I tried… negative word count.

This is an odd one for me. Basically, I’ve switched to watching almost exclusively Korean shows on Netflix. I like them because they present new ways of looking at things, but still retain a semblance of plot and character growth.

They have a lot of fantasy and supernatural tales, and aren’t afraid to dabble in sophomoric humor, so you can further see the appeal to me. I started watching a new one last night involving a fantastic creature trying to become human. At one point he said, “I don’t think like humans.”

This stuck with me. When we write, even our aliens and fantastic creatures have to be presented for human readers. We have to put things in their language. However, this could be a relatively cool plot point in itself.

I intended to work on my Space Opera this morning, but I’m dwelling on the possibilities for characters who aren’t human. I have Percy the Space Chimp and his human girlfriend specifically in mind.

The natural flow of a trilogy is introduction to the world and environment along with some characters and an introduction to the struggle in book one. This one is already written.

Book two is where the bottom falls out. The enemy has some victories, and things start to fall apart for the heroes. This is what I will be working on this year.

My focus is book two, but to finish the thought, book three involves a regrouping with little hope of success, and even a possible suicide mission, that manages to overcome the great evil. For an example reflect upon the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Here I am in book two. Percy is only part human, and I have a perfect alien character to lead him into the idea of not thinking like a human. This can cause problems in his relationship, his loyalty to the cause, and his leadership ability.

What I wound up doing was deleting about 500 words from this project, because I like the idea of where this new thought could take me. This means I need to spend some time in the daydreaming phase, and it’s perfectly okay here. It’s Sunday, and not like I’m squandering my best writing opportunities away. Maybe by next week, I can get this story really moving.

Leave me some comments. Do you watch any K-dramas? What do you think about classic trilogies? Are you a fan of “pull my finger” comedy? Have you ever had a negative word count day?

Can’t whine about 2200 words

I got up really late this morning. I think my weeks are getting longer and more difficult. Probably a result of aging, but there it is.

Morning was loaded with interruptions. I took a call from my daughter, and we have to make some plans for a serious road trip very soon. On top of that, the dogs needed… everything. Seriously, squirrels, the neighbor dog that always leads to a game of chase up the fence, someone walking by the Ring doorbell. If it could interrupt, it did. They’re out there barking at some other dog right now.

Still, I’d reached a point in my story where things could just flow. This was Jenny’s interview with the fallen network anchorman, and you can think of it like a mini-mentor scene. I need to put some thought into how the next step is going to unfold, but now there are some tips from this mentor.

I need to find that point in my space opera. Right now, Percy and friends haven’t even gotten their ship into space. He will, but I don’t just want to repeat all the ooh-aah, moments from the first book. Readers will have experienced that, so I need to glaze over it a bit.

Maybe tomorrow, I’ll put him into space and see what happens.

2200 words is nothing to complain about, and I need to find Jenny’s next clue fairly soon. I don’t mind a bit of daydreaming before writing it down. That’s the beauty of two stories at once. If I can get the space opera to that point, I should be in good shape moving ahead.

This afternoon, I need to cobble together my next Story Empire post. The creature feature posts were popular, but it’s time for something new. I have it written out, so it’s a matter of pasting it in and finding a graphic to include. I also have the post after that roughed out, and it’s unusual for me to be that far ahead.

We had clouds and snow on Thursday. No Northern Lights for me. I got up multiple times to look last night, but I’ve missed it again. Even with the time I spent in the Arctic as a younger man, I’ve never seen them. Hope I get a realistic chance one day.

Hope all of you are finding some writing time, or forsaking that for something really fun.

No idea about word count

This was a week from hell, like so many at my workplace. Wound up putting in a bunch of extra hours and was kind of tired today. That poses a problem, because my only writing days are Saturdays in this new world order. Do, or don’t do. Thanks, Yoda.

I elected to work on my science fiction project this morning. Jenny has been spinning her wheels after her promotion. She’s trying to help her son get through college and dreaming of doing some investigative reporting.

It sounds like a lot of dragging components, but she’s uncovering important things as she pokes around. She doesn’t see the big picture yet. Hopefully, readers will want to piece some things together as they go.

I introduced two lesser characters today. One is a disgraced network anchor who might be able to do some mentoring. The other is a billionaire (on television) who wants to enter the vanity space race. It all seems unimportant right now, but will come together later.

Honestly, this one is a challenge for me. Many of my characters have an obvious problem to overcome. Jenny is working from a position of desires and kind of fumbling around.

My intention is to have a slow burn, but I don’t want to bore anyone while smoldering. This is a new method for me.

Her next move will be to find and speak with the former anchorman. I intend to have some fun with a man who doesn’t want to be found and my heroine who needs some advice.

I could have gone a bit further, but really am not at my best after the week I had. There were some family concerns in the mix as well and it was all a bit overwhelming. Everything appears to be fine now.

My failure was in hearing Pirates of the Caribbean music from the living room. Old What’s Her Face almost always watches Harry Potter, but apparently he wasn’t available today. The Pirates films were alway among my favorites, so here we are. Time for my Davy Jones fix.

Word count feels somewhere in the neighborhood of 1100 to 1200, but I didn’t keep actual count.

Still fumbling

I decided to work on Percy the Space Chimp today. Getting both these stories flowing has taken me more time than I anticipated.

Honestly, since Percy involves a sequel, I thought it would be up and running a little faster. I feel the need to at least do some minor reintroductions of the characters, because there could be someone out there who reads them months apart.

Prejudice is one thing that kind of sets Percy off, so that’s where I went. It allowed me to revisit his relationship with Buffer Dole, and the clones got some page time, too. They managed to obtain their course from the spy network and avoided throttling the crap out of some people.

All I have to do is get them to their ship and send them into the unclaimed part of the galaxy.

I might have been better served to get my Earth based science fiction tale to the point where it’s really flowing before starting Percy back up. Doesn’t matter now, because they’re both underway.

It came to a little over 1000 words today, but I might take a crack at some more this evening. Old What’s Her Face is watching Harry Potter once again, and I’ve kind of seen enough of it.

I’m generally used to higher word counts than I’ve been getting lately, and my winter break might not have been the best idea.

Either way, this is where I am right now. Might even get a small chance tomorrow. Hope all of you are safe from the major storms and getting to do something fun.

Redemption. A father’s fatal decision

Let’s all welcome Gwen Plano to Entertaining Stories today. Gwen is an incredible author, and one of my Story Empire colleagues. She’s here to tell us all about her newest publication. The site is your’s Gwen

Thank you, Craig, for inviting me to your site today. It’s a pleasure to visit your readers and share a bit about my new release. I look forward to doing the same for you.

Redemption, A Father’s Fatal Decision is a mystery thriller that takes place in the Southeast corner of New York state, in the towns of New Rochelle and Cortlandt. In the excerpt below, the characters travel to Fishers Island, New York in Long Island Sound. Having spent about twenty years in and around that area, it was exciting to visit as a writer.

The book tackles themes of forgiveness and redemption through suspense. We accompany the son and daughter of the deceased as they try to uncover the reason for their father’s murder. What they discover prompts them to ask if they even knew him.

Sometimes complicated situations help us see our own challenges in a different light. That is my hope for this book. Most of us won’t experience threats like those of my characters, but pain is universal, as is joy. Seeing either in the extreme helps us recognize our own—and severe or elated, those emotions are impactful.

In this excerpt, Lisa and Trace Holmes, along with their friend Ryan, ride a ferry to Fishers Island. They go at the request of the siblings’ mother. There’s something important she wants them to retrieve, but that something is a mystery. On the ferry, Ryan and Lisa are surprised to discover a matter of the heart.

The ferry pulls away from the dock, and the trio watches the village cottages come into view. The playground near their cottage is absent of children. The only evidence of life comes from an older couple, who walk their dog on the beach. Lisa spots a blue building. “Look. Just like the one in the painting.”

“No kidding.” Trace stares. “You were right that the painting was a clue. It looks like the painter worked from a photo taken right here on this ferry. It’s a leap, but I believe we’re on the right path.”

The mainland shoreline grows more distant, and the threesome weave through groups of passengers to the bow of the boat, where they can see the approaching island.

The moist wind sends Lisa’s hair flying. She brushes it away from her face and tries—unsuccessfully—to knot it at the nape of her neck, now ruddy from the morning breeze. As the waves hit, the ferry rocks, and Lisa with it. She struggles to keep her balance. Ryan edges closer, and shoulder-to-shoulder with her, Ryan waves to the seagulls.

The ferry bumps against the dock buffers abruptly, and Ryan grabs Lisa when she staggers. She smiles, and his features light up.

An announcement sounds over the public address system: “All passengers need to return to their cars. Deboarding begins in ten minutes.”

Blurb:

Family secrets can be deadly. When Lisa Holmes visits her parents one fateful Saturday morning, she hugs her father and walks to her childhood bedroom. The doorbell rings. Her father opens the door, and one minute later, he lies dead on the floor—three bullets to the chest.

The Holmes family lives on a quiet street, but no one really knows Eric Holmes. He travels for business and comes home a few days each month. Unbeknown to all, Eric has multiple lives. 

In this fast-paced psychological thriller, Lisa and her brother, Trace, embark on a quest to solve the mystery involving the murder of their father. The journey takes them into a secret world where nothing is as it seems. As the puzzle pieces begin to coalesce, theydiscover the meaning of Redemption.

CONTACT INFORMATION: 

BookBub: bit.ly/3Y26EI5  

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3XIe6Yu

Story Empire: https://storyempire.com/gwen-m-plano

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gmplano

Blog: www.gwenplano.com/blog-reflections

PURCHASE LINKS: 

Amazon Author Page: https://amzn.to/3RebK0W

Amazon Purchase Page: https://amzn.to/3XKiLJn

Barnes and Noble: bit.ly/3JGgdbl

Here, there, and everywhere

I never really had a plan for today. Last night was payday so I paid the bills. I also ordered cover art for Once Upon a Time in the Swamp. There are so many new publications right now I’m hoping May will be a good time for a release.

I started a new project involving my space trilogy. It only came to about two pages, but I’m still getting reacquainted with the characters. They need to go on a quest into unclaimed territory and it’s a little different than the civilized parts of the galaxy.

I scheduled the third part of my creature creation series for Story Empire. It will go live later this month and involves those creatures who may be a little more like us. Those that need some culture and societal background to them.

Then I hacked out a bit of a post for Story Empire for sometime down the road. I like to get a few notes down early, because I occasionally struggle for ideas over there.

I also started reading a book of short stories and got three of those under my belt. Good stuff, but I have to balance this stuff out with everything else. I love short fiction for this reason.

Later today we’re taking my truck in for regular service, then I promised Old What’s Her Face we could have date night. It looks like I’m not going to kill it with word count, but it all counts as progress. As far as date night and trucks, that counts in a different way. Might manage a few more words tomorrow.

Story Challenges

Word count was minimal today. Less than 1000 words. I like challenging myself, and this is posing plenty of those.

My characters, Jenny and her son, went on a little road trip. This was feasibly to help with his college report, but it was to the site of the last cattle mutilation they are aware of.

Note: I’ve already changed the son’s name three times. I need to stick with it and possibly do a word search later if something clicks.

Jenny explored the idea this could be related to the Green River Killer, but this thought passed fairly quickly.

I also fell down a research rabbit hole. Geology and radioactive materials. There was a uranium mine in Eastern Washington, but I don’t have a great reason to visit there. There is also one reactor and I mentioned that in passing.

What I need to do is work up a shadowy group to follow and intimidate during whatever Jenny is getting into. I know about what I want, but it hasn’t formed fully in my mind.

I resisted finding one of the biggest clues today. It’s too soon in the story for that. I’ll probably intro the sourpuss old mentor Jenny needs to see this all the right way.

Not a real productive day, but I had a nice conversation with Mom, and Old What’s Her Face and I got to enjoy a nice Sunday Breakfast.

Just to keep things interesting, let’s have another Pinterest Board. This one is a subset of cars https://pin.it/3KgN7w1 Maybe you need one of these for something you’re writing.

Writing away

I’m up to 6900 words now. Might get a little more time tomorrow. I’m still getting used to these characters and trying to find a balance in the early going.

Basically, Jenny is a TV news woman who does local interest stories. She’s aging and her station wants to diversify and get younger at the same time. They promoted her to Assignments Editor, which is off-camera. Also makes room for a targeted replacement.

She would like to do hard news, but the deck is stacked against her. I know where this is all going, but am trying to find a balance. She’s a single mother of a college student who is also a major character. There are the workplace struggles. Plus a plot I want to get into.

I want the plot to unfold slowly, but am afraid if I don’t call it out in the first two pages I might bore some people. I want to challenge myself with a mystery-box style, but it’s obvious to me there’s going to be a learning curve. I’m trying to use some subtle imagery to call things out, but I don’t think it’s working too well. Things like an image on a kombucha bottle, a restaurant sign, and a few others.

I’m using a lot of workplace tension to try to keep the interest up. Jenny is trying to get her former cameraman used to her replacement. Struggling to find a schedule that keeps all the reporters busy, that kind of thing. She’s also haunting the basement to look through old files from various newspapers her conglomerate absorbed over the years. Maybe one of those will bring the kind of news she wants to dive into.

Finally, I sent Jenny on a day trip with her son. He’s failing Geology and has the opportunity to do some extra credit with a scintillator. This is basically radioactive prospecting. Her news research is starting to come together with his research paper.

I really should start my other story, but I’m dwelling on this for a while. It would probably help to get two going so I can bounce back and forth.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Might return to outer space with Percy the Space Chimp. Might stay where I am for a few more chapters.

Good News / Bad News

I’m feeling a little better each day now. I’m about like I usually am as far as sniffly winter weather goes. Nothing seems to completely go away, but I’ll have no problems working tomorrow.

