CONtraflow 5 and DeepSouthCon 53

Starting this Friday (October 2) and running through Sunday (October 4), we’ll have the CONtraflow 5 and Deep South Con #53 happening in Kenner, Louisiana, at the Airport Hilton. This is part of the Greater New Orleans area. I’ll be a guest and will be there quite a lot. I’ve got a number of panels.

Here’s the Con webpage. 

Lots of exciting stuff this year and it’s going to be the biggest one yet because it essentially combines two cons in one. Robert Sawyer is supposed to be there and I’m looking forward to meeting him.  Below is my panel schedule. (There’s a direct link as well.) Hope to see you there:

1:  Opening Ceremonies, Friday, 5pm, Event 1

2:  The Scariest Movie I've Ever Seen, Friday, 10pm, Panel Room 2, Panelists talk   about their favorite horror movies and what makes them turn on the lights. Seanan McGuire, Charles Gramlich, Kurt Amacker, Moderator: Jessica Styons

3: Vampires in Fiction, Saturday, 7pm, Panel Room 4: Explore this popular topic in fiction with our panelists. Alys Arden, Lewis Aleman, Trisha Baker; Moderator: Charles Gramlich

4: Speculative Poetry, Saturday, 8pm, Panel Room 3: Explore your poetry writing skills with authors Charles Gramlich and Kimberly Richardson. Charles Gramlich, Kimberly Richardson, Seanan McGuire

5: Dreams and Creativity, Saturday, 9pm, Panel Room 3: Join guest Charles Gramlich in exploring how dreams and creativity are interconnected.

6: Horror Fiction, Sunday, 4pm, Panel Room 2: Discuss the genre of horror fiction   with our guests. Charles Gramlich, Alex Jennings, Mason James Cole; Moderator: Kurt Amacker

Exposition versus Description

I saw the unthinkable yesterday. Someone gave my story, "Harvest of War," only 1 star. :( They quoted the first two lines and said "It doesn't get any better." Then they later referred to the writing as "boring and banal." They did, however, indicate that it was a personal preference and that if others are tempted they should have a look at the sample of the story. I appreciated that. I then found a second 1 star review, but I have the suspicion these may be by the same person since both are "jonsomething" and both indicated they like Amish themed fiction. That can't be all that common.

Honestly, I'm not very hurt by this. People have different tastes. I am, however, immensely curious. Why did this individual judge those first two lines as being so bad? I actually think they are rather good. I began to wonder if it might have to do with different preferences for level of description, exposition, and dialogue. The opening of "Harvest" has no dialogue. It depicts a battle scene to set up the story. 

But now I have a question that perhaps some of you might be able to help me with. I've quoted the opening paragraphs to "Harvest of War" below. No dialogue as you can see. However, would you consider this section to be more description or more exposition? I have to confess that I don't quite understand the difference between these two. Exposition appears to me to mean "explanation." Description gives visual and other sensory images. To me, there is some exposition below, but mostly this is description. However, I have heard this section of the story described as "classic exposition" by another reviewer, who liked the overall story very much. 

Can you help me understand this concept?

QUOTE FROM STORY BELOW:

Across a snowfield that lies red with dawn, the Orc charge comes.

And is met.

Axes shriek on shields. Swords work against armor into flesh. The tips of spears are wetted. Gore dapples the snow.

For a moment, the human line holds. Then the center wavers. In a frenzy, an Orc squad punches through. More Orc pour in. The gap widens. The human forces fold back in desperate defense to either side of the breakthrough. Victory rewards the most brutal.

Except.

Across the field of now trampled snow, a new army appears—human cavalry mounted upon chargers of black. Banners unfurl. Horns skirl. Only too late do the Orc realize they’ve been tricked.

The mounted charge comes crashing. The hooves of warhorses hammer the ground to icy slush as lances headed with black iron are couched. The rear of the Orc army falls like wheat before that scythe. 

Update and Review

Let me first point you to a review of The Adventures of an Arkansawyer over at Erik's Choice. Erik is a first rate observer of culture. He usually reviews books and movies that have far more literary merit than my own efforts. But I really appreciated his insightful comments on my stuff. Check it out.

