It Endeth Never

Rewrite number six is halfway done. Whilst I was in Lubbock for 12 days for my father's brain surgery, I began a sixth major revision of Mindy Lightbearer. I am at chapter eighteen. Some chapters have remained pretty much intact, with a few minor revisions, some editing, and lots of adverbs and unnecessary things being removed. I fiddled a lot with the first page again. I have never been satisfied with the first few paragraphs of the novel. Finally, I think I am mostly okay with them. Major story revisions are coming in this sixth draft toward the end. A minor character is being systematically removed, and another character put in his place during the climax. As a result of these changes, the ending of the novel will, I hope, feel more complete and satisfying. Also, the exploding doorknob has received several new spell effects and a DoT, though I lowered the damage bonus coefficient due to the reduced casting time.

Congrats and Happy Birthday!

to amber!!

NaNoWriMo

With November approaching (Nation Novel Writing Month) I find myself facing three options:

1) Continue writing the van Hunks story, adding 50k words in a month (the number is higher than in years past).

2) Write "Glamor," a story I had conceived prior to the van Hunks projection involving elves and vampires.

3) Do not take part in NaNoWriMo.

I am thinking more and more about starting a new book (or an old book, if you think about it). I have no momentum with the van Hunks project, so it would not be much effort to start a new book.

On the other hand, I have been doing lots of reading for my van Hunks story. I bought some books about Maritime legends and practices to get myself in the know about the Pirate Round and the way pirates worked in the Indian ocean.

Luckily there is no shortage of parallels between various cultures' sea stories. Dwarf pirates kidnap Sindbad and give him to their Cyclopean master. Sindbad escapes by driving hot metal bars into the giant's eye. Anyway, I am learning a lot about sailors in the olden days.

Regardless, my NaNoWriMo profile is available HERE

--Carl Out.

Oh Lime

I know my blog doesn't quite have a following or anything, but I will add a link to the side of my page (you know, one of them pogs).

As far my writing goes... not too much coming. Just had a dream-induced idea and spewed out a plot summary for a children's book. It was exciting AND frustrating, since I can't finish my current ideas.

Van Hunks research continues. Read about Indian Ocean piracy on wikipedia and how pirates normally went no further than the Red Sea. But van Hunks's magical rune stone is in Malaysia so he will have to hit the actual Dutch East Indies instead of just attacking ships on their way back. This move will be surprising to his crew of dwarf pirates and, if I do my job right, I will bring that idea of surprise out by showing that, damn, that is a far way to sail and not necessarily lucrative (unless you are trying to find the dragon of Komodo and kill him to get his treasure).

That story has developed into something I did not foresee when I began it. But who doesn't want to read about a Frisian dvegar and his crew of dwarves sailing to the East with an imp and Khoi god? There's djinns and muti and the Flying Dutchman and dragons. These are things that excite nerdlies, are they not?

stuff

i've been busy alternating between being overwhelmed with and being excited about this.

and, well, other art-related things. trying to figure out how to promote the etsy shop, as well as figure out how to get done the long queue of projects i need to finish for people. my sister's skyline that was supposed to be last year's christmas present, and thembones' wow toon drawings he commissioned. and also a painting/Bible verse for mike, three baby hats, and a something ***enter idea here*** for a silent auction benefit, in three weeks.

also, i have a craft show thingie, my first solo one ever, though i grew up doing them with my mom, and i think effiepalooza sort of counts as a show, on Nov. 1. i'm gonna take a bunch of cards, a few prints, and also some pendants (necklaces, boys. necklaces.) and magnets made with photos.

here are the couple thembones pics i have done so far, as i figured it might be something ya'll would be interested in seeing. one's thembones' priest on another server, and the other is his oldest son's shaman, with that water breathing helmet on. i still need to do his other son's toon, and a group thing with the three of them. they look slightly better in person.

anyhow, that's my story.

Good Job, Jeff

So, I haven't been near here for months.

Congratulations on a finished book, Jeff. E-mail me a copy, if you would. I'd love to read it.

I have recently taken some pains to get on track with living. Today was the first day that I accomplished almost everything I set out to do.

Mostly, I am staying at home and doing nothing all day. Then Kristina gets home and I realise I've done nothing while she's been cutting people all day with leet murder knives.

