Tag Archives: Fiction

Coming soon, another book review

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I’m going to move away from my truck project, which is coming together nicely, and I’m going to talk a little about something else. A few months ago, I volunteered to beta-read a book which I began, but I unfortunately had my notes on my computer which died on me. The best I could do was give him a general critique about his book.

Now I’m back to reading the finished book, and so far I’m digging it. I’m planning on posting a review of the book, The Ship by Allan Krummenacker early next month, probably the first Monday, which  would be July 7th, and my first book review since my March 17th review of The Trinity by Daelynn Quinn.

The fact that I’m doing another review isn’t all that unexpected. My plan was not to abandon reviewing altogether, but rather I wanted to devote my energies elsewhere for a while. So I’m back for a one-off review, except I have another review in the pipeline, set for the middle of next month as well. That book is the sequel to March Island by Oliver Chase, which I reviewed late last year, and which I believe is the last book to the Hirebomber Series. More on this as I find out.

It feels good to be back reading again. I still have a few book I want to read for myself, but my project has been taking up all my time, though I’m now reaching the end. It may be time for a new project. I’m not sure if I’m going to actually start reviewing again on a consistent basis again, or if this is just an anomaly.

I’m saying this because I’m curious whether it’s worth doing again. I feel that I didn’t get enough of a bump in readership as I would have liked, and I’m not sure it was appreciated by the authors I reviewed. So I’m putting it to a vote, What should I do?

Struggles in outlining

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Outlining my story was a great idea! I can’t believe just how much easier it is for me to write with this crisp new outline in front of me! Well, maybe not. Outlining hasn’t gone too well. So far all I have to show for my troubles are several aborted attempts. A pantser I remain, for now.

My problem is that I don’t know how to outline. I’m trying to put too much detail into the outline, but I don’t really know what’s going to happen, other than a vague idea of where I want my story to go, and a few key scenes I would like to include. To make a comparison to real life, it’s like knowing where I want to drive to, where I’m starting, but only knowing the general direction I’ll take. Lubbock, Texas to Boston, Massachusetts? I’ll just drive north and east and I’ll get there eventually.

Actually, that sounds like fun, and potentially the makings of another epic “Amy Adventure,” but that’s a story for another time.

I know the ending to the series, though I haven’t sat down and written it down. I know what the problem is going to be in the first book, but not how to resolve it. I vaguely want the second book to focus on Lily’s relationships with everyone around her, and her adversary’s attempt to subvert those ties in order to weaken her. I know Lily will make an unlikely alliance in the third book to defeat her adversary, though it comes with a cost.

Lily’s relationship with her dead mother will come more into focus as Lily learns more about her and the reason for her apparent neglect and unfortunate demise. My character will have to grow up and live up to a destiny that many before her refused to take.

What I hope will work out is the nature of Lily’s enemy. That has me worried because it’s either the best idea ever written, or the worst. It excites me and terrifies me as the same time. I need to finish it before I’ll know for sure.

Writing is a scary endeavor. I’ve gotten used to posting my thoughts on this blog, so now I’m working towards a grander goal. I’ve been hoping to cross this one last goal line, though I’ve been putting it off. I think I’m about ready to put myself out there to be scrutinized, to have my books out to be criticized as either good or bad. As much as I wanted it, I wasn’t strong enough emotionally for it. I am now, I think.

I’ll get back to creating a general outline for Lily, and hope that it is detailed enough for me to work with, but flexible enough for me to create an organic and fluid narrative. I’m still a long ways away from finishing Book One, but in all honesty, I’m closer to being done than I would like.

 

This is the end, or is it a beginning?

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I have no choice now. I have to give in to the inevitable. I should have seen this coming a long time ago, and maybe I did and I tried to delay it by walking away. Now I can see that I have to give in. I’m sorry, but this is the end of my way of life. I can barely stand the thought of it, and it’s breaking my heart to say it, but here goes nothing.

I think I may have to outline this story.

There it is. Mock me if you must, but my time as a pantser is all but over. No, don’t cry for me, at least not yet. All is not lost, but there are moments in life when one must confront one’s fears in order to mature and grow. This for me is one of those moments. It’s a little bittersweet.

I may be overreacting.

So here’s the deal. I’ve been working on this book that I call Lily, which is the name of my main character, imagine that. I want to write it as a series – probably a trilogy just so I can be like all the cool writers out there – so I’m having to do more planning than I’m used to. It’s not going all too well at the moment.

I can see some key scenes in my head, and I’m working on trying to weave them together into a cohesive narrative. I’ve written most of book one already, though there’s a lot I have to correct and clean up before I’m ready for anyone to take a look. For the rest, I have an ending in mind, key plot points I need to address, but when and how are the questions keeping me awake.

Maybe I’m not ready for this, but then if not now, when? I’ve talked this through with my confidant and I think this may work, at least if I frame it correctly, hence the need for an outline. I’ve never used one, but I think my story is becoming too complicated and convoluted to try to write this piecemeal, without a road map to guide me.