As for updates, we got mostly very good news last week concerning Lana's PET Fusion scan. The cyst that she had removed from her ovary did have cancerous elements but it looks like from the scan that removing the cyst got everything and she will not need any chemotherapy. We were both very relieved by that, as you might imagine. They did find in the scan that she has an umbilical hernia, and that will probably need to be dealt with.

Lana also has another rhizotomy scheduled for this Wednesday, on the other side of her back. We're hoping the combination of these two will get her walking and moving well again. We've been able to get out for short walks after her first one but the pain is still pretty bad. Plus, it has been very hot here most days so we walk only early or late. I know we're both hoping for some cooler weather.

Looks like I'm not going to have football to distract me this year. Both my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks, and the New Orleans Saints, have lost two games in a row. Well, there's always next year. In the meantime, I've started replaying Skyrim again for the umpteenth time.

In writing, I'm about three or four chapters away from finishing Gods of Talera. I have not worked much on it for the past few weeks, though. Just trying to keep my head above water at school.

Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime

I don't know if any of you have Kindle Unlimited (KU), but if you do, I wanted to let you know that many of my books are absolutely free with KU. If you have Amazon Prime, they're also free to borrow. Here are the works you can get free from me through Unlimited or Prime.

Micro Weird: (a collection of weird flash fictions)

Harvest of War: (A fantasy story involving an Orc. Probably my best reviewed work)

Killing Trail: (A collection of western tales)

The Machineries of Mars: (A sword and planet story influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

Fiction Techniques, One, Two, and Three: (Articles on creating characters, creating suspense, and using the twist ending)

Days of Beer: (A humorous memoir of my younger days)

Harmland: (A collection of noir/horror tales)

Adventures of an Arkansawyer: (More humorous memoir material from my youth. It includes Days of Beer)

If you do have Unlimited or Prime, why not take just a second to hop over to these links and get your copy. And, of course, if you do, why not give them a read. I think they all tend to be pretty fast reads. I think I only get paid when people do read them. (Of course, most of these are only 99 cents at full price anyway).

I would certainly appreciate it!

Thanks,
Charles

Currently Reading

As is usual with me, I can't really just read one book at a time. Right now I've got three going. These are:

1. Who's Afraid of Marie Curie?, by Linley Erin Hall. This is subtitled: "The Challenges Facing Women in Science and Technology." Given that the vast majority of my students at Xavier University of Louisiana are women, I thought it a good idea. I found the first chapter very general but it has improved as the author has begun to focus more on actual research.

This book is my "school" reading, meaning that I generally only read it while at school, such as during my lunch hour or between my afternoon classes, or when I'm giving a test to students. During the school year I always have one of these books going, always nonfiction and related either to my field or to academia in general.

2. "The Axe" by Donald Westlake. I'm enjoying it quite a lot. I've classified it as a thriller. I think the basic plot, while very simple, is rather ingenious. I don't want to give it away. The book itself reveals it pretty early. (My copy has a solid black cover)

This is my "primary" read at home, which means I'm mostly focused on reading this whenever I get a few moments, such as while in the bathroom, while 'watching' TV, while cooking, or just before bed. I always have one such book going. About eighty percent of the time this book is fiction, but nonfiction might fall here as well, particularly if I'm reading nonacademic stuff such as musician or author biographies.

3. Luana, by Alan Dean Foster. This is a novelization of the movie. Foster does a lot of novelizations and does them well. I've never seen the movie but it was clearly supposed to be kind of a female Tarzan concept. Luana's plane crashes and she is raised by a pair of animal mothers, one a chimp and the other a panther. At least that's how the book starts. The movie is on you tube but I don't plan to watch it anytime soon.

This is my "secondary" read at home. I'll typically read about three times as many pages in my primary read as in my secondary, but I switch off between the two. Not sure why I do this but I've gotten into the habit of it. I think part of it is that I'm always looking forward to my next read, and hoping it will be one of those 'knock your socks off' books. I don't find a whole lot of those, though, so I pick up a fresh book before I'm finished with the one I'm on.

