When Words Collide, Day 1

When Words Collide 2014

Calgary, Ab

     I could easily start at the beginning, or at the end or somewhere in the middle but D. J. McIntosh, SG Wong (sgwong.com), Wayne Arthurson and Clare C.Marshall all said that a manuscript needs the action to hit right away (unfortunately it didn’t and their hands went up despite the excellent reading skills of Susan Forest). That was Live Action Slush – Mystery Edition at When Words Collide.

     I was speaking with SG Wong at the end of the day to thank her for her words about my story, she asked me which story was mine but I was too embarrassed to say so:

SG Wong, if you read this it was “Killing Gavin Petters.” I had over described Gavin Petters being philosophical and called a chair an occasional (Something which I must rectify).

(I hope that was “actiony” enough to grab you, dear reader.)

     I don’t want to give much background other than saying it’s a writing conference in Calgary that happened August 8-10, 2014. I first heard about it over a year ago; my wife mentioned it to me and said, “You need to go to get Dianna Gabaldon’s autograph.”

     I imagined the conference to be like a trade show, only for writers. There would be rooms filled with 400 Diana Gabaldon fans, 80 self-help/motivational writers, 16 hotel guests who stumbled in looking for the bar and 4 people like me whom I would never find in the crowd. Jumping to conclusions without research is dangerous (trust me, it’s the way I write, finish the story, then research and pray to God that you can either twist reality or the story enough to fit without breaking it completely). I had no desire to attend, I had my writing event, NaNoWriMo.

     Now fast forward several months. A writer’s group I had joined (but didn't find was the right fit for me) shifted gears, took a hard left and “threw all the dogs out the back”. I returned to what is now the World Famous (my own little world) Montparnasse Group. 

     Long story short… Barbie “MsBurb” Thompson the organizer and most motivating person I know (that has nothing to withhold from me if I don’t do what I'm told) said, “You are finishing your first draft, perfecting the first three chapters and pitching at When Words Collide.”

     I will admit that it wasn't that out of thin air, we had been discussing goals and I mentioned that I may be able to do something like that, perhaps, if I found time, and/or if I . She doesn't do excuses. I did it, although the “perfecting the first three chapters” part is extremely open to interpretation.

(I’m sure if you had read this far you are likely guessing how my pitch went considering the “quality of this post.” Someday I will write one about why you should never judge an author by his blog especially when coming to grammar, spelling, and, punctuation.)

     Nothing on the pitch stuff yet, I wish to be chronological and the pitch was Friday at 5:30 I started the conference Thursday night.

     Every other Thursday is when we convert the Crown Plaza Hotel into La Rotonde. That Thursday was our Thursday. Rick Northy (no link, tsk, tsk), the co-founding member of our group and Barbie both had rooms at The Carriage House Inn. I did not, a mistake which I hope not to make next year. We had a beer at the lounge and went for a second upstairs on the tenth floor. 

     It just so happened that Jack Whyte was staying on the same floor. Barbie made some small talk regarding drinking to which he laughed and said something further, which I do not recall, then she said, “Oh my God, you’re Jack Whyte.” Or something like that.

     Now, I am a complete ass because I did not research who the big guests were (I mean I saw their names but didn't check out their backgrounds). Perhaps that was a good thing because other than knowing that Jack Whyte was an important enough author to be the head-liner of the show I knew nothing, which came in handy the next day.

     I won’t get into the discussions that we had following or Barbie and Rick’s stories of the pre-conference goings on although they are quite funny.

    The following morning I arrived back at the Carriage House at 8:00 solely to be sure that I was there in time to sign up for a pitch session (which I was very frustrated to find out the night before had a pre-sign up that I had somehow missed). Instead of sitting around however I decided (talked into by Barbie) to go to a manuscript session with none other than Jack Whyte. Of course you were supposed to hand in your manuscript well before the session was to start but seeing as I didn't know I was going…

     Key things I learned from this session:

• Jack likes long flowing sentences
•  hates when you use a person’s name too much (especially if there’s less than three people in the room
• he makes every story come alive with his rich baritone voice and Scottish accent.

