Son of Ogres - Week One - Day Seven

It is the end of the first month of my experiment. Here is my status thus far with my four books:

FLAME

This month I finished the chapter outline and got as far as the second page of Chapter Three in writing. I will getting back into working on this book tomorrow.

NANUQ

I finished the chapter outline for this book as well, and I am working on Chapter Two, but I already know that I will be splitting off the end of this chapter and making it the beginning of Chapter Three since I want these chapters to be short. I am making pretty good progress on this book.

RUST

This one has been rapid fire in its development. I went from just an image on Monday and by the end of the week I had the chapter outline finished and I had already started on Chapter One. I am very excited about this story.

SON OF OGRES

I am up to Chapter Twenty-Five of my rewrite of this book as a young adult novel. I figure I will be finished the first book in another week of work, which will be about the end of February.

All in all, I am very pleased with my progress and I think I am on track to complete at least the first draft of four books by the end of the year.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Son of Ogres - Week One - Day Four

I am now on chapter Twenty-One of my rewrite of my old book. I am a little more than a third of the way through the first book of my new Young Adult series. I feel I am moving a pretty fair clip with this. Sometimes all it requires is adding a new sentence here or there to make it fit the genre and to remind the reader that these characters are teenagers.

My next challenge after finishing the rewrite is to find myself a really good editor who can give it the once over to make sure my grammar is sound. Once that is done, then I can start sending it out to agents who represent YA fiction.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Son of Ogres - Week One - Day Two

As of last night I am almost a quarter the way through my rewrite of my novel as a YA book. I am changing at least five of the characters to make them teenagers: eighteen or younger. Most of the prose is not age related, but one of my main characters was a major in the United States Army, and now I’ve had to bust him down to a Private First Class. He was the leader, but now he’s just a spear carrier. It might even be more interesting this way, especially if he rises above and beyond the call of duty.

I might be able to get the first draft of this book finished by the end of the week. :: crosses his fingers::

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Son of Ogres - Week One - Day One

So I decided this week to rewrite my book--the one I spent twenty years writing--as a young adult novel. The new title of this book will be Son of Ogres, and it will be between 40,000 and 75,000 words. This means I will have to cut the present book in half and still have to trim it. I am also having to rewrite it for the young adult audience. My main characters will have to become teenagers--eighteen, which is right on the brink for this age group, but that's the only way I will get this story to work.

So today I dropped the prologue and got as far as halfway through chapter two in my rewriting. This will be an interesting challenge, since I am having to revision the storyline and cast in a major way. I just hope I can get my head around it and pull it off.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

RUST - Week One - Day Six

So I started on Chapter One of RUST. I haven't gotten very far, but it really feels like an accomplishment to go from just and idea at the beginning of the week to get to actually working on the first chapter, especially considering I wanted to have an outline in place before I started writing.

I was planning on working on my Horror novel next week, but my wife convinced e I should rewrite my first novel as a young adult book first and get that out of the way. That way I can start resubmitting for publication while I work on the other novels.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

RUST - Week One - Day Four

Wow! I started out with a germ of an idea on Day One, and today I have completed the outline of chapters for RUST. So the outline came out to 13 pages long. The book will be twenty-two chapters plus an epilogue. Now this is all subject to change, of course, as I start writing this book, but I now have a road map to follow. There will be plenty of action and wonder and mysteries and perhaps a little romance...

It's amazing how much you can write when you have two hours to kill riding bus and you have a laptop. It's a little awkward and I am paranoid that somebody will bump and bust my computer, but I am being careful.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

RUST - Week One - Day Three

I am now up to chapter thirteen of my outline, 8 pages in. I am really getting a good feel for this story. My process is that I will write a paragraph or two describing the chapter, and then I will put some bullets below for stuff I either want to emphasis, or are alternative ideas to use in that chapter. At this point I still have not come up with names for my characters, so for now I am calling my protagonist Hero to keep it simple.

Below is an excerpt from my notes for two chapters:

Chapter One

Hero wakes up and experiences a tremor and is terrified in the darkness. He experienced one before when he was a young boy, and half his tribe had been killed as the part of their cavern home plunged into depths below. His parents were killed and he became an orphan. But it is only a minor tremor and nobody is hurt. In the morning he grabs a sack and goes on a journey to the chasm, intending to cross the bridge and bring back food. It could be tins, or it could be a rich source of fungi. But when he gets to the tunnel exit, he finds the bridge has collapsed into the depths below. There is no way he can get across. He is forced to return home empty handed and tell them he can’t get to the food.

