Writer Senses

Listening to:  Final Fantasy 7  soundtrack ____ This is the second installment of my favorite stories series. A glaring gap in my prior entry was of the literary breed. How can an author not have a book on his list of favorite stories? Unbundy your undies and read on. THE NAME OF THE WIND Cover of "The Name of the Wind," by Patrick Rothfuss.  Source. " I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.   You may have heard of me. " -From the book jacket of  The Name of the Wind The Name of the Wind   is New York Times bestselling author  Patrick Rothfuss's  first novel. And wha...

Current Word Count of Autumnveil: ~207,000 ____ It was within the first year and a half of writing that I realized telling the whole story of Autumnveil would take over 200,000 words. Even at that time I knew this would be a hurdle to publishing for an unpublished novelist. As common knowledge goes, sci-fi/fantasy works for new writers shouldn't exceed 125,000 words. I wonder sometimes if I should try to divide the story differently in order that my first publishing attempt might go easier Act I, which concludes with a climax and rapid falling action, is about 100,000 words and could probably stand alone if it absolutely had to. But dividing the story there doesn't feel organic to me. There are so many questions left over. Maybe that's good. Maybe those questions will keep readers begging for more, but so much of my maturing as a novelist really started happening in Act II. This is when the fruit of historical and language studies, traveling during my summers, reading ...

“ Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit. ” - Neil Gaiman Good fiction both informs and is informed by reality. I'm not a big reader. It is strange juxtaposing this truth with my being a writer. Do chefs hate food? Only if it's so oily the US wants to invade the plate . I'm not a lover of books, mostly because I find so many books to be poorly-written, and who has sixty hours to read something that everyone  says  is good but my own two eyes can't stop bleeding at? No, no. I love  good  books just like I love  good  movies, and I have no time for bad books just as I have no time for bad movies.  Well, not  all  bad movies . To confuse the medium for the core, that is, the story, w...

Current Wordcount of Autumnveil: ~194,000 Playing: Torchlight 2 Listening to: The Civil Wars ____ A STORY So I would like to tell you what happened. But before anything else, I would be grateful for you to become a follower of this blog. I'm  not asking you to read it every day (or at all, even). The mere fact of you following makes a difference. After you read the rest of this post, you'll see why I'm asking for your help in this. Thanks. So anyway , here's what happened. I was minding my own business, checking the prices on sloth-themed merchandise online , when I started thinking about the Blogosphere . Specifically, I was thinking about how I kind of hate the Blogosphere. Why? On the few occasions I've peeked into it , it has shown itself to be overflowing with purposely-controversial rhetoric , people hiding behind their anonymity , strategically placed up-voters and down-voters, professional trolls , and other shenanigans . As a st...

Current Word Count: ~192,000 Listening to: The Greatest Video Game Music 2 Playing: Bioshock Infinite ____ I'm so close to being done that I can feel it. I can feel it like it's right...in my neck ! At some point in early 2013, I decided that I had made enough progress in Autumnveil (by the way, book one of the series is called Autumnveil  now) and that I would no longer be posting random Facebook status updates with the current number of words. The next word count update, I proclaimed, would occur when the first draft of the novel was complete. This was on one level a point of pride: "Not until I've reached the summit shall ye hear from me again!" On the other hand, I was really tired of being told that my word count was over 9,000. Okay, only partly tired. So, I'm not done yet, and if you're paying attention to the date on this entry, you will see that it is July. What can I say?  I plugged away ferociously during the first half of the spri...

Current word count: ~168,000 Listening to: People talk ____ It's been three years (November 5) since I began the Ark series. Typically I am long-winded, but to be honest, I don't feel very reflective about it this three-year milestone. Surprise! I wanted to come to this anniversary post contemplatively. I wanted to say something meaningful and deep about how writing a novel changes you. The fact that I'm writing a novel stopped being novel (see what I did there?) after the first year, though. Once you write a 167,000-word-story that still isn't done, it becomes so ingrained in the rhythm of your life that it ceases to be fresh. I don't mean to say that I don't think my novel is interesting—far from it; I am the story's biggest fan—only that I want to be done with it. I want to begin pursuing publishing, attend conferences, get an agent, and perhaps feel like I have more time to work on my master's thesis (or play Team Fortress 2, y...

Though my blog's primary purpose is updating readers about my novel's progress, I like to deviate from time-to-time with insights from other writers and discussions about the craft. The past (almost three!) years of writing has been enlightening, and since the beginning, one of the most important tools to my growth as a writer has been Scribophile.com . Writing is a solitary pursuit, and for an  ENFJ  like me, particularly difficult in that respect. I enjoy the social aspect of storytelling. Comic and writing conventions featuring popular stories like Star Wars , Lord of the Rings , or, more recently, Avatar , are awesome because they incorporate the celebration of story. What excites me most about my story is the possibility that it will unite people, that people will be so fascinated with it that they want to talk about it, laugh about it,  shake their fists at me over it. To that end, Scribophile has been a laboratory in which to test this aspect of storytelling. I...