Category Archives: Books/Literature

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights 7/10/14 update

Its been exactly one month since my last Corrosive Knights update.

Corrosive MACN Covers

First off, in that previous update I was guilty of being overly optimistic when I stated that I was about one draft away from finishing the fifth book in the Corrosive Knights saga.

Sometimes, writing a novel is like preparing a meal.  Every time you go over your work, its like a taste test.  Continuing on that metaphor, in my eyes I could feel the book’s second and climactic half was missing an ingredient.

The frustrating thing was that I wasn’t sure what that ingredient was.

I finished the 8 1/2 draft -really draft #9- and went into draft 10.  I finished that up just before going on a trip to England.  I left on my trip annoyed (you could even say pissed) that the book wasn’t finished, but that frustration about flying off for eight days turned out to be Godsend.

In brief, with my mind no longer focused nearly 24/7 on the book and able to relax and unwind, a few days passed before, out of left field, I had a brainstorm.  I discovered the novel’s “missing ingredient” and, in my head, the book’s climax finally came together in totto.

When I returned home, I quickly got to work and in short order produced drafts 11a, 11b, and 11c.  These drafts involved chapters 52 through 60 of the novel (the book runs 64 chapters followed by two epilogues), which constitutes much of the novel’s reveals/explanations.

Having finished draft 11c just a few minutes ago, I am very, very optimistic about the novel now being just about done.  So much so that I intend to print the whole thing out later today and give it one more complete read through.  If all looks good, draft 12 will be the novel’s last draft.

Estimated time to get it done?  Another week to a week and a half.

Keep your fingers crossed.  You know I will!

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, 6/10/14 update

Continuing the saga of the soon to be released fifth book in the Corrosive Knights saga!

My last update was on May the 23rd.  Since then:

On May 29th I finished the eight draft of the book.  I realized that the concluding chapters still needed work so on May 30 I began what I’ll call the 8 and 1/2 draft.  Because the first approximately 2/3rds of the book required so little work, I decided to exclusively devote myself on the concluding chapters.  As of last week I read through them and by tomorrow should have that draft done.  Unfortunately, I have to leave the book for a bit (just a few days, really) to focus on other stuff but when I get back to it, I expect the next draft will indeed be the last.

Yesterday, I finally “updated” the book covers.  While I like the covers to the books, I wanted them to be more indicative that they were part of a series rather than four “individual” books.

These were the old covers:

Corrosive MACN Old

And here are the “new” covers:

Corrosive MACN Covers

Ok, ok, not a HUGE difference.  The images themselves remain roughly the same but, as mentioned, I wanted to have a more consistent “look” to the books.  What I mean by that is that I wanted readers to be clear the books were part of a series and, even more, to know which part of the series they are.

Now, some final notes:

Chameleon, the third book in the Corrosive Knights series, will be available for free to download from Amazon.com starting this Friday, June 13 (Friday the 13th!!!!) and going on through Tuesday.  Take advantage of this by going to this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Chameleon-Corrosive-Knights-Book-3-ebook/dp/B0063LNB8S/ref=la_B006061H50_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402404901&sr=1-1

As for the cover to the fifth book in the series…I’ve begun it.  I hope to have it done shortly before finishing the next (last?!) draft of the book.

Keeping my fingers crossed!

 

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, the 5/23/14 update

Seventeen days ago, on 5/6/14, I had my latest Corrosive Knights update (you can read the whole thing here) and figured it was time to offer another update.

To begin, in the last update I noted a couple of things which, sadly, will not come to be.  I was hopeful I could finally give out the book’s title in this update, but given some of which follows, I’m going to hold back on that.  There are, however, at least two of you out there who already know the novel’s title.

Secondly, I was hopeful that I could wrap the novel up in roughly a month or so and release it in early June.  That looks increasingly like it won’t happen, at least not then.

Why?  Because shortly after writing my 5/6 update I caught what I thought was a cold but which turned out to be more serious.  Soon, I was seeing a Doctor and was on anti-biotics and damn near bed ridden.  The time I would have had to fix the novel obviously took a hit and, after I was feeling better, I lost a little more time dealing with my daughter’s graduation.  That I wouldn’t have that any other way! 😉 .

