Time Off and New Perspective

While I did a little bit of work on "Where Power Lies" over the long weekend, adding a few touches here and there, I really got back to work on it this morning. I set out to make sure that important revelations of theories and motives came about in the proper sequence, not saying too much too soon. In the process, I took notice of an important point about tags in dialog.

Here is a brief passage from the start of Chapter 8:

Reese turned onto a sleepy residential street in an older neighborhood. Nothing moved along the shaded walks, and all the businesses were closed and dark.. He pulled into an alley behind a long row of apartment buildings.

"Who's Jeanie?" I asked.

"Nobody," he replied. "It's a code for an emergency."

Nothing all that wrong, really, but the last sentence has the tag "he replied" which caught my eye. It's not necessary. The first paragraph establishes who Dee is with, and the tag on her question sets the order of who is saying what. The "he replied" adds nothing--no emotion, no action, nothing. Leaving it out will not cause any confusion. The last sentence became:

"Nobody. It's a code for an emergency."

A small thing, but unneeded words should always be avoided. Over the course of a conversational passage, the overuse of tags breaks things up and becomes annoying, a sing-song rhythm.

So once again, I set out with one goal in mind and get distracted by small things. Oh, well. It'll all get done eventually.

Potpourri

Received my copy of "Seer, Tyro, Fiend" in the mail yesterday, and it was just as great a thrill as the others. Hopefully soon all of my published novels will be in both ebook and paperback, and I can hardly wait to order up for my coming library events.

I did resolve some issues I was having over "Where Power Lies." After a bit of research, my doubts about the cataclysm which sets the scene for the future world proved unwarranted. I don't include a lot of facts and science in the narrative, but I had to make sure that what I wrote would be believable. This morning, I checked part of the ending because I feared I had repeated something I used in "The Changeling Kill," but that concern was unfounded, happily. I also had another cover art idea, but I'm not sure if I can execute this one either. I hunted up some images on Google, so maybe I'll give it a shot. Kind of hate to break my cover-designing streak.

Finished the book I am slated to review for Windy City Reviews. I found I couldn't stop reading it yesterday and wound up pushing right on through to the end. This morning, I drafted my review, too, with great enthusiasm. I'll go back to it in a day or two with fresh eyes.

I'm thinking to maybe start on the new Windsong Lake book, working title "The Treasure of Mongan Manor."

New Book Planning

I finished another pass through "Where Power Lies," and I've decided to give it a rest for a few days before taking another one. One thing I will be thinking about, though, is the setup for my future world. A great cataclysm has changed the face of the country, but I fear the one I put in place is not sufficient to have brought about the destruction I envision. At first, I wanted it to be very believable, like something that could really happen, but now I'm thinking that I'll need to trump it up to something more fantastic, yet still believable.

In the meantime, I started doing some research for the next Windsong Lake book, with a current working title of "Treasure of Mongan Manor". The research started with Irish castles, then Irish names, and finally to Irish legends for the name of the central locale, Mongan Manor. Of course, that's not a real place, but I wanted a name that had meaning to Irish folklore. Between the Internet, and a wonderful resource book I bought years ago, "Myths & Legends" by Arthur Cotterell (1989, Marshall Editions Ltd.), I came upon Mongan, son of the sea god, exceedingly generous and able to change his shape. Considering my planned plot, it seemed like a good match. Considering Stefanie Durant's maiden name is Reardon, a variant of the Irish name Riordan, I figured the Irish angle would work well.

On another front, I'm reading a book for Windy City Reviews, so I've got a time frame of 4-6 weeks to consider. Actually, I'm about 20% through it already, so I think I can manage it and squeeze in some writing time, too.

More Paper Editions

Looks like "Dabblers," "Stranger Faces," and "Game Faces" will at last be available in paperback editions very soon. I can hardly wait to start stocking up for my two upcoming library events.

Working on "Where Power Lies" this morning, I realized two long sections of dialog will need to be revised. They both introduce a line of thought as though it were brand new, but that can only happen once. I know I'll still have to go back over the whole book and look for that sort of thing in other places. The only method I know of is to jot down notes in a separate file while I read of the important things that occur. Then I can more easily determine if I've got any duplication.

I've also started reading my first book for Windy City Reviews, and the book in question has passed the first hurdle--it drew me in. More on that when the review comes out. I also abandoned another book I was trying to read. It did not draw me in. Several pages into the book, I still had no idea who the main character was. I couldn't connect. I tried my old trick of turning to the back to see how it ends, but the last pages contained a whole different set of characters not introduced in the early part of the story. Ah, well . . .

Progress and Updates

Good news! More paperback editions of my books are underway. I hope I'll be ordering bunches of them to take to Glen Ellyn Bookfest in September, and to Author Fest in Joliet in October. I've made some inroads to updating my handouts and brochures for those events, and I've developed my 60-second elevator pitch for Bookfest to promote sales of "Dabblers," which I think will be ready in paper edition so I can hold it, and "Seer, Tyro, Fiend" in my hands when I pitch. 

Polishing work continues on "Where Power Lies," and I'm liking the results. My current pass is to check for voice discrepancies, where narrative and dialog for Dee don't match up. I also started fiddling with cover art and a blurb. More passes are on the horizon before I even get to the spell checking, grammar checking, format checking, and word repetition stuff. 

Having signed up as a volunteer book reviewer for Windy City Reviews, I am eagerly waiting to receive my first book from an author who chose me as a preferred reviewer. I've written reviews of books on Goodreads before, and I always have an issue with what attitude to take. I really want to like the book I'm reviewing and not be too hard-line about format and editing stuff. It seems nit-picky. If it's a good story, reasonably well written, I want the writer to have a chance and not have people dismiss those good qualities just because of technical faults. 

Trying to Stay Focused

Taking another pass on "Where Power Lies," but my efforts are less tactical than I had planned. I wanted to go through the entire manuscript to make sure information about the state of things in my imagined future are clear, timely, and not repeated too much. Instead, I keep finding little things to change, tweaks to wording and such, and thinking of details to add in places.

I'm still troubled by a long passage in Chapter 2 in which Dee considers how things have changed in the world in the last twenty years or so, which of course provides the opportunity to describe what she's comparing them to, thus laying out how those changes came to be. I'm thinking that passage is too long and perhaps should be scattered around a bit so it doesn't read like a documentary narrative. Too much like an aside to the audience, taking the reader out of the story. Gotta work on that.

I had some new ideas for cover art and played around with some images here and there. This in addition to updating my various websites with the news about "Seer, Tyro, Fiend." And I made some notes about the next Windsong Lake book and did some research. That project is really starting to pull together with some scenes already "written" in my head.

"Seer, Tyro, Fiend" On Amazon!

Big surprise! "Seer" showed up on Amazon.com in paperback. "Seer, Tyro, Fiend" on Amazon.com