Thursday, September 25, 2014

What I’ve Been Working On

I haven’t talked much about writing here lately, but I have been doing some. For fiction, I’ve had some problems finishing things. I’ve started close to a dozen stories, a western featuring a hero with a burned face called “The Scarred One,” another story about my heroic fantasy character Krieg, called “Where All the Souls are Hollow,” an urban fantasy piece, a sort of schlock horror piece called “HogZ,” and the list goes on.

I still have a number of pieces in various stages of completion from last year, three western tales featuring a character named Lane Gabriel, a YA fantasy tale featuring fox kits called “Farhaven,” and a prequel of sorts to “Under the Ember Star.” I like all of them but haven’t touched any of them in months now.

The Krieg piece will be finished but it’ll probably be a couple more weeks. I’ve had a very busy time at school with the research committee that I chair. The rest of the pieces? I don’t know. I’ll see how I feel when the Krieg story is done.

However, I did make very good progress this summer on another project, which is completed. Quite a few folks seemed to enjoy my humorous memoir, “Days of Beer,” and I wanted to do a print version of it. However, it just wasn’t long enough so I figured I would add some more memoir stuff about growing up in the south. Once I got started, a whole lot of stuff started coming back to me and I ended up writing another forty + thousand words of material about wacky adventures I’ve had. The vast majority of this had no relationship to beer drinking, although I did add a few items to the original Days of Beer material.

I decided to call the collection “Adventures of an Arkansawyer,” and I’m now going through the proofing process on it. It will include the Days of Beer stuff but add that extra forty thousand words. Initially it will appear in print form only, but I will do an ebook version of it down the line.


The reason for starting out in print is because of what happened with Days of Beer as an ebook only publication. I had hoped the book would attract more attention around my home town of Charleston, Arkansas but it really didn’t. A few people did read and enjoy it and let me know, but for the most part it went nowhere. I know a lot of folks in that area aren’t yet into reading electronic materials so I want to see if the print book does better there. Anyway, I’ll announce further information about this work as it becomes available. 

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21 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Great title! Made me chuckle. Let me know when it hits eBook.

Cloudia said...

And get you a bookstore or such in the region to host a reading and sell!



ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
=^..^= . <3 . >< } } (°>

BernardL said...

'Days of Beer' is a classic humorous rendition of a time past... and enjoyed. It should be a best seller on Amazon in any digital form.

the walking man said...

Arkansawyer...Love it. A raft of escape floating on a river of beer. Although you did kind of throw me off with the use of the word "Whacky." The 3 Stooges immediately came to mind.

Prashant C. Trikannad said...

Charles, you have got a lot of writing under your belt in spite of your busy schedule at school. I'm lagging behind my own reading and writing because of routine work — read job.

Charles Gramlich said...

Alex, will do.

Cloudia, I've got contacts at the local library and newspaper. I may be able to sell them through the newspaper office.

Bernard, I wish it was, man.

Mark, I don't believe whacky appears in the actual text. Whew!

Prashant, it's fits and starts during the school year trying to get anything done. Every time I sit down to write some other school related issue arises.

Rachel V. Olivier said...

I totally get not finishing things lately. I keep thinking if I could just finish one! One thing! Eventually, maybe.

And I look forward to seeing more about the memoir. I really enjoyed Days of Beer.

Riot Kitty said...

I'll be happy to read that, too!

Tom Doolan said...

Ooooo...new Krieg story? Color me excited. :) How will this one be made available?

Oscar Case said...

I'll be watching for the Days of Beer continuation. You must get very little sleep.

Charles Gramlich said...

Rachel, I go through phases of not finishing stuff. Much of it eventually gets done but who knows how long it will take.

Riot Kitty, cool!

Tom, not sure. I'll probably send it to a few mags and see if I can sell it. If not I will release it as an ebook, like Harvest of war. Eventually I will probably do an ebook collection of the Krieg stories and the Khales stories. I've got an idea for a sequel to that one as well.

Oscar, sometimes it seems like that. although in the summer I do sleep pretty well. During the school year not so much.

X. Dell said...

Actually, Days of Beer sounds like a fun title. I would guess that there are many males, about our age, who can relate to the concept.

Ty said...

Love the idea and slant of the nostolgia project. I'd be interested in hearing how your print sales do, and if you can place the work in local libraries, shops, etc. That's if you're interested in such placement.

Brian Miller said...

that is a good thought on the print book...i love books in print...and while i will read ebooks i would rather the tangible book...i hope it does better....

i have several stories in process at this point but nothing i have finished in some time...

Charles Gramlich said...

Ty, I'm going to spend some work on it. I think I'll get some local libraries but if it goes beyond that we'll see.

Brian, figured it was worth a try.

Ron Scheer said...

I keep chipping away at my HOW THE WEST WAS WRITTEN project. The meds I'm on slow me down, and some days are just about resting and/or sleeping from utter fatigue. But after a thorough proof and polish of vol. 2, I have only an introduction to finish. You'd think an intro would be easy, but for me, it's been almost the hardest part.

Charles Gramlich said...

Ron, I find intros hard because you try to sum up things that the reader is going to experience but not reveal too much. it's tough.

Erik Donald France said...

Yeahman, that's great on the expanded memoir! Congrats! It'll be interesting to see how 3D moves differently than electronic, the shimmery horseman of etherworld.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Really enjoyed DAYS OF BEER and am sure to enjoy this.

Unknown said...

Like the idea of more “Days of Beer." And intrigued, of course, by the Western piece.

Charles Gramlich said...

Erik, I'm definitely curious.

Patti, not much beer in the other memories so it might be more familiar to you. :)

Unknown, thanks. Glad to hear.