Isn't it shiny? THINGS WE ARE NOT soon for pre-order!

I'm insanely excited about this. (Pic is of editor Chris Fletcher with a proof copy of the anthology.)

THINGS WE ARE NOT soon for pre-order.

*bounces more*

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Post-novel ennui and why it drives me crazy

Elizabeth Bear's post on this subject is quite fitting.

I feel like I should be working on something. In fact, I want to work on something. Anything. I want to write, damn it.

But coupled with isuckitis (I has it bad, yo) and being drained after finishing my novel (let's add moving stress to round it out), I haven't been able to focus on anything all week.

*sigh*

I realize that 1.) I need to recharge my brain and rest, 2.) this is normal, and 3.) it happens to other people too.

It still annoys me. Part of my brain (no, the zombies don't have the other part--it's on hiatus) is still bubbling with ideas and wanting to write. The rest of my lacks energy, focus, enthusiasm and belief in being able to write.

(It would be easier to veg out and relax if I wasn't moving in less than a week. The joys of timing.)

You know what really annoys me? I want to play Bounty Hunter, but my brother's GameCube is broken dead. Also, I don't have a TV. :P

*mutters darkly at the universe*

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FERAL LEGACY

Today I finished the first draft of my dark fantasy novel, FERAL LEGACY.

That sound you hear is me dancing and partying in exhausted glee. Also there is flaming confetti the zombies are hiding from (since they're flammable).


Word count: 98,541
Started: 7/4/09
Finished: 9/20/09


Yup. Soooo pleased. Pardon me now while I go collapse for awhile in a "ahahaha-I-finished-the-novel-now-what" bliss/lostness heap for awhile. (More coherent posts will follow. Eventually.)


Hell yeah I'm happy to get this puppy done. Drinks are on the house!

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Author bios for THINGS WE ARE NOT

The release date for the GLBTQ anthology, THINGS WE ARE NOT, is slated for the beginning of October, 2009, and editor Chris Fletcher has begun posting bios of the authors online. :D

Merc's is here.

*dances*

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How to Finish a Story: Part 2, the Deadline of Terrible Consequence

Or deathlines, if you follow the method I described earlier (the Death Threat).

If you've participated in NaNoWriMo, you may have heard creator and founder Chris Baty talk about why deadlines are needed and (sometimes) work for going about the mad feat of cranking out 50k in 30 days.

Deadlines can be highly motivational--but only if they have consequence attached. Sometimes, just having to admit publicly that you failed your goal (whatever it was) isn't enough.

They are not limited to novel writing, of course. You could need to finish a short story by a certain date. Or maybe you need those revisions done by the end of the week. Whatever it is, deadlines may help.

In real life, missed deadlines have consequences. You turn in a paper late for school, your grade could suffer. A book publisher wants your next manuscript in my a certain date, damn it, and you'd better deliver. Or else Vinnie here... (*coughs* Uh, maybe not. But you never know.) If you miss filing taxes by the deadline, men in black suits and sunglasses come knocking at your door (they may even have little pen devices that make you forget everything that just happened when the conversation is over--oh wait, that had to do with aliens...).

Self-imposed deadlines for writers aren't always so clear-cut and final. They're hard for me to take seriously, which is why I find the previous method of death threats more helpful. Le sigh. Not even zombies promising to eat my brain if I fail is enough. (My brain is toxic to zombies.)

If no one will help you by threatening to murder a character you love, and you need a bit more bite in your deadline (beyond it hanging over your head like Damocles and his sword), a few ideas might help.

• Public humiliation. State a goal, a deadline, and then report back (in a public place such as a blog or web forum you frequent) when you've succeeded (in which case everyone parties and cheers and gets drunk), or when you've failed (in which case, you are staked out as zombie food by a jeering mob). Or, if you're immune to what other people think, there is always...
• Hire a mad scientist to blow up the sun if you fail. (The world will hate you and possibly the sheer pressure of dooming the entire planet will encourage you to meet your goal.) On the other hand, if you're actually evil enough you prefer global darkness, you might try...
• Chris Baty's Financial Deprivement Method. (You may not want to go this far, but possibly setting aside a small amount and trusting it to someone who will donate it/keep it if you fail can be incentive. :P) From the book No Plot? No Problem! Batty describes this method for ensuring you meet your goal:
  

This path was pioneered by a month-long novelist writing outside of NaNoWriMo. In May 2001, an aspiring writer named Paul Griffiths announced that if he failed in his quest to write a 60,000-word novel in one month, he would donate his entire life savings to the National Riffle Association.

