I'm A Writer, Really!

It's December 1st, now what? KEEP WRITING!

2011-12-01T08:41:00.001-07:00

I spent the month of November frantically shooting words at a computer screen and hoped they'd fit. They did. I hit my mark of 50,000 words! I'm very proud of my accomplishments (as I should be) and also very proud of all of my friends that acheived theres, or at least gave it an honest effort.

Over NaNoWriMo I started off at the kick-off party and wrote my face off until two in the morning. Tired and butt dragging the next day I managed to sneak in a couple of thousand words the next day and carried on. I never looked back, never deleted anything and just plowed through my story like a blind dozer driver. I managed to take a little breather with the mid-way party on the 15th then, did the most insane thing ever, on the 26th, a twelve hour write in. We spend all day (from 2pm - 2am) couped up in the Wok n Grill at the Roadking truck stop and wrote our asses off! I threw down over 8,000 words that night and at around 10:30 got up and rang the bell, marking my completion of 50,000 words. I really want to thank the Calgary Municiple Leads, Naiya Azurewater and Xanateria for their stand-up jobs running the shows, keeping us in line and exceptional support, especially for a newbie like me! The next thing is the TGIO aka Thank God it's Over celebration but here's the thing:

IT'S NOT OVER

My story hasn't yet concluded. I think that I am actually only three quarters of the way to the real finish line of the story, my characters are still hanging out waiting for the climax, it's coming, it's building but it hasn't yet arrived. I need to keep writing. The 50,000 mark is just an arbitrary goal, a book mark in an unfinished tale. I must set a new goal, I can't just leave James, Chastity, Brock, Brian, Mary-Jane, Nestor and Glorik hanging out at The Restaurant and the Edge of the Universe (btw, this is not a metaphor, they are actually sitting there) chatting with James' Great-great-great…grandfather while waiting for the formerly kind but now evil General Navy McClintock to find them. The story must go on.

I know many of you are probably sitting in the same position as me, you've hit the mark, rung the bell and sat back and said, "Phew, that was fun but I need a break." I hope that you are able to pull your writing brain back together and finish your story, your characters deserve it!

After that, editing, but I don't even want to think about that yet.

Thanks for Reading!

A one night writer's retreat = 5000 words!

2011-11-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

York Creek Bed & Breakfast

Box 1029

1213 - 85 Street

Coleman, AB Canada T0K 0M0

403-563-3333

If you ever find yourself in the Crowsnest Pass (located in Southwestern Alberta) you must stay at the York Creek Bed and Breakfast! I had the opportunity to go down there for work over night. Ken and Anne are super friendly folks who built the beautiful log home with a wonderful view of the spectacular Crowsnest Pass area. The rooms were spacious and quiet and extremely inviting! What an inspirational place, especially for a writer! (Oh, the beds are crazy comfy too! They are those adjustable beds which I always figured at the end of the day wouldn't be that comfortable… wrong!)

Last night I arrived at around 5:00, visited for about an hour then with the exception of a half-hour tea break wrote steadily until 11:30! I accomplished 5,000 words! I am nearly to the half way mark of my NaNoWriMo goal and it's only the 9th!

Other than the setting and getting several hours of uninterupted writing time, it also helped that the drive down took three hours of which I spent going over the direction my story was going to go so by the time I got "the dinosaur" fired up I had everything planned out! A writer's best friends is solitude, both for writing and thinking. They should never be in the same place.

Now, this is not the end of my praise for the YC B&B! This morning I was greeted with delicious coffee and a feast! I mentioned that I wasn't a finicky eater and I was so glad I did, here was my breakfast (wish I had taken a picture). Everything was homemade:

Toast with French Canadian Pork Pate
Cinnamon Buns, hot and fresh from the oven
Cantaloupe
Bacon
Ham
A Poached egg
Baked Home Fries
A flowered tomato

Needless to say, I ~~didn't~~ couldn't, eat it all and I did not leave hungry!

Now, I just need to find an excuse to go back again before November is over…

Thanks For Reading

D. Ryan Leask

NaNoWriMovember

2011-11-02T21:28:00.000-06:00

Writin', with a Stylin' Stache!

I can't grow a mustache to save my life, and coincidentally if I tried to grow one my life would need saving… from my wife. She hates facial hair, well, my facial hair. She says it's like little razor blades, she won't hardly kiss me if I'm not clean shaven which is a bit of an issue as my stubble grows in quickly (to make matters worse, it grows in quick but patchy, I skip over the rugged look right to the homeless bum in about 12 hours).

For the last two years I have made an attempt at Movember with pitiful results I must say, and all joking aside my wife was supportive of my efforts but come December 1st I was expecting her to tie me up and shave me… actually that sounds kinda hot, I may have to try that next year.

Anyways…

So as the whole Movember thing is a complete loss to me I decided instead to just make the above photo combining the two together. Now I thought the whole NaNoWriMovember thing was a unique concept that I alone came up with, as usual my original ideas have previously been copyrighted, trademarked, patented, forged, reversed engineered, knocked off and… well, you get the picture. It does however make for some rather witty banter on twitter, here are a few gems I pulled out of the #NaNoWriMovember hashtag:

option8: This month, my mustache will be writing a novel.#NaNoWriMovember
cavaticat: What I'm saying is I don't do #NaNoWriMo, but if I did I would rarely eat or pee & never shave. My beard would be glorious. #nanowrimovember
kprobbins: #NaNoWriMo and #Movember go hand in hand. Maybe I'll sit on my #prostate and write a #novel this month. #NaNoWriMovember
himupnorth: This month I am going to write a novel about a man who grows a moustache #NaNoWriMovember I might call it Taches to Taches... or maybe Bristle Down the Wind

Well I hope everyone's lip is tingling with growth and fingers on fire with words!

Happy NaNoWriMovember!

Oh…
Don't forget about #3ForThursday tomorrow at 9:00am Eastern. There may be a mustache related prompt!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Dear, Sad Neglected Blog:

2011-10-27T16:48:00.000-06:00

I'm so sorry, I have been sadly neglecting you but I have been really busy, writing flash fiction (all of which can be found at Alphabet Wine) running my own flash fiction contest, 3 For Thursday, which is now starting to take off, and preparing for NaNoWriMo.

It has been a very long time since I paid any attention to you but honestly you are in my heart. You see I was sick for almost a week, then I went to a far off place that had hardly any internet.

I know, I know, that's hardly an excuse. Would you forgive me if I wasn't paying you any attention because I was writing?

Yes? Oh… only if I was working on something publishable, darn. Well no, I haven't, but I will soon, I promise. Starting on November 1st. This time, I will succeed with NaNoWriMo, I am going to attend some events and get support from others, both in person and from my Social Networking buddies on Twitter and Google+. I already made a circle of NaNoWriMoers to keep in touch with.

What am I going to write? Well, Blog, I am going to solidify my comedy sci-fi adventure I was working on before I got distracted. I know, I have already written some of it and that's cheating, well, I am going to start over, I don't like what I have.

What is that Blog? Will I still be doing flash fiction? Of course I will, but I am really going to focus on my other writing, I may even start up the #6amWriters again and see if I can coax all my #WordMongering buddies out of hiding.

Well Blog, I sure do hope you accept my apology, I promise to keep you up to date on my NaNoWriMo progress and goings on.

I missed you,

Sincerely,

D. Ryan Leask

P.S. Thanks for Reading

#HumpDayChallenge Week 15 - Winner!

2011-09-21T10:00:00.000-06:00

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!

Winner

Chris Blanchard (@blanchardauthor) - This one is great. It uses the given words, though not in a predictable way for the story. I really liked that. I'm also a huge fan of alluding to something but allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. In this case, John and Alejandro's relationship and how it comes to an end.

Runner's Up

Sarah E. Olson (@saraheolson) - Another great non-predictable use of the key words. Quite touching, too.

@tinaofbord - I found this one humorous, mainly because the beginning sounded almost exactly like how I came up with using "Deray" for the challenge.

Sarah and Tina - drop me an e:mail d.ryanleask@gmail.com for a coupon for a free copy of "Counting Down the Storm"

Chris - Send me your address and I will mail you a signed copy of my novella!

Thanks so much B.C Young for reading all of the stories and trying to figure out which of these great tales was the winner. I know it must have been a tough choice!

Also thanks Tracey for letting me look after your baby while your on your cruise. Next time I'll take the cruise and you run the challenge!

===========================================

Tracey (@THansenWrites) generally runs this show over at her blog Tracey Hansen Will Write For Food but this week she is enjoying a cruise (the boat, not the Tom) to celebrate her 30th birthday! She so kindly asked me to take the helm of the good ship #HumpDayChallenge!

B.C Young is our guest judge today! He has recently released Unspoken Stories Volume 1, an awesome collection of five short stories. You can also buy All My Fiction which contains and will contain all of B.C. Young's writing! What an opportunity to get your foot in the door and buy all his writing which gets updated every time he writes something new! Cool concept. Check out everything he does over at The Time Capsule. And follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Now for the technical stuff:
Contest Opens at noon on Wednesday and closes promptly at 8pm (est).
Use all five words below in your story of no more than 100 words which you post directly into the comments section below. (If you have issues with posting in the comments you can send me your story via e:mail D.RyanLeask@gmail.com.)
Please leave your Twitter handle or e-mail address below your post!
B.C. Young will chose his favourite story as well as a couple that stand out for various random reasons.

The winner will receive a #HumpDayChallenge Winner badge to post on his or her site as well as recognition via Twitter and Facebook. Each contestant also agrees to lavish kudos upon said winner!

As well as these wonderful prizes they will also receive an autographed hardcopy of my novella Counting Down the Storm with the runners up each receiving it in e-book format!

Now, usually there is a part where Tracey says she encourages offensive language and profanity, this week's guest judge has issued a further challenge along with the usual five words and that is to keep your story fairly clean! Now THAT just might be the real challenge!

So, here are this weeks words:
Omnipotent
Voodoo
Gringo
Alarm
(Any form of these words are fine)
And the judges super extra-special word is:
Deray (n. meaning: disorder; merriment)
Free your mind, empty your bladder and get at'er!
-WTYM
(WTF does that mean anyway?)

DON'T FORGET, TODAY IS TRACEY'S BIRTHDAY

I Hope You Get To Meet A Nice Fireman!

One more announcement! Starting Tomorrow I am kicking off an ALL NEW flash fiction contest called:

3 For Thursday

Find Out All About It

Wazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz up!

2011-09-19T11:51:00.002-06:00

IF YOU CAME HERE LOOKING FOR THE HUMPDAY CHALLENGE YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE, JUST A LITTLE EARLY. While you are waiting feel free to read ↓

Just a quick hello to my "fans"
Here is what is going on in my world:

Just finished my second hosting of a fantastic writer's Blog Tour With B.C. Young where I did an interview and tried to give away a free copy of his book. If you wish to participate in that Scavenger Hunt I will continue with it until the end of the month!
I will be hosting the Humpday Challenge this week (September 21, 2011)! So much fun
A sneak peak announcement that will be official on Wednesday but for those of you who follow my blog you will find out about it now. The following is the official announcement for 3 For Thursday an ALL NEW flash fiction challenge that I am hosting! I'm Sofa King excited!

Welcome to an all new flash fiction contest!

3 For Thursday

(#3ForThursday on Twitter)

I am truly addicted to flash fiction here are the ones that I usually submit stories to:
#MenageMonday - Every Monday at Defiantly Literate 100 - 200 words 7am to 7pm est

#TuesdayTales - Every Tuesday at Glitter Word 100 Words open until 9pm est

#5MinuteFiction - Every Tuesday at Leah Petersen's Write Me from 1:30 - 1:45 est five minute writing sprint

#HumpDayChallenge - Every Wednesday at Tracey Hansen's Will Write For Food 100 words, From noon to 8pm est

These are awesome, quick and dirty. They get the creative juices flowing, are a fun way to get to know some fellow writers as well as great ways to get your name out there!

So, what do all of these have in common? None take place on Thursdays. I sure wish there was a way for me to kickstart my weekend and do a little flash fiction…

Now, there is!

The idea behind 3 For Thursdays is that it is not just one but three flash fiction contests. Compete in one or all!

Here is how at least the inaugural running of Manic Monday is going to go:

When/What:Well Thursdays Obviously (all times eastern)

Challenge #1: Word Prompt 11am - 12pm

Challenge #2: Sentence Prompt 12pm - 1pm

Challenge #3: Special Prompt 1pm - 2pm

Weekly Prompt:

Each week there will be three prompts. One is a word, one is a sentence and one will be something the previous weeks winner picks, whether it be another word, sentence, starting line picture or whatever.

Every Story Must:

Be based around the given prompt. The first story will be the special prompt, the second must include the sentence and the third must include the prompt word.There are three ways to write as well:
►Enter one unique story for any of the contests◄
►Enter three unique stories◄
►Enter one 300 word story (Each part must be written in the within the time frame given!)◄
♥Please include your twitter handle (or email address), name and a title for your story for voting purposes. If you are writing one 300 word story you must still submit each part within the time limit and use the prompt. The story doesn't need a title until the last go-round but must be labellled part I, Part II and Part III.♥

Limits:

Time limit and word count limits are the backbone of flash fiction so here are mine:

Word Count for each story is: 100 words or less.

Time Limit: One Hour

Winning:On Friday morning everyone will be put in the poll and voting will begin and last until noon (est) on the following Monday. The top five will then go on to a guest judge (or myself) who will choose one of them as the overall winner of which there will be two:
♦Best 100 Word Story - Single Story Achievement
♣Best 300 Word Story - Competed in all three challenges with one story lineThat announcement will be made at the start of the next weeks contest!
Prizes: Every week the prize will be Kudos from your peers and an onslaught of Tweets, G+ Posts, Facebook notices and Roof-top shouts relaying your awesomeness to the world. The winner will also get to choose the following weeks special prompt. Occasionally there may be other prizes which will be announced at that time!

IT ALL STARTS TOMORROW!

Blog Tour With B.C. Young

2011-09-15T00:03:00.000-06:00

I am pleased to announce that I am the first stop on a great author's Blog Tour! He has published a volume of short stories entitled Unspoken Stories Volume 1.
B.C. YOUNG

He was kind enough to answer a few questions ---here--- and get in on a scavenger hunt ---here--- to win a free copy of Unspoken Stories!
You can also find a review of Unspoken Stories ---here---
What do you do when a story bounces around inside your head for three or four years? You need to get the story out to people, and the writer needs to tell it. Author B.C. Young had this exact thing happen to him. He was tired of driving back and forth to work everyday, conceiving a story in his head that no one could hear. Before long, he started to work on his stories. He decided on a simple approach that he felt anyone could read. His decision was to tell the stories he writes through shorter stories. The shorter stories end up telling a bigger story, and the bigger stories tell the final story. As a result, each story feeds off the next and the previous.
Currently his work involves the Miscorrection series and other science fiction stories. This is a favorite genre of his because it allows for so many possibilities in storytelling.

Unspoken Stories Volume 1.

A collection of five short stories to entertain and stimulate the mind. These stories were almost never told, but they were saved from being unspoken. The collection includes the following science fiction stories. Click the titles to read a 50% excerpt of the story, you'll be glad you did and even happier if you buy it for 3-tacos (that's $2.99).

Copy Bird: Bill is trapped and lonely. He breaks free of his prison and finds something he doesn’t expect.
“Now you sound like a broken record. I get the point. You can’t have a conversation–only copy. You’re a copy bird. Can I call you that? Copy Bird?”
Despite the fact that the bird doesn’t talk, he imagines that it likes the name. He reaches out his hand for the bird to perch on his finger. The bird does as expected and jumps to his finger. He thinks to himself that the bird is as light as a feather, but in reality it’s two hundred.
“Now you sound like a broken record,” the bird repeats, mimicking his voice perfectly.
“Wow. That’s quite a feat. Sounds just like me, Copy Bird. By the way, my name is Bill.”
“My name is Bill,” the bird says.
“You certainly are a copy bird.”

Going Home: Promises are important to keep, and Commander Patrick Murphy never wants to forget that.
When he got to the dining room, he looked out the window. As he knew would be the case, his dad was in the backyard trying to fix the lawn mower. He kept pulling on the cord, the engine would begin to kick in, and then sputter to a dead stop.
“Hey, Dad,” Patrick called out, after opening the window.
“Patboy! What are you doing here?” his dad asked, excitedly. He moved away from the mower and started walking towards the window.
“They gave me short leave time. Why don’t you come inside? It’s getting dark. Even if you get the thing working, you won’t be able to mow.”
His dad turned back to the mower, and had a look of defeat on his face. Patrick knew he never would get it working again.
“I guess you’re right,” his dad said. “I’m sure your mother’s got dinner just about ready anyway. I’ll be right in.”
Patrick closed the window and knew his dad would have to give it one last try. As he went to sit at the dinner table, he heard his dad make a final attempt, but the mower didn't start.

Josie Dorri And The Coffee Ban: What if the government banned coffee? See what happens to Josie Dorri when they do.
She went over to silverware drawer and pulled out her coffee scooper. She had used the scooper for three years, and she wouldn't make coffee without it because any other scooper didn’t make the coffee as she liked it. A scoop for every cup she always said and it made the coffee strong, but not too strong; bitter but not too bitter; perfect and you can never have too perfect.

As she put the scooper into the coffee bag, she stopped when she saw the headline on the kitchen monitor screen. It read, in big bold type:

COFFEE PROHIBITION STARTS TODAY

Consumption Prohibited, Possession Prohibition Pending

The Present: Miles Gray has a good life, but doesn’t realize it. Often, a trip through time is all that is needed to open up a person’s eyes to how good they have it.
As he did every Friday before getting home from work, he stopped at a local bakery call YumYum. They were only five minutes from his home, and a dozen doughnuts every weekend was Miles’s treat to himself for making it through the work week. (He didn’t actually eat all of the doughnuts—his wife and kids would always help out with that.) YumYum’s doughnuts were definitely the best a person can buy and did not compare to any other bakery. The particular doughnut Miles always enjoyed and loved was the Buttermilk Stick. It was the perfect doughnut to warm up on Saturday morning, sit on his front porch, and eat with a hot cup of coffee.
After buying his doughnuts, Miles enjoyed the last five minutes of his drive. The vehicle had the aroma of the doughnuts filling it, and every time, Miles would give in to eating one of the doughnuts as he drove. More often than not, the Sour Cream doughnut accompanied him on the last leg of his journey home. He’d eat it slowly, making sure it lasted the entire five minutes to the point before he was walking through the door of his home. He often thought how he wished life would stick him in that moment with no return. It’d be a wonderful place.

Running To Keep Her: Neil is obsessed with exercise and eating right, but it’s not for his health that he does it. He does it to keep her.

That’s when Neil saw her. The shadows cast by the moonlight made it difficult for him to distinguish her features. She had long hair, and stood slightly shorter than Neil. She bent down and took a drink from the fountain, and a whole minute passed before she came back up for air. He noticed something familiar. Her silhouette looked like something he’d seen before. It had been dark. The street lamp outside the bedroom shone through the window and cast a seductive shadow on his wife’s body as she moved towards the bed. He remembered the night well because he thought about it often. What he saw now, reminded him of that night.

Available at:

Interview With B.C. Young Author of Unspoken Stories Volume 1

2011-09-15T00:02:00.000-06:00

I am pleased to announce that I am the first stop on a great author's Blog Tour! He has published a volume of short stories entitled Unspoken Stories Volume 1.
B.C. YOUNG

Read a short snippet of each of his stories ---here--- and get in on a scavenger hunt ---here--- to win a free copy of Unspoken Stories!
You can also find a review of Unspoken Stories ---here---

What do you do when a story bounces around inside your head for three or four years? You need to get the story out to people, and the writer needs to tell it. Author B.C. Young had this exact thing happen to him. He was tired of driving back and forth to work everyday, conceiving a story in his head that no one could hear. Before long, he started to work on his stories. He decided on a simple approach that he felt anyone could read. His decision was to tell the stories he writes through shorter stories. The shorter stories end up telling a bigger story, and the bigger stories tell the final story. As a result, each story feeds off the next and the previous.
Currently his work involves the Miscorrection series and other science fiction stories. This is a favorite genre of his because it allows for so many possibilities in storytelling.

Unspoken Stories Volume 1.

THE INTERVIEW

First of all, did you know that using Google docs you can send, share and update in real time? I watched as Ben answered my questions which I posted as a document there. That was pretty cool.

Obviously you think while you drive, how do you keep story ideas from flying right out the window?

I find the best way to do this is NOT sticking my head out the window when I drive. This is especially the case when the window is up. I tried it once, and there was a lot of shattered glass and blood.

Good Call!

The Quality/quantity debate really isn’t a debate at all is it? I have often had the same misconception that you had, how has your writing changed after realizing that writing a great story like Copy Bird in six hours is possible?

It’s freed me from the slow, over-thinking process of writing. Now, when I sit down to write fiction, I let the creativity flow, and don’t get hung up on word use, grammar, and spelling. It’s made my writing quicker, and I feel, better because I’ve allowed my creative voice to speak in my writing, rather than my technical one.

It’s a lot easier to edit after you write and I find it doesn’t interrupt the flow.