• Hero needs to keep a sharp eye out for animal predators and for any renegade humans who might want to kill him and eat him.

• He might be bringing two sacks this time, one for his clan and the other as tribute for the other clan.

• Hero is a hunter, gatherer, scavenger. He might be going to pick fungi instead of 200 year-old cans which is too much of stretch. Whereas most of his tribe wears clothing that has been salvaged from found scraps, Hero’s clothing is made of animal hide. He has tough leather for his feet to protect from cuts. Many tribe members die from getting cuts on the rusty metal.

Chapter Two

We learn that part of the food is supposed to be a bounty that is paid to clan living above them. They are coming to collect the bounty today. The tribe scrounges together what leftovers remain. The tribe arrives and are angry that the bag is so light and that some of the food has become rotten. They are so angry that they attack Hero’s tribe and decided to take their freedom as tribute. Hero is no warrior and flees for his life along with a wounded clan elder. They are chased, but Hero knows these tunnels so well that he is able to escape. They use their monkeys to track them, but Hero triggers a cave-in that prevents them from pursuing.

• Perhaps come up with some special words to describe the relationship in lateral terms, that living higher up means being higher in hierarchy. There could be titles for people who live higher and those who live lower. Bowing and stuff, or placing your hands over your head like it was a cover.

• The tribe wears ragged clothing, with lots of patches. It is all grey or black or brown. No other colors.

• Possible dowry situation. One the clan’s women is being forced to marry a high ranking man in the upper clan, and must pay a dowry of food to boot. Prevent inbreeding is the main key. Woman or girl could be daughter of the clan chief.

• Small monkeys could be pets. Bigger monkeys are threats. They can be used to hunt for food, or to track people or other animals like bloodhounds.

• It should be obvious that the warriors of the other tribe are better fed, in better health, have better weapons and clothing, etc. Even the way they speak is superior to Hero’s tribe. There is six of them: The groom and five body guards.

• Each tribe/clan should have a descriptive, interesting name. Based on North American First Nations culture.

• They work with and respect the land around them, even though it is a hell.

• The walls and floors of the clan living area are lined with non-rusted materials to make for a safe environment. Keep from getting potentially deadly cuts.

So there you have.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

RUST - Week One - Day Two

Game night tonight, so I don't have the energy to blog much today. I started working on my outline for RUST. I added a possible Prologue that happens several hundred years before the main events of the story, and then I outlined up to Chapter Three.

I am also feeling good about this book, story wise. I feel I can connect to the main character and write a darn tooting good yarn.

Good night.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

RUST - Week One - Day One

So I started today on my Sci-Fi story that I have tentatively titled: RUST. I wrote over four pages of notes trying to outline my idea of what will happen in the story. I find this to be a very helpful process. It allows me to throw everything at the wall and I see what sticks. There is really no rhyme or reason to how I organize my thoughts, I just put it in bullet form so it is easier to read.

Here are some examples from my notes today:

• There are levels of civilization in this world, the deeper you are, the more primitive you are, since you are farther from light and pure, clean water. Our hero is from one of the lowest, primitive levels. There are lone savages living even lower, near the bottom, outcasts, criminals, etc.



• Hero is a scavenger for his clan, which numbers roughly twenty individuals of various ages. Older people are rare at this depth. The light is extremely dim and they have to create alternative light sources, perhaps. Glowing fungi. Oldest person in the group is late thirties.



• Hero knows of a cache of food tins across a chasm (a gap or break in the rust pile). Every couple of days he goes over there with a sack and brings back food for his clan. Then one day the bridge collapses into the chasm below. Hero needs to find a new food source. The clan has been trading food for other goods from a clan higher up. This other clan has more people and is more civilized.



• When the other clan discovers they are out of food, they attack and kill some of them and enslave the survivors. Hero escapes and thus begins our story of his journey up through the layers towards the surface. At each level he learns something new about his world, and he adds other people to his group.



• Perhaps a clan elder (late thirties) was wounded and escaped, and he tells Hero to travel upwards to a better life before he dies. Perhaps he tells him to look for something specific, making it a quest. He could give him something, something on a chain around his neck that will become very significant later on. It could be a key or a code that allows humans to escape the pit.



• One of the higher civilizations will have the remains of a library. Hero will learn from a librarian about the world above. The librarian could be a hermit who has kept the library a hidden secret and uses his knowledge as barter with other clans. Hero could befriend him in some way.
  

