Moods

If you've been keeping up with my blog then you know I've been editing Burden (my last completed project). The edits have been rough, but now the story has become readable. Moreover, the man character begins to show his personality, his drive, and it all has to do with conveying the mood he's in. Whether is fear or elation, dread or hate; he's now recognizing his motivation, something he hasn't done before. Because of that, he's filling out as a person you my endear to or come to sympathize with. By the end, I hope you understand his choice and, under his circumstances, make the same choice yourself. It's a stretch, but living the person's life, feeling the person's loves and hates, and understanding his moods only enables you to become a step closer to being that person. That's the difference I'm making now in my edits.

Now for something different:

I’m sad you’re so far away from my heart,

I can’t begin to count the days we've been apart.

Joy has left me as worry starts to take its toll,

Filling this aching deep within my lonely soul.

Will you remember me, will I lighten your step,

Or will I just banish what little we have left?

Now I begin to count the days we've been apart,

And I’m sad you’re so far away from my heart.

Talk

I talk a lot about editing and how much I dislike it, which is the truth. The problem is I tend to write as I think and some words just don't make it onto paper. I've noticed another problem, I  substitute 'a' for whatever word I'm thinking of , yet can't remember how to spell, when my fingers are flying at a blazin' 45 w/m. As you can tell, I'm not the fastest typist, which I think is another problem. My mind is working fast than I type at times and therefore I skip things. Either way, no matter how careful I am, I invariably screw it up. In Burden, I screwed it up a lot, but I think with Burden part of it was my disjointed writing as I fought with where the story was leading. Near the end, I hope it gets better, but for now it's painfully bad.

Good news on Burden, however. I had my son read the new ending and he thought it was excellent.

Now for something different:

Time doesn't make the heart grow fonder. Neither does distance. Both create broken men with broken hearts who yearn for better times and better days, though those wants are like ships in the distance. They hover at the edge of perception where, in a blink of an eye, they can disappear over the horizon never to be seen again. And, despite hope, they may never reach the same port again as despair overwhelms the senses. 

There's a saying, actually a few, which proffer to propose if you love something, let it go. If it comes back, then it was meant to be. I'm not a big fan of letting go. Actually, I'm not a big fan of finding either because something always seems to be unsettling within me. I call it doubt, and it spreads like a virus, invades like a weed. Once it has a foothold, it's almost impossible to remove it. This is where it stands now, crushing the life out of me.

Do I endure or do I succumb? It's the choice only old men have to make. Or maybe it should be, it's what makes us old men.

Quickie

I'm gonna make this quick today because I'm tired... tired of editing... tired of re-reading the same thing a dozen times looking for mistakes... and just plan tired. Despite all this though, I do have some good news. My son read through Burden and like the story, suggested a few changes, and after a few days thinking about how to adjust the ending, those changes have really enhanced the book. Unfortunately, the editing of the book has started and it's worse than I'd originally thought. I wrote the novel in first person, from the main characters point of view in the present, however, I don't seem to follow this all the time. Correcting this is easy, but time consuming. Thankfully, I'm a quarter of the way through the book already and I'm feeling much better about how the story reads,though I have yet to have my son read the new ending.

On another note, I'm getting edits back, reviewing cover designs, and preparing myself for another convention: GenCon in Indy. It's going to be a heck of a trip and I hope I can pull it off as I don't think I'll have much help manning the booth.Volunteers? Anyway, getting excited in lieu of how exhausted I am. I'll be glad when I can finally relax near the end of the year and just write (or so I dream).

Signing off now. Good night and may your dreams be filled with action heroes, dangerous villains, and beautiful damsels in distress.

Shameful

I've written books. I've written a lot of books, sixteen to be exact. So far, I've published three, am editing four right now, and have seven more I want to write. It's a lot to wrap my head around at times. Yet, this doesn't make me a good writer, though someday I believe I will be one. Right now, my problem is not with writing. It's with editing. I hate it. I'm not good at it. To spend time doing it really unnerves me. It is, however, my biggest weakness. Because I know I'm bad at it, I've been practicing writing better so the editing isn't so bad. Irregardless, that hasn't worked either (just read one of my last blogs concerning Burden to understand this viewpoint).

A few month ago I thought to publish a book or two on my own. I edited, re-edited, re-edited some more, and finally said enough's enough. They had to be pretty decent considering all the time I put into them, so I was about to make a go of it on my own. Then, perchance, I got an editing offer I couldn't refuse and took it. Sure, it'd delay me a month or two, but it'd be worth it. AND, because I've already edited the hell out of these books already, it shouldn't take that long. I have a single word to describe my editing after receiving my fully edited novels back; shameful. Thanks to the new editor, hundreds of mistakes I overlooked were found.  Just how this was possible, I don't know, though I've formulated an opinion on my editing ability: I suck!

Anyway, I've updated one of the two books I've received back and am working on the second, which I hope to finish within the week. Then both will be edited again and my changes gone over. Maybe then I'll call them good, but for now I can only say an author can only edit his work to a point before all is lost. This is my realization. No matter how much I may try to edit, another set of eyes will always find mistakes. Hopefully, I can limit those mistakes in the books to come.

And for those who've read Jeremiah Stone, Limbus, and Azazel; I'm working on those also so please don't think all my books will contain so many grammatical mistakes. After all, it takes time to be good at something, so I'm spending some time at editing. Wish me luck.