NaNoWriMo

It is November, which means National Novel Writing Month. 30 days to write 50,000 words. Considering all of my other obligations, it is a near impossible challenge. And I look forward to it. It also means that my other writings will be put on hold for the entire month. I'll try and keep you updated on my progress.

Basein Draft 2 Finished

The title says it all. I finished editing Basein. It got cut down a little so that it is about 290 pages, and 90,000 words.

I am happy with it. Of course, it still needs a lot of work, but I don't have it in me to go over it again...and I don't think I really have anything else to give it. Not without feedback. So it's feedback time.

Who wants to read it?

Basein Revision Update

It's been a big push over the last week and I have spent a lot of time revising Basein (while not neglecting work or home in my opinion). I pat myself on the back because I have reached the halfway point. This means the end is a long way off, but I have less to do than I've already done. That's exciting.

Basein Revision Update

Well, lack of a computer does horrible things to someone who wants to write every day. I've been limited to 2 options: 1) Write by hand or 2) Don't write. Guess which one I have been doing?

On the bright side, I now have a computer at home. It is only on a temporary basis, but it has done wonders for my book revision, if not my actual new writing. I hope to work up to that. I have a fairly busy load, and it is cutting out the unnecessary things like television that will allow me to get everything in. So far television is winning. When Anna watches Spongebob I can't help but get sucked in.

Anyway, it has been good for my revision process. I had hoped to be done by the beginning of September. Obviously that didn't happen. I am now setting myself a much more conservative goal of Christmas. It will be my Christmas present to all of you loyal fans (read: Cheapskate).

For actual details though, I am now 1/3 of the way through the revision process and the novel has grown to over 300 pages. I have seen a lot of areas where it needs fleshing out, and have grown to notice my repetitive word choice, and how often I slip in to passive voice. I have also noticed that the characters really exist in my mind. There have been little to know visual descriptions of the characters...a fact driven home to me as I create character profiles along with my revisions and most of them are fairly scarce. I might take a few days to flesh out the profiles alone and then add them back into the story. That will most likely happen between draft two and three though.

How does this affect you? I am going to ask readers for what they thought characters looked like, sounded like, etc. Based on their language and actions, what did you envision? If I get a lot of similar responses I will mold my characters in that direction.

Vacation and Moving

I recently went to a family reunion where I had limited computer access (read 'none'). That was followed by returning to Utah with my absent family. We returned with no place to live, but I had my office. So there was computer access, but limited.

Needless to say, with these two events new writing and revising took an instant back seat. It was always on my mind, but with no good way to remedy the lack. Today I took control again. I won't be up to daily for a while, but I can make good progress.

The first novel is now 1/4th of the way through its first minor revision. You won't be seeing it by September 1st, but you will see it before the year is out. Look for it.

Progression Status Update 1

I have had to rethink my post title. Now you will see the name of the work being updated in the post title. All previously unnamed updates refer to Basein.

As you can see from this posts title I am updating a book called Progression (working title of course).

I will need a sequel to Basein which I have been planning diligently. However, I have another book that I want to write first, and so that is taking precedence.

Anyway, since I started editing Basein I let my 600 words a day slip to the way side and was not writing anything new (shame on me). I mean, I have been busy and a lot more things have priority, but I can always find some time to type a little. I was being lazy. Today I decided to rectify that. I have not finished the 600 words for the day yet, but I do have the short prologue written. Unlike the prologue for Basein I don't see this one getting too much longer. Of course, time will tell. Lets see if I still like it six months from now.

Anyway, I have decided to post the new prologue for the new book here. Hope you enjoy.