So there you have, a peek into the process of how I write stories...or at least how I am writing them now. My next step is to take all these loose thoughts and trying to create a linear story-line: A leads to B leads to C. I hope you folks are finding this interesting...

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ - Week One - Day Seven

I have had three people suggest to me that I write NANUQ in the third person. Since that is what I am doing, it looks like I am on the right track. In order to keep my chapters short, I am going to split off part of my Chapter 2 into Chapter 3, which I will title: "Memorial".

I know I have said this before, but I really feel good about this book. I think it has several things going for it:

1. Polar Bears: These beautiful animals are getting a lot of attention right now due to Climate Change. This story could strike a cord with people.
2. It takes place back in the 1970's, which I think will give it a literary feel to the book.
3. It has humour
4. It will have some action and suspense.

Anyhoo, tomorrow I will be switching writer's caps and working on my sci-fi story: RUST.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

I joined Gather.com yesterday

So yesterday I joined Gather.com, a social networking website designed to encourage interaction through various social, political and cultural topics. They have large following devoted to writing, I figured I'd join as another avenue of accomplishing my goal. Members get their own subdomain (URL or website address), where they can publish articles and share comments. Here is my link:

http://jamesbaron.gather.com/

Members can create groups pertaining to their own efforts, or to any other topic.

So I figured I can write articles about writing efforts, plus get feedback on my work from another source. Below are some links to some posts I created

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977993520

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977993577

Today I am planning on posting an article about whether I should write my Churchill book in the first person or the third person. I will take the first page of my story and write it in both styles, then post them together in the same article and then see what comments I get:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977995312

Today I finished writing Chapter One and got 5 pages into Chapter Two. I am deciding to give each chapter a subheading that describes the content of that chapter. Chapter One is called "The Polar Bear". Chapter Two is called "Grandma and Aunt Sylvie". Since it will be a children's book I will need to keep the chapters short.

So in closing I found today to very productive for writing and I am really feeling good about NANUQ.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Yay! - I'm finally getting comments!!!

I got my first couple of comments this week. Thanks for the feedback! I have this fantasy that six months from now I'll have dozens of comments every day from readers interested in my progress.

In response to the comment about video footage of polar bears fighting...I might load it up to YouTube and then I can post a link to it.

As for the child/parent relationship with the absent parent, I've decided to take the scene of the boy, Michael, and his father building an igloo and make it into a Prologue of sorts. I might title it "Before" instead of the typical chapter heading. The igloo building episode could have taken place the winter before the events of the main body of the book. We shall see.

I finished writing this scene in the 3rd person, and I am considering that when I finish the book, I might rewrite the first couple of chapters in the first person to see how the two compare. There are pros and cons to either style.

I am also considering skipping the details of events of the father going for a snow mobile ride and the subsequent search for him afterwards. This would allow me to get immediately to the boy's reaction of the polar bear in his bedroom the night before the funeral. We'll see how it goes.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ – Week One – Day Two

I am very excited about writing this story. I gone through the notes and chapters I wrote previously and there lots of great stuff there. My biggest change right now is to change the narrative from first person to third. After rereading the first chapter, the first person voice does not sound right to me. The biggest challenge was writing from the perspective of an eight or nine year old boy, and I don’t think I did a good job of that in 1st person.

By the by, I went back to Churchill in November of last year with my wife, my father and his wife. I hadn’t been there in many years, so was very nostalgic to go back see what had changed and what had remained the same. We also saw polar bears. Nine of them over two days. The best was the first pair: two males mock fighting/playing. They had a great time and we caught it all on video. Great times.

Here are some links about Churchill, Manitoba in case anyone is interested:

http://www.churchill.ca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_manitoba

http://www.tundrabuggy.com/

Here are some of the thoughts I had four years ago when I first tackled this story:

My biggest concern is can I pull this off? Do I have enough talent, ability, and insight into the human condition to make this story ring true? How long will it take? How long—word count—will this story end up being? Will anyone think it compelling enough to read even if I do a good job? Is this story even worth attempting? Is the payoff—the climax of the story—reward enough for reading the beginning? How many themes can I actually work on in one story? Is examining the relationship of a boy and his father without the father present workable? Will having the boy discuss his father with Nanuq make good reading? How much is too much? Or conversely how much do I need to add to make it right? Is my chapter structure of six days good enough? How many flashbacks can I put in and where do I put them? How do I avoid making my characters seem like clichés or one dimensional, cardboard cutouts? Will this story appeal to the agents, the publishers, the readers? I think I can pull it off, but I could be very wrong. How much dramatic license can I take with this story? How much can I fictionalize to make the town, people, events, weather, environment, etc. in order to make the flow of my story work?