Josie Dorri and the Coffee Ban reminds me a lot of some of the more off the wall short stories that Stephen King writes (that is a compliment and not part of the question :D) Are you a coffee fiend, or what is that the story behind it?

Yes, I do drink coffee, but I wouldn’t consider myself a fiend. The story idea came from my brother-in-law. He thought it would be a funny to have a story about a person who doesn’t have their coffee for the day, and a bunch of bad things happen as a result. As you can tell in the story, I morphed this idea a bit by adding in a coffee prohibition by the government and giving a reason for the bad day. I had a ton of fun writing that story.

And I loved it! I can relate to her, without that morning cup of coffee I may as well be a square tire!

What made you decide to sell “All My Fiction”? What if someday you become a world renowned writer with a large publishing house?

I took it from a reader’s perspective. What if for a flat rate I could get everything a writer published? I’d love it. So I figured other people would, too. It’s definitely less of a risk for the reader. How often have you read a book only to not like it and feel like you wasted your money? I have. But of course, my stuff isn’t bad like that. I think you’ll like it. Still, for the pessimistic reader, All My Fiction is just the ticket!

If I become world renowned, All My Fiction will still be around, as long as distributors like Amazon, Smashwords, and others allow it. Anything written under the B.C. Young name will be in there. The only catch is you want to get in early, because the price goes up every time a new story is added to the eBook. Translation: Buy it now before it costs $1,000,000!

I know I have read a book by an author who I liked a story of only to be really disappointed and never bothered with him again. Your idea is brilliant! Maybe not all of your stories will appeal to a reader but they won’t stop reading you (and recommending you as well) We should get in now I think!

Who inspires you?

Many things inspire me. When it comes to writing, friends and family give me ideas. Past writers like Isaac Asimov, and current ones, too. Sometimes, the guy standing in front of me in line at the grocery store inspires me. A box of doughnuts on the table in a scene of a movie I watched inspired me to write my short story, The Present. Characters and stories are everywhere, it’s just a matter of looking for them.

Do you see your self as a short fiction writer or do you think someday you will find yourself immersed in a novel?

Let me put it this way: I see myself as a fiction writer. Currently, my works are short stories, novelettes, or novellas. We tend to differentiate the length of a story to give people some perspective as to what they suggest. But at the end of the story they are all stories. It just so happens that some are longer than others.

I can also say that I am currently working on a novel length work. I’m doing this under a pen name, Desmond Shepherd. It’s entitled Fram Gage and The I.A. (The “I” and “A” in the title are still secret, but will be revealed in the coming weeks on my site).

Cool! I can't wait to read it!

Did you know I can watch you type?

I didn’t until I saw you type. Then, I wondered if there was a ghost in Google Docs. Once I stopped freaking out that my computer was talking to me, I accepted it and decided you might actually be stalking me. Are you?

Not me, I pay people to do that!

Thanks for taking the time to do ask me a few questions and reading Unspoken Stories - Volume 1. I really appreciate it!

And thank you for allowing me and my readers an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better! I would have to say that short story collections are my favorite! I love all of the stories in Unspoken Words Volume 1.

Available at:

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!!! - #Humpday Challenge Week 11

2011-08-24T08:43:00.004-06:00

HUMPDAY CHALLENGE

WEEK 11

Wow! There were a dozen entries this week! Not bad considering the last minute change up in location and all! I have a little something something to say about each entry:

@DL_Thurston: Love the flow of your prose!

@theglitterlady: Sweet, sweet death!

@ravensdragonfly: The universe does indeed have a sense of humor. I hope your next word verification is vixen! Oh, and remind me never to visit that church! Yikes!

@caramichaels: Wicked alien! Wow!

@SweetSheil: Suicide by alien sex, what a way to go!

@MLGammella: I used to think weather satellites were rather inert. Thanks for clearing that up!

@redshirt6: Makes me wonder why Conrad Storm went to a place with no extradition treaty with Earth. Hmm, there is a story here my friend!

@nicolewolverton: Absolutely loved your visual!

@qualitywriting: Perhaps a new pheromone, or maybe Lavalife?

@JenD_Author: Great commentary on our own waste!

@saraheolson: Wonderful visuals!

@julie_glover: Good for her! Great story of triumph

So, here are the winners

@julie_glover - Best non SciFi entry!

@qualitywriting - Best name drop! - "Oh well, at least I always have Tracey Hansen as a backup."

@caramichaels - Best Alien - "My hatchlings spilled out with focused determination, bonding as I watched. One knelt before my dying form."

@MLGammella - Best use of my word storm - A storm was brewing, a big one that threatened the entire planet.

AND THE WINNER IS

@nicolewolverton

Her story just filled me with delight in it's mysticism! Here is her winning entry:

The planets swirling around Aberdeen’s head slowed their roll, tilting and winking in the night. She adjusted her headpiece, carefully arranging it at a jaunty angle – not too far to the left, lest she shake the aliens living on Pluto out of their hammocks.

It was time to sleep, return the universe to its usual glide. The day had been hectic, a storm hobbling across the equator of Mercury that spread like a virus, planet to planet.

Aberdeen arranged a silk pillow about her neck and reclined, the lids of her sunbeam eyes fluttering closed. Tomorrow would be another day.

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

It's Wednesday and do you know what that means?
Get out your ~~pens and paper~~ keyboards and fingers and get ready to write!

Tracey isn't available to run the challenge this week and I know that all of you are dying for a challenge so I asked her if I could run it this week and she said, "[no response given]" so I took it into my own hands.

This was kind of short notice so I didn't line up a guest judge; looks like I am Judge, Jury and executioner. Don't forget to stop by her blog and buy some really cool swag!

So without further ado:

Contest is open Wednesday at noon and closes at 8pm (est time)

Incorporate all five words below into a story of no more than 100 words. Any genre! Post your story directly into the comments section.

If you copy and paste from WORD you may have some punctuation errors because my blog hates WORD. Just let me know D.RyanLeask@gmail.com and I will fix it.

Make sure to leave your twitter handle or email address at the end of your post.

The winner will receive a #HumpDayChallenge Winner badge to post on his or her site as well as recognition via Twitter and Google+. Each contestant also agrees to lavish kudos upon said winner!

As always, I encourage offensive language and profanity as long as it is not hateful.
As I am hosting not only this but Steve Umstead's blog tour as well, this weeks words are all SciFi-y:

Universe(-s)

Return(-s, -ed)

Planet(-s)

Alien(s)

And my extra super duper special word is Storm.

WAIT! Did I mention that all winners will get a copy of my novella "Counting Down the Storm" and the overall winner will get it in hardcopy?

Oh, and when you're done, stop by my blog and check out my interview with Steve Umstead and take the quiz to win a copy of Gabriel's Redemption AND Gabriel's Return

Ready...set...GO!

-WTYM whatever the fuck that means :-{)

PART I: Interview With Steve Umstead Author of Gabriel's Redemption and Gabriel's Return

2011-08-24T00:02:00.003-06:00

WIN A COPY OF BOTH BOOKS IN THE SERIES details here

←PREVIOUS-----Follow Steve's Blog Tour----NEXT→

STEVE UMSTEAD

I've been waiting a few months for this to come out and I'm so stoked that it's finally here! GABRIEL'S RETURN

On the far-off icebound planet of Poliahu, North American Federation Navy Commander Evan Gabriel suffered the loss of several team members in order to free a native species and save his brother. Now he is being called away on a new mission by a friend in trouble, and by a name from his distant past. He and his surviving team must again travel across the galaxy to the planet where he lost his naval command, and his original team, so many years ago: Eden.
Evan Gabriel must face three distinct threats on Eden: the well-armed terrorist group that has been raiding Eden City, the dangerous planet itself, and his own haunting memories of his past.
Gabriel’s Return continues the epic science fiction/adventure trilogy with characters new and old, devious political intrigue on the moon and Mars, and deadly jungle combat on Eden.

I had the joy and privilege of meeting Steve on Twitter after he judged a round of Leah Petersen's #FiveMinuteFiction flash fiction contest.

After getting to know him better as well as all of the folks in #PubWrite on twitter I was drawn into the world of Independent Authors and self publishing as well as writing as a whole. I credit Steve with helping me get a novella I self published in hard copy a few years ago back onto the "shelves." Much of the help I got was by simply knowing Steve and being in his circles (speaking of circles he also dragged me into Google+).
When Steve asked me to interview him and write a review for Gabriel's Return I didn't hesitate for a second!

Links:
Website: steveumstead.com | Twitter: SteveUmstead | Google+: Steve Umstead | Facebook: Steve Umstead Writes
Author Pages:
Amazon | Independent Author Network | Facebook Author Fan Page | GoodReads

THE INTERVIEW (PART I) Part II
I may have gotten a little carried away with my interview questions, but after all how often does one get to interview someone so interesting, who writes really well, has a cool day job and so totally into techno-gadgetry? Without Further Ado…

WHO IS STEVE UMSTEAD?
Where(ish), When(ish) were you born?
Where(ish) would be scenic (tongue in cheek) New Jersey, and...no wait, I take that back. I'm tired of apologizing for living in New Jersey! It's not the "Jersey Shore", and I'm not from Joisey where the Sopranos were. I'm 20 minutes from Philadelphia, an hour from Atlantic City and the beaches, and I've got a house with a yard. So take that, Jersey haters! Sorry...and when(ish) would be in and around the time the moon landings were taking place (that should be enough of a window to let you know I'm no spring chicken). [I think many people forget that it was called The Garden State for a reason]

How does the time and where you grew up effect your writing?
The time is an easy one. Think Star Wars. At the impressionable age I was when that hit the theatres, it deeply affected my imagination and my interests. As I went through school, high school most notably, I always had a strong desire to read & write science fiction, and most certainly it goes back to that Star Wars era. Oh, and at the same time was Buck Rogers (and Erin Grey, rraawwrr! [wow, I hadn't heard of her but found a pick, rraawwrr indeed!]) and Battlestar Galactica. And in grade school, I'd rush home to see Starblazers on television. As for where, that's tougher - I don't know if where I grew up had any effect; maybe just the fact that it's a laid back, suburban area as opposed to the hustle and bustle of a big city gave me time, and space to act out my imagination.

Although we don't learn much about Gabriel's Childhood how much of the story that brought him to where he is in his life is your own story?
I seem to get that question a lot, as in how much of you is in Evan Gabriel. And quite honestly, it's not much. He is an entirely made-up character. I mean seriously - hardcore military guy with a haunted past...yeah, not me at all. I've never even held a gun, let alone killed anyone (that was public, at least). However, the opening scene of the series is one I've had in my head for many years, and one that created the entire character. It was based on an experience I had on a trip to the Caribbean, and I incorporated that into the scene, and combined it with some of my knowledge of Jamaica, to write that scene - which became Gabriel's Redemption.

Do you believe in:
Aliens?
Yes, of course - to not believe somewhere in the billions of stars there isn't some form of intelligent life would be very closed-minded.
UFOs?
Not at all, every one of those stories of UFO sightings is either made up or was seen incorrectly. If/when aliens come here; everyone will know about it, not just some pickup-driving toothless hillbilly. And why exactly do aliens kidnap them, and not learned scientists?
It's a matter of time frame. Humans have been...self-aware, let's call it, for a few dozen thousands of years, but the planet has been here five billion, and will be for five billion more. The most important part of the Drake Equation is the time frame - aliens would have to coincidentally visit our planet at the exact same we're here, which is a pinpoint in the lifespan of the planet.
Ghosts?
Nope, sorry fantasy/horror writers. Dead is dead.

www.nataliedee.com

Sea Creatures (Lochness Monsters and the like)?
Hmmm...yes, I suppose so. We've explored the space around our planet and moon more than we have our own oceans, so I'm sure there's something down there we haven't seen yet. Nessie? Meh, not so much - again, only hillbillies have seen her, right?

In our lifetime which of these are the most likely to go from Science Fiction to Science Fact?
Aliens, or at least an alien life form, so to speak. I think it's only a matter of time before life is detected on another planet. Animal life, not just spores or bacteria. Whether I'll be around when we visit that planet… I guess I can dream.

How much does your "day job" in the travel industry lend itself to your writing in terms of setting and characters?
A few times per year, And I will certainly use those settings in future works, as they're a lot of fun.

If space travel became as common place as a vacation to the Caribbean could you get me a good deal on a trip to a beautiful planet of warm seas and white sandy beaches?
You know what the toughest part of being in the travel industry is? Everyone wants a deal...man, can't anyone pay regular price?? [Can't blame a guy for trying!]

David Paetkau From Flashpoint

WHO IS EVAN GABRIEL?
Is there any one person who embodies Evan Gabriel?
Good question, I never really sat down and thought about it. I suppose physically he was modeled after the somewhat-obscure actor David Paetkau from the CBS/CTV series Flashpoint, but that's as far as that went (I had a photo of Paetkau in my Scrivener files to glance at when it came to describing the character). I guess he's got a little of my impatience/cut to the chase attitude, and maybe a little Bruce Willis-Die Hard anger and exasperation when faced with certain situations. So no - not one person! [that's really cool! For some reason I always pictured him more like Ron Pearlman]

You have attempted, (and succeeded in my opinion) to make a science fiction story that not only caters to seasoned sci-fi fans but also makes it easily digestible for those of us that don't understand the inner workings of a Frion-Destabilizing Chriptohydrenic Twift Drive. How did you manage to do both?
Thank you kindly, that's something I'm very proud of: being able to write science fiction that doesn't exclude non-hardcore SF fans, and can even appeal to other genre readers. I'm a big fan of near-future sci-fi, as I find it more believable (no Twift Drives in my writing). The tech and settings are based on what's happening today, just extended a little further. Brain implants that can communicate with others and plot maps are just another couple of leaps from an iPhone; retina and palm scans exist today, as do rail guns and body armour. Other planets and wormholes? Those are staples of sci-fi that I think everyone accepts at this point.

The planet of Eden with it's beautiful but deadly fauna sets a wonderful picture of what may be waiting for us on distant planets. In your worldly travels have you come across a place that inspired it or was it all you’re your fertile mind?
It was wholly-created from imagination - I mean can you picture a state park where monkeys throw acidic sap on people walking by, or that have that have swamp lilies that digest meat & tissue? However, a few years ago I went to Costa Rica, and we did a full day of a rainforest hike up to an active volcano with hot springs that surrounded it. When I put together Eden, that's the thick foliage and streams/mountains that I used as a base for the dangerous world. [Wow! What a beautiful place, I can picture that for sure.]

Gabriel's Return is the second of a three book series. Is it for sure going to end after three books or is their beginning to be a whole large series evolving? I myself would like to see a prequel or two.
Funny, my wife just asked me the same question the other day. As it stands now, the series is a trilogy only. However that may change, as I've grown a bit attached to Gabriel and some of his team members. I do plan to go back after the trilogy is complete and do a novella prequel, as you say, which will explore his original mission on Eden five years ago, the mission that made him who he is today. [I can't wait!]

How has Evan grown since Gabriel's Redemption?
Well, it's been six months since the end of that story, and with his new position in Security on Mars, he's probably put on a few pounds…Oh, grown as a person? Right… Well, he's learned to compartmentalize his past, as part of what had affected him so deeply did get worked out to some extent at the end of Book 1. He's also found that he can trust family and friends again. However, his new mission, which takes him back to the site of the massacre on Eden that affected him so deeply long ago, may draw him back to his uncertain self.

I can see your stories having mass appeal however I note a serious lack of romance. Can we look forward to some "steam" in the third book? I know that Evan is pretty tied down to Renay but is there anyone on the crew to take a Captain Kirk role (*wink)?
Hey, there's a bit of romance in Gabriel's Return! Well, a small bit - small enough that many female readers mentioned it. So yes, I probably could have had more of that. Book 3 will have some strong male-female connections as part of the main plot, but they won't really be romantic. There is a secondary character, Galen Sowers, who is somewhat of a ladies man - at least in his own mind. I guess I'm not cut out for writing romance. [That's okay, I'm not really cut out for reading it!]

Coming up next...
Technology, and Steve On Writing

WIN A COPY OF BOTH BOOKS IN THE SERIES details here

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PART II: Interview With Steve Umstead Author of Gabriel's Redemption and Gabriel's Return

2011-08-24T00:01:00.008-06:00

WRITE THIS WAY FOR A FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY (However you may need to read the ENTIRE interview first to be able to answer the skill testing questions!)

←PREVIOUS-----Follow Steve's Blog Tour----NEXT→

STEVE UMSTEAD

I've been waiting a few months for this to come out and I'm so stoked that it's finally here! GABRIEL'S RETURN

On the far-off icebound planet of Poliahu, North American Federation Navy Commander Evan Gabriel suffered the loss of several team members in order to free a native species and save his brother. Now he is being called away on a new mission by a friend in trouble, and by a name from his distant past. He and his surviving team must again travel across the galaxy to the planet where he lost his naval command, and his original team, so many years ago: Eden.
Evan Gabriel must face three distinct threats on Eden: the well-armed terrorist group that has been raiding Eden City, the dangerous planet itself, and his own haunting memories of his past.
Gabriel’s Return continues the epic science fiction/adventure trilogy with characters new and old, devious political intrigue on the moon and Mars, and deadly jungle combat on Eden.

Links:

Website: steveumstead.com | Twitter: SteveUmstead | Google+: Steve Umstead | Facebook: Steve Umstead Writes

Author Pages:

Amazon | Independent Author Network | Facebook Author Fan Page | GoodReads

I was so excited to be a part of Steve's blog tour that I over did it with all the questions I wanted to ask him! He answered them all too and I just could not shrink any of it down so I decided that I must share all of the interview. So here is the second part.
THE INTERVIEW (PART II) Technology, Social Media & Writing (Part I)

TECHNOLOGY

Much of the technology described in your stories seems so common place that one would think they are in existence today. How did you get such a feel for how technology may evolve without it seeming construed?
I've done a ton of science fiction reading, and I'm a big techie geek, so I pay attention to a lot of the technology articles online and in magazines. With a lot of the current tech, you can see what the next step would be, the next logical progression, so I try to use what looks like its right around the corner in the stories.

What is your favourite current piece of technology?
You can have my iPhone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. I do want an iPhone…

What current technology would you love to have?
As a techie geek, I'm already fairly well set on the gadgets. Since I don't smoke or have a gambling habit, my vices consist of buying the latest and greatest (iPhone, MacBook Air, etc.) I have yet to pull the trigger on an iPad, so that might be next...

What must be invented to complete your life?
I'll say two of the technologies/discoveries that I used in my series. First, neuretics (I made that word up - kinda cool, huh?) which are neural implants giving the user instant "online" access to information, communication, etc. I'm sometimes glued to my iPhone - to not have to carry it around, and still have all the features of it installed in my head? Oh yeah… Next would be interstellar travel via wormholes. Just the idea of jumping to another planet same-day, as easy as taking a flight to Mexico…very tempting. Whoa, that would be a little too invasive for me, I like the privacy of my won brain.

STEVE UMSTEAD, THE WRITER
I would say that you have a large following of fellow Indie Authors. How did this start and how much has it affected your motivation to continue writing?
Honestly I have no idea how all of this happened, it just sort of snowballed from meeting a bunch of great people online shortly after publishing my first (Gabriel's Redemption). I'm still blown away by the fact that that many people follow my messages. I have to watch what I say! There can be a fine line between personal platform building and offending others. How has it affected my writing motivation? More than I could have ever believed. The people I've met have been incredible, and a small handful of them have supported me in both the good times (publishing a work) and bad (getting discouraged and disenchanted - which is easy when you're judge, jury, and executioner of the novel).

Tell us a little bit about The Pubwrite Group.
Great segue - it's the #pubwrite hashtag I'm speaking of when I say a small handful. A group of like-minded authors on Twitter one day got together and decided to append a hashtag to our regular conversations so we could more easily follow them…and my goodness has it exploded. Maybe even too much, as now the hashtag has become something people append to 'buy my book/read my blog' random tweets just to get their name out there (which by the way, if you're reading this and are one of them, that's not why the #pubwrite hashtag was created…it's to chat with other great writers…those hashtag spams as I call them are actually hurting your platform, as the regulars get ticked off.) As for the PubWrite Group, again a small handful of the 'originals' thought that a more organized and centralized place where authors could meet other authors, and help each other in promoting their stories, was needed. And the PubWrite Group is completely separate from the hashtag, and will continue to be, as the hashtag again is for friendly conversations, not sales. If you're a writer you really need to check out what these guys have to offer!

I know that meeting you has been a major catalyst into my own foray into self publication, how do you think you managed to inspire fledgling indie authors like myself?
Wow… I have to say that took me a bit off guard. I've never thought of myself as having the knowledge or influence to inspire others. I'm just plugging away, asking advice where I need to, giving some where I can. I'm by no means an expert, sheesh! I'm also not sitting on stacks of cash at home, lighting cigars with extra hundred dollar bills, and gold-plating my bathroom fixtures. And I've certainly had my stumbles along the way. But I guess I'm willing to keep trying new things, and I'm certainly willing to help anyone in any way I can. Hey, this is supposed to be fun, right? Writing and publishing? I like your attitude Mr. Umstead!

Are you an Indie for life or would you move to a big Print house if the money was right?