In spite of the time crunching obstacles, there is some good news:  As of only minutes ago I finished the eighth draft read through and am happy to say the novel is really close to being done.

In my last update, I hoped the eight draft would be the final one.  In part, it is.  I couldn’t be happier with the first three quarters of the book and don’t feel they need to be reviewed after this.  The final roughly 1/4ths of the novel, including its climax, still needs a little work and I plan to give that part -and not the entire piece- one more go around before releasing it.  This, obviously, reviewing only a quarter of the book will take far less time than going over the entire work.

Unfortunately, looming in the very near future are some pressing things I need to do which will once again delay the time I have to work on this book.  There is no way around this.

It would therefore appear this novel, the fifth in the Corrosive Knights series and the one that finally brings the series all together, will be ready no earlier than late June or early July.  If I can satisfy myself and get it ready earlier, I will do so.  But until then, this is my best guesstimate.

Thanks for your patience and thanks to everyone taking advantage of the free Kindle download (expires on 5/25!) of the second book in the series, The Last Flight of the Argus.  To all those new readers, I hope you like what you see and give the rest of the books in the series a shot.

The next one will be out soon!

Corrosive MACN & Coming Soon

Books/Literature

Different strokes…

As the saying goes, not everyone loves the literary classics.  Some may downright hate them.

Here then is a list of 16 Hilarious Negative Amazon Reviews for Classic Books:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/15/amazon-reviews_n_4935607.html

The first entry is the one I found the most amusing, a review of William Shakespeare’s Othello, which I present below in its entirety:

Me doth not thinkift I understandifth this tale 
★ ★ 
Shakespeare was a real cool person for his time. Unfortunately, his plays are not a real cool thing to read for my time. It is English and I speak English. I just don’t happen to speak Old English. Which is really ironic because I am old and speaking English. If you read slowly and put your thinking cap on, you will get the gist of what the story is about. Or! You can just purchase Cliff notes, etc. This story is exciting and full of action………..I Think? 

“Which is ironic because I am old and speaking English”?!?!

If that had you laughing, then by all means check out the other 15 entries.  Guaranteed to at least give you a smile! 😉

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights, the 5/6/14 update

Corrosive MACN & Coming Soon

A little over a month ago, on 4/3, I gave my latest update on my latest Corrosive Knights book. At the time, I was done with the book’s sixth draft and felt there was a little more work to be done, particularly in the book’s climax (you can read the brief post here).

Well, as of today I’m done with the seventh draft of the book and plan to jump right into draft #8 tomorrow.

I feel this will be the final draft.

The problems I found in the book’s climax were for the most part dealt with, while the relatively minor grammatical problems in the first 3/4ths of the book were also resolved.

The seventh draft’s final count?  97,871 words, 193 pages at 10 point, single spaced.

In the last post, I guesstimated another two months before the book was done.  While I may not hit the exact deadline, my opinion hasn’t changed all that much: A little over a month has passed since that prediction and I feel there’s about another month of work left before the book is ready to be released.

Hopefully, the next update will include not only include the novel’s title, but the cover art as well.

Won’t be long now! 😉

Books/Literature, General

This n’ that and…Corrosive Knights!

First, my apologies for the dearth of posts of late.  Unfortunately, “real life” is pressing in on me, time-wise, and I simply don’t have the freedom to post as often as I have before.  By the later parts of April, however, the things keeping me from the computer should resolve themselves and I’ll be back to posting more regularly.

Secondly, as of yesterday I finished my sixth full read and revision of my latest Corrosive Knights book and…the opening 80 percent of this book is just about done.  All I could find in the first 150 of the 188 pages of the book (single spaced, 10 point) were small grammatical issues and a couple of examples of repetitious dialogue and/or descriptors.  Nothing big.

Which leaves me with the final 38 or so pages.

Now, they’re pretty good, too, but after this latest reading I realized there was a little more work to be done here.  This is the book’s climax and resolution and it needs to be as razor sharp as what preceded it and, at this moment, I’ve got a few reveals that need to be better timed as well as a couple of descriptive passages that need a little more work.  I think two more drafts should do the trick.

Therefore my guesstimate for the release of this book is another two months at the very most.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

Books/Literature

Corrosive Knights 3/14/14 Update

Corrosive MACN & Coming Soon

I’m getting closer and closer to being done.

