by moonlyte

Most of my friends know that I’m a comic book fan, and long time player of City of Heroes MMORPG online game and I’m also an advid reader. I started writing fan fiction for my CoH friends before moving on to fantasy. So I have a special fondness for good superhero stories. So when I come across stories I like to pass them along. How do I determine if it’s a good superhero story? If it makes me want to write a superhero story of my own, then its a good story. I have a couple started, but nothing moving at the moment. Maybe once I get Griffin rider completed, I’ll go back to my roots.

So if you like superhero stories I really recommend:
Marion G. Harmon’s series Wearing the Cape available at Amazon. A fresh look at what being a superhero is really like. These were fast paced and fun books to read.

http://wearingthecape.com/

Mercedes Lackey’s Secret World Chronicle A free audio podcast series that I really enjoyed on my drive to and from work.

http://secretworldchronicle.com/

So if you like comics, then check out these stories. Break out that cape, its a bird, its a plane, its a superhero story.
Enjoy.

A lot has happened since I tackled NaNo WriMo in November. First I did complete not one but 2 books in November. The first was for NaNo Wrimo (I just started to edit it.) and the second was the completion of book 2 for Griffin Rider. All of that and I finished before Thanksgiving. That turned out to be a good thing as Real Life reared its ugly head and the 3 weeks after Thanksgiving were a blur of sadness. That melted into December Holiday festivities and here we are. Once again on the eve of a New Year. Book 3 to Griffin Rider is already screaming to be let out, (Two chapters completed.) as well as 2 other stories have taken to text. For 2012 I hope to release at least book 2 and my NaNo novel, plus maybe a secret project will be launched.

I hope 2012 finds everyone healthy, happy, full of laughter, and good books to read.
Brian

Well it’s actually Oct. 30 as I post this. November is only 2 days away and the start of the Nano Wrimo challenge begins again. The only problem is I had wanted to put book #2 of Griffin Rider to bed by then. I have maybe 2 chapters to go to where I would be satisfied (at least until editing) to leave it to rest.

I’ve been talking and planning my Nano Wrimo stories since September. I plan on an Anthology of flash fiction based on a small town I created where life isn’t quite normal… at least to us outsiders. A cross between, Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks and a touch of Ghost Hunters. I’m hoping it’ll be as fun on paper as it is in my head. We’ll see in 32 days…

To all those excepting the challenge I wish you good luck, and good writing.

Here we are, once again, approaching November at life’s fast pace. For the third year I’ll be trying to complete the Nano Wrimo challenge. (National novel writing month) The challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I completed it last year, and from that came my book “Within the Brass Web”. This year I am actually planning something different. Instead of one novel, I intend to make a compilation of Flash Fiction stories, (A thousand words or less.) centered around a little town. I have a couple of plot lines planned out, that will run through this strange place in Wyoming. This is also the first book I’m laying out information in advance. I won’t be writing from the hip like I usually do. I can’t, this book is too complicated and time is too short to have to stop and look at things.

SO, this year’s goal is 50 flash fiction stories from a little town called Nowhere. From this I hope to pull enough good stories together to publish at least a Novelia. We’ll see how it goes.
Writers on your mark…

“You’re only as good as your last book written.”

That is the phrase I’ve heard many author friends say. It seems to be a mantra for authors that write for a living. In my limited, but ever-expanding view of the writing world, I took it to mean, you have to keep writing, keep putting your stories out there for people to read. It made sense to me.
The other day, I believe the real meaning of that phrase was shown to me. In the non-writing world it would translate to: “Practice makes perfect.” I’m not talking about spelling, grammar or even sentence structure, there are programs that can help you with those. I’m talking about getting your thoughts to flow onto the page well enough that others understand what you mean. An author friend of mine once said: “It’s not what you intended your story to be about. The reader only has the written words to judge your story by.”

My revelation came to me as a friend was reading a series of short stories I’m writing for an anthology project. She said, “I can tell which one was the last one you wrote, because it’s better than the others.” When asked what she meant, she explained. It wasn’t my sentence structure or my dialog, I’ve always been decent with those. It was the depth of the story I conveyed with my words. She really couldn’t explain it better, but the meaning hit me. The more I write the better the connection between my mind and the keyboard. The better that connection becomes the better (hopefully) my writing will become.

So I’m not just writing to publish stories, I’m writing to improve the stories that I publish. I can live with that.

As my son enters into his tween years, I’ve noticed more and more that the things I like to do, he also likes. Which is pretty cool in some ways, and really scary in others. I want to say my wife makes me be a better man, but that is nothing in comparison to what my son makes me want to be. If he’s my shadow, then his base line in standards starts with me. Yeah, that’s a lot of pressure, but pretty cool. When I spend time writing or playing my guitar, or gaming, so does he. He’s very creative and some of the stories he’s pecked out on the keyboard are pretty good for his age. The only problem I have is that I’m a recovering couch potato and that’s a trait I don’t want him to start.

I just want to make sure that my shadow doesn’t reflect my faults.

I was in a large chain book store the other day. As I always do, I looked around for some others author’s books. I was amazed or amused, that I found several books in the “new” section that I know have been out since last summer. Now I’m glad my friends are still on the shelf, but what happened to their latest books? I’m beginning to wonder if these stores actually can’t keep up with the new style of publishing. Only time will tell I guess. In the mean while, I think I’ll stick with my decision to stay electronic. After all, no trees will ever die because of my thoughts. That could just be a waste of paper.

Well for better or worse, it’s time to let this book fly on its own. I can write all day and edit even longer but at some point I need to let be done. I know I’m a beginning author, but I really think this is a great effort. Still, there is more to learn and room to grow. I’ve always excepted criticism with an open mind and I’m sure (even hoping) others will care enough to make comments. As author Mur Laffery (Heaven Series and Playing for Keeps) said in her workshop. “You have to have skin of bark and an iron will.”  In other words, good or bad, people will comment on my works but its the only way to grow as an author, if you don’t take it personally.

So enough talk already, the griffin is out in the wild. See my Stories page for a link(s) to where it can be found.

Thank you kind supporters.

The one thing that amazed me during this process was that editing a “completed” book took longer than it took to write said book. Now there are a number of ways to get your book edited, if you want to pay for it. But just starting out, going to a professional or even a freelance editor was more than I could afford. Even so, I learned you can’t trust your computer to pick up on much of anything.

I tried to self edit the book… five times. Since I wrote the story I found my mind would fill in the blanks, because I knew what I meant when I wrote it. I did do some tricks to help myself such as; waiting a few months before editing, editing the chapters out of order, reading it out loud, and even changing font size. Anything to get my mind to look at it in a new way.

The best way is to have someone else read it. I had three different people read it. I asked them to for two reasons. First I knew I could trust them to give me an honest critique. Secondly each of them brought something different to the edit. First was my wife; she reads more than I do and I knew she would find the general flaws in grammar but more importantly in plot. Nothing drives her crazier than a poor plot line. Next up is a gaming friend who enjoys reading. She was the person I knew I could bounce story ideas off of to see what would work. I could trust her to let me know when something didn’t work and would make suggestions to add or fix. Lastly is one of my closet friends who is very competent with grammar. So much so, that I knew she would look at each sentence and just diagram it to pieces. With all three of them, I knew and got very different edit points and I think I got the best possible blend.

Ultimately though, you have to decide when to  let go. Let’s face it, every time I go through this, I can find something else to change. Is the book that bad, that it needs constant help? No, its actually pretty good, but unless you learn when to let go of it, the book will constantly change. These last two months leading up to the release of Griffin Rider has been a constant change. Just one more thing, or maybe I need to explain this better. I came to the point where I realized that the book was done, but I was editing it to death.

Its time to let it fly on its own.

9… 8… 7… Its really a rush as things come to together to the release of my first book. The fact that I need a website of my own is amazing. Well I suppose I don’t need a website but it comes recommended in the self publishing because for some reason people may just want to learn more about me and my works. Go figure…

So as I work on creating this site and edit the first book, I’m beginning to feel that rush that when I hit …0 the boosters will fire and I’ll be launched into the unknown beyond. What will that make me then? Will anyone like my stories? How long will the ride last? I don’t know and I really don’t care. Life is too short to worry about how the ride will end, the fun is all the stuff that happens before that.

Thanks for reading,

Brian