I have started a book. It is way less than 10,000 words now. Things distract me and I have to learn to ignore them. We had family in time for a few weeks a couple of times and stuff like that, but I need to take on fewer self-appointed projects in order to finish this one (the book).

Anyway, so I have not really accomplished anything all these months, but I do have a blog of my book's progress at http://projects.carlburgers.com/ (it's pathetic and I am unwilling to update it because the numbers are so tiny, even though I do have more chapters done).

Also, Youtube is my enemy.

I have ignored this for way too long!

People, I forgot about this blog.  That is sad and unfortunate.  Here are my thoughts.

Good job, Jeff.  You wrote a book!  That is awesome!  Good luck getting it to the masses, it was a fun read. : D

Good job, Lisa.  You started a business!  That is awesome!  Good luck spreading your particular brand of beauty to the masses.  It's good stuff.

Good job Caal and Juan, for random bits of living.  I don't have specific ideas of what to congratulate you on at the moment, however, I am sure that something will come about soon. 

In my news, I am going to get a job.  I plan on doing more art soon.  That is all.

-amber

Second Rejection

This rejection came from a literary agent. I queried about a dozen literary agents. This particular agency represents Young Adult novels but not really the fantasy genre, so I knew I wasn't quite what they were looking for. I queried them anyway, and this is the e-mail response I got:

"Thanks for taking the time to query me and send your writing sample. While your project sounds interesting, it’s just not what I'm looking for at this time. Please keep me in mind, however, for future projects as I’m always looking for well-written commercial fiction and nonfiction with a strong voice and unique angle."

First Rejection

Hey, I got my first rejection from a publisher, and it was actually rather encouraging. It was a personal e-mail rather than a form letter or even a form e-mail. Anyway, here is what it said (I will blank out the name of the publisher, since they didn't send this to me for public consumption):

Thank you for your interest in ****** and ***** Publishing. 
Out of the many fantasy queries we get, yours is one of the few
that makes more sense than most of the others. 
I enjoy good fantasy stories,
but unfortunately, we are not accepting unsolicited manuscripts at
this time....

Thank you and keep writing!

*** ***
Fiction Editor
******
******* Publishing 

Third Revision = Done

Okay, I just completed the third revision of my novel, and I can say with confidence, it will be my last full revision. I am at a point where the book is not going to get markedly better. Further revisions might swap words around, but the book is what it is. I have made it pretty much as good as I can make it. There are a few chapters early on that I need to go back and work on a little bit more (chapters 2-4), but other than that, I am pretty much done. People will either like it or not like it, but they are getting the best that I have to offer, at this point.

The third revision clocked in at roughly 94,600 words. More adverbs and repetitions were cut. A few more story details were added, some extra dialogue to clarify things, a little more action during the climax, and that's about it.

Dagnab, I've spent too many hours on this dad-blamed story.

Submitting M'Crap

Some publishers prefer e-mail submissions, which is an unusual and recent trend. They tend not to want the entire manuscript but a query and brief synopsis. I have queried three publishers already: Top Publications, Penguin Books, and Sol Books. Of course, even with an e-mail query, it can take from weeks to months to get a response, so I don't expect to hear anything soon.

I have been working on the third revision of the book. I think the first chapter is finally complete, although you never really know. Does it really get any better when I rewrite it for the fourth time? Maybe.

Synopsis

In the world of publishing novels, you almost never send your manuscript to a publishing house uninvited. That is called an unsolicited submission, and almost nobody accepts them. Send your manuscript to, say, Tor, and, guess what, into the slush pile it goes, never to be read.

Instead, you have to query publishers. A query is a small packet containing a brief query letter, a short bio, two or three sample chapters (usually, chapters one through three) and a synopsis of your novel. So I worked on the synopsis of my novel all day today. Sheer tedium. I had seven pages of single spaced writing. Then I did some research on writing a synopsis and discovered that, in general, a book synopsis should never, ever be longer than seven double spaced pages. Preferably, you want 1 page per 50,000 words. Holy crap!