The following piece is Copyrighted 2009 by Brendan Rowlands

PROLOGUE
Men think that the gods are omniscient. This is not, strictly speaking, the truth. There are major gaps in their knowledge. However, they know so much more than mortals that the difference between non-omniscience and true omniscience is negligible. Besides that fact, mortals are predictable enough that most gods learned how to fake omniscience millennia ago, and this was enough to fool the lesser beings.
Appearing omniscient with your intellectual equals is far harder to achieve, especially considering that not all gods have the same mental capacity. No matter what their mental capacity all have room to learn a few more things.
People also make the mistake of believing that the gods are somehow superior in personality. They do not share the same weaknesses and foibles that plague humankind. If anything, the opposite is true. They have the exact same shortcomings, but on a much grander scale. These are often balanced out by their admirable attributes, which are on the same grand scale.
The cold reality is that people would be embarrassed to watch their gods interacting with other gods. It has an eerie resemblance to teenagers and children squabbling. Even when they are playing nice there is an underlying tension that shows how fragile the peace is. It is not unusual to hear the phrase, ‘you’re not my friend anymore’ screamed in the divine tongue as the gods argue and the unavoidable rebuttal ‘I don’t want to be your friend anyway,’ followed by the gods stalking off to different corners of the cosmos.
None of the gods were immune to this. You might think that what mortals would consider gods of ‘good’ would be above this, but you would be wrong. They are some of the worst offenders, whining and sniveling when the other gods did not follow the same code of ethics as the other gods look on disgustedly.
Of course, there are exceptions and some gods are definitely more...divine...than others. However, they do not draw much attention to themselves, and are not much fun to watch. That is why this story is not about them.

Prologue on Google Docs

I have placed my new prologue on google docs while I continue editing the rest of the work. If you are interested in reading this work please send me the e-mail address you would use to access google docs and I will send you an invitation.

Status Update 5

So as of my last post I was supposed to begin revision on my book, Basein (working title--I'll be accepting title suggestions after I get the second draft finished). It has been a week since then and I have and have not begun revisions.

1) I have started revisions because I have been reworking the prologue.

2) I have not started revisions because I did not look at the old prologue, I just wrote a new one.

I am much happier with my new prologue, although it is still very rough. I am going to let it sit while I rework the rest of the book. Then I'll edit it. I had considered printing in on the blog like I did the original prologue. I might do so in a couple of days, I am still undecided.

Just for a comparison. My original prologue was 258 words. Short and concise like I like it, but it just seemed not enough (and this is where I'll be a hypocrite and do what I complain about others doing--making my writing too long). The new prologue is 5,634 words. For those who don't have a calculator handy that is 21.8 times larger than the first prologue. It is 17 pages long, which is one of the main reasons I am hesitant to post it on here. I might post it on Google docs and if I do I shall let people know how to access it via this blog and e-mail.

Also being done in conjunction with the prologue is a written time line of events, description of important places, and character profiles. This should help with the consistency of my work immensely, but it will also slow down the revision process as I am updating four documents as I work instead of just one. :P Oh well, this is what I get for not making these documents as I wrote in the first place.

EDIT 7/19/2009: I just reread my post. I have gotten so into the groove of just writing without editing that I never scan through my blog to make sure it sounds good. I'm glad I came back and changed this one. :D

Status Update 4

It has been a little over five months, but I am finally finished with the first draft of my novel.
I wasn't satisfied with the ending, but was also unsure where to take it. After considering it for much time I just decided to call it good and wait to see what happened in the second draft and from reader commentary after the second draft.

So tomorrow I begin the revisions.

Just to continue the stat run: 269 pages, 86,669 words.

Status Update 3

Well today is the last day of June. I have written more than my 600 words a day, and still the book is not finished. I have 50 minutes of the day remaining to me, but I know that this is insufficient. There is not much left to write, but enough that it will not be finished today or tomorrow. I cannot give an estimate of when it will be finished. All I have left is denouement, but that can be pretty hefty.

As is stands now the book is 81,559 words long, approximately 251 pages. I shall post again when the first draft is finally complete.