     As with all of the other sessions I went to I will have to do a brain dump which will likely consist of a kabrillion blog posts of information mostly just to solidify what I learnt.

     Oh, and Jack did read part of the second chapter of my Novel which I hope didn't give him nightmares (my story revolves around an author who kills his agent, editor and publisher, he read the part where the author is unceremoniously dumped by all three).

     During one of the breaks I managed to get slotted in for a pitch session (at 5:30 with the fantastic Brian Hades of EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing . One small issue was that Jack had held onto my manuscript which I had (stupidly) only printed one copy of and I wasn't about to ask for it back, I don’t care if he was planning to just use it for fire starter (I debated sliding chapter one under his hotel room door but Barbie decided that would be a little creepy (however coming from someone who replaced Tom Jones with Jack Whyte as her… well you can guess what list a middle aged woman has Tom Jones on, maybe I should have taken her advice with a grain of salt (you aren't supposed to use a bracket within a bracket but I don’t care))).

     Luckily Rick had bought a printer just for such emergencies and after harrowing issues of technology (computer problems, Internet access) I managed to reprint my three chapters.

     I went to two great sessions, wrote down what I needed to say for my pitch.

     “Hi my name is… …My novel is called Death By Putts. It’s about an author who murders his agent, publisher and editor.”

     *Dramatic pause

     Believe it or not security didn't come and the pitch went really well! Let’s just say that it’s a good thing I got those chapters printed out.

     I don’t think I can do a brief overview of the conference all in this one post so I will save the rest for another time.

*****

I miss you Dori,  06/04/13-14/08/09

I hate ending this post on a sad note but just before I gave my pitch I received a phone call from my wife informing me that she had to take our Bull Mastiff, Dori, to the vet. She hadn't been feeling quite right for a couple of days but nothing too far out of the ordinary; even just that morning, although she wasn't full of P&V, she seemed to be okay. We received a call early the following day that she was indeed in very poor shape. Although there were some options for us none were very good and we had to make the heart-breaking decision to let her go. She passed peacefully late Saturday morning with her head in my lap.

When I completely come to grips with this loss I will probably write a post about it on my parenting blog but for now it’s all I can do just to mention this. I feel that I have to though; focusing just on the joy of the weekend makes me feel selfish and guilty.

Draft #1 COMPLETE and a little fun with query letters

I don't even remember when I started working on this novel. I'm sure I have it marked down somewhere but it doesn't really matter, it was a long time ago. As some of you may know I had it pretty much done once before and then through the power of technology (read quirks) I lost over half of it. I'm happy about that actually. The story is better for it.

So, tonight at 11:42pm I wrote "The End" (actually, I didn't, perhaps I should, anyway…). I'm very proud of myself and the story I managed to puke out. At times, like tonight, it flowed out effortlessly, page after page of text and story, other times it felt like I had to drag my MC behind a bus with a chain. I'm sure I'll see those pages clearly when I edit. That is the next part.

So, if any of you want to know what my story is about, here is a synopsis:

DEATH BY PUTTS

Ed Putts is a middle of the road author, or so he believes and although his books have hit the best sellers list those around him keep telling him that is nothing overly special so he keeps plugging away. He gets paid just enough to make a living for himself in his small condo on the outskirts of the city.

One day Ed gets pulled into a meeting with his agent. He finds himself meeting with his editor and publisher as well and they drop the hammer on him. He's done. No more books, no more money, nothing. His series that he is in the middle of will just end. To top it all of a rotten contract has meant that not only do his books and characters no longer belong to him but neither does his name.

He can't write.

Although he is an established writer he finds himself having to try to start over again with no success.

Ed has made a name for himself writing a series about a suave and intelligent serial killer named Gavin Petters. Gavin Petters is Ed's portal to his own dark psychotic impulses. All of those who had supported his writing have sealed it off. It is just a matter of time before the pressure gets too strong.

A pretty, yet unbalanced woman enters his life and pushes him further down into his dark mind. When he kills her in self defense during a masochistic sexual encounter it sets off a series of events that shows him how dark he really is.