Breaking Bad

After eliminating most of our cable TV channels to save money, Lana and I decided to use the library to pick up some TV series that we’d heard good things about. We figured to watch an episode or two a night and get through a series that way. The first show we decided on was Breaking Bad. We’ve now finished it, and here are some thoughts.

First, watching a show this way is a lot better than watching it on a normal broadcast timeline. You don’t have the lengthy breaks that lead to forgetting of plot lines and details. I suspect that probably added to our enjoyment of the show.

Second, Breaking Bad is, in both Lana and my opinions, a very, very good drama. There are some weaknesses, particularly the show’s relatively poor handling of the main female characters, but overall the writing was outstanding. Tension, characters who were fully rounded and showed development, the settings, the way flashbacks were used. All these were deftly handled.

Third, this is only the third time in my history that I actually felt, even remotely, the kind of sadness at the end of a TV series as I have so often felt at the end of a really good book. The only other times I’ve had this feeling was with Star Trek: the Next Generation, and Frazier, and the feeling in both those cases was much less than with Breaking Bad. I’m talking about the kind of bittersweet melancholy that one feels when you read the last page of a beloved book and close the cover.

As we got closer to the end of the series, Lana and I both hated thinking about how we had only three episodes left, then only two, and then one. That’s also not something I’ve really felt, although I’ve never watched a show in this fashion before.

Lana and I were talking last night about our concern that we’ve become spoiled by Breaking Bad and that we’ll never find another series to watch that will compare. We do plan to try The Wire, Justified, and some others, so I suppose we’ll see.

I’ll end with this thought. TV has never been of much interest to me. I’ve very, very rarely felt any particular desire to see the ‘next’ episode of some show. For those shows I liked, such as Frazier and TNG, I was happy to catch an episode when I could but never gave it much thought between episodes. Breaking Bad has been something of a revelation to me. I think, for the first time, I have seen the potential for TV to create the kind of compelling stories that I’ve taken for granted in written fiction. I didn’t even know it was possible.

The Drying Time

The last part of summer 2015 has been the driest period that I've experienced since moving here to Louisiana in 1986. We saw just how dry when Lana and I took a walk yesterday at the Abita Springs Flatwood Nature Preserve.

A creek flows through the Flatwoods, which is primarily a pine savanna. Most years in late summer, the creek is no longer running but still has one large, deep, long pool, and a few smaller ones. We had noticed a week ago how low the main pool had gotten and how shortened it was. Yesterday we saw that it was down to quite a small mudhole and were saddened to see a bloat of dead fish all around its banks. I imagine they simply ran out of oxygen. (The following pictures are not pleasant to look at, but you can click on them to enlarge them.)

One thing you don't see in these pics, and I didn't know it was there until we got home and Lana started processing the images, is that there's a very much alive snake curled up under one of the logs. Last week we saw it catching what appeared to be a frog in the pool. You also don't see the numerous raccoon tracks in the surrounding mud.

In some ways, even sadder than the many dead fish were the fifty or sixty small catfish swimming aimlessly around and around in the remnant. Mudcats are tough but unless we get some rain in the next day or so they won’t make it either. 

After seeing this, I walked about a few hundred yards along the creek and found not a single other pool. There were a few spots where the mud was still barely damp, but no other water at all.  The animals that come to our yard are faring better because in addition to food we’ve been putting out water each day. Still, I hope we get some rain soon.

A Hint of the Cool

I stepped out the door at about 6:15 AM on Monday and found it refreshingly cool. It’s been a long, hot summer. That’s not unusual for us down here; I can’t say it’s been much different than any of our other summers as far as the heat goes. It has been, however, a drier summer than we are used to. The big creek at the Flatwoods nature preserve near our house is almost totally dry. There’s only one pocket of water left, and it is rapidly disappearing. I’ve never seen it this low since we moved into our place in 2006. We’ve been putting out some water for the birds and other critters in our back yard.

