October 2016 - Gary David Gillen

October 2016 Writing Progress Report

October 2016 Writing Progress.

This is my October 2016 Writing Progress Report.

Introduction

This is my October 2016 writing progress report. Normally I would state my work completed from September, events from September, my planned work for October, and planned events for October. Since this is my first report, I will also include information prior to September 2016.

June, July, and August 2012

On June 10 2012, I purchased Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat. I had written a screenplay in 2007 and had studied screenwriting over the years. I was inspired by Snyder’s book to take the lessons of screenwriting and apply them to writing short prose fiction. Screenplays are typically about 24000 words long and I figured that I could tighten my narrative to 6000 word short stories. In a manic brainstorming session, I came up with the basic framework for six short stories.

The first story I planned to write was The Prisoner of Tarnal. It was an easy choice since it was a prequel story to the three Gahrn series stories that I had written in 1993, 1994, and 1995. I had the background and an ending which set up some things I paid off in the other stories. I worked on that story and finished the first draft on August 5, 2012. Since I felt good about completing the story I started the second story. Its working title was Dystopia. I progressed on it but life intervened in October and I stopped writing halfway through.

December 2012

I typed up what I had for Dystopia. By then, I had renamed it C. A. T. because of an idea I had in a dream and put into the story. C. A. T. was 3767 words but only half finished. I stopped writing. C. A. T. and the other four stories remained unfinished.

November and December 2015

I returned to the unfinished C. A. T. story and finished it on December 12, 2015. It was three years later, but I had finally finished the first draft.

January 2016

My 2016 new year’s resolution was to write the four unfinished stories from 2012. The next story I planned to write was the story I had called Time Bomb. I made the story sheets this month and came up with eight scenes for the story. The story had a new name, it was now called 4 Humours. On a plane ride to Orlando for the Harry Potter Celebration at Universal Orlando, which was held on January 29 to 31, 2016, I started writing the first scene.

February and March 2016

I felt like I was ready to knock it out, but by the end of February, I had only completed the first scene. On March 25^th, Good Friday, I wrote the second scene.

April 2016

I started the third scene on April 1^st, April Fool’s Day. At that point I was frustrated. I had not put writing at the top of my list of things to accomplish, so I didn’t write much. My plan was to write one story every three months to get the four done by the end of the year. I had to come up with a way to get that done. It must have been my upcoming birthday that motivated me. I had to find a way to get a reliable number of words written each week.

What was a reasonable amount to write each week? I had to find a minimum amount that I could achieve. It takes about four hours for me to write the first draft of a scene. The scenes are about 800 words long. It came down to deciding that it was worth taking four hours a week to write. So I planned to write scenes three to eight in the next six weeks. I thought that I could do that if I made it my highest priority. I finished scene three and part of scene four in April. That was much better progress.

May and June 2016

I finished 4 Humors on June 5, 2016. One scene was harder to write so it took seven weeks to write six scenes. I felt very successful compared to taking sixteen weeks for two scenes. I could do this. The fourth of the six stories was originally called L5. I would retitle it Space Station Sunyata. Wrote the story sheets, scene one and half of scene two in June. I also typed up two of eight scenes for 4 Humours. In nine of ten weeks, I wrote what was planned.

July 2016

On Space Station Sunyata I wrote the rest of scene two, scene three, and part of scene four.

I also typed rest of 4 Humours

In 11 of 15 weeks I wrote what I planned.

I attended Ohio Readers and Writers Expo held by OhioExpos.com on July 23, 2016. Wrote a separate post on it on 09-28-16.

Attended Confluence in Pittsburgh on 07-29-16 through 07-31-16. I will write a separate post covering the convention.

August 2016

I wrote scenes five, six, seven, and eight of Space Station Sunyata. It was completed.

I also prepared the story sheets for A Simple Request.

In 15 of 19 weeks I wrote what I planned.

