Time Isn't Always On My Side

Seriously.  Like never.

I have so many stories I want to tell.  I also have a 60+ hour a week job.  I am married to a wonderful lady who deserves every ounce of my attention.  I have a house to maintain.

As Book Two (Requiter?) plods to its publish date, I have begun Book Three. 

The artwork is near completion for Book Two.  The edits continue to filter in.  Soon, I will publish the book and move into marketing it (bleh).

I have been writing Book Three.  I have to write it while the story is still fresh in my head.  There is so much I want to get down before I forget it.  I really like how it is shaping up.

There is a short story sitting on my desk that needs the first few hundred words rewritten.  I wanted to publish this story months ago, but I received comments on it that I can't ignore.  The beginning of the story is just not on the same pace as the rest of it.  In my experience, it only takes a few sentences added, changed, or removed, to fix these problems, but since my brain has been tied up with the Drums of Rallinwar series, it has been difficult to address.

On top of that, there are two short stories that need to be written.  I have the notes for them, and there are just a couple of minor tweaks to make before they get written.

I have another short story that is almost complete.  I need to complete it and publish it.

And already, I have been considering the next book.  I have a story that I began a couple of years ago that will get written, but I have also been brewing a "fantastic" type story.  One of those with over the top fantasy elements.

I could lock myself away in my office for a week and not finish all the stories on my list.  I honestly get excited just thinking about what is next.  And the excitement only increases when I am told the manuscript for Book Two is in much better shape than Blood of Two was when i passed it off to the editors.  I mean, I feel as though I have improved, and it has been validated by those I work with.

I only hope you see it the same way when it gets published.

Time isn't on my side, but this is an exciting time for me.

Busy, Busy, Busy

The only sign August existed is the calendar on my office wall.  I apologize for sleeping through it.

In reality, editing is more time consuming than writing.  At least it is for me.  I can spend several hours editing a single chapter, which sometimes moves in to the next day.  The good news is; I am making progress.  The first half of the book is in my editors hands, and I am near completion with the second half.

I have the cover art for a short story I promised.  The only thing left is an edit.  Unfortunately, I am finding it difficult to pry myself away from my other editing.  Which leads in to my lack of social media presence.

Every day I tell myself I need to blog, tweet, or share something on facebook.  Every day I sit down and grab the manuscript and work on some edits.  On one hand, the book is priority, on the other, I am neglecting other arena's of my writing life.  I could promise to do better.  I could.  But, I'm pretty sure it would be a hollow promise.

Personally, I think you would rather see a completed book two than another post on Facebook.

I will try to do a bit better, though.

So, where have I been other than editing?

Most of you know my parents lost their home in the tornado before the tornado that received all the attention.  Finally, they moved to their new home.  I was able to help a little, though not as much as I wanted.  I can't express just how happy I am to see this chapter finally coming to a close.  A huge thank you goes out to the people involved with the many churches in the area that came through where FEMA/Red Cross/United Way failed.

It is also summer time and I still have grass in my yard.  I think my next home will be in a gravel pit.

Until my marketing skills and my writing abilities improve, I still have a real job.  And don't take this as a complaint.  In many ways, my real job has afforded me the opportunity to write.

My wife deserves more attention than she has received.  And always will.

And my granddaughter is cuter than yours.

I need to get back to work.  Maybe I'll ramble on a little later.  Just remember, though there may be a sprinkling of truth, it doesn't make Thayer Evans any less of a hack.

A Moment of Relaxation

I have to laugh at myself.  For most of my adult life I have had different business ideas, which usually corresponded to my hobby at the time.  The problem is, I am lazy and starting a business is work.  You have to maintain your "day job", while you attempt to make your new job successful.  Even after you get that business going well enough to quit your job, the work with keeping it lucrative is still more than if you just worked your day job.  So for years, those grand schemes fell to the wayside and I remained fat dumb and happy.

Then I decided to pursue my writing passion.  Don't let anybody fool you, writing is a business.  As much as I love to write, it still boils down to the fact that I am doing what I avoided for years; I am starting a business.  I work all day, then come home and write (work) all night.  Don't take this wrong.  I am not complaining, just stating a fact that some people with dreams of writing are ignorant of.

So, it was time for a moment of relaxation.