My apologies if the above is somewhat poorly written, it is late and I may have been drinking a little but hopefully it gives you an idea of what I have been doing.

WARNING: The following may contain some sarcasm :-D
So, now that I have finished my novel what am I going to do? What any first time novelist would do who hasn't done any homework, I'm going to query. I already have a list of 75 agents that I am going to send letters to, here is my standard form letter I am going to send:

Dear To Whom It May Concern:
My name is D. Ryan Leask and I have just finished writing my very first novel. As I'm sure you can understand it takes a lot of work to accomplish this feat so therefor anyone who has achieved it must truly be special as I'm sure you will see that I am.

My book is about a writer that kills a bunch of literary people who try to keep him from writing, so you'll likely be able to relate and I know this will be a winner with you for sure!

I haven't bothered doing any editing as I know that you provide such services for me when you chose to represent me, after all I am an author not an editor, lol.

I know it said on your website to send only a query letter/sample chapter but I have included the entire novel to save you the trouble of all the back and forth banter which we likely both agree is pointless.  I have one request. It said that I shouldn't expect an answer for quite some time but we both know this is just to keep those that have a really terrible novel from bothering you constantly. I have sent this letter out to a number of other agents so the sooner I hear back the sooner I can look through all the offer letters and give you an answer.  I'm certain that asking for at least a high five figure advance would be prudent.

I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you very soon.
Sincerely,

Author of Death By Putts

I don't write #SciFi… or do I?

For some reason lately I have been thinking a lot about the NaNoWriMo story I wrote in 2011.  When I was done I hated it.  It was supposed to be a sexy, funny space adventure full of quirky characters with a little bit of political and societal commentary.  It was none of the above.  I just seemed to dredge on and on without hitting the marks.  My characters were indeed quirky but never lived up to their potential and even though I created a whole universe and laws and so forth ─The Complete Idiots Guide To The Universe (And Beyond)─ I just couldn't do it.  Maybe it's because I wasn't a fan of SciFi as a kid.  I am now but not with the same love as someone who was a fan all their lives.

Another issue is that writing comedy is hard.  I think I'm a pretty funny guy (feel free to disagree with me) but keeping that up through a whole novel is really hard.  I have read very few books that were truly funny, James Herriot comes to mind as does this gem by Christopher David Petersen called What The Hell's Up With Heaven?

It was so taxing writing this and I was so disappointed with the end result that I took a break from writing for a month (which turned into a whole year).  During this time I lost most of my writing in an unfortunate series of events including a crashed laptop which I used to back everything up (this was ironic as I don't store anything on my writing laptop because I'm always afraid it is going to implode and never does) as well as a flash drive that decided it was going to take all my files and translate them into gibberish.  I wasn't to sad about losing my NaNo story.  Now I am.  Maybe it's that absence makes the heart grow fonder (or is it absinthe makes the smart go wronger anyway…).

What I really should be doing now if focusing on my current WIP and just letting this one ferment but I can't help it so I am going to take a moment here to introduce you to that SciFi story I was working on and maybe later I will come back here and look at this and it will kick-start a new story.

James Styne Goes To Space (working title)

Synopsis:

James Styne is a career soldier in the Earth Navy Mars division and in his vary last year of being eligible to be the commander of his own ship.  His career had been halted by an unfortunate incident with a Generals daughter during his training and has plagued him ever since.  Running out of excuses his superiors finally assign him a ship and crew but do so with the full intention of failing.  The ship is a relic from the Americas and his crew are a bunch of misfits that the Navy has been hiding because they don't know what else to do with them.

The Good Guys

Characters:

Name: James Styne

Rank: Captain - Probationairy

Race: Human

Home Planet: Earth

A womanizing smart ass who questions authority.  He is the greatⁿ grandson of Allan Bartholomew Ian Styne, the greatest mind in history and the man that actually uncovered the truth of the universe.  He wrote The Complete Idiots Guide To The Universe (And Beyond).

Name: Reggie Cross

Rank: 1st Mate

Race: Human

Home Planet: Mars

Best friend of James since military school who rose through the ranks and joined the training program.  He joins James' crew to save James from himself taking a rank reduction in the process.