I’m glad to see the worst heat behind us, although we’ll still have some pretty brutal days. I’ve never been one to particularly mind the cold, although I’ve always lived in the south where the colder temperatures seldom get to the extreme. In the time I’ve been in Louisiana, it has only gone below ten degrees once, and that was a cold snap that lasted several days. I’ve seen snow about three times since 1986, two of those since we moved to the Northshore after Hurricane Katrina. The snow has never lingered more than a few hours.

Frankly, I rather enjoy cold temperatures, at least as long as I can eventually find a place to get warm. Down here, I tend to wear short sleeve shirts year around, although in the coldest period of our year, usually January-February, I may pair the shirt with a windbreaker when I’m outside. During our “winter,” which has to be put in quotation marks for those who might mistake it for a real winter, I often get asked by people at school: “Aren’t you cold?” This is because they are wearing a heavy coat and gloves while I’m still wearing my t-shirt.  These days I just respond with: “Aren’t you hot?”

Just like how, sometimes, I feel as if I were born out of time, I often feel as if I were born out of place. Maybe I should have been a Neanderthal in Ice Age Europe.

Come to think of it, maybe I was.

Gods of Talera Progress

I'm working on the fifth book in the Talera series at present. The title is Gods of Talera, and it will bring to conclusion a number of threads that have been running throughout the previous books. Mid-summer, from mid-June through mid-July were a highly productive time for me. During about five weeks, I wrote over 25,000 words on the project. 

Then in late July the real world came back to intrude in a big way and my production dropped way off. Week-long plumbing problems, the AC going out, Lana's surgery, blood tests for me, more AC issues, taking back chairship of the research IRB committee at work, and then getting ready for the fall return to school, brought my writing to a near standstill. I've managed only a few thousand words since that all started. 

Nevertheless, the book is still moving forward and I'm at 58,000 words on it now. I can largely see my way through to the end, although exact details are still a bit hazy. I had originally hoped to have a strong rough draft done by the time school started, but now I'm pushing my schedule back and plan to have the final work done by Christmas. We'll see.

 A lot will depend on how heavy the school year  is. When I was younger I could work an 8 or 9 hour day at school and then come home and still write another couple of hours. That's really not happening for me much these days. Much of that is physical. By the end of a day my legs often ache and throb so badly that I can hardly sit in a chair. Plus, my emotional state is not as responsive as it once was. It takes me longer to recover from emotional shocks and I'm not as able to lose myself in writing in response to emotional upset as I once was. 

The secret, of course, is to find workarounds for those things that throw me off. I've always been able to do so before and probably will now as well. The main thing it takes is will. 

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Sorry I Haven't Been Around

School started Wednesday and I've been doing 12 hour days. No chance to visit blogs and tomorrow is not likely to be any different. I should be around for a visit this weekend and sometime next week should be getting back to a somewhat normal routine.

Part of the reason for the long hours is that Xavier experienced a nice enrollment increase and our department had one of the biggest increases of all. Great to see after a few years of falling enrollments. Certainly increases our work load, though.

Later.

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A New (for us) Approach to TV

TV has just never been important to me. There are a few shows that I really like and that have been an influence on my writing, but most are forgotten within an hour of having watched them. Star Trek is an exception, although I also read quite a few Star Trek related works.

Recently, however, Lana and I changed our viewing habits and that has led to a slight increase in my appreciation for TV. Because of budget constraints, we got rid of all but our basic cable package, and that meant a lot of shows that I might have caught here and there were no longer available to us. Since Lana works at the library, though, we decided to start picking up series from the library and watching them a season at a time, meaning an episode or two a night.

We started with Game of Thrones, which Lana had already watched in this fashion. But getting a chance to see a couple of episodes a night and watching the series straight through a season over a week or so quickly got me involved in the series. When we ran out of Game of Thrones, we started with Breaking Bad, and I was quickly hooked. I also suggested an old TV series called "The Invaders," which I had seen some episodes of. Although not nearly as compelling, we are now on season 2 of the two season show. Of course, there were like 20 episodes a season back then.