Status Update 2

The book is moving along nicely. It was just last night that I broke 75,000 words. There is nothing significant about this number, per se, but it does seem to be a good number to report as it signifies 3/4 of 100,000 which is a nice round number. The book currently has 232 pages, but is without spaces for chapters and other such things. If you included those it might be possible to consider that the book has 250 pages. Despite my earlier suggestions to the contrary, the book might reach 300 typed pages in the first draft. I do not wish to rush the ending, but neither do I wish to draw it out needlessly. We shall see.

In other bright news, I passed my SAS Certification Exam. I need 65% and I got 71%. A narrow margin of victory, but a victory all the same. This means I am officially recognized by the SAS organization as a beginning programmer. The next step is to get my advanced programmer certification, but I hope that this will help me get employment.

And finally, because I said I would do so I am going to post an excerpt from my book. The following is the prologue. This is sort of a cheat because I plan on rewriting the prologue entirely, but I thought you might enjoy reading the short passage before it changes. Please remember that this is the first draft. And of that first draft these were the first words written.

"The world was young. It was just barely half a millennium in age. Still, in that time there had been two major wars, a few minor scuffles, one brief invasion (though it hardly deserved the title) and an altercation that had scarred the world. True, the damage was not irreversible, but healing the wound often made you forget why the injury had occurred in the first place.
God sighed. A power struggle was about to take place. While he would not take part personally, he felt a sense of despair at what his follower’s would have to go through. His Disciple would have his hands full protecting his followers this time. Of course, his follower’s had given him a chance to ponder lately about what they needed. The content of their prayer’s had been changing. Less and less were they asking for His aid, more and more they were pleading for him to send His Disciple to help them with their problems.
His disciple, for his part, seemed happy to help them. However, he was getting old. He had served faithfully longer than any man was intended to live. Still, every morning he rose and conducted his morning prayers and sought how to best accomplish the Will of God. God had never intended for him to serve so long. However, he was so good at it and a suitable replacement had never been around. Still, times were changing. The world was changing. Maybe He needed to change as well.
Maybe it was time His Disciple sat one out."

Status Update and Singing

It has been three long months since I blogged. Actually, the months have seemed short and I feel relieved not to be dependent upon this outlet for self-expression. Several things have happened in the past few months, and again if you want to know more, check my wife's blog.

I have decided that this will be my writing blog. It will be randomly updated with reports on my writing, including occasional excerpts as they become polished enough for other people to see them.

This past week I finally broke the 200 page mark. Though this was never a goal of mine it feels good to have achieved it. Also, as I reached the 200 page mark I have caught up the alternative perspectives of the story to the original storyline and am ready to bring them together. While I don't know how long this will take, I think it unlikely that I will break 300 pages. I hope to be finished with the first draft by the end of June, but as I become increasingly closer to the end, I keep wondering if that is foolish optimism. Still, even with family visiting, visiting family, and trying to graduate with my degree I am still on the 600 word a day schedule, despite missing several days. This means that the few extra words over 600 everyday have added up to keep me on track, which is a relief after missing almost 2 weekends in a row worth of writing.

What is most bothering me now are changes that I know the novel needs. The 2 timelines are not correctly synchronized currently. I have fixed most of the problems in my head, but I need to actually begin writing the timelines down so I have a good reference for when I start fixing things. I also want a new, more in depth prologue, but I won't begin writing that until I start on the second draft. And I don't want anyone looking at it until I finish the second draft. I am setting a goal to have the editing and revisions for the second draft completed 2 months after I've completed the first draft. This would give me a tentative 'release date' of September 1st. Mark your calendars.

On another note I would like to end this post with a small story. I enjoy singing. All the time. Often if I don't know the lyrics to a song I will just make them up. You can ask Trina, some of my versions are pretty horrendous. The best thing about it is that Anna has started doing the same thing as well. This story is not about one of those songs. In this instance the entire family was in the car and randomly I broke out in 'I Guess That's Why they Call it the Blues' by Elton John. I really only know the chorus and so I sang that once through finishing of course with the titular end line to the chorus, 'I guess that's why they call it the blues.' Satisfied I found it odd to hear the song being continued from the back by my 3 year old as she sang 'And the reds.'