Name: Crissy Blane

Rank: Civilian - Empath

Race: Unknown Humanoid

Home Planet: Unknown Found on Mars

Crissy Blane is an empath but with severe limitations.  She can read minds but only if she is connected to the person sexually and them to her.  She can see the future however when she has a vision she goes into a convulsive orgasm and is unable to communicate until after the event has happened.

Name: Howard LaMonde

Rank: Private - Mechanic

Race: Formerly Human

Home Planet: Earth

Jake Howard is a ghost that has been attached to the ship, ENM Washington D.C. since he died in an unfortunate accident over a hundred years before.  No one including him knows why he didn't cross over to the beyond.  The army had no protocols for what to do with a trapped spirit and were unable to release him from service involuntarily so they were forced to keep him.  He is more useful than you would think as he can travel throughout circuitry.  He is able to use and move objects even though he is completely transparent.

Name: Gork

Rank: Private - Gunner

Race: Gork

Home Planet: Unknown

Gork is a seven foot tall three hundred and fifty pound hairy beast with short horns and an extremely limited vocabulary (I had actually created a gork/english dictionairy).  No one is quite sure where he came from or even how he ended up in the Navy.  His job as a gunner is to man the turret guns which are housed in a pod designed for a small human but for some reason Gork loves it in there even though he can barely move.  He even sleeps in his turret.

Name: Brian

Rank: 1st Officer - Helmsman

Race: Zygod

Home Planet: Unpronounceable (The actual official name the Milky Way Alliance gives it, only Zygods are able to say the actual name)

The Zygod's planet is just on the outside of the territory of the Milky Way Alliance (MWA) and are enemys.  Brian's father was a prisoner but what they didn't know was that, A) Male Zygods carry the children and B)Brian's father was pregnant.  He is very humanized with an affinity for 20th century Earth culture including 1970s rock and roll and pot.

Name: Sippertawn "Zippy" Ironthorpe

Rank: 1st Officer - Navigator

Race: Ironeze

Home Planet: Carbondale

Zippy's planet was destroyed by an asteroid but some of it's inhabitants were saved by the MWA.  At first the carbon-based refugees, Carbonics were believed to be the true inhabitants and the Ironeze thought to be robots as they were metal and filled with wires and ran on electricity.  The Carbonics were actually built by the Ironeze with artificial intelligence who had seen a chance at their survival by easily convincing their rescuers that they were in fact the true natives of the planet.  Many Ironeze were either not rescued or destroyed before the ruse was uncovered.  Zippy is one of only fifty Ironeze that exist.  His home planet had electricity in the air like Earth has air and must recharge himself regularly to survive.

Name: Theresa Godall

Rank: Private - Communications Officer

Race: Human

Home Planet: Mars

Former lover and current caretaker of Crissy Blane.  She is the only one who can detect with even mild certainty what Crissy's prognostications mean.  She is also a former one-night stand of Reggie's.

The Bad Guys

Name: General Maxwell Gregg

Rank: General, three stars

Race: Human

Home Planet: Earth

James had had a sexual encounter with his daughter resulting in a pregnancy which James never knew about. General Gregg has done everything in his power to try to court marshall or dishonorbly discharge James including plans which had resulted in his own inability to obtain his fourth star and be able to relocate back to his beloved Earth.

Name: Super-General Octavid

Rank: Super-General (Octopus Revolutionairy Army)

Race: Octopus

Home Planet: Earth

Within fifty years of social experiments on the highly intelligent octopuses they have formed a society which unbeknown to humans is attempting to take over the world.  Super-General Octavid is the leader of this movement.  His ability to not give in to his sexual compulsions has granted him a very long life (male octopuses die after ejaculation).  He has been pretending to be an ally to the MWA but only so that he can place spies throughout the organization.  He has had little success until he befriends General Gregg and convinces him to allow an ambassador to join the crew of the Washington D.C.  Octopuses can communicate with each other over infinite distances using telepathy.

