Fight Scenes

Fight Scenes. I said I wasn’t sure if I had anything more to say about fight scenes, but now I believe that I might just have a few things to say. But, anyway, let’s get on with the show.

First up: Cinematic Fight Scenes: Cinematic fight scenes are probably my favorite type of fight scene. In this type of fight scene just about every move is described in complete detail. Reading one of these is almost like watching the fight take place on a big movie screen, which is why I called it a Cinematic Fight Scene.

Pros: The pros to this type of fight scene are pretty simple. This type is pretty much the ultimate form of showing the reader what is going on.

Cons: The cons are also pretty simple. If a fight scene goes on too long, or you have more than one of them in the course of a novel they can become a little tedious and boring for the reader to … well, read.

Second: This is a type of fight scene I call Short and Sweet. Usually this is a type of fight scene where you only describe a few of the moves in the fight, kill/knock-out the MC’s (or whoever’s) opponent in those couple of moves, and go on with the story.

Pros: The pro to this fight scene is the brevity of the fight while still showing more of what happens in the fight then the next time.

Cons: Again this is something you should use in moderation, just like everything else. Too many of these little fights can become predictable, and tedious.

Third: The third type of fight scene, as I see it, is the worst type. I don’t even feel like coming up with a name for it because of how lame I feel the fight scene is. What the whole thing amounts to is: Sara stabbed the goblin. And, that sentence right there is the whole fight scene. It’s not exciting, not even remotely entertaining, and leaves all parties wanting more. I honestly dislike it so much, that I can’t even think of any pros to the situation at all. And, the con is simple…very very simple… its boring.

So, yeah, there you go, my full fledged post on fight scenes.

Tell Me: What type of fight scene do you like to use?

Worth Reading—A Christmas Carol

Worth Reading—A Christmas Carol

So, I was talking about doing a series on fight scenes, going into depth about the different types of fight scenes. Right now, I don’t think I have anything more to say about that, so we might have to wait until I find something more to say about them.

Anyway, I did have something I wanted to talk about. It’s a little story by Charles Dickenson called A Christmas Carol.

I have been in love with this story, in all its different televised or movie forms, but until now I’ve never had the chance to read the book.

I have the book now, and I’m like five pages into it, and it’s great.

I certainly must say that everybody should own a copy of A Christmas Carol.

Tell me: What’s your favorite Christmas story?

What I got for Christmas.

What I got for Christmas. Original title isn’t it. Lol.

Anyway, I hadn’t planned on talking about what I got for Christmas, although I did get a really badass pen set and a self cleaning litter box.

What I did want to talk about was the different mediums available to writers, and the way in which I employ them.

I seem to be getting some strange looks…but, I can guarantee that I’m not entirely crazy, because I guarantee that you have also thought about the different mediums available to writers.

Those mediums are: pen and paper, typewriter, word processor/computer, and tape recorder.

And, I’m still getting crazy looks. But, before you write me off as insane I want you to think about it. What mediums have you used in the past? Me? I’ve used all of them. At this point in time, pen and paper is my preferred medium. I find that my mind works best at building a story while I’ve got a pencil in hand.

I have also used the “tape recorder” option in the past. You see, I didn’t always write. Instead I would pace around and around telling myself a story as it built in my head. That was the way I wrote as a child, but unfortunately I didn’t actually use a tape recorder to record my stories. (I might be much further along in my writing career if I had thought of that.)

The other two mediums are the ones I began playing with most recently. Using a computer is a good way to cut out the middle-man (transcription), while the typewriter has an extremely classical sort of feel to it (I love listening to a typewriter work).

But, the problems with these mediums is the way my mind works. I can use both the typewriter and the computer to come up with fresh copy. But, often enough, my mind doesn’t like to work with those mediums, and I wind up churning out barely usable copy.

Anyway, I think I’ll stop bitching now, and let you all enjoy your day.

Tell me: what mediums do you like to use for your stories?

Good News!

Good news, ladies and gents. I finished a new project I've been working on. And, as a result, I've decided to take a day off of writing.

Anyway, that includes a day away from the blog. But, I shall start up again tomorrow, with another post on Fight Scene's.

So, tell me: When you finish a project, what do you like to do to "distance" yourself from the work?

Merry Christmas.

To all you fun and wonderful people out there in the world, I would just like to say: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, and just have a Happy Holiday season.

PS: Be sure to indulge in a little Gluttony as well.

PPS: A post on Gluttony will probably be one of my first posts after the Holiday's are over. Lol.

Fight Scenes

Fight Scenes. Today I want to talk about something that relates directly to writing, instead of something related to writing in a twenty-one degrees to Kevin Bacon sort of fashion.

Any way, yeah, I want to talk about fight scenes.

It would be my guess that fight scenes are one of the hardest things to manage when it comes to writing a novel, short story, or really any sort of writing at all.

Why are they tricky?

Well, there can actually be any number of reasons why fight scenes can be tricky. Often enough, for me anyway, fight scenes can become something of a story of their own, and like stories you have to manage the tension of the action you want to portray, how you go about the detail of the fight in the midst of, as well as dialogue, imagery, onomatopoeia (if you use that sort of thing) and just the language in general when you sit down to put the thing on paper. And, of course, you have to go back over the fight scene itself and look at the bitter picture surrounding it.

How does the fight scene relate to the story? How does the action involved in the story build up the overall action of the work? And, does the tension of the story take too much of a hit after the fight scene is over? Does it build said tension up? Or, does the fight scene after the flow of tension entirely, meaning…does the fight scene bring the whole story to a climax.

These are the sort of questions I ask myself when I write a fight scene. And, I would think that, they’re important universal questions that any writer should ask themselves going into a fight scene.

This post turned out to be longer than I though it would be. Lol. Anyway, I think I’ll continue this discussion on over into next weeks set. Maybe even break the fight scenes up into neat little categories. So, yeah, I’ll do that. Talk to you kids later.

Tell me: what questions do you ask yourself before writing a fight scene.

PS: and yeah, I realize that one paragraph towards the top of the post is like one giant run on sentence. Lol.

Motivation

Motivation. Motivation is the utter bane of my existence.

Really it is.

I swear to god.

Why?

I don’t really know why, though, it just seems to me that I never want to get work done.

I mean I do have things I want to do, I come up with a whole list of things I want to get done almost as soon as I get up. But, more and more I continue to find something else to do, something easier to do instead of the things on the list.
It’s like, okay I need to pick up the living room…but, wait my computer is right in front of me. Why don’t I play a few games of Mah Jong before I get started? And guess what, that’s right, an hour later I’m still playing Mah Jong, and have done absolutely nothing towards getting the living room picked up.

And, when it comes to writing I seem to be even less motivated. Once again, its because there are easier things to do then sit down, pluck words out of the air, and set them down on paper.

And, the really funny thing is, I should be more motivated to get my writing done. Because, well, because of the possiblility of generating some form on income (out of a job right now, so yes income is a big concern of mine).

Anyway, I guess I’m going to try and show some motivation and get some work done.

Tell me: what helps you when it comes to motivation for both house hold chores and for writing?

My computer.

My computer. So, I have come to the conclusion that my computer hates me. It hates me more than anything else in this world. And, I believe I might have figured out why.

Do you know why my computer hates me?

Do you want to know why my computer hates me?

Well, the answer to the second question is probably not. But, I’m going to tell you anyway.

My computer hates me because it’s a piece of technology, and all technology hates me.

Vending machines eat my money.

Credit cards decline.

My X-box won’t read the disk of a game I bought weeks ago.

My laptops hinges are broken so the screen won’t stand up on its own, and the cord is freyed to the point where the laptop won’t charge until I jiggle the plug for like twenty minutes.

And, to top it all off, my truck is trying its best to die on me. It got into a car wreck, has problems shifting gear, the radiator ran dry, and the engine tried to blow up on me.

Anyway, now that I’ve bitched, I feel a little bit better about the world. Thank you for reading…

And, tell me, in what ways does technology hate you?

Revision

Revision. Revision is an important element, not only in writing, but in life as well.

Revision in writing means to look at the story, determine which parts are good, which parts are bad, and then to decide how to deal with the negative parts. This often means re-writing the negative parts, and maybe even throwing those parts out of the equation all together.

And, I know what you’re asking?

How can you reverse life? How can you go back through your life and cut out all the bad parts?

Well, the process for both of them is pretty much the same, except for the singular fact that you can’t change your past. And, these bad experiences that you’ve had. But, you can move forward.

When applying revision to life, you do have to look back at the bad parts, no matter how terrible those parts might be, and then take the lessons you learned from the experience and applying them to your everyday life.

I can even give and example of where I’ve tried to apply revision to my own life.

I used to lie, and I mean lie really bad. I would lie to my wife about going to class, whether I was doing my work or not, and most definitely about tests that we had to take in class. I would lie because I didn’t want to create conflict with my wife, but as it turned out, lying made the whole situation worse than what it could have been. Those lies created an enormous rift in our relationship, and very nearly destroyed it.

But, I learned from the experience. I learned how to watch for cases where a lie would fall from my lips, and I’m doing everything I can, mentally, to keep from lying to my wife. I don’t want to lose her, so I am cutting the lying from my character, and dropping it to the floor. And, I’m going to step on it a few dozen times.

So, that’s my story. How do you apply revision to your writing and your life?

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Envy.

Envy. So, envy is my new favorite of the seven deadly sins. And, well, it’s not because I think envy is a cool sin. No, if I had a favorite sin based on which ones I think are interesting my favorite would have to be lust ;) But, that’s not the case.

Envy is my favorite because I am envious.

I’m envious of other people. Not because they have more success than I do. Not because they have more money than I do. And, not because they’re better at their jobs than I am at mine.

Are those things a factor? Yes, I would have to say they are. I want to be rich. I want to be important. And, I want to be a great writer. But, more than anything, I want to be normal, I want to have a daily routine, I want to be able to sleep in bed with my wife…at night!

These are things that I want that other people have. These are the things that make me envious.

Tell me:
What makes you envious?

Work.

Work. So, sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I was kind of out of it with the insomnia, illness, and all that fun crap. Anyway, so , today’s topic for writing is work, and when I talk about work I don’t exactly mean the minimum wage job I work on the weekends to try and help my wife pay the bills. No, what I consider my work is what my mother considers recreational writing. Writing is my passion and my joy (besides the obvious given when it comes to my wife), writing is what I want to do with my life. I already consider writing my career, even though I don’t get paid of it. Is this behavior a little obsessive? Probably. But, you know what, writers deal in dreams and obsessions, you could say it’s their bread and butter, so maybe, just maybe, I’m a little bit ahead of the curve already.

Anyway, something that some people might consider small, but I consider to be a relatively big deal is production when it comes to writing. Production is sort of the keystone for every market on the face of the globe (at least those markets that have gone through the Industrial Revolution). And, as I see it writing is no different. (A higher level of production would also mean a larger amount of my writing out of my computer and onto the desks of agents and editors. And, when it comes to odds it would be a higher chance to get my work noticed.) So, you see, I would really like it if I was producing 4-6000 words a day. This would cut the time it takes to get a first draft written down to a little less than a month, for a novel roughly seventy-thousand words long. But, as it is I rarely produce more than a thousand words a day, and this saddens me. So far I’ve tried just about everything I can think of to increase production, and so far nothings worked. Not even massive amounts of caffeine, which just makes me really jittery.

Anyway, since I’ve managed to make myself sad I’m going to do something happy. On, maybe I’ll write for a bit. Later kids.

Lists.

Lists. So yesterday, I had the idea to write down a few lists, and while I was at work and couldn’t do it at the time I still like the idea. I am going to go through with it today, probably sometime later in the day. But anyway, what the idea was, was to sit down and write down a few lists. My mind decided that I should write down three lists, maybe four, each of them thirty words, or lines, long. What I plan on doing with the lists is also kind of simple. Sort of a word association thing. I intend to write a list of blog topics/possible writing practice topics. A list of images or common house hold items to use to try and write a poem everyday. And a list of short story ideas.

In my reading on improving writing I’ve seen a couple of examples where list writing is often helpful and writing every day helps to improve the work you’re doing. I’ve also seen somewhere were its suggested to write a poem everyday. While I’m not much of a poet I think that learning and improving my craft in poetry will help when it comes to improve the prose, so yeah. Besides, it’d be neat to have a book or two of poetry out in the future.

At the moment I can’t think of anything else to say, so I shall talk to you laters.

new post

So, I've not written a blog post in a long time, and I'm not really sure if I can give a reason as to why I have or have not. If you want to ask me you can, but the answer I would give you probably wouldn't be satisfactory. I'm sure I could probably come up with some excuse such as saying, well I've been playing wow, or I've had marital issues or something like that. But, in the end it would feel to me like I'm doing nothing more than giving you excuses, and I don't want to do that. I will however give you at least one reason as to why, though it still might qualify as an excuse. over the last couple of months I've felt like I've had nothing at all worth saying. Before I fell out of the practice of writing a blog, which I wasn't very practiced at anyway, I had noticed that the different bloggers around the lot usually have something that they at least feel is worth saying. I don't think that I did. I tried to believe I did, but I didn't. you can tell me that that's not true, and now I would be able to say whole heartily that you're right. I do have something to say. Sort of. It might not be important to you all, but it's going to be important to me. Everything I say, everything I ever write, be it the next Great American Novel or a shopping list, should be full of something that is important to me. That's how you connect with yourself and improve your writing. Make everything important to you whether its going to be important to someone else or not. And, there you have it ladies and gentleman. Just a little jewel of writing information. Write what's important to you, not to someone else. Later kids.

P.S. Upon rereading this, I'm not sure it makes any sense, but what the hell. It's important to me after all. Lol.

About Zombies.

So…I’m kind of bored. This isn’t really a new state of being for me just so you know. Instead of trying to find some electronic form of entertainment, something quick and flashy to drain away whatever small amount of intelligence I have left, I’ve decided to entertain myself by writing. Go figure. You think I might be a writer or something along those lines. And, I’m sure you’re just dying to know what I’m going to write about. Well, right now I feel a little bit like writing about zombies, the great flesh eating somnambulists. Where to start…

Zombies eat flesh. It’s a proven fact. If you run into a zombie in a dark alley somewhere it is my suggestion to run as fast as you can in the other direction. Zombies will try to eat you, and if they get close enough to you they will take a bite out of you. And, as I’m sure its common knowledge, the best way to kill a zombie is a head shot. Don’t aim for the lungs, as they don’t need to breath. Don’t aim for the heart, because hitting them in the heart is going to do absolutely nothing for you. Their hearts don’t beat after all. But, is that all there is to zombies? I don’t think so.

One of my college professors called zombies ‘the ultimate film noir character,’ and zombie films ‘the ultimate film noir films.’ Why? Because zombies are representations of humanity stripped of everything we think of that makes us human. The zombies only desire is to eat your flesh, and then to eat your friend’s flesh, and then to eat your mother’s flesh, and then to eat your dad’s flesh, and so on and so fourth until the zombies have literally eaten every ounce of human flesh on the planet. But why? Why do zombies want to do that? No one knows. It’s not a need for sustenance. Zombies don’t have a functional digestive tract. Perhaps it’s an existential need to destroy everything about the life they once had. To try and break through the bonds of society to get back to a simpler life and returning to nature, which zombies do quite literally in six years or so, or maybe it’s a drive to spread the disease. A subconscious drive within them to spread disease far and wide until it overruns the planet.

Then again, human’s posses that same need. So, maybe humans are the disease, and zombies are the cure.

My newest Query :)

Dear Agent,

I am seeking representation for my 70,000 word YA URBAN FANTASY novel Little Nightmares.

You’d think it would be safe to explore a haunted house when your two best friends are horror stories themselves. Seline Crier finds out differently.

All her life Seline Crier has been ostracized from her family and society because of one little ability. She’s a telekinetic. And when she meets Dmitri, a forty year old vampire trapped in the body of a twelve year old, and Omega, a fledgling werewolf on the eave of his first transformation, she thinks she might be able to pull her family back together again. She just has to brave the horrors of the Wickham House first.

Inside the Wickham House Seline’s life complicates even further as she’s almost scared to death by the House’s two friendly haunts, almost torn apart by Omega, and drawn into a plot to kill Dmitri that will change her life forever. Seline uses her powers to stop the monster threatening her friends, and earns its wrath when she proves unable to kill it. Now Seline must rush to her home before the monster can arrive ahead of her, and take away any chance she ever has of fixing her family and earning their love.

Little Nightmares will appeal to the fans of both paranormal and horror genres. I am a student of history at Concord University and have one prior publication with Concord University’s publication Reflexes.
I would be happy to forward the complete manuscript to you upon your request, and I thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Ryan M. Smith

As you can see, this is the query for Little Nightmares, my latest project. I'm getting ready to start work on the revision and just wanted to see if I could nail down the query before jumping in head first. Thanks for your help:)

News

So... I've vanished again. I'm sorry. I don't think I'm very good at this blogging thing lol. Anyway, today is a really weird day for me. I finished Little Nightmares last night. Now I think it would be normal for a person to be really happy and excited after they completed something novel length. Not me. I feel empty. And bored. Like there's nothing there. A gaping hole inside of my mind. The TV shows over. The credits have rolled. All that, and now its time to get back to real life. I don't like it. Lol. So... what do I do now?

How do you feel when you come to the end of a project?

Worth Reading-Under the Dome

Worth Reading. Hiya tots and taters, what are you all up to? Me? I’m still working on my Little Nightmares project, but since I’m not one of those people who can write every second of the day (and there are times when I really wish I was lol) I read and play a few games every now and then. What did I read for your viewing pleasure today? Well, the honest answer is really only one book since the last time I did a worth reading, but there’s a reason for that. Today’s book:

Stephen King’s Under the Dome. Under the Dome is the third of King’s epic novels and runs just over a thousand pages long (this being why it took me so long to read the novel), and I have to say that every time I sit down with one of this man’s works I keep seeing why it is that I want to be a writer. Under the Dome follows the story of a little town, shaped like a shoe, in Maine called Chester’s Mill. And why is it that this little town I different from any other? Because this town has been placed under an invisible barrier, the dome as the inhabitants of King’s world come to call it, and what goes on under the dome stays under the dome. (Sorry I really couldn’t help myself there.) The only really “supernatural” element of the novel is the dome itself, and the way that the dome is lifted at the end of the story. The rest of the novel, however, is one of political intrigue and maneuvering on the part of James “Big Jim” Rennie his corruption and the downfall of his short regime. The hero of the story, Dale “Barbie” Barbara is not what I would consider a traditional hero. He is a military man and man on the inside representing to an extent the government of the US, and to an extent how that government fails to cope with the problem posed in the novel. How does the US institute martial law in a region completely cut off from the rest of the world? It can’t. How can Barbie deal with the iron fist taking over the small town when practically everyone in the city supports Big Jim? To answer that question I’m really going to have to suggest you read Under the Dome.

Recommendation: This book is worth reading, but I would suggest picking it up at your local library if you don’t want to pay the twenty to thirty dollars for it. Lol.

PS. I will really admit that I feel kind of bad about having just this one book for today. I am also upset about not being able to talk about what I want to (and what bothered me about the book) without giving away too many spoilers about the book. If you want to discuss it in depth and don’t mind the spoilers please email me at smithr10 (at) concord (dot) edu Later taters.

Lazy Day, Friday.

Lazy Day, Friday. Howdy tots and taters. I apologize for how long it took me to get my blog post up, I had to write a paper for my history class. And, I really do have to say that it was a killer paper:) I am pleased with it. But you guys probably don’t want to hear about my academic writing. Its not nearly as fun as what I got waiting for ya, lol.

So, before I copy and paste any of my creative writing into this post, lemme give you a quick set up. Seline, Dmitri, and Omega are exploring a haunted house. Dmitri is a vampire, Seline has psychic potential, and something is wrong with Omega. If you can guess what it is then awesome:) Anyway, here you go:

Material removed by author. Sorry.

And, just one more note to make, I’ll leave this post up until my post on Monday comes out, because perfect paranoia is perfect awareness and all that lol. Also please keep in mind that this is first draft material and has yet to go through any polish.

WIP it Wednesday

WIP it Wednesday. So…first let me try to welcome all my tots and taters back into the wild world of my own insanity…and try to apologize for my latest disappearance. I’m not entirely sure why it is that I vanish when I do, but I think it has something to do whit the way my brain works. Lol. Its broken.

I’m kidding to some extent, because it might not really be broken, but what it does really really enjoy doing is going in enormous circles. Especially when I’m writing. The reason I disappeared is because I have been playing World of Warcraft again. And, don’t get me wrong it’s a wonderful game, but when I’m playing it its all I can do to get anything else done. Writing and blogging drop complete from mind when I play, and I guess the only reason I don’t believe I have a sever problem (addiction or something like that) about playing it is because I only play it for like a week and a half to two weeks and it seems to me that this is a necessary time my brain uses to rest up after the month and a half I put into my writing. The one thing I really dislike about it is the way it tears me away from blogger completely, so if (more likely when) it happens again, I will try to be better about blogging, or at least warning you all of my impending disappearance.

So…I feel bad doing this cause I don’t think I deserve it at this point, but…I will now accept the Honest Scrap award from Anne Gallagher at the Piedmont Writer. So, first let me say thank you to Anne, and I hope you think it’s still okay for me to accept this. If, in the last month, you believe that I’ve moved from the pile of “Honest Scrap” to the pile of worthless scrap I completely understand lol:-)

Ten things that make me happy in no particular order:

1) Receiving awards of which I am probably not worthy.

2) Sleeping from 9pm to 4am, it helps a lot with writing believe it or not.

3) Food, coffee, and friends at the local Omelet Spot.

4) Sundrop…I remain convinced that this is the soda God drinks when he wants one.

5) Outlining

6) Writing

7) Reading

8) H&R Block so that I don’t have to do my taxes myself .

9) Thinking of myself as a great writer to be… LOL

10) When characters really take on a life of their own…makes my life so much easier.

And, now to pass it on to 5 other bloggers that I believe deserve it:

1)Can I just give to Anne Gallagher again? She needs I double dose of it I do believe.

2)How about Iapetus999 at The WriteRunner namely for his wonderful abilities at helpful series. He’s also the person I’m blaming for my new love of outlining.

3)I do also believe that Kiersten White at Kiersten Writes deserves an award…maybe it will help with the brain problems she’s had recently:-)

4)Donna Hole for being awesome.

5)And, Natalie Whipple at Between Fact and Fiction for awesome ninja skill:-)

And, now if there was supposed to be some point to today’s madness I forgot what it was…should probably have mentioned something about my WIP seeing as it is WIP it Wednesday…maybe something along the lines of my new WIP just passed the halfway point :-) Another forty or so handwritten pages and the story should be done :-) Friday, if the gods of blogging deem it alright, I’ll see about posting a scene or two for your viewing pleasure. So…until then…please stick around…and I shall talk to you taters later.

Worth Reading-2

Worth Reading-2. Good morning tots and taters. Hope the coffees working. So, how are you all this foine morning? Me? I’m not too bad, other than getting up at the butt crack of dawn. I’m also feeling a little lazy so instead of trying to come up with a really cool post about writing, I think I’ll try my hand at reviews once again. This time instead of doing three books by one author, we’re going to do three books by the same number of authors.

First up, another Lawrence Block tale. This book, is Eight Million Ways to Die, and is an urban noir mystery. The run and styling of the book is a lot heavier than that of Bernie Rhodenbarr book I read for last week. This one also plays with much deeper themes than Bernie’s. The main theme of this book: Overcoming alcoholism. It takes a little while for the pacing of the book to pick up, and the story doesn’t seem to start until a couple of chapters in (at least to me it did). But once the ball got rolling this was a wonderful story to read. Recommendation: Worth Reading.

Next book is The Vision by Dean R. Koontz. The story of The Vision is about a clairvoyant who is using her psychic twinkle to track down murderers. (Premise sounds a little familiar, but it’s an older book.) The book is dialogue heavy, which makes it a fast read, but the dialogue kind of overloads the story. I think it would have been better without just a tad bit more detail. I also managed to figure out the whodunit halfway through the story so the end of the book wasn’t as good as it could have been. Recommendation: Meh, pick it up at the library if you’re a Koontz fan otherwise don’t worry about it.

The third book is a run into an entirely new genre. The Vampire Affair by Livia Reasoner. This is a paranormal romance published by the Silhouette Nocturne line, and it the first recently published book I’ve reviewed. Woot! This was an absolutely fantastic read. I enjoyed watching the romance develop between the two mains, and the treatment of the paranormal factor wasn’t too bad either. Lol. The vampires she used were along the classical lines of the vampire (similar to Dracula). The only thing I really didn’t like was that those bitten by the vamps turned after one bite.
But, I’m weird like that. Anywho, recommendation: Worth Reading.

I think that just about wraps things up for this morning. On Wednesday I shall be accepting an award from the wonderful Anne Gallagher over at the Piedmont Writer. And with that said, I shall talk to you taters laters.

Lazy Day-Casting Couch.

Lazy Day-Casting Couch. Hey taters, what you all into? Me? Well, I’ve decided to have a little bit of fun with today’s post. But, before we get to it I’ve got a couple of questions for you first. Have you ever thought of your book becoming a movie? (Don’t lie you know you have.) And, since you have thought of that, have you ever given any thought to who you would want to cast as the different roles for your characters? Well, guess what, I have. Here’s my list of choice actors for Raising Kain: Diseased God.

Apophis Kain younger: I’m not too good with child actors, so I really have no idea who would be a good choice for Kain’s early years.

Terra Gaia: Zoe Saldana. I’ve not seen her work in Avatar, but from seeing her in Star Trek I do believe that she would make a very believable Lady Gaia.

Apophis Kain elder: Brandon Routh. Superman is kind of the way I see the elder version of Kain, so I think it would be quite fitting to have someone who once wore the red and blue cape to play a character inspired by him. And, the idea of Kain kind of fits in with the Superman type cast. Lol.

Apolla Sola: Chris Pine. For this role you need someone who knows their all that and several bags of chips. After filling The Shat’s shoes as James Kirk, I definitely think Chris would be up for the job.

Celita Luna: Lady Gaga. Celita is a hypersexual character, and chaos personified. The only person I think could do a believable Celita is somebody who already acts like her. Thus Lady Gaga. Plus, the contrast between Gaia and Celita would be even greater with these two at the helm.

AtA: Morgan Freeman. He played God before in Bruce Almighty, so I would have no problem whatsoever with him reprising that role in Raising Kain.

Pestilence: Andy Serkis or Crispin Glover. Both of them have played broken tortured characters to an unbelievable level. Maybe they should have to fight to the death over the role. (Insert evil smile here.)

Beyond this list though, I don’t really have any idea who I would want for the other parts. So, unlike normal, I’m going to leave you with another question. Who would you want to play your characters in a movie.

WIP it Wednesday

WIP it Wednesday. Hey potatoes, so last week I told you that my last project, RAISING KAIN: DISEASED GOD, is now at the query stage of its life, and I’ve since moved onto a new project. I told you then that I’d get around to telling you about the new project, and it seems like doing that might be a good idea while I wait for the coffee to finish percolating.

My new project is roughly titled LITTLE NIGHTMARES. It’s a YA paranormal/horror novel about three younger versions of some horror classics as they explore a classic horror location, the haunted house. The three horror story figures are as follows: Seline Crier is a Carrie type figure. She is telekinetic, and has no idea of that fact, though she knows that her parents are afraid of her for something, she just can’t remember what it is. (The first time she fell down and scrapped her hands she pitched her mother against the back wall of the Crier family home, not as dramatic as the stones from Carrie, but I thought using the stones would be pushing it lol.)

Dmitri Candle is a Dracula type figure. I find that he’s different from a number of the other YA vampires because he is based as close as I could possibly make him (while still having him be a relatively heroic figure) off of the classic Dracula image. Another thing that I believe help sets him apart is the fact that he enjoys being a vampire. He likes the power, the nocturnal lifestyle, and he enjoys thinking of people as if they were dishes at a buffet instead of human beings. He thinks differently about Seline, but does so only for his own indiscernible reasons.

Omega Shamtith is a Wolfman/Lon Chaney Jr. figure. Unlike the original Wolfman Omega is a natural born lycanthrope, and at this point in his life has no idea that he’s able to get really furry at will. I mean the little boy hasn’t even hit puberty yet. But if you can’t guess, I will tell you that he goes through his first werewolf transformation during the course of the novel, but not right were this event occurs. As a character though, and without looking at just the werewolf thing, Omega is an amazingly intelligent boy. He skipped two grades, and is 9 years old in the seventh grade instead of 12. He can read four books at a time, one of them usually being a college level textbook, and when he has homework he can usually get all of it done in roughly ten minutes.

