Excuse Me While I Talk With My Mouth Full

No Nat...

The blindfold is in place, my hands are now tied and I've taken a great leap into the unknown.

No Nat...

My secret project is full steam ahead but will remain secret for the time being for reasons that will become obvious once it's all revealed. I'm just hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew (you knew I'd work the title of the blog post in somewhere...didn't you?)

I may be a little quiet in the mean time as what spare moments I do have are booked up twice over. This leaves my self-created writing bible on the back burner and edits for IV may start closer to December, but it's all good. Once this project is done, I'll be so revved up to dive back into IV it can only be beneficial!

I'll still be haunting blogs/journals/etc and making the occasional post here, but I think there won't be a huge amount to report. I could tell you what's going on, but then...it wouldn't be so much fun ;c) (In a number of different ways - No Nat...)

Insomnia

It's 3:00AM here and sleep still seems a long way away.

Still, I've managed to catch up on all my email and Google Reader reading. I've visted and commented on a bunch of blogs and watched this:



Super cool!

Lastly, Apex has posted a press release for the upcoming The Blackness Within anthology. First thing I've ever been involved with that's had a press release. I'm not even named and I feel all warm and fuzzy (or that could be the lack of sleep and the fact I've not put pants on again...)

Lots Happening

I've got so many fingers in so many pies that you just knew now is when my laptop would start playing up...

So, first things first, I need to fix my laptop and while I'm at it, I'll probably have to fix my sister-in-laws laptop which has been kicking around here for a few weeks waiting to be looked at. I work with computers for a living so I hate having to fix them at home. I guess it's like the mechanic who has a car that always breaks down - we all try to leave work at work.

After that, I have a new secret project in the works. The final details aren't worked out so I'm not saying alot just yet, but it could be the start of a new direction for me, or at least a new string to the writing bow which will be nice - stay tuned.

For anyone interested in my non-writing activities:

Cricket season started yesterday. As well as being involved with the committee, I'm also captain of our B Grade team (getting too old to keep playing A Grade - I'll leave that to the younger lads). I won the toss and batted. We were eventually bowled out for 208. I was happy enough to be part of an 87 run partnership in the middle order which built the foundation for our more than competitive total, but mainly I was stoked with how the boys all batted in partnerships and allowed the score to grow. Then, with 15 overs left to bowl in the day's play, we hit the opposition hard and have them 4/33 at stumps on day one. A couple of quick wickets first up next Saturday and we'll be pushing for a big points in the first game. This is doubly satisfying as nearly half of the players who would be considered automatic picks for the team are unavailable for this game. Due to the excellent performance, it's highly possible those automatic picks will be starting their season in the C Grade.

Time for me to get to work fixing computers (groan). Speak soon.

Glimmers

As promised, at least to myself and mentioned on this blog, I was going to go back after finishing the first draft of IV to compile all the bits and pieces I've learned over the past couple of years into my own form of writing bible.

I was reading some pointers on how to set your premise and had to relate it back to my manuscript. I now have a new bit to write in the first chapter - which will extend that out nicely, introduce the antagonist earlier and allow a 'penny dropping' moment for the reader later on - cool!

The point I was reading pretty much boils down to introducing the bad guy to your reader as early as possible, even if it's only a quick walk-on/walk-off type of thing. When s/he comes back later the reader will sit up and go 'hang on, wasn't that so-and-so from earlier!' and probably something like 'I knew there was something fishy about that one' - and they will feel smug and happy - and then they will realise that the writer allowed them to achieve that - and then they will be in awe as the penny drops - maawahh (cough, cough, splutter, splutter), sorry. Back in control now.

This morning I've been playing around with loglines as prompted by Alex (again - you really should read her blog). This seems like a fairly natural continuation of the premise stuff I was reading yesterday so I gave it a go.

A resourceful teenager with a knack for electronics and chemistry tries to foil a case of industrial espionage instigated by his dad’s professional rival, win the girl and complete a difficult school assignment – it’s going to be a busy weekend.

