Category Archives: Headshots

Headshots, Short Stories, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

And the Words Keep Coming

1 Comment

As explained in other posts, I’m working on several writing projects at once. I recently completed a short story, which is now simmering as I figure out what to do about it. I’m working on Headshots, a sequel to my baseball novel. And I’m working on volume 2 of The Gutter Chronicles. I’m doing this last one in off moments at work.

Tuesday I finished the first chapter of The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2. I proofed it Wednesday and added one small item. It’s 2850 words, which is about right for a chapter in this book. This is meant to be a humorous book, taking workplace situations in an engineering company and turning them into funny stories. Yes, things that have happened to me over the years are finding their way into the book.

Humor may not be my writing strength. In fact I’d say almost assuredly it isn’t. Yet everyone who’s read volume 1 of TGC say it’s very funny. So maybe I’m  not too bad at that. But how can that be? I’m a serious novelist.

So as I was writing this first chapter, beginning a month or more ago, I came to realize it was more dramatic than funny. I needed to “funny-it-up” somehow. I put it aside for almost a month, trying to think of how I could do that. It wasn’t devoid of funny moments, but it just wasn’t as funny as I wanted it to be. As I walked on noon hours, or as I commuted, it was on my mind.

So Tuesday I was at my computer at noon, not being able to take a walk due to the weather, and decided to pull the story up and work on it. I re-read what I had in the chapter, and an idea of what to do came to me. What if I had Norman Gutter, the main character, hallucinate. He was very sick from a tick bite, though he didn’t know that’s what caused it. I had him go to the hospital and, in his painful and energy-less state, I had him begin hallucinating about the people and things he saw. I had him see the different people he worked with in not very flattering ways. Finally, as the doctor begins to examine him at the hospital, he has a hallucination about her just before he passes out.

Is it funny enough? That, of course, is the question. I proofread it quickly, saved the chapter out as a PDF, and e-mailed it to our HR assistant in the office. She read all of the first volume and enjoyed it. I figured if she saw this chapter as good, and funny, then it was okay. She e-mailed me back that afternoon: “Laughing out loud. Definitely a good read.” So I think I nailed it.

Now this morning, in the time I had before work, I decided to work on Chapter 2. I knew exactly where to start, because of where I left Norman at the end of chapter 1. So I began typing and soon found it was 8:00 a.m., time to begin work, and that I had 650 words typed in just a little more than half an hour. Wow, that’s more than I usually get in that little time. I’m not into humorous parts right now. That will have to come later in the chapter, maybe on my noon hour today. Or, if that doesn’t work, then next week. It would be nice to have two chapters finished by the end of next week. I’d feel good about the book at that point.

How interesting I find it that the words just come when I need them. I suppose it’s not really the words, but the ideas. I’ve found this to be true for quite a while now. In Headshots I’m at the sagging middle, that point in the book where a writer struggles to keep the action going as the hero works toward the climax. As I reported in another post, last weekend I added 3,800 words to the sagging middle. Things I hadn’t much thought about gelled into ideas, those ideas found expression in words, and I was writing, pushing the story forward.

I don’t know that it will always be this way. I might find myself at times where I have absolutely no idea what to write next, so I re-read where I am in the story, and the ideas just come and the words quickly follow. So I suppose this mean, I am a writer.

Headshots, Writing

A Wasted Weekend?

2 Comments

How many words did I add to my work in progress over the weekend, you ask? Or I suppose that should be works-in-progress, as I have a couple going on. Here’s the short version.

  • My essay “The Learning Curve”: nothing done
  • Headshots: approximately 150, or maybe as many as 200.
  • Danny Tompkins short story: none.
  • Carlyle encyclopedia articles book: none.
  • The Gutter Chronicles, Volume 2: none.

In other words, not a lot of production to show for a quiet weekend at home, with my health good, chores at a relative minimum.

I actually accomplished a little more than that. I re-read chapters 1-6 of Headshots, and reacquainted myself with what I’d written. I brainstormed a few chapters of it as well. I’m currently writing chapter 8, and have it planned out through chapter 13. The word count stands at about 15,100, which is somewhere between 1/6 and 1/4 through it. I wish I was further.

I also proofread eight pages of the Carlyle encyclopedia articles book. I’m down to about 16 pages of text to proofread, plus the four page index from the regular encyclopedia. I’m not sure I’ll include the index in my book, as it’s sort of meaningless. This work isn’t scheduled for publication until next year, so working on it now might be foolish. I proofread a couple of pages a day because it’s easy work, something I can do with the TV on.

Yesterday I arrived in The Dungeon around 2:30 p.m., after church and some running around afterwards. I decided not to take a nap (as I wasn’t the least tired), and not to turn on the TV to have NFL football on, so as not to distract me. Having Saturday’s editing and brainstorming at hand, I put my keys on the keyboard and…nothing. I couldn’t apply my mind.

I reread chapter 8 as it stood, and sort of knew what I needed to do, but the words didn’t flow. It didn’t seem like writer’s block. It was more a case of “why bother?” Low book sales were weighing on my mind.

From a technical standpoint I was having trouble with how to proceed with chapter 8. This is Ronny Thompson in the hospital, working on recovery from his last operation and musing about his future: in baseball, with his girlfriend, with his parents. The next two parts of the chapter were determined based on my planning and brainstorming. As I sat there playing mindless computer games, I thought through the chapter and how to organize it to get the next two events in place. But I just didn’t feel like adding the words needed.

Eventually, once most of the afternoon was gone, I managed to get the 150-200 words in place. Tonight, if I can just concentrate, I can finish that chapter, maybe even get into the next one some. I need to have the characters quit talking and start acting. Maybe that transition is part of the trouble. Too much talk, not enough action, and making that transition in the text is part of what’s giving me fits. Once I get past that, maybe I’ll be okay.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, self-publishing, Short Stories, Writing

Writing Time Hard to Come By

1 Comment

As you might be able to tell, based on the fact that it’s been 20 days since my last post, I haven’t done all that much writing in October. The reasons are many, and some of them I don’t want to get into publicly.

But I haven’t stopped writing, and I haven’t abandoned this blog or my other blog, An Arrow Through The Air. I have been in a very busy time at work. It began back in June and hasn’t stopped. Training events have come one after the other. I was event planner for two multi-day events. I went to a training convention in St. Louis in September. Just last week I went to a state engineering society convention in Little Rock where I taught a class and sat in on many others. Today I teach a noon hour class, and that’s the end of the special events. From then on it’s business as usual.

Things at home have required my attention as well. Some of those are completed, some on-going. It shouldn’t be too long, however, till I can get back to having an hour or two in the evenings to write.

Meanwhile, with serious writing out of the question, I’ve been editing. Yesterday I updated the “Works In Progress” section of this web site, and mentioned that I’m slowly working on aggregating Thomas Carlyle’s encyclopedia articles into a book with the intent of publishing this public domain material. That’s an easy thing to do. All the articles are now in one Word file. I’m down to 63 pages left to proofread, to get rid of the optical scanning errors.

I’m not in any hurry with the Carlyle book. I wouldn’t even be working on it except it’s easy to proofread a page in odd moments between major tasks, or while waiting on the doctor or a meeting, or in that half hour before going to bed when you don’t really want to start something new. So this is progressing slowly. I don’t anticipate completing and publishing that until sometime in 2014, perhaps February or March.

In other odd moments I began work on a new short story in the Danny Tompkins/teenage grief series. I really hadn’t planned on any more stories in this series after finishing “Kicking Stones”. However, a couple of reviewers indicated they would like more. That set my mind to thinking about what else I could write that would follow from the three already written and published. Some things came to mind. While waiting for the doctor a couple of weeks ago I began writing it in manuscript. I have the story in mind, but not all the details or the length.

Headshots, my sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, has languished in the last month. I’ve been pulling chapters out of it and submitting them to the writers critique group. I’ll receive critiques tonight on the third chapter, and from one person who forgot to bring the second chapter with them to the last meeting. I’m very close to restarting work on Headshots.

I probably should have on Sunday last, but instead decided to work on reformatting the print version of Doctor Luke’s Assistant with a smaller font so that I can reduce the size of the book and hence the price. However, I had lots of problems with the headers and with the section breaks. I spent two hours on it. With 37 chapters there’s a lot of running heads to get correct, and MS Word decided it didn’t want them correct.

I started from the back, then from the front. I’d fix one header and chapter pagination and another one decided not to work. It was maddening, and by the end of that time, though I wasn’t finished, I had made progress. I suspect I’ll be ready by next weekend with all things corrected and will be able to give the cover designer the new thickness. She can turn a book cover around quickly, and by this time next week I should be ready to submit to CreateSpace and send off for a proof copy. I have at least one buyer for this.

So I’m completing some writing and publishing work. Thanksgiving is coming, when the family will gather in to our place for a joyous time. We have much preparation to do for it. Writing will suffer, but it will continue.

 

 

Headshots, Writing

Writing and Publishing

1 Comment

Sunday I got back to work on Headshots, the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, my baseball/Mafia novel. As I wrote FTSP I didn’t plan for it to have a sequel. My friend Gary Boden pointed out all the hanging plot lines and said it was set up great for a sequel. I realized he was right. The first chapter came out last October, as I was casting about for what to write next.

As I say, Sunday I wrote on it again for the first time in ten months. The second chapter flowed fairly well. I knew exactly what I wanted to write and had thought out the chapter for a while. I added 1700 words to the book, bringing it to around 3,150 words.

Then last night I was back at my computer in The Dungeon, with the book pulled up, ready to add 500 to 1000 words to start the third chapter. Except, I stalled. I’m writing about one of the characters from the first book, and I can’t remember one key fact about her and how I handled that. I wrote what I think is correct, but then thought maybe I’d better wait. It would be too easy to write that and never get around to checking the first book to make sure the two are correct.

I talked about this (via Facebook messaging) a few days ago with a writer colleague, and she asked me how long it would take to write the book. I said that I didn’t know, since I had a lot of other tasks to complete as well. Some of those are writing and some publishing.

On the writing side, I need to finish the graphics for my professional article, “The Learning Curve”. I suppose graphics are writing related, though it feels a lot like publishing. Then I need to create a cover for it and publish it. So writing quickly turns into publishing for this item.

Other publishing tasks on the near horizon are:

  • Make (or have made) a proper cover for The Gutter Chronicles, for both e-book and print book; upload the improved cover to all retail outlets; create the print book and publish it.
  • Make (or have made) a better e-book cover for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People; upload to all retail outlets; create a print book for this and publish it.
  • Try a different internal font for Doctor Luke’s Assistant and decide if I want to make a change; if I do have the print cover redone and re-publish it. I’m pretty sure I’m going to do this. After comparing books with 12 point and 11 point fonts, I think the 11 point works better.

So there is a summary of my upcoming work. Writing and publishing. This is how it will be forever, so long as I remain a self-published writer.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Sharon Williams short stories

What to write next?

1 Comment

Readers of this blog will perhaps remember a time last year when I mused about what I was going to write next. You can see the first of those posts here. I had several follow-up posts over the next weeks.

Well, I’m about there now. Operation Lotus Sunday (previously titled China Tour) is very close to completion. Last night I began what I hope is and expect to be a final read-through. In 30 some-odd pages I found only two minor things to change, which is a good sign that this truly will be the last read. Of course, once the text is complete I’ll be at the work of formatting it for two different e-book sites, and also for a print book. I’m still working with the cover designer, who gave me the first draft but who also had a couple of physical setbacks in the last few days. And, once the book actually launches, I’ll have some promotional activities to do.

But, believing that the best marketing for your published books is to write and publish more books, it’s time for me to plan what will be next. I’m actually pretty sure what the next novel will be: Headshots, the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Last October, when I wrote the first chapters of four different books to gauge my interest and energy level, this was definitely in second place. I will be writing some outlines for this soon.

But I’m thinking I may write a couple of short stories first. I have always planned to write a third story in my teenage grief series that began with “Mom’s Letter” and continued with “Too Old To Play“. Once again it will be based on my own experience with that, and will include teenage memories relived in adult years and a poem. I’m thinking this will be next, and it will be titled “Kicking Stones”. The story line has been running through my head for a while. I’m also thinking of another short story in the Sharon Williams series, taking “Whiskey, Zebra, Tango” and turning it into an unconventional CIA agent series. This one will be harder, as a story line is only now coming to me, and I don’t know for sure that I can pull it off. It seems like I have a good character and a good basis for writing a series of stories, but great inspiration hasn’t come yet.

I should probably work on a book to follow-up on Documenting America, on the Civil War, while we are in the Civil War sesquicentennial years. But when I wrote first chapters last October I found this one the most difficult. So maybe that’s to happen in the future, but I think not now.

So, will I soon dive in to Headshots, or are a couple of short stories coming? Stay tuned.

Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Looks like it’s probably “China Tour”

Leave a comment

I don’t recommend anyone go about their book writing they way I have for the last twelve days. As I reported in a previous post, because I felt no sense of direction of where to go next with my writing. I could write any one of three novels or one non-fiction book. So I decided to write the first chapter in each and see how the work flowed, how it felt to me during the writing, and choose based on the experience.

First up was Headshots, the sequel to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I labored over a Friday-Sunday period, barely getting about 1950 words and the chapter done. I found that picking up the threads of all the people who were involved in the end of FTSP was tedious. In fact, after finishing the chapter I realized I didn’t have all the threads covered: missed one I need to add in.

Next was Preserve The Revelation, the sequel to Doctor Luke’s Assistant. This went better. I did a little work on Augustus ben Adam’s family tree and children before I started the writing, to make sure he could have two sons of the ages I wanted at the time I wanted them. It all worked fine. Then I wrote the chapter in two evenings. Though I had thought much about it over a few years, it still took me in a different direction as I wrote it. The needed scenes for the second chapter ran through my head as I concluded the first, which is a good thing.

Next was China Tour, a sequel to nothing. In fact, it will be a stand-alone novel. This has run through my mind many, many times over the years. I found our trip diary from 1983, read through some of it (the Hong Kong days), and jumped in to the writing. In two evenings I had my 1,500 word first chapter. It went fairly easy; but then I’ve run that chapter over in my mind many times, and had recently explained the book in detail to a colleague.

Then, to this mix I added another volume of Documenting America. This would be a Civil War edition, in recognition that we are now 150 years away from that event, with somewhat heightened interest in the reading public. Unfortunately, I found this heavy going. I enjoyed the research, but the writing went much, much harder than I wanted. This would be the shortest of the four books, and I would certainly enjoy the research, but I think the writing would be most labored.

Based on ease of writing and flow of words, it looks as if China Tour should get the nod to be my next book. Given that, last night I decided to give the second chapter a try, and in two hours knocked out the entire chapter, about 1,050 words. The problem is, this book makes no sense to be the next one. It’s not a sequel to anything, nor is it in a series or will it ever have a sequel. It might not be all that long (I’m thinking 70,000-75,000 words), though for all I know it could run longer.

One of the sequels makes more sense. Those 92 people who bought Doctor Luke’s Assistant, or the 5,000 people who downloaded it for free, might just come looking for something similar. Headshots makes more sense because I most recently wrote FTSP, so the characters are all known commodities and fresh in my mind. I’ve thought though what will happen in considerable detail. The problem? With 3 total sales of FTSP, it’s not like the public is clamoring for this book.

I haven’t committed yet, but it is probable that China Tour will be next. I know at least one of my reader/writer friends who will be happy.

Documenting America, Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

Writing Progress

Leave a comment

Or lack thereof. As I reported before on this blog, I wrote the first chapter in three different novels, trying to see which inspired me most, and which didn’t inspire me at all, or at least not much. In this way I could perhaps determine which one to work on next, given that none stood out to me before actually writing.

I did that beginning last weekend (that is, Oct 12-14) and during the next week. It was last Wednesday, I think, that I finished the third of the first chapters. Thursday I did little more than re-read and maybe tweak one of them a little. Or, I could be off by a day. It may have been Thursday that I finished the last of the first chapters. One thing I did this time was to start a writing diary for each of these, so I have the exact dates recorded. Alas, the diaries are home and I’m at work as I type this.

Friday I decided to write the first chapter on one more book. I have always intended to write additional volumes of Documenting America. It’s been set aside for more than a year as I wrote other things, but that was always my intent. Given that it is, right now, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, I thought that would be the best next volume to do.

I had also figured out where to start on that volume: with a speech before the US Senate in 1850 by John C. Calhoun, staunch defender of slavery. After that I would move forward nine or ten years, into the immediate lead up to the war and then the war years themselves.

So Friday I dusted off some old notes, grabbed the right volume of The Annals of America, and read the speech, which is actually a long excerpt in that book. Then I went on-line and found the complete speech, and read most of the parts left out in the Annals. This took all Friday evening, a shortened evening as I had a few other things to do as well as writing.

So Saturday, after my normal Saturday routine (which included cutting down a small, dead tree and cutting it to firewood lengths, as well as a good walk), I went to work on the chapter. And I didn’t get it finished. I worked on it for over three hours, finding concentration impossible. I managed to get together a long excerpt from the book (about 1250 words), which is longer than I used in the first volume. But writing my commentary on it was most difficult. By the end of those three hours, after shifting back and forth from the chapter to rereading parts of the speech to wasting time because I couldn’t concentrate, I think I had only 500 words of commentary done, short of a full chapter.

It didn’t help that I was feeling poorly. I’m not sure if it was something I ate, or having done too much strenuous exercise earlier in the day, but I didn’t feel good all Saturday afternoon and evening. When you body isn’t well, it’s tough to ge the mind in gear.

So where does this leave me? I can safely say that the time is not right for me to work on Documenting America: The Civil War Edition. Of the three novels, the one that seemed to flow best to the page was China Tour, the one that was most difficult was Headshots. Preserve The Revelation flowed fairly well.

What I think I will do is take a few more days to think about it. I have a lot of non-writing things that have piled up over the last few weeks, things like my budget spreadsheet, filing, and some cleaning. It’s those things that a married bachelor takes time to get to when his wife is away helping with the grandkids. Then Thursday I head to Oklahoma City to help said wife with said grandkids, returning next Sunday. So I don’t think I’ll do much writing till then. Although, tonight and tomorrow, if I have a spare hour, I might try my hand at chapter 2 in one of them.

Headshots, Operation Lotus Sunday, Preserve The Revelation, Writing

New book started; progress slow

Leave a comment

As I reported on Friday, I had hoped to write 5,000 words this weekend just passed. My wife left for Oklahoma City on Friday, leaving me a quiet house and not too much to do. Friday night I arrived home late after eating supper with my mother-in-law. There was still plenty of evening left, and I should have gotten a lot done. Alas, I created folders and files for my three potential new works, and wrote one scene in one of them. Tiredness set it, and I quit for the evening.

Saturday found me in my normal routine. I read in the Bible first thing, then ate a small breakfast, then read some in my current reading book. Then I went outside to do chores, which that day was cutting down a dead tree (only 5″ caliper) and cutting it into firewood length. It was almost too much for this old man, but I got it done. Back inside the house I did some cleaning

That tuckered me out enough that I fell asleep in my reading chair after lunch. I don’t think I slept long: about two touchdowns’ worth in whatever game I had on. Still, I was down in The Dungeon and at my computer by 3:00 p.m. Plenty of time to get a couple of thousand words written.

Alas, I only wrote around 900, taking Headshots up to 1240. I couldn’t concentrate, and kept shelling out to play mindless computer games. I began to write something, wrote ten words in a new scene, and couldn’t think of what to write next. Or, I think more accurately, didn’t want to apply my mind to the scene. So I played games for a half hour, then came back to the scene and wrote it.

Over and over that repeated Saturday, and actually Sunday. By the time I quit at 10:30 p.m. on Sunday I had around 1,430 words written. Well, more than that, I suppose, if you include the two blog posts I wrote for An Arrow Through The Air, my other blog, one which I posted yesterday and one which I scheduled to post tomorrow. That’s another 600 words I guess, bring the total for the three days to 2,000. That’s not bad, but it’s a far cry from the 5,000 I was hoping for.

As I said in a previous post, I’m not sure which novel to work on next, and my plan is to write 1,000 words in each of the three and see which one seems best to me to continue in. I did that in only one, so two to go. Tonight, I’ll be home at a good time. I’ll have to cook supper (stir fry, I think), and do some significant cleaning in the kitchen. That should put me in The Dungeon around 8:00 p.m., giving me time to write the thousand words. I’m thinking of doing so in China Tour, though by the time I get home I may change my mind and go with Preserve The Revelation.

I sure wish I felt some direction in all of this. Possibly the difficulty I had applying myself to Headshots is a form of negative direction. If so, that’s a start.

Headshots, Writing

Hoping for a productive weekend

Leave a comment

I just did something that may seem stupid, but I created folders and writing diaries on my computer for three novels: Headshots, Preserve The Revelation, and China Tour. My reason for doing this was overcoming the blank sheet of paper syndrome.

In the past I’ve noticed that the blank sheet of paper is a real hindrance to getting started on the project. At work, one of my responsibilities is writing new construction guide specifications: for new materials, new equipment, new construction methods, etc. I’ve noticed that getting started with the next spec section was a problem. So I created a file, called TYPSPEC, which has all the paragraph headings I might need. That way I always have a start to the new spec. I bring up that file, change the name and save it in a new location, and begin writing. I did that to a new spec section today, and made good progress.

So now I have three novels started, or almost started. My plans are to write 1,000 words in two of them, or maybe in all three, and see what feels right.

Okay, I’m back to this. I just opened a new document and wrote the first scene of Headshots. Three hundred fifty-five words. It’s a start. Tomorrow and Sunday I hope to write a minimum of 5,000 words on something, at least 1,000 of them in a different work. We’ll see how it goes.

Headshots, miscellaneous, reading

Tatamagovich Trail

Leave a comment

This has been a busy weekend. Yesterday, Saturday, we spent a good chunk of time at my mother-in-law’s house in Bentonville. We cut limbs that had fallen in the recent ice storm, dragged them to the street, and cut them into 6-foot lengths. The City is supposed to pick them up this week. Then we raked the leaves in the back yard. Well, not all the leaves, but probably 70 percent of them. I took four pickup loads to the compost facility. I would have taken the limbs there too, but the City says they will pick them up.

My pick-up bed holds a lot of leaves in bulk. Raking them on to a tarp, dragging the tarp to the truck, hoisting it up to dump in the bed, then get ’em all out at the other end is work. Years ago, when we lived on NE “J” Street, I would take eight loads of leaves to the compost facility in that pick-up. Now, three loads wear me out.

We rested yesterday evening, and slept in a little this morning since we were having only one church service, at 10:30 AM, and no life groups. This was our annual Upwards Basketball service, held in the gym, and we had a good group of visitors. This is a good outreach program for the church.

After church, we again went by my mother-in-law’s house, to meet the man who bought the organ for him to load it and take it away. We loaded a few things in the van to take to our house (which I guess I need to go unload), and headed home.

Except, we decided to stop by the walking trail at the north end of Bentonville, close to Bella Vista. We had done that once before, and I was intending on doing about the same walk. However, Lynda wanted to do one of the forested trails. So we took off down the Tatamagovich Trail. Although listed as difficult, we did not find it so. It is narrow, normally only wide enough for one person, and it does go up hill, but the grade is easy. The entire trail is about 2 miles long. We did a mile of it, found an old farm or logging road, and cut back to near the beginning. During all this time we encountered only one person, a mountain biker, who passed us.

It’s hard to believe that this trail exists in built-up Bentonville. Kudos to the city planners and officials who put this all together. Kudos to the person who arranged for the city to get this land (purchased or donated, I’m not sure). We enjoyed it, and it’s a nice feature for the city and area.

Now, an afternoon nap finished, I’m ready to go tackle The Powers That Be, and see if I can get 40 pages closer to finishing it.