Deep stuff, eh?

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ – Week One – Day One

So today it was time to put FLAME aside and start tackling Book II: NANUQ. This one is a children’s book, and it takes place in my home town of Churchill, Manitoba.

The story takes place in 1976, the year that the Town Centre Complex was built. It’s about an 11-year old boy whose father is believed to have been drowned when his skidoo goes through the ice of Hudson Bay; his body is never recovered. The boy refuses to believe his father is dead. He thinks he is simply lost and will eventually find his way home. Three days after the accident a polar bear appears in his bedroom. The bear can talk and tells the boy his name is Nanuq.

I have eight pages of notes already, and the first three chapters were written back in October of 2006. The actions of the book only cover six days, so it will not be a very long book. This story should take the shortest time to write. Once it is finished, I might even try writing another book set in Churchill. This one would be a murder mystery.

Now, now. I can hear what you are saying: Isn’t writing 4 books enough!?!? I don’t know. We will see what happens. I promise to keep you posted.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME – Week One – Day Five

So who the *$@&* is Alvin?!?

Glad you asked. Tonight I have the energy to blog a little bit more then the last two nights. I also finished Chapter Two and I am now onto the second page of Chapter Three. w00t!

Anyhoo, onto Alvin. Alvin is Alvin (DSV-2) is a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Most famously, Alvin was involved in the exploration of the wreckage of RMS Titanic in 1986. Launched from her support ship R/V Atlantis II, she carried Dr. Robert Ballard and two companions to the wreckage of the great liner.

Below are some links for more information about Alvin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSV_Alvin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Submergence_Vehicle

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422&tid=282&cid=5879

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422&tid=282&cid=5880

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10995

So what does Alvin have to do my novel, you ask? Well Alvin is front and center in my second chapter of FLAME. The submersible is used the book’s main characters, Dr. Dawn Knutson-Bailey and her husband Paul, to explore the submerged ruins of Atlantis. I used all the links above to research Alvin so I could try to give the reader an authentic experience of deep-sea diving in a submarine. Hopefully I have succeeded.

So here are two insights into how I write...at least currently: I try to research stuff that I use in my stories, such as locations, technology, fields of study, people of note, etc. I obviously do this to make my stories more believable and hopefully more interesting. I also write a chapter by chapter outline before I start writing the book. Each chapter description might be brief—one to three paragraphs in length—but it gives me a general idea of what scenes are going to take place when I start writing that chapter.

Another thing I am trying out is creating a character sketch of each main character in the novel. I will describe their physical appearance and some of their background. I might add some future plot points concerning them, if they live or die, stuff like that. This is something I can refer back to and use to keep the character consistent.

That’s it for now. Yak at ya later.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME - Week One - Day Four

I wrote some more today, but its been a long day work wise, so I don't have the energy to blog about it today. Alvin will have to wait another day...

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME – Week One – Day Three

Game night tonight...too tired to blog about Alvin. I made some more progress on chapter two...only thirty-four chapters to go...goodnight.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME – Week One – Day Two

Yesterday, one of my co-workers (and loyal follower), Mike, asked me: “How do you write a novel?”

Great question.

You have to start with idea. (Well duhhh!) It can be a character, a climactic scene, a setting, a brilliant first sentence, anything that stirs your imagination. Somebody once told me that a great story idea can should be able to be summarized in one sentence:

THE LOST SYMBOL: Robert Langdon among the Masons.

I, ALEX CROSS: Tracking the murderer of a relative, Alex Cross discovers a wild Washington scene with explosive secrets.

UNDER THE DOME: When a Maine town is trapped by an invisible force field, a sanctimonious and hypocritical politician takes over.

Some writers start with a brief outline and then begin to write, while others write out a detailed chapter by chapter synopsis before starting the first chapter. Some writers start with just a gripping first sentence and plunge on from there, not knowing where they are going but looking forward to the ride none the less. The there is John Irving, who wrote The World According to Garp and the screenplay for The Cider House Rules. He writes a novel from the back to the front; he knows the end of the story before he writes the first sentence. He starts with the last sentence first, even the last several paragraphs.

http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-irving-john.asp

Another good piece of advice I got was everything in a novel must serve the plot. You are to think of the story arc as a backbone, and all the elements of the story hang off the backbone like ribs. If the plot of the book is about Bob trying to get back with his girlfriend, and you introduce Bob’s cousin Phil who is have trouble with his insurance company, and you have this elaborate side-story about Phil and his wrangling with All State that is funny and interesting, but does not serve the main plot line—trash it.

