J.R. Murdock

Yesterday was a work day in the office. I got a lot accomplished at the office and I’ll have the first of many demos of an application I’m working on. I was fine while in the office even though the two coworkers that showed up (most of us telecommute most of the time) were both mucus filled and there was much coughing and sneezing. I’m normally very resilient to colds so I wasn’t in fear for my life.

I had an eye doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. His office is now next to where the wife works. I think that’s great. It’s a much shorter drive to an easier to get to location. At least for me it is. Anyway, according to the eye doc, my vision hasn’t changed in about 4 years. That’s how long I’ve been going to him. As far as I know it’s been 10 years or better since my vision has changed. He said that’s not normal. Usually in that time he’ll see some variation, but my eyes are healthy inside and out. I got to see the inside images of my eyes. That was pretty cool. My eyes were dilated, but my prescription and I was on my way.

I stopped next door to surprise the wife. She was surprised. I had a growing headache and I had assumed it was due to my eyes being dilated. Things came in and out of focus, there was some light blur, and my eyes just felt weird as they tend to do after dilation. We got dinner as my growing headache suggested to just get food and take it home.

The drive home was interesting and I started to wish the wife could have driven both of us. The headlights were all kinds of blurry. I’ve driven while sick and my eyes dilated and in all sorts of conditions. I know how to look away from the the lights, but this just hurt as I drove. My eyes, obviously were taking in too much light. By the time I got home I had a raging headache and I assumed it was from the light into my eyes.

WRONG!

This morning is rained real good. <sigh> Had I been thinking clearly I would have known it was going to rain and taken my ‘good’ sinus medication. I could have avoided a debilitating headache and actually gotten some words written. As it stands, I wrote no nanowrimo words yesterday. Do I feel bad? No. I was a day ahead already. I probably could have gotten something written, but I feel much better having hit the hay early and woke up with a clear head and the sound of rain on the rooftop.

Today is a new day. I may have missed a day, but I’ll more than make up for it today! BRING IT ON! Woo!

I’m off to get the day job out of the way, then look out!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I wasn’t going to write last night. I had intended to watch the election coverage while writing as much as I could. As it is, the news loves to make it seem like the race is closer than it really is and that kept me on the edge of my seat. Needless to say there were no real surprises for me. I won’t discuss politics here as everyone’s opinion is their own and if I start doing that on this blog I’ll never get any writing done.

So…you may read that first paragraph and think.. wait, you weren’t, but you were. Well the coverage sucked me in and I had decided that I was a day ahead of my NaNoWriMo goal so I could let a day slide. Well it was very dark outside so I had thought it was later. But it was only 8 or 8:30. Pfft. Okay, I’m not a slacker. I spent 45 minutes writing and knocked out 1100 words and I feel good about those words. B.T. Justice pretty much writes himself. One of the characters had a change and will grow a backbone in V&A II and that should be a startling revelation for B.T.

Not much news. I hope you informed yourself before you went out and cast your vote. I hope things went your way in the election. If not, educate yourself for next time, read up on the candidates and props, encourage others to do the same, and we’ll do this voting thing again. I for one am glad we won’t be bombarded with campaign signs and ads any more.

I’ve got many things to do that don’t include voting, so…

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

I’m on track with my writing and V&A Shipping II is shaping up quickly. This, of course, is how NaNoWriMo works. Fast action, fast-paced plot helps to get the words out quicker. That wasn’t my initial intent, but it’s hopping along nicely. I’m happy with the way the words are coming out and the way the characters are working together. I even like the new characters I introduced. I had thought about including another new crew member, but we’ll have to wait and see. Right now it’s in the fun stage. Then I need things to start to go horribly wrong. Right now they’re just getting annoying to the crew.

My Favorite Daughter had another private lesson yesterday. She did AWESOME! So proud of her. She may end up with a couple more this week leading into tryouts for club. She’ll have a few weeks off before practice begins for travel club then it’s volleyball volleyball volleyball all over again. The private lessons has given her some great conditioning exercises that I’ll be forcing helping her to perform on a daily basis (or at least every other day). These will build her core strength and help he pound that ball. 🙂

There’s a lot to do on the day job today and I’ll have my 1667 words to write later today. Busy busy busy. I’d better get at it!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Yesterday was a good writing day. I got some things done around the house, exercised, took my favorite daughter to another private volleyball lesson, made shrimp fried rice for the first time and wrote a bunch. How much is a bunch? Roughly 3500 words. The wife had to work so I had a few free hours. I wasn’t as productive as I would have liked, but I did get some writing done.

*Note: After my favorite daughter’s volleyball lesson we went to That’s Amore pizza here in Rancho San Diego. As far as I’m convinced, best pizza in this area! Great stuff. All fresh, made that day, family owned. I’ll be going back for sure. Very reasonably priced as well.

So that means I’m back on target for NaNoWriMo and hopefully today I’ll get a little bit further ahead. Just like with book I my main POV characters are Vic, June, Joey, and B.T. Justice. If you listened to the first book, you know that everything happened in a short period of time. This book will be similar, but about a year has gone past so there are some things that are referenced as past events. These, obviously, took place during that year. I may go back and write short stories or novellas to fill in those gaps. I’m trying to not do that too much, but there are some fun stories that could be written.

Right now I’m missing World Fantasy Con 2012 up in Canada. I’m reading a number of blog posts from folks up there and I can tell I’m missing a good time. I know it was a blast while it was down here, so I’m sure it’s a lot of fun. My partner in crime, Mike Plested, is there and good things are happening. Nothing I can talk about, but good things are happening. Once I’m able to talk about anything, I will make sure to let you know.

I’ve got at least 1667 words to write, so I’d better get on it.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for words. Sure I got a couple hundred written, but I had intended to write much more than I did. Too much happened that distracted me from what I was trying to do, but hey, that’s life. I will use this weekend as best I can to get ahead on my word count. At least that’s the plan as of this morning.

My favorite daughter had a private volleyball lesson yesterday. It was an hour that did her a lot of good. She has another today, another Sunday, and hopefully there will be more in the near future before she starts club volleyball in December. We’ll just have to wait and see. At first she did want to go, but she’s happy she went because the person we got her lessons with played volleyball at UCLA and was supposed to go to the Olympics (injury prevented him from going). He’s a really nice guy, tall! and knows all the little things that she hasn’t been able to learn through repetition, repetition, repetition. He’ll let he swing at a few, have her make adjustments, then swing at a few more. This should help her adjust to what’s been missing in her swing all along.

We also went to visit my mother-in-law and father-in-law. My father-in-law and I talked a little politics, but we’re both not enamored with either candidate. That goes for pretty much every level we have to vote for here in California. It’s a very depressing political season where the candidates do so much slandering of each other that I don’t want to vote for any of them. I mean, can we get a politician worthy of votes? Seriously? This is the best our state and country have to offer? Seems like we need to have a fire sale and clean house and put people into office that want to work for the people, not themselves and special interest. </political rant>

We also watched a bit of the Sandy Help charity event. I knew the damage on the East Coast was bad, but holy crap! I didn’t think it was that bad. Seeing the extent of the damage is heart breaking. It was annoying with the “How does it feel to lose everything?” junk the reporters were doing, but the entertainment was incredible.

This weekend is going to fly by if I don’t get some words written this morning. So…

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Dia de los Muertes is an interesting Mexican Tradition. Kids decorate candy skulls with frosting and eat them. Or just leave them out to look at. My Favorite Daughter is taking a Spanish class at school and got to take home a sugar skull mold. I let her find the recipe and prepare the sugar. Yeah, not the best idea.

What she wound up with was pretty much a sticky mess even after a couple of days of letting it sit in the mold. SO off we went to the store to get a sugar skull she could decorate. I did a google search on sugar skull san diego. Google is awesome like that. I called a place. They had sugar skulls available in different sizes. We loaded up into the Tahoe and off we went.

We wound up at Back from Tomboctou (not Timbukto, but close enough). I didn’t think anything of the name and off we went. I love living in the future because my phone told me exactly how to get there and like magic, we got there and parked right in front. I had thought it was a candy store (who else would sell sugar skulls?) but this was a store dedicated to folk art. If we hadn’t been in a hurry I would have loved to stay and look around. There was so much cool stuff in there. We only had time to get the sugar skull, look around for about 2 minutes, paid and were back out the door. I really do need to go back. That place was amazing! If you need anything for the Day of the Dead and you’re in the San Diego Area, check them out.

NaNoWriMo. Yeah, that’s going on, isn’t it? I knocked out just over 1700 words (or just shy of 1800). V&A Shipping was a little more difficult to get into as I’m having to think that this is a sequel and I need to make some minor references back to the first book in the first chapter so the reader won’t be lost. I’ve accomplished that. I’d introduced the new ship’s computer (she doesn’t like Victor very much and Vic hates being called Victor).  They’ve already lost the planet they were towing (in the first sentence of the story) so action right off the bat.

I’m excited to keep this one going. It’s already a fun story and the character banter is so easy to write. If you want to buddy up for this year’s NaNoWriMo I’m at jrmurdock (yeah, I’m tricky when I name things) .If I see you, I’ll add you back. The race to 50,000 words is on. If I’m lucky, I’ll break that this year.

V&A Shipping was right around 90,000 words so I’ve set that as the goal for V&A Shipping II. I’m also courting cover artists and editors for book 1. Could both of these see print next year? It’s highly likely. I also want to write Astel II and Of Gnomes and Dwarves II in short order so I’ll have a full plate if I can keep the pace up. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Next year might be a big publishing year. At some point I need to make up a 10 year plan and plan out these publications.

I need more books under my belt first so I’d better get the day job out of the way first so I can get on that!

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

P.S. For those that read this, I’m writing these early in the morning and scheduling them for noon. Not sure why, just seems like a good time to schedule a post. If this works for you, let me know. I know RSS readers don’t really care what time something comes in, just that it comes in.

*Note: Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, let me say that my faith in humanity has been restored as my sunglasses were discovered and returned to me! Today is a good day!

Today begins NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. V&A Shipping is halfway plotted and I will begin the writing sometime after the day job is over. I will knock out words fast and furious. I’ve reread good portions of V&A Shipping and I even have parts set up for B.T. Justice and Junior (Bring me a Hamburger!) I’m excited. I mean having difficulty concentrating excited.

This is a sequel. The first was a complete story. This will also be a complete story. It won’t start where the last one left off and that will help fill in the back story as to how they got to where they are. This will give me more words to play with as I fill in the blanks, clue the reader in to new crew members, now job roles, changes in the dynamic of the crew.

There’s also another thing this will help with and that’s tie-in short stories to fill in those blanks for the reader. But that’s a discussion for another time.

I will attempt to write 50,000 words this month. What will this do to my annual goal? It will put me around 449,000 words if I only write those 50,000 words. I think I’ll pass that before the end of this month. This means December will be all gravy. I’ll have hit and surpassed that 450,000 word goal. It means I’ve already set up my spreadsheet for next year to hit 500,000 words. I’m excited. I’m anxious. I’m happy.

My intention is to keep upping that goal until it gets too high. That’s when I’ll know where my ‘sweet spot’ is. How many words can I produce in a year. Could I have 12 NaNoWriMos in me? If I can (doing this part time) then I should be able to get some stories out there and into the wild. Get books out there. Get them as ebooks and print editions. Start making a small income from my writing. This is a dream I’ve had for far too long and it’s time I took the reigns and put myself out there far more than I ever have.

Yes, it’s scary. I know there will be difficulties. There will be problems. I will have to put money into edits, cover art, layout. I might have to put my secret projects to the side so I can write more. Why work on those when I have such a huge back catalog of work just sitting and waiting to see the light of day?

I did a mental inventory the other day. Including Astel (which I intend to re-edit and update) I have 4 books just waiting to get out there. V&A Shipping, Of Gnomes and Dwarves, Paradise Palms, Billy Barbarian. That’s 5 books that all can lead to a series.

On the burner I now have V&A Shipping II, I’m going to finally write the sequel for Astel, To Fall From the Sky is over 1/2 way done, Almost-Super Heroes is 1/3 of the way done, Life of Lists is 20,000 words in. I need to finish all of there and then start writing the second books in each of these (well, maybe not Life of Lists). But the point is I’ve already set myself up with a large number of works.

Have I been looking for a publisher or agent? Yes

I sent some of my work off to a publisher. It’s been almost a year and I haven’t heard back. This is publishing. These things happen. I understand. It’s not a fast process. Publishing will always be a slow moving vessel.

That doesn’t mean I need to stand still and wait. V&A Shipping already has an audience and an audience that’s asked for a sequel. I would love to have that one traditional published, and I’ll still give it a chance. I’m patient, but I need to be realistic. I’m about to write the sequel. I need to get book 1 out there for readers so once book 2 is ready, I can also release it. And a tie-in short story…or two. Maybe a tie-in Novella. Who knows.

There’s so much I can do with V&A Shipping that I waiting is hurting me.

I can do the same with Of Gnomes and Dwarves. Both of these universes are fun to write in. I can write the books quickly. I think they are strong stories that readers will enjoy. That’s my goal: write stories that people enjoy.

I’ve said this many times over the years. I don’t write deep philosophical works. I write to entertain. If you get something more from one of my books, awesome! If you read a story and had fun, BAM! That’s what I wanted. If you read something and just didn’t enjoy it or get it, then my writing isn’t for you (more than likely). That’s ok. I know what I write isn’t for everyone. I just need to find my audience.

I’m rambling. I’m excited and I ramble when I’m excited. Just like the new crew member of the S.S. Acid Rat will be. B.O.B. will be a BLAST to write. I can just tell from my plotting. As will the new ship’s computer, Muffin. Oh, the crew is in for a bumpy ride.

I will let you know where I’m at…

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Let me start by thanking renaissanceninja for his comment yesterday. I’m still giving serious consideration for going the self-published route with Of Gnomes and Dwarves and V&A Shipping just because of the fact I’d love to be able to write anything I want in these adventures be they novels, novellas, tie in short stories. I’ve got so many ideas for those worlds that having a contract under a major publisher might limit my ability to do what I want with my characters.

Other books, like Paradise Palms, To Fall From the Sky, and Life of Lists, as far as I’m concerned are one off books and I don’t have any intention of revisiting those worlds. So I may still seek an agent and/or publisher for those novels. I just need to get my butt working harder on completing, editing, and getting those works available. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me, I just need to get it moving in the right direction.

That being said, I wrote a little yesterday morning. Not nearly as much as I had the previous few days as I finished up Of Gnomes and Dwarves. I did a little writing in Golden West as I want to write the December Episode so I don’t have to worry about that during November. I should be able to finish that off today so I’ll have a fresh start tomorrow on V&A Shipping II.

Speaking of V&A Shipping II. I spent a good amount of time going through book 1. I pulled out all the people, places, ships, races, etc. This will give me a good base to start with for book II as I need to know all that went on before. I noticed something kind of funny. Joey has a last name. Vic and June do not. This oversight will need to be corrected when I prepare V&A Shipping for print. Can’t have characters running around with just a first name.

It was fun to revisit the book. I didn’t re-read the entire thing, I scanned and read chunks. I looked for names and watched as things scrolled by. I’m pretty sure I caught them all. I can’t wait to jump in.

Tonight, while all the Halloween festivities are going on, I plan on doing some plotting. I at least want to get a one page plot and chapter by chapter blows for the first dozen chapters. I’m not looking to try and plot the entire book. I’ll do that a little at a time as the month goes on so that I stay 5-10 chapters ahead in the plotting so I’ll be ready in case a plot hole appears that I need to write past.

Yesterday I didn’t spend getting any work done for the day job. I spent the first part of my day in a CPR/First Aid class. If you cut yourself, I can help. I’ve taken classes before and it’s interesting to see how it’s changed over the years. I still remember my first CPR course when I was in 7th or 8th grade.