Writing Progress from September 2016

I wrote six blog posts for garydavidgillen.com including my Welcome to my Website post linked below.

Welcome to my Website

For A Simple Request I decided to change my format. I had planned 12 scenes at 500 words each. The plan was to write two scenes per week, which would increase my output from 800 up to 1000 words per week. My future plan is to up my output in 2017 to 2000 words per week.

I took a week off from work and finished the first eight scenes of A Simple Request. I finished scenes nine, ten, eleven, and twelve in the next two weeks. A Simple Request was complete. From start to finish, it took 23 days.

I typed all eight scenes of Space Station Sunyata.

In 19 of 23 weeks I wrote what I planned.

Events from September 2016

I attended the Western Reserve Writers Conference on 9-24. The Cuyahoga County Public Library. sponsored the conference. I wrote a separate post on it on 10-16-16.

https://cuyahogalibrary.org/

Wrote the amount that I intended 22 out of 26 weeks between 04-18-16 and 10-16-16. I think the plan I created in April was a success.

Created a website called garydavidgillen.com by using Bluehost for my web hosting and writing it in WordPress.

Goals for October 2016

I came up with another plan for a format change. I wanted to write shorter stories that could be used in different markets than the five stories that I had completed. The stories are The Prisoner of Tarnal, Kay-Eye (The new name for C. A. T.), 4 Humours, Space Station Sunyata, and A Simple Request. The plan was to write two stories with four 500 word scenes, which makes the story lengths 2000 words.

Complete the story sheets for Dogman and Time Bomb (this story follows the original idea I had for Time Bomb, not the rewrite I used for 4 Humours).

Write all four scenes for Time Bomb.

Events for October 2016

Attend Capclave 10-7 to 10-9.

http://www.capclave.org/capclave/capclave16/

Go live with my website. The content on my website involves my writing journey, book reviews, convention recaps, and monthly progress reports. Make one post per week, rotating on the four topics. Read two novels per month and write a post on each. Post the monthly progress report once a month. So, the fourth post will be about conventions or my writing journey.

October 2016 Writing Progress

Western Reserve Writers Conference

Introduction

The Western Reserve Writers Conference was held on September 24, 2016, at Lyndhurst, Ohio

I attended the 33^rd annual Western Reserve Writers Conference on September 24, 2016. It was located at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library at the new William N. Skirball writer’s center which is located at the branch. It was a one-day event with an introduction, a key note speaker, three breakout sessions and one Q & A panel.

The conference is sponsored by the Cuyahoga County Public Library.

https://cuyahogalibrary.org/

Summary – Keynote Speaker

The day began at the large meeting room which contained chairs for over 100 attendees and the tables for the presenters’ book sale. We were first welcomed by Laurie Kincer, the librarian for the writer’s center, and Deanna R. Adams, the conference coordinator. They detailed how the conference would proceed. The conference was previously located at Lakeland Community College located in Kirtland, Ohio. This is the first year that the conference has been held at this location. The keynote speaker, John Ettorre, was introduced. He spoke about his relationship with writer and editor William Zinsser. Zinsser was a mentor of his who had passed away last year. He described how Zinsser had encouraged him and many others in the craft of writing. Zinsser’s most famous book is On Writing Well.

Summary – Organizing Your Novel

At the first breakout session, I chose to listen to Julie Anne Lindsey who commented on organizing your novel. She writes young adult novels and cozy mysteries. She said that she finds that what helps in her writing is to create outlines. That way she knows that every writing day she has one chapter to write and what that chapter will contain. I thought that it was interesting that she mentioned Stephen King’s On Writing as a great resource since he advocates writing as you feel. George R. R. Martin comments on his Not a Blog that writers are either gardeners or architects. King and Martin are certainly gardeners while I would put Lindsey as an architect. Both are valid ways to write. Every writer has their own process and it was an invaluable insight to learn Lindsey’s process.