Interesting things that I think I’m doing with the novel:

This one is more over the course of the series than the novel, if it becomes a series, is I’m looking at the werewolf transformation in stages. Since Omega is a natural born werewolf, and puberty is all about changes, his transformation is going to be broken up into a number of different stages. The key form in this novel, which is to say the first stage, is going to be that of the Wolfman from the original film. Omega grows from his current height of 4’5” to his soon to be full height of 5’9”, grows hair and a 60% increase in muscle over his entire body. (He’s mostly baby fat right now so there’s not a lot of muscle to start building on for the sixty percent, so buff he is not during the werewolf transformation.) The transformation in subsequent novels, if there is going to be any, is going to follow some of Hollywood’s ideas when it comes to the werewolf. The second stage will be a man-wolf stage, like that seen in Cursed and Dog Soldiers, these are pretty fearsome creatures. The following transformations will be more wolf-like with the third being very similar to the monster-wolf seen in the Ginger Snaps series, and the monster wolf from An American Werewolf in London. The final transformation is one that I’ve not decided on yet, but obviously one of my options is that of the actual wolf, but that one might be a bit too predictable. So, over the course of the next few years, if LITTLE NIGHTMARES goes anywhere, we’ll see what comes to me further down the road.

I had something else I wanted to talk about, but since were running a little long on what my blog usually runs (and I’m probably boring you all to tears) I’ll go ahead an cut it short, leaving me something to talk about later on. So, I think I’ll just leave you with some of the stats from LITTLE NIGHTMARES right now:

LITTLE NIGHTMARES
Genre: YA paranormal/horror
Current WC: 20-30k
Typed WC: 13k
Number of Longhand pages: 29
Average words per page (guesstimation): 900
Estimate Number of Longhand pages: 90
Estimated WC: 80-90k
Query Written: Not yet.
Number of words put into outlining process: 20k
Outline type used: Snowflake

So, I think that’s about it for today. I will talk to you all later taters.

Worth Reading.

Worth Reading. Hey potatoes, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to do book reviews. So, I suppose I’m going to give it a try today, and see if maybe I can sell a few good books by word of mouth. So, for the first ever installment of Worth Reading I give you the author Lawrence Block.

Block is an author that I first ran into while working on my first novel, and I would probably have to say that without him my very first novel might not have been written. Now I don’t mean to say that I know the man personally, I wish I did, but his book Writing the Novel From Plot to Print helped me immensely with those first 100 pages, and it kept me plugging right up through to the end of that first book as well. Since then I’ve reread this book maybe four times, sometimes while working on a project, other times just for pleasure. In the book he covers a number of topics on a number of problems that any first time novelist is bound to run into. I’d say that even an experienced novelist would be able to find any number of things that would be helpful in the book as well. The conversational style of the book is also a big plus in my eyes (much better than the preachy styling I’ve ran into in some other books on writing). My personal recommendation is to buy the book. But, if your not looking to buy I do suggest running down to your local library and picking it up.

Next up from Lawrence Block is The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling. This is probably the first actual mystery novel I’ve ever read, and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It uses a conversational first person style to it. The writing itself is light hearted, and the pacing was fast enough for me (a very slow reader) to be able to read it in under a day. The resolution was done in a sort of Clue style, where all of the suspects and the “detective” (the Series title character: a professional burglar named Bernie Rhodenbarr) were gathered together as Bernie put the clues together and solved the crime. The one thing I didn’t care much for, and this is something I found I didn’t like while reading the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, was that most of the clues the main character found wasn’t presented until right there in the resolution. So there’s very little chance of figuring out the who-done-it for yourself before the resolution of the novel. Recommendation: Worth reading, but maybe you should get it from the library and read it before you buy it.

For the next novel I read Deadly Honeymoon. This is the only book I’ve seen by Block written in the third person. The premise in this novel is that a man’s wife is raped the night after they’re married. The couple decide to hunt down and kill the rapists. They travel to New York City, and manage to find the rapists within a week and a half. New York City has over eight million people living in it, so that parts kind of hard for me to swallow, but Block managed to have his heroic pair go about it in a fairly believable manner. The thing about this book that really gets me though is the lack of attention to detail in it. Block puts a lot of detail in it, don’t get me wrong, but what I’m getting at is attention to detail in an action sequence that relates to guns. If you mention a number of times throughout the book that your main character keeps four bullets in a five-shot revolver, don’t have him fire the gun six times without reloading the gun. Especially if you mentioned nothing about carrying extra bullets with him in the first place. Alright, I’m sorry, rant over. Recommendation: I’d say pick it up at your local library if they have it.

Well, I hope that was alright in the way of a book review. I don’t think it was really all that good, but I’ve never done one before and I don’t make a habit of reading them, so I’ll leave the decision up to you all. Later taters.