If the money was right, I'd dress up as a woman and run for governor of Mars. Then again, I'd probably do that for free if I could get to Mars. I'm loving being independent, and have no plans to sign an agent or go through a publisher. I love the freedom to write my own stuff, design my own covers, set my own pricing, and market the way I want to market (I have a degree in marketing, for Pete's sake…) That being said, I'd be silly if I said I'd turn down the right offer. I just don't see that happening, because… I think you're selling yourself short.

Where do you see book publishing going in the next ten years? Fifty Years?
… the big publishers are in trouble. Right now I think they're too slow, too entrenched in what things were like, instead of seeing what things will be. The internet age, the digital age, is here and here to stay. To say books should be $24.99, and eBooks the same price, is ludicrous. Now an eBook can be sent anywhere in the world, at any time, in any quantity, for little to no cost. However, that being said... I think the current vibe from big publishing houses is spend more, save trees!

I know you are a big fan of E-Books and E-Readers. Do you think they will eventually replace the paperback?
…paper books will never go away. eBooks absolutely will be the preferred method of reading and distributing - the writing (pardon the pun) is on the wall. Some people say paper is dead, but I don't think that's quite the case. There will always be a market for paper books, but as evidenced by the collapse of Borders, eBooks are the future (Barnes & Noble gets it - I see their stores within five years being nothing but showpieces with cafes and Nook kiosks where readers can download books to their Nooks). One thing I see happening, and hopefully in time for my kids when they enter college, is that college textbooks will be eBooks, and every student will walk around with an always-on iPad or equivalent. THAT will be a sea change I'll be thankful for (cost wise!) No, I think these text book publishers will find a way to make it cost more, and imagine how quickly these things will get hacked and shared?

WHAT IS STEVE DOING NOW?

What are you working on right now?
These cursed interviews! Oh, you mean projects…right. As we speak (type?) I am sitting in a mountain cabin…okay, not really. I'm in the mountains with my in-laws in a trailer park. But you get the idea. I'm here with the family, but I'll be putting a lot of time aside for the next project - outlining Book 3, Gabriel's Revenge. With any luck, I'll come home in a few days with a fairly detailed outline, ready to jump in to the first draft come September 1st. Woo Hoo!

Do you have anything besides Evan Gabriel stories in the hopper?
Actually yes. A few weeks ago while on vacation I had a dream - and my dreams sometimes are very detailed, scenes that play out in my head, even to the point where I see words in a book describing that scene. This scene was very intriguing, and when I woke up I had an idea for a new story which has a little time travel and alien invasion to it. I'm actually really looking forward to putting pen to paper (sorry, fingers to keyboard) and getting to it.

When should we be keeping our eyes peeled for Gabriel's Revenge? I know I can't wait (although I'm sure that the Republican Bastards from the SA can).
If plans go well, I'm shooting for the Christmas season. If I have a story in my head, and outline in front of me, I can really churn out words. As a matter of fact, the last week of writing Gabriel's Return was so fun, the scenes so slam-bang action packed, everything wrapping up, that I wrote 30,000 words in seven days. So I know it can be done, I just need to sit down and do it. One chapter per day, mine being around 2,000 words, is easily achievable - so September & October, with some days off to actually make money at the day job, I should be able to complete a first draft of 90k+ and edit the heck out of it during November. Those South American Republic bastards will never know what hit them. You, my friend, are a machine!

WRITE THIS WAY FOR A FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY

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Gabriel's Return Blog Tour

2011-08-23T08:53:00.001-06:00

COMING TOMORROW!

PLEASE…

standby…

This Complete Idiot's Guide to the Galaxy (and Beyond)

2011-08-12T00:12:00.003-06:00

I am working on putting my theory of the universe that has been rattling around in my head and brewing up since I was a teenager (which wasn't that long ago, in relation to the age of the Universe). This is how the Synopsis may read:

Anyone can have a theory. Many express their views in print, but never before has it been done like this, at least not in this small corner of the galaxy. It's a theory of the universe from the eyes of a complete idiot who knows nothing about science and even less about good science. Using popular science and pop culture, this essay delves into this very deep subject with social commentary, a bit of logic and a few potty jokes thrown in for good-measure.
The universe has never been twisted such.

Here is an excerpt:

It’s A Trap!
In the movie In the Mouth of Madness, the main character, John Trent, finds himself unable to escape from Hobb’s End, a sleepy east coast village. No matter which way he drives out of town he always ends up back there. In the end he keeps his sanity while everyone else loses theirs, which makes him insane in relation. This is what will happen to you if you attempt to question my theories. Anyways, I digress.
We could look at the universe as Hobb’s End. No matter which way we travel we will always end up back where we start. You will never know when you’ve hit the “wall” of the universe because to pass through it, which you really don’t, you are on the other side of the universe. This is a bastardization of my theory but for exampletive purposes it will do. In the same way that Everything exists inside the universe, Nothing can get out. There’s no trap door, secret tunnel or passage ways that appear when you say the magic words, “Open Sesame!.” The wall might as well be impregnable, mostly because you don’t know where it is when you get to it, and because even if you did know where it is “breaking through it” would just start you on a path back to the beginning. I call this D. Ryan Leask’s Law of You’re Trapped Mother F**ker! or simply YTMF!.

Of course now you find yourself asking “What if you could?”
To which I reply firmly “You can’t.”
“But just let’s pretend you can.” You retort.
“There’s no place for ‘pretending’ in science!” I exclaim.
“But you said…”
To which I reply, “Shit, you got me.”

(The next section is titled nothing, just so you know)

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Broken ankles are far worse than the pain

2011-08-08T13:36:00.000-06:00

Who knew that a fairly minor injury coud turn out to be such a pain in the ass?

Last weekend, on a particularly hot day we decided that we desperately needed to get out of our house and head to somewhere with air conditioning. My wife, Toni gathered up a few odds and ends (diaper bag, cold drink cups for Starbucks Frappuccinos) while I loaded the kids into our overly hot car.
As I was about to put our son into the car I spotted a lady walking the cutest brindle French Bulldog. We talked to her and my wife was walking down the path. Suddenly things went flying.
"I think I broke my ankle." She said, without uttering as much as a single "F"-word (colour me impressed). She laid on the ground half sobbing and rocking. She was almost as panic stricken as our poor neighbour with the dog who asked a few times if we needed her to call 911.
I did what I always do in these kinds of situations which was think it isn't as bad as it looks and just remain calm and figure out what to do (and generally taking too long to set a plan in motion).
I got the kids loaded into the car then drove as close as I could to Toni, without running her over (which would have made the situation far worse, although if done right would have alleviated much pain) and very carefully loaded her into our small car and drove to the hospital.
Luckily her brother was at a baseball game close to the hospital so he was able to get a ride there with his girlfriend and stay with Toni while I looked after the kids. His girlfriend also was able to come back with me and grab a car so Toni and George could get home.
I was still hopeful that it wasn't as serious as we thought, a twisted ankle, perhaps a sprain.
I got the call. It was broken. Okay, no big deal.
Later: May need surgery, oh crap
Still later: No surgery, oh thank God.

After a supper of hotdogs and then putting both kids to bed (not an easy task with a five month old and a toddler that insists having three books read to him, three songs sung and various other things that usually make for a 45 minute - 1 hour bedtime routine on a good day) she returned.
I have seen a number of people with casts lately. They have these airboot things, it looks like a giant shoe and they hobble around a bit but still pretty mobile. Toni had told me on the phone that the doctor told her of all the bones to break that the lateral malleolus (the end of the fibula) is one of the best.

BULL-FUCKIN'-SHIT

I was expecting to see Toni gingerly walking up the steps on our deck, looking forlorn but all in all not so worse for wear, I didn't think they even did crutches anymore. Guess what, they do, and guess what, she had them.

"Aw shit!" I said to myself, realizing immediately what this meant, our children's primary care-giver was out of commission not even light duties. About the only thing she was going to be able to look after was feeding our five month old and even then only if she felt up to it. She had to keep her leg elevated, she couldn't put any weight on it at all. They couldn't even tell her how long it would take to heal, a progress exam in two weeks was what she was left with.

I still had four days of holidays left so I called my boss and booked the week off.

I hate to toot my own horn but as a guy I am pretty capable around the house, I can cook, don't mind changing diapers, know where the cleaning supplies are and can take orders fairly well (had this been my father…)

Throughout the week I actually got on a pretty good flow, the kids were angels (as they usually are), I managed to get them out of the house for at least an hour everyday, I prepped meals in the morning and tried to have lots of left overs stockpiled and didn't let things get out of control. All-in-all I think the week was a great success (I do one day soon hope to be a full time stay at home Dad and this week told me I could probably handle it).

Yesterday I dropped Toni and the kids off with my parents about an hour and a half away for the week so two weeks down. So far so good but what is going to happen now?

A week is about all my parents can handle with both kids, they may keep our three year old for a bit longer but he's actually pretty independent. I see a future of hell, the next two months are going to be beyond anything I think I will be able to imagine and I can't afford to take anymore time off work.

To say I am concerned about what will happen is an understatement.

First of all my wife is not a home body. She needs to get out of the house occasionally. She broke the ankle on her driving foot, she won't be able to drive for quite sometime (doesn't help that our car is a standard). To make matters worse she was just getting going with a personal trainer and going to the gym a lot and loving it, this just set that back as well as her mood, poor thing. At least she got a pedicure just before she broke her ankle.

It's summertime, sitting inside on a cold winter day is bad enough, when it's nice outside and you can't walk it's like dying of thirst on a sandy beach. You can see water, it just can't help you. This goes for Toni and the kids, at least we have a good sized backyard, but at three Malcolm still needs a lot of supervision outside and someone to be able to jump at a moments notice. I can't even pick up all the slack because there will be a million neglected things.

So, I made a decision. I decided that on top of feeling sorry for Toni, and the kids, that for once it is okay to feel sorry for myself a little bit too in this situation, which is why I wrote this.

I'm done now.

Also to my friends on G+/Twitter/Goodreads/Threadless/Outside World, my apologies if I am too busy to interact with you much in the coming months. I'm sure you will understand, if not, try breaking your wife's ankle when you have two kids under 3 :-D

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Took a Break From All That Is Writing, And it Was Good

2011-07-27T08:55:00.000-06:00

As you may have noticed I haven't really been all that active lately on the writing front. I finished the first draft of my novel at the end of June and then didn't really know what to do. I attempted to start editing right away but I didn't think that was a good idea so I moved on to my next project. I got about 15,000 words into it and lost interest. What I think I needed was a break, a break from writing, thinking about writing, writing about writing and talking about writing.
Over the past few weeks I haven't been on Twitter much, I think I was somewhat embarrassed about my failure with my story I was working on for NaNoWriMo although I know I have nothing but supportive friends. I think that the biggest issue however was that after my first draft of "Death By Putts" was finished I just didn't know what to do with myself so I headed off in too many directions and then just stopped everything, but I now have a plan:
(This is what I am holding myself accountable for)

Finish Beta Reading for Steve
Finish Setting Up and Pimping out my G+ account
Work on a Design Idea I have for Threadless
Return to my one a day one liners for My "My Brain Farts Stink" Blog
Catch-up with friends
Re-start editing for "Death By Putts"

This is my plan for the rest of 2011. I am going to take things a bit slower now.

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Am I F*#king Insane? Camp NaNoWriMo and Editing?

2011-06-30T15:34:00.002-06:00

What have I done?
Since I learned about it, I have always wanted to participate in the NaNoWriMo (stands for National Novel Writing Month). Generally it occurs in November and runs for a month. The goal is to write a novel in a month, or at least enough words for a novel in a month. That's 50,000 words or approximately 1667 words a day (yikes, when I put it that way it sounds even scarier!). I recently found out about Camp NaNoWriMo, it's the same thing except they are trying a year round thing and well, I joined.
Now this in itself isn't that bad except just yesterday (well this morning if you count the rewrite of the ending) I finished the first draft of my first novel. I set out a goal for myself of editing ten pages a day. Why did I start NaNoWriMo when I obviously have more pressing things I need to do?

Here is my dilemma. When I was two-thirds of my way through "Death By Putts" (DbP) I realized there was another story that needed to be told, a story about Gavin Petters, the main character that my main character made his career from. I had a really cool storyline that needed to come out. I could have waited until I was completely finished DbP but I really think that story should be read after the one I want to write for NaNoWriMo. Both would be stand alone and you wouldn't have to read one to get the other but there are certain aspects of DbP that may serve as minor spoilers to my idea (tentatively named "Killing Gavin Petters" (KGP). So, in a spur of the moment decision I joined July's running of Camp NaNoWriMo. I outlined most of KGP today, after all I do already know the two main characters from writing DbP and that one is complete.

Well anyway you know what they say, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

You can find me at Camp NaNoWriMo as DryanRack, I'll be the one attempting to cliff jump into shallow water when I realize that I have bitten off more than I can chew!

Thanks For Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress here I come! (someday, maybe)

2011-06-24T13:41:00.004-06:00

I'm going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am terrible at self promotion. This was my biggest downfall when I self-published through a vanity press (I just remembered what they're called, I also try not to think that I actually did this because it makes it sound like I was naïve and taken advantage of, which I may have been). It's not that I don't enjoy promoting myself, I loved doing readings and book signings and would love to do more. I am not shy and I think I'm a born public speaker and incredibly outgoing. The problem is that I have difficulty setting these things up. It's difficult to explain where the problem lies. If everything is set up for me, if I am told I need to be somewhere for a signing or a reading I will go, I will sign, I will read, smile, shake hands, greet people. A reading is my favourite as the crowd has come specifically to hear me talk. Signings are harder, especially if I am expected to leave my post or get people to come to me. I am not a salesman, I am a writer, I will chat anyone up that wants to talk to me, but if they don't specifically want to, I feel like a dork (perhaps it's my lack of retail experience).
Even promoting on twitter feels wrong. I always think I am clogging up the twitterverse and my friends feeds with junkmail. How much more advertising do I have to do there? I can't even seem to give away copies of my Novella "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27). I find that when I try to do self promotion I do it in such a sheepish nature that I likely don't get anyone's attention or use humor which if it does lead someone to look at the story they realize that it isn't something humorous and they step away.
The other issue is time. When I'm not doing my full time job, helping my wife raise our two very young kids, taking care of our two dogs, keeping up with repairs and renovations on an older home, attempting to keep our yard from growing an old car on blocks or writing I am sleeping. I'm not sure where I would fit in enough time to convince people to buy my books.
It is obvious to me by the lack of response I am getting, lack of sales, lack of reviews and lack of any form of excitement, that I am doing something wrong (even if it's the writing, someone should have said by now, "shut up your book stinks"). I am not giving up on "Counting Down the Storm" (which is available on Smashwords for FREE with the coupon code: JN54B until June 27) though, I will keep doing what I am doing and hope to get at least some interest going. I still hate to give it away though and after June 27th won't do another freebie for a while.

So, I have come to a conclusion (which will likely change by the time I hit PUBLISH POST and then three-hundred and fourteen thousand times from there until my current WIP is complete), I am going to attempt to get traditionally published next time. Writing Query letters, submitting samples, researching agencies and spending time on the wrong end of restraining orders from agents, can not be as much work as trying to get a few thousand people to read my self-published novel. I think the 15% royalty I will make will be worth it, after all that's not much better than you get at Amazon, and they give you nothing in return.

So fair warning Harper Collins/Penguin/Steadpress you shall know my name (it will be on that list of people that aren't allowed in your building)

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

I'm no longer supporting or selling on Amazon

2011-06-21T14:22:00.000-06:00

I should just warn you that this is one of those "Opinion Piece" blogs from someone (me) who did about ten minutes of research and fired pretty much off the cuff. There are likely ten million arguments out there against what I am saying and likely even more denouncing the Huffington Post piece I have used as the basis of this. I don't care, nor do I want to get in an argument from someone with a different opinion. If you don't like what I have to say keep it to yourself and just ignore me and at least give me some credit for being honest about my ignorance!

The saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you" doesn't really apply here as I have eaten nothing from Amazon and before I make a single dime from them I have decided to remove my books. Why would I sell my wares at a site that I have decided to oppose? I am taking a stand damn it!

I recently read an article on The Huffington Post (be informed read the article!) about how Kindle/Amazon is being bombarded with junk eBooks. This isn't the first time I have read about this. There have been a number of articles about this phenomena recently. According to the article Nook, Smashwords and others aren't having the same issues. Two reasons according to the article is that either there isn't enough users of these services to warrant bothering with it or they are taking actions to prevent it.

Here is a (possibly cynical) look at Amazons Policy, red notes are mine:

Publishing rights are the rights you need to publish a book. To publish a book for Kindle through KDP, you must have obtained all rights necessary to publish the digital book from the book's author and any other content creators, or, if you are the book's author, you must have retained all of the necessary digital book publishing rights. -this is good

If you are publishing a public domain book, keep in mind that the duration of copyright varies between countries, so ensure that you indicate your territory rights accurately. (If your book is in the public domain in one country but not another, you must identify you territory rights accordingly.) Books that consist entirely or primarily of public domain content are not eligible for the 70% royalty option -because it doesn't belong to you and you are likely selling loads of crap for cheap so Amazon needs to make as much money from you as possible. If they thought your work may have some value added potential they'd likely have a category for such stuff so you could receive a higher royalty, but they don't encourage that. For full details, terms and conditions see the Pricing page and Terms and Conditions.

If your book is under copyright and you hold the necessary rights for this content, select "This is not a public domain work and I hold the necessary publishing rights."

So big surprise that Amazon won't pay the higher royalty rate to junk (provided that the person submitting it checks "This is public domain work". Another part of the article talks about how these junk books sell for $0.99 which is also a low royalty area on Amazon, coincidence? If you want to sell your original book at $0.99 you have to compete with Private Label Rights content (fancy name for junk/spam books). I don't think Amazon has any desire to stop this practice. The believe they have the corner on eBooks, and they likely do, most people are buying "Best Sellers" which is likely a very high percentage of Amazon's eBook revenue stream and the $0.65 they make from every $0.99 book that is sold is just a nice bonus. Why would they bother changing it? To help independent authors? I bet the majority of the money they make from $0.99 books are from these junk books so why would they limit this revenue stream if the majority of people aren't even buying them? I would say that if it becomes a problem or this revenue begins to dry up they will just stop allowing self publishing through their site. Of course this is all just conjecture, speculation and a hint of doom.

Here is the last line from the Huffington article:

"This is why email spam has become such a problem -- it costs nothing," she said. "If people can put out 12 versions of a single book under different titles and authors, and at different prices, even if they sell just one or two books, they can make money. They win and the loser is Amazon."

Really? I can't see where Amazon is losing, they made $1.30 from those two books, more than the "author" made.
Here is an interesting blog from "Writer Beware™ Blogs!" with Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords.

Amazon has rubbed me the wrong way for quite a while and this is the final straw. Support your favourite Independent authors through Smashwords, they format books for Kindle. Go ahead and get your Nora Roberts and Suzanne Collins from Amazon, or better yet, if you haven't bought a Kindle yet, don't. I ♥ my Kobo and many swear by their Nooks!

Thanks For Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Smashwords is NOT the Devil: Why you should not overlook publishing your e-book there

2011-06-20T13:17:00.005-06:00

As you may have ascertained from my previous blog I was not very impressed with Amazon and although I did upload my book there I did so only because it is currently the #1 seller of e-books on-line. I had originally planned on uploading to what I consider the big three:

Amazon - aka Kindle Direct Publishing
Barnes & Noble - aka PubIt
Smashwords

I discovered in the process that B&N was going to be a pain in the ass as I would need to set up an American bank account in order to publish there, I also found out that if I made the Premium Library with Smashwords that they published to B&N so I skipped it. I have nothing good or bad to say about B&N as I have no experience in that regard.

I was told by some people that there was no point in uploading to Smashwords, they (authors) had sold few books there and even went as far as saying that they were incredibly unprofessional. This is a comment thread that made me almost skip Smashwords. It involved (and was on the blog of) someone that I think is a bit of an expert on e-books (their text is highlighted). (I will leave out names):

…My question is: how do I get this to Smashwords? They want a .doc file, which seems like a step backwards at this point.

Thanks for all your help!

It is indeed a step backwards. Everything about Smashwords is a step backwards.

The best way to go about it is probably to start Word and then open your source HTML file from within there. Word can interpret HTML files – it may require setting an import toggle – and the result may be fairly close to what you formatted. Once it is imported properly you should be able to save it as a DOC file. I’ve never done this because I do not use Word and I also do not do Smashwords because I am completely dissatisfied with the quality of their output – apart from the fact that they generate zero sales and are thus a waste of time – but it should work in theory.

Thank’s **********. I had to tweak my HTML, but I finally got Word to open it.
I just looked at the Smashwords style guide, and I just want to scream now. I had perfect HTML with CSS and I have to reformat the whole thing again!? I have epub done, and I have to reformat it again!?

Yikes. That’s just too much (for now at least).

That’s why I keep telling people, forget about Smashwords. They are forcing you to a low quality output.

