How do you like that, I still know how to upload a video to YouTube!
I'm told we had about ten inches of snow in the recent storm, which is much more than we've gotten the last several years--it used to be just a normal weekend in northern Indiana. Can't say I'm glad to see it back.
I've got some editing and polishing to do (on my writing), and I'm thinking of having a classic rock day while I'm doing it in honor of my late brother Jeff, who passed away on January 30th. Jeff was a big classic rock fan, or, as he would put it, he was a big rock fan.
After all, when we were teens "classic" meant a bunch of people in formal dress, playing music by dead old guys while another old guy stood in front of them wildly waving a stick.
When I'm writing it's those old dead guys I like to listen to, or movie scores composed and conducted by people who are still alive, but also waving sticks. (These days most people who see an orchestra assume the stick-waving people are casting spells.)
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| John Williams is my movie score hero, plus he can throw some mad magic. |
That's because I find singing to be a distraction while writing, so it's John Williams or Beethoven for me. Or Holst: "The Planets" is great to write science fiction by. But while editing, voices are fine.
I have an eclectic taste in music; that's a term that means "I can't make up my mind". I like rock, pop, country, jazz, and even have a Charlotte Church opera CD around the house somewhere. I find classical to be relaxing, unless I'm not paying attention and accidentally put on the 1812 Overture, which makes me want to invade Russia. Our Dad used to sing us old novelty songs, like "The Battle of New Orleans", and I also grew to love musicals.
Jeff generally stuck to good ol' rock and roll, but there's plenty of rock and roll out there. We didn't have all those weird band names, like they do these days, either. We had normal names, like Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, ZZ Top, Styx, Led Zeppelin, and, of course, The Eagles.
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| Our rock stars looked normal, like this. |
Okay, so The Eagles isn't all that strange of a name. We also liked Foreigner, although I never did find out what country they were from. Since those appear to all be guys, I'd add Janis Joplin, Heart, Blondie, and Stevie Nicks.
I've heard The Rolling Stones, Queen, and The Beatles were pretty good, too.
So I'll probably seek out a YouTube or Pandora channel, and see where it takes me. There was a lot of music we both loved, back in the day, with my favorite being the self-titled Boston album. But I haven't even begun to cover all the great rockers, so what would you put on the list?
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| Beethoven was happy to lose his hearing before rap came along. |
In honor of Valentine's Day, the e-book edition of our anthology humor book My Funny Valentine will be free from today, February 10, through February 14, which one of the humorists in the book calls "Sex for chocolate day".
That phrase isn't in my piece in the anthology, mind you. I've spent enough nights sleeping in the car.
You can find it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006JROL8K
I know what you're thinking: "But Mark, you won't get any money for that!" True, but we did it for love. It's in the subtitle. Besides, if you like my piece in there, maybe you'll come over and check out our other books, and that could be a real love match.
Today, February 5th, is my brother Jeff's birthday.
Almost a week ago, last Saturday, is the day he died.
Emily and I had stopped by to visit with him and his wife Cathy that evening. He's been undergoing treatment for lung cancer and other problems for years, and a couple of months ago had been given two weeks to live--but more recently he rallied, gained weight, and was doing a lot better.
But by the time we got there that night he'd taken a turn for the worse. A hospice employee was on the way to check on him, and the three of us were trying to get Jeff from the bathroom back to the living room couch when he collapsed and died.
I didn't think of it at the time, but in my fifteen or so years as an active EMT and forty years as a firefighter I've never had anyone actually pass away in my presence. Jeff quite literally died in my arms, surrounded by three of his loved ones. It was the end of the struggle for him, and the beginning of a struggle for us.
Here's Jeff's obituary:
https://www.hitefuneralhome.com/obituary/Jeff-Hunter
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| Jeff and Cathy |
Of course, obituaries rarely tell you much about a person.
Jeff was a lifelong smoker, and that's the only bad thing I have to say. When you get addicted to something as a teenager, it's hard to think it might come back to haunt you decades later. why do I bring it up? Because we could have had him for another twenty years or more. It's worth noting that for those of you whose loved ones would like to keep you around, too.
Jeff and I were only a couple of years apart, and since our sisters weren't born until years later, we grew up basically as just two siblings. We loved each other, and we protected each other, and we fought like wildcats, and we tried to kill each other. He managed to shoot me with both an arrow and a BB gun, not to mention almost blowing me up more than once. We loved blowing stuff up, climbing places we shouldn't climb, and jumping things we shouldn't jump.
He put together all my models of starships and warships, and his of various cars and trucks. He was a hands-on doer, while I just liked to play and imagine. That would be a pattern our entire life: Whatever I had that broke, he would fix it. Jeff could take an engine apart blindfolded, and put it back together again without instructions. I could write. Believe me, when people needed help it was him they went to, and he usually dropped what he was doing. He single-handedly kept my first three cars together, despite all my youthful efforts to shake them apart.
His teenage years were a little shaky, but by eighteen he was working, and he worked full time for the rest of his life. He wasn't a joiner; he wasn't part of volunteer organizations or other groups, although as I said earlier he was always ready to jump in and help. Like me he was something of a homebody, but he did a much better job of it than I did. Basically he wanted to pay his bills, take care of his home, see his friends and family, and not interfere with the lives of others. Boy, we could use more people like that.
He put ketchup on everything.
He was a fan of science fiction as I am, and wanted to see the new TV show, Picard, so Emily and I bought him season one. But his birthday is today, and he was gone before we could give it to him.
So, that was my brother. Life is duller for him not being around. My job now is to make it less dull by making sure people remember him. Forgive me, but for the moment this writer can't do any better.
He was loved.
The final draft of The Source Emerald is done!
Wait, let me start over:
The "final draft" of The Source Emerald is done! (Assuming that will continue to be the title.)
There, more accurate. The Source Emerald is about a young FBI agent who is assigned to track down possible gem smugglers, only to discover two of her suspects claim to be foreigners--specifically, from the Land of Oz, which they insist is a real place. And if they don't find the mysterious gems everyone seems to be after, it might be the end of both their worlds.
I suppose it can be considered urban fantasy--I wasn't thinking in terms of genre when I wrote it. You might remember that my word count changed from draft to draft, starting at 67,515, peaking at 70,294 with the second draft, then dropping to 69,028. Now, after polishing and going through the whole thing line by line to check for voice and errors, I'm left with 69,370 words. I added some here and there for clarity, but also cut a lot out of one of the later chapters.
So, from the first word typed on November 1st to the "final" version, it took me just under three months to finish an almost 70,000 word novel. Yay, me! (I did do some outlining and research in October.)
Now Emily gets it.
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| Emily was holding my granddaughter hostage until I finished my draft!! Hey, I don't make stuff up. |
My wife/editor/IT department/cover artist doesn't take any crap from me. The manuscript will come back full of red words, with numerous notes in the margins. She'll tell me what does and doesn't make sense, what word choice is wrong, where I'm being long winded, and what food is best for me. Well, that last one isn't directly connected.
Then I'll go through the whole thing all over again, because writing is editing. When it's finally, completely, for sure done, I'll put it in a file and go over to reread We Love Trouble, the book I went through all this with last year. When The Source Emerald has sufficiently cooled, I'll try to read it for entertainment, like a regular reader, and we'll see.
This is the writing process. The process is boring to everyone but the writer, and sometimes even to them. But it's the best way I know to get a good product.
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| Also, I can't write without the dog keeping a close eye on me. I think he's spying for Emily. |
Stardust is very much a journey tale, created first as a "story book with pictures" -- meaning my wife and I missed part of how it was originally intended to be experienced. (It was also turned into a movie that we haven't seen.) The text by itself is good enough, as Tristran makes his way through the faerie world, meeting all sorts of quirky characters and encountering--often without knowing it--the people who are competing with him for their now more or less human prize.
Gaiman knows how to spin a tale. The story actually begins a generation earlier, with events that at first don't seem all that connected with Tristran's adventures. I've always admired authors who managed to weave a story that must have required scorecards, family trees, flow charts, and maybe one whole wall of notes. Luckily it's not all that complicated for the reader (ahem--listener), and if anything's the mark of a master storyteller, it's that.
There are plenty of worse ways to spend your time than to track down and read everything Gaiman writes, and I do believe I might just try it. And you could do worse than starting with Stardust, a fun and surprisingly deep fantasy that--believe me--is much more for adults than kids.
So, the first draft of The Source Emerald weighed in at 67,515. The second draft topped out at 70,294. Now I've finished the third draft, and the new word count? 69,028. An increase of 2,779 words, followed by a decrease of 1,266 words.
But not the same words.
My third draft was a seek and destroy mission against certain words that can weaken your writing. Words that can make your writing too passive, such as "was". Adverbs. Words ending with "ing" that can become repetitive. Unnecessary words: For instance, instead of "stood up", why not just "stood"? Take up out, and make it stand down.
The word "suddenly" makes an action less sudden. Don't have too many "has". Don't tell the reader a character "felt" something ... show them feeling it.
Unlike some writers, I don't believe you have to stamp out every single one of these words. Treat them as a spice: Put in too many, and the mix isn't right. Despite what Stephen King says, I do have adverbs in my writing ... just not too many of them.
And now? The fourth draft. Time to work on voice and characterization a little.
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| Don't forget to check out the new short story! |
My science fiction short story, "Everybody Knows Your Name", is available to read on the East Of the Web website:
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/EverKnow1183.shtml
It's about a scientist whose invention doesn't cause the problems most people think of ... instead, he finds an entirely new worry.
Remarkably, it only took about a week from the time they accepted this story until it came out. My last published short story took four months from acceptance to publication! But in that case there was also a print version of the magazine, while East Of the Web is e-pub only.
Let me know if you like it! Don't let me know if you don't like it. Yeah, I can take it, but I don't want to.
I got great news to start the new year--in fact, it came in just after 6 a.m. on New Year's Day! Which might be why I didn't find it until January 3rd.
But good news delayed is still good news: I sold a short story to an online magazine, East of the Web. "Everybody Knows Your Name" is a story about an inventor who discovers his fears about a new technology are baseless. instead, he finds an entirely new fear.
I'll let you know when I get a release date, of course. Here's their website:
Guess I'll have to write a new one, now!
Remember, any short story that eats a balanced diet and takes their vitamins might grow up one day to be a famous novel.
