Reminder: Starting TODAY and running all week long, X96 radio will be doing book giveaways of Servant of a Dark God (on the radio and streaming online).
Listen to the morning Radio From Hell program (Gina, Bill, & Kerry), Kerry Jackson’s Geek Show, and Todd Nuke ‘Ems afternoon shows.
Here’s the latest version of the book description that will accompany the book on the various sites and on the back cover of the trade paperback. It’s purpose is to advertise: to let folks know the feel of the book and pique their interest.
A young man.
The girl he is hunting for using the dark and terrifying magic of Slethery.
And the monster who only wants to be free.
So begins the towering fantasy series that introduces an elaborate new world, a multifaceted system of magic, and a cast of compelling characters and creatures.
Trapped in a web of lies and ancient secrets, of right becoming wrong, the three must struggle not only against each other, but also a being of irresistible powers. A creature who is gathering her servants to oversee the impending human harvest.
If the three win, they will save those they love the most. If they fail, the clans of the land fall with them.
What people are saying:
~ Best Novel of the Year Whitney Awards, speculative fiction
~ Engrossing Publishers Weekly
~ Provocative Booklist
~ Starred Review! Library Journal
~ A great setting, a smart story Brandon Sanderson
Do you think you can do better? See anything to cut? Have some book descriptions you think work really well? If so, comment. I’d love to see what you come up with.
Davis Ashura, author of The Castes and OutCastes, recently interviewed me. Check it out. It was a fun interview.
Well, I’m less than 300 words from my original estimate of 140,000 words. The problem is that estimates are notoriously unreliable. Especially when most of the invention comes during the draft phase. It appears I have 20-30k more words. So I’m back down in the 80% finished range. But here’s my goal for completing. I hope to deliver it at somewhere around 170,000 words, maximum.
BTW, let me tell you this story is exciting me–the giant dogmen of Toth that breed monstrous dogs called maulers, a tall insect like creature called ungar that are stealing souls for their magic, wurm fields, battles, mysteries, traitors, our first meeting of the woodikin and Harnock (the one bred by Lumen to be a superior warrior), a wonderful sleth called Eresh who was completely unplanned and completely delightful, plus some incredibly delicious character situations.
Oh, baby. This one is shaping up with all sorts of delights. Of course, if I don’t execute, readers will just see it as a mess. So it’s back to work.
I finished the next chapter of my outline, which turned into three chapters. Hurray for making progress. However, I’m going to need to make more time on a weekly basis if I’m going to meet my goal.
I’ve kept stats over the last four novels. My average is 500 words per hour during the drafting stage. That includes revising and doing quick researches etc. So sometimes I will write a smoking (for me) 800 or 900 words per hour. Sometimes I won’t finish a thing. When I’m all done it averages out to 500 words. I’m going to see if I can’t get 20 hours this next week and finish 10,000 words.
Do you remember last week’s post about the process of making it come alive in my mind first? Orson Card illustrates this as he describes how he prepared to write a story in his essay “How One Story Can Give Birth to Another“.
Last week when writing chapter 7, I finished, but felt something was off. Years ago I would have freaked about writer’s block. I would have told myself I sucked because the chapter was glucky. But not now. It’s a gift. So I stopped and talked to myself in a freewrite. I had farmers faith that if I just kept working on it, something good would result.
Here’s what I wrote in that freewrite. It’s an awful read for you, but it shows you just how sloppy and cryptic and freewheeling my freewrites are.
Okay, so I’ve written the stuff below and I could tweak it, I guess. But I keep having this nagging feeling that it’s not good. It’s not a compelling villain. I think he’s creepy and evil. And, truth be told, I don’t want to make him into something other than what he is—a total thrall to the Glory and the mother. So as the “pet” of the mother, what else could he be called? I don’t know.
I shall call you endless because you will be spared, you shall continue, whereas the rest will not. Blessing. Blessed. Grateful. What would you call a thing that did you bidding reliably? But enthralled. I am part of you, you are part of me, and so you may take my name.
He WOULD think—I am not like them. I am GRACED by the Mother’s touch. I have taken her into myself. Or she has graced me and so I have become more than I would be otherwise. I am obedient.
What else do you call pets or tools. Maybe that’s what she calls him. My skir master. The skir lord. My trowel. Harvester.
He’s over the harvest. Reaper. Or he’s the one that supplies food. Supplier. Gatherer. Cook. Chef. Hunter. Provider. Butcher. Slaughter.
So I like Endless with the whole part of him being part of her. But he could use that—”you’re just like us” “no, we are part of the XXX (what was the name I had for them?) endless. You are meat”
Devourers, Mothers, Sublimes
Okay, so do I go with Endless or Harvest Hope. Endless it odd, neat. What could I add to Harvest to do the same. Harvest Lord, King, Overseer, Meatman, Food provider, Feeder, Harvester, Harvest, Rancher, Collector, The Harvester. Harvest.
I think when you’re raised, you get a new name.
Rebellion.
Soul collector.
The Shepherd.
Harvest Prime
Bald Head
Laughter
Everlast
DIVINES
ID HIM AS THE MAIN HARVESTER
RIGHTEOUS ANGER
The issue was that his motive wasn’t working. I had a feel for what I wanted him to be, and my Spideysense was telling me it wasn’t working, wasn’t interesting. Thomas McCormack in his book calls this feeling for what you want in your story a “prelibation”. What an odd term. But it’s real.
“Prelibation. The desire for a certain effect on the reader. It may or may not be followed instantly by an intuition of what item of narrative will cause that effect, and it’s important to see that intuition and the prelibation it is trying to serve are not the same thing. The intuiting of the narrative that will produce the effect-wanted is the work of the imagination” (p153 The Fiction Editor, The Novel, and the Novelist)
There’s more in his book. I recommend it highly. So, after that freewrite, I didn’t have a solution, but I’d pinpointed the issue, the prelibation. I took a break with kids into the big city. Came back and had my solution for a narrative that would do the trick. Luckily, it was something I’d cut out of the outline. Back it went with some significant tweaks and was better than before.
For those who have read my series on suspense, at this point, the presentation of the problem for the main story and many of my sub-stories is complete. Depending on how you categorize them, I have nine to eleven story lines (which makes it impossible to write this book in 100k words). There’s one main story line that touches everyone—the Mokaddian threat. Then there are other questions and issues I raise that set the reader up with the expectation for a resolution.
So most of these story lines have been presented, although not all. It took about 30,000 words to finish the presentation phase. I’m estimating 170,000 words, so that a presentation phase of roughly 18%.
There are a lot of story lines and characters to juggle. Sometimes I kick myself for having so many. Of course, I love them, despite the challenge they present. Nevertheless, I AM looking forward to writing that thriller with a limited cast.
Here’s the third episode I recorded with the Writing Excuses guys.
In the first podcast we talked about putting and not putting ourselves in our writing and making characters who don’t all sound like the author. In the second, we talked about how to not repeat yourself as an author. In this one, I shared some basics about generating emotion in readers and dealing with negative emotions writers face when they encounter rejection, compare their career with others, hit writer’s block, or hear someone didn’t like their story.
As usual, the guys had some great insights. Check it out: Emotion in Fiction.
Just got back from taking a small troop of 12 and 13 year old young men on a scouting hiking and camping trip in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho with two other leaders.
Here’s the checklist.
Watch a boy think it’s a good idea to stand with his back three feet from the edge of an 80-foot drop and begin pulling on a two-hundred pound hunk of granite while three other boys on the other side push on it with their feet in an attempt to send said large object over the edge.
Check.
(Eventually their frontal cortexes will develop; until then it’s up to leaders to say, “Hey, um, make sure you pull really hard.”)
Sleep under stars in sleeping bag I don’t quite fit in with my serial killer ski mask on backwards because my eyeballs are freezing and wake up at 5 am to 27 degrees.
Check.
See spectacular views, including one stark place (Baron Lakes) that looks like a habitation for dragons or trolls.
Check.
Watch in rear view mirror in the middle of nowhere Idaho as the other scout leader in the pickup with the four boys tries to pass two rabbit farmer pickups at a T intersection (yeah, passing at an intersection is against the law even if the trucks have hazards on and are waving people around), each with a single ton round bale in the bed; see the first rabbit farmer truck start to turn, and then the scout transportation vehicle swerve, miss a traffic sign by 14 inches, go flying off the road at 60 mph, bounce a number of times in the field and come to a halt. Upon flying off the road, spiritual and hippy scout leader shouts, “Oh, s**t!” When the truck comes to rest, the one scout whose father lent us the truck exclaims, “THAT WAS AWESOME!”
Check.
(Yes, they had their seat belts on.)
So, all in all, a great trip.
5.5 miles and 2,000+ feet in elevation on the way in and again on the way out, wearing a $6 pair of camo jeans purchased at the Deseret Industries (the local thrift shop) and a $17 pair of WalMart special shoes with soles that were mostly made out of foam, which meant that while they were comfy much of the time, I did get to make friends with a number of pointy granite rocks, proving that “be prepared” for some of us is more of a guideline than an actual rule.