When I woke up today, I was in a really good mood as I was down to the last few pages of my latest -fifth- book in the Corrosive Knights saga to revise.  As of this moment, I’m done with the book’s 6th draft and this evening will print her out and begin the 7th draft.

In my opinion, the book “reads” far better than ever before.  The word count, which was somewhere north of 105,000 words, has been tightened to a leaner 99,700.  In general, the word count of my in progress novels tends to go up as I’m figuring out plot points and adding things that need to be put in.  When I reach the point where the word count starts to go down, it means that the book’s story/plot is pretty much locked down and my focus turns to making the book as razor sharp as I can get her.  A second factor indicating my book is nearly ready is that it takes far less time between drafts.

Between the fifth draft and this one, it took me a little less than two months to read and fix her up.  Between the fourth and fifth draft, the time it took to revise it was four months, nearly double the time.

The bottom line is that the book is getting real near completion. I think another two drafts should do it.

Looking forward to getting it done!

Books/Literature, Movies

Jonathan Livingston Seagull…

…and the Rise of Simpleton Wisdom, a fascinating article by Heather Havrilesky for Slate Magazine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/03/jonathan-livingston-seagull-new-edition-with-fourth-section-is-dumb-as-ever.html

If you’re like me and were a child of the 1970’s, Richard Bach’s novel Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was one of those books that seemed to be everywhere.  I remember seeing it in drug stores, libraries, bookstores (where it was very prominently featured), left behind at bus stops or schools, etc. etc.

I tried reading it way back when but found the whole thing rather…silly.  I mean, a book about a seagull that somehow finds its Nirvana?  To this day it fascinates me what people react to and make a big part of their culture, and Ms. Havrilesky astutely points out why this book may have become as popular as it was, a revelation to me (I never cared enough about the book, despite its popularity, to find out the why’s related to the same).

By the way, so popular was the book that they made a movie out of it (it bombed).  The movie featured the music of Neil Diamond.

Oh yeah…

…oh my….

Books/Literature, Computers/Electronics, Movies

Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”

If you haven’t heard/read about it, director/writer Quentin Tarantino’s next film was supposed to be The Hateful Eight.  I heard it was going to be a western with a cast that features more mature/elderly actors and there were those that speculated this might be a film on par, thematically, with The Wild Bunch.

Whether this was the case or not, the film’s first draft script was leaked and Mr. Tarantino’s reaction was, to me, quite understandable: He was pissed.

He released a stinging statement to the media noting The Hateful Eight movie was shelved and the script might be released as a novel.  He went further, stating the first draft script was in the hands of only three actors…and he suspected one of their agents/agencies were the source of the leak.

Today, news comes that Mr. Tarantino is suing Gawker for posting links to the leaked script:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/quentin-tarantino-suing-gawker-leaked-674424

I can’t blame him.

I’ve talked before about my curiosity about the effects of the internet and the changes it has made to the economy, whether for good or bad.

There was a time when there were Music stores.  At first, they sold record albums.  Then 8-track and cassettes.  Then came CDs.  With the advent of the MP3 file, however, the entire music selling industry was uprooted.  Suddenly, it was easy to download -legally or illegally- music online.  So easy, in fact, that if you were interested in, say, the music of Artist X, in a matter of minutes you could have every one of their albums (legally or illegally) along with as many bootlegs (illegally) as you wanted/cared for.

In one moment, music stores were a thing of the past.

I recall many years ago (1986 or 1987) going to see a movie and noting a life sized cardboard cutout promoting the upcoming Robocop movie.  Back in those pre-internet days, I had no idea such a film was in the works, much less on the verge of being released.

The cutout, frankly, looked absolutely ridiculous to my eyes.  “A cop that’s a robot?” I said in disbelief.  “How stupid!”

And yet, when the film was released a month or so later (again, I had NO IDEA AT ALL what the film was about other than this poster/cutout) there were some very good reviews for it and I was curious.

I went to see the film and, again, without knowing all that much about it, was blown away.

Today and thanks to the internet, we already know just about everything we need to about the Robocop remake.  Who stars in it, an idea of what the tone of the film is, even how it differs from the original.  I suspect there are many who have already made up their minds about whether they care to see this remake.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

I suppose on the one hand its good to have an idea of what you’re in for should you choose to go see the film.  On the other hand…where is the surprise?