So I went back to the drawing board and wrote a much shorter synopsis. It came in at about 4 double spaced pages. Basically, the synopsis needs to answer, in as few words as possible, these questions:

• What's the setting?
• What's the hook?
• What's the tone of the story? That is, its feel, its authorial voice, its approach to the story. Is this a light-hearted book, a dark book, or a funny book?
• Who are the main characters?
• What are their motivations?
• What are the key scenes?
• What is the prime conflict?
• What are the main characters' blackest moments?
• What is the main character's big crisis?
• What is the story's climax?

So you send the query packet to every publisher under the sun, and if they are interested in reading the full manuscript, they will reply and request it. Only then do you send the full manuscript. Once you send the manuscript, you sit back and wait, wait, wait. I wrote a novel some years ago that sat at a publisher for almost an entire year, before they returned it to me. I received it back all beat up and scribbled on and grungy. They liked it very much, they said, and passed it around the office to be read by one and all, but they ultimately decided not to publish it. Nice. That book was called The Deep Water, and it is never coming to a Barnes and Noble near you.

Revision Two

So the second revision is complete. I found myself increasingly frustrated with the manuscript this time. The prose in places sounded rough, and no matter how much I fiddled with it, I was never satisfied. It is probably because I need to step back from the material for a little while.

Anyway, the text got pared down a bit this time. 93,097 words. Mostly, the removal of redundancies, adverbs, excess words, etc.

Second Revision

Lisa finished reading the first revision of the novel, and she gave some constructive suggestions, as well as located many typos. I have made a few changes and additions and will now start on the second, and perhaps final, revision.

The stats: 94,077 words. Page 377.

First Revision Complete

Okay, I completed my first revision of the novel. The next step is to print a copy and make Lisa read it and give me feedback. Then I can do a final revision and begin submissions.

Revision details: 93,372 words, 374 pages.

Night Horse

Working on the novel late into the turgid hours of the rancid night. About 3/4 of the way through the initial rewrite. Bloatation has brought us to 92,022 words, also known as page 369.

Live the dream.

Bloat

Rewrite bloat brings us to 91,485 words, i.e. page 366.

The way I look at it, the children of the world will be getting more story for their peso.

Painting with All the Colors of the Wind

2/3 of the way through the initial rewrite of my novel about a mystical seahorse and his sensual journeys throughout time, and, yes, some things have had to change. Whole paragraphs have been scrapped and totally rewritten. Dialogue has been tweaked. Details have been added. Adverbs have been amputated.

Nevertheless, the bloating continues unabated. The book is now 91,059 words long. People, as you already realize, that makes our paperback 364 pages long. Can any human being read that many pages?

Swollen

The revision continues to swell the novel like a tick stuck to Dracula's gums. We're up to 90,466 words. As I read through, I find many things that need to be clarified, or details that need to be added in order to foreshadow or otherwise connect to future events in the book. It's a mystical process, people, don't try to understand it. Nobody understands it. I understand it least of all.

Anyway, the paperback book version of this novel is now 362 pages long.

Rewriting is the Trend of the Future

It has been interesting to read my own novel for the first time. As I was writing the first draft, I did not go back and read what I had written. I wanted it to be as fresh as possible for the rewrite. So far, it is not horrible. In fact, it might be kind of not all that bad and maybe even sort of good, but let's not fix on a set of adjectives until I've read the whole thing.

In the process of rewriting, I have had to add more scenes and lines of dialogue to fill in plot holes and flesh out characters. This has bumped up the word count to 89,600, aka 359 pages.

There you go. Plow on, American Mule. Plow on!

Novels Never End, They Just Run out of Paper.

So I am doing the initial rewrite of the manuscript. I have, of course, been paring down the prose, trying to remove unnecessary adverbs and such. However, I have also added a few scenes along the way. I am now on chapter six, and I have already bumped the word count up to 89,100 words (not counting the contact information and byline on the first page). That puts us at page 357 in our truck stop worthy paperback edition.

Done and Done. I mean Done.

I finished the first draft of my novel at 1:25am Central Standard Time. That is to say, just a couple of minutes ago. The first draft is 87,972 words long. In paperback form, it would be roughly 352 pages.

The time for revision is now upon us. Brace yourself, America.

Wind it Down, Unwindy

Well, we are past the climax and into the denouement. Just one chapter and an epilogue left. 84,170 words. Page 337. Purchase it soon at your local truck stop or Harp's.

