Hooray. The double-editing is done. The prep work to start another novel is done enough. Not quite finished, but I couldn’t wait any longer.
I finished Chapter 1 of Novel #6 (not even a working title yet) today.
With your encouragement, it is first person with a female protagonist narrator. Lis, by popular acclaim.
OK, blog community. Soliciting your opinions on character names today.
Names are VERY important in projecting the persona of your characters. Despite what Shakespeare said (he was pulling your leg). Continue reading
Today was my Sunday to post on the SMP Author’s Blog. Wrote a nice little piece about my most recent experience with editing Sir Kay, along with my personal hows and whys of editing.
(yes, that’s the name they’ve assigned my blog posts)
Bradley Schuster and the Holy Grail appears to be a flashback romp to the early 70s, almost the 60’s but not quite. Curiously, when it was first written (1989-ish), it was a lot closer to the time of the book. Mobile phones were called “car phones” and weighed about 10 lbs. It was a different world, a lot closer to the 60s than it would be to 2014, which wasn’t even imaginable then.
A lot of it was also present tense. Which made it immediate and funny at the time. And totally nonsensical when read in 2014.
Yeah, I know. I haven’t posted in a while. Finally, Thalia, the Muse of Comedy, got fed up with it all and started bugging me about it. Thalia is not really my personal muse–Screechia would be a lot more accurate. But she’ll do for the moment. So I will share our conversation in interview format. It went pretty much this way, except with a lot more profanity (Thalia has gotten a bit of a potty mouth from watching all the stand-up comedians currently in vogue). Continue reading
OK, so back a month or two ago–gee, was it only 2 weeks?–I posted the last chapter of Sir Kay. And everybody gave a good sigh at the happily-ever-after ending, and went on about their day feeling good.
So . . . what loose ends did I leave insufficiently tidied up?
I haven’t written since I’ve been on this trip. Yes, a real live vacation from writing. But I’ve been THINKING about writing. Can’t just turn that off.
And no, I haven’t decided to write a book about sirens. Or a man who goes to the Greek Isles and encounter sirens for himself. Or falls in love with a siren. A siren who lived off the coast of Scotland in the days of King Arthur but retired and moved to sunnier lands.
Or even a book about roaches.
On Thursday I promised you a poem about the Sirens. I share it, both in the spirit of going to the seas where Odysseus sailed, and so you can see why I write fiction instead of poetry.
WANDERING AMONG THE SIRENS
No, silly. He’s not dying. I mean, we’re approaching the end of the story.
As it works out, I will be posting the last chapter on Wednesday, the same day we leave for our cruise of the Greek Islands. I’d say the Sirens were looking out for me. Either that or they don’t want to be disappointed.
There is a genre of fiction, Alternative History, “consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which one or more historical events unfolds differently than it did in the real world” (according to Wikipedia). Harry Turtledove is perhaps the most prolific practitioner of the genre. I’m currently rereading his 4-volume WorldWar series, in which an alien invasion comes right in the middle of World War II.
In comparison, what I write might be called “Alternative Fiction.” Take a well-known fictional saga, and have it unfold differently than it did in the original. But there are a number of problems with that.
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