The Ship

The ENM Washington D.C. was formerly the USS Washington.  It was in service before the Earth became one central government.  It is outfitted with similarly speced propulsion systems of modern ships however no one with the exception of Howard LaMonde knows how to repair them and as it was made in a secret factory on Mars which was destroyed during the American uprising no parts are available.  All of the systems are in an antiquated measuring system called the US customary units which cause great confusion.

Writing all of this has got me thinking again, dammit!  "FOCUS ON YOUR CURRENT WIP"

Anyway…

I'm sure we all have lost projects that keep popping into our heads, what is yours?

Thanks for Reading

Why I ♥ Pantsing

I like to read.  I am a compulsive reader and usually can't put a book down until it's finished because I just NEED to know what happens next.  I have never read the end of a book before starting it ever.  This is why I love pantsing.

Everyone has their own opinion this is a great post by my good friend Everett Powers on plotting (or outlining as I call it).  Obviously not every one falls into the two categories neatly, some do both to varying degrees, even I do but not until I've completed my first draft.

I only ever start a book with an idea a premise and a loose plot, sometimes even just a good line like one of my neglected WIPs started with this:

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

When I started writing that I had no clue where it was going, still don't really and I'm about 75% of my way through.

To me pantsing is kind of like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books I loved when I was younger.  You control what everyone is doing and where they will go but only when you get to a certain point and then everything works itself out from there (hopefully).  The fastest way for me to lose interest in a project is to figure out how it is going to end long before I get there.  If I do I quickly change direction and steer it away to some other unknown conclusion.  Things pop up as I write, interesting thoughts or situations that hadn't occurred to me until that moment and if I had outlined I may have skipped over them or tried to include them in some awkward way.  I'm excited to write this way, I can't wait until I find out what happens next.

In my current WIP my MC was planning to commit a murder to steer the cops away from him as a suspect for another one.  Until I wrote the words 

"He was surprised to return to his apartment and see four uniformed policemen and Tim standing at the door."

I had no idea they were going to be there.  It wasn't outside of the realm of possibilities but it certainly threw a monkey wrench into his (my) plans for what was going to happen next.  I can't wait to find out what it is and I hope that someday when you're reading it neither can you.

Just a side note.  I had already finished a first draft of this WIP and outlined it then lost most of the end of the draft.  I am re-writing it and guess what, I may as well throw that outline out the window because suddenly my characters aren't doing what they did last time, which is good because I already knew the old ending, now I get a new one!

How do you write and why?  I'd love to know!

Thanks for Reading

PitMad -Why my novel was likely a tough sell.

I may as well hit myself over the head with a hammer…

#PitMad Writer of Serial Killer Series Kills his Agent, Editor and Publisher when they cancel his contract and ruin his career.

That was my pitch to #PitMad, looking at it now they likely think it is a joke post, or a threat but seriously, this is what my story is about.  Here is a little run down of it, not that anyone on the receiving end of #PitMad would go this far to find out more (They have likely all blocked my account by now :D)

Ed Putts is a writer, mildly successful, well, successful enough to pay the bills and write full time.  When his publisher is bought out by a Christian Focused publishing house his gory, sex filled novels no longer fit.  Neither his agent nor publisher have any interest in continuing their relationship with him.

Upon the termination of his contract he discovers that nothing he has written belongs to him and neither is his pen name.  He is an established writer but finds himself thrown back out into the publishing world without a recognizable name, a usable manuscript or an income.  He's fantasizing about murder, nothing new, but instead of writing it down he starts thinking about acting it out.  With a plethora of knowledge about committing and cover-up crimes he begins to believe that he is capable.  A scary encounter with a crazed fan that leads to her death solidifies his belief and he's certain that the only way to be able to get on with his life is to dispose of the three people who ruined it.

Obviously this wouldn't fit in 140 or less.  But here is a question, would this be too much for an agent or publisher to stomach?  Likely, but hell, this is my story, this came out of my brain, what could I do?

Thanks for Reading

Other attempted pitches:
He used to kill fictional characters with his pen,but since his writing career was destroyed his pen will no longer do the trick. #PitMad CF

#PitMad CF What happens when an Author of a series of gory novels about a prolific and careful serial killer has his career destroyed?