We still have some seasons of Breaking Bad, and one of Game of Thrones. After that we'll want to do The Walking Dead when we can get the new season. Some other shows we may try this way, Nip/Tuck, The Shield, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Lost, The X Files. I'm certainly liking this way of viewing things better than how I did it before. I've tried to watch series and generally always miss episodes here and there, which gradually leads to me losing interest in the show. This way of viewing helps keep my interest up, and Lana and I have always watched an hour or so of TV together of a night when we eat our meals so it fits our habit already.

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Blog Format Change

Well, I've been blogging for a lot of years now, and during all that time I've not changed the background. I probably still wouldn't have if my template hadn't gotten corrupted. Apparently, Amazon changed some of their links and my sidebar suddenly lost all the images of my books and instead showed some meaningless political message.

With some dread, I set out to update my format. I figured it was going to be a huge pain in the butt. Instead, blogger made it virtually painless.I chose the simple template and blogger did all the work with uploading the actual posts. All of the long and laborious links to other blogs disappeared of course, as well as all the links on Amazon to my books. However, the links badly needed updating anyway. I've put in a few links anew, ones that link to my Amazon author's page and my Wildside Press page, but haven't gotten around to any other links yet. Not sure when that will happen, if ever.

So what do you think? Does the new format look OK to everyone?

Something Weird

Well, a few of you may have noticed some weird thing on the right side of my blog. Some "fight hunger" screen has replaced all the links to my books. Don't know how this happened and can't find the relevant problems in the template so I'm going to try today to upgrade my template. If my blog completely disappears, you'll know I've failed.

Summer's Passing

Don't know how so much of the summer got away from me. Or actually, I guess I do know. Summer started with a lot of issues and I didn't get much writing done, but then around mid-June things calmed down and I started to surge on the writing. For almost five weeks I was able to write pretty much every day and my output surged from 4 to 5 hundred word a day to a high of over 2000 a day. It settled down to at least a thousand a day and I added about 25,000 words to Gods of Talera.

No good streak continues in my world, though. Toward the middle of July, Lana's car completely failed and we had to get another one. Then our plumbing stopped up and we were without flushing toilets and showers for about a week. Around the same time the AC started giving us trouble. Lana had a minor surgery during this time, then had to have a major one at the start of August. Most of three weeks went up in flames as far as writing goes.

And when I started to lift my head again after all that, well, it was time to start worrying about school. Unfortunately, my summer vacation from the IRB committee that I serve as chair of ended early and I'm back in the saddle there. Feeling really down about all this stuff, I've taken the last two days off and just played Skyrim.

For all  of my adult life I've worked an academic job. During the school year I rob my leisure time to write. Whenever I've had breaks, at Christmas, or during the summers these last ten years, I've converted my normal working hours into writing. Can't say I see a whole lot of accomplishment from all that. I've got some books out, some stories. I sell a few here and there but never see any real growth in sales.  Writing has certainly not been able to replace the money I'd make if I taught summer school.

I didn't really start off this post meaning to whine, but I guess I have. I figure for the next couple of years I'll just go back to teaching in the summer. Maybe I'll start taking some long breaks from writing. By now it's become at least partly a habit, though. Since the main reason I started this blog was because of the writing, I may cut back on posting even more as well. I've been banging my head against a wall for a lot of years now. The wall's still there. My head hurts.

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Singing versus Music

Lana and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about our musical tastes. Hers are much more eclectic than mine. She likes Metallica and Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow and Motley Crue. I hesitate to say it, but she also likes some….disco. Me? I like hard rock and heavy metal. And that’s pretty much it.

In our discussion yesterday, I had a bit of an epiphany about my own musical tastes. That is, I like music that is heavy on the music, and I don’t care about the singing. Lana appreciates both aspects of music, but—for me—the singing is simply…meh. I won’t listen to music just for the sound of the singer’s voice. The music itself has to be catchy and, generally, full of energy and intensity.

I’m going to link to some examples to illustrate my points. First up is “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele. I’ve listened to this song several times with Lana and apparently I always say I like it. However, I never seem to remember it next time Lana mentions it, as she did yesterday. So I went and listened to it with my new thoughts on the subject. It’s a good illustration of my point. First let me say, I really like the singer’s voice modulation in this song. However, “Rolling in the Deep” is about the singing, not the music. In fact, to me, the music is virtually non-existent, and is not really important to the effect of the song. It’s all about the voice. 

