Glad that year's over!

Man, was 2012 a pain. Not that good things didn't happen, but lots of bad, distracting and draining things did. The less said or dwelt upon about it, the better.

With that out of the way, on to the future! The plan for this year includes much work on Darwin Colossus, which received a radical restructuring recently that has me excited. The plan is to get it out on Amazon Digital Publishing this year sometime, which might be aggressive, but hey, no guts no glory.

Not much else to say at this point, other than keep watching this space: I'll be posting some work in progress excerpts and other commentary as I go.

-Rich

Been Quiet Around Here Lately

Life has been a complete bear of late. Not in the negative sense (though there's been some of that), but in the sense that there's been so much to do and deal with in my personal life that there hasn't been much writing time, or indeed time to blog here.

Let's see, short list:

• Changed departments at work
• Ripping out carpeting at the house (long overdue, especially since we have pets)
• One of our cats had six kittens
• Two of the kittens died after much care (probable birth defects), causing my wife and I no small amount of grief

In the process I've read a fair amount and produced a couple of chapters of Darwin Colossus for Magic City Writers, but sadly writing has gotten pretty short shrift. Luckily we may be nearing the end of both the near-term floor refurbishing work and the kitten drama. 

In other news, Brant from Magic City Writers has had the entirety of his novel At The Lady's Behest Comes... workshopped by the group, so congratulations to him! Thirteen chapters, and more than 150,000 words, revised in full twice. The raw achievement of this has inspired me, so I'll be working to make more progress on Darwin Colossus from here out.

-Rich

Progress Again: 9,494 Words and Counting [WIP]

November continues to be a month of multifarious obligations and unexpected tasks. Nevertheless, I persevere. I'm way behind on word count, but I will continue to forge onward. The point of it is to keep going!

And now, today's Work In Progress:

Word count is at 6,032: behind, but catching up [WIP]

Have had several crazy days in a row, and wound up not getting anything written last night due to complete brain fatigue failure, but tonight I slammed 2500 words down, and will continue doing that or better until I'm back at pace.

By the end of tomorrow night the NaNoWriMo benchmark is 10,000 words, and I've got another full day working with Amy in her henna booth scheduled tomorrow, so it'll be tight, but it's the end of Daylight Saving Time, so I'll have another hour's stamina to burn. I'd love to get 4,000 words written tomorrow evening. Wish me luck!

And now, some WIP from this evening's efforts:

Another 849 words tonight; some WIP to tide you over, though

I'm a fair bit shy of my daily goals lately, but it's been that sort of week. Tonight was gym night, and as a result I'm the kind of tired that makes it hard even to type well. :-)

Still, any progress is better than no progress, and I have this coming weekend to make up word count, in the gaps between the event I'm helping Amy cover with her henna business. I also resolved an issue with my remote-desktop software on my home PC, so it will be much easier to write over my lunch hours from now on.

And now, to bed. But first, some work-in-progress:

Sometimes Life Backs Up On You

Aye, it's true. Between home stuff, work stuff, gym time, reading for Magic City Writers, writing my own stuff and composing (drum pieces for a Middle Eastern ensemble I play with), I'm overbooked, overworked and underslept. Blah.

This obviously means I need to do some focusing and prioritizing. A cluttered headspace is one that's nearly impossible to accomplish anything with.

-Rich

Life, In The Way; Current Reads

...I am not dead. I have not forgotten about anyone or anything. :-)

It's been a little dramatic the past pair of weeks, as things around the Miller household had to be put on hold for health and recovery reasons. That issue appears (touch wood) to be receding as a concern, so I'll be getting back into revisions and beta-reader mailings this week, and possibly weekend.

The next meeting of my local writing group is coming up next Wednesday, so I've also got to get the current piece read and critiqued. Gonna be a busy weekend!

I'm also going to start doing mentions of books I'm reading and/or enjoying, because a huge part of being a writer is being a reader as well. Here goes!