Using the breakdown headings supplied by Alex it looks something like this:

Who’s the story about: A resourceful teenager. Nathan Steele is a 15yo boy from a fairly well off family (not rich, but doing ok) who loves playing with electronics and has a natural flair for chemistry. He is much more comfortable soldering capacitors than talking with girls.


Setting: Not so clear. Not sure how to depict this within this sentence. The setting is a local suburb, but it could be anywhere in the world. The scenes switch between his home, school, a motel, his dad's work, and the protagonist's condo (pretty much). Everything happens within a couple of hours drive of each other. As this isn't specfic, maybe the setting isn't as important?? Not sure. What do you think?

Who’s the antagonist: His dad’s rival. I had to mention professional rival because this guy isn't trying to steal the wife, or the family or anything else. He's after a powerful computer program module.

What’s the conflict: Internal and external. He has the very real threat to his safety from criminals who get more desperate as things progress. He also has the complications of first love to deal with, normal growing up insecurities, tension between his parents, saving for a car, being dominated by other social outcasts at school, and a difficult homework assignment with a tight deadline. Lots of conflict :c)

What are the stakes: his dad’s career, physical (life and death for him and those he cares for), emotional (will his heart get broken/will he get to first base), his school grades (will he get the assignment done to maintain his grades).

Genre: YA thriller/action.

I'm not sure about it though. I had to add in the 'Instigated by his dad's professional rival' to be able to answer the antagonist question but I think it throws off the flow of the sentence too much.
 
Well, there you have it. What do you think? Would you consider reading it, or getting it for your favourite young male relative?

Links

It's been a while and I've read some really good stuff around the place recently.

Great advice from the Query Tracker blog.

October Issue of Apex Mag is out for some good reading.

Alex has some good advice and prods us to look closer at our dreams - definitely something I need to do. (I've had two really good stories disappear on me in the last ten days)

I talked about lists recently - well now read this, and then this (Or just subscribe and read all of Alex's posts). This should give everyone a good idea on how to go about list creation and some ideas for their own.

There is justification for all writers over at Kate's blog. In a convoluted path, you will end up over at Dani Shapiro's corner of the cyberverse where we find it's good for a writer to do nothing! (occasionally).

KC lets us know everything we ever needed to know about deers - and a lot that you wish you didn't. This is just good fun and while you're considering the benefits of doing nothing, you may as well surf other writer's sites...

Aaron was kind enough to let us know that Necrography has gone the way of the Dodo :c( Make sure you read all the comments as well - and put your hand in your pocket occasionally.

And in an effort to wrap this salad up with something ultra useful and uber helpful to all writers, I present one of the best posts I've read in a long time from Ms Mercedes (love that name) M Yardley. If you intend to pitch, verbally, to anyone - you need to read this.

Congratulations to everyone who gained an acceptance recently - I know there are a few of you but this post is long enough.

Hope you find something useful.

Absent

Hi all - no I've not been sick this time. We had a long weekend over here and some other things cropped up which have taken away lots of my time.

I've been voted on as chairman of my local cricket club and have a few irons in different fires in regards to sorting some issues out. Waiting on responses from others has been a painful and disappointing waste of time this weekend. And now I'm awaiting the outcome of an appeal which is proving to be just as painful, but hopefully not as disappointing.

On top of that, the season itself begins this coming weekend so we had an internal trial game on the Saturday just gone, which was pretty well attended and I think most of the players had fun - even if only a few actually got any real benefit from it. Any chance to play some cricket can only be a good thing before we are thrust into real competition.

And finally, I managed to fix our spare DS which meant I'm back to hunting lots of Pokemon - yes, I'm addicted. Yes, it's very sad.

I successfully finished my week long course, got the certificate, and confirmed I was on the right track with my planning for the future which is always nice. Now I have some planning and testing weeks ahead of me and then some building and implementation weeks. This will result in very little time for writing during the day. With cricket season now on, that wipes out two weekday afternoons/evenings and Saturdays. Sundays are for chores and recovery. Not a lot left. I'll find time somewhere to write but there won' be a lot of it.