Lastly it takes time and devotion. You should write every day, even if it is only for half an hour. Writing a novel is like building a house, you do it brick by brick, word by word. And after all that hard work and dedication, you have a novel. Will anybody want to read it? Well that is a different matter entirely.

Anyhoo, that’s enough about that. Today I completed a rough draft of the chapter by chapter outline for FLAME, and now I have a roadmap of where to go as I write. I rewrote Chapter One just a little and I got started on the first paragraph of Chapter Two. And tomorrow I will introduce you guys to Alvin.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME – Week One – Day One

So today I reread the Prologue, Chapter One and the synopsis for FLAME that I had written over two years ago, then shelved in my digital desk drawer. My inspiration for this story was based upon what appeared to be the discovery of a sunken city of the west coast of Cuba. Below are some links to news articles about the discovery:

http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/lostcity.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1697038.stm

In short, Soviet-born Canadian ocean engineer Paulina Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig from British Columbia-based Advanced Digital Communications were searching for shipwrecks off of Cuba, when they made an amazing discovery. Using sonar equipment they discovered, at a depth of about 2,200 feet, a huge land plateau with clear images of what appears to be urban development partly covered by sand. From above, the shapes resemble pyramids, roads and buildings.

This is an original high resolution sidescan sonar received by the EXPLORAMAR expedition in 2000 directed by Paulina Zelitsky and Paul Weinzweig, Owners, Advanced Digital Communications (ADC) of Victoria, British Columbia and Havana, Cuba. Image © 2000 by ADC. It was released by the Prensa Latina press in Cuba on December 21st in an article entitled, "Geology or Archaeology? Which is it?"

After these articles appeared in 2001 and 2002, nothing more was heard about researching this site. Here are some more recent websites concerning this discovery.

http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2009/02/ancient-lost-city-off-coast-of-cuba.html

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146410578

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Sooo....is James Baron your real name?

Nope. James Baron is my pen name, my nom de plume. My real last name is already being used by another author (grumble, grumble) and I wish to avoid confusion. I am also referring to my wife by her middle name, so sorry for any alarm this has caused readers who are already familiar with us. We are still quite married.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

So what about your first book?

I’m sure you are wondering if I have totally given up on the novel I have been writing for twenty years. Am I simply going to put it away in a digital desk drawer and forget about it? Nope. My wife, Yvonne, has suggested I retool it and try to sell it as a young adult book since they seem to be a big hit right now. So I figure I can squeeze that in somewhere in my schedule and then keep sending it out to agents while I work on the other four novels. Sound good?

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

4 Books, 4 Genres

As I said yesterday, I am going to attempt to write four books in one year, working on a different one each week. In today’s post, I will outline what each book will be about, subject to change since one (or more) of my ideas may turn out to be stinkers. The four proposed genres are Thriller, Children’s, Science Fiction and Horror.

Book I – Thriller

The first book in rotation is a thriller tentatively titled FLAME. The story is about an alien being that interacts with outside world using fire. It crash landed near Atlantis 14,000 years ago and soon the local population was worshiping it as a god. The alien is a being composed of energy and its matter is contained with a metal sphere. It is able to read the thoughts of those around it and punishes them by burning them if it doesn’t like what they are thinking. After the destruction of Atlantis we fast forward to modern times, where a Canadian archeologically team is searching for Spanish shipwrecks off the coast of Cuba. Only they discover something else...Atlantis.

I have already written the prologue and the first couple of chapter s of this book. I have also written a chapter by chapter outline up to chapter 36. My first goal is to finish the outline so I know where I am going when I start writing again.

Book II – Children’s and/or young adult

The next book I will be working on is call NANUQ. It is a children’s story concerning a young boy living in the town of Churchill, Manitoba in the sixties. The boy’s father goes out for a snow mobile ride on Hudson’s Bay and never returns. A search party is organized and they find skidoo tracks that lead to a hole in the ice. Everyone believes that boy’s father went through the ice and drowned, but not the boy. That night, the boy is visited in his bedroom by a polar bear that can speak and tells him his name is Nanuq (which is Inuit word for polar bear).

