I have gotten Persy’s Song back from Jill. There is some work to do. Note, generally speaking, I’m not looking for improvements on the writing (or even the story). I love her, but it is my characters’ story. Not mine. Not hers. Having said that, she as a reader noted some open questions. And it appears I may have not tied things up as clearly as I could have. So I will cycle back and read the last several scenes, and see what I think.

None of this is incredibly unexpected. There were a lot of stops and starts on this novel, and it also has a more complex plot line than both Everything is Broken and North Country Girl (certainly NCG). Anyway, I will be taking a look in the evenings.

On the other hand, mornings are for the new novel. I am leaning heavily into changing the working title…did I call it or what? I’m thinking of changing The Smallwood Harp to The Spotlight So Clear. But that is only mildly important or interesting. The writing has slowed down. I’m missing more days than I’d like, but I am OK with it. Not beating myself up. This is an important step for me. Currently, my day job responsibilities are eating away at my creative energy. Yes, my intention is always to handle the creativity at 5 am until I go to work, before the day can get in the way. But, when the work days are long and intense, it makes the getting up early difficult and the brain power just isn’t there. The word count is climbing. The story is developing, when I am able to give the manuscript the proper effort. It’s all good.

On a side note, it is blackberry season in the Carolinas. I am in danger of taking on a purplish-black tint. So good.

Talk to you soon.

–TD

Maybe someone will find this interesting. I always start a story with a working title. There is always something that triggers a title idea and it usually informs something early in the story.

Then?

It gets changed at least once during the writing. Don’t ask me why but I can always count on it. The closest I’ve come to keeping a working title was North Country Girl, which was born as Girl of the North Country. Not sure why I decided to shuffle that around. It may have been easier to fit on a cover. (Not kidding).

Everything is Broken started out as Heaven Ain’t Bad. It changed after I wrote a beach scene mid book, where a small boy complains to his mother how he cannot find a seashell that isn’t broken. Somehow, I noticed a theme that ran through the book, and I changed the title. There also is a scene with Sample in the hospital that is a nod to the original Heaven Ain’t Bad title. I had been listening to a lot of Townes Van Zandt at the time. My favorite song by him is “You Are Not Need Now” and the line “Heaven ain’t bad but you don’t get nothing done” has always resonated with me. Sample must have liked that line, too.

Persy’s Song began life as God’s Golden Shores. I was always a little concerned that the title would come off as a religious fiction title. I still love the title but I write crime fiction filled with drug dealers, hookers, strippers, mobsters. You get the point. When a character showed up in the story with lines from Bob Dylan’s “Percy’s Song” tattooed on her forearm. I realized her name was Persephone Song, and a title was born.

As I mentioned in my last post, the day after finishing Persy, I started a new story. It is another Fuzzy Koella case. It’s working title is The Smallwood Harp. Only ten thousand words in and I’m already entertaining at least two replacement titles. So, stay tuned.

–TD

Finally.

Finally.

I am done. I finished Persy’s Song this morning. For a long time, I was ashamed of how long this was taking. I was disappointed with myself for not “finishing what I started.” I don’t think I realized some of the baggage I carried around due to life events that have bombarded me during my short writing career. One in particular, that occurred just as I released my first novel, and was in the process of writing the climax of my second. I haven’t want to think or talk much about it because it just sounded like excuse making. And I was ashamed.

Today, I am proud.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in this process, and I suppose that is really the great thing about any creative endeavor. Maybe, if your lucky, the creation is happening to yourself and not just your piece.

Tomorrow, I’ll start a new story. Sometime in the next week I’ll turn on spellcheck and get the typos corrected. So I can get this to Jill for the first read of Persy’s Song.

The sculpture displayed here is The Rape of Persephone by Bernini. One of the inspirations for the story. If you’re interested in the other, you can do a You Tube search for Bob Dylan’s “Percy’s Song.” (with a ‘C’ not an ‘S’).

Talk to you soon.

Tony

Photo: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This will not be a long post, but I am a writer. I deal with grief by writing about it. I’m pretty certain this will not be the last time I write about it.

A couple of weeks ago we were informed that the family dog Sunshine (Sunny for short) had terminal cancer, and that we would sometime in the near future be faced with making the humane decision. We concentrated these last couple of weeks on making Sunny’s remainder of life as joyful as possible. We learned that she really liked donuts. It has been difficult, of course, but it has been special, too. Love for the family pet can run deep, and so it was with Sunny.

Sunny had been pretty good these last weeks. She has been on some medication to ease her discomfort. For the most part, she had just acted like a nearly 12 year old large dog. But yesterday I had her out on her evening walk, and she was attacked by three large unleashed dogs. Sunny stepped in front of me…obviously to defend ME. It was a horrific experience to see your sick dog attacked. I was able to get her safely removed without taking any wounds.

Unfortunately, she had a very bad night. Would not eat. Would not drink. Did not really walk. Same this morning. These were all the things the vet had told us to look for in knowing it was time. We took her in. Dylan, Jill, and I. There was more discussion about the right thing to do.

We did the right thing.

And it hurts like hell.

Rest in Peace, Sweet Girl.

–Tony

I’ve been reading a lot about Dean Wesley Smith’s (Insane) Challenge. Mostly interested in how he looks at a challenge, and his thoughts on making it a “challenge” as in pushing himself to go beyond what he has done before. Obviously, it got me thinking about my own journey, and deciding on a challenge for myself.

Many writers have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Everyone has an opinion on it. Haha. I first participated in 2003. I cannot remember which November I first succeeded, but it was sometime way back yonder. I don’t often officially participate now, but I don’t have anything bad to say about it. (I could air some grievances, but that is in my opinion the nature of the beast with such successful endeavors…baggage comes along with the success).

For the purpose of my challenge, I got to thinking about the fact that I have completed that challenge a few times. I’ve had a year, maybe two, where I’ve written the 50 thousand words in a month multiple times. But I’ve never really sustained it. So, here is the deal. My challenge for 2022.

I will write 50,000 words (intended for commercial publication) every month of the year.

Where I stray from the NaNoWrimo rules

1. 1. I won’t limit myself to novels. I will produce the words. However, they fall is fine by me. Short stories, Novels, Novellas, Poems (wouldn’t that be a surprise), even Essays or other non-fiction. What I won’t count is the nonsense I write on here or emails or mailing list stuff. I know many writers count pretty much anything they write in their production goals. And that’s fine for them, this is just my rule. (Note: I have no intention of collecting blog posts into a book or anything like that)
2. 2. The monthly framework has nothing to do with the end result. It just sets and re-sets my monthly word quota. 50k that’s it. If the story I’m writing on Jan 31 leaks into February. Great. No big deal.
3. 3. Everything I write must be put on the market. One way or the other. Or it doesn’t count. This doesn’t mean I can’t publish or submit late 2022 work in 2023. It just means for the work to count I can’t write it with the sole purpose of tossing it in a drawer and forgetting about it.

A couple of things about what all this means. The math, if you will.

In general, my particular writing “process” allows me to write about 750 – 1200 words per hour. That process consists of a lot of cycling back and writing as clean a first draft as possible. Most months, I’ll have to write between 1600-1700 words per day. February’s stupid 28 days being the exception. So, I need to find two hours per day. Every day. All year.

The challenge for me will really come down to sticking to it when the work schedule gets hairy. I write first thing in the a.m. before the rest of the house wakes up and before the workday can dig into my writing time… but, what scares me are those days when I need some early hours at work.

That fear (a silly word really, it’s not like I’m swimming in a pool of sharks) had me think about a fall back position. Dean has this in his challenge. I decided against it.

So, this is it. NaNoWriMo all year round. If I succeed, I have 600,000+ more words of commercial fiction (or some non-fiction) in my stable.

Wish me luck!

Tony

Fellow Earthlings,

My first novel Everything is Broken is available free as a Kindle book on Amazon today and for four more days. (Apologies, I’m too lazy to figure out what date the free gift giveaway ends). Some things of note:

1. This is truly a gift, and it is for a limited time. This book will not be listed permanently free.
2. I would love to be able to give free paperbacks of my books away for readers who do not “do” eBooks. Sadly, I cannot go into debt to do this. BUT, if you are one of those readers, Contact Me, and I’ll be happy to provide the book at my cost (i.e. Author Copy rate).
3. If you are a Kindle Unlimited reader you will see this book is available in KU. If you are really interested in reading my book but think you can get around to downloading it later because it’s in KU anyway. Forewarning, I am ending my KU experiment, and my book will no longer be available on KU on or after January 3rd. I’m costing myself money here, but my recommendation is to go ahead and download the Free copy.

I guess that’s about it. Have a joyous Holiday season and see you in the New Year. I will come bearing new stories. More on that in the coming weeks.

Happy Holidays,

Tony