I like the green ones

I was directed to a very interesting site about a month ago by a friend in the department. The site was VNES. Countless of us have now lost untold hours on that site. Such is the way of life. However, this last Sunday I checked the site again and they had updated it (even without the update there was plenty there to keep me busy for life). They had added one of my favorite games from childhood, A Boy and His Blob. I immediately sat down and started playing it. Of course the joy was short lived because I had forgotten very little from the game and proceeded to beat it on my second attempt, as soon as I refamiliarized myself with the jellybeans. Oh well, such is life.

He Walk!

That is to say, he walks in much the same way that he walked before. He uses crutches. The one minor difference is that I also consent to put a slight bit of weight on my bad foot before deciding that it would be a bad idea. At this time it's too late though and I'm committed to the action. The crutches help alleviate the weight put on the foot and I move forward with a little hopping limp. Good times are being had all around.

4-0

Valentine's came and passed. As is traditional, I wore black. Some of you might wonder why I wore black, being happily married (and I am happily married). The fact of the matter is, I wear black because I choose to wear black. And you can choose to wear black without having to be a depressive society outcast, who tortures humanity with bad prose under the guise of self-expression.

Anyway, speaking of black, for Valentines' day I took my wife to see 'Coraline' in 3d. It was a fantastic show. It is probably best described as creepy, but enjoyable. There was one scene that had me groaning in disgust and distaste, but I'll leave it to you to find that part. I cannot speak for the non-3d versions of the film, but I do recommend the 3-d experience. An enjoyable moment for both of us is when the father starts singing and Trina recognized the voice as one of the John's from They Might Be Giants.

For Valentine's day I received pajamas and a tie. Trina received money and time for fabric shopping, as well as a book by Neil Gaiman, 'The Graveyard Book'. She wants me to read it to her. It's a Newberry award winner. Neil Gaiman also happened to be the writer of 'Coraline', the book. It was a Gaiman Valentine in many ways.

To wrap up the evening we headed to Sakura, a teppanyaki grill and sushi lounge. We went for the grill of course. The food was fantastic. As always happens at these types of establishments I ate more food than I could ever imagine eating and felt fine afterwards. I guess that's what happens when you actually get real food. At the end of the evening I even caught the shrimp in my mouth. Trina failed to on account of a bad throw. Guess that's what happens sometimes.

Of course, the whole evening was possible due to some friends of ours who babysat for 5+ hours. We did the same for them in the morning.

On a side note, while I still plan on posting here and there as the urge strikes me, this is about to become a once a week blog. Other writing has taken my time and I find blogging less important. And after all the other writing is done blogging becomes tedious too, even though it is the least energy consuming of all my writings. Check for updates on Monday mornings because I'll probably blog every Sunday regular. Ciao!

They pick up everything...like silly putty.

I am always amazed at what my daughter learns. She is a font of mimicry. We are constantly bombarded by her imitations of us. Even more amusing is when she starts singing songs. The other day she started singing along with me as I sang "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" by the Beat Crusaders (Warning: the song has one objectionable phrase in it). Naturally, I edit that phrase when I sing the song, and my daughter is unfamiliar with the actual lyrics. It was still amusing to me listening to her sing along with me, and she knew the lyrics. It probably helped that it was about stars, "Twinkle Little Star" is her favorite song.

As a kind of pitch, "Twinkle Little Star" plays a role in the new Terry Pratchett book "Nation." It's Young Adult fiction, but it comes highly recommended by me, especially if you enjoy Terry Pratchett's poignant and humorous commentary on everyday life. This book tackles the area of belief, and is very well done.

Anyway, Anna surprised me most today when she started singing Queen. Maybe it's the Wal-mart commercials.

18

Today I watched an episode of 'The Office' that I had previously missed. The episode began with Michael Scott dashing towards a police traffic recording device to see how fast he could run. This brought my wife to hysterics as she has seen me in this very same attempt. In fact, I first did it almost 8 years ago. The most cheering fact though is that I did it better. And soon I will dig up the evidence to prove it.

