Son of Ogres - Week Two - Day Four

Now up to Chapter Thirty-Eight of my rewrite. If I push I might get it finished this weekend and then I will email it to my volunteer proofreader to look over. Once we are both satisfied with it then I can start shopping it around to agents who specialize in Young Adult fiction. Wish me luck!!!

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

Son of Ogres - Week Two - Day Two

G'day folks! I am on Chapter 31 of my rewrite of Son of Ogres. I figure I am at the 2/3rds mark for this book. It feels strange to rewrite characters I have been so familiar with for sooo long (twenty years for those of you just tuning in). Making them younger can be challenging especially in terms of dialogue, both spoken and internal. They way they react to the other characters who are now in many cases older than them have to be different. Discussions they once led are now conversations they have to follow.

I have done rewrites of this book before. In one interesting case, one of the characters switched genders. My wife Yvonne suggested the main character should be a woman instead of a man. I really fought her on that one because that was a big change in how I envisioned the protagonist. But she eventually wore me down and I changed the character to be female, and it ended up being the better choice.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ - First Chapters

Book II – Children’s and/or young adult - 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).

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


http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25918099/NANUQ---Prologue

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25918797/NANUQ---Chapter-One

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25918798/NANUQ---Chapter-Two

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25919642/NANUQ---Chapter-Three

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25918800/NANUQ---Chapter-Four

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25918795/NANUQ---Chapter-Five

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29525577/NANUQ---Chapter-Six

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29528102/NANUQ---Chapter-Seven

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29528171/NANUQ---Chapter-Eight

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/29534436/NANUQ---Chapter-Nine

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/33804063/NANUQ---Chapter-Ten

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/33819491/NANUQ---Chapter-11

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/33819686/NANUQ---Chapter-Twelve

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/34114708/NANUQ---Chapter-Thirteen-–-The-Conclusion

FLAME - First chapters

Book I – Thriller - 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.


http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25821676/FLAME---Prologue

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25906654/FLAME---Chapter-One

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25907098/FLAME---Chapter-Two

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/26111962/FLAME---Chapter-Three

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25917306/FLAME---Chapter-Four

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/28803995/FLAME---Chapter-Five

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/28804508/FLAME---Chapter-Six

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/28804690/FLAME---Chapter-Seven

RUST - Week Two - Day Three

This has been a slow week for writing. I had the Monday off since it was Family Day in Alberta, and then I had game night last night and I ended up reading the rules on the bus so I would be ready to play after work (it was Game of Thrones--very good game!)

So today I continued working on Chapter One of RUST. I am finding the first chapter to be a challenge because I have all these ideas in my head as to how to introduce: a) the main character, and b) the setting. I am trying to bring my readers into a new world with a new culture and environment. Plus I have the main character for them to meet--and hopefully like or at least sympathise with--in the first page.

So I got past page one today, and I consider that an accomplishment. I hope at this point I can pick up some steam and charge through to end of the chapter.

By the by, I am still planning on trying to find a place that I put these chapters so you, my loyal followers, can read them without having to create a new account and password.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ - Week Two - Day Six

Finished Chapter Five this week. I went back and worked on past chapters as I wrote the current chapter. This is another part of the writing process. I, as a writer, don't generally write a chapter, finish it, put it completely away and then work on the next one. Instead, I am always going back and revising past chapters based on upon things I write in the new one.

In Chapter Six Michael is going to go over to his next door neighbor's place, Mr. Solvisky. Mr. Solvisky is the grandfather Michael never had. His wife passed away a few years ago. He has children and grandchildren, but they do not live in Churchill. He is from Hungary and he fled to Canada to escape oppression. He likes to encourage Michael's artistic side. He is also artistic and likes to paint the tundra landscapes when the weather permits. He loves the North and finds great beauty in it.

As I was about to start to write Chapter Six, I realized I had not included him in the memorial scene in Chapter Three. So I am now going back to add him to the scene. This process will continue until I finish the book. Chapters, scenes and characters are not set in stone as far as this writer is concerned. I am always making revisions if it serves the story.

So there you go, yet another peek below--or behind-- the covers of writing novels.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

NANUQ - Week Two - Day Two

Yesterday I reread the previous NANUQ chapters to catch myself up and to do some cleanup of tenses since most of it had been originally written in the first person.

This morning I split chapter two into two chapters, Two and Three. Ended the second chapter after Michael and his mom picked up his grandmother and his aunt at the airport, and the third chapter begins with all of them attending his father's memorial service.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME - Week Two - Day Six

I finished Chapter Six on the bus yesterday, so I am right on schedule. I am really enjoying writing this novel. These characters and scenes practically write themselves. I got to introduce a new character, Homicide Detective Bob Sanders, and he just came to life as I had hoped he would. This is one of the greatest joys of being a writer: bringing characters to life. The live in their dialogue, their mannerisms, their actions. I am by no means claiming to be a great writer, but I am saying that I think I have a knack for creating characters that readers like and what to go on the journey with.

What do you think?

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME - Week Two - Day Four

First of all I just want to let you folks know that even though I don't blog everyday, I am writing at leaset every work day (Monday-Friday). I am now up to Chapter Six of FLAME--w00t!--so things are coming along swimmingly. I would like to start posting my completed chapters, but I'm not sure where. I don't think this blog website is the right location, but I will look into where I can post these so you guys can read them without having to create yet another login account on another website.

Stay tuned!

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron

FLAME - Week Two - Day Two

I just about finished about finished Chapter Four today. I had figured that in order to finish FLAME by the end of the year, I would need to write one chapter every two and half days. So currently I am ahead of the curve. I had felt anxious trying to complete Chapter Three yesterday. I generally find with myself that I hit a psychological wall about two or three chapters into a new a book or story. I feel like that I will not know what will be the next sentence, or how to write my way into and out of a particular scene. When that happens I sometimes procrastinate and put off writing to do something else, like watch TV or read somebody else’s book.

But not this time. This time I felt I was been held accountable to see this thing through, to push past the mental block and just write the dang thing. And I did. I finished Chapter Three yesterday, leaving the path wide open for me to blaze through Chapter Four in just a day and half.

Anyhoo, that is part of what I go through with writing. I hope you appreciate hearing about the process.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron