A busy week, but I got a bunch done. Episode 014 of the Magic of Eyri Podcast is online, so set yer phasers to DOWNLOAD.

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The big news of this past week is that the first draft of my next novel, working title Night of the Lonely Werewolf, is done. Yep, all 94,000+ words of it are finished.  I opted to print the dang thing out (all 499 pages of it, double-spaced at 12 point font) as I go through the editing process.  I’m glad I went this route, because I’ll at least have a hard copy of the first draft, and I like taking notes as I do that always important first read-through.  I may need to invest in more red pens.

This is the novel I started for last year’s National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo).  Not happy that it took me almost a year to write the last 44,000 words after cranking out the first 50k in less than 30 days, but “thems the breaks.”

“Life happened” right after the holidays last year and I fell off the writing horse for a few months–but I dusted myself off and get right back on, spurs an’ all.  Getting that first draft finished is key, after that, things kind of fall in place.  But reaching that final goal of a workable first draft–no matter how good or bad it is–is super important.

I didn’t want to become a writer with a few half-finished novels lying around, so I’m happy that I soldiered on and finished this thing.  The interesting thing is that I got some of my better ideas after that six month dry spell, life’s funny that way.  I actually enjoy editing my novels and watching it change into something even better.

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And here’s your weekly round-up of my various writings infesting other parts of the Internet:

• Lansing’s International Flavor, Capital Gains (11.04.09)
• The Big O Mess at Grumpy’s Diner will put a smile on your face, Examiner.com (11.10.09)
• Photo tour of the Michigan Brewing Company Brewery, Examiner.com (11.11.09)
• Sip some apple cider at Decker’s Coffee Company, Examiner.com (11.12.09)
• This week’s High Noon Fantasy Hockey, IllegalCurve.com (11.09.09)

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Local cartoonist, Jef Mallet, visited my nearby library (the Delta Township District Library, which has felt like a second home as of late) Wednesday night. Jef draws the nationally syndicated comic strip, Frazz. It is about a janitor at a elementary school–who is actually a gifted song writer, but keeps the job because he loves the kids so much.

Jef started things out by drawing Frazz for us, live, on a large easel. I always like watching talented artists draw in person, it is nothing short of magical. Jef and I have known each other for a few years now–I first met him at a similar event in 2005 in Grand Ledge, although at that event he was talking more about censorship (I think) instead of just doing a general (but still entertaining) overview of what he does.

At that event in 2005, I hadn’t started writing The Magic of Eyri yet (I had ideas, but there were nowhere near what the final novel became). He mentioned writing and drawing a children’s book of his own, so after his presentation, I asked him for advice on starting and finishing a novel (and a sketch of Frazz).

He would tell me later that it was what I asked him that impressed him most, although I can’t remember exactly what I said. I didn’t ask the questions that he typically gets (”how can I get rich by drawing pictures” or along those lines). His advice to me, which is something I still follow, is to “just do it.” He told me that I didn’t want to be 80 years old one day and thinking, “hmm what if I had written that novel.” Jef told me to write it and at least i would know–and who cared if it was good or bad, at least I wouldn’t regret not trying.

Shortly after self-publishing The Magic of Eyri in 2007, I dropped Jef a line, thanking him for the advice, which had driven me to start and finish the novel. We had lunch and swapped books: a signed copy of Magic of Eyri for him and a signed Frazz collection for myself. It was great.

Jef Mallet is one of the nicest and greatest men I have ever known–and one of the things I like most about him is that he isn’t afraid to write ’smart’ humor. He challenges his readers, and he loves doing it.

I love his stories about the comic strip business too. He told this joke about FoxTrot, Bill Amend. Bill used to live in California, but moved to Kansas City–which was where his syndicate was based. The joke went that Bill did this in order to have a whole extra time zone when it came to deadlines. Jef laughed and added that if you knew Bill, such a story wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Jef told this other joke about an artist, who years ago, whenever he’d read about a plane crash in the States, would call his syndicate and say “yeah, my strips were on that plane.”

The interesting thing is that nowadays, Jef doesn’t even have to mail his strips to his editor. He scans them and emails the files. But he added that he’s always up against a deadline–something I can relate to since starting the Magic of Eyri podcast (granted, I’m not doing daily episodes…I don’t even want to think about that).

The other great story he told was of a ‘strip feud (read the comments part)’ with Pearls Before Swine creator, Stephan Pastis. Pastis ran a strip featuring and overzealous cyclist named Jeff (Jef Mallet is an avid cyclist). Jef called Pastis up about the strip and he confused the strip was about Jef–even saying that he added an extra ‘f’ in the name at the last minute.

Jef took the whole thing in stride and in good humor. He kindly returned the favor in a strip after that, referencing Pastis’ previous career as a lawyer. Hilarious stuff.

Seeing Jef again this week was a much needed creative recharge for myself. The next day, I wrote nearly 1,000 words of my current in progress novel, the most I’ve written in one sitting in a long while–and I gotta get this first draft done by October because I want to take a stab at a nonfiction story come this Novembers Novel Writing Month.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I do all of my story writing (short stories, novels, etc) on a computer (usually my iBook), but there are times when I write myself into a corner, and I need to use a less high tech option.

I’m working on a novel right now (Night of the Lonely Werewolf, working title) and I’m at about 65,000 words (out of a goal of around 80,000), and I realized I was losing track of where things were going.

I had started this story back in November for Novel Writing Month. I got the first 50,000 words done in 24 days and fell off the wagon for the next six months.  I only recently started working on it (nearly) every day.  The problem with there being such a huge break between working on this thing, is that I forgot where I originally wanted to go with the section of the story I’m currently writing.

However, since it is the first draft, I write whatever feels good/works for the moment and move on, but today I had to stop and think about a few things. I have some plot points I need to make sure get resolved, and I need to figure out how to connect certain plot points to others.

So, I opened up to a new page in my notebook (I try to keep a note book for whatever novel I’m working on and try to keep everything together) and started writing things down. I do the ‘draw a word in a bubble and connect other bubbles to it’ thing–whatever that is called (Brainstorming?).

It helps.  It may not work for everyone, but it works for me. It helps get my thought process going a bit faster, and I think it is because I can see everything before me, “Ok…they’re going here, and this character wants this…Oh, wait, I can have that character do this…” You get the idea.

Doing that helped me work out a couple snags for the section I’m at, and how to link it with what I wrote back in November (and to the rest of the story as a whole).  I know there are computer programs that can do that same process, but honestly I just prefer writing it down on paper–I can get ideas out faster, I think.

And some times, those spur of the moment/top of your head thoughts or ideas can be what your story really needs, especially when you’re working on a first draft.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

I mentioned in an eariler post how I’m back on track in regards to working on my latest novel (working title: “Night of the Lonely Werewolf”).  I started this novel as part of National Novel Writing Month ‘08 and I did great all through November (hit the 50k word goal in 24 days).

Well, like the Magic of Eyri before it (NaNoWrimo ‘05), it took some time for me to work on it after Novel Writing Month. Problems included the holidays, travel, starting freelance writing, starting the Magic of Eyri podcast and other things in my personal life.

Having finally turned a corner, I’m back on track. I’ve been working the novel every day this week, even if only for twenty minutes or so at a time. At least I’m writing every day. I’m at just under 62,000 words and my goal is 80,000 for the first draft (a fry cry from Magic of Eyri’s 170,000+ words).

The problem with getting back into writing a genre novel (fantasy-horror-detective-steampunk, in my case) after being away from it for so many months is that I kind of forgot some of my ‘rules’ and what my characters were doing the last time I spent time with them.

Being a firm believer in “The First Draft Can Be Crap” philosophy, I tried not worry about that problem and just kept going. Still, it can be challenging–especially when you’re dealing with things like werewolves, magic and pseudo-steampunk technology.  If I were just writing memoirs about high school or something, this would be considerably easier.

While kind of breaking one of my first draft rules (don’t read/edit what I wrote), I’ve gone to the beginning of the manuscript and started reading so I can remember what I was doing back in November/December.

I think it’s a good sign that I found quite a bit of it amusing (which is also what I’m going for, I like writing ‘humor’ into my stories). It also helps that I kept notes during the original writing/world building process. Those come in handy.

This draft is far from perfect, but I want a first draft done by Summer’s end (September).  After that, start work on the always important second-draft.

I’m just happy to have my inspiration/writing drive back again.  The last six months were kind of scary.

Mirrored from Daniel J. Hogan. If something doesn't look right or show up, view the original blog post. Feel free to comment here or on the original post

Back in October, I was interviewed for an article about self-publishing for the Lansing Capital Gains online magazine.  Well, it ran today so go check it out.

I like the article.  It compares self-publishing to the punk music movement of the '70s and 80s: bands did things on their own and didn't care about going through the big companies.  They were able to make the music they wanted and had a devil may care attitude about the whole process.  Granted, I'm not that over the top about self-publishing but I can relate.  I do enjoy doing some of the stuff on my own and learning from it.  But on the other hand, it'd be nice to be paid to do it--or at least have someone expecting stuff from me so I'd actually get stuff done (I work so-oooo much better with deadlines.  My NaNoWriMo three-peat is proof of that.)

I also like the photo of me in it, and of the publishing info page of The Magic of Eyri.  The photographer, Dave Trumpie, was really great at giving me direction in what he wanted in the photo.  He has a good eye--and a nice camera.  Man, I really want a digital SLR.  And if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steaks. Got some writing done on the Third Novel today.  Man, I miss NaNoWriMo.  I miss having that sword hanging over my head, it motivates me to no end.  But things are chugging along.  I've hit a bit of dooldrums with the section I'm on right now, but I'm about to start an action/suspense/chase scene of some kind, so I'm hoping that get things going better again.  I need a night (or afternoon) of writing at a coffee shop or something to get over this hump.  It'll happen.  Just gotta stay on target.

I think I've hit that part that Neil Gaiman talked about in his NaNoWriMo pep talk email last year.  The part of the novel writing process when you think, "What am I doing?  This is a waste and not very good at all."  My favorite part of that email is when he talks about his feelings with his agent (or editor, whichever) and they say "OH you're at that part of the book already, huh?" Neil asks what they mean and the agent replies with (and I'm paraphrasing here) "This happens to you every time you write a book.  About half-way through you start doubting yourself.  Suck it up and keep going."

That's the feeling I have right now, but I'm gonna keep going.  I have to.

Just crossed 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month. I did it, baby. Third time and two years in a row--AND I beat my previous best of 25 days (last year I think it took me 27 days).

Here are my day by day stats:
11.1 0 (couldn't log in to the site that day for some reason)
11.2 2080
11.3 1933
11.4 2138
11.5 2031
11.6 2074
11.7 2264
11.8 840
11.9 996
11.10 3694
11.11 5962 - Veteran's Day (no work)
11.12 2076
11.13 2013
11.14 2082
11.15 1894
11.16 2140
11.17 2512
11.18 1862
11.19 1040
11.20 1545
11.21 910
11.22 2971
11.23 2081
11.24 2992

Word Count at the Moment: 50,191 (NOTE: Unverified) I can't officially 'win' until tomorrow when you can verify your word count on the website.  Now the hard part: keep going and finish this draft of this novel.