If he can’t release his lust for death through writing, there are always other ways, starting with those who killed his career. #PitMad CF

CF→ Imagine a killer whose blood lust is satiated by writing gore, now, imagine what that writer will do if he can no longer write?#PitMad

No bites but my spidey senses tell me… I don't have spidey senses. Let's just say that I was a needle in a needle stack =)

I am going to get a children's story published… PII

Dear readers, it has been two hours since I last confessed…

Perhaps writing what I am going to do first is a good way of actually doing it.  After I wrote my last blog I began researching publishing children's books.  This is what I found:

“So You Want to Publish a Children’s Book: Advice from an Insider” by Victoria Fanning
Some words of wisdom on submitting your work.  Most importantly it answered my question of whether or not it needed to be illustrated.  The answer was an overwhelming NO!

"How to format your manuscript for a children's book" by Cynthea Lui

A step by step guide to how exactly to format your children's book for submission.  Typical double-spaced times new roman nothing fancy.

I also found two three publishing houses that are taking unsolicited manuscripts for children's book:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Boyd Mills Press
Orca Book Pulbishers (Canada Only)

As well as a good list of others that aren't quite what I was looking for but still good to know

So, I have formatted my story as per Cynthea's advice, stopped worrying about the artwork.  I now have two other things to do.

Get someone to look over my manuscript for mistakes/grammer etc. and find out if I can submit to both of these places.  I have heard that some PHs only want you to submit only to them.  

For the record, if you are going to take 3+ months to get back to the submitter (which I completely understand) I don't think it's fair that they have to wait for an answer/non-answer before submitting to someone else.  I know that you believe someone is wasting your time if they submit to multiple places and may decide not to go with you but it is only the time it takes to read/think/write a letter as opposed to three months of waiting.

Here is my goal.  To have my manuscript in the mail to someone by Friday!  Luckily I have two great editors by way of my wife who is an elementary school teacher and my friend Allison who has an English degree.

I am going to get a children's story published…

just don't know how yet.
Two years ago just before my daughter was born I wrote a book for my son called:

My Baby Sister is an Alien

It's a look at pregnancy, birth and early infancy from the perspective of an older brother.

My wife has been bugging me ever since to get it published and perhaps I should.  There are just a few things that I want to find out first.

1. It's not illustrated (well the version I made used clip-art but that doesn't count), do I need to have it illustrated before I try to submit it or will they hook me up with someone?
2. Who is a really good children's book publisher that is taking submissions from unknown hacks like me?

I am going to start some research and let you all know how it's going!

So far I have:

Asked twitter

Googled and read a bit on some of them.

Next, make a list of my preferred publishers and look into submission requirements for each.

Wish me luck!

Thanks for Reading

NanoWriMo Fail, editing pass

Well it's Nano time and I had this "big hairy audacious goal" of writing ten short stories of about 5,000 words each, so, how's that going?  I have five stories started and the focus of a coked-out ADHD jack russel terrier, needless to say 50,000 words is not really in my grasp this year.
NANO-fail
In order to refocus I have decided to edit something I finished last year pre-nano (my nano project was lost when one USB stick disappeared and another one decided to do a remix of its bits and bytes).  Its a story called "Death By Putts". 
The story follows a moderately sucessful writer (ie. one who can afford the odd six-pack of imported beer) who suddenly finds himself screwed by his publisher, agent and editor and discovers that his writing was the release for a very, very dark side he didn't know he had.
Its been so long since I looked at it I almost forgot how the story goes which is making editing almost fun!
So I may have failed at nanowrimo but this is turning out to bed almost equally rewarding!

Thanks For Reading.

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

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!

Dear, Sad Neglected Blog:

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

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

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

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

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)

1. Finish Beta Reading for Steve
2. Finish Setting Up and Pimping out my G+ account
3. Work on a Design Idea I have for Threadless
4. Return to my one a day one liners for My "My Brain Farts Stink" Blog
5. Catch-up with friends
6. 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?

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

My WIP

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