Progress Report

Turkey Day Weekend has been excellent so far. I've made great progress with editing. I always have the huge hurdle of getting past the many excellent writing blogs I follow before I actually get into my own work. I'd say they put me back a good hour tonight. It's after midnight and I've been going full steam ahead for the past two hours and I have to stop. ARRGH! Amelia will be bouncing on my head sometime around 7:30AM and I need to get some sleep. Otherwise I'll be one comatose daddy tomorrow morning.

Still on target to start querying the first week of the New Year!

Openings

Over and over I have read that the first few pages are critical if you want to grab an agent. And so the fear sets in. It would be awful to lose a chance at getting published due to a weak first 600 words! With these thoughts on my mind, I've been putting a lot of effort into my opening pages.

The opening scene involves my protagonist, Hadde, tracking a raiding party heading for her home village. The raiders are nervous that they are about to be ambushed. My struggle in writing this scene was in how to describe the nervousness of the raiders. My initial efforts involved a lot of telling and little showing. I was doing a lot of things like this:

The Kiremi, with their bright tunics and curved bows, warily scanned the forest.

They seemed weary and defeated, not like the last time they had stormed her village.

The problem was in describing someone who was nervous, without saying, "They were nervous." Fidgeting with their weapons seemed pretty weak.

I went to my friend, Mike Shultz, and asked his opinion. He thought I should show the Kiremi raiders reacting to something. Something like a falling tree branch that startles them. VOILA!

I posted my new opening at the Evil Editor's website. We'll see what his minions have to say about it. The revised opening is down in the comments. You can compare it to the original and see if you think it has improved much.

If you don't feel like rooting through the Evil Editor site to find my revisions you can see my opening here. The link takes you to a google doc where the opening is a work in progress. If you scroll down you can see revisions and comments made by my critique partner.

What I've Been Reading

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

The Road might just be the best book I have ever read. It is gripping, grim, and wonderfully written. If dark isn't your thing, you might want to pass. Everyone else must read this book.

Funeral Games, by Christian Cameron

This is the third book in Cameron's Tyrant series. I've loved the entire series. Cameron does a wonderful job making the third century BC come alive. He writes the best historical fiction I have ever read. Funeral Games follows the story of the twin children of Kineas (the primary protagonist of the first two novels).

Lamb, by Christopher Moore

A very funny, very irreverent book about the "missing years" of Jesus Christ's life. I loved it. It isn't anti-religion, but I could see how a very religious person could be offended by it. Despite it's irreverence, it is very sympathetic to Jesus' life and message.

Cover Art

My previous post focused on my former students, Sam Tsui and Kurt Schneider, and their musical talents. I also mentioned that Sam did the painting of Hadde of Landomere you see on the blog. I first learned of Sam's artistic talent when he was a sophomore in high school. Toward the end of the school year I went to our school's art show and saw this piece of art:



I was so impressed that I asked Sam to paint Hadde for me. I wanted a sketch of her as well as a cover for my novel. I gave Sam the first three chapters of the manuscript and a description of what I was looking for. In short order he produced this:



I love what he did. The scene is from a fight that takes place in chapter one. It is a brutal fight that sets the dark, serious tone for the book. Tension is critical for a fantasy novel, and in chapter one we discover that Hadde lives in a world full of peril. In fact, it is a world in peril.

Will this be the actual cover of the novel? I'm sure it won't. The publisher will have their artists create the real thing. Sam's cover serves another purpose. I had him blow it up to poster size, and it now hangs on the wall in my office. It is wonderful inspiration for what I hope to accomplish.

My Famous Former Students

Two of my former students are experiencing some tremendous YouTube success. So much success that they were interviewed on national television by Bonnie Hunt. I taught Kurt Schneider and Sam Tsui in my AP Economics class. They were the kind of student a teacher never forgets. Kurt was an amazing mathematician who never opened his economics book once the entire year. He didn't need to. Sam added acting and artistic talent to his academic achievements. He's responsible for the sketch of Hadde you see on the blog. He also made an Eternal Knight book cover for me. I'll add the cover to a later blog entry. Check them out:

I am a Wargamer

What's wargaming?

Wargaming is a hobby that involves using painted lead soldiers, models, dice, and rulers to recreate historical, fantasy, or sci-fi battles. There are two very different aspects of the hobby. One half is the collecting and painting of the figures. The other half is the fighting of the battles. I've been wargaming since the mid 90's. This includes both friendly matches and tournaments.

What does wargaming have to do with Eternal Knight?

