Day 9 of 10 Writing FayTown Calling
It’s seven in the morning and I’m pretty sure I’m done writing for now. I got a few hours of sleep, fully intending to actually go to bed, then woke up and stayed that way. This turned out to be a mixed blessing as I then wrote 4,200 words that I am very, very happy with. The afternoon netted be over 2,000 giving me a total of around 6,500 words for day nine. That bleeds into Sunday (day 10) so I don’t really know how to count it, but whatever, I’m calling that day nine. Currently, the story is at 112, 391 words. If you’re scratching your head at that total, that’s because of a lot of cannibalization of previous words. Those don’t get counted in my word count for the day, but obviously do for the total. Because so much is getting recycled, and so much getting cut because…
The First Chapter
Anne R. Allen put a post a few a week or so back (I am so glad to be caught up on Feedly now…) that discusses what all should be involved in a first chapter. The moment I saw it, I groaned. Here we go, something else to tear everything I think I know to ribbons. But I read it, because this was a new blog I added to my reader, and I nee to get a feel for it, and much as I didn’t want to admit it, these types of posts are important. Nothing is concrete, but the thing about being a new writer, one who hasn’t written for anyone I wasn’t related or married to, is not having the ability to gauge what is concrete and what is quicksand. I think I know my stuff, but who knows what that will mean to readers? And the first sentence, paragragh,…
Violence In Fantasy
Adam Callaway at A Dribble of Ink has a great article that dissects violence, particularly in relation to fantasy. He makes some great points (especially using BioShock 3 where the violence there is ridiculous). The entire time I read it, I was trying to think of novels I loved that didn’t employ violence. I have a few, but none of them are fantasy. And it got me thinking about my own story. In the first novel, Sorcerer Rising, I have a good bit of violence. I think of it as action, but really, that’s how we as a society put a nicer label on violence. That’s not really a problem for me, I’ve always handled that rather well and I think it has a point. Virgil isn’t dark or an anti-hero, but his reaction to horrible things is to throw a whole bunch of horrible right back at it. Very rarely…
Jim Butcher On Sword and Laser
I have recently gotten into Geek and Sundry‘s Sword and Laser webshow. I haven’t found any show that interview authors, particularly fantasy and science fictions authors, like they do. And they get some pretty big damn names too. George R. R. Martin, Salidin Ahmed, Cherie Priest, and several others. I’ve found a few books I had never encountered and I love hearing fantasy authors talk about their work. And in catching up, I came upon this interview with Jim Butcher. Jim friggin Butcher! My head nearly EXPLODED! If you haven’t read Mr. Butcher’s work, really, stop reading this and go buy Storm Front. It’s not he best of the series, so push on because The Dresden Files is, in my personal opinion, the best fantasy series I have ever read. Furies of Calderon is also pretty damn good, but has more obvious weaknesses. His work (probably coupled with The Name…
Profanity in Writing
Keith Cronin wrote a great post on Writer Unboxed (that I just now caught up to on Feedly) about profanity in writing. It covers most of the bases, but I had some thoughts to add as well. My writing has some language in it, the f-bomb or damn most often. It’s a part of my character. He is a man of the world and has a temper that often times gets the best of him. That’s part of this character. But he is also from the South, and he’s well educated. There is a time and a place for language, and that plays into the when he says what. He doesn’t cuss around women, most of the time, because that’s how he was raised. He doesn’t use the Lord’s name in vain (Because my mother and mother in law are reading this) because he grew up Catholic and that influenced…