In contrast, after watching the Adele video, I felt a need for some heavier stuff. I called up “Albatross” by Corrosion of Conformity. Instantly, a surge of energy swept through me. I became aware of my heartbeat, of the taste in my mouth, of the way my eyes moved in their sockets. My fingers started to drum. Other than the word “albatross,” I scarcely know what the singer is saying in this song. Nor do I care. This song is about the music. The voice is a compliment at best. 

I decided to give another work a listen, and chose “Angel” by Sepultura, which is a remake of a Massive Attack song. The music here starts out very slow. It’s almost non-existent, much like in the Adele song. First there are just the words of the singer. But then the music starts to build, it starts to hammer, it starts to scream. My scalp tingles. My body flushes hot and cold. I didn’t see them but I know my pupils dilated. The voice of the singer is mostly just a shriek now. There’s no Adele level modulation of the voice. In fact, half the time he isn’t singing real words. I don’t care. This is what I listen to music for—the power and the glory. 

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An Analogy

The piece below is fiction. Or is it?

So, I was walking along the road with an acquaintance when we noticed that a house across the way was on fire. The fire hadn’t spread very far yet . Fearing that there might be people inside, and figuring there was still a chance to save the place, or at least save some of the stuff inside, I started across the road. My companion grabbed me and pulled me back.

“Wait! Was that fire started by a human? Or was it lightning caused it?”

“What does it matter?” I yelled, trying to pull away. “There may be people in there!”

The man would not let me go. “The important thing,” he said, “is whether we need to blame a ‘who’ or a ‘what.’

By now, the whole first floor of the house was engulfed with flames. I jerked free of his grip and took off toward the fire. The man tackled me from behind and in another moment was sitting on top of me so that I couldn’t get up.

“A who or a what?” the man yelled at me. “If it was humans started it, that’s one thing. Then we could act. But if it was lightning then that’s nature and we just have to let it burn.”

“Get off me!” I screamed.

He wouldn’t. “I think it was lightning,” he said. “We’re just going to have to let it burn.”

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Gods of Talera and Buying Books

Well, I've passed 50,000 words on Gods of Talera. I've also written the last chapter, so I know basically where I'm going. For much of June and July I made outstanding progress. Now, unfortunately, real life has intruded to cause a slow down. Tuesday all our toilets stopped flushing. We had a plumber out and he found out that it was the pipe running from the septic tank that was clogged, most likely with tree roots from all the trees around us.

Now we have to have a new pipe put in and the people who do that had to get digging clearance and won’t be able to start until Monday.  That means showering at the “Y” and bathrooming wherever we can.

While the plumber was here, he noticed that it’s nice and cool under the house, probably because some of our AC piping is leaking or broken. So, we’ve called an AC guy too. We had been doing very well this month on bills after cancelling most of our TV cable and cutting back on our cell phones and on satellite radio, and after poking a new hole in our belts so we could tighten them further. But now that cushion is so far gone that I can’t even see where it was. And it has been like that for month after month for a while now.

We’ve been running in the red for so many months now that I’ve lost track. I believe it’s around 11 or 12 in a row. It’s a good thing I had quite a bit of savings before the run started. One of the worst things for me is not having money to spend on books. I see so many new books I’d like but I’m just forcing myself not to buy them. I’ve bought one .99 cent book for my kindle in the last two months. I’ve also picked up a number of Kindle free deals, of course, and I have years of collected unread works so I’m not in danger of running out of reading material.

But I see new work by friends and colleagues and writers I admire, and I’d love to buy copies of their works to support them, as so many have supported my writing. Unfortunately, it’s not in the cards at the moment. As soon as the cash river regains some flow I’ll be buying some books. I’ve got a big wish list!

