New Reading, Song, and Sheet Music

I have added new content to my website, all of which can be found at http://gods-among-men.com/blog/books/book1.

Included is a reading of Chapter 5, Through Persuasion and Force,…, as read by my wife Kathryn.   The direct link to the reading is http://gods-among-men.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Book1Chap5Kathryn.mp3. 

Kathryn has also completed a new song, called Zephyr.  It is the anthem for the kingdom ruled by the Rihtwis clan.  It can be heard at http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/Music/Zephyr.mp3.

I have also posted PDF’s of Kathryn’s sheet music for everything she has completed so far.  Here are links to her sheet music.

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/At%20the%20Lady's%20Behest%20Comes.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/I%20Remember%20Marcus.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/I%20Remember%20Marcus%20Reprise.pdf

http://gods-among-men.com/Uploads/SheetMusic/Zephyr.pdf

For those paying attention, yes we have skipped chapter 4, …And Strikes Down the Inner Circle.  I will be getting back to it as soon as I can either find someone to perform a reading of it or free up some time to do one myself.

Rich has offered to do a reading of chapter 7, …And Critical Moments Relived….  I will be sending him the updated text shortly and will post his reading as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I have to incorporate the Magic City Writers’ Group edits to chapter 11, …Cause All to Cry ‘Havoc’!   The reviews of the chapter were very positive, but some of the changes will require a substantial amount of effort to complete.  I expect it will take me a couple weeks to complete that task.

Once I finish with those edits, Lindy has offered to perform a reading of that chapter.

As you can see, quite a lot has been happening all at the same time.  And I still have to resume my efforts to find an agent, revamp my website, find artwork I can display on the website, and get cracking on editing what I have already written for the second book, …Demiurge, Unbound,….

Until next time, have fun and party down.

When Last We Met…

On Sunday November 16, 2009, the Magic City Writers met and reviewed the lovely Lindy’s latest submission, Marked.  I can safely say, tho’ we beat her and flayed her, by the livin’ Gawd that made her, you are a better writer than I am, Gunga Lin.

A big fat No-Prize to whomever can name the famous poem I pay homage too above.

But first, lets talk about the food. 

Let’s Torture Alex by Mentioning What We Ate

The food, as always, was excellent. 

Kathryn was suffering from a slight sinus infection, and her laptop suffered a stroke, so she didn't have time to whip up her normal culinary delight.  But, she did suggest Brant mixed berry smoothies to drink at the meeting.  Snacks consisted of pretzel twists and club crackers.  For dinner Kathryn and Lindy made potato gnocchi (thick round noodles) with creamy pesto sauce and grilled chicken.  Along with garlic toast suggested by Lindy, dinner was quite delicious.

And Now Back to Flaying Lindy

Lindy submission was more than well received.   Nicole was unable to attend, so it was left to Kathryn and I to voice our opinions.  We both agreed that quality of her writing in Marked was good enough to capture the eye of some publisher of agent.  I went further and claimed, and maintain, that I have seen worse writing in published stories.

On a first read I found very little to correct.  My second closer read found minor problems and inconsistencies.  The type of details that plague all early drafts.  Lindy’s biggest problem was that her story was set in a post-apocalyptical world and the people had too many pre-apocalyptical attitudes and items. 

Our biggest problem as a group is we kept going off in tangents, discussing what such a world would be like.  Intense brainstorming dominated much of the meeting. 

Fortunately, this time I remembered to record the session so Lindy can go back and review the discussion to find the gems among the dross.

Overall, Lindy’s style was good, her characters interesting and convincing, and her plot intriguing.  Excellent work Lindy.  We are all proud of you.  I’m sure that when you flesh out this work it will be an excellent novel.  I, for one, look forward to reading it when it is done

The Remains of The Day

After we chatted and ate, the three of use moseyed upstairs where we watched a couple of short videos from Kathryn’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection.  One was on the world of communication in the future, as seen from about 1960, and the other was on the usefulness of springs.  The snarky commentary made both of these quite enjoyable.

Then we settled in to watch the debut of AMC’s mini-series remake of 60’s cult classic, The Prisoner.   Heavily symbolic, allegorical, and often surreal, Kathryn and Lindy did not care for it.  I, ever the fan of heavy symbolism and surreal tolerant, am withholding judgment until I have seen more.  Right now I rate it as, “interesting”.

For next time, I re-submitted chapter four of my epic fantasy, Gods Among Men, entitled …And Strikes Down the Inner Circle. We did not set a date for the next meeting, but given the approaching holidays, along with Nicole’s awful schedule, it seems likely that the earliest possible meeting will be in December or, God forbid, January.  Fear not, I shall make sure to keep those interested apprised of the happenings whenever the next meeting occurs.

Until next time, have fun and party down.

Chaper 4: The Lost Edits

Yesterday I was editing my my epic fantasy, Gods Among Men. I fought my way to the end of chapter four, ...And Strikes Down The Inner Circle. Finally, after weeks (months?) of writing and rewriting, I finished addressing the editing suggestions I had previously received from the writers group.

Feeling pretty good, I scrolled back through the chapter, lightly skimming over the text one last time before moving on to the editing suggestion for chapter one.

That was when I saw it. A big blank space towards the end of the middle section of the chapter. What the heck? I thought. (OK, I admit it, I did not think the word heck, but I am trying to keep this post G-rated, so cut me some slack.)

On any given day, I almost never finish my editing or writing at a the end of a chapter or a major section. Since it might be days (or longer) before I return, I insert multiple blank lines near where I stop for the evening. This makes it fairly easy to scroll back to where I was and continue on from there. Sometimes I write notes to remind me what I was thinking about.

Pulling out my editing notes, I looked at the surrounding text to see what I had done there. Above the blank space everything was fine, but starting just below the gap were suggestions and comments that I had not addressed. How it had happened I cannot guess, but it was clear that I had stopped editing there and forgot to come back and finish making changes.

"Curses," I cried. (OK, I admit I didn't actually do that, but I'm a writer and we're allowed some dramatic license now and again.) There were more changes required than I could make last night, but I should be able to knock them out this evening.

The moral of this story? Structure saves you. If I had not adapted the habit of making my stopping points blindingly obvious I would never have noticed that I skipped something. I would have left problems in the text unaddressed. Not the end of the world, but in writing it is the details that matter.

A single poor word choice can make a sentence awkward. An awkward sentence can detract from the content of a paragraph, which in turn disrupts a scene and throws the reader out of the story. This will happen from time to time even with the best of writers, but when it happens often the reader puts down the book and never returns. Problems when found must be addressed or the work as a whole suffers.