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NaNo – Day 8 – early to bed

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s not early, but this is the earliest I’ve abandoned my manuscript.  Only about 1000 words today.  I labored on the most recent stretch, not quite happy with anything I was writing.  I should have just powered through and accepted the suckiness, but I knew it wasn’t happening the way it should and I needed the peg to fit the hole.  I think it did.

Tomorrow is Friday and it’ll be easier to get back on the horse.  I’m turning in for the night.  I’m still a couple days ahead on wordcount, so I’m not stressing…yet.  A few low yield days are to be expected.

Nano – Day 5 – a quarter of the way there

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I have officially passed the 25% mark for my NaNo wordcount.  In doing so, I am still only starting chapter 8.  And I’m pretty far from my 2k word goal for today, though I did hit my finish-on-time minimum.  Worse, I’m looking at a lot of work-related distraction tomorrow.  Plus I have to vote; who knows how long that will take.

I’m fairly pleased with the chapter I just finished.  I think the suspense builds nicely and I paint my viewpoint character as the codependent shell of a person she is supposed to start out as, and I paint one of my bad guys as the dissociative nutjob he is supposed to be.  (I do not mean to suggest all codependents are shells or that all dissociatives are nutjobs; these things combine to encompass my characters.)  Now I am preparing to introduce my fifth and final viewpoint character as well as the true villain of the novel (different characters).  It comes a little late, but we’re talking maybe 15% of the way into the novel, not 25%.  The timing is important so that all the characters will get their respective calls to action at about the same time, with the possible exception of my first viewpoint character who may already have received his…it’s a little tricky.  Anyway, I’m eager t get these two characters introduced since things seem to roll along better once I know my characters.

So tomorrow may be a disappointment — and today wasn’t great — but I’m not losing steam, just losing freedom.  I’m still aiming for the 50% mark (of the 50k) by the end of this weekend.  Fingers crossed…no wait, that makes it really hard to type…

Nano – Day…what is this, 4? Really?

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

According to my NaNoWriMo profile, last year’s novel hit the wall on day 6 at 7281 words.  Today is day 4 and I am past the 10,000-word mark.  And I’m not losing steam…yet.  I’m pretty convinced that I’m gonna make the 50k mark ahead of schedule.  And I’m pretty convinced that this will be a sellable novel, though it will surely take some serious revision after thewords “the end”.  I’m comfortable with that.  It’s just nice to see the story — and moreover, the characters — taking shape on the page.

I’m planning to maintain a minimum target of 2000 words a day.  I missed it yesterday, but that was because midnight hit in the middle of a writing session.  Here’s hoping that life behaves itself and stays the heck out of my way for a while.

Nano – Day 2

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I managed to steal some time at work (read: not eating lunch) to get some writing done.  I am so much happier with the quality of the writing I’m producing today.  I suspect it’s because I have the characters established well enough that I can just move the story forward.  There will definitely be some rewriting going on in my first chapter and a half, but not until December at the earliest.
I’m ahead of schedule for the month and almost at my desired 2k for the day already.  I plan to get some good time in tonight and maybe hit the evening write-in on Saturday.  As long as I don’t get complacent and fall behind, I’m in good shape.

ETA: I’ve crested 6600 as of 11:20.  I’m loving what I’ve been writing recently.  Some good character interaction going on, exactly what needs to be fixed in the first chapter.  (Not yet, Scott.  Not yet.)

I’m also focusing on writing more rather than less.  You see, short stories are all about accomplishing as much as possible in as few words as possible.  The plot must be perpetually propelled.  In a novel, sometimes you can develop character just to develop character.  Or setting, foreshadowing, backstory.  Novels are about the richness of the story more than the efficiency of it.  As I wrote chapter 1, I kept finding myself fretting over wordcount, thinking “I’m spending too many words on B and I need to get to E withing 2000 words, so I better get moving or I’ll have to cut C and D way short.”  Yeah, I was worried about the wrong problem.  Chapter 1 wound up about 1000 words short of my intention.  At least it helped me relax on the wordcount issue and now the story is flowing.

I wanted to hit 7k before bed, but I don’t see it happening.  I got sucked into the horror movie my wife was watching, Cabin in the Woods.  normally not my speed and I thought I could just write while I ignored it, but then I saw Joss Whedon’s name in the credits.  …  Let’s just say that Joss is one twisted individual with a sense of humor a little too close to mine for him to qualify as “stable”.  I don’t think I could call it a good movie, but I was entertained.  But please, someone increase the man’s effects budget.  Well, increase Drew Goddard’s effects budget; he was the director.
But I digress.

In short: NaNo going well.  Cabin in the Woods, twisted and fun in a splattery kind of way.

NaNo Morale Modifier: 9 (out of 10)

Call me old fashioned…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Okay, I did it.  I didn’t intend to, but I did it anyway.  I just finished submitting my e-book collection Baker’s Dozen to be a book-book.  A self-published book, but still a book.  I don’t expect the sales to be any better than the ebook version, but it’s a format I wanted.