I snagged my e-copy of Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear right on release day (3/1/2011), and devoured it over the course of the next several days, which were too crazy-full to do any writing, but not so much as to preclude reading. I don't mind saying that I have a bit of a man-crush on Patrick Rothfuss: his previous book (his debut freaking novel) affected me more powerfully than anything else I've read in fiction. Thinking of some scenes still arouses strong emotion, and I've read The Name of the Wind something like five times. In any event, the emotional peaks of Wise Man's Fear weren't as stratospheric for me as in Name of the Wind, but the storytelling was at least as strong, showing that Rothfuss isn't/wasn't a fluke, or one-hit wonder. The one question I have left is how in the world the rest of the story, knowing what we know, can be tied up in the one volume of the trilogy Rothfuss has left? Can't wait for the final installment.

I'm currently listening (via Audible.com) to The Runelords, Book 1: The Sum of All Men, by David Farland. Farland's a new author for me, but his books were recommended strongly in a few episodes of Writing Excuses, so I had to check them out. Fascinating worldbuilding, and the story's definitely sucked me in.

Finally, I'm embarking on a reread of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, an amazing novel, and one that's a bit of a touchstone for me. I love Miéville's writing: his wordsmithing, his worldbuilding, his theme play, philosophical groundedness, the whole gamut. Perdido Street Station is arguably the work Miéville's most famous for, though he's received a lot of well-deserved press lately for works like The City and the City and Kraken. John Scalzi, today, named Perdido Street Station his #1 novel of the past ten years (in lieu of his own most-famous work, Old Man's War, which recently won a Tor.com "#1 Novel of the Past Ten Years" poll). I completely agree with Scalzi on this: more than anything else I've read (including The Name of the Wind) I read Perdido Street Station (indeed, any Miéville) and think, "Hell's bells, I want to write like that!" His stuff is lush, challenging, fiercely intelligent, and oscillates between gutter-filth and transcendent glory with aplomb. Not a bad pole-star to sail by, though the trade route I follow must ultimately be my own.

More soon!

-Rich

New WIP, and Status Report

It's been a trying few weeks, between illness in the house (a tenacious upper-respiratory bug that felled both me and Amy, in turn) and unexpected, apparently successful abdominal surgery for one of the family dogs (oy).

But writing must continue, and so I'm back on the horse as of tonight. Here's some WIP:

Sick. Dadgummit.

I have gotten sick, and need to sleep before I get sick enough that I jeopardize this weekend's travel plans. More to come later. :-(

Word to the wise: artistic inspiration isn't a good enough reason to short yourself on sleep down to 4-ish hours a night for two weeks running. Oops.

-Rich

Writing Group Ahoy!

I've found a writing group here in Birmingham! I'll post a link to them once I have a chance to attend my first meeting on February 1. I'm also moving from OpenOffice 3.3 to Microsoft Word 2010, for two reasons: A) the writing group does what it does with Word's change tracking mechanism, and OO Writer's change tracker is only mostly compatible, and B) Word, like it or not, is the industry standard, so using anything else is just asking for trouble later on. So: time to bite the bullet. I've installed Microsoft's Office Home 2010 60-day trial, to be purchased in full once I know all is well.

I've had various and sundry errands, obligations and projects to handle around the house lately, so writing progress isn't what I've been hoping for, but I've got some time to work tonight. I'll post a Work In Progress (WIP) excerpt later.

-Rich

Drafting Continues

Been a tricky week for writing work. After overdoing it on the leg press machine this past Saturday, my back went out on Monday morning, and sitting for protracted periods was not-fun for a few days. Luckily I've healed up quickly, and have been making progress when I can. I've extended my target for Proxy Bloodsport (which might benefit from a rename) to 7,000 words, figuring I'll wind up editing back down to around 6,000 by the time I'm done, and in the quest to find or make a good place to sit properly, I managed to clear off my old computer desk: no more lap-desk drafting on the couch for me!

Anyhow, I'm off to bed. Onward!

-Rich