As for Gods of Talera, in between phone calls and dealing with all the minutia of getting any house repair done, I've got to try and keep making progress. It's very hard, though. I tend to be a writer who thrives on routine, and I don't write particularly well when emotionally and physically upset. Reckon I need to get over that, given that life seems to be all about constant emotional and physical upset.

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The Worst Novelist in History?

I saw some commentary about bad writing on facebook this morning, and this link was below it, about “The Worst Novelist in History.” I had to read it. And I think I might just agree, although I’ve seen some horrible writing in the modern world.

The fairly short article is about Amanda McKittrick Ros, or at least that was her pen name. Her real name was Anna Margaret Ross. She was born in Northern Ireland in 1860 and died in 1939. She was a schoolteacher, and I find myself wondering what horrific effects she may have had on her students.

Here is a line from her first book, Irene Iddesleigh, which her husband paid to have published as a tenth anniversary present to her: “She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.” 

She went on to publish more books and poetry, though. Here is the Wikipedia link for her. She apparently was a bit full of herself in addition to writing prose like that wonderful bit quoted above. 

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Momentum, And Loss

I’ve been making good progress on Gods of Talera this summer. This is the fifth book in the Taleran series and brings the current storyline to an end. During the last week in June and first week in July I was averaging over 1000 words a day, and a couple of times approached or exceeded 2000 words a day. I only count them when they are pretty well polished so that means quite a bit of wordage for me.

A lot of the progress I was making was due to two things, 1) getting into the routine of writing every day, which I can seldom do during the school year because of other work, and 2) the story developing momentum, with one idea leading to another and another and another. For me, that kind of thing starts to snowball and it revs up my excitement level for the tale, making it easier for me to dive into work every day.

Then, starting on Monday, July 6, the momentum started to fade. This was expected. I had a presentation on Dreams and Creativity to prepare for Saturday, July 11, and I started working on the presentation, as well as doing things to promote it. I managed a residual 1000 words on Gods on Tuesday, July 7, and then it dropped to virtually nothing the rest of the week as my attention turned toward the presentation.

I’ve found that I always have a day or two lag after a writing interruption before I can pick up the momentum again. I expected this after the dream presentation, and had already decided to take that Sunday off and hit it again hard on Monday. Sunday was when Randy Johnson died.

I didn’t get started back on Gods on Monday. I did a bit on Tuesday, then sagged again for a couple of more days. A big part of it was my sadness at Randy’s passing. I know some writers who seem to be most energized to write when they are upset emotionally. I’m not one of those writers, at least not where fiction is concerned. I write best when my mood is stable, and it wasn’t.

I realized on Thursday, though, that Randy, of all people, would not want any writer to write less because of his death. Randy loved good reading and, judging by his reviews, he loved the Talera series. I wrote about 800 words yesterday. Not quite a thousand but not a bad chunk. I’ve got to get my momentum back, gotta keep rolling. I owe it to Randy, and myself.

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On the Passing of a Friend

At about 8:30 Sunday night, I was sitting in the living room playing a video game when Lana, who was on facebook, gave a gasp. I asked her what was wrong and she told me, with a catch in her voice, that Randy Johnson had died. I jumped up and rushed over to her computer, hoping, hoping that it was a mistake, or that it wasn’t the Randy I knew. I’m afraid it was the Randy I knew, not the baseball player of that name, but the voracious reader, the music lover, the blogger, and my friend.

I may never have met Randy, although I spoke to him once on the phone, but he was definitely my friend. And he was the friend to a whole lot more of us, both in the blogging world and on facebook. We shared many interests in books and movies and music. He liked westerns and pulp stories and SF and fantasy. He liked Spaghetti westerns and was something of an expert in that area. He’d seen more of them than anyone I know. He liked hard rock and heavy metal music, and he had a great sense of humor.

Most importantly, Randy was a kind and thoughtful man, and a loyal friend. He cared about the rights, and freedoms and dignity of all humankind. He tirelessly supported me in my writing, and I know he did the same for a lot of others. He was the kind of person I could look up to. To say that he will be missed is an understatement. I am heartsick.

Randy had a chance to say his last piece in a blog post and facebook post put up by his nephew. I’ll leave you with the link to that blog. 

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