Well, it is actually finished now, at least for the current moment. Manuscript: Alpha has been revised, printed, bound, and sent off to my four lovely, devoted, selfless alpha readers. 176,000 words, plus a glossary, and a crudely drawn map to guide their mental wanderings as they read. Continue reading “Manuscript: Alpha is a Go – and it has a title!”
Category: On Storytelling
Finished*
173,920 words.
That is where my completed first draft sits in its current, non-revised form. I’m spending the entirety of my day off on Tuesday revising and finalizing the draft for Manuscript: Alpha, but damn it this feels good.
Much more work to come, but “Jaed and Aston” now has a beginning, middle, and end. I might be too excited to sleep tonight.
Steve D
Not a Real Post or Update, but Close Enough
Sorry for the radio silence this week. I’ve been stressed, and Jessie is apparently working triple-shifts, which I did not know were a thing in the 21st century. Tomorrow is also not the start of my weekend, as I am covering for someone on Saturday. At least the office will be devoid of people I’m supposed to interact with.
It’s all good though, because next week, we’ll be on yet another road trip adventure to a cottage on a river! Romantic getaway, you say??? Continue reading “Not a Real Post or Update, but Close Enough”
Fear and Mugging in Charm City
I watched an older man get mugged last night. A slightly graying evening sky hung over my friend and I as we were sitting at a red light, opposite a strip mall on the far corner. A young man was pulling on what looked like a wallet in the hands of an older man in front of one store. The younger man punched the older man in the face, took the wallet, and ran off. The old man fell to the ground, and we could not see if he was unconscious from where we were sitting. Someone finally got out of their car right next to the old man to help him. The light turned green, we drove passed, but the younger man had disappeared.
We continued on our way. Continue reading “Fear and Mugging in Charm City”
Actually Nearing the Finish Line
Ugh. The tying down of plots and characters continues.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, part of the delay on finishing Manuscript 1 of “Jaed and Aston” has been in trying to parse out the finishing plot points for each of my characters. The biggest difficulty I’ve found in this process has been in fitting the final pieces for each character together concisely, without jamming too much info/action into one section. Continue reading “Actually Nearing the Finish Line”
Audiobooks and Critical Listening: Shockwave by John Sandford
Do audiobooks count for my Goodreads reading goal? I feel like they should.
Future Father-in-law gave me a few audiobooks on CD for Christmas this year, and it took me a while to pop one into my car’s stereo. I was hesitant about this for a couple of reasons: Continue reading “Audiobooks and Critical Listening: Shockwave by John Sandford”
dreaminsanity: Earth Day, Humanism, and Environmentalism
Earth Day is probably the most concerted effort to unite people around the world in positivity. The collective uplifting of the human spirit and natural world is seen in profile pictures on Facebook, in campaigns by companies and organizations all over the world, and in pledges by governments to act on their commitments to the environment. In my mind, Earth Day is the most significant act of humanism we have currently exhibited. As Wendell Berry famously said: “The earth is what we all have in common.” Continue reading “dreaminsanity: Earth Day, Humanism, and Environmentalism”
Writing when Life Gets in the Way
Real-life responsibilities hit me all at once in the last week and have really interfered with my writing. Now, I’m not going to lie, before the events of the past week, I was mostly getting in my own way of finishing the first draft of “Jaed and Aston”. But it feels different when external obligations are pulling you away from something you otherwise should be doing. Continue reading “Writing when Life Gets in the Way”
1,766 Miles in a Moving Truck
Here is part 1 of our road trip to Denver. Part 2 incoming… sometime in the near future. I apologize for the recent radio silence, but I’m really trying to focus on finishing my novel. I’ll let you know how that’s going next week. Happy Friday!
Well, Jessie has moved to Denver, and I was fortunate enough to help her get there. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this.
We drove 1,766 miles over four days in a 12-foot moving truck filled with all of her crap. I use ‘crap’ in the nicest possible way, because Jessie talked the whole time about how she needs to downsize her life to a single car. We’ll see how that goes.
Our route from Baltimore to Denver
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Don’t Call It a Recap: Writer’s Burnout
I am burned out on writing. There I said it. It would be one thing if I didn’t want to write, or if I simply had no solid ideas. But I have a slew of drafts in my WordPress Dashboard and a pretty good handle on where I want “Jaed and Aston” to go over the final few chapters. I just don’t have the motivation to do any of them. Continue reading “Don’t Call It a Recap: Writer’s Burnout”
Evening Satellite Publishing 