Success!

After a lot of re-thinking and mental squirming, I have finally gotten Catherine's Wheel back on track. I'm back up in the middle of chapter three, and about to really kick this puppy into high gear.

I'm going to take a break for some food and to take care of some business, then it's back to Berlin...

Dumb mistake

Q: What do you call two piers?
A: A pair o' docks

Yes, friends and neighbors, I have found a glaring inconsistency between Nightchild and Sacrifice. Naturally, this occurs after both works are published and allegedly finalized.

Madrid and Barcelona are the same place, right?

Right?

::crickets::

Yeah. I thought not.

This is what happens when you let ten years go by between books and don't bother to have the original at your elbow when you're writing the sequel.

I can fix it in the eBook version of Nightchild, but still... annoying!

Augh.

Catherine's Wheel is shaping up to be one of those bothersome projects, which is appropriate enough. I may have been borrowing trouble when I named this book after a medieval torture device. I got up to the end of chapter three after multiple missteps and false starts, and it stalled. I mean it stalled like a 30-year-old truck in subzero weather. There was just no starting it again...so, I trashed it. I'm starting over.

Again.

Some more.

::headdesk::

Announcement!!

THE WEBSITE IS LIVE!!!!!

Sacrifice is available for sale on the website in electronic format, and there's a link to Nightchild on Amazon.com.

WE'RE IN BUSINESS, BABY!

Are all writers this crazy?

I've been spending a lot of time today thinking, and I mean really thinking, about Tobyn and his motivations, examining him from all angles and trying to understand him. I think that in order to write characters who are "real people", I need to spend a lot of time in my characters' heads, thinking their thoughts, considering their pasts and futures, likes and dislikes, until I know the character like a hand knows a glove.

Unfortunately, while I'm doing that, I sometimes forget to spend time in my own head and wind up knowing my characters better than I know myself...

I've always been a dreamer, drifting through life with my head in the clouds, oblivious to things that happen around me. I can even become convinced that my internal fictions are external truths, so deeply do I consider them and come to believe them. I sometimes wonder if this is a sort of writerly schizophrenia, and if I'm really just crazy and imagining everything and everyone around me.

I think too much. I think far, far too much.

Progress!

The ISBN numbers and SAN have arrived, meaning that this website and on-line venture is that much closer to becoming a reality. Soon, I hope, the first collection of short stories, the first collection of poetry, and Sacrifice will be available for download. This is so exciting! Now all I have to do is round up people who want to read it...

Marketing

It also occurred to me last night that this publishing venture is all well and good, but if I don't want to make the mistakes of the past, I'd better get myself in gear and do some publicity/advertising. The problem is that I have no idea how to do this. It's time to do some non-creative research, I think.

Sigh. I hate working on the business end of my writing. I wish I could just sit back and dream and write and let someone else do all of the work, but that's just laziness. This is my career, and if I want to make something of it, I need to do the work myself.

back chat

I worked on Catherine's Wheel last night, more or less finishing chapter 3. I chose to quit just before receiving a visit from the Exposition Fairy disguised as an 1800-year old RomanoCeltic vampire. There'll be time enough tomorrow (or the next day) to get to Teh Storee.

I've got the Wheel itself mapped out, and all of the dramatis personae are more or less in place. Now I just have to push the button and run the movie in my head.

I used to do this thing that is essentially a synopsis of the work, which I used to call "back chat". I found the back chat that I originally wrote for this book WAAAAY back when, and basically, it has no bearing on the story I'm actually writing... and believe me, that's a good thing. That edition of back chat has been relegated to the trash bin where it belongs.

I've got glimpses of the threads of this story and how they'll play out over several books to come. I just hope I have the time and the stamina to get all of it written.

ISBNs

My fear of failure and my fear of success are busy choking each other in the corner of my mind, so while the girls are occupied, I thought I'd pop in and make a quick announcement. Pending the receipt and registration of the ISBN numbers, Sacrifice will be ready for release on 3/1/10. That's exactly three weeks from today.

I'm elated, but absolutely terrified at the same time. I'm hoping for a reasonably good reception to the work, somewhere between OMGthenewTwilightyay! and chirping crickets.