Summary – Query Letter

I listened to Deanna R. Adams at the second breakout session. Her presentation was about how to draft a winning query letter. She showed us examples straight from her book, The Writer’s GPS. In fiction writing, the author must finish and edit the work before sending out a query letter. The query letter goes to agents and not to publishers. The agent will submit the work to publishers. The query letter is a business letter, double spaced with four sections. Those sections are the lead (a hook), the body (a synopsis), the author’s credentials, and a short conclusion. Her information was clear and to the point.

Summary – Q and A

Next was a Q & A panel with three panelists. Steve FitzGerald handed out a list of upcoming Ohio writers retreats. His meet-up group is called Island Writers club found at http://www.meetup.com/Ohio-Writers-Retreats/ Deanna R. Adams talked about perfecting your first pages. Lastly, Diane Taylor talked about the benefits of belonging to a writers group.

Summary – Les Roberts

In the last breakout session, I chose to attend Les Roberts’s talk about “Using Red Herrings in Mystery Writing.” His thesis was that every character must be a suspect. All must be in some way corrupt. The reader must be surprised on every page. The writer needs to shock the reader. He advises writers to write what they want to write since he writes the books that he wants to read. He also believes that the most important writing that a writer does is the re-write. His latest novel is Speaking of Murder, the 19^th novel in his Milan Jacovich series. His session was fun with his anecdotes and informative on his thoughts about being a writer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I was very much impressed with the content and variety that was found at this conference. I will be sure to attend next year.

Links

The Confluence 2016 Conference was a writing conference similar to the Western Reserve Writers Conference. I attended the Confluence 2016 Conference on July 30 and July 31, 2016. I drove from Cleveland, Ohio to the conference that was located at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. The Parsec organization of Pittsburgh runs the conference. It is a literary science fiction, fantasy, and horror conference. The events included panels, readings, interviews, writing workshops, and filk concerts. I attended as many panels as I possibly could on Saturday and Sunday. I attended 15 panels and the U.S.S. Improvise improv sketch comedy routine.

Confluence 2016 Conference

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

The Gunslinger by Stephen King, book #1 of The Dark Tower series.

Introduction

This book starts with one of the most iconic first lines from any novel. “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” The protagonist is in pursuit of the antagonist which promises action. The words gun and desert suggest a western. The word black suggests something sinister. All these images appear from just twelve words.

Summary

The gunslinger walks the desert coming upon a homesteader Brown and his raven Zoltan. He stays for the night and remembers what happened to him in the town of Tull. The gunslinger meets Alice and later Jake in his pursuit of the man in black. He follows the man in black, searching for revenge which may end up destroying his own humanity.

In the first chapter, the gunslinger meets Alice. She has a sad and doomed arc that felt right. I am not sure what I should think about Roland, the gunslinger. He debates good and evil in his head but doesn’t seem sympathetic to me. I suppose that is the way that King wants me to feel about him.

I read the 2003 rewritten version of the novel. That is the cover inserted above the introduction. I compared it to the earlier 1982 version through this website https://web.archive.org/web/20071225081733/http://www.thedarktower.net/gunslinger/, but found the changes to be minimal.

Recommendation

For me, the book seemed to set up for a climax that never happened. I liked the stories about Alice and Jake. I found Roland’s backstory in the third chapter to be interesting. The fourth chapter was a dull travelogue, but then we get to the last chapter. I wanted a thematic close to the story, but that did not happen. What is there is a trippy and metaphysical non-ending. What a disappointment. I see from King’s afterward that he used this story to set up the novels that follow and I get that, but I was hoping for a good ending that would make me want to read the next book. I don’t feel that way.

Links

This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Gunslinger by Stephen King.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43615.The_Gunslinger

My review of Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan a book like The Gunslinger. They are both fantasy novels focusing on the protagonist’s use of guns. Adamat, Tamas, and Taniel fight gods and men in this gunpowder fantasy.

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan