Sunday, June 29, 2008

Progress Report One

I have approximately four thousand potential words for a second volume written. I have a synopsis partially filled out.

Lots of thinking and navel gazing are yet to be done.

For those who are curious, volume one is somewhat under 111,000 words long. The whole thing needs another polish or two, at least. I'm having trouble working up the enthusiasm.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Chapter 36 Is Up

Chapter 36 of Magician's Merger is up.

That's the end of volume one. I intend to try a new experiment: work in advance for volume two rather than post as soon as I have written. I don't know how far in advance I'll work. Maybe I'll write the whole thing first. At any rate, I'll make progress reports in this blog occasionally.

In the course of writing Magician's Merger, I received no mean comments and no nasty email. Only one review, so far, has been negative. Everyone else has been supportive and/or made constructive criticisms. Thank you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for catching mistakes. Thank you for spreading the word.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Writing Guides

Other than the dictionary and grammar and punctuation guides, the two most useful how-to books about fiction writing that I've read are Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain and Trail and Error: A Key to the Secret of Writing and Selling by Jack Woodford. The rest have caused me more confusion than anything.

Chapter 35 Is Up

Chapter 35 of Magician's Merger is up. It's longer than I've been averaging, and it was a lot of fun to write.

As always, mistake catching is appreciated. If you like the story, please spread the word.

Friday, June 20, 2008

A Change in the Weather

I've finally read the entire archive of A Change in the Weather. It's good stuff.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Typeface?

I've changed the typeface on this blog and on the Blogspot version of Magician's Merger. Is it easier to read? Harder to read? No difference?

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Chapter 33 Is Up, Finally

Chapter 33 of Magician's Merger is up.

As always, caught misspellings and such are appreciated.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Poop

We are coming up on the endgame here. There is at most a handful of chapters to go for this "book," I think, and Ursus just informed me that there was no way he could ever go along with the plan I had in mind.

This installment writing has its drawbacks.

I'll try to get chapter 33 out tomorrow.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

On Why a New Chapter is Taking So Long

Short answer: I've been totally out of it--sleepy with poor concentration. I've written about 1700 words of the next chapter, but it has been slow going. On the other hand, I haven't given up.

I suppose I should go change my claimed posting frequency on Pages Unbound.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Chapter 32 Is Up

Chapter 32 of Magician's Merger is up.

I so wanted to make a joke about Santa slamming into the roof, but "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was never written on Arthur's node.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Chapter 31 Is Up

Chapter 31 of Magician's Merger is up.

How am I doing regarding balancing out action with everything else?

Monday, June 2, 2008

I Feel So Proud

I have received my first hatchet job (by motonousmuse).

Now, I've never considered Magician's Merger to be great writing. It's an experiment more than anything. What can I produce if I don't give up? Everything about it is geared to keeping me writing. I post as soon as it's beat into decent form. The writing gets one or two polishes before posting. I don't have an editor, etc.

But, Jeez, this person makes me sound illiterate.

(If you are enjoying the story, don't worry about it. I'm not discouraged.)

Chapter 30 Is Up

Chapter 30 of Magician's Merger is up.

This one took longer to write than I had hoped.

The story Arthur's mom tells is similar to one my mom told me. I've changed a few of the details. I'm sure my mom believed what she had said.

Yes, there are similarities between Arthur's mom and my own, but there are also a lot of differences. Most of my characters have in them pieces of people that I knew, but many things get changed. Sometimes more than one person gets combined.

Some of the properties of the cantankerous younger brothers were drawn from me.