The style guide from Smashwords (which is free to download) isn't that bad and if you go through it and have followed everything you should have absolutely no problems. It isn't any more involved than the steps I gave for formatting for kindle and when you are done the book reaches a broader group of e-book users. The reason why Smashwords uses the *.doc format is for their meatgrinder which takes one format and literally pumps it out into the various formats that different platforms need. This saves you from having to format your story differently for each reader and if there is a new reader or format change they take care of reformatting for you. This takes a couple of days to do as far as getting it into the premium catalogue, (mine was loaded on the standard catalogue on one day). This process also stops a lot of crap from getting published, unlike Amazon where you can put whatever the hell you want up, Smashwords does it's best from stopping people from plagiarizing works or posting public domain articles up. Color me impressed!

Formats Through Smashwords:

Kindle (.mobi)
Online Reading (HTML)
Online Reading (JavaScript)
Epub (open industry format, good for Stanza reader, Kobo, Nook, others)
PDF (good for highly formatted books, or for home printing)
RTF (readable on most word processors)
LRF (for Sony Reader)
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)

If you publish to Smashwords your books can be purchased at:

Barnes & Noble -"Counting Down the Storm" was available after 1 week of being on Premium Catalogue
Sony -Not yet available
Kobo -Technical Difficulties (on Smashwords Part Not Mine) Preventing Distribution
Apple -"Counting Down the Storm" was available after 3 weeks
Diesel -"Counting Down the Storm" was available after 1 week of being on Premium Catalogue
Scrollmotion (Provides for: Apple, Android, Windows Phone 7 and HP's WebOS) -Not sure how to check availability
Amazon -Someday soon hopefully will work too, saving me the trouble of having to go through them here.

Uploading your *.DOC file to Smashwords

It's a pretty straight forward process as long as you have followed the style guide (have I made it clear how important this document is?). I think I could pretty much skip over all of the details and go right to pricing.

There are three options. Free, user sets price (not available for B&N) and you set the price. Unlike Amazon the amount of percentage of royalties is not greatly effected by price. Here is the breakdown:

Note that these calculations may be off by $0.05 or so.

You can play around with how much you make per book using the calculator here.

In the end I really like Smashwords, would love to publish and distribute only through them and am so happy to be paid though Pay Pal as opposed to check or direct deposit.

Thanks For Reading!

D. Ryan Leask

P.S. I have a new review on Carolyn Arnold's Ties That Bind on DRyan DReads!

Amazon is the Devil: How to publish to Kindle Books and why you shouldn't (but likely will anyway)

2011-06-15T16:41:00.005-06:00

Now before all of you indie authors out there call me a heretic and burn me at the stake I will explain. First however I am going to talk about the final steps in my e-book publishing saga.
In my last e-book blog I discussed getting your book ready. The kindle (mobi) version turned out very well and the smashwords version was quickly accepted into the regular catalogue and after a week (and a quick e-mail), was uploaded to the premium catalogue.

UPDATE: I have pulled my book from the Amazon Library in response to (in my opinion) their inability to stop spam books. I am still selling through Smashwords and all of their outlets. Read about it here

Uploading to Amazon

First off it's a little bit difficult to find the place to publish for Amazon. Here is the link.
The first page is pretty straight forward. If you don't have an ISBN number I would suggest getting one now. (You will need one for Smashwords!)
Book Content File - This is where your *.mobi file goes.

This is where things get hairy

Territories - Obviously you want everyone to read your story Worldwide!
Choose Your Royalty This is where Amazon shows it's true corporate greed!

35% if you sell your book for $5.00 you make $1.75 (they take 65%)
70% if you sell your book for $5.00 you make $3.50 (they take 30%)
Obvious Choice? Not so much
Read this Confused? Yeah, me too

In a nutshell if you choose 70% it's only applicable in some areas, otherwise it's 35%

Now Read This Yikes!

On top of geographical limitations on the 35% option there is also a price limitation
only books priced bewteen $2.99 - $10.98 are eligable for the 70% royalty payments
Here is how it works (USD only):

PRICE___70%___35%
$0.99____N/A ___ $0.35
$1.99____N/A ___ $0.70
$2.99____$2.10__$1.05
$10.99___N/A____$3.85
I know it's not all about money but it just really felt like a slap in the face that unless I wanted to sell my book for $2.99, which in today's ebook world is high, especially for a novella, I would only get 35% royalty. Fine, it's better than a standard publishers royalty however at least with them you get something out of it.
Another point, unless you are a US citizen (which I am not) you don't get anything until you have made $100.00, in other words you would have to sell 286 books just to get a royalty check. They don't do paypal (even Amazon credit would be good!)

So if you happen to see this message on my book selling links ○ Additional $1.00 Royalty Premium ○ it's because I refuse to sell my hard fought for story for $0.35! What it should say is, "Save a dollar and buy from Smashwords instead!"

So Amazon is THE DEVIL but not just for that reason, here are some others:

Anyone can't print whatever they want. Plagiarism runs rampant and they don't bother checking content and don't seem to care. They also promote crap formatting and crap writing as nothing gets looked at. I would rather wait for several days/weeks for someone to have a look at something to ensure it will at least be readable (Smashwords does this btw)
They are attempting to corner the whole eBook market (and hopefully failing). They only allow one format, and sharing is becoming limited and I don't know of any affiliation with Libraries (my Library supports E-Pubs only)
Their royalty rates, as I mentioned, is not on par with other sites such as Smashwords (not sure on B&N). They are not doing anything to encourage good indie writers to publish there other than being the top seller of eBooks.

In conclusion. I ♥ Smashwords and that will be my next Blog Topic. As well as how to upload there!

Thanks For Reading

D. Ryan Leask

My WIP

2011-06-03T13:20:00.000-06:00

Originally this blog post was going to be about specific tips to uploading your e-book to smashwords & amazon. I have decided to put off that post until I know for sure that everything has gone perfectly for all of the outlets Smashwords sends to. I'd hate to give bad information so instead I am going to tell you about the wierdness that is:

Death By Putts

My current WIP.

It all started with a cheeky idea I had, write a book that no publisher/agent or possibly editer would want. I write books about killing people, best way to achieve this is by killing them. The MC of the story would then have to be a writer. I'm a writer, hey look at that, I could fashion the character around myself, a few changes (my MC does not have a family) then try to figure out how I may be without those changes.

That was kind of my starting point. The story goes that a semi-successful writer (makes just enough money to live without having to work a day job), who has a long series of stories based on a serial killer named Gavin Petters suddenly gets dropped by his publisher after they aquire a christian publishing house run by coincedentally a Gavin Peters. He has used a pen name for all of the books and the publisher had managed to get ownership of the name. His agent and even his editor help to seal his fate of never being able to write another book under that name again.

Unsucessful and getting continuously screwed by his former publisher and even his lawyer he has no one to turn to except the grand-daughter of his cleaning lady, Ming. Not only does she turn out to be a big fan of his work but also has a perverse sexual desire for the main character.

The story is interlaced with works written by the MC, Ed Putts (see why he writes under a pen name?) both from his Gavin Petters series as well as other attempts. He uses writting to try to divert his anger and sexual frustrations, starting by writing about murdering his agent, publisher and editer.

Ming plays with his mind and his sexual desires leading him to attempt to prove to her that he is as much of a man as Gavin Petters.

-----
This story is chunky and weird so far but I think it will work once all of the bits are put together. Currently Ed is writing a bit where he is actually going to kill Gavin Petters, who just happens to come to Calgary after his random murder matrix sends him there. Ming is kind of the loose end in all of this. Her character is far more complex than I originally intended, and far more dangerous. She scares me.

I also want to portray Ed as a Putz and lighten things up but it is just getting so dark I don't know if I can do it. Over all Death By Putts is turning out to be a very, very strange write that I can barely control.

I'm at almost 22,000 words so far. (Thanks #WordMongering on Twitter)

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

How I Readied My E-Book For Publication

2011-05-25T16:04:00.005-06:00

For those that follow me aka my D.ciples (too early to name my fans?) you are aware that I have published "Counting Down the Storm" as an E-Book (availability details here). It was a bit of an arduous process but I want to share what I learned along the way.
First of all I want to thank all of my twitter friends for helping me so much in the process. Some I will mention below but Steve Umstead (author of Gabriel's Redemption -BUY IT) and Karen DeLabar (one half of Have Coffee… Will Write) were extremely helpful in testing the formatting and Everett Powers (author of The Mighty T -BUY IT) answered my call to include an ad (for free) within my book. Many others showed support in so many other ways. I could devote a whole "First of all I would like to thank the academy" blog, but I will not.

Formatting For Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and Goodreads

*First of all this is not a blog on editing or in document formatting, that is up to you.*

*this is merely set out to get you from your completed manuscript to an e-book.*

RULE #1: Always keep an original version of your work before you do any formatting!
The Following Steps are if you are planning on formatting to E-Pub(Nook) or Mobi (Kindle). Smashwords has another set of formatting criteria which I will cover a bit later.

THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE ASSUMING THAT YOU USED MICROSOFT WORD AND PLANNING TO UPLOAD TO AMAZON.COM AND/OR BARNES & NOBLE. IF YOU DID NOT I CAN NOT SAY HOW HELPFUL THE FOLLOWING WILL BE
First of all I started with Sophia Martin's fantastic blog on Formatting
There were a few things that weren't all that clear and it took a little trial and error, her notes on em-dashes (—) were especially helpful (alt codes to make symbols like the em-dash and the ellipses, …, can be found here)
Her notes on using the find/replace were a little off for my version of word. Here are some extra instructions for my situation:

Sophia Said: -NEED MORE HELP WITH THIS STEP? SEE Guido Henkel's Guide Part VI
In your Word doc:
*NOTE: ≥ and ≤ have replaced > and < as I don't know how to make them show up properly 1. Find/Replace: In Find box, type ≤i≥Ctr + i≤/i≥ and in Replace box, put ≤i≥^&≤/i≥ . Replace all. (This preserves any italics you've got in your document for later--if you don't do this step, you'll lose all italic formatting.)

So apparently I am a moron. I actually typed in ≤i≥Ctr + i≤/i≥

This doesn’t work. Your find and replace window should look like this:

This is achieved by pressing Ctrl + i once in “Find what:” (Leave it blank) and typing in the other part and Ctrl + i twice.

Original Italic Text:
Looks Like This
New Italic Text:
≤i≥Looks Like This≤/i≥

Now working in Notepad.

4. Find/Replace all em-dashes with –

Select an em-dash from your document and copy it, paste it in the Find box, then manually type the two hyphens in the Replace box
I am going to play with fire and use a single — (Alt – 0151) instead.

Once I got into the J-Edit stuff I got really rather lost but perhaps because I was attempting to do more than Sophia was doing when she wrote her blog.

One thing if you are using the KISS principle for your E-Book (not always a bad idea) there are some settings that you may want to note in J-Edit's find and replace window:

Change from "Keep Dialog" to "Regular Expressions" under the Settings Column

In an attempt to better understand some of the things Sophia was talking about I went to her source, Guido Henkel (Author of the Jason Dark Series) and the author of Take Pride in Your E-Book Formatting, a nine part series on formatting your e-book. It sounds daunting however it is well worth the read as you will better figure out how to do a few things that he may not specifically mention.

Just be forewarned there may be a few things that Guido says that you may disagree with, he has a fairly strong opinion on all things e-book related so don't let it turn you off. For example he says never use a word processor to write with, I saw balderdash! (yes I just said balderdash), we will learn later why you should when we want to format for Smashwords (another entity that he strongly advises against using that I feel strongly the other way for but this is not the time or place). I would just go through this exercise for this time and figure out how to most effectively use your program for your next story.

So effectively you can skip part I and part II. Part III talks about what to use to create your html file. I used J-Edit (download here) for text editing and Calibre (download here) for file conversion.
Thus you can skip onto Part IV. This is where the understanding of what you are doing is key. If your book has minimal formatting you can likely copy and paste his examples but if yours has things like centered text that aren't titles and image page breaks and other fancy stuff it's good to know the nuts and bolts.
Part V More details on the background
Part VI gets into the nitty gritty of what you need to do. It talks about cleaning up your data and formatting special characters, I personally did this while on Sophia's steps above and did it in Notepad using the "Nuclear Method" (that's where you copy and paste from word into a simple text editor like notepad not wordpad)
Part VII has the header information that you need to use to properly format. Some personal notes here. I added a few more "p classes" by copying and pasting existing ones.
Each "p class" can have any or all of the following elements:

I define a paragraph as the part of text between and

text-indent: 0.0em; How far the first line of the paragraph is indented, generally set to 1.5, set to 0.0 or delete altogether for paragraphs you don't want indented

font-weight: bold; Do not use Italic here, instead as mentioned before surround your italicized text with text not sure about underline however. Also note that text isn't suitable for text either.
font-size: 1em; This is a multiplier of the base text size. As you can vary text size in the reader this will vary with it. If the text size on the reader is set at 10 then if this is set at 1.5 the text size on the reader will be 15
margin-top:5em; This is the number of lines above the paragraph
margin-bottom:2em; This is the number of lines below the paragraph
text-align: center; Just remove if the setting is left, avoid justify didn't try right, it may work.

When making new "p classes" give them a name that will remind you of what they are however avoid using "Chapter" in any form in the name as later you will need that specific one for creating a table of contents (ToC). The ToC is a bit of a limiting factor in my opinion on formatting but a worthwhile one.
One note on centering you must use both the p class="centered" and span.centered as different formats will ignore one over the other

Header ie.
p.centered

{
text-indent: 0em;
text-align: center;
}
span.centered
{
text-indent: 0em;
text-align: center;
}
Body ie.

≤p class="centered"≥≤span class="centered"≥***≤/span>≤/p≥

Part VIII This is the fun stuff adding pictures however use them sparingly and don't bother with a front cover as it will be added in the next step. I also found out that some readers do not display images. I used a lightning bolt to mark breaks, the Kobo and Nook didn't show it for some reason. I opted to use two different versions, one for E-Pub and one for Mobi where the Mobi had the imagary and the E-Pub did not. Just make sure that the final product won't look incomplete without the images.

This is a good time to check your html file. In windows explorer/chrome etc search the file for & if there is an error with formatting you will likely find it doing that. Also try with ; although hopefully you have a few of those that should be there (if not you may want to do some semi-colon research :D)

Before you complete the next part download the desktop versions of Kindle and Nook (if you don't own either). I would also suggest finding someone who one one of each to have a quick look at the product before you submit it. Don't worry about other formats because the upcoming Smashwords formatting will take care of other formats. If you are uploading to venues other than the ones I did (Amazon, Smashwords, Goodreads, attempted Barnes & Noble but decided to forgo the hassles of a US bank account) you will have to defer to their instructions.

Part IX This is where Calibre comes into play. It's a little frustrating that you find out about some of your formatting issues at this step as you have to repeat Part IX until you get it right. First thing I (should have) did was made sure that I had my Synopsis somewhere other than just written into the comments in calibre. Follow all of his steps to the letter then check the formatting, if it is wrong wipe it off, fix the mistakes and start again.

In the end you will have a folder with your name on it, inside that another folder with the name of your book then a few files. The only ones you need to worry about are:
Your Kick Ass Book.mobi and Your Kick Ass Book.epub (The images are embedded in those files already)

FORMATTING FOR SMASHWORDS
I will write update this matter after my submission gets accepted for their premium catelogue.
I was quickly accepted into their regular catalogue. Update: After waiting a week then sending a quick e-mail to Smashwords I was placed on their premium catalogue. There is a dashboard showing how long and when books are distributed. Further detail coming in new post later this week.First of all it should be your goal to get into their premium catalogue, they distribute to EVERYBODY and although Amazon and Barnes & Noble seem to be the top bananas right now that may change. Smashwords won't take over but someone they supply to just might become the next big thing (hint: they supply to iPad) so do it right, the first time.

Here is a few things that I did.
I opened my html file in an internet explorer window and copied all of the text into notepad, then I copied it from there into word. After that I downloaded the Smashwords Style Guide. I had been scared away from it before I looked at it but I would say that it is a rather impressive peice of work and if you follow it to the letter your work should turn out. Also if you wish to retain some particular formatting that you think is necessary read this
http://www.smashwords.com/distribution
It will likely tell you that any fancy formatting you would like to do (for instance I like to have an indent and paragraph blocks. Smashwords will automatically reject it and you will likely have to delay your inclusion in their premium catelogue to convince them to let you keep it or to redo it without. Another common thing you may have is a greater than four-line space. Same thing, just don't do it.)

In the end formatting for Smashwords was the easiest and seeing what transpires when I hit their premium catalogue I may skip Amazon next time and just go with Smashwords Upon further inspection I realized that Smashwords is having technical difficulties distributing to Amazon.

My next post will be about uploading and settings for your book at Amazon, Smashwords and Goodreads, stay tuned!

Feel free to discuss anything, ask questions or leave comments.

Calling All #Pubwrite rs Free advertising for your e-book!

2011-05-13T14:00:00.003-06:00

I am this ( || ) close to posting my novella "Counting Down the Storm" to Smashazonbles (That's Smashwords, Barnes and Nobles and Amazon). Someone on twitter today mentioned about helping other indie authors by including each others synopsis in our books. I think it's a great idea! I have decided to delay the launch date for my own book in order to do this. This is an open invitation to all of my #Pubwrite friends.

Here is some criteria before sending me your synopsis:

Have a look at mine (here) and see if you think a blurb about yours would fit, there's no point advertising a YA novel at the end of my adult oriented fiction or even SciFi/Fantasy etc.
Your e-book needs to be currently for sale at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles and Smashwords, the three stores that I am going to sell through.
The synopsis should be short, about 150-200 words, don't worry about editing, formatting etc, I can do that.
If you have a good quote from a review you would like me to include as well, that would be cool too, for example:

"The Greatest Piece of Modern Swashbuckling I have Read." - B. Beard, Pirates Port Magazine
Try to keep it to a sentence

Another option is if you think the first 200 or so words of your book would draw the reader in and force them to buy your e-book that would work as well.
Send it to me via E-Mail (Twitter DM me), Post it as a comment in this blog or whatever
If I get multiples I will pick the one that I think would best work with my book, don't feel bummed if I don't pick yours.
As payment? Nothing. Big publishing houses pimp their other authors all the time, this is just doing the same thing. The next time you publish something do the same for someone else.

I will place your blurb at the end of my book on it's own page and have it available in the Table of Contents.

I will give people until Wednesday May 18 to submit a synopsis. I will let you know either way if I will be using yours. If no one submits one or I don't feel any of the submissions would work out I will go ahead and post my e-book with out it.

I hope this is the start of a really great thing for Indie Writers!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Is Early Morning Writing Right For You?

2011-05-10T11:16:00.000-06:00

This started out as a response to a blog post by the wonderful horror novelist R.A. Evans (read Asylum Lake). In his post (link here) he talks about ways to find time to write. It's some really awesome advice and if you aren't a full time writer (and let's face it only a select few are and likely no one reading this blog). He has five easy steps.

There are two parts to this blog. My personal foray into early morning writing and steps to be successful in your own journey.

How I Started Early Morning Writing

A few weeks ago, before I read R.A.'s blog I did an inventory of my time. I am a father of two. My son is a busy 2-½ year old boy who wants to spend every waking hour with his daddy and try as I may to write when he is awake I can't help but give in to his pleas to play or bike ride or do other fun things that little boys want to do with there dads. My daughter was born in March so she is really new. My services are needed there a lot as well. Especially after my son goes to bed. My wife is struggling getting used to being at home all day and craves my attention in the evenings for some adult interaction even if it's just sitting on the couch, chatting or watching TV. If I attempt to write after she goes to bed I tend to go a little overboard. I have been known to write until well into the morning which messes up my day/week/month/mood. She learned long ago that if she doesn't get me to bed when she goes I may not sleep (I once spent an entire night on the computer designing a track for an online game called line racer). Good call honey!

I also have a day job. It's not overly demanding and I can get some writing done during the day if I work hard and fast on what I have to do and keep a look out over my shoulder. This is not optimal and I may REALLY get in trouble some day (I am at work while I am writing this yikes). So as per Mr. Evan's blog here is a typical weekday.

7:00-8:00 - Prep for Work
8:00-8:15 - Commute (Driving wish I could take public transportation, used to write on the bus on the way to my old job)
8:15-12:00 - Work
12:00-1:00 - Lunch, I usually spend at least a half an hour writing and eating.
1:00 - 4:30 - Work
4:30 - 4:45 - Commute
4:45 - 7:30 - Spend time with my son, eat supper, do odds and ends around the house
7:30 - 8:00 - Put son to bed
8:00 - 10:00 - Quality time with my wife
10:00-7:00 - Sleep (well as much as I can with a 6week old sharing the bed)

Weekends are entirely at the wit and whim of my wife and any free time I can sneak in go into upkeep and maintenance of our home/cars etc.

So about three weeks ago I sat down with my wife and we had a very frank discussion about how serious I was about writing and how I felt that I wasn't getting the time I needed to do it. I would like to say that I feel that my wife is supportive of my writing, and in her own way I guess she is, however she is not willing to sacrifice any of her time with me to let me pursue my passion. I sat down and thought about what I could sacrifice. After all it is my passion. I looked at my schedule. Sleeping from 10:00 - 7:00? Sometimes we are even in bed earlier. Do I really need nine hours of sleep? I wanted to do two things. Prove to my wife that I was serious about my writing (she is not without cause to think I may not be, I chased the dream once and abandoned it) and I also wanted to prove it to myself.

I'm not sure what other people are like but to me sleep is one of the most important things in the world. If I could sleep 10-12 hours every night I would. I had to tell myself that writing was more important than getting 9 instead of 8 hours of sleep. That is easy to do on the front end but I already expressed earlier why I shouldn't stay up later.

Three weeks ago I decided that it was time. I had to tell myself that writing is more important than sleeping and if I wanted to write 6:00am was the time to do it. No one is awake, I have until 7:30 before I have to get ready for work (on Saturdays I can sometimes even write until 9:00!) and it's just me and my coffee and a bowl of Shredded Wheat with a little too much brown sugar on it.

If You Want to Be an Early Morning Writer...

1: Just Do it!

If you are already a morning person than you obviously don't have much trouble getting going. Me, I find that I have drank an entire pot of coffee before I have gotten the energy to even blink. You have to realize it's a mind set, a habit you must break, figure out your priorities. I always thought that getting up before you had to was for old people. That normal people stayed in bed for as long as they possibly could, calculating what you could shave off time wise to hit that snooze button one more time. An hour and a half of writing? That's like ten hits on the snooze button! STOP IT! If you can't find anything other than some sleep time to sacrifice for writing time you are likely a grown up (I'd use adult but I was that long before I became a grown-up). As a grown up you don't need to laze around in bed as long as you can. If you are serious about writing then use this time. If you have to skip watching the news and go to bed an hour earlier so be it.

2: Eliminate Distractions
It is so much easier to surf, hang out on twitter, catch up on e-mail and all the other things that computers are used for. It's time to pretend your computer is a typewriter. The computer I use is almost old enough to vote. I can't hook up to the Internet if I wanted to. Have an old laptop kicking around? Use that if you can. Trust me, early in the morning is the easiest time to click on the little e (or C or whatever) and then before you know it, it's time for work. Unplug your computer from the Internet, create a profile that can't access. Do something that will keep you from turning on the Internet. This time is for writing only, not even anything writer related (research/marketing etc). Have your coffee and breakfast ready before you start, feed and walk your dogs, drug your wife, whatever it takes to eliminate anything that will get in the way of your productivity.

3: Start With "Mindless" Work
I knew from the get go that there was no way I could write new stuff at that time in the morning. If you are an outliner, that's awesome. Don't try outlining, try filling stuff in. I am not an outliner, I am a plodder. If I try to plod ahead with my story this early in the morning when I'm not used to hid my face will be in the dirt. Nothing is more disheartening writing page after page of crap.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no.......... you get the picture.

I had a story written in a few notebooks. I used that. I just started transcribing it. It was pretty mindless work and I was able to write almost 1000 words everyday from it. I'm likely one of a few that actually hand writes much but what you can do is edit, go through your WIP and re-read it. If you don't want to do that what about rehashing and old story that you've written. Maybe you have no choice but to work on either your WIP or something new. Do what you wish, but if you are frustrated that your writing is sub-par take it down a notch.

4: No Excuses
I do it six days a week. I take Sundays off because, lets face it, I'm dedicated but not crazy. Think of it like your job. If you stayed up late the night before and were really tired could you sleep in in the morning? (The answer is no by the way). You have to tell yourself you are doing this because you are a serious writer. Explain to those around you that getting up early doesn't mean unloading the dishwasher or taking the dogs for an extra walk or changing a poopie diaper. If you wake up to a puddle on the floor from a blown pipe think to yourself, if I had woken up an hour later then what? Go write and deal with it in a hour.

5: Be Accountable
Share your writing with people, your S.O., tweet about it, set goals and share them in a Blog with a table. My goal is to write at least 500 words every morning. I tried to set up a club on twitter (#6amWriters) where you reported you word count and encouraged others to share theirs. So far I have only convinced one person to do it one time, I blame it on #pubwrite. If this could get off the ground it would be a great resource. I find that it's all fine and good to set your goals and try to achieve them but if the only guilt you feel for not doing it is your own you eventually loose focus and that snooze button starts growing again.

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Setting: Writing What You Know

2011-05-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

My current most active WIP takes place here in Calgary. I have avoided using places I know well in other stories I have written because I'm always afraid that the reader won't be able to connect with a place he has never been to or isn't part of popular culture. Let's face it, although Calgary is growing and is a major centre by Canadian standards, it isn't New York (or even Fargo for that matter). So here are some question I would like to ask of people:

Where do your stories take place?
How do you introduce your setting?
If you set your story in a well known location (London/New York/Hong Kong) do you assume that everyone knows enough about it to skip over major details?
If you set your story in a less famous place what to you include to familiarize your reader with it?

And here is an exercise:
Paint a picture with words of this vista:

Finding my Writing Vice. A Journey to Addiction

2011-05-02T11:55:00.007-06:00

The wine urges me on, the bewitching wine, which sets even a wise man to singing and to laughing gently and rouses him up to dance and brings forth words which were better unspoken.

---Homer

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

---Ernest Hemingway

I need a vice. It always seems that the most creative people have addictions of some sort, even Robert Munsch admitted to a drug addiction (No, not the zany random Robert Munsch). Two of my favourite literary figures, Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway are both notoriously known for their life's excesses, it played heavily into their writing and without it they likely would not have been as successful as they were.

I doubt I can ever be taken seriously as a writer. Who wants to read a story from someone who is happily married, never been to rehab or jail and doesn't even have a tattoo (I'm glad so few read this blog otherwise I would be so embarrassed). For Christ's sakes the skeletons in my closet came with the house and I have the documentation to prove it!

I think the best sounding addiction for a writer is a sex addiction, the problem with that is (at least for male writers) is that an unsuccessful man does not make a very good bedfellow and being able to bed enough woman to be able to fulfill the necessary criteria for an addiction for someone who would have difficulty finding willing partners would really cut into writing time.

I used to smoke pot occasionally as a youth but, with the side effect of getting a good nights sleep and it's inability to be a gateway drug for me, it was almost the anti-drug. At one time I could drink a 26 of rye (that's 26 oz of Canadian Whiskey for those that may not know) but that was before I owned a computer. Have you ever tried using a typewriter drunk? On a side note, they're a bitch to clean up when you puke on them! That level of alcohol use was completely impractical when you lived at home and by the time I could afford, both time wise and dollar wise, to maintain a 26oz a day drinking habit my body couldn't handle it. When it comes to hangovers I am a big baby and it's incredibly hard to find sympathy for hangovers (apparently it can be found in the dictionary between shit and syphilis but I've never bothered looking).

I found that I am way too much of a cheap bastard to be able to afford the "good drugs." If I was making enough money to buy coke or heroine that would likely mean that I was already successful, see the loop? I couldn't really imagine snorting cocaine off a designer coffee table with a $100 bill, first of all that coffee table could likely buy me a Macbook and the $100 bill would go a long ways to some really awesome writing software never mind the cost of the blow.

I used to have cigarettes. God bless cigarettes, just bad ass enough for some legitimacy but not overly interfering with your day to day life, or so I always thought. It turns out that when you have kids and a wife, who doesn't smoke, it's quite frowned upon. It's not that enjoyable to stand outside at -30° shivering with your wife standing at the door giving you a dirty look and trying to keep the kids from seeing you for fear that they may start the same dirty habit. It turned from a love of smoking (I really did love to smoke despite the known health risks) to smoking a butt in 3 minutes to keep me from freaking out. I decided it was time to quit. It's been four months.

Image by Bortwein

What does that leave me with coffee? Coffee? Who ever heard of a great artist dying from a coffee overdose.

D. Ryan Leask, celebrated author known for his excessive lifestyle and gritty real novels died today of an apparent coffee overdose, he was 36. He had struggled with addiction his entire life and had recently been released from the Juan Valdez Clinic in Bogota, where he had been seeking treatment for caffeine over the last three months. He is survived by his Three Ex-Wives, Elizabeth, Brittany and Kiki as well as numerous children.

I do have a coffee addiction but that is about as shocking as discovering dogs have a propensity for ballsack licking. As far as vices go coffee is a weak one (but if you take my coffee away I swear to the almighty that I will rip out your gullet and shove it up a lion's ass!)

So in an effort to legitimize my future writing career and with much research and consultation with my family, my physician and numerous other people in my life I have decided to pursue an addiction, although not as lethal as Meth or as satisfying as Tequila but:

My god I love Shoestring licorice!

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

RIP Typewriters - What's your dream writing tool? What do you use now?

2011-04-26T10:37:00.006-06:00

A trending topic on Twitter today is RIP Typewriters (See top story here). Apparently the last manufacturer outside of China to make Typewriters has closed it's doors. I am 35 years old so I came in on the cusp of the takeover of typewriters by word processors. I went to high school in a very small town so we only had a handful of computers (Apple IIe, remember those?) and most of our typing classes still took place on a typewriter. I actually owned a typewriter at one time, a hybrid kind of thing where it stored one line of text before it printed it so you could correct your errors. It also had a correction ribbon so you could go back and fix mistakes. Of course this thing went the way of the Dodo once I got my first computer.

There is something to be said for typewriters though. The back lit screen of a computer monitor gives me a headache after a while and editing on a hard copy is so much easier than on screen (and never mind the mess that white out makes on your monitor ☺). It doesn't matter how many times I read something digitally I tend to find myself skimming through it. When I print it out I am able to focus on what I'm reading. The problem is I never have ink for my printer so I never get to print and a part of me thinks it's such a waste of paper. The other issue is that edits done on hard copy still have to be changed to digital.

So will I miss typewriters HELL NO but there has to be something better out there for writing than a computer for word processing, if there is please tell me what it is!

Some of my loyal followers know that I am not a gadget tech guy, I use what works and is cheap and effective. I do not own a single Apple product, I text tweet from my DumbPhone™, my Internet computer is a small Netbook that was free with coupons my wife got, my other computer, which I affectionately call my Dinosaur, is twelve years old and will no longer function on-line. I have a Kobo E-Reader which I love but is also the least techie of all of them. While I'm at it, I only own a Wii, my biggest TV is a 32" LCD I have no HD Channels on my cable, our other TV is an old fashioned CRT type. We don't have a blue-ray player or a PVR. I can't think of any other techie things that other people "can't live without" that we don't have. We just don't need them. So what do I like? I like things that are simple and do the job and not a whole lot more.

So where am I going with this? I would like to describe my perfect word processor:

No Back lit Screen -The best reading screen I have seen is the Kobo
Full ergonomic Keyboard including number pad -Love that number pad
Ability to Use the Screen like a tablet -with a stylis to make hand written corrections and notes
Wireless connectivity to a Network, but only for transferring documents or printing, no Internet to distract you.
Best Friggin' Dictionary, Thesaurus available to man!

Does this thing exist? If so let me know and I will buy one!

I WOULD ALSO LIKE SOME FEEDBACK ON WORD PROCESSING PROGRAMS

What do you use and why?
What platform do you use and why?
What would your perfect platform/program look like?

You can answer these questions in the comments and if you wish or take the poll.

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

What to Do, What to Do, What to Do? My now WEEKLY blog

2011-04-18T12:47:00.009-06:00

I tweet, I blog daily, I have a weekly blog-story. I am participating in #5MinuteFiction and #SaturdayShorts I run a daily blog of Original Quotes by me which is somewhat associated with my Threadless T-Shirts Account where I routinely submit slogans for their Type Tee designs and am an active member or the Official Slogan Club. I finished 365 days of Sloganeering too.

Wow! How the hell did I stretch my writing so far?

I really have to be sure that I don't loose focus of what I am really trying to do which is finish something that I have been writing, be it "Richard Babcock and the Hollywood Starlette" or "Framed" or perhaps even "To Beat the Band".

I think it's great that I have made all of these connections, especially through Steve Umstead's #pubwrite (buy his E-Book Gabriel's Redemption) as well I now have six followers of this blog! I'm learning so much about publishing, dos and don't of writing and just very interesting stuff about other peoples writing lives. Fantastic!

I have people that would be interested in reading my work, potentially contacts with agents, thoughts on what to do in terms of publishing. I have tons of places to get my name out and to put out short stories for competitions.

Fantastic! Except...

I have nothing. Well almost nothing. I have "Counting Down the Storm" my novella which is currently only in paperback form of which I only have a few copies left. I really need to get it into e-book form as I really can't afford to have another run printed (yeah, I self-published it).

Now what I really need is to finish something new and here is how I am going to acomplish this.

Focus on only one story.

This is my biggest weakness, too many irons in the fire. I am currently working on "Richard Babcock..." and that is all (with the exception of #5MinuteFiction and #SaturdayShorts.)

#6amWriters- A Twitter Group that I am attempting to form. So far I am the only one but I pretend there are more to keep me accountable.

The purpose is to get up at 6am and write until I have to leave for work or on the weekend, the family gets up and harasses me.
Generally an hour to an hour and a half.
During this time, no internet, NONE! or tweeting
It has to be on ONLY one WIP
My goal is to write no less than 800 words and preferably >1000

#1KaDay- Another twitter group that focuses on writing 1000 words each and everyday.
Stop blogging this blog daily

I am going to limit this to once a week. I think that Mondays are a good day for it.

Not take on any other writing projects unless:

They Make me Money (Prize money kind of okay)
I have something outlined that would fit the criteria
Preferably both

Hope this works. I feel a bit like I put the cart before the horse so to speak but what the hell. Maybe I'll become really good friends with an influencial person and they will name drop me and I will get a million dollar book deal before I have even finished anything.

Which reminds me, I recently got pregnant while riding on a flying pig over atlantis and being chased by a Monster Army of Yeti Cyborgs! Wow, that was a day.....

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

And Please, Please do not ever use this line:
Sparkling like a vampire in the sunlight

Do Stories Have Their Own Lives? My #SaturdayShorts are too big.

2011-04-15T15:22:00.008-06:00

Tomorrow at 10am the contest #SaturdayShorts by Between the Lines closes. The contest states that a story be written involving Cats, Frogs and Vampire Bats. Easy. Written from the persepective of a child. Easy. Be less than 500 words. ~~Easy~~. WRONG.

The contest was declared on Wednesday and that night I quickly thought up the story and how it would go. Basically the son of a God wanting a friend on earth. Simple story. Here is the question. How many words is a thought?

(∞ x π)³ⁿ + 42

√(181-2(9x10)+1)

Approximately.

I am not obsessed with word counts. I have never written anything worrying about how long it is going to be. I use word counts merely as a sense of accomplishment when I have spend a period of time writing. I let the story carry on as long as it needs too. Characters are introduced, plots are laid out and shit happens.

The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog.

Eight words that tell a story, wouldn't be right if there were any more or any less.

I believe that every story has a word count already attached to it. The problem is that until the last word is written, edited revised re-edited and published (or placed in a drawer or burnt in the fire place or put in a drawer) a writer does not know what that word count will be.

So here I am sitting with a rather lovely little story of 1200 words wondering WTF can I cut out? Nothing but if I leave it at 1200 words it really has no life what-so-ever because I can't enter it in the competition. Do I just shelf it? It's too late to start again so perhaps I just say I tried, leave it for something else and try #SaturdayShorts next week.

BTW, if anyone wants to read it I will happily send it to you.

Thanks for Reading

D. Ryan Leask

Almost Getting Laid by a Vampress (c/w ugliest Vampire Picture I ever Drew!) and Avatar Contest

2011-04-14T12:31:00.005-06:00

My latest chapter of "Too Dumb to Dance" is out complete with an incredibly terrible picture I drew. Not sure why I am insisting on drawing a picture to go with each and every chapter but hey, what the hell.

One more little detail. I am running a contest over at Threadless (User Name Disgruntled_Pacifist) to design me a new avatar for use with regards to my writing. Are you a designer? Want a free signed copy of my book and a chance at designing a cover of a book later (if I can talk whatever publisher I may have into it). Show me some ideas.

Anyway go ahead and catch up or read it all in it's entirety for the first time. Off to work some more on my #SaturdayShorts (look it up on Twitter)

Thanks For Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Do My Twitter Multiple Personalities Cause my Followers to Ignore me?

2011-04-13T12:52:00.007-06:00

This blog was supposed to be about the next chapter of To Dumb To Dance but I forgot to save it on my USB stick and it's on my Dinosaur at home. So new topic.

Our Twitter Personalities.
I tweet alot, I think and I sometimes wonder if my lack of followers responses/retweets etc. as well as not being able to get many followers to this blog (where if you follow it you will recieve my novella Counting Down the Storm signed and free!) is due to my lack of focusing my tweets.

Do I tweet about too many things?
The main things that I tweet about are:

My Family

especially my son, I want to share my 2-½ year olds exploits as he discovers life
Example Tweet:

My 2 1/2 year old feeds the dogs all by himself #proudpapa
Would it be wrong of me to let my 2-1/2 y/o wash the floor with his special cloth? He wants to and it is covered in dirty dog prints

Threadless T-Shirts

I've made lots of friends here and like connecting and following them as well as promoting and retweeting their artwork
Example Tweet:

WIP - Loves Characters - T-shark by @RicoWarehouse Subbed! http://t.co/4SCJU8E via @threadless pre-voing hype. Too cool in every way!

Some have some very comical things to say which I often can't help replying to:
Example Tweet:

By @dschwen Apparently my credit card numbers went on a vacation without me to Florida.
My Reply: Did they at least buy you something nice?

I also take part in Sloganeering, a Threadless community of people who come up with smart, witty or thought provoking sayings using 62 characters or less. I send my own submissions to twitter and often retweet those of my friends and also ones that "Make Me Chortle Audibly" (thanks bygrinstow)

Random Thoughts

These are sort of related to my Threadless slogans but not always. I run a seperate blog here entitled ...and you can quote me (aka my brainfarts stink). I have a number of witty (at least to me) short thoughts about everything from food: Enjoy Rare Meat, Endangered Just Tastes Wrong to Monsters: I have my finger on the pulse of the Zombie Nation and lots in between. I toss one out everyday and usually a "classic" that was part of the blog before I started posting.
Example Tweet:

"It was a dark and stormy night but still no cliches happened." -D. Ryan Leask
more of my unfamous #quote s @ http://t.co/tCpVDRv #slogan
...and you can quote me: I'm Not a Geek I'm a Nerd, Geeks Bite Heads off Live Chickens... http://t.co/cQmHRZZ #quote

Sometimes I toss out lines like this tweet:

I'd want more followers but I'm paranoid people are following me ---Not Jesus

Writing

Although I started out tweeting as a means of promoting my Threadless slogans I was immediately swept up in the world of writing which is really my first (other than people) love. Most of my followers are of this variety as are most of the people I follow.
This is where I post things like links to this blog, word counts, my fledgling #6amWriters group (of which there are two) and tweets like this:

"Don't Tell anyone about my 'little' problem." He said. "It'll ruin my #sheetcred." |

"Sheetcred?" | 1/2 #amwriting #ruleswhenhavinsex
"Yeah, I have a rep to maintain." | "Come again?" She replied. |"Ha ha." | #amwriting #ruleswhenhavinsex (dialogue with no story... yet)

I also retweet interesting posts about writing etc. etc.

Randomness

I sometimes think I'm funny and tweet something using popular #hashtags and watch it retweet over and over again, it's like #BreedingDodos
Anything that is #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement about Jon Kyl is in fact #AFactualStatementAboutJonKyl

The question I ask myself is am I putting off people that follow me because of one of my above "personalities" due to the others? I want to be a real person, to share my thoughts: idiotic, random, eccentric and quirky, with the world, or at least a tiny corner of it.

If you think my approach is all wrong maybe let me know how to go about changing it. I would love some feedback!.

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

I'm a Finalist! Vote for Me! Five Minute Fiction Tuesday. UPDATE: I didn't win but it sure was fun

2011-04-12T12:58:00.007-06:00

Read the Winning Story Here

So I stumbled upon this fun little contest of Leah Petersen's #FiveMinuteFiction. Wow what a rush. How it works is a word is posted that must be used or be the basis of a story of which you have five minutes to write. The word is posted promptly at 1:30pm EST and post are not accepted after 1:45pm EST. You have 5 minutes to write and 10 minutes to sort out any issues. This happens every Tuesday. And Guess What?

Out of 19 Entries I was one of the Five Finalists.
Vote for it Here

This was my five minutes of fiction:

It was a rather amazing thing to find under the bottle cap. I had been walking along the beach to clear my head, well hangover really. It was a bit of a fuzzy night and I woke up alone although I could have sworn that someone had been in my bed at one time. Anyway I was walking along the beach, clearing my brain and failing at it and seriously contemplating a little Hair-O-The-Dog when I kicked a bottle.

I'm not normally one to pick up stray bottles of booze off the ground but I rationalized it as a sign that Hair-O-The-Dog was better than fresh air. Besides, the bottle was full and the seal was tight. Rum too, real Jamaican Rum.

I opened it up and smelled the cap. Already my head began to clear, the musty sweet smell of cane sugar, the rememberances of a warm belly and a serene brain. I looked inside the cap.

"Winner! See back for details." It said.

Odd, I don't recall any booze bottles having contests before.

I took my finger nails and popped out the rubber.

"Three Free Wishes, redeem at once." You've got to be kidding me. This day was going to look up after all.

Did You Like it?

Vote for it Here
(You can vote for someone elses instead if you wish, they are all great stories and all written in five minutes!)

Thanks for Reading
D. Ryan Leask

Live and Let Live With My Snooze Button and Thanks for Reading

2011-04-11T11:59:00.001-06:00

I had a minor argument with my wife over my writing. Basically I was mad because I wanted to do some writing when she wanted me to do some something other than writing thing. It was silly because it was something that is more important. So I had to make a decision, what are the important things in my life that get in the way of my writing?
#1: My Family

Why: Two children under the age of 3, a wife who works full time (or will again after her maternity leave ends in 11-½ months), two dogs that need walking and a zillion projects around the house that need to be done
Solution: Find time when they are not around to write or get away from it all.

#2: Work

Why: I work a regular 9-5 (okay 8:15-4:30) job. My work load isn't that great and I do sneak in a chance to write now and then, actually way too much and I'm afraid I could get busted especially because our computers are apparently heavily monitered, which I doubt.
Solution: Feel that I am getting enough writing done that I don't need to do any at work, save work for work and do a little bit of research/networking on breaks from work.

#3: Sleep

Why: I like my sleep, eight to nine hours of uninterupted sleep keeps me sane, anything less makes me irritable, inattentive and overly dependant on stimuli (coffee/sugar don't worry, nothing too damaging).
Solution: Well our daughter is now just over two weeks old so am I getting (anything close to) eight hours of sleep a night? Hell no, why don't I just get up at 6 a.m. and write? She gets up then anyway and therefor I'm awake and by the time I'd get back to sleep it would be time to get up anyways.
Excuse: I'm not awake enough to be productive.
Suck it Up: I have lots written down that hasn't been put to type so I don't even really have to think and I'm sure after some dedication and getting used to being up at 6 a.m. this will change.

What am I really giving up in the longrun? I may have to go to bed a little earlier, so what, miss some TV watching? The kids should be in bed by 7-8 anyways and I'll still get some cuddle time with the wife. What I am really giving up is sleeping longer in the morning, it's a habit, and a bad one and if I want to take my life and my writing more seriously it's time to grow up act like a man with two kids, a family, a real job and a passion for writing.

Besides, someday my snooze button is gonna hit me back!

-----

So I really want to sign off every blog with the same thing. I sign my books, if they aren't too personalized, Thanks for Reading. I thought it is kind of lame but when I try anything else it just doesn't feel the same. I gave it some serious consideration and I am going to make it my Thing. First of all it says two things, thanks for reading my book, and thanks for reading in general. I think that the art of reading is fading. There are many entertainment portals these days and I'm not sure of the actual stats, I'm sure that reading isn't very high on any of those lists. As an "entertainer" in that field I just want to say, thanks for chosing this medium for your entertainment needs and chosing me specifically to fulfill them. So to all that ever have or will ever read anything,

Thanks for Reading!

D. Ryan Leask
Author of Counting Down the Storm
and other unpublished/unfinished works

From Moleskin to Microchips, getting started again

2011-04-08T12:38:00.002-06:00

Would you read a story that started with

I was just finishing up a case I was working on, the case was scotch and I'd just about gotten to the bottom of it...

After spending time looking over all of my old notebooks filled with fragments of stories and getting frustrated with where I am with my serial killer story I have decided to take some time to move
Richard Babcock and the Case of the Hollywood Starlet
from moleskin to microchips. I'm kind of excited too. I forgot how far I had actually gotten with this story. I only wrote it when I needed something to lighten the mood when I was doing darker stuff.

Synopsis:
Richard Babcock is a stereo-typical Hollywood detective, drunk, down on his luck and broke. He's a throwback to the 1940s but 20 years too late and 1960s Hollywood is not the same place for a Film Noir reject. A famous Hollywood Starlet stumbles across his path and solicits his help in trying to find out who is trying to kill her and why.

Something told me it was a good time to head back to 1175 Vermont, walk into my office and tell Miss Movie-star where to put her ten grand, that was the part of me that was almost a new paint job on my old ford. But who was I kidding? My life wasn't worth ten grand, she got a bargain.

At some point this Hollywood Princess ends up having to stay at Babcocks office.

"Mr. Babcock!" She furiously pulled the coat around her shoulders. I noticed her dress folded neatly on top of a small white suitcase. "Do you not have any respect for a Ladies Privacy?"

"With all due respect, lady, this is my office and that's my bed your sleeping on."

Complete with car chases even, wow!

I helped her stuff the few things she had in her bag then grabbed a few odds and ends (scotch) of my own. We ran out the back and tossed the stuff in her trunk. I heard a car brake hard and looked. It was the same Lincoln that followed me from the Roosevelt.

"Get in!" I ordered and yanked the driver's door open got in, started the car and threw it into reverse in one fluid motion. She was seated but hadn't even gotten her door closed. "Hold on!" I barked and raced backwards towards the offending car.

Anyway, hope this was a tease and not a bore!

Later
D.

Too Dumb to Dance

2011-04-07T14:10:00.002-06:00

Dear Constant Readers:

I hope that none of you are crying in your pillows about the demise of Karma's a Bitch. I know I'm not (and as I am likely the only "Constant Reader" they you aren't either). I have replaced it with an epic journey of three young men trying to make it in the world of Competitive Men's Throw Dancing.

Not Since Slingovich and Flotosky has there been such talent unleashed upon this world.

I hope to have weekly chapters added to this saga on the Too Dumb to Dance page of this blog. Read, follow, comment, critique, pan, review share, make fun of.

So far there are three chapters up.

Too Dumb to Dance
Enjoy!

D.

I Miss Type Writers

2011-04-06T13:26:00.003-06:00

Well, not really but in a way they were really the best word processors as far as readability.

I recently bought a Kobo after looking at the screen for about 5 seconds. It is a nifty device that, wait for it...

IS ONLY AN E-READER

Wow! What a simple concept, a device that only has one purpose. I don't want to go on a tech rant here but I am really sick of "Swiss Army Knife" technology where one little device does everything imaginable but whose original function is all but lost, like a cell phone for instance, I swear to god that one day someone is going to come out with a cell phone and forget to include calling features.

Now don't get me wrong, these all in one devices are very handy to have but they can't replace everything. Digital books are a great example of technology that should have taken off much sooner, why didn't they? No one wanted to read a book on their computer screen and I can't blame them. Could they read them on a phone, hell no, you would lose your mind so eventually someone was smart enough to stand back and say, "Wait, we need a device that is like a book." Bingo! I think we need more single function technology.

So where I am really going with this is that if books are hard to read on a computer screen why then are we still using them for word processing? Someone needs to come out with a Kobo type device for writing. Could you imagine how wonderful it would be to type everything out reading it as you used to from your old type written pages without having to then re-enter it into your computer?

Anyway, that's my writing thoughts for today.

(I Really Need a Fancy Sign Off Phrase)

D

Writing in Loops & Short Stories vs Novels

2011-04-05T09:33:00.002-06:00

The Endless Loop

In order to write a book you must first have time
In order to have time you must avoid having a "real" job
To avoid having a "real" job you must have passive income
To have passive income you must have either:

A Spouse
In order to have a spouse you must have time to spend with/finding said spouse and any offspring that comes with this union
Plan Abort

Royalties
In order to have royalties you must be:

Published
To be published you should have an agent
To have an agent you need to have a book
Plan Abort

Self Published
To self publish you need money to publish your book and time to promote it as well as an excellent editor
Plan Abort

To avoid this endless loop there are two options

Plug away for years writing five minutes at a time in a dark corner somewhere when your wife/boss/child/prison guard isn't looking and hope that you complete your epic journey before you die then hope that someone discovers your work post mortem and they like it.
Go to university majoring in English or something and plan a career being a writer and having a job that caters to your dreams

Having missed opportunity #2 building a time machine and travelling back to 1994 and altering your course(s) then figuring out how to have all the people in your life you have now.

I think I am just going to suck it up and go with option #1.

Short Stories vs Novels
As I have alluded to a few times I have difficulty focusing my thoughts on just one story but I really need to so I ask you my constant reader(s) to assist me on the best course of action.

Complete a short story for submission to magazines/compolations etc.
Complete a novel to send to agencies etc.

Let's us just assume for a second that both the novel and short story are of equal quality.

New Baby Girl!

2011-04-04T10:01:00.001-06:00

Yeap.

It seems to me that I really started getting heavily involved in my writing before my son was born too then it just dwindled as I decided to reroute my writing time into fathering time. I hope that's not going to happen again. I want to be able to manage my time far better for all of my loves!

That is all I have to say for now.

Keeping Focus, Smoking and Stuff I've Started and Never Finished.

2011-03-23T13:47:00.004-06:00

My wife thinks that I may suffer from ADHD, she's an elementary school teacher so she knows it when she sees it. I have been thinking the same thing over the past several months. I especially have been seeing it since I quit smoking.

I started smoking when I was 14. It was like a "Where have you been all my life?" Most people coughed and hacked and nearly died with their first cigarette, I wish that had been me, I tend to not do things that make me feel terrible more than once (like eating Lentil soup).

More than 20 years and several attempts later I think I have kicked the habit. Not sure how long it will take me to give up the gummy ---insert animal here--- addiction will take to kick but that is a problem for another time.

Anyway, I digress (which really should be tattooed on my forehead)

Cigarettes gave me a break, a chance to focus on one thing, smoking, glorious wonderful opening the blood vessels slowing the heart rate smoking. When I smoked my mind was able to wander freely which then allowed me to focus when I returned to my task. My mind now wanders freely whenever the hell it feels like it. Perhaps I was self medicating with cigarettes, a diagnosis I was given for a related disorder I suffer from, depression which, incidentally enough is also a symptom of ADHD!

So as I am not going to start smoking again perhaps I should talk to my doctor. I think if I was able to focus I would be a much better writer, perhaps even an author, and not just a starter.

which is a segway into the next part. Stuff I started and never finished:

To Beat the Band
A story about a small town band that gets discovered years after they gave up making music and went their own ways.
-About 200 typed pages completed
-I kind of got to the meaty part of the story then the ending popped into my head, I wrote it down and that seemed to end my interest in the story.

Untitled Group of Related Stories
I just wanted to write a number of stories about very sick people from their points of view. I used the Ten Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins as a rough concept of what people could and would do but did not focus on these. I started several stories as well as the underlying theme, characters and setting which was a beautiful and secluded spot I spent a few weeks in north of Pheonix.
-About 50 pages

Framed: The Story of Henry James Smith (A Killer)
Terrible Title but I'm sure something better will arise.
A story of a serial framer. He goes around killing people so he can watch others be blamed and prosecuted for their deaths.
-About 100 pages written
-I'm having issues with POV and the character that is required to pull the whole thing together I just can't relate to. The murder scenes are wicked fun to write and I have a whole vault of them written I just need to tie them all together with a stronger story.

Too Dumb To Dance - (A Blogged Story)
The world of Mens Pairs Competitive Throw Dancing
-Three postings. I have a bunch more written in some notebook somewhere.

Richard Babcock and the Case of the Disappearing Startlette
A Hollywood Film Noir type book
-Written inside a couple of notebooks somewhere
.....
-------
My ADHD his kicked in again

I found my notebooks! I really need to spend some time digitizing them. I have some stuff in there that I forgot I even wrote!

I won't bore you readers with anymore of what I have started and perhaps just say that I'm going to add some pages someday of short stories. I need motivating and I think looking over something I have worked on previously will keep me from starting on a new idea almost everyday.

D.

Alongside Frankenstein & Dracula, we need a new monster

2011-03-22T14:33:00.002-06:00

Some of my favourite classics are horror. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are perhaps two of the greatest works of fiction and the pinnacle of horror monsters. I’m sure that there is not an author out these who does not site these stories as inspiration for their own monster, whether they be true monsters or merely ones that manifest through the psyche.

Where are monsters now? The real ones. Is it the lack of innocence that does not allow such creations any longer, maybe our society is so full of real dangers and real monsters that to create one from scratch such as Dracula he would have to be so horrific that he would be deemed unreadable.

I know that there is likely at least one new monster created everyday by artists and writers and I am not talking about psycho clowns, Zombies, aliens etc. I am talking about creating a whole new species of monster, or taking a little known myth and bringing it global. Something really freaking scary. Are there too many writers these days? Too many genres? Maybe no one takes horror seriously enough anymore. The other possibility is that Twilight destroyed all things sacred in the realm of monsters.

---God damn “Vegetarian” vampires---

I think it’s time for someone to capture the imagination of the world using Bram’s or Mary’s formula and create a whole new monster. Mankind is ripe for finding such a thing. The icecaps are melting, we are deforesting at a tremendous rate. Pollution has to create/mutate something. Science is appearing to be limitless.

Here are a few places to look and what you may find there:
• Mountains of Northern Siberia
     • An abandoned USSR radiation test site.
     • A radiation experiment gone tremendously wrong
     • A living space, air, walls the entire structure is aware

• Frozen Alive in the Antarctic Glaciers
     • A true Dragon, buried in the ice
     • It is slowly reanimating as the holds of the cold grow warmer

• The Jungles of Borneo
     • An unknown species of humanoid, more naturally evolved

• The Jungles of Peru
     • Nazi deserters brought experiments to a camp deep in the jungles only to be murdered by
       tribes.
     • Their experiment is held by the tribesmen, a super-soldier who has yet to be “Armed”

Of course I don’t think any of these are anywhere near Stoker/Shelley brilliance, or could they? Given the right (not likely me) writer maybe they could.

D.

A Magicless Wizard and Wise words for Flatulant Fungal Spore Creatures From Outerspace

2011-03-16T15:34:00.002-06:00

I’d like to give the rules for the game that got me here today. I call it the
ASPIRING WRITER game. On your turn, you write a book. Then you submit. Then you
roll a 500-sided die, don’t look at it, cover it up. Wait 3 to 6 months (or
longer), then uncover the die. Is it on number 42? Nope? Well, write another
book. Submit both of your books. Roll two 500-sided die, don’t look at them,
cover them up. Wait 3-6 months (or logner), then uncover the die. Is it on
number 42? Nope? Well, repeat the above steps as often as necessary. And
remember, the game only ends when you quit.

---A. Lee Martinez

From his Blog Post: Zen of Games

Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies.

---Robert McKee

From Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting

(Quoted in Rachel Walsh's Blog Post: Boxing-In Your Muse)

Two completely unrelated quotes. Nothing to do with what I am going to talk about today.

My most productive imagination time is right before bed. It is the only time I have to myself that is quiet and I am able to contemplate things that do not matter in the real world. I generally lay awake for an hour moving and creating characters, figuring out how to set scenes and so on. Obviously I can't write any of this down the best I can do is try to retrieve it from my flawed memory tracks and commit it to paper. It never works as well as it did the night before. I wish someone would invent some sort of USB attachment for our brains.

That being said though I have formed and begun to write the opening sequence for my Were-squirrel story, the epic battle that led The Wizard to attempt to save lives of men by giving them "blood transfusions" (we are talking middle ages here so an extremely rudimentary attempt) using blood from Wolves and other wild animals.

It's a back story and a start to the Ware (Weir, Wiere, Were Where etc.) family, their special place in the world and their powers. The Wizard, a character whom I can not seem to give a name too that doesn't sound either incredibly stupid or too close to Merlin, is becoming very interesting and I think perhaps he needs to be in more places. I guess we'll see, it's the joy of writing.

The fun of The Wizard is that he is in fact a wizard and he also knows that magic does not exist. His magic and that of all wizards and witches is simply training, luck, observance and centuries of experiments. I sure wish I knew more about magic, not the fairy tale kind but the real behind the scenes stuff. Oh well, one of my favourite personal slogans:

Sometimes I just make shit up

Will apply well here.

As for Karma. I am going to give "Squirrel-boy" a rest and do a few lines (The Charlie Dickens kind, not the Charlie Sheen kind) and see how it goes.

"When lacking in action one must compensate with wit"

D.
P.S. I realized that up until now I have mention nothing about Flatulant Fungal Spore Creatures From Outerspace.

Karma is really turning out to be a bitch & A "Novel" Idea for an agent I'm following on Twitter

2011-03-15T15:09:00.003-06:00

Part One

So over the past couple of days I wrote several pages outlining my character Karma. I ran into a pitfall that perhaps others can understand. I was making her a situation driven character. I made everything work out just right so she would be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in order for the story to pick her up however in doing so I made her waaay too nice and waaay to unbelievable.

I had to shake my head when I realized that I had a 19 year old owner of a tattoo parlour who got there because of incredible book smarts and the kindness of others. To that I say

POPPYCOCK!!!

Yes, that's what I said.

I have decided that she got that tattoo parlour out of pure manipulation, seduction and black mail, that's more like my little fiery vixen!

Part Two

Sara Megibow, of the Nelson Literary Agency wrote on her facebook:

What am I looking for from young adult novels in the slush pile?...dorky
heroes, Vikings, pirates, ocean adventures, space ships, terraforming, first
contact (that's geek sf talk for "aliens"), romance, spring vacations gone awry,
travel, multiculturalism and global settings, elves, dragons, magic, monsters,
haunted houses...and, of course, a great story that's well told. :)

I think I have just the thing for her. It is very unlikely she is following this blog and as right now it isn't much more than a couple of pages and an idea I wouldn't contact her but it has inspired me to get back to it. This is the concept:

----------------
An 11 year old boy can't wait until his 12th birthday, actually to be exact the first full moon on his 12th birthday. You see Harold Ware is a Ware (or as they are known to the rest of the world "Weres") Most people are familiar with Werewolves, which are by far the most common type, but there are all kinds of other creatures that Wares turn into as well; Bears, Jaguars, Birds of Prey, Foxes and even Deer and Songbirds to just name a few.

The prophecy states that on the first full moon of the thirteenth year your true identity shall be revealled. This means Harold will get to find out what he will be. His branch of the family is particulary revilled for it variety. His oldest brother is a Werebear, his sister (female weres are incredibly rare) is a Great Grey Owl. His father is a wolf but his Great-Great Grandfather was a great Black Stallion and strangest of all was that his grandmother, who was from a very distant family branch of Wares was a beautiful maiden, not that she was homely during other phases of the moon but during the full moon her beauty was beyond enchanting and ageless. Never before and never since has there been a Were-human.

------------------------
See, I am getting into it already. The above is just brain farts and just more of a description than anything you would see in the story. A couple of other things about Harold is that he is a narotic child who believes (and may be right) that he suffers from an OCD, he is the super geekiest, wierdest child (may tune it back a bit). He is so excited to become something else. Here's the kicker though, when his true identity is revealed to him he is a squirrel.

Nuts eh?

Anyway, I hope it doesn't sound too lame, I think it will work and seems to be working out in my mind and on paper so anyway, I'll keep you posted with my progress on that.

D.

Social Media can Really Suck, and Suck you in

2011-03-10T16:22:00.002-07:00

I hate Facebook, I really do. It's funny how many people come out of the woodwork and how many of them you wish would have stayed in there. At first I thought it was cool getting in touch with old friends and seeing what they were up to but as time went on I realized that:

A) I had nothing to say to most of them

and

B) People became addicted to finding everyone they ever knew and as time went on I would fall into these categories. Unfortunately I was far too polite to decline friend requests from people I knew.

I started a new facebook account under a false name and told only those closest to me where I was. The trouble is that now I want to have a Facebook page more directed towards me as a writer. I tried to revive my old one but it was so full of crap that I gave up, then I tried to just start a new one but without redoing all of my contact information (as my writing e-mail is associated with my old account) I can't seem to. WTF? I'm making (hopefully) some contacts on Twitter which is good and I would like to carry this over onto Facebook but not onto my personal one.

Speaking of Twitter, I need to cut back, man it's stupidly addicting, why? Maybe it's just me, I do get addicted to things, I just quit smoking, I used to spend an abnormally huge amount of time in chatrooms at one time, I'm a bit of a Threadless T-Shirt Forum junkie and I can watch TV for hours if not for the intervention of my "Can't get addicted to anything ever" wife. Now if only I could revive my writing addiction without any kind of interuption.

D

More stuff added to Karma is a Bitch

Writing and Giving It Away For Free

2011-03-09T15:30:00.003-07:00

Earlier I had posted about Kindles and a thought I had had of giving all the rights to Counting Down the Storm to them for free. Still thinking about that. Today I saw a twitter post that read:

Would we have had Shakespear, if he'd had to write for free? (part of a link to this article which is not what I am discussing here really)

Tis true but it would be exceptionally difficult for a man in his era to have access to media that would showcase his work without having someone who paid him. Today is not the case. I have to admit that at this stage in my writing *cough career *cough that exposure and having people actually read what I write, like you kind folks for instance, is far more important than any kind of financial reward. I am willing to give things away for free. Even if later on down the road I have to fight to get what is rightfully mine it is still worth it, that fight could very well be the publicity I needed anyways.

Here's the thing. Whatever I do write and post online is more or less in the public domain and very unlikely to be touched by any reputible publisher. That's okay with me. Maybe one of them will see something and wonder what else I have written.

In the end does it really matter? I have a day job and I highly doubt that I will ever be lucky enough to not need one. I want to be read and not because I have some ground breaking philosopies to share or because I think I'm important, I want to be read because I want to entertain people, and I want to entertain people to give me purpose for my writing. Lets face it no one (without major psychological defects) would write fiction if they never believed anyone would read it.