Since I’ve never done an outline, I have no idea how to do it. I guess I could do a little research into outlining, or maybe ask other writers how to create one, but I know I won’t. I’m writing my story, and I know what I need, so I guess any outline that I need to create must serve my needs and not try to live up to someone else’s definition of what an outline should be. Which now begs the question, why am I bringing this up?

But just for giggles, how many of you work from an outline? Anyone?

Opening up my Limbo File

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I hate getting stuck, which is where I’m at on a project at the moment. It’s so frustrating but I felt I had no choice but to set it aside for a while. It’s now in the limbo where I consign half-written projects.

While I was in the limbo department, I decided to check out something I began writing back in the summer of 2012, and Young Adult book about a former Angel of Death who is now trying to bring about the end of the world, and the girl who stands in his way. It’s always a girl, isn’t it?

I opened it up and began reading from the beginning, and I like what I have so far. What sucks is that it ends mid-sentence, and now I have no choice but to finish writing the damned book so that I’ll know what happens. It’s actually okay with me. I had always intended to come back to this piece eventually, and apparently eventually has now arrived.

I like the general tone of the book. It’s not too dark, nor is it too saccharine. It begins after the death of my main character’s seemingly neglectful mother and my m.c.’s reunion with a father she hadn’t seen in six years. Understandingly, there’s some bitterness about the separation, but she soon discovers the truth behind her parents divorce and the estrangement it produced.

Where it goes from there is still uncertain, which is why I stopped writing in the first place, but I have a few ideas that I’m entertaining. I would like to write this as a series, and I have a few ideas about what I want in the third book, a look into her mother’s decision to divorce her father, and the last moment of her life, when she gave up her will to live, and surrendered to Death’s embrace.

Maybe it’s a little to heavy for a Young Adult books series, but I don’t think so. I hope that I succeed in writing about the power of love and the need to accept death as a continuation, and not an end. We’ll see.

The success of How I Met You Mother

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Quick note, if you haven’t already seen the series finale and would like to, there are spoilers in my post.

~Joe~

himymI just got done watching the series finale of How I Met Your Mother for the second time. It’s been two days since it aired, two days since fans felt betrayed by the show’s creators, two days since fans had their hearts broken by the revelation that the eponymous mother was in fact dead.

It took eight seasons to meet her, but it wasn’t until the end of the finale that we are finally introduced to Tracy McConnell. What should have been the satisfying conclusion, and ultimately the beginning of a modern-day romantic fairy tale, became instead the requiem song of a lost love, of a man still in mourning but who wants to live, a man who feels compelled to ask his children for permission to move on.

The ending upset a lot of fans, and I want to say that that’s a victory for the creators of the show as well as the writers, the crew, and especially the cast. Together, they made us care about a group of five friends trying to make it in life and in love. Together, they made us root for them, to laugh and to cry with them. We fell in love with their journey, and it’s a journey most of us can relate to.

From the start, we knew it’s about Ted Mosby’s journey to find the great love of his life. We know that Ted will find her, and that they will have been blessed with two children. Still, we came back week after week for nine seasons, to finally have the answer as to how he met this mystery woman. We have the answer, and we are upset because we discover that the real reason for the story is not to tel about meeting the mother, but because it’s about asking for permission to date again.

Check out Twitter, read the countless other blogs and articles across the web and you will see what I mean, if you haven’t already. In light of all this anger, how can I say that this is a success? Easy, because we care enough to be angry. We care about Ted, seeing the ups and downs he had to endure on his way to meeting his wife, that we were blindsided by the fact that it ended so soon. Happily ever after only lasted about ten years, then the end.

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The real reason we are upset is due to the success of the writers in creating wonderful characters, rich in history, their eccentricities on display, unique in a way that made them relatable. We know people like them or wish we did, and many of us would like to know them or to be in a group with them. They were our friends.

We saw in their struggles many of the same things we struggled with in life. They faced fears and doubts in their professional lives, in the personal love lives, and with each other. Not one of the five was one-dimensional. They were all complex, and had a range of attributes, some great and others quite ugly.

They became real through the telling of the story so that nine years later we felt a very real emotional connection to them. We were shocked by the mother’s death, a character we didn’t even know, because we cared for Ted and knew how hard he fought for his ideal of love.

It’s not an easy feat to have an audience accept a cast of characters to be genuine, but we did for them, and that’s a legacy that Bays and Thompson should be proud of. For all the writers out there, this is something we all want to emulate, to create characters that pulls the reader into the story we are telling, to make them care enough to laugh and cry, to feel joy or to become angry at our decisions.

On Monday, we finally became privy to the story HIMYM had been telling us for years. I hope those of you who were fans can take a moment to appreciate the magic we witnessed. Had we not cared, we would not have become angry when the moment of the grand reveal happened. For better or for worse, this was the story that they had wanted to tell all along. I for one applaud them, though I would have loved it if Ted would have been granted his fairy tale ending. He deserved it, as did we all.

In Memoriam

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In Loving Memory
Tracy McConnell Mosby
We hardly knew you