Rewind to LibertyCon last summer.  People kept coming by the interview table asking what I had for sale.  I had nothing to show them.  Well, I had coupons and bookmarks to show, but nothing to sell on the spot, nothing to sign for them.  In consumer terms, I had nothing.  I’ve kind of regretted that ever since, and now I’m finally doing something about it.

My plan is to order a batch of 30 before ChattaCon hits in January so I can sell there.  I don’t expect to sell thirty that weekend (not ruling it out), but I’d like to sell enough to cover the price of the order.  After that, each sale will be pure profit.  I’m also considering some sort of coupon code or something so that the buyer of a hard-copy can get the ebook for free.  No sure on that quite yet, but I’m toying with the idea.

The book will be trade paperback.  It will have all the same content as the ebook (I considered bonus content but decided against) with the same cover and a few teasers on the back cover.   I’m using Amazon’s CreateSpace to print the book, a process that has been pretty easy short of the cover design.  I took the $10 plunge to list “Out of Chaos” as the publishing imprint.  So far, I’m happy with the process.  Time will tell how happy I am in the end.

 

Time Wasting on the go

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

What do you do when you have a few down minutes someplace random? Sure, I should probably be writing, but let’s face it, you can’t be in a constant state of writer-readiness. So me, I play around on my Android phone.

I’ve been there and done that with Angry Birds and 100 Floors. My latest obsessive game is a fairly innocuous-looking game called Flow Free.

At its base, Flow Free (probably just called Flow, but I’m cheap so mine is free) is just a connect-the-dots puzzle game, only you aren’t allowed to cross your own lines. The first few levels of free play (puzzle levels) are pretty simple, but things get tougher as you increase the size of the grid.

imageBut it’s not the free play but the time trial levels I’ve been obsessing over. It consists of a series of the easier puzzles strung together on a timer – 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, or 4 minutes. And of course it keeps track of your records.

I can’t find other brag-posts of people touting their Flow accomplishments like I find for other games, but here’s mine.

image

Yeah, I’ve got to remember that when I complain about never having enough time to do stuff. Anyway, Flow Free is fun, addictive, simultaneously easy and challenging, and free through Google Play. What more could you want?

Time is running out

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Do you have a Smashwords coupon for Baker’s Dozen?  You know, the ones that were in the eggs at LibertyCon? Well, you better use it soon; coupon expires this Wednesday.

Don’t have a coupon?  Or maybe you’re not confident it?  Here’s the how-to. (You will need to set up an account if you don’t have one.)

  1. Go to the Baker’s Dozen listing on Smashwords. 
  2. Add the book to your cart.
  3. Type the coupon code AB49T in the coupon code box.
  4. Pay a buck.
  5. Download the book in your choice of formats.  File is easily transferable from your computer to any electronic device through your USB connection, or by any more clever method you might know.
  6. Enjoy 13 great stories. Live a more fulfilled life.

As an added bonus (in no way related to the coupon’s expiration other than by cosmic coincidence), an audio presentation of “Chasers”, will reportedly be released on Escape Pod on Thursday.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/172183

Good news for “Leech Run” fans

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I think my space pirate story, “Leech Run” may be my most widely appreciated story to date.  It was originally published in Pill Hill Press’s Zero Gravity anthology, then ran in Escape Pod episode 303.  I have received numerous comments requesting a sequel.  It’s been something I was interested in but some other project always got in the way.  Recently, though, I’ve had a fair amount of project-stall and I really needed something short to sink my teeth into.

So, I just finished outlining the sequel to “Leech Run”.  The story is as yet untitled, but those tend to come last anyway.  This new story will pick up right where LR left off, with Titan’s wounded ship approaching the nearest planet with a load full of energy-draining leeches including one bound class-four leech.  Let’s say that things don’t go smoothly.  What happens?  Well, I’ll let you know where to find the story once I get the thing written.  I’m hoping to power through a draft by he end of the month.  Yes, even with school in session.  I’m hoping the outline, which I seldom use for a short story, will help me power through.  Fingers crossed.

“Forthcoming” has almost arrived

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I confess, impatience got the better of me.  So I queried the asst. editor at Escape Pod to find out whether the “forthcoming” on my bibliography was a perpetual status.  It seems not.  He confirmed that “Chasers” is slated for air later this month. 

It was February when I found out EP was going to give my 2004 story “Chasers” the audio treatment.  (That’s a story from 2004, not about 2004.)  This space operatic story has long been a favorite of at least one of my beta readers.  It’s a colonization story.  It’s a mining story.  It’s a space ship story.  But more than anything, it’s a story about Darwinian competition in interplanetary economics.  No, it’s mostly about guys in space ships going really fast.   

And yes, “Chasers” is in Baker’s Dozen.

I’ll be sure to plug the heck out of the Escape Pod issue when the time draws closer.  I can’t wait to hear it!  If you can’t wait, you can listen to the EP recording of “Leech Run” right now.