The novel is a fantasy novel, and as such includes elements of magic and the supernatural. However, I like to think of it as an uber-realistic and gritty fantasy novel. The willing suspension of disbelief is tremendously important to me. I want you to believe in what is happening on the page. This is especially important in action and battle sequences. As soon as the reader frowns at the novel and says, "That can't happen!" the writer has lost. Wargaming has been hugely helpful to me in two ways.


First of all it has made me very well versed in the history of warfare and military technology. A history nut will recognize that I've set the technology level of the novel at approximately 1350 CE (in Western Europe). I chose that technology level, and I stuck to my guns. You won't find wildly incongruous combinations of weapons and armor. I once read a fantasy novel in which one of the protagonists (unarmored and wielding a rapier) defeated a plate armor clad knight. Of course he won because the knight was so encumbered by his armor that he could barely move. AARRGG! It was a ridiculous depiction of what this combat would have looked like in real life. If armor so encumbered knights that they could be defeated in such a manner, knights never would have worn so much armor.

Wargaming has also helped me understand the big picture of a battle. The rules include elements such as morale and fatigue. Fantasy novels are filled wiht armies fighting to the death. Except in rare circumstances, this just doesn't happen. Fear and fatigue take a terrible toll on armies. Self-preservation is a powerful motivator--I don't care if you are a human, a goblin, or a dragon. Now, sometimes in history a unit has managed to fight its way out of impossible odds. It happens in wargaming as well. But when it happens in a book, the author needs to work twice as hard and make me BELIEVE IT!

If you'd like to take a look at some of my historical wargaming tournament battles just follow this link.

Kindle on the iPhone

Nathan Bransford recently wrote a post about e-books, Kindle, and the iPhone. He was so enthusiastic about the iPhone Kindle app that I went out and downloaded it (for free). I needed a book to read so went to Amazon and downloaded ($7.50) Philip Pullman's, The Golden Compass.

Wow! This is fantastic! The iPhone is easy to read on and the application is simple to use. You'd think it would be difficult to read on the small screen. Nope. Since you can use your finger to sweep to the next page, there is no interruption to your reading as you advance. Text size is adjustable and the screen lighting is variable to fit your current reading conditions.

I've wasted a lot of down time (waiting in line, Dr's office, daughter's gymnastics lesson, etc.) with iPhone games. Now I have a novel in my pocket any time I want it. My consumption of novels has significanly decreased over the past few years--no more. I have a feeling I'll be consuming a lot more books in the coming months.

Oh, so far (the first 15 pages or so) The Golden Compass is excellent.

Very Cool

My friend, Mike Shultz, took me to New York City to have lunch with his editor (Carsten Polzin of Piper Fantasy) yesterday. Carsten was in New York for a few days of business following Worldcon in Montreal the previous week.

Carsten "discovered" Mike's novel, Sword of Memory, after reading one of his short stories and checking out the link to Mike's website. Carsten saw that Mike was working on a novel and asked to take a look at the manuscript. One thing led to another and Mike now finds himself in the unusual situation of having his novel published in German before being published in English.

We ate at the Gramercy Tavern on East 20th street. I was very impressed. Great service, excellent food, and wonderful beer. It was made all the better when Carsten announced at the beginning of the meal that his publishing house was picking up the bill. Cheers to Piper Fantasy.

We spent at good two hours talking about the path Mike's novel would follow to publication, the publishing industry in general, and fantasy in specific. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire affair. It was just plain cool to find myself sitting in a restaurant in the publishing capital of the world talking to an editor. I couldn't help but imagine that somewhere, just a few blocks (or so) from my table, my future agent and publisher were waiting for my manuscript.

Much appreciation to Mike for taking me along, and to Carsten for both the meal and conversation.

In the dumps

Feeling blue. This project is taking forever and I just can't find the time it needs. My manuscript needs to be as perfect as I can possibly make it before I even query an agent. At this point I'm thinking "as perfect as I can possibly make it" just won't be good enough. How many more hours do I pour into a project that will never see the light of day? Do I even have the writing chops to get something published? How many hours of study and practice will it take to gain the necessary skills?

Bah.

So what's keeping me going?
1) I absolutely believe that I've created a great story.
2) The rewards (I'm not talking money--I'm not that big a fool) of successfully getting published will be phenomenal.

Evil Editor

I put my opening 200+ words on Evil Editor. 17 Comments so far. Nothing too brutal. I confused some readers in the second paragraph with my description of the Kiremi raiders. They also wanted a minor character (Geros) mentioned earlier. Several readers said that they would read further. Overall it was a positive experience.