Some good news!

Behold the awesomeness that is the cover for The Blackness Within anthology from Apex

And the wonderful people I get to share the ToC with are:

(In alphabetical order as listed here)

For They Are As Beasts by Camille Alexa

Abattoir Blues by Geoffrey W. Cole

Chain of Hearts by Eric Gregory

The Free Poor by Mark Grundy

Bad Meat by Michael Keyton

Dance of the Psychopomps by Joshua McCune

The Messiah of Mincemeat by S. Clayton Rhodes

Without Mercy by Lucas Pederson

Daughter of God by Maxwell Peterson

Secrets of Fatima by Steven L. Shrewsbury

Dreaming by Brenton Tomlinson

Song-Ji and the Wolf by Paul Williams

Big Game by Conrad Zero

I started trying to find websites for each author but many either have only a Facebook/MySpace presence, completely outdated blogs, or nothing at all. If I'm wrong and you do have a site you'd like me to link to - send me an email. Still, it's an interesting collection of unknown authors thrown in with a few who have a fair amount of stuff out in the marketplace - even a novel or two! After working with Gill Ainsworth (editor), I'm sure it will be mind-blowingly awesome in its togetherness.

So that's it from me. All I've got on at the moment is reading and I need to get back to it. Still working on my lists and still have every intention of doing my own rules bible, but slowly. I think while everyone else is doing NaNoWriMo this year I'll be editing Inner Voice but that's okay as well.

Done

32,577 words. The first draft of Inner Voice is done!

The last thousand words or so turned out to be only 668 needed words and an additional 120 or so words to the preceeding chapter. A lot of angst over bugger all in the end - ah, doesn't that sound nice? I think I'll say it again...The End!

I'd present the bean about now but he's already pissed off to the pub without me and taken my car so I'll guess I'll have to stay home and do the dance:

Not this one (Evan Almighty) (no embedding for this one)

This one:

Not Impressed

As some of you may know, I keep a little side site where static information about my writing is kept. Things like my progress when I was working through the Advanced Diploma, my bibliography, current work in progress - that type of thing.

Not many people went there, but it was a little place I kept things of interest to me and occasionally others. It was a free site plagued by ads. Well, it seems the hosts have migrated over to a new tool for people to create and edit their sites with. I knew it was coming was not keen to move. Now I know why.

Today I finally clicked on the migrate site option (I needed to update my bibliography anyway) and it totally screwed up everything!

I'm not going to fix it. It's time to find a solution to my issues which will allow me to host the information I want (writing tips, bibliography, WIP, etc) and possibly/probably my blog posts, without looking overly crowded or with it being too difficult to master.

Don't get me wrong, I work with computers everyday. Many may laughingly call me an IT professional, but I'm not interested in the field. It pays the bills - that's it. I am seriously not interested in learning new languages, manipulating HTML, or coding complex algorithms to present a website. It's one of the reasons I use blogger - it's point and click, dead easy, leaving the little amount of grey matter I have left to think on other things.

I may also bite the bullet and register a domain name to tie it all together.

So consider this session of the people's court open. I need to hear arguments for the platforms out there, both the good and bad side. Take nothing as granted. What you consider an easy interface may be as good as something written in Klingon for me. Explain to me why I should be looking at LJ, or Facebook, or WordPress, or some thing else. Tell me where help can be found. Tell me why you don't use the other platforms.

Help me to help me and you. A lot of what I put up on these pages is for the benefit of other writers just so they know they're not alone and others have made the same mis-steps before them, but I need somewhere I can blog and keep all the static information together.

Any and all suggestions, advice and help is appreciated. If someone wants to offer web help for advertising space or is willing to provide web services for a reasonable fee I'll also be willing to listen.

Please be seated. You may call your first witness...

Target Hit Patch Out

Earlier this year I named Necrotic Tissue and The New Bedlam Project as the two main markets I would be aiming at this year. I've not managed to crack NT...yet, but I'm happy to announce I've secured a spot in the town of New Bedlam - the lead off story no less!

Go take a look and let me know what you think.