Science Fiction Author
This is my first real attempt at doing a periscope broadcast. My hope is to make this a regular Wednesday morning feature but it will take some time to develop that habit. I promise that I will keep working on these to make them better, this first one is kind of rough 🙁
If you have questions for me or there is a topic you think I should cover let me know. You can tweet me tag it #genrehopper or email me or even post a comment below.
It’s December 1 and NaNoWriMo is officially over. I’m a winner this year (yeah me!) and unlike the last time I won, the book I wrote isn’t the prize.
In November I wrote 75,268 words. That averages out to 2508 words per day. There was only one day that I wrote 0 words and that was the day after I finished. Not only that I had a day where I was able to write 6250 words, a personal best for me.
The book that will come out of NaNoWriMo 2015 is called Harbinger Hawk and it is the third book in my new Dylan Cold series. I think it is the best book I have ever written and I believe that people will really enjoy reading it. The other thing that came out of November is a writing habit that I love and that I expect to last for a long time.
My previous books were written out furiously at all times of the day. I would write 200 words any time I had the chance and sit in front of the screen for hours waiting for words to come out. When I was done with a book I would be exhausted and completely confused about how to start the next one. There was no process and no habit just a frantic race to get the words out of my head.
With all the things I had going on in November I realised I had to plan out my story and my work. I started to schedule writing time, usually between 8:30 and 11:00 in the morning and work only on writing new content during that time. When I’m going to write I sit in the same chair, light the same candle and listen to classical music.
NaNoWriMo helped me develop a better writing habit. I’m excited about the book I produced but I’m more excited about the books to come.
I’ve been working on a new series for the last few months featuring a character named Dylan Cold. Book 3 in the series was just drafted as part of NaNoWriMo and all told I’ve written about 200,000 words in four months. Needless to say, I am immersed in this character; or at least I thought I was.
When I’m working on a new story my whole family is peripherally involved. I’ll ask them for help jogging my memory about places we’ve gone and things we’ve seen together that are impacting my characters. Depending on the scene I’ll read bits to my wife Jen or one of our kids and ask if it sounds realistic. They love to talk with me about my books and it is one of the real joys of this career I’ve chosen.
The other day while we were driving from basketball practice my twelve year old daughter asked “What sign is Dylan?”
I was stumped.
I have spent so much time in Dylan’s head that I thought I knew every little thing about him. This question made me realize that I didn’t even know his birthday. So I described him to her; strong and self assured, obsessive, righteous, deep thinker and extremely loyal. She probed and pried to learn more and one of my sons that was in the car asked questions too.
Eventually a decision was rendered, “Oh he’s an Aquarius for sure.” my daughter announced. My son gave him birthday, January 29th, and we all got to know Dylan a little better.
In mid-December American Lease, the first book in the Dylan Cold series will be available. I hope you will read it and see if you agree that Dylan is an Aquarius.
I’ve been working to wrap up the book I’m working on so that I can start something new on November 1 for NaNoWriMo. As a result my days have become more structured so I have been thinking about what my ideal day would be like.
Lesson: You can create your ideal day, all you have to do is start making sure that any free time is spent doing or thinking about something that would make the day perfect. Don’t waste time with games and internet surfing if those things don’t make you feel fulfilled.
Quote: “I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.” ~ Amy Poehler
Last week I was recovering from being sick and kicking off a few new projects. A bunch of things didn’t go the way I expected them to and I started to worry that all the projects were bad ideas and that I needed to rethink everything. I let negative thinking impact what I had to get done.
Lesson: Attitude and frame of mind have a significant impact on productivity.
Quote: “Think positive, be positive and positive things will happen.” ~Unknown
If you know who I can attribute that quote to please let me know. I did several google queries, but none of them offered attribution.
The other night we were watching the season premiere of The Walking Dead and I realized something – I always get distracted by the zombies story.
One of my favorite sequences was at the tractor yard. Glen and the two guys from Alexandria have to clean out the building to quiet the zombies inside. Once they have dealt with the zombies in the building and are turning to leave the screen show a tractor with a (formerly) female zombie pinned under an attachment on the back. It looks like a lawn mower attachment but it doesn’t really matter.
How did she get there? Seriously I am obsessed. Did she get trapped while she was alive and that’s how she turned? If so, even in the zombie apocalypse what the hell was going on that a woman can get trapped under a lawnmower attachment? I don’t think it’s physically possible to trap yourself so someone else had to have been there with her. So these two went out tractor shopping during the zombie apocalypse and oops, sorry honey I dropped the mower implement on both your legs. It’s just crazy.
If she got trapped after she turn into a zombie who thought that was effective? Yeah I’m gonna use the tractor with a mower attachment to go kill one zombie. I’ll back into her and carefully lower the deck to make sure she gets stuck. Then I’ll shut down the tractor and hop off and leave her there. If you’re going to back over a zombie with a mower, turn the mower on, and let it fly. You hop off while it’s running and if you’re lucky it takes out another two or three walkers.
It’s definitely not that I don’t believe a zombie could be there. It seems like as good a place as any, but I want to know her story. I want to know how in the moment it wound up perfectly logical for this woman to be trapped under the mower attachment of a tractor.
Are there any zombies that have grabbed your interest? They’re dead, why are they so damn fascinating?