Dabbling without a plan

I'm about three-quarters of the way through this wonderful gigantic bottle of beer. It's a Grand Teton Brewing, Double Vision Doppelbock. One of my favorite beer styles.

I spent most of my evenings dabbling with my new social media. Most but not all. Thursday was critique group. The gang is pretty happy with The Yak Guy Project thus far.

I'm ready to get the first draft finished. I have four more events that have to happen, and the story is finished. I'm loving the character arc here, and so is my critique group.

Yak Guy Ted, has to travel a bunch between these four points. This poses a problem of balancing. He's a little over 57K words, and I want it over 80K when I finish. So roughly 20K words to get to the end. Travel is an odd thing in fiction, so let's discuss it for a minute.

It takes time to ride a yak as far as Ted has to go. Too many authors have horses running full speed for days on end without food or water. This isn't realistic, and yaks are slower than horses. This means some dedication to the time involved in the process.

I can't make it completely realistic, or readers will be looking at mountains and grass for several chapters. I need to get the idea of time into the story without boring my readers. It would be a mistake to just skip to the key points without paying homage to the travel time.

I will use dialog with the yak to fill some of this in. The yak is a mentor, so there is some decent opportunity here. I will have to skip ahead, but I don't want to dwell on too many campfires and what's for dinner every night. I can probably get away with “Five days later, we rode into XXX,” about twice. After that, The events need to unfold.

My normal method is to simply write it. I'll spend more time on the events, because they are important. There will be some more action, and possibly a lesson or two along the way.

I've been known to crank out ten-thousand words in a writing session. (Once. Damn this is good beer, and I'm probably kidding myself.) In theory, I could finish in two good writing days. In reality it's going to take a couple-three weekends.

My short story project is in the same shape. I'm nearly done. The Enhanced League has passed the mid-season break, and we're headed toward the playoffs. There are several more stories to write before I get there. I have a great twist for my semi-main character planned after the season ends too. The struggle here will be to handle the playoffs without giving an inning by inning account. That would bore readers. I've already walked readers through one game, and managed to make it pretty interesting. Doing it again would be a crime. I'll probably use my sportscasters to update the playoffs, and move right into the championship. Even then, a seven game series will get old for readers. I'll have to skip ahead to the last innings of the final game. Those will be exciting. I'm happy to be this close, but probably won't get it released on MLB opening day.

Thinking about The Enhanced League, MLB opening day is April 2nd. I need to finish, beg for beta readers, order cover art, and Lisa Burton art, and it's already mid-January. I'm not rushing it. It will get done when it gets done, and so will Yak Guy.

Meanwhile, back at the social media ranch, I'm not overly impressed with Google+. It seems harder to use than Pinterest, and I don't yet see the value. I'm out there giving a +1 to posts, but only one of mine has seen the same benefit. I'm sure it takes time, but I'd love to see Lisa Burton in the top row when I search for images of her. She makes it into the fourth row right now. Tim Burton's ex wife, Lisa, is tough competition. (She didn't even take the Burton name, and I still have to compete with her.)

Pinterest is a lot more fun, and seems easier to get into. I've made multiple boards, and people seem to be finding them. I created two boards for future projects, and it's pretty handy for that. I hope these two stories will turn out to be novellas, but they'll be as long as they need to be. One of them is shaping up to be wonderfully character driven, and it's going to be a buddy story. I've even made some musical pins to go with it. After finishing Yak Guy and Enhanced League, I'll probably outline it, and the imagery makes a great reference. My Pinterest guru says more boards is important, so I'll probably start a few more.

There you have it. It's Friday night, and I don't have a weekend plan. I'll use any available writing time to add to The Yak Guy Project. My more disruptive time will probably get dedicated to Google+ and Pinterest. We'll weave in date night and some family time too. I won't deal with my critiques until later, but Monday is a holiday, and I might make a few edits.

History repeats itself

This is what I enjoyed during the Super Bowl. They’re both really good. The Lienenkugel isn’t really like an imported Doppelbock, but it’s good. I’ve never had a bad Leine. The Elysian is fantastic. Which brings me to the point.

Anheuser-Bush ran an anti craft beer commercial last night. They referred ro Budweiser as being brewed the hard way, and craft beer as something that needed to be fussed over. It was a blatant attempt to compare craft beer to those fussy drinks with umbrellas. If they’d have said craft beer is for sissies, it couldn’t have been any worse.

To tell the truth, I like those tiki hut drinks with umbrellas. I’m very confident in my masculinity, and I find the whole put-down juvenile.

Here’s a little secret. Craft beer has been kicking Budweiser’s ass for the last few years. AB have lost a significant market share, while craft beer has gained fans.

Here’s a bigger secret. Anheuser-Bush has been buying up any craft brewery that does too well. They bought Goose Island, and recently 10-Barrel. It owns significant shares of Widmer Brothers and Red Hook. AB has its own fake craft beers, like Shock Top.

I just learned that AB purchased Elysian Brewing. This is one of my favorite breweries. They make a little of everything, and I don’t like some of their products. Every beer that fits in my flavor preference has been outstanding. I’m sure for those who like India Pale Ales, the Elysian product is awesome. Elysian also makes one of my favorite seasonal pumpkin beers, Night Owl.

I wonder how long it will take to have the Elysian brewery making Shocktop, or even Bud Light.

This all happened before. In the last century it involved auto manufacturers. If someone got too popular the big American auto makers bought them out. The marques for DeSoto, Packard, and Studebaker still exist – in a vault somewhere. It seems like Oldsmobile got mothballed a few years ago.

The auto industry started off by making those cars under new management. One engine went into all the cars, and only the bodies and trims were different. It isn’t hard to imagine a day when flavored Budweiser gets put into bottles as the product of the fine breweries AB absorbed. The final step will be mothballing the brand.