last page. Thinking of throwing out the extortion and using it for a followup book using same characters, except for the dead ones of course. I'll lose over 20,000 words on this book if I do, but then again, the book needs more showing and less telling anyhow. Showing takes more words than telling, so that will balance out.

Blessing, and keep writing.

Writing

This blogging thing is a bit of a burden.  I try to find interesting stuff to put on it and it just doesn't happen.

I tried for 50,000 words on November NANOWRIMO and competed them. Pretty good western if I do say so myself. 

Then I tried 20,000 for CAMPNANOWRIMO last month and missed my goal by 2,700 words, but they were good words in the middle of a long book I am working on. The research is killing me.  Anybody know how many helicopters the Mexican military has and what type? Or even how large their standing army is?  Google has too many hits that say nothing near answering my quests.

Oh well, another month another goal.

Keep writing, I am.

Sometimes you gotta

There comes a time when you have no choice but to stop writing and get to doing the mundane side of this profession: edit, cover, edit, back cover, edit, upload, edit, upload, edit, ISBN, etc. That's what I have been doing for two weeks now with three novels and still none of them are at Smashwords.

And then there is the Honey do list. I have been laying laminate flooring in my spare time. My train room/office/writing hideaway/man cave has the flooring laid down, but no trim (It was my practice room). The hallway is in the same condition. If I could find my miter box I could finish them (In town tomorrow, I'll get another one). Next comes the great room of living room, kitchen, and dining rooms all in one 24 by 19 feet of floor.

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

SELF PUBLISHING

It has been a pleasure to search and communicate with various agents and publishing houses who, after reading a three page synopsis, have decided that my writing isn't worth their time. Having read many of these letters in the course of my research into writer-agent/publisher communications, there is no way a great book can be found. They all sound like the last story of that genre. SO, I have looked into self-publishing and now understand why it is taking off like crazy with authors and readers alike.

1. Books are much cheaper to produce.
2. Books are much cheaper to purchase.
3. Authors make more money.
4. Readers save more money.
5. With companies like Smashwords, I can do all the work and set up the book on line thru their service, have it go to a bazzilion outlets thru their distribution list, all for $0. If I purchase an ISBN from them for a nominal fee, my book also goes to two or three more monster sales points.
6. What have I got to lose? A few hours reformatting (Which they give me complete instructions to do) and a few Kilobytes of upload.
7. I can even do my own cover. (see previous post)

PS: a friend of mine is doing the same thing thru another outfit and spending $7,000.  The only difference is she will be able to get paper copies when she is willing to pay for them. Pub on demand added in other words.

Being extremely cheap, $0 is much better than $7000 spent to find out if my books have a market. If they do   pub on demand is still an option. How about researching truly self publishing and binding, as in do-it-at-home.

Time to go write.

New Gizmo

This blog post comes to you courtesy of the Verizon store and their new wifi cell internet access. Actually I am paying thru the nose for this so they just were the outlet I bought it from. 5 gig for $50. Wow! Ten bucks a gigabyte. Now the question is how much of this kind of stuff can I do with $10 bucks?

What's this mean to you, my readers? I just might get a post off more often and be able to even prepare and write some good stuff for this space. No promises and don't hold your breath.

I currently have two books ready for Smashwords. Now I can get my account all set up and up load. All I need are covers.

Anybody do cover art. I need with a rip roaring cowboy shooting at something in the distance from behind a bush/tree/rock. Then I need one that has a jig saw puzzle showing a cross and an empty tomb (faint) with many pieces of the puzzle not in place, could be missing or lying on the puzzle board.

Interested?  $50 for the each of the two I use. Must be in color.

Working on a story now which will need a teen boy, teen girl, a cougar, in a boulder field. A shotgun and rifle could be included. Double barreled shotgun definitely a must.

Til next time, keep writing.

Invasion

What would happen to the Governor below if Mexico invaded Arizona after the President refused help of any kind stating flatly, "You don't want our money, we don't give assistance without strings."

What happens next?

Go write.

Arizona

Imagine a Governor tuff enuff to stand up the the Federal Government and say, "We don't want any more Fed $$$$$." Well, that's what she did, the Governor of Arizona with the full backing of her legislature, told the Fed to keep it.

What will happen?

What do you think?

Now write.

BORING

When I was a 6th grade teacher I would hear, "I'm bored," all the time. It usually meant I don't have anything to do THAT I WANT TO DO. It never had anything to do with having nothing to do. Although, at times the to do part of the brain shut down and was able to read the list of to do's on the green board.

Well, I am bored. I have nothing to do that I want to do and what I want to do is impossible to do where I am. Where I am has a bit to do with what I want to do, but doesn't help in the category of getting it done, or should I say, "Doed," at this juncture. So, instead I will get something else done which I had no intention of doing this day.

Okay, so it  makes no sense. I agree. I really want to write, but editing is what needs to happen. I need to finish my website and get the store on line. Then there is the NaNoWriMo books to edit and finish. I want to get my first three books on SmashWords, but I have trouble making sense of the directions for formatting and do not understand the reason why. Besides all that, I left the directions at home and don't have a printer in this motel room. Someone needs to invent, its probably out there, a small printer that will fit in my backpack office closet for a guy like me to use on the road. I remember back about 25 years someone made an Apple compatible printer that attached to the back of the Apple 2e console and was hand fed one sheet at a time to print out anywhere you wanted haul that big clunky thing (by today's standards).

You have read my rambling long enough, get writing.

Editing

Editing appears to be the toughest part of writing. It is righting our writing for publisher Wright. Sorry, I just had to say that and get it out once and for all. It is amazing that as you edit a piece you wrote days, weeks, or months ago, you find all manner of puzzles to decipher.
For example, in a paragraph concerning a female and a cat I found the following; He view the far aittin in the dosill. 
I know the He had to be She but the rest eluded me until I started looking at the keyboard and thinking of the context this was written to be in. Bottom line, this passage should have read, She saw the cat sitting on the windowsill. Not an exciting passage, but one that fit the paragraph and situation. 
Enjoy your editing.

Excitement

Have you gone to the NaNoWriMo site or gotten their latest e-mail?  They are planning things for the whole year. What have you done with the work you did during November? Have you edited yet? Maybe February ought to be NaNoEdMo for all of us.

As for me, I will be digging out the thumb drive with VENGEANCE on it and editing. The one piece of advise I took to heart for November was to turn off the editor inside me. I pulled out the printout of chapter One a week or so ago and was sickened by the typos and misspellings in the first two pages.  Oh, well, nobody asks for perfect on the first draft, do they?

Is there anyone who would like to work together on editing each other's work?

Keep writing.

Vacation is over

When the days roll by and the computer calls, one picks up his or her muse and writes. Nothing has been written since the cookies came out of the oven. Alas, the cookies, divinity, and pies are all gone. My stomach covers my new beltbuckle even more than it did before. But, no worries, I am not able to see the shoes that need shining on my feet.

How's your writing? I have developed a method I like. Try it, if you want to.

I open one window with my writing, one with the timeline, and one with the characters and places listed. With all three open, I can quickly drag up the facts I have already developed for this story and keep the continuity. The project currently in progress even has an outline window because I am outlining ahead as my mind thinks of the good stuff. The muses in the previous blog give me so many good ideas that if I should not write them down immediately, they would be lost faster than the cat can disappear up the apple tree.

So, get writing.