For the past 23 years we have taken a family vacation.  I am not sure I can ever express the importance of these trips.  They were essential for us as a family, and for each of us individually.  I strongly believe those vacations have lengthened, and enriched, our lives.

This was the first year my kids weren't able to go on vacation with us.  I hated the thought, and I missed them, but my wife and I had a blast.

We grabbed a tent, straddled the motorcycle and had ourselves a 2800 mile adventure.  We froze our tails off at a few campsites, rode a ferry across Mobile Bay, explored an old military fort, dipped our toes in the beautiful waters of the Emerald Coast, absorbed natural beauty that you could never experience from a car, and visited Mickey Mouse.

My wife and I have never lost that connection that some empty-nester's discover they lost, but this adventure strengthened it without a doubt.  And we both relaxed.  We needed it.  For the last two years we have worked ourselves into a stupor.  Now we are recharged, and maybe not quite ready to return to the real world, but more prepared to do battle with it.

Don't rob yourself of these moments of relaxation.  Step away, enjoy your life, and you may be surprised how clear things become when that cloud of exhaustion drifts away.

Life is Good

In a matter of hours, my wife and I will be breaking away on a motorcycle adventure.

The house will be left in the care of our adult children, work will be left behind, cell phones will be playing our favorite music, and we won't have a care.

This is our first vacation without children.  As much as I would like to have them all along (work got in their way), I am looking forward to spending a couple of weeks with the woman I am still in love with.

We have seven days to make a 22 hour drive to Walt Disney World.  If something catches our eyes on the way down, we have plenty of time to stop and gawk.  We'll be exploring a couple of National Forest's, combing a few beaches, and finding every opportunity to enjoy the moment.

At Disney, we will be celebrating our 25th anniversary.  Twenty-Five years and that woman still gives me that funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.  There is no other person in this world that I would rather spend my life with and this adventure, in many ways, reflects our life-long relationship.

Life is Good.

I'll be back later this month.

BTW.  I am just a few chapters shy of completing the rough draft for book two.  After that, the extensive editing process begins.  I really feel that my writing has improved since Blood of Two.  So much so, that I feel the need to go back and edit that book again.  If time allows, I may just do it.  One of the beauties of the e-book.

Life is good.

Finding Time

It has been more than a few days since I posted, and much of the reason can be blamed on the clock.

The rest is my own fault (but don't tell anybody).

I have been hard at it with the follow-up to Blood of Two and it is going slow, but it is going.  I'll save some of that for another post.

One of the things about writing a book and working a full time job is finding that short span of time to dedicate to writing.  It can be quite the challenge.  Some writer's get up early and spew out a few words before work.  Some will utilized technology and hammer out a bit during breaks.  Since I crawl out of bed at 3am to get to work by 4, I wait till after work.

I am a creature of habit.  Such a creature of habit it is almost silly.  Oh, heck.  There's no almost about it.  I get home from work, check the mail, check a few websites I frequent, pay a bill or two, take a shower and pour myself something to drink.  Most nights it's just a Mountain Dew, other nights it calls for something with a kick.

I then ease into my office, which is my writing domain.  I will check in with some of my social networking that I joined up with specifically for my writing.  This here blog would be one, the facebook page for my writings is another.  I haven't quite found the magic touch with Twitter yet, though I do occasionally tweet, and Google+ is still a mystery for me.  Regardless, I hit em all and contribute if I can.

Then it is time to write.  I fire up the music, light up the incense, and away I go.  For how long?  Until the characters in my head grow mute.

So, you see, I have found time to write, however there is another issue:  I have forgotten about the time to vegetate.

Some people call this vegetation time 'Re-charging', and there is a lot of truth to that.  Don't get hung up with word counts and progress if your writing has turned into work.  Take a few moments and hang back with your family and friends.

Just this last weekend I had just completed a chapter that was a chore.  It was like every word I typed had to be squeezed out of me like a clove of garlic in a press.  I had spent most of the last week with that single chapter (which will likely get shredded on the first edit).  Saturday and Sunday, I didn't write a thing.  I hung out with my wife.  We looked at new motorcycles, bought some stuff for our May bike trip, ate a couple of meals, and caught up on some television.

When I returned to my writing domain last night, I spewed out a thousand words before the first stick of incense expired.

You will often discover that finding time to do nothing at all will re-invigorate your writing.  Take a day off and when you come back to the keyboard you just might get lost in your story.