Paul was not a fan of the NRA, and was very enamored of his savings account, and these two things combined to give him all the incentive he needed to get the novel finished.

Deadlines are extremely helpful--peer pressure and cheering on as well. If a deadline in and of itself works for you, excellent. Have a cookie. Otherwise, if outside motivation is required... *evil grin* There's plenty of ways to motivate you, if you look for them.

Do you have techniques or ways to meet a goal? Tricks to making a deadline, methods you've developed to get things done?

~Merc

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Necromancers and wizards and spaceships, oh my--August Recap

I'm happy with August. (We shall ignore the fact it felt like April for the weather and rain. Even in Minnesota this is odd. But on the bright side, the zombies are nice and clean.)

And writing wise, I got a lot done--on novels, on short stories, on a collaborative project.


*so happy*

AUGUST GOALS

write: 1667 words a day on my novel FERAL LEGACY
(While I didn't manage this everyday, I did get a lot done on it. I'm very pleased.)


edit: the train short, the fantasy western, the wizard short, and the SF dystopia short. Because they are all STARING at me.
(Meh. I edited the wizard short, "Smoke", and I looked at the train short... :P They are still staring at me, but less intently now.)

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Novels

FERAL LEGACY progresses well. I'm on the last fourth of the novel. Much evil ensued. Poor Wolf. He now gets to go kill people en mass. %-) I wrote almost 39,000 words on the novel. See Merc do the happy dance.


Shockingly, I even wrote about 1k on NECROMANCER RISING--killing goblins. Do we see a theme? *cough*


I also started a random JFF* novel, The Professor of the Clockwork Zombies (which, crazy as it sounds, actually does have clockwork zombies), and ended up with about 2.5k.


So, all together, I'm pleased--I may yet get in shape for NaNo. ;)


Short Stories

This was a better month for shorts. I finished two new shorts. One, a SF tale about a ship, technology screwing things up and ending badly for all involved, ended up about 1,300 words and needs fleshing out to work properly. But yes, it was fun.


The second, set in the same world as "Smoke" (the wizard short), was 4k something. Factories that try to eat people! Experimental drugs for mad hatters! Chain smoking! And things explode, of course. Eventually I'll fix the second half so it doesn't suck. *cough*


Spartezda and I started a cross-over story as well--a murder mystery of all things. Yup.


The month also included more Twitter-length stories and a few hundred words on the "punk bunny" story. (I should finish that. Suki is stuck in limbo between the marten mafia and the mouse mob.)


So while no real editing, marketing or submissions happened this month, that's okay. I'm still evaluating. I swears, one day, precious, there will be a post.


Other Writing Stuff

Notes and plots on NaNoWriMo. My characters have no names and now they are telling me they don't need names. Methinks we have a difference of opinion here...


But the novel should be fun. There is steampunkiness. And airships. And an assassin who wears a purple fedora. Also, things explode (with FIRE).


Random Trend of the Month

I would have to say technology gone bad or psychotic. (The SF short involved messed up computers. The wizard short involved a man-eating factory.) Even if FERAL LEGACY doesn't have that much, per se. Aside from drugging people...


But no, there was no real trend this month.


(You'll be shocked to know there were actually no zombies. Ghosts, yes. Dead bodies, plenty. But no reanimated corpses. Woe!)

OVERALL

Total word count (rounded off): 55,000


Satisfaction level: extremely high.

Though I'm saving all the "doubt" posts for later, really, I'm happy with the output this month--in particular continued work on the novel. (Yup, trust me, after almost a year of #novelwritingfail, two months in a row of solid productivity feels soooo so good.)

How was your August?

~Merc

*JFF = Just For Fun, which in turn equals random, fluffy projects I occasionally do just to entertain myself.

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