I’m not that great at figuring out titles. It seems that with every project, I agonize for days to find the perfect title, only to settle for something that sounds reasonably good. Worlds Away from Home is no exception. Even though it was better than the previous title (Hero in Exile), I never really felt… Continue reading In search of a new title
Category: Desert Stars
“…and I am doing my best to leave traditional publishing behind.” –Tracy Hickman
Those were Tracy Hickman’s exact words today at CONduit. He said it as part of his introductory remarks at his first panel, “To Cliche Or Not To Cliche,” and reiterated it on all of the panels he was on for the rest of the day. For those of you who don’t know, Tracy Hickman has… Continue reading “…and I am doing my best to leave traditional publishing behind.” –Tracy Hickman
Rocking the rewrite
I am well into the third draft of Worlds Away from Home, and oh man–it is so much fun! That might seem a bit counter-intuitive (revising = fun?), so let me explain my process. In a first draft, I have a ton of ideas, but it’s hard for me to keep track of them all… Continue reading Rocking the rewrite
Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 is finished!
That’s right; my fifth novel, Into the Nebulous Deep, is finished! Here are the stats: ms pages: 447 words: 101,215 file size: 230 KB chapters: 20 start date: 7 March 2011 end date: 14 May 2011 And the wordle: This novel is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, and takes place within the same… Continue reading Into the Nebulous Deep 1.1 is finished!
Where will Joe go?
Just a quick and dirty update before bed, because hey it’s been forever since I’ve posted to this thing. Holy crap, this last week was CRAZY for my family! Youngest sister got married, middle sister had a baby, and oldest sister…well, I’m not at liberty to discuss that yet. But congratulations to all of you!… Continue reading Where will Joe go?
Goals for May
The last two weeks have pretty much decimated my writing routine. Between family stuff and a 40 hour per week temp job, I’ve pretty much fallen behind on everything. However, the good news is that with the money from the temp job, I can afford to take a month off to work exclusively on writing… Continue reading Goals for May
Killing the sacred cows while doing data entry
Sorry for the lack of blog posts; I’ve been working 40 hours a week at this temp job, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things outside of writing. I’m still plugging along at about 1k to 2k words per day, but a lot of other stuff is falling behind. Fortunately, the job… Continue reading Killing the sacred cows while doing data entry
Q1 report, 2011
So in terms of writing, this was a pretty decent quarter. Nothing too prolific, but definitely making progress on my writing goals for 2011, which include: 1) finish at least two polished novels, 2) finish at least three new rough drafts, 3) start at least four major new projects. The spike in the graph from… Continue reading Q1 report, 2011
Story Notebook #5 (part 1)
Alright, time to revisit my old story notebooks and run through some of the ideas there. This one starts in fall of 2009, my last semester at BYU, and ends shortly after my hasty exodus from a miserable internship in Washington DC. And now, without further ado, here goes: A super-celibate society that holds that… Continue reading Story Notebook #5 (part 1)
Change of plans
So I was going to start Edenfall this week…but then, I realized I wanted to spend some more time in the universe of Worlds Away from Home, so I decided to work on Into the Nebulous Deep instead. ITND is a direct sequel to Mercenary Savior. Basically, it grew out of the realization that James’s… Continue reading Change of plans