After that I went to do have a physical. Both of these courses are for my work. In the event of a strike, these are requirements. The physical was for the Department of Transportation. My appointment was for 3PM. I got there at 2:30 and signed in. I was finally called at 3 to fill out some paperwork. I was called around 4 to start my physical. After 5 minutes of going from the vision station, to the hearing station, to pee in a cup, to another station, I was put in a room. Around 4:45 a doctor finally saw me and spent about 3 minutes doing the fastest physical I’ve ever had and I was back in the waiting room.

By 5:30 I was finally ready to leave and realized I didn’t have my sunglasses. My good sunglasses. They walked me through the back area and to all the stations I’d gone to. No sunglasses. I left a note at the front in case anyone sees them they can call me. I’m disappointed in myself for misplacing them. I should have left them in Sputtery Truck and not taken them inside. I’m upset that I lost them, but I’m not that upset. I’d had them for nearly 3 years and they had a couple scratches in bothersome places on the lenses. I also have 3 $10 pairs of sunglasses so it’s not an emergency to get a new pair. I’m just upset with myself because I tried to be so careful not to lose them. I may have misplaced them from time to time, but they always turned up. This time I know the location I left them, they just weren’t there. I’m sure they grew legs and walked off.

Ah well. Cest la vi.

There is much to do today, so I’d better get at it.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!

Two things happened last night. First of my favorite daughter had her last volleyball game of the season. They lost, but they fought hard. Today, no more practice. Tryouts for club aren’t until the middle of November. We’ll be doing things to make sure she stays in shape until club starts up, but for now, she’s got herself a little break.

Secondly I wrote 4000 words last night and finished off Of Gnomes and Dwarves Book 1. I didn’t just finish it off, but I feel really good about how the ending came out. I think it’s a lot stronger than the original version (which was good, but bumpy). As I’d been saying I wrote this book the first time with a lot of passion, and not a lot of talent. This time around I think my writing skills have improved to the point where I wrote the story the way I’d intended to. Only one character didn’t come out the way I wanted and I’ll be fixing that in the rwrites. Overall I’m happy with the effort, but it’s time to let it sit for a month before I jump in and start to edit.

I’ll be editing the next edition of the Action Pack Podcast tonight. Mike and I will have that up and available hopefully tomorrow. Now that I think about this, I think I know what I’ll be doing today and tomorrow. I’ll be writing the December edition of Golden West. This story is also coming up on its climax and the writing on that will go quickly as well.

I also need to do a little plotting on V&A Shipping II. I’m finding I write better and faster when I have at least a little understanding of where my story is going. I’m excited to start this project fro NaNoWriMo. It’s been too long since I’ve been in this universe. Once I have it completed, my favorite daughter wants me to write Astel II (Astel: Chooses). At least that’s the working title. Then I want to write Of Gnomes and Dwarves Book II.

So many words, so little time. In the past 4 days I’ve written 14,500 words. I feel great about that. I’m hoping I can keep this pace up for at least the Month of November. That means I’ll be able to crank out V&A Shipping II during November, and jump right into Astel II. Maybe I’ll even circle back around and finish off To Fall From the Sky and get to work on Life of Lists. I have a lot of works in the air that are partially started and need to be written, rewritten, and finished.

At this point I’m not 100% sure what I’ll be doing with them. My hope is I’ll be able to get them written, edited, get some cover art, and I may self-publish some of them, I’d like to podcast some of them, I’d like to make them available in print. I’m getting to the point on this year and coming into next year where I’ll be able to put out work faster than ever before. This means I truly can treat this like a part time job and start getting works out there and available for people to read. In some ways I want to seek out a publisher, in other ways I want to do this on my own. It’s a confusing time for me as a writer right now. I just need to get past this mental block, get more work completed, and then make a choice.

What are you thoughts? Should I seek traditional publishing for some, self-pub others, podcast some? If I keep writing I’ll have work coming out faster than a traditional publishing could handle and even though I’m patient, I don’t want the first books held up while I pump out second books in a series. While I work through NaNoWriMo I’ll have to give this a lot more thought.

First I need to go to a CPR training class, so I’d better get ready and go.

Until Tomorrow!

WOO WOO!