Category: The Sword Keeper

Slow going (but still going)

I’ve been back in the States for exactly one week now, and while my stomach is still having trouble adjusting, I’m more or less used to the American way of life.  Not much culture shock this time, though that could change once I get back to Utah.  That place is pretty strange.

So without a foreign culture to navigate (or a job, though hopefully that will soon change), I have a lot more time to focus on my writing.  Trouble is…it’s coming slow.  Like, reeeally slow, at least for me.  I’ve been clocking in at less than 800 words per hour, sometimes as low as 500.  I’m still hitting betwen 1.5k and 2k words per day, but still, it’s way more of a struggle than it needs to be.

I think the main problem right now is that I’m writing with my internal editor looking over my shoulder.  Somehow, I seem to have forgotten how to turn him off (maybe that’s why I didn’t get very much written in Georgia, hmmm…).  To compound matters, it seems like every ten minutes I want to get up and do something else.  That’s not a very good way to be productive at anything, let alone writing.

Fortunately, I think I’m slowly getting the good habits back.  I’m writing a little less than two scenes a day, and the momentum is building.  With this timer constantly staring me in the face, I’m much more conscious about how I structure my day.  I haven’t hit four hours of productive writing time yet, but I am consistently getting to three, so I think it’s just a matter of self discipline before I can up that to four.

All boring writer stuff, I know.  But the long and short of it is that I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things.  If I can turn off that internal editor and start writing faster, I think I can finish The Sword Keeper before the end of the month.  That would free me to work on a lot of other things, most noticably publication of Stars of Blood and Glory.  That’s the next one in the publishing queue, though I’m still waiting on a couple of first readers <cough>.

That’s about it.  I just wanted to vent some frustration, since man, writing is tough when your internal editor is breathing down your neck.  But don’t worry–I’ll shut him up soon, and my writing will be better because of it.

Time to get immersed back in story.

A new daily writing approach

So last summer, I decided to stop tracking my daily writing word count.  There were a lot of reasons for this, mostly having to do with the way it led me to focus on the wrong things and beat myself up in ways that were ultimately counterproductive.

The trouble is, I’d structured almost my whole writing life around keeping track of word counts.  Without an easy way to measure my daily progress, it was really hard to know whether I was being productive or not.  As a consequence, I didn’t push myself as hard as I could have, and ended up bouncing around between projects without really finishing anything.

Well, I think I’ve figured out a solution to that.  Instead of tracking daily word count, I’m going to use a countdown timer to make sure I spend at least X number of hours each day writing new words.  Whenever I take a break to do something else, even if it’s writing related, I’ll pause the timer, then start it up again when I get back to writing.

I tried it out last week, using a program called TimeLeft.  It worked out pretty well, I think.  Definitely gave me a lot more insight into my writing process.  I think it will help me to get some good habits back, like writing in the morning and staying focused for longer.  It will also help to have something I can accomplish each day.  It doesn’t matter how much I write, just that I spend the time actually writing.

To start out, I’m going to shoot for four hours of daily writing time.  It might not sound like a lot, and without a day job perhaps it isn’t, but I think it’s a good starting point.  Then again, if the guys at Writing Excuses are right, I might end up scaling back a bit.  Either way, I’ll probably end up adjusting that goal over the next few weeks.

Other writing stuff I’d like to figure out this year:

  • How to juggle two projects at the same time.  I’m kind of doing it now with The Sword Keeper and Star Wanderers: Benefactor, but it’s tough to keep one of them from getting the short end of the stick.
  • How to go for a week without checking my ebook sales.  Kris Rusch had a really good post on this last week.  I’ve tried it before, but I always end up breaking down and checking.  Well, no longer!
  • How to write good short stories.  I think I’ve put it off for too long.  Yes, novels and short stories are different arts, but they’re both writing, and I’m a writer.  Time to learn.

That’s just about it for now.  Hopefully, it will turn out well.

A not-so-obligatory New Year’s resolution

First of all, happy New Years!  I hope you’re all looking forward to 2013 as much as I am.  Last year was full of awesome life-changing experiences, but I have a feeling that this one is going to be even better.

So after chatting about resolutions with some old friends, I’ve decided that a good new year’s resolution should be more than just another mundane daily goal.  Those are great, but you shouldn’t just set them at the beginning of the year and forget about them around February or March, you should adjust and rework them constantly no matter what time of the year it is.

Instead, a good resolution is some extraordinary task or challenge with a deadline of December 31st.  Basically, it’s something from your bucket list that you hope to accomplish that year.  Because it’s extraordinary, it’s not something that you forget in a month or two.  And the deadline gives you a sense of urgency, so you don’t put it off for “someday.”

With that in mind, here’s my 2013 resolution:

Hike four of the seven peaks of Utah County.

I was originally going to go for all seven, but I’m not (yet) an experienced climber, and some of the peaks look a little difficult.  Others, though, seem pretty doable.  I’ve hiked Y Mountain several times, and got a chance to do a little hiking in Georgia.  Four shouldn’t be too much, even with my relatively limited skill level right now.

Here are the seven peaks:

Of course, I’ll wait until June to make the first hike (probably Provo Peak).  In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to get ready: eat healthy, climb a few smaller mountains, and otherwise get in shape for the big ones.

As far as writing goes, I’m going to go back on the early morning writing schedule and shoot for three hours of writing new words per day.  My monthly goal is to start / finish / publish at least one thing, and my yearly goal is still to finish at least two novel-length works (2012 was Star Wanderers I-IV and Stars of Blood and Glory).

But it’s hard to call any of those goals resolutions, since most of them are probably going to change over the coming weeks and months.  It’s hard to know exactly what life’s going to throw at me once I get back in Utah, so I’m going to stay flexible and just try to do the best I can.

I do want to publish Stars of Blood and Glory next month, and I think I can finish The Sword Keeper before then–if not, then definitely Star Wanderers: Benefactor.  After that, I’d like to do a print version of Star Wanderers I-IV with some decent cover art.  And Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver will probably be out sometime in the spring.

Beyond that, who knows?  It all depends on where the muse takes me.  One thing’s for sure, though–I’ll definitely keep writing.

A few quick updates and a new publication

Sorry, no Trope Tuesday post this week.  I’m leaving Kutaisi in a couple of days, to spend Christmas in Tbilisi before flying home.  Needless to say, things are a little upside down right now.

I’m still writing though.  Making progress on The Sword Keeper, though not as much as I’d like.  Once the school year wraps up and I’ve moved out of my village, I hope to dedicate more time and energy to it.  It’s my first serious foray into fantasy, and even with all the challenges, I’m having a lot of fun with it.  If you guys want, maybe I’ll post a scene or two from the WIP.

Speaking of sample chapters, Leading Edge Magazine is publishing the first chapter of my upcoming novel, Stars of Blood and Glory.  It’s coming out in issue 63, which should be available any day now.  It’ll be at least a couple of months until the full-length novel comes out, so if you want a sneak peek, be sure to pick up a copy.

That’s just about it for now.  More later, when things are a bit more grounded.  See you around!

This Week

I was listening to the latest episode of This American Life yesterday, and at the end of the podcast, Ira Glass mentioned that this week’s episode will be themed “this week”–in other words, things that all happened in just the last seven days.

Well, things haven’t been too eventful out here in Georgia, but I liked the idea for the theme, so I decided to write up something as if it would appear on the show.  Here it is:

Early Tuesday morning, before the sun rose, I woke up from a dream that I was in a faraway place somewhere on this planet. Then I opened my eyes and realized that I live in the Caucasus Mountains.

I’m an American teaching English in the Republic of Georgia, in a small village half an hour south of Kutaisi. I live in a farmhouse with a local family. The mother teaches math at the village school, her son teaches computer science and makes wine for a company based out of Tbilisi. My host mother’s sister in law also lives with us, and this week, she cooked the most delicious borscht I’ve eaten in my life. She told me she’d teach me how to make it, and I’m ecstatic.

We keep sheep, cows, chickens, pigs, a turkey, and grow about half of the food we eat. Last week, five of the chickens were eaten by a wolf, including a mother hen and three of her chicks. The last surviving chick has been struggling, so every day after school I take her out of the little cage where we’ve beek keeping her and feed her from my hand. She isn’t as afraid as she used to be, and seems to be getting stronger.

I teach grades I through VI at the village school, which amounts to about eighty kids. On Tuesday, we chopped wood for the winter. Each classroom has a small woodburning stove, and often smells like campfire smoke. It’s very warm, though–the teachers make sure of that, since cold leads to illness, and we can’t have that. The kids love learning, and I love teaching them. Every day after class, I say “goodbye,” and they run up screaming and laughing to give me high fives. I feel like a rockstar whenever I’m at school with them.

On Sunday, I went up to Kutaisi to use the internet. I use the internet maybe three times a week, sometimes four. The nearest place with reliable wifi is the McDonalds, and it takes half an hour and 1.5 lari to get there. On the way back, I chatted in the back of the marshrutka with some of the upper grade kids from my village. We sang songs by Michael Jackson, Justin Beiber, and Psy. Gangnam Style is very popular out here, and the kids think it’s hilarious when I do the dance for them at the village school.

It’s raining right now, which means that the power will probably go out soon. We have power outages almost every day, but they aren’t usually longer than one or two hours. Our water comes from a well, and our heat comes from the fireplace, where we also burn our garbage. When the rain lets up, I’ll help my host-brother cut down a few trees in the back and chop the wood.

Georgia is going through some difficult times politically right now, but we only hear about it through the TV. The country had its first peaceful democratic transition of power in October, and the new Prime Minister has been on a political witch hunt ever since. Some in the Western media find this disturbing, but my host-brother doesn’t think that Georgia has become less democratic because of it. We had a long conversation about politics on Monday night, which eventually turned into a discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since the recent UN vote has also been in the news. He told me he’s pro-Palestinian because Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank sounds a lot like Russia’s occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

An expat friend of mine visited Abkhazia recently and posted the pictures on his blog on Tuesday. He called it an overpriced garbage dump, and from the pictures, you can definitely see why. Piles of trash in the courtyard of the biggest Orthodox church in Sokhumi, a derelict half-sunk ship rusting in the harbor, vines crawling up Soviet-era power lines that look about ready to fall over. And yet with Russia trying to keep Georgia from joining NATO, it looks like the status quo will remain in place for years to come.

Here in my village, though, that all seems far away. So do the economic problems back home, though they’re one of the reasons why I came out to Georgia in the firstplace. On Tuesday, I met up with a British friend of mine at McDonalds and we talked a bit about what we plan to do after we get home. He’s got a job lined up for him at the school where his mother works. I asked him if things are still tough in the UK, and he nodded. We didn’t have to say anything more than that to understand each other.

I don’t have a job lined up, but I’m actually not too worried. I’m a writer with a few science fiction stories self-published online, and on Tuesday I realized that I’ve earned as much money in the first four days of this month as I earned in the entire month of March earlier this year. It’s not enough to make a living yet–at least, not by US standards–but it’s growing.

On Sunday, I published another novelette, and on Wednesday, I went back to work on a fantasy novel that I started in October. The power hasn’t gone out yet, so I think I’ll get back to writing. It’s 3:32 PM and I have the rest of the day to myself, with maybe an hour to help my host brother cut down some trees. Life is good, especially out here in the Caucasus.

At this point, I should probably post some pictures:

Chopping wood at the school. A bunch of men from the village did the chopping, while the kids carried the wood back inside.
Some of my VI and IV grade students helping out.
One of the first graders. I swear, this kid is like my biggest fan.
Some of my V graders. These kids are great.

In other news, I decided to drop my other projects and go back to writing The Sword Keeper.  I think part of the problem I had before was that I was trying to go too fast, writing-wise and story-wise.  This is my first time writing a fantasy novel, and I can already tell that it’s going to be a lot longer than I’d thought it would be.

Also, I took the time to draw up a map of the fantasy world where it takes place, and oh my gosh that changed everything.  Maps are awesome.  When I have access to a decent scanner, I’ll have to put it up.

That’s all.  See you around!

 

New Kindle! And some new old projects as well

So I came out to Tbilisi today, because MY NEW KINDLE PAPERWHITE JUST ARRIVED!

Okay, sorry for the all-caps shouting, but I’m really happy that it finally got here.  My old kindle broke down a few months ago, leaving me stranded in my tiny village without any books.  With the weather getting worse and the power outages becoming more frequent, cabin fever has started to become a problem.  So really, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

It shipped out almost a month ago, but Georgia (the country, not the state) is a fairly remote place, so it’s taken a looong time to get here.  The wait has definitely been worth it, though.  I love this device, especially the cover browsing function.  And the backlight is going to be very, very useful, what with all the power outages we get in the village.

So I’m about 100 pages into The Sword Keeper, my latest project, and I realized that I need to do a lot more worldbuilding before I can continue.  I’ve got a good handle on the characters and have more or less figured out the plot, but there are still a lot of holes in the setting.  This new project is a fantasy novel, and it seems to be leaning more towards epic than heroic, so I probably should take the time to really build the world before trying to finish the story.

I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from my experience here in Georgia, but right now, I feel like I’m too close to it to really take it in the right direction.  The time I spent in Jordan was a huge influence in Desert Stars, but I didn’t start it until I came home (and didn’t finish the first draft until almost two years later).  Ideas are like wine: sometimes, you just need to let them sit in the back of your head and age for a while.

So long story short, I’ve decided to put The Sword Keeper on the back burner for a while.  I’m  sure I’ll come back to it, though–the story is far too interesting to let go.  Magical thinking swords that meld with the minds of those who wield them, ancient prophecies and a secret order of warrior monks–and that’s just the backdrop.  The characters themselves are much more interesting–I have got to tell their story!

But for now, I’m going to revisit the Gaia Nova universe and finish the revisions for Heart of the Nebula.  This one is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and while it definitely still needs work, I feel like it’s almost there.  The first draft had some major problems and needed to be revamped, especially toward the end.  If all goes well, I should finish this pass before the end of November, with enough time to write another Star Wanderers story before the end of the year.

Stars of Blood and Glory is still with my first readers, but if they give it the green light, I hope to publish it sometime in February.  This one is also a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, with Danica, Roman, Stella, and Stella’s son Abaqa, and a couple of characters from Desert Stars as well.  I’m really excited about this story, but I figure it’s best to get some more feedback first before putting it out.

Which brings me to Star Wanderers: Homeworld (Part IV).  I can’t promise that it will be out before the end of November, but that’s what I’m shooting for.  Of course, I’m not going to put it out until I’m satisfied that it represents my best work, but even my first readers do come back with problems, I’m 99% confident I can fix them all by December at the latest.  There is nothing–absolutely nothing–like the feeling you get when you finish a story where everything just comes together.  I may not be the best judge of my own work, but I know that feeling.  You can definitely expect to see this story come out before the end of the year.

That’s about all for now.  Internet is spotty out in the village, but I’ve got a couple of interesting posts brewing in the back of my mind.  I’ll probably write them up in the next few days, and post them the next time I get a chance.  Until then, see you around!

Grape harvest update

Sorry for missing the last Trope Tuesday post.  We’re in the tail end of the grape harvest here in Georgia, so I’ve been spending a lot of time helping out with that.  The next trope post is going to be a big one, so rather than trying to pound it out in the village (where most internet sessions are cut short by a power outage), I figured I’d just wait until next week.