So this post is probably all over the place because I keep getting interupted but what I really want to say is that I am going to just toss out my story "Karma is a Bitch"

Start Reading it Here

Story Concept (Working Title "Karma is a Bitch")

2011-03-08T13:58:00.002-07:00

I get so many random ideas in my head and I have trouble focusing on any one story line so I thought what the hell, everytime something pops into my head I'm going to write a bit about it.

Last night as I was laying in bed I had an idea pop into my head. It goes something like this:

It starts out with this guy (Dwayne) having sex with a delivery room nurse right after the birth of his eighth child. I goes on and recounts some of the shitty things he has done in his life.

So somehow someway he has a rich relative who leaves his entire estate to Dwayne's oldest child. Of course Dwayne is delighted because his oldest is 16 so he has access to it. In the process of procuring his "rightful" inheritance it is discovered that Betsy-Lynn, his ditsy 16 year old daughter is not his oldest, instead an insightful and streetsmart nineteen year old girl named Karma.

I don't want this to be a feel good story as it would appear to be. I'm thinking that this girl named Karma is Karma itself and she manages to kick the crap out of Dwayne. Her goal would be to attempt to balance the force of Karma that he so heavily tipped when he was to get the inheritance.

Anyway just a strange thought. May just turn into a touchy feely feel good story of how someone can change and yadda yadda bullshit. Can't see me writing something like that but then again I do have a little girl who is only days away from coming into my life so anything is possible.

When I remembered this idea this morning I thought that it seemed a little too much like My Name is Earl but when I think about it more I don't think so. Thoughts? I say that like anyone other than me really reads this :D

Why I Prefer Writing Short Stories

2011-03-04T15:50:00.003-07:00

Of course my ultimate goal is to write the not-so-great un-American Novel but in the mean time I just want to write some short stories. It’s so hard to have the uninterrupted time it takes to write a novel without losing your place. I write kind of like I read, start and can’t put the book down until it’s done. I need to break myself of this habit as it tends to leave a couple hundred pages of story with no clear direction and a need to read every page before getting back to it if I hadn’t looked at it for a couple of weeks.

Being able to write a short story in one or two sittings is much more preferable to me. I don’t need to worry as much about screwing up characters, messing up timelines or going too far into the back story and never coming out. All rookie mistakes I’m sure and anyone who reads this that happens to be an accomplished writer is probably rolling their eyes at me right now.

So where does that leave me?

I am in the middle of writing a book about a Serial Killer who gets off less in the murder and more in the watching others go to jail for it. I have wrote several detailed murders that in and of themselves could make for interesting stand alone stories.

I have my two related stories from Counting Down the Storm

A couple of things I wrote for a concept story I had involving the Devils Motel

I also have two new story ideas, one about a Hitman and his unstoppable and illogical need for a post kill burger
The other about an elderly man who finally gives in to his curiosity of how it feels to kill someone.

As you can see I have a theme. Sunshine and Lollipops!

Anyway it’s the weekend which for most would mean some time to relax and maybe sit at a keyboard for an hour or two but for me it means working my ass off getting ready for Baby Girl Evangelina, finishing the basement stairs, cleaning up and if given the chance, breathing.

Is it terrible that I almost hope my contract isn’t extended at the end of September just so I can really focus on what I want to do?

Saying that makes me feel really selfish.

Kindles and Other Such Electronic Reading Devices (ERD)

2011-03-03T16:20:00.002-07:00

The Reader’s PerspectiveI haven’t personally used an ERD and have only tried to read a novel on-line once, it was terribly hard on the eyes, I know that the new technology has fixed all that and the devices do seem pretty slick but I can’t see myself getting one.

Call me a little bit old fashioned but I like the look, feel and smell of a book. I like the feeling of turning over a page or rustling through the pages trying to find a passage that didn’t make sense until now.

Searching for my bookmark or folding over a page to mark a spot seems like a burden to some but to me it’s all part of the experience. I also like to pick up a book at a store or in the library and look it over, flip through a few pages, read the back, read the flaps it’s kind of like shopping for a car, after all you are going to be spending a few intimate hours with it.

The Conscientious Citizen’s Perspective
If ERDs replace books completely it would increase illiteracy rates world wide as most of the World’s population does not have access to necessary technology let alone something as luxurious as an ERD. Books are hard enough to come by. Things like libraries would have to completely change how they do business and would likely not be able to keep up. On one hand it would reduce waste tremendously as well as reduce paper usage if we stopped having hard copies of our daily newspapers and everything else but in reality the loss would far outweigh the gain.

The Writer’s Perspective
Fuckin’ Eh! I think that these things are the last great hope for the written word. I wondered ever since the beginning of the personal computer how long it would be until getting books electronically would be the norm. Books are getting increasingly expensive and less people are buying them and reading them, if ERDs become reasonably priced and getting books because incredibly easy I think more and more people will start reading again. I think much of the younger generation embrace anything technological and view books as archaic. I personally am going to try to give my little novella to Amazon to have for free for their Kindles, just as an experiment. I will likely fail in trying to do that but what the hell.

I think all writers (except Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer, J.K. Rowling…) need to embrace this technology and try to get in while the technology is still new if it isn’t too late already.
←————————————————————————————————————→
I would be really interested in the opinions of any other writers on this, weigh in please!

My Little Sister is an Alien

2011-03-02T16:32:00.001-07:00

So other than my almost Daily Threadless slogans the only other writing I have been able to complete is a children's story I wrote for my son. Called:

MY SISTER IS AN ALIEN

It was written to kind of give him some ideas of what it's going to be like to be a big brother which is going to happen in less than three weeks!

The gist of the story is that Max thinks his little sister is an alien because she is nothing like him and does all sorts of weird things.

I am doing a rough draft of all the art too but I'm not very artistic so I am stealing it from the Web. If I ever think about getting this published I'll have to find an artist.

Hopefully I will have it finished before baby comes.

TTFN

My Favourite Author

2011-03-01T15:44:00.002-07:00

A. Lee Martinez

Just a little bit about how I discovered this Author and why this particular post is dedicated to him.

My brother-in-law is an avid Sci-Fi/Fantasy Comic Book/Graphic novel reader and one day he was at the library with my wife. She happened to see a copy of Monster by A. Lee Martinez and it really caught her attention (it helps that it has a bright yellow cover).

He read it, told me I had to read it, then within about a month I had read (and in this order):
-Monster
-The Automatic Detective
-Divine Misfortune
-Gil's All Fright Diner
-Too Many Curses
-In the Company of Ogres

I don't think I have ever read five books by one author in a row where I didn't find at least one of the books meh. I'm not saying that they just kept getting better, it's that they were all fantastic and different and hard to compare to each other.

All I can say is read them, and read them all!

Check out his website:

http://www.aleemartinez.com/

One thing though, for some reason the website hates me so be forewarned that it is not necessarily friendly for every platform.

Blowing off the dust -Giving away 10 Free Copies of my book

2011-02-28T14:55:00.001-07:00

Today's Entry

It's time for a little spring cleaning so it's also time to blow the dust off an old blog and maybe see if I can resurrect it as well as resurrecting my desire to become a more serious writer. I once had delusions of grandeur in believing that I could make a living at writing. Perhaps I could if I:
a: Was Single (or married to someone who made a buttload of cash)
b: Did not have a family (or was married to someone who made a buttload of cash and who hired a Nanny)
c: Was not at all concerned about where his next paycheck was coming in and did not have to rely solely on himself to get it. (or was... well you understand)

If I was a more practical man I likely would have found the wife I mentioned above, however as I am a dreamer (which is a pretty important thing for a writer to be) I choose love instead, silly yes but no regrets. (I will revisit that thought again in a few weeks when baby #2 is born).

So what is my new goal?

Just to get published somewhere, anywhere. I have numerous resources on where and what to send, now I just have to do it.

One nice thing about having self published is that I own all rights to my stories so I can sub those.

2010-06-01T12:13:00.001-06:00

I really haven't been writing anything lately but the other day I found my notebook with my "Too Dumb to Dance" stuff in it. I'm going to see if I can revive that story on here!

Looking for a publisher

2008-03-21T12:52:00.000-06:00

I'm going to start shopping around for a publisher. My dream is that someone will read a bit of Framed and say, here's $50,000 finish it up and give it to us. Of course that's not going to happen, but it definately won't happen if I don't contact anyone.

I'm starting with Insomniac Press. I liked the sound of them, plus they published Marchello Di Cintio's first book, Harmattan. Random House published his second!

On the topic of Marchello Di Cintio, I read his second book, Poets & Pahlevans: A Journey into the Heart of Iran, it is amazing, I think everyone should read it.

Well, wish me luck with Insomnia. I'm going to see how they reply then decide how I may better address others. I have a list.

Cheers,

D.R.

4th of March Reading At McNally

2008-03-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

First of all I don't blame anyone I invited for not coming, they changed the time from 6:00pm to 5:00pm making in hard for anyone to come, so don't feel bad. Anyway....

There were likely about 20 people there having dinner and listening to me read, and I sold two books which 10% selling rate I think is just pretty darn good! I also tried to plug my blogs here (this one and Too Dumb to Dance).

Anyway for fun I'm going to post my "script" from last night. I followed it fairly closely so it will be just like being there, only without my beautiful voice or the parts from "Counting Down the Storm" that I read.

Also embedded in there is a bit from "Framed" it's the first time it's really been out there so enjoy.

*************************

First of all I’d like to thank everyone for coming out tonight. My name is D. Ryan Leask and I’m an author. Please bear with me this is my first really formal reading and to fend off nervousness I have written the whole thing out so I don’t get too far off track, (hopefully).
Just to give you a little background. I grew up just outside of Calgary in Sundre, a small town of about 2,000 an hour and a half northwest of Calgary. After leaving there I’ve lived in Edmonton, Fredericton and Ottawa before returning here in 2005.
So I’m a local writer and it’s just awesome how much support I’ve gotten here especially from McNally Robinson (Honestly they don’t pay me to say that).
So my book. I think before I give a synopsis I’m going to read a bit from it. I don’t really need much intro for this part. It’s atmosphere describing the two main elements of the story, the city and the man’s downward spiral.
{Reading one 1- He smelled the Rot on the streets…}
The city itself is really nowhere, just an amalgamation of various cities I’ve been to and seen on T.V. It’s kind of like the man, he’s not me, he shares some feelings I’ve had but he’s really just an exercise, seeing how far he could possibly go, how deep and dark into a single emotion I could take a character while still making him believable.
There are two parts to this novella “The Break{up” and “The Jilted Wife” which are also called, “Thunder” and “Lightning”. “Thunder” describes the rumbling dark deep depression that Christian follows when he discovers that his girlfriend is leaving him for a married man.
“Lightning” is the quick and blinding anger that Nancy embraces when she finds out her husband is having an affair.
These two elements are tied in by Amy and Kevin, the girlfriend and husband respectively. Although very little is really known of their characters, their action fuel the entire two days. The dark damp almost Gothic city helps set the tone and provides a setting that feeds the dismal emotions these two have.
{Reading 2-Start of “The Jilted Wife”}
I have to admit that I drew on absolutely no personal experiences when I wrote these two stories. The imagination is a wonderful place (for me and you, definitely not for my characters). When I start to write something it’s usually because I have a thought or a question rolling around in my head. For “Counting Down the Storm” the question for the first story was How far Down can a seemingly normal guy go when his lover leaves him? I can’t tell you the answer to that obviously, but I just kept going further and further until I felt I had gone beyond believability then pulled just short. The second story was basically who else has an interesting story to tell? Who was caught up in this mess that may complement the first.
It was pretty hard to write from a female’s point of view but I have had some positive feedback on it.
This book actually came about after I decided to begin taking my writing more seriously. I did some writing in High School but then didn’t do more than a page here or there. I was doing a lot of travelling for work and began writing in the evenings to pass the time. I actually started writing a story called “To Beat the Band” about a small town early 80’s grunge rock band that gets rediscovered in the mid 90’s. Great storyline, lots of content, the writing is crap. I can’t look at it at the moment, maybe someday. Once again it was one of those “What if” questions.
During that time is when I wrote “The Break-up”. I was posting some of my writing on an adult website so originally it was more, uhmmm provocative. I actually wanted to see if anyone would take it seriously, they did. I had some awesome feedback which I can’t really get to these days as my computer settings won’t let me get onto that site and I don’t want to go there at work.
I stopped travelling a couple of years ago and we moved to Calgary, I really missed writing though so last year I joined a writers group which was a complete waste of time until it was taken over by Kathleen Mailer who runs the Words to Wealth Institute. After talking about self publishing I decided to look into it, then she showed me a cute little book. (Hold up my book). She gave me a really good deal on a small volume printing so I thought I’d go for it, only problem is that I had one story that was too short to fill the max 60 pages. I figured I might as well get my money’s worth. I began writing the jilted wife on the bus ride home then had it finished and to my editor within about four days. A little over a month later and I had this. All in all it’s been pretty exciting.
Now I try to write when I can. I carry around a bunch of tiny notebooks (show one) that I write with on the bus and I have a bunch of things on the go. A few weeks ago I was on a Writer’s retreat with the Writer’s Guild in Banff and flushed out a story I had been plowing away on for months. It revolves around a Serial killer who murders not for the thrill of the kill but he frames others for his crimes and then watches their cases as they go through court and to jail. The story is called “Framed”. I’m going to read a bit from it.
*****
Henry James Smith is the Name of the Serial Killer. He has made a mistake and leaves before one of his victims dies. She actually survives her attack but her Husband who has a history of abuse is still being charged despite the fact she doesn’t believe he did it. Sandi Hunt is the name of the Victim and her husband who is in court is named Kyle. Abby is Henry’s wife. Henry is a court reporter which is how he follows the crimes he has committed.
*****
Henry sat in the back of the court throughout Kyle Hunt’s trial. He had heard that his wife whom he had tried to murder had indeed survived his attack but Henry couldn’t believe it until he saw her face entering the courtroom. Despite the fact that he was sure he must have been grossly misinformed he began growing a beard in the months leading up to the trial.
Abby of course hated it. His wife had always said that she detested men with facial hair but he kept insisting he wanted to try it on. He had never grown one before and tried to convince her that it was his right as a man to at least grow a full beard at least once in his life. The beard grew in coarse and patchy, it never quit filled in to a point that it looked clean and respectable but he continued to pretend to be convinced he liked it. Abby eventually let it go, although she kept mentioning how it scratched every time he kissed her and left a rash on her back when he clung close to her at night.
The trial drug on for weeks. Everyone except Kyle kept insisting that he should make a plea but he continued to fight them, believing that in the end his claims of innocence would prove to be true. Throughout the ordeal Sandi sat quietly amongst friends and family. Henry tried not to look at her making every attempt to leave the courtroom before she did in fear that she would somehow recognize him through his disguise. It was as hard for him, as it must have been for both Kyle and Sandi. He had looked at his other victims before, occasionally even taunting them with his eyes, trying to convey without words that he knew they were innocent because he had committed their crimes. That was different, he could get no satisfaction out of doing this to Kyle, not while Sandi still lived.
It was the night before the last day of Kyle Hunt’s trial. He was always anxious about these days. Until the trial was actually over he didn’t truly know if his planning had fully succeeded, he would often spend time pouring over the evidence ensuring everything was there that should be. He listened carefully to each expert’s testimony, determining if their conclusion matched the one that he had orchestrated them to have.
Perhaps it was this attention to detail that led his contemporaries to believe was passion. At the end of the day he found himself almost in tears having to cut his carefully crafted copies down to a printable size for the next day’s paper. His first writings never remained. He always carefully scattered them in dumpsters or added them to his fireplace when it was still burning, afraid that perhaps his details went beyond what could possibly be ascertained from just sitting in a courtroom watching and listening.
This trial caused him even more anxiety than usual. There was nothing about the case that indicated that the outcome would be anything other than the conviction of the defendant, he had no alibi. He’d actually been seen a few hours after the attack buying Methamphetamine from a dealer near his home and toxicology reports indicated a high level was still in his system when he was arrested the next day. Kyle couldn’t even clearly account for his whereabouts after leaving his house and admitted to being high since earlier in the evening. As a prosecutor may say on T.V., “It’s a slam dunk.” Henry’s anxiety sprang directly from the actions he had taken the night he tried to kill Sandi Hunt and his having not made sure he had succeeded
Abby knew he was always anxious before a trial. She knew because he was desperate to make love to her, it was the one thing (that she knew about) that always calmed him down. No matter what she always allowed him to take her on these nights. Sometimes it was wild violent sex, others it was just a quick fuck. She made herself available to him again, but this time with a caveat.
“Shave it.” She said, standing in front of him, nearly naked with just a red silk wrap tied loosely around her waist and barely holding in her breasts.
“What?” he replied.
She walked over to him and sat on the bed beside him exposing one of her slightly sagging but still full breasts. “If you want to touch these, you’ll have to shave this.” She ran her hand across his hairy face then stood up from the bed and turned her back to him, teasing.
He walked up behind her and grabbed her, she giggled. “Go.” He was ashamed that for an instant he was actually angry with her, a thought of violence had actually quickly fleeted across his mind.
He pulled himself together and in a voice of mocked indignation, the humour in which to make it was hard to retrieve, walked into the bathroom and returned a few minutes later with a clean face with the exception of one small nick on the side of his lip.
“Now that’s better.” Abby said in a pouty voice and licked the dot of blood on his face, then down his bare chest and beyond.
That night their love-making was animalistic. Abby thanked him with pleasures he hadn’t received since they were first married and she was trying to break his sexual shyness, he in turn provided her with multiple climactic explosions until neither of them could take on any more.
Abby whispered in his ear as his labored breaths began to steady and the gentle rhythm of sleep began to take him over. “No more beards.”
“Never.”

The other reporters seated in the back row with him commented on his lack of beard. His usual reserved and quiet self had been given a jolt the night before and he surprised himself by partaking in witty banter with his colleagues. He was still laughing and talking when everyone was asked to rise for the right honourable so and so.
He saw Sandi again in the front row and his head came crashing back down to earth. He felt his face for his beard but it had disappeared. He felt as though he was the rope in a tug-o-war, the team of fear was trying to pull him out the door while the team of need pulled against them. Need prevailed and Henry stayed.
He sat through the last few items of the trial and so desperately wanted to leave. The jury was sent out he had to wait, no, he needed to wait, he needed to know, it was insane, he knew it was insane, Kyle would be found guilty and would go to jail. He could know the verdict mere minutes after it was read and it would make no difference whether he was there or not. He started heading for the door but a voice called out to him.
“Hey Henry, the verdicts in.” It was impossible. He looked at his watch only fifteen minutes had passed, it must be some kind of record.
He took one last look at his escape but turned around and followed the others back inside. As he walked through the door there she was standing right in front of him, facing him. A look of recognition on her face, then terror. She knew him, she remembered him. He attempted to stay calm. He tried to think of what he could possibly say to make her change her mind, all he could think of was “excuse me.”
She didn’t move, he discovered he couldn’t either, then in a faint whisper, “why are you here?”
“I’m a journalist.”
She was shaking her head back and forth. “No, you shouldn’t be here.” Her voice was rising he knew he couldn’t flee now, it would only make whatever she was about to say be true. “Uh-uh, you’re not here, you don’t exist. YOU DO NOT EXIST.” She was yelling now.
The man who had been sitting beside her throughout the trial, presumably her lawyer, ran up the aisle behind her and put his hand on her shoulder, she started. “Are you all right, is this man bothering you.” He asked.
Henry tried to reply, “I’m not sure what…”
“No, this is him, this is the man. No one believed me, no one FUCKING believed me but here he is.” She lurched towards Henry, reaching for his throat, now he could move.
He quickly stepped back before she could get him. Her lawyer grabbed her but she was trying hard to resist him. She glared at Henry and with a deep angry evil voice spoke at him, “It was you. You. I thought I was crazy. They made me think I was crazy.”
She broke away from her lawyer, this time Henry wasn’t able to avoid her. They feel into a pile on the ground. Someone yelled for the baliff and several arms wrapped around her and pulled her off. Henry layed on the floor pretending to try to catch his breath but instead his was trying to catch himself. The worst had happened.
She was still screaming at Henry as security guards forced her out of the courtroom. “Are you all right?” Someone asked helping him off the floor.
“Yeah.”
He was asked what had happened, he just said that she must have been distraught over her husband’s conviction. He’d forgotten that the jury hadn’t entered the courtroom yet to read their verdict. He was going to back peddle but thought it best to just keep his mouth shut.
After all of the ruckus the judge decided to clear the gallery. Henry had to wait to hear what the verdict was, not that it was a surprise. He declined drinks and instead went home.
He spent the evening staring at his computer. He’d finished his copy for the trial but was debating talking about the outburst. He knew that any good reporter would have, but he was afraid that if any further scrutiny was placed on Sandi Hunt’s wild rantings it would uncover things that Henry just could not have uncovered.
It had been fairly common knowledge throughout the trial that Sandi Hunt believed she had been attacked by someone other than her husband. He’d heard whispering of it in the hallways of the courthouse and an article had even appeared in the Sun. Whenever he heard anything about it he tried to ignore it. He didn’t want to get into the debate, not that there really was one, it was a classic case of battered wife’s syndrome, or so it was believed. According to an expert who was interviewed for the Sun’s story she had likely put a different face on her husband when he attacked her, a reflex mechanism so she didn’t have to believe what was happening to her. Apparently it was not uncommon.
It was now his face that everyone was going to think she had seen.
He sat down and wrote an account of what happened. Respecting the reputation of the victim would not be a valid excuse for not making light of what had happened nor would it be one his editor would buy. He painted her as a distraught woman who had managed to sit stoically throughout the trial but when it seemed inevitable that her husband had really done what everyone but her believed he had done she became delusional and for reasons, which Henry was unable to explain, lashed out at him. In his article he stated that he did not take it personally and hoped that she would be able to move on with her life.
All his concern had been for nothing, his editor never ran his story nor did any of the other new services that had reporters there. Henry believed that everyone must have felt she had suffered enough.
A few weeks later he received a letter through Sandi’s lawyer.