And what happens if you’re someone like Mr. Tarantino, and you’re working hard on something only to see it prematurely released to the public without your consent?

Currently, I’m working very hard on finishing up the fifth novel in my Corrosive Knights series.  The work has been grueling but I’m getting close to the end.  Frankly, I don’t know how I’d react if the current draft of the book were somehow released to the public.

Would I give up on the book and move on to another project?

I suppose so.

But the heartbreak of what would amount to wasting all that time working on something only to have it stripped from you…that would be a very hard thing to get over.

Books/Literature

Why is it so hard to write an ending?

Are you a writer?  If so and when writing, do you have a problem coming up with good endings to your works?  Then check this article by Charlie Jane Anders (and her advice for those dealing with this problem) at i09.com:

http://io9.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-write-a-decent-ending-1506821748

I suspect almost all fiction writers have areas in this profession that give them difficulties.  I can honestly say that finding a “good” ending to my stories is not one of those problems.  In fact, it has been my experience that story endings and beginnings are often quite easy once I get my story idea (that’s a whole other ball of wax!) and the difficulties for me lie in cleverly/originally creating the bridge between these two.

Sometimes this “bridge” may amount to no more than a few chapters or sequences.  The beginning of my works, like most others, introduce characters and the situation(s) they face.  Often there are several characters running around doing their individual thing(s) and, eventually, these individuals get together to face the story’s main “problem”.  It is in getting the characters together in that already mentioned logical, clever, and hopefully original manner where I have my greatest difficulties.

As far as story endings, I can’t recall ever having a really big problem in coming up with one.  Not to brag, but for me endings tend to come easy.  For example, I already have the concluding story of the Corrosive Knights saga pretty much completely written up, though in a rough draft form.  Once I finish the fifth book in this series I plan to polish off that rough draft and finish it..

When will this final, concluding book in the Corrosive Knights saga be released?  Probably not for quite a while.  I simply wanted to get it done and have it ready for the day I finally reach the point where it should be released!

If you’re like me and coming up with story endings is not a problem, then perhaps you suffer from this, which author Mark Evanier posted on his blog and noted was no problem to him:

The writer Dorothy Parker famously said, “I hate writing. I love having written.” I’ve never felt that way, nor do I understand why anyone who did would become a writer and stay a writer.

If you’re curious, the rest of Mr. Evanier’s brief blog entry can be found here:

http://www.newsfromme.com/2014/01/19/recommended-reading-1789/

Ms. Parker’s statement about “hating writing and love having written” is something I can completely understand.  Mr. Evanier has noted he has no problems sitting before a computer typing away for hours at a time, but to me this is often a very difficult process.

My difficulty lies in what I wrote above, bridging the gap between story beginnings and endings.  This “in between” stuff is what always takes a lot of time and considerable concentration/work for me to get “just right”.

When I’m working, I find it near impossible to  sit before the computer and type for many hours at a time.  Usually, my process goes like this: I type as many as one to four pages or sometimes as little as one paragraph or line before having to pause and think think think about what I’ve just written and if it works and whether it fits with what I want to accomplish.  At this same moment I think about whether what I just wrote or am about to write advances the story in clever/interesting ways.

For the fifth book in the Corrosive Knights saga, there were entire sections I wrote and subsequently trashed and completely re-wrote because they didn’t work for me.  Some were too “convenient” in getting the characters from point A to B.  Some were clunky.  Some introduced new characters I didn’t care about and didn’t feel added anything to the story itself.

The middle part of my stories are like very thick oil paintings.  You add layers and layers of “paint” to your work, sometimes burying sections/parts you did completely.  It is at this time I become my own worst critic and strive to do better with each word I add.

And it can be absolutely, positively, maddening.

But that’s not to say its always like that.  Some days are better than others and sometimes things “flow” and I make a lot of progress.

When all that work and frustration is done and I hold my latest book in my hand and look at my shelf and see all the other books I’ve written and know deep in my heart I’ve created the absolute best work I could…it makes me feel incredibly proud.

I hate writing -at least some times- but boy oh boy do I love having written.