In any case, here are some pictures from the harvest that you might find interesting.  Georgia is pretty famous for its wine and grapes–there are over 500 different varieties in the country, many of them indigenous to the Caucasus region.  Almost everyone in the village has their own vineyard, so most of the stuff you buy in the market is locally grown and locally produced.  Let me tell you, there are few things more awesome than being able to get freshly picked fruit right in your own backyard.

Picking grapes. A bunch of the neighbors came out and helped, in exchange for a basketful of grapes and a nice dinner.
Grapes, fresh on the vine.
It takes a little more infrastructure to grow them this way, but the end result is much better.
The best part of picking grapes is being able to snack while you pick them. 🙂

In terms of writing, I’m making fairly decent progress on my next novel.  It’s a fantasy story, so it’s a pretty big shift from all the space opera stuff I’ve done over the last few years.  At least, that’s what it feels like.  I’m trying not to worry about how much it sucks right now, but if it’s anything like all my other books, it will turn out a lot better than I think it will.

That’s about all for now.  I’ll leave you with this hilarious youtube clip of a bunch of Koreans going ape over a Georgian dance troop.  The Georgians are awesome, but it’s worth watching for the Koreans’ reactions alone.  Seriously, best thing I’ve seen in a long time.

See you around!

Still here, wherever that may be

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve been active on this blog.  I guess living in the developing world will do that to you.

It’s not that I don’t have good internet access, it’s that the places where I can get it are often noisy and crowded, with a fair amount of cigarette smoke.  By the time I’ve checked my email, caught up on all the blogs I follow (or at least the interesting ones), and generally finished screwing around done everything else I need to do on the internet, I’m pretty wiped out.

I’ll try to write my future posts offline, like I did in Jordan, so all I have to do is copy and paste.  I can’t really do that with Trope Tuesday posts, but for everything else, it shouldn’t be a problem.

In any case, I’m still here–wherever “here” is.  Currently, it’s Tbilisi.  I came out for the weekend to pick  up a package from the USA…I was hoping to get the new kindle paperwhite, but instead got the case and adapter.  Turns out the actual device is shipping out next week–I’d say it’s a disappointment, but I’m actually just relieved to know that it wasn’t lost in the mail.

Things are going well out here in Georgia.  The village kids are a lot of fun to teach–I basically feel like a rockstar whenever I’m at the school.  It certainly helps that I give out stickers left and right every time someone actually does their homework.  Whenever I pull them out, the kids say “smiley!” and go crazy.

But yeah, even though I enjoy being out here, I figure it’s time for a change.  Like I mentioned in the last post, I’ve accomplished just about all my goals for coming out to Georgia, which mostly had to do with trying out a TEFL career and seeing if it’s a good fit.  I think it is, so I plan to go out again after a few months, but I want to come back to Utah for a while to see some old friends, spend time with family, and recharge before the next big excursion.  That’s the plan, anyway.

As far as the writing goes, things are going, but slower than I’d like.  I’m only in chapter two of The Sword Keeper, which is kind of frustrating, but I think I’ve overcome most of the hurdles and now it’s just a matter of buckling down and doing it.  I definitely think I can have this novel finished before the end of November, which would make it my second novel for the year (third, if you count Star Wanderers I-IV).

In terms of publishing, though, things are looking great.  I found someone to proofread Star Wanderers: Sacrifice, and she should be getting back in the next few days.  If all goes well, it’ll be up on Amazon and Smashwords by Monday the 29th.  Star Wanderers: Homeworld is also getting close–I just need to get the feedback from my first readers and figure out where to go from there.  If there aren’t any major issues, it should be up by the end of November.

I’m debating whether to splurge on the cover art for the omnibus, and if so, who to ask to do it.  This series have a very different feel from my Gaia Nova series, even though they both take place in the same universe.  Not sure what to do for the illustration, or who to ask to do it, but that’s still a few months down the road.

That’s about it for now.  I’ll end with a few shots that my friend took in Prometheus Cave, one of the coolest sites out here in Imereti province.  Imagine about a mile of caverns, brimming from floor to ceiling with formations like these:

Later!