Dear Mr. Smith:
I deeply regret the incident that occurred during my husband’s trial. I realize now that I was a deeply disturbed woman who was confused by all that I had been through both before and during the trial. I am sure now that the man who had attacked me was my husband and I hope that you can forgive my outburst and understand my frame of mind at the time.
Thank you for your understanding.
Sincerely,
Sandra Rose.

It should have been enough to ease his mind, but it wasn’t. It was only a carefully worded document saying, “please don’t charge me with assault.” No matter how many times he read it he just could not believe that she had really stopped believing that he was her attacker. He knew that the truth burns deeper into the psyche than does the illusion of it.
*****
My mother is somewhat concerned about my mind and what I write. I was leery to even let her read this (hold up CTDS) book. I don’t think she has to worry, her and my dad raised me well. I think it was that I didn’t have constant T.V. and video games and I was able to grow my imagination. I also read a lot of Stephen King when I was younger, although I’d have to say that right now my favourite author is John Irving. I don’t really know where this dark place in my psyche comes from but I seem to be able to pull lots of stuff out of there, perhaps it’s a good thing I can write.
There’s a couple of other things I’ve been working on. I’ve been going to the Passion Pitch Poetry events every third Wednesday of the Month which is put on by Eleventh Transmission at the Oolong Teahouse right at the end of Kensington Road on tenth st. It’s an open mic which I originally went to to do readings from “Counting Down the Storm” but it was so much fun that I kept going back and not wanting to read the whole story started a new one. It’s the exact opposite of the other stuff I write in that it’s a crazy silly irrelevant comedy. It’s about three best friends from small town northern Alberta, one friend goes off to Edmonton for College leaving the other two behind. The discover a new world in Competitive Mens Doubles Throw-Dancing which is just some insane new sport. It’s really hard to explain, you’ll just have to read it. I’ve been writing it as a blog story called “Too Dumb to Dance.” I have some postcards with links to that blog as well as my blog where I just jot down my thoughts and progress on writing from time to time.
Well I’m going to read what is my favourite part of Counting Down the Storm, then if anyone has any questions or anything feel free to ask and I’m going to stick around to sign some books and chat.
So this is a carry on from the first part of “The Jilted wife” That I read before.
{Reading 4-That was Tuesday, this….}
Well thanks for listening to me rant everyone and please do buy a book! Don’t feel bad buying them here through the store instead of direct from me, you’re supporting a really great establishment here and I get a good cut!

Time for some Competitive Writing

2008-02-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

My new favorite magazine 11th Transmission is having a fiction writing contest. I'm going to enter it with my eclipse inspired story. It's coming along really well. Once again a very dark piece.
My dog, the little black one, will not let me type in peace! Brat. God only knows what kind of distraction a babies going to be in a few months. At least I know they won't be knocking my arms off the keyboard and chewing on my hand. (unless he/she is more like me and not like Toni)
With my impending fatherhood I wonder if my penchance for dark and twisted unhappy tales will change. Will I begin writing about fluffy bunnies and the like? (I think I threw up in my mouth a little). I guess time will tell.
Well it's time to put the pups to bed and me too. I still haven't quite caught up from my all night write-a-thon in Banff.

Take care my friends!

D.

Reading Righting and Rithmatic

2008-02-22T12:49:00.001-07:00

Reading:

Upon my return from Banff I didn't have much time to write the next part of Too Dumb to Dance for the PPP readings, I just threw something together about a bus ride and some odd individuals on it. It got some laughs so I'm happy.

Speaking of PPP the main performer, Danielle French was awesome, she's a folk type singer with an amazing voice and great songs.

I was surprised during the open mic part of the show that no one recited a poem inspired by the Luner Eclipse, so surprised actually that I felt the need to write a story revolving around it. I have it pretty much laid out but I still need to work through it.

Righting:

Last night was my Writers Group meeting. Only two of us had submissions this go round. One of the members in the group is writing a really gripping story which I look forward to seeing everytime. My story (Framed) seems to be going well with everyone. One of the group said she got caught up in it and forgot she was editing. That's what I like to hear. I hope that it stays that way. One thing that was mentioned was my penchant for commas, I use too many of them, I guess I should stop, rethink their use, create shorter sentances, or just find alternatives, I'll work on it, later, they are right though, now I'm rambling.

Rithmatic:

hmmmmmmm got nothing here, math isn't my strong point.

Thanks for reading to my rants!

Talk to you later.

D.

P.S. IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND YOU ARE IN CALGARY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME TO MY READING AT MCNALLY ROBINSON BOOKSELLERS IN THE STEPHEN AVENUE MALL AT 5:00 ON MARCH 4th.

A Clarification...

2008-02-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Perhaps those who have never really done much writing may not know that when I said "My Book Is Finished" (oh and by the way it is not a novel as I had a one time hoped, more of a long story or a Novella) what I meant is that I have written stuff that starts at the beginning and through to the end, basically an exceptional detailed and well worded outline, (I do not believe in outline btw, each to their own). This constitutes about 25% of the whole process. I now start the agonizing task of editing, grammer checking, consistecey in facts, tense, voice, not to mention changing things which just do not really make sense and rewording awkward sentances, paragraphs.

But I do now know what the story is, where it's going and who the characters are, now I just have to put it in the form that you will enjoy it!

TTFN

D.

I'm done!

2008-02-17T07:20:00.000-07:00

I'm insane, I am abso(insert explitive here)lutely out of my mind.

Last night I did a reading from my book, then spent time chatting with my fellow writers until about 11:30.
I had it in my mind that I need to just fix a couple of minor errors I had discovered while I did my reading then go to bed.
It's now 7:23 am and I have yet to sleep, I haven't even tried.
The other night I mentioned that I had a problem with my story, I thought that perhaps it would work without my repoter character but was wrong.
Well guess what, I wasn't.
Earlier today (oh my god it was yesterday) I had just by happenstance created a rather one dimensional charactor, a psychologist, that begins to interview Henry while he was in jail.
Last night I had an ephiny, what if she was my character that carried the story along, what if between her and Henry there was no need for Dylan Campbell,
There wasn't, and now sitting on my USB stick is 118,765 charactors, forming 22,002 words spread over 429 paragraphs on 78 pages.

The two best words, but they don't appear any where on the pages are.....

THE END

My last day

2008-02-16T13:24:00.001-07:00

I'm taking a break now because I'm at a point where the next bit of my story I have already written. I just finished a rather tricky interview that Henry is having in the Calgary Remand Center with a psychologist while they try to figure out if he really is a killer like he has confessed. I realized as I was writing it really how his mind works. He doesn't have a split personality, more like a split reality, although he's very aware of it. After being caught he's finding that those realities are melting into one another and he can't focus on one or the other.
During the interview he recants his confession and tries to make them believe that he has only confessed in order to screw with the judiciary. If he had killed all the people he said he did it would result in a number of people having to be released from jail. His more sane side realizes that this could lead to a possibility that he would eventually be released. This would place him back inside the reality that is not really his, but more of that of those that he loves. His dark reality, the one that is his and no one elses wants to be caught. It's like the ultimate revenge to get back at the system that wrongfully imprisoned him years before.
In the interview he fights back and forth between these feelings until he gets to the point that he has to shut himself off. I'm not sure at this point what will happen to him. I highly doubt that they will just let him go, although this is what I'm sure the powers that be would love to happen. On the other hand I think if he stays in jail it will ruin the rest of the story, although I have an out for that written somewhere.
What I really see happening is sometime under some sort of mental health care followed by an all clear rating and a release back into society.

Enough about my story, what about me? How have I been doing.

Well I haven't written as much as I had hoped, but not for lack of trying. I would have to say that other then my time spent here writing these blogs and breaks for eating or just the odd 10 minute wander I have been working non-stop. I'm incredibly proud of myself.
Tonight I have signed up for a reading amongst the group and I think I'm going to read them something that will shock them, despite the fact that they already know that I am writing about a serial killer. I think it'll be fun.

Anyway, putting my thoughts together above have given me some more ammo to shoot and I have to go fire away!

Yadda, Yadda,

D.

Wine, and the finer points of writing

2008-02-15T20:49:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was sane.

Well at least I felt sane. Perhaps I have been pushing myself too hard today.

Last night I finally stopped writing at around 11:00. I believed that I had managed to clear my mind of clutter and would have no trouble sleeping. I was wrong. Despite that fact that the one drink I'd had with my fellow writers in the lounge coupled with a glass of wine while I read some work of one of the authors in my writing group, I lay in my incredibly comfortable (but lonely) bed wide awake.

The same question kept rattling around in my mind. Why do I need this character, Dylan Campbell, to pull the story of my serial killer, Henry James Smith, along. I didn't have an answer, nor could my tired, over taxed mind come up with one. At 2:00 am I had to find out. If I didn't all sleep would be lost and today would have been a complete write off.

It took me an hour of writing to realize that there was no way to carry out without Dylan. I slept well after that.

I woke up this morning with a fresh outlook on where I was going and a drive to work out my problems with my story. Breakfast, lunch and dinner have been a bit of a blur. I think that my fellow writers have noticed that I am really focused which is good I suppose, but I also think that they may have also discovered that I am somewhat odd.

I've been trying not to show my rather eccentric side when I'm working. Actually I don't think anyone has really seen my eccentric writing side, not even Toni. It's been hiding away since I stopped spending hours in some random hotel in the middle of nowhere. I suppose that it's finally starting to show up now because once again I find myself somewhat isolated here. The only differance is that now it's by choice.

So where am I now?

Despite the fact that most of my story is hidden away in dinky notebooks scattered across my desk in my very writer friendly room I am working mostly from memory. I've dug deep into my mind and pulled out what I've worked on months ago. Perhaps it's the knowledge that if I get stumped I can always look up what I wrote and get myself back on track that keeps me going, or maybe I've just found a place both physically and mentally where I can think of nothing else. I'm nto sure. Everything seems to click.

This morning, although I was glad I had sorted out my problem, I felt that I had wasted several key strokes at two am, but I somehow managed to incorperate them. It seems that no matter how many new ideas come into my head I keep looking down and the path of the story I have loosely created is still under my feet. I'm amazed. I'm not writing, there is a puppeteer somewhere above me pulling strings and moving my fingers (although that puppeteer appears to have atrocious grammer, no idea of punctuation and also has a bad habit of screwing up tenses).

The only sticking point I've had today was so incredibly silly that I can't just ignoring it in hopes that it would go away. When it didn't i went for lunch. This is where the self imposed and not forced isolation came in handy. I spoke with the other writers about it and they helped me try to work through it. Of course one of the suggestions was to ignore it and try to work it out later. I'd tried that approach and it didn't work.

The problem was something that Dylan was trying to say. He needed some sort of witty thing to call himself. He's a reporter with a newspaper much like the Weekly World News (WWN). If I remember correctly the dialog goes something like this:

"You don't look like yourself today Dylan," Lou said as I walked in and flopped down in the old brown chair.

"I'm not Lou. Yesterday I was a _________________ and today, I'm an author."

It was the _________________ part that I had trouble with. I originally had myth paparazzo, which was absolutely aweful. It made me cringe everytime I saw it. It almost literally jumped out of the screen and attacked me if it was visible. After lunch I sat down and wrote down all of the words that I could think of that were ever remotely realted to 'myth' then came down here to the internet and typed them into Wiklipedia. It lead me to the WWN website where I saw the word 'monster'.

So today, boys and girls, the word of the day is.....

MONSTARAZZI

Definition:

A journalist whose primary subject is writing articles about myths and legends such as the Lochness Monster, Saskquatch and aliens.

I'm quite proud of myself.

After that I was able to carry on writing. Breakthrough after breakthrough occured. Let's just say it's been a good day for my writing, as for my psychie...

Well that's another story.

A little explanation about the title of this blog. Before I left Calgary I thought that perhaps I would like to have a drink or two in the evenings to wind down. Despite the fact that I was writing ferociously at about 4:00 I began to loose focus. After going for a short walk, which didn't help (like yesterdays walk all I could do was think and fret that I wasn't writing any of my thoughts down), I decided to lean on an old Fat Bastard. It wasn't and elderly overweight guy that I had found, but rather a bottle of very pleasent red wine that I had opened last night before bed. I intended to have just a glass to help redirect myself but wouldn't you know it. The hole damn thing seemed to have gone missing. It did help though, and up until now (with a very brief stop for supper) I haven't had anymore wandering mind.

I'm not going to make a habit of it though, but then again I can't see myself making a habit of writing for ten plus hours a day two (or three, we'll see how tomorrow goes) in a row either.

One last thing:

I FEEL LIKE A WRITER!!!!!! (saying this is almost bringing me to tears)

Thanks for Reading,

Dennis.

Captain Tractor, Moby and My Adventure to Day One at the Banff Center.

2008-02-14T17:22:00.001-07:00

The trip started off a little rocky. I woke up yesterday morning to a blizzard warning and seeing as I was taking Moby to Banff I thought I'd better wait for the weather to clear. Once that happened I decided to wait until I would get there by 4:00, when check in is. Then I decided to clean the house.

Anyway... come 3:00 and I hadn't left yet. When I finally did leave I realized about ten minutes from home that I may have forgotten my power supply for my laptop. Yeap, I sure did. I went back to the van and had a brain wave, do I have Moby's insurance card? Guess what I didn't, not only did I not have it, I had never recieved it prompting me to panically call our insurance company to find out whether we actually had insurance on him. We did and they e-mailed me a copy of it which I printed out (from our printer that's almost out of ink). So 4:00 and I was off.

The road were great, I had my old computer speakers plugged into my mp3 player and was rocking out to Captain Tractor all the way to Banff.

So I arrogantly thought I knew where this place was, right by the tourist information center... WRONG! I finally had to break out the map. "Oh it's off Tunnel Mountain Road," I said to myself, "So it must be on the way to the campground," or past it, or on the other side of the road closed barricade impeading my way.

I finally saw a sign that read "Banff Center Commercial Traffic" I had seen the sign before but I had assumed (read assume) that Banff Center = Banff City Center. Anyway long story short. Here I am, and luckily I arrived just in time for supper.

The food here is superb, I heard a rumour that aspiring chefs come here to train with great chefs who are here for residency. Despite the fact it is a buffet you'd think you were eating in a fine restaurant. The tables are set up with signs indicating which group sits where so I was able to sit with my fellow writers.

After dinner we had a meet and greet for all of the new comers like myself. I realized quite quickly that there were very few males here, three actually; myself, Dave Margoshes who is our resident writer and Timothy, who actually won his way here in a speed writing competition or something like that. He's actually very interesting, besides being a fairly well established writer he is also an opera singer.

So a couple glasses of wine last night, some introductions and I was off to write. After all that is why I'm here.

My fingers and mind have been completely uninhibited. I'm on fire. I must have written for at least 12 hours since I've been here and don't want to stop (although I did need to step away for a bit which is why I'm here).

Last night I reworked my main character in 'Framed' and today I am pulling together snippets I have typed over the last few months and editing them as well as typing up all of my murder scenes. I'm really beggining to see the story really clearly now.

Today I also had the pleasure of meeting with Dave Margoshes (He's written a few books, the one I have heard of is 'The Drowning Man'). I had sent him fifteen pages of my manuscript to look through. He had some really great technical advise for me, asked me a lot of questions about where my story was going. I think his biggest critism was my grammer. Nothing I didn't already know. Another thing he mentioned was my intro. It's a murder scene and I don't formally introduce my main character, actually he mentioned that I kept the reader at a distance which might turn them off. I need to work on that and see if I can pull them in closer, but then on the other hand he did agree that what I lacked in character introduction I more than made up for in action and that might be what pulls people in instead. I guess time will tell.

Anyway. I should get off the computer (I'm on one of two that have internet access) and think about having supper. I've still got about 3 hours of typing left in me but I need fuel to acheive it.

Off to Banff

2008-02-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

Well Tomorrow is the first day of my writers retreat. I don't have to be there until 4:00 tomorrow afternoon so I thought I'd take advantage of the day and go skiing.

Toni needs the car for teacher's convention so it looks like it's going to be Moby and I hoofing it out there.

I'm really excited about this experience, I think it will be a great time for me to really get focused on my goal of becoming a full time writer. I also hope that I will be able to meet some really great people who can point me in the right direction to reach that goal. I'm not sure if I really should be relying on others so much to tell me what I should do but to be honest with you I just want to write, that's all. The rest of the periphery crap is really hard for me to focus on when I think I should be spending my time writing.

Well anyway I should finish packing. I'm hoping to at least throw something up here at some point to let you know how things are going.

Oh and P.S. I'm hoping to add something to "Too Dumb To Dance" really soon, I better, I'm doing my next reading a week from tomorrow and although I have the next part written out I need to do a little catch-up with Tyson's character before continueing on with what I already wrote (Yeah I kinda forgot about him).

Anyway,

Asta,

-----My apologies the spell checker in this thing isn't working and I'm in too damn big of a hurry to check through it.-----

Having Others Critique Your Work and Back to Basics

2008-02-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not selfish really.

My problem is that when it comes to critiquing it's better to receive than to give. It's really hard reading someone else’s work when you think to yourself; I should be using this time to work on my own. So here I am, 5:51, procrastinating. I meet up with my fellow writers at 7:00 and I haven't read their stuff yet.

This week I did a major re-think on my framed story. I have written a number of murder scenes written in present tense that go through in detail how my main character carries out his grisly murders and pins them on others. Not tooting my own horn but I think they are very well written. The problem is tying them all together. I had created this smart ass down on his luck reporter character that gets handed the assignment of doing a story on the killer after he'd been caught. The only problem is that I don't really like this guy, I like the concept of him sort of but it just doesn't seem to work. I think what I am going to do is just type out all of the murder scenes then link them together somehow, perhaps in a "biography" of the killer, or maybe still as someone who is following him. I think at this point I have to rethink almost everything, which sucks because I'm pretty much done.

My other story, "Too Dumb to Dance" (whose title I still don't like) is coming along, I've decided not to even bother doing a first typed draft and just let it all hang out on the blog. Dangerous! I think my next excerpt may need to be on Tyson, how he's doing in Edmonton. I've just realized after reading through all I have in my notebook the other day I kind of sent him away and forgot about him. I have to bring him back at some point and its best if we know a little about what he went through. I have to get crackin' on that cause the next Passion Pitch Poetry is on Feb 20th.

Next Wednesday I am off to Banff. Today our office Manager was kind enough to get me a signed copy of Poets & Pahlevans by Marcello Di Cintio. Inscribed it says "Best of Luck With Your Own Writing and Good Luck in Banff". It's a book I've wanted to read ever since I heard him doing a reading a while ago. It's about his journeys through Iran.

Anyway enough procrasterbating, Time to get some editing done, I now have a whole 1/2 hour!

As always,

Your struggling writer,

D

Organization, a key to writing

2008-01-31T20:51:00.001-07:00

Tonight, Thursday is my writing night. Due to errands etc. etc. my time was truncated tremendously, but it was really cut short due to my lack of organization. I have thirteen different versions of one story and I had a bugger of a time tonight trying to figure out which one I had last been working on. It didn't help that I had worked on snippets and bits for various other things.

Word to the wise. Do keep all of your old versions of things, but give them logical names!

Yesterday I went to see the eye doctor and he told me that I needed glasses if I was going to be doing a lot of computer work, and guess what, it's all I do now. I got my glasses today and IT'S AMAZING! Unbelievable how clear the world is all of a sudden. Tomorrow at work will be the true test, hopefully my stress headaches and eye strains will go away and I will be more in the mood to write.

While I'm being random...

Just a little over a week until I'm off to the Banff writers retreat

http://www.writersguild.ab.ca/programs/retreats.asp

Unfortunately I'm only going for a half retreat but it will still be awesome to take the dinosaur (my old laptop that does not have any games or wireless internet on it) and spend many hours putting the pieces together that I have spread out all over the place (not just in notebooks like it used to be but now in various files too!). I've decided to put away the myriad of stories I've been working on and just focus on two, Framed (The story of the serial killer) which will (fingers crossed) be my next book, and Too Dumb To Dance which I am turning into a blog story.

Hey I'm looking for a clever thing to call a blog book/author, is there any such moniker out there?

Well, until next time.