My little tantrum from yesterday is drawing some interesting comments. I regret not inviting people to post a link with their comments. One of the summations was to read a book, and I just didn’t think of it soon enough. There are a lot of great authors out there, and I should have invited a bit of promo in the comments.

In other news, I started drafting something. I really only wanted a test chapter to get a feel for my characters. It wound up being a little more than that at 4000 words. I changed character names a couple of times, and went back to add some setting to the whole thing. Still don’t know how I’m going to stitch this one together, and I might rewrite the whole thing from scratch eventually. I just wanted a feel for how it might go. I need to figure out how one mystery box leads to another, and another, etc.

I’m excited about this tale, but it still needs some daydreaming before I can move it too far. Many stories will pull together after a week of dwelling on my start. I have a few things I want to say in this one about the modern state of news, tech billionaires, and the uphill battles we all face. The trick is to include those things while making them organic. No preaching, just events unfolding in the plot.

The bad news is this isn’t the story I’m supposed to be working on. I don’t know if I’m procrastinating or what the deal is, but at least I’m getting something on paper. Many times the act of writing entices the Muse, and that’s my hope here.

If I were smart, I’d start that draft next weekend. As a weekend warrior, that how my writing time falls. A bit of bouncing back and forth will probably help with both stories, so we’ll see what happens when Saturday rolls around once more.

Hope all of you that get one are enjoying your long weekend. For those at work today, I feel for you and will be joining you tomorrow.

Soapbox Time

We haven’t lugged out the old soapbox for a while, and I think it’s time.

Before we get to that, I’m still fighting this cold. Friday and Saturday were pretty miserable, but with red NyQuil, a home brewed lemon concoction with honey, and lots of tissues I no longer think I’m dying. In fact, I’m feeling frisky enough to step up on this thing once more.

While trying not to die, I looked around on premium services for something to watch on television. I also spent a considerable amount of time on YouTube. Which has prompted this little tantrum.

It seems there is a huge rift in the entertainment industry right now. Words like “Woke,” “Homophobe,” “White Supremacists,” or even the old standby, “Haters,” are thrown around quite frequently.

People are actively politicking for relationships to happen in certain series that just don’t seem to make any sense to me. It’s only for someone’s personal scoreboard and not anything that enhances the plots.

I never accept anything at face value, and it seems to me some of the accusations are fairly accurate. There does seem to be a rift in that narrow groups are trying to change our perception of America. There is a certain amount of pandering to specific groups.

You can see it for yourself in advertising or virtually any other medium out there. Lisa the robot girl was particularly distraught when they canceled the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. Green M & M, anyone.

On the other hand, the opposition seems to come down on projects they couldn’t possibly have seen yet. I don’t understand how they can offer opinions about films that are still in production.

It seems this has nothing to do with truth, or any kind of ethical reporting as long as someone gains clicks. (On both sides)

Old What’s Her Face stumbled upon an old Western this weekend and I couldn’t look away. It must have been a Peckinpah project, because it was particularly violent. I was struck with the idea of telling a story where men are men, and women are women, without any social preaching involved at all. There were good characters and a decent plot.

I’d like to see more of this. Sometimes I don’t care what sexual antics a character gets up to. If it isn’t an important part of the plot, leave it out. If there are women or people of color, include them and be honest about it. Unless they are the main character, don’t go to great lengths to make them more heroic or to vilify them.

I can’t imagine anything worse than being a comedian these days. Cancel culture has hit that niche pretty hard. There’s almost nothing they can poke fun at without bringing the torch and pitchfork crowd out in droves.

Before my next statement, please understand I live in Idaho. It might be the most conservative place in the nation, and some of those ideas are “over the top.” There is a lot of buzz here about censorship, at least one bill that would allow the police to arrest a librarian who allows specific materials into the hands of minors, and one large city that is thinking of banning libraries completely. Shades of book burnings, and population controls.

I think right about now people have lost their frigging minds, and this post might even cause someone to twist out somewhere.

There is a solution, however. I write books, and so do a lot of my friends. We work pretty hard to come up with good characters and decent plots. All of our books are available on Amazon and you can even read them for free with Kindle Unlimited. There are even blurbs and reviews to help you choose.

I know it’s kind of old-school, but if you feel like the mainstream entertainment industry is letting you down, pick up a book or two.

For myself, I try to be inclusive in my stories. I’ve included multiple races, and tend to write more female main characters. I think my last male lead was way back in Yak Guy. The Lanternfish Trilogy kind of had co-main characters and one of those was an Asian woman.

Maybe someday the mainstream will get the hint. Until then, there are a lot of authors out there who would be thrilled to find a new reader or two.