On the verge of another story

So with Star Wanderers coming to a close, at least as far as the actual writing is concerned, I’ve recently found myself back in that weird writerly place where I don’t have any pressing projects to work on.  Whenever this happens, I find that it’s generally a good idea to start something new.

Until just a couple of days ago, though, I wasn’t sure which project to start.  At first, I thought I should do the sequel to Stars of Blood and Glory, since I’m currently getting that one ready to send off to my editor, but beyond a tentative title (Empress of the Free Stars) and a really awesome opening scene, nothing has really sparked for that one.  With time, I’m sure my ideas will come together, but for now it’s just not ready to come out of the incubator.

So then I went back to The Swordkeeper, going back over the ideas that had sparked that one.  I started the opening scene back in March, but it’s currently lackluster, and none of my attempts at worldbuilding have gotten me anywhere.  For the past six months, I haven’t really touched it.

But when I took the time to just think about the story, something amazing happened.  All my ideas came together, and the ending just came to me–not just for the first book, but for the entire series.  Seriously, I must have spent hours staring out across the Georgian countryside from my farmhouse balcony, totally in awe of the story in my head.

A similar thing happened to me last summer with Stars of Blood and Glory.  It took me a few months to finally get around to writing it, but when I did, the first draft flew out in just a matter of weeks.  I’ve since made a few relatively minor fixes to the beginning and added some scenes that were missing, but otherwise haven’t made any substantial changes, and the comments from my first readers so far confirm that that’s the right decision.

So if all goes well, I’ll finish up with Stars of Blood and Glory by the end of this next week, and restart The Swordkeeper soon after that.  Things are looking good, and I can’t wait to get immersed in this next story.  It’s a fantasy, so that’s going to be a major shift, but I think it will help to keep things fresh.

Anyhow, that’s all for now.  More later.

Q1 2012, or what writer’s angst looks like

Actually, this last quarter wasn’t quite so bad as the title might make it seem.  For the first part, I was on roll, writing almost 25k new words a week.  But then I finished that project, started a new career, moved to the other side of the world…yeah, my writing took a hit.  Or at least, that’s how it feels.

In January, I was working on Stars of Blood and Glory, and was really on a roll.  The application process for TLG was still pending, but I pretty much knew I was getting in, and since I was staying with my parents until it went through, I didn’t have to worry much about money issues.  With lots of writing time, I finished SBG in about 6 weeks and published Journey to Jordan.  Life was good.

After Stars of Blood and Glory, I went back to Star Wanderers, finishing up Part II and starting Part III.  However, something felt wrong, and I didn’t really know what it was.  With my TLG departure date imminent, it was really hard to focus, and I wasn’t in much of a position to move on to anything else.  That’s when the angst began.

I flew out to Georgia on February 15th, did a week of training in Tbilisi, and then was whisked about 220 kilometers away to Kutaisi.  As a consequence, I didn’t get any real writing done for almost a month.  However, I didn’t have any major challenges navigating the new culture, and was soon settled pretty comfortably.

The trouble was, nothing was working.  Star Wanderers was broken, and I was too close to the project to fix it.  But after putting it on the back burner, I didn’t know what to do.  For most of March, I switched from one project to another.  Nothing seemed to stick, though, and by the end, I was getting pretty antsy.

What if I’d made a mistake to come to Georgia?  What if that was the reason nothing was working?  It sounds silly now, but that was what was going through my mind.  I still worry about it a little, but I think it has to do more with my creative process than anything here in Georgia.

I have a very non-linear way of writing first drafts.  After starting the revision for Heart of the Nebula and making some good progress on that, I got an idea for Star Wanderers and moved back to that.  At this point, I think the only way to get productive again is to finish that project, even if it sucks.  I’ve got a lot of great ideas for other stories, but until I can close the book on this one, I don’t think I’ll be able to make much progress.

So that’s where things stand right now.  All in all, it wasn’t a bad quarter, but I’ll be happy when I’ve actually finished something for a change.  Hopefully, that’ll only be a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I’ll keep writing.