I have also started on this book already by writing the beginning of the first chapter and writing an outline. I will revisit the outline and expand it to a chapter by chapter synopsis so I can use it as roadmap for my writing.

By the by, I was born in Churchill in the sixties, so I know a thing or two about the place.

Book III – Science Fiction

The third book idea has never made it to paper yet. It has just been an idea in my head. The title of this book is RUST (are you sensing a theme here yet?). I envision a world (or at least a setting) composed almost entirely of rusting metal wreckage, stacked layer upon layer upon layer. In this world is a young man, a scavenger, who searches for tins of food to feed his clan. The story begins when the man discovers that the rusted bridge that he needs to cross to get to a food cache has collapsed into the rusted chasm below. The scavenger needs to find a new source of food or his clan will perish from starvation.

I will need to create a rough outline first and find out if there is true, distinctive, compelling story within this idea.

Book IV – Horror

The final novel of this quartet will be a horror story. Currently vampires and zombies are very popular both in literature and Movies/Television. So I figured I could try writing a gripping tale concerning vampires vs zombies vs humans...please stop laughing. Hey, it could work! I’ve got an idea of how to kick it off, so let’s give it the old college try, shall we? As for the title...it will probably be one word...not sure what that word will be...but let’s tackle the outline first.

And there you have it, four books, four genres. Each one will get my full and complete attention (minus work and home life, etc.) for a week before I move onto the next one. If any of these stories feels like it’s not going to pan out, I will drop it like a hot potato and think up a new one. As I said before I will keep you apprised of my progress on hopefully a daily basis and any feedback you give me will be taken into consideration. Thank you very much for your attention in this matter.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Let's get this blog started...

Up until today I have been working on one (that’s 1) novel for more than twenty years.

Let’s just let that sink in for a moment.

Twenty years: One book.

And it’s never been published.

My book is a fantasy epic of approximately 160,000 words, the first of intended series. That works out to eight thousand words a year, or about twenty-one words a day...doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, does it? My friends and family tell me that’s quite an achievement just to have finished a novel...many have started out, but few have completed one. And I think they right. But it’s not enough. I want to be published, dang nab it! The problem is for over twenty years I have put all my eggs in one basket...and nobody wants the basket.

I have sent query letters to over three dozen agents over the years and for the most part I have only gotten back form letters saying thank you for your interest but we feel we are not the right agency for this project and we wish you best of luck in your future endeavours blah blah blah. And I really can’t blame them. They must be looking at storyline and thinking that this plot is sooooo 1990’s...and they would be right, of course. That’s when I really started writing it. But even the Double-Aughts are over and now we are into the One-ders and it’s time I started writing stories for the 21st century. So I am going to write four of them.

Or at least attempt to do so...

So that is what this blog is about. I am going to attempt to write four novels in one year, and chronicle my efforts. I don’t promise to write every single day—I am human after all and stuff happens—but I will try to write something daily, both working on the novels and commenting on it through this blog.

And I am sure this blog will not be just about my writing. I will comment about stuff that happens in my daily life. I will try to make it as interesting and entertaining as possible for you, my future devoted readers, but I don’t know who you are yet, so please bear with me. I also have to keep in mind that nobody will be reading this except my current friends and family, and that’s okay. This will be a way for us to keep in touch often, and I think it will be more interesting than simply creating a Facebook account.

This blog will also give me one hope and one fear. My hope is that by blogging about my progress on the four books, and having people read about it, it will keep me accountable to my goal. My fear, of course, is that I will spend too much time blogging and not enough time actually writing the novels. Hopefully by this time next year I will have completed four novels of different genres to shop around to agents, and one of them will catch their attention. Worse comes to worse, it will be a learning experience for me and I will have to come to grips that I couldn’t write my way out of paper bag if somebody soaked it first, and maybe I’ll take up fly fishing or playing the saxophone as a hobby...only time will tell...

Anyhoo, that’s it for now. On Saturday I will talk about the specifics of the four novels, on Sunday...well...we'll see what happens...and then on Monday I will be taking my trusty laptop on the bus and start working on the first book.

Now I’ve got to think of a clever signoff, some catchphrase I will use at the end of every blog...something witty and original and memorable...hmmm...

:: thinking...pondering...racking brain... ::

How about...

Publish or Perish.

I think that one has already been taken by college professors.

The journey of a thousand stories begins with a single word.

Too cliché sounding.

Don’t just talk about it—write about it!

Close...

I’ve got it!

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron