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

The Writer's Dojo Returns!

The Writer's Dojo is returning to its roots and invites you to join in on the fun! 

When I first started the writer's dojo in 2008, I did it as a way to keep the glory of National Novel Writing Month alive all year long. I loved the camaraderie and support I received during the month of November and desired that same feeling of community every month of the year, in every aspect of writing--not just the drafting.

Beginning February 1st, 2013, the writer's dojo returns to its roots and ushers in a new age of ninjawesomeness. Each month we will open three training rooms at the writer's dojo website. A room for drafters (Writing Month, aka WriMo), a room for revisers (Revising Month, aka ReMo) and a room for those querying (Querying Month, aka QuMo).

We invite you to set your own goals, whether it's to write a thousand words a day, revise ten pages a week, or submit twenty queries in a month, and register your goal in the appropriate training room.

Every Monday we'll post the leaderboard for the previous week, and at the end of each month those who met their goal will be able to post the coveted Writing Ninja Warrior badge on their blog or website.

To help you reach your goals, we have a number of ways to support you:

CHATS: At the dojo every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.

TWITTER: Anytime, day or night, at #writingninja.

GOOGLE+: Join our community for random write-ins and sprints.

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe to our Ninja News and once a month you'll receive an email with an encouraging note and a list of the top performers for the previous month. There will also be opportunities for giveaways, starting with February's newsletter!

We hope to see you at the dojo as you reach for--and achieve--your goals! If you’re interested in seeing what it looks like, just post it in the text box of your blog and then click on “Preview” and you’ll see the simple message=) Please feel free to add your own thoughts on the matter. I’ll see you all around The Writer’s Dojo!!

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!

A one night writer's retreat = 5000 words!

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



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:

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

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