As promised, here are some pictures of my recent acquisition. As you can see, he towers over my regular size miniatures, dwarfing his offspring the small black dragon at his feet and grabbing a wild elf in his hands.

He even has inches over my next largest creature.

He is a nice addition to my growing family of dragons.

Here There Be Dragons

On a fair number of days I am the first of my family out of bed. On these days I usually find myself sitting in the dark at the computer, working on various tasks that need done. As I sit and recall the different tasks I open a new tab. I have no specific order I go about the work. Whichever task I see that I haven't dealt with comes next.

Yesterday I had several tabs opened on my computer when I happened to hear the odd slump of something at the front door. Expecting a package, but not thinking it to arrive so early I clicked on one of my open tabs: the tracking of that package. Indeed, the information said that it was "Out for Delivery." Given this I grabbed my crutches and hobbled to the front door. Looking out through the peep whole I could indeed see what appeared to be a small package sitting on my doorstep. I opened the door and brought the package inside.

I pushed the package along so that I could sit and work at the computer while I opened it. Not the most efficient form of multitasking but it was the way I worked. I opened the package to find a miniature of a black dragon. Do not be mistaken by the term miniature. The dragon is labeled as a gargantuan black dragon, and while it is quite small most of my other miniatures are dwarfed in comparison. As I was pulling this dragon from it's box I happened to click on another of my tabs to find this webcomic. Truly it was a morning of strange coincidences.

Pictures to follow.

All children, except one...

I have a fantasy world. Most of us do. As we age we find ourselves spending more time in the world created for us by society and less time in our fantasy world. Most of us. I, however, still have a healthy addiction to my fantasy world and visit it frequently. I cannot escape. I do not try. I have no desire to. This holiday season allowed me more time to visit, and expand, my fantasy world. This brought little complaint from those who live with me until my fantasy world spilled over into five boxes crammed next to my bedside. Needless to say, the unsightly expansion of my realm caused some distress from Trina. She suggested a storage case to keep my fantasy in, as opposed to the five misused boxes. Of course, my mind quickly started working overtime as I imagined myself sitting with these overrunning pieces of imagination, sorting them, classifying them, and distributing them into a neatly organized case. I explained my desire to my wife, and while my vision was much grander than her original idea, I think the idea of me gently separating the pieces of my family touched some part of heart.

Of course, the first step to this organization would be to find the perfect storage device. I was loathe to shop before my incident and find myself, predictably, even less eager to go peruse the overcrowded aisles of the local stores since I have had my accident. Nevertheless, I had a vision in mind and as much as I try, Trina never allows me to send her as an errand girl to fulfill my visions, fearing that she will fail me. After a few failed attempts at find a compatible storage device I stumbled on the idea of going to our local home improvement store. We had been planning a trip anyway, given the need for a new car key. Granted, this need has become less pressing since I have lost the ability to drive, but it was still an errand to be taken care of. The trip was a success. We obtained the replacement key and an acceptable storage facility to store my make-believe in.

The day after obtaining this storage device I set to the task of sorting my fantasy. Of course, this was not a simple task. Do I divide my fantasy by race? By class? By good and evil? If I divide the orcs into Post Optionsone group and the undead into another group, where does my Orc Zombie belong? Of course that was one of the easier questions to answer. Upon looking closely at the O.Z. it is clear that it belongs in the undead category.

I don't know how long it took me. It was a labor of love. Here you can see the end results of my work as my soldiers are divided before me. Could anyone be happier for their fantasy?

My leg

I do not know if it dismayed Trina, my wife, but I have put a moratorium on my leg outside of this blog. That means she is not able to post pictures or talk about my leg unless the story is directly important to her. While some might argue any story about my foot is important to her, I do not care. It is my leg and the telling of it's tale belongs to me. Her only question was, "Are you going to write about it and put up pictures?" Indeed I am.