What, No Pirates in This Book? Bah!

82,633 is the current word count. Page 331.

Nearing the End

Just a couple of chapters left, people, and the saga of Mindy Lightbearer will be complete. Well, the first draft will be complete, at least.

Anywho, we are 80,091 words and paperback page 321.

Delicious Fried Pies in Branson

78,855 words. That puts me on page 316, ladies and gents.

Reginald Approves of What I Have Done

76,602 words. That puts us on page 307 of our paperback novel, gents. Don't stop reading now. People are about to die, and you don't want to miss that.

I Post Too Much on this Blog that Nobody Reads

74,600 words. Page 299.

As of this Sacred Moment...

73,201 words, which is page 293.

So Fast, So Furious.

71,203 words. That is roughly page 285. If it gets any better, the moon will fall from the sky.

Don't Try to Put the Lid On It, Reggie!

69,503 words. That's page 279. Not counting the pretty illustrations of doorknobs exploding, that is.

Thither Go I.

67,586 words. That's page 271 of our continuing saga of blood and hatred (okay, not so much blood, but a mild amount of hatred).

Picking Up Speed. Faster than the Speed of Communism!

65,000 words, my people. That means I am on paperback page 260. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it is not 260 pages of crap. If it is, we'll just have to get a nice painting for the cover of the book of unicorns devouring lightning bolts in a sea of acid-burned sea snakes.

Will It Truly Never End? Criminy Says, "No!"

62.5k words, persons. That means I am now on page 250 of the paperback.

For the Record...

In case 60,500 words means little to you, let me put it in perspective. The average paperback novel has 250 words per page, so in terms of my novel, if it were an average paperback, I would be on page 242.

Crizazy Bizazness

60.5k words, people.

Like a Barrel of Ape Skulls Rolling down a Hill

56.5k

Carl, get to writing!

Like a Train Speeding Over a Cliff

54k

Like a Runaway Truck on Mulberry Hill

52.5 k

Cain't Stop the Bus Ride

50k

Cain't Stop It

48k

pewp

47.2 k

It Continues, Like the Tornado

45k words have been written. I slowed down recently, due to busy-ness and the taking of trips, but tonight I wrote quite a little bit. So there you go.

40k

40k

Biskit

38.5k

Mo' Words

36k words, people.

Pace slowed down a little bit, but crazy stuff starting to happen in story, so pace will pick up.

Novel. Progress.

Hadn't written in a few days, because we were out of town, but wrote some tonight.

34k words.

Actually

30k as of this very moment. Picking up some steam.

mo' writin'

29k words

Actually

As of this post, 24,000 words.

Novella

When it comes to Red Moon, my joint novel with Charles Sugars, I have been lazy and not written the next chapter yet. But I shall in due course.

In better news, I continue to work on my novel. The working title is Mindy Lightbearer, and I have thus far written 22k words.

In case you were wondering, here is how it goes:

1-7500 words = short story
7500-17,500 words = novelette
17,500-40,000 words = novella
40,000 words and up = novel

So I currently have a novella.

Chapter Three

I finally posted chapter 3 of Isle of the Red Moon. Also, Badkamerheid just hit 40.

Writing

As of this very minutes, I have written 13,677 words of my book.

workin on it...

well, i managed to work some more on my sister's painting this morning. i feel somewhat less overwhelmed by it, but still worried that it'll not be cool like i want it to.

in weight loss news (which i realize i haven't really mentioned on here before), i managed to finally squeak my way under a dreaded milestone weight that i haven't been under in about 6 years. wheee! that's been kinda nice.

i feel like poop most of the time, due to a lung-shaking, muscle-straining cough, so i haven't felt the most motivated about things generally. excuses excuses!

good job going to the gym, drought!

i want to check out that chore wars thing, carl. looks fun!

Chore Wars (edited)

This might be a fun (and appropriate) way of tracking our RL goals:

http://www.chorewars.com/

I made a party and added some adventures. Join here.

P.S. We get XP, doggs. XP!

BloGs?!

Ok, so I don't have the hang of this blog thing yet. Thanks for the correction, Lisa

So far: it's snowed and rained and iced a billion times. I've scraped 800 pounds of various flavors of snow/ice from the driveway. I am READY for summer.