Of course, you can take this thought too far...

Yo! Thanks

Most likely my last round of pencil edits is behind me.  I will spend the next week turning those margin notes into text and giving the book one last read.  After that, I have a "buy my book!" paragraph to drum up, and the Author Notes for the end of the book.  As I stretch my legs for this home stretch run, I just needed to say one thing:

Thank You!

There have been several people over the years that have motivated me to pursue this craft, either directly or indirectly.  On top of those people, there have been a handful more that have helped me take a rough draft to a (pardon my modesty) really good manuscript.

And then there is this social networking BS.  For those who know me personally, you know why I call it BS.  I am not exactly what one would refer to as a "people person".  I suppose it may be the fact that my mind lives in another world.  This whole social networking thing is really stretching my limits and has been an element leagues outside of my comfort zone, but for some off-the-wall reason it is working for me.

I look back at the history of this blog and can already see positive results.  The month of July alone has garnered more traffic than the last two years.  So, somebody actually reads what this old man has to say?  Seriously though, thank you to those of you that do read it.  And an even bigger thanks to those who refer this blog to other's.

Twitter.  Oy.  A place where I am compelled to come up with something to say on a regular basis.  I don't even talk to myself on a regular basis.  But, again, I have seen positive results come from my involvement in that area.  We will see if it translates into sales, but I doubt you will find me putting out the daily "Buy my book" tweet.  That's just not me.

Facebook.  Well my wife posted something on her Facebook account the other day about my upcoming novel.  Unlike myself, my wife is a popular person on Facebook.  That one post brought traffic to the World of Nilrus Facebook page, and I can only believe that more will follow.

Thank you to all of you who follow my progress and spread the word about my upcoming book.  Like I've mentioned previously, I'm not out to make it rich.  I just want to tell my stories.

Day Dreamer

I suppose it is true of most writers, but I dream of what could be.  I can't help it.  I know the reality of things.  I will likely work until a week after my death, at which time I will still be in debt up to my eyeballs, and my books will have sold 16 copies each.  A tad bit pessimistic, I know, but I do still live in the real world.

Despite all of that, I can't help but daydream about how well my first book will do.  Will it be a bestseller?  Nah, but in my dreams it sure as heck is.

So, for the six of you who actually read this blog:
This round of edits is complete up through chapter 17(of 33), which puts me beyond the halfway mark.  The feedback from my crew of editors has been priceless, and quite honestly, I can't wait to get going on the next round of edits.  There has been some valuable information shared with me, as well as some praise on a few elements of the book that I wanted to come across just right.

I am still very excited with this endeavor.  And last night I amplified that excitement ten-fold.  I decided it was time to practice formatting the book for e-readers.  I spent about an hour with the manuscript and the conversion software and loaded the book onto my wife's Kindle.

Pardon me a moment while I slip into textese.

OMFG!!

I can't explain the feeling I had when I saw my book title and C. Hollis Gunter as the author on the Kindle front screen.  I still get all silly feeling when I think about it.  As a matter of fact, my day dreaming just kicked it up a few notches.  I will probably pass out when I see it listed on the Amazon website this fall.

Until then, I will keep on day dreaming.

To Prologue or Not to Prologue

I dumped the first three chapters of my book off to my wife and she gave me some good feedback. I asked her to read it as a reader and also to keep a critical eye on it.

First off, I was wondering whether the prologue should be a prologue or the first chapter, because it is an interaction between the two main characters that don't meet again until much later in the book. She thought it worked as a prologue, though the writing seemed a bit amateurish.

I agree.

The prologue was originally a short story that I wrote as an assignment in school, and to delve further into the personalities of three of the characters. I have rewritten it a few times, but it still feels simplistic. Her feedback served to strengthen that feeling. I wonder if I should just rewrite the chapter fresh.

She tells me that the first two chapters read like a published book with another issue that I had to agree with. She said that the narrative felt a bit choppy. In a sense, I have always felt that some of my transitions weren't as smooth as they should be.

The encouraging news? She felt like the characters were complex. This is more than encouraging, this is great news! I have worked hard to make my characters three dimensional, and at times I have felt like I fell short. To hear her call my characters complex is a huge boost.

Overall, she did an excellent job of giving me some useful feedback. I can't wait to see what she comes up with on the grammar related edits.