State of Projects

I was inspired by my good friend Adam's post yesterday, to take stock of my writing, so that I can feel good about what I have accomplished, and stop worrying about what I haven't (yet). Go read his post, first, because Adam is awesome, and you should never miss out on his blog.

Now, here are where things stand for me:

WARRIOR-MONKS: A YA Rural Fantasy, the query for which you've probably read. The first manuscript I ever finished, the one that taught me how to actually write (novels) and took up nearly four years of my life with joy, pain, elation, and enlightenment. This book is essentially shelved. It does still have a full out with one agent, and there are a few queries un-replied to, but I'm ready to move on.

RUNNING FROM RUBY RIDGE: A YA Contemporary Thriller. The draft is 95% done, and then it will be on to revision. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that writing your second manuscript is so much easier than your first. Sure, it will be like 8-9 months by the time I'm done with this one, but that sure beats years. After a round or two of revisions, it will be off to critique partners.

SECRET PROJECT: A MG project of undisclosed genre. I can't talk about this one yet, but I've been brainstorming it for a while now, and I have over 10,000 words of outlines, character sheets, plot notes, and other sundry details. Hopefully when this is done and sold, it will finally justify my membership at the group blog: Project Middle Grade Mayhem.

SUPERBAD KICKASS (not the actual working title): A YA Non-Super-Hero Comedy. This is just an idea, really. I have some character sketches, but they're still quite thin and loose. I don't even know what's supposed to happen in the story yet. This is something I plan on collaborating on with one of my favorite people in the world. She knows who she is.

In addition to all these novel-length manuscripts (or dreams of manuscripts), I have a bunch of short fiction that is published in various venues. Most of you have probably already read it (and one story needs to be re-published, because it got taken down), but I'll give you a brief summary here, in case any of today's visitors are new readers:

The Deafening Silence: a bit of adult Memoir, published in the anthology: Literary Foray, from Static Movement Press. You can read it for free, at The World in Miniature.

Babysat by the Man in the Moon: a bit of MG Memoir/Fiction crossover, unpublished. You can read it for free, at The World in Miniature.

Dragon on my Back: a bit of adult Horror, published in the anthology: Literary Foray, from Static Movement Press. This one is temporarily unavailable online.

Lake Argo: a bit of adult Fantasy published in Vine Leaves Literary Journal Issue One. You can read it online for free, at that link.

Cubic: a bit of adult Humor/Horror, published at Underneath the Juniper Tree.

Other than all that stuff, if you simply can't get enough of me (yeah right) there are several links to interviews, guest posts, and other non-fiction stuff on my Creative Writing Page.

Now, this post has certainly gone on long enough, don't you think? In the spirit of disclosure, why don't you share about a project of yours in the comments? If you're not ready, you can certainly ask me about any of mine.

Finally, big day today. If you haven't: VOTE!

Be Inspired - Tagged by Autumn

Man, I love the fall. Football. Baseball. The weather cools off. I came outside this morning, just after 5 AM, and there was frost on the windshield of my car. The air felt crisp. My dog hurried with her business. Autumn is my kind of season. Jeans and hoodies. Craft beer. Great sports.

Anyway, I got tagged in one of those things. You know, those posts that people tag you in? I was tagged by Michael Offut, and I then proceeded to forget about it, as I often do, even though I kind of wanted to do this one. I've wanted to talk about this book for a long time. So, then I got tagged again, by Adam Heine (who was tagged by Authoress) and I realized I better just do it, before I forget (reading back over the posts, these might be two separate post-chain tags, but whatever, I'm combining them here).

The idea is to answer some questions about your WIP. I'm not going to talk about my current WIP, because I'm still drafting, but I will talk about my last WIP, which is technically still in progress, because I haven't sold it.

So that's an image of The Eight Principles of Yong up there, separated into individual strokes. The character means 'permanence' in Chinese Hanzi and Japanese Kanji. East Asian Calligraphy features prominently in my manuscript WARRIOR-MONKS.

Now, to the questions:

What is the working title of your book?

WARRIOR-MONKS.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Well, I actually went to reform school as a teenager, and one day the thought occurred to me: what if I wrote about that experience, except I made the school (mostly) cool, instead of some place you would want to run away from? Except, the kids do still want to run away, at least at first, because they're punks.

In what genre would you classify your book?

I call it YA Rural Fantasy, which is obviously a play on Urban Fantasy, but works, because it applies. It could also fall under Contemporary Fantasy or Magical Realism, but I don't worry too much about putting things in neat little boxes.

Who would you pick to play your characters in a movie adaptation?

This is going to sound like blasphemy to some of you out there, but I really don't think about this much. Do I think about my books being made into movies? Hell yes. But I don't think much about the actors, which is pretty odd, because my mother was an actress and my father was a stage manager. There is one character in my book I would love to see played by Ken Watanabe, or maybe Hiroyuki Sanada.

Give us a one sentence synopsis of your book?

A reluctant juvenile delinquent must achieve knowledge of self and let go of resentment amidst magic and martial arts at the world's strangest reform school.

Is your book already published?

Nope. Still working on getting an agent. Considering shelving this one for a while if the last full I have out comes back with a big R.

How long did it take you to write this book?

Write? I must assume you mean draft, because while I haven't made any changes in months, I won't consider it done until an editor has paid me for it. It took me just under a year to draft.

What other books in your genre would you compare it to?

None. I'm not trying to be a pretentious ass-hat, but I've never read anything like this. I suppose it's a little like Harry Potter, because there is a special school, but the similarity ends there. I suppose it's a little bit like Stormdancer, by Jay Kristoff, because it's a YA Fantasy steeped heavily in Japanese mysticism. But really, I haven't read a book like this.

Which authors inspired you to write this book?

I've wanted to write a novel ever since I was a little kid, so I guess J.R.R. Tolkien. It always comes back to Tolkien for me.

What else inspired you to write this book?

Well, other than my own past experiences, mentioned above, it was my love of Eastern thought, and things like tea, Zen, Japanese swords, Yoga, meditation, martial arts, and kicking ass.

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Well the setting is mostly absolutely authentic, because I actually lived in that part of the world as a teen. Also a lot of the story is based heavily in the truth of my own life. Other than that, there is a lot of awesome magic, weapons, martial arts like Kenjutsu and Aikido, and there is even some kissing, for the ladies.

Now, as far as actually tagging other people like you're supposed to, I'm not into it. I don't like tagging people, because I don't like leaving anyone out. And besides, I'm no good at following up to make sure they do it, anyway. Also, this post is way too long already. Happy Tuesday!

Update for Wednesday

Okay. So several things have happened while I've been on Hiatus.

I've lost 4 followers. I don't suppose I can really blame them, I mean why follow when there's nothing new to read.

I've added about 15,000 words to the re-write of Warrior-Monks. I'm basically proud of that, but I still need to get a lot more done, and still won't have much time to read as many blogs as I would like this short week.

My kids are now officially both out of school. Madison will be in 5th grade this fall, and Kylie is technically now a sophomore. We've been spending lots of time at the pool.

We joined a Gym. Yep. It's time for this writer to get in shape before my heart implodes from being pickled in too much alcohol. This place has TVs built into the treadmills, so hopefully NFL Live will make 30 minutes of cardio feel like 10. Hopefully.

Anyway, I've got something special for you guys tomorrow, so stay tuned. And followers? Please stop leaving. I promise to write more if you stay.