Laundry is clean but way not sorted. So, I haven't accomplished that goal yet.

Transcripts not yet sent.

Gym - been twice! woot

i did dishes.

i did not register the car.

it is ice, so i have not gotten the manifold replaced.

work = stress right now.

LISA. How goes the painting? 1 of 3 done?

JEFF. What's the writings aboot?

CARL. Thank you for the detailed description of your potential future.




THAT IS ALL (your base are belong to us..that is!)

-Drought

Writing

The good news: one goal is being met. I have written at least a little bit of my book every single day thus far. I am up to 9200 words.

The bad news: no exercise yet.

There you go. Live the dream and dream the life.

jeff

checking in

hey, friends! how's everything going with everyone??

i finally resumed my sister's painting this morning. i'm making her a big old chicago skyline. anyway, it was supposed to be her christmas present...

Less QQ

My goal is to stop working at Popeyes so that I can play MORE WoW.

I joke that I will be a stay-at-home WoW player. This will not be the case, since I will be scooping feces out of cloth rags umpteen times a day (I may very well also use this feces for compost).

There is also the process of milking my wife and pasteurizing and code-dating her secretions so that they meet ServSafe requirements.

Then there is writing...

... I have made an attempt to force myself to write (I love writing, but I'm lazy and I don't have enough priest alts yet).

My current attempt is viewable at http://redmoon.carlburgers.com/ (Mr Jeffrey Mueller is also involved.)

lisa goals...

okay. i think it'll work well for me to set up some day to day types of goals. such as, i need to do each of these things, every day, *before* checking of email, logging on to wow, etc. we'll see how that goes :D

at least one load of laundry

at least one load of dishes

at least 15 minutes tidying up something, somewhere...

there are more, and some more general, long term types of things.... i'll add those gradually/as i think of them.
*lisa

Drought

(hey john, i copied and pasted this here from the comments, to make it more visible. hope that's okay. if not, you can delete this post. you all have control for posting, changing template, etc... exercise that control at will, if you see fit!)

i'll be posting as Drought, as i felt like it.

i'm gonna be perhaps tediously specific on my goals.

they are as follows:

1. GYM 2x a week
2. Sort laundry
3. Do dishes
4. tidy up the house
5. snowshovel the dag driveway
6. send out transcript request forms for SNHU
7. get friend to replace exhaust manifold
8. register car for 2k8

IT BEGINS

-Drought

My goals

Hello, this Jeff aka Cornblade, aka Bignpretty, aka Cakeyblade, aka Tastyneck, aka Goggy...okay, I better stop.

Considering the question: what would you do if you didn't game so much?

Watch more TV, watch more movies, read more books, write more, exercise.

I do all of those things a little (except the last one), but I would do them a lot more (especially, I fear, the first two), if I didn't game. The only ones I regret not doing more of are the last two.

Thus, my personal goals henceforth are to 1) write more (I am currently working on a novel. It will be the fourth novel I've written in my lifetime, but maybe the first one worth reading), 2) exercise a little bit (I'll start easy, twice a week I intend to exercise in some way, be it walking, running, lifting horses, whatever).

There you go. Those are my goals. To game but also find time to write more (preferably a little bit on the novel every single day), and exercise (twice a week).

I call it "Jeff's Living The Dream Experiment"

jeff

reasons for existence

so, john and i were discussing, in game, particular questions and concerns about gaming and its place in our individual lives.

is gaming healthy?

what would we be doing if not gaming?

what should we be doing while not gaming?

are we all encouraging each other to play too much, while not encouraging one another in healthy endeavors and life goals?

for instance,
i know i could keep the house more clean. i know i don't need to be playing much, if at all, when the kids are awake. i know i could be exercising more.

in that vein, we decided it might be a cool thing to post some personal goals on this here blog. for me, putting it out there means i am accountable to other people to do the things i say i want to do. and for me, that is good.

you guys feel free to post as much or as little as you'd like. it's certainly no mandatory thing or anything with pressure or weirdness! this could be a good thing, if we want it to be.

good times.
post away, people.

p.s. my posts are gonna say sam, because the profile attached to my main email account is the one i made for his blog. anyway, there ya go.