On Tuesday, after my family left town I was able to go see my doctor about having a splint removed that I have worn in the two weeks since surgery. Some x-rays taken at that appointment revealed that I now have two screws in my lower foot, Buttons flanking either side of my leg bones (complete with wires between them to hold my bones in place), and a plate attached with screws to my fibula. Overall the doctor said the prognosis was good. I left the appointment with a simple brace to wear when I am up and about. This was my decision. The doctor was perfectly happy to let me walk (hobble) out of their with nothing more than my crutches and a warning to be careful. His instructions are simple: start stretching it, I'll see you in 6 weeks.

As you can see from the pictures provided my foot look pretty damaged and ugly. There are plenty of marks where a shaving job went bad. There are yellow stains from the antiseptic. On either side of my foot you can see the taped incisions. And, of course, the foot is horribly swollen. This affects how the foot feels. It feels not right. However, it does feel better than it has in days and I enjoy the chance to move it. I also enjoyed the chance to wash it. It looks slightly better now. If not less swollen, it definitely looks cleaner.

Expectations

I have learned from the webcomics. I have also learned from their authors. One, Howard Tayler I have learned from face to face. Another, Rich Burlew, I have learned by reading his comic and facing disappointment. There is another who I only mention in passing, but has still taught me. What they have taught me is this: you must set expectations for when your work will be seen. Howard started his webcomic with the decision to post daily, and never miss a post. He hasn't for 8 years. Rich updates his webcomic when he can, and so far I have seen no detectable pattern to the when and how. The third artist has settled into a comfortable routine of Mondays and Thursdays, with an occasional bonus post. How does this help? It allows me to know that on certain days I can check those webcomics and find new material, except in the case of the second where I find myself obsessively checking the website every morning hoping for a new comic to entertain me. As a side note, I would recommend reading both of these webcomics if you are interested in things sci-fi or fantasy.

Anyway, on to the point. What should you expect for this blog? I will not follow Howard's example and update it daily because I know I will not succeed. I believe that I shall settle into a routine of updates twice a week: Sunday and Thursday. So there you go. There will be new information guaranteed on those days. Bonus posts to come as they are needed.

EDIT: To avoid confusion and frequent checking expect updates late on the day on Sunday, earlier in the day on Thursdays.

A Word on Names

A blog must start somewhere. Having no better place to start, I shall begin my blog with a little word on names. In particular, the name of this blog: Raven's Writings. The name Raven is often associated with a female personage. I, however, am male. It was a name I chose for myself when the internet was still a new creature. Free e-mail servers were beginning to abound. Several search engines vied for your patronage, and users argued over which was better. The noise has since died down. Still, many things were created in that day. One of them was screen names. I chose for myself the screen name Ravensbane. Given the 6 billion people in the world it was inevitable that I was not the first, and chances are that I am not the only one. The reasons for choosing it are lost to the memories of time, but I have held onto it for a decade now. It has become a fond part of my identity. Indeed, you'll find in my home a Raven tie and a Ravensbane stamp set made for me by my loving wife, as well as a few Ravensbane t-shirts. No one else understands, no one else needs to.

It was sometime after choosing my new moniker that I discovered that my given name, Brendan, had several translations. While the accuracy of these origins can be debated, I found listed the words: Sword, Flame, Beacon, and Raven. I also found the unflattering 'smelly hair.' I did the sensible thing upon finding that one and ignored it. But there it was. My name meant Raven. By choosing the name Ravensbane or Raven's Bane, I had declared in my mind that I was my own enemy. It seemed so deep and revealing at the time. Now it just seems like an illusion of deepness. Indeed, I rarely consider myself to be my own enemy anymore. In fact, while I often bemoaned and hated life as a teenager, I find it has a certain amount of joy in it now. I have found myself to be quite an enjoyable travel companion along the way. This hasn't been a change of life or a change of self, but a change of perspective.

Now I allow you to enjoy myself with me. I hope you do.