Take a Breath and Move Out

Yes, it was a stressful process to ramp up for an agent's review and then not make the cut.  The take-aways, however, is an appreciation for the process, a brain smarter in regards to the business of writing, and an established process for quick edits that works exceptionally well for me.

Now it's time to take a breath, regroup my thoughts and shattered ego, and take the new knowledge and move out.

Into the Red Zone

And so it goes.

Just a little over 24 hours to finish preparation for submission.

Yesterday was spent piecing the Chapter 1 rewrite into something worthy of the opening chapter and making it interconnect with the rest of the storyline.  In addition, I decided to add Chapter 4 to the packet I'm putting together for the agent, which will make it an additional 40 pages ready to go if requested.  Although I had to push myself through the day the motivation is still there!!

One of the key take aways from the past few days is it reenergized the learning process.  I know, life is a learning process, but I am talking about refreshing the basics of the craft.  Each morning and the last thing at night involved studying books about description, plot, editing, etc.  Maybe it was divine intervention or whatever, but this time to hone the craft finally hit the sweet spot.  As a result, there is now a collection of five books highlighted and tabbed to be reviewed and at the ready whenever future manuscripts are prepped for final draft.

The following are the five books on my list.  This may by overkill for what works for you, but I'm a slow learner and in need of a large crutch.

The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

Plot by Ansen Dibell

Scene & Structure by Jack M. Bickham

Description by Monica Wood

Okay, time to get at it!!

Meeting the Timeline

Late into the night reorganizing the manuscript!

Everything organized and ready to begin the rewrite.

Pressure!

Have been working on "Hellbound Train" for the past several months, with a few thousand words--and four chapters--short of my original goal.  The operative word: original.

With that in mind, and as fate would have it, I have an interview with a literary agent at the end of the week.  Fortunately, she only wants to see the first ten pages, and we'll go on from there.  Okay, no problem.

Until the call came in the writing process was geared around getting a first draft completed.  Suddenly the anxiety level slipped beyond the capabilities of my blood pressure meds and the brain immediately clogged with all the necessities of retooling for final draft mode.

Okay, lets think about this.  Break down the tasks into realistic bite-sized pieces and go from there.  First, medicate.  It only took a couple of cabinets before the bottle of tequila was dusted off and doing its job.

Next, pull out the first chapter and see what the challenge is going to be.  Disaster time.  This one was well beyond the capabilities of FEMA.  At best maybe it could be sold as an example of what an opening chapter should not look like.  Always thinking.

Breathe deep, more medication, move on.

Hardening my heart and soul, it was time to rip the plot, story line, and a few other things apart.  Seeking out the weak areas, paying careful attention to the flow, and putting a bullet into at least one character the manuscript was carefully put back together (see photo).  When the dust settled not only was the trashcan stuffed with a discarded character, but 7,000 words were piled atop of the body, and the manuscript dropped from 35 chapters to 23.

The following photo is my writing area locked and cocked to kick off another day.

A first look at "Hellbound Train"

The following is a first look at "Hellbound Train."  This is the first in a three series collection of Alan Burke novels.  You can follow the writing progress in the righthand corner of this blog.

Alan Burke is a security consultant and he is tired. He has a new home in the secluded fringes of Nevada's Comstock region and wants to raise a few head of cattle and just enjoy life for a while. But when he agrees to help a former beat partner find his missing son it opens the preverbal Pandora's box. Suddenly a recently released from prison drug lord, an outlaw motorcycle gang, a contract killer, an elusive band of eco-terrorists, and his girl friend have other things in mind for him.

Political Year 2012

We are on the threshold of what is guaranteed to be a memorable election year.  And that doesn't necessarily mean a good thing.  At stake are political clout, parochial agendas, and fragile egos…oh yeah, there's also that American way-of-life thing, foreign commitment, and domestic responsibilities.  Although many parallels can be drawn between the Mayan calendar's 2012 and the American Political Year 2012, there are probably greater consequences associated with the American political year than the end of the Mayan calendar.

As the United States stands in the doorway of 2012 it’s a country polarized almost beyond recognition in red and blue.  Okay, so maybe that's an understatement on my part.  Each passing day of hope for common sense and compromise on the part of civic and political leadership is giving way to the bombast and self-aggrandizement of distinct party agendas…and NEVER the twain should meet.  Just listen to ideologues and party leaders on any given day and on any given issue.  There is a hatred there that dips its toes comfortably into the pool of bigotry.  It doesn’t matter what the issue is there is always a political slant--either negative or positive--and none of which is moving this country in a positive direction.

This all concerns me…okay, it scares me.  The daily political reality defines this nation as red or blue, but what happened to red, white, and blue?  Did we have a "Red Dawn" event that I missed?  How did we allow our social growth and development to slip back to the color hatred and ignorance similar of a few generations ago?

Where have these attitudes and standing up for "what's right" gotten us?  For the past year Congress as a governing body has been leadership ineffective--little or nothing has been accomplished.  Although, I must admit, they have become quite good at finger pointing.  But it does become quite tiring to hear blame placed on the President for issues that Congress has the ability to correct.  This isn't a dictatorship, so why does the Congressional finger pointing keep trying to give him that ability?  And as for the President, I really appreciate efforts to help veterans and their families, but the administration probably has a lot more in common with Jimmy Carter than the Reagan years he likes to quote from in recent speeches.

Currently, unemployment is being sustained at levels that are keeping our economic growth floundering on the world market.  Education of our youth has been dumbed down due to cost cutting strategies that large numbers of IT positions go unfilled because many of our citizens are not trained and qualified to handle the job.  Consequently, this leads to out-sourcing the positions out to international markets with populations trained and educated to meet the technological advances.  And the list of issues goes on and on--as does the finger pointing.

Not much longer can the American people accept or ignore what is going on with our leaders.  Like with any family there has to be the ability and acceptance of give and take to be successful.  Hard lining like what we are experiencing is dysfunctional.  Putting the progress of a nation in the backseat to a polarized political agenda is reckless and irresponsible.  And in the mean time these stances continue to drive the train into 2012.  Hopefully, common sense will prevail and the realization will set in that it's not red, not blue, but red, white, and blue that will be the road for our nation's success.

The Star Collection

The blood pressure has been down to normal for too long--one of the drawbacks of retirement.  Consequently, I reentered the ego consuming publication world, a world of predatory rejection slips and paychecks are the elusive dream.  Up to this point it had all been hobby writing and educational ramp up for this day.

Okay, so much for the drama.  This afternoon saw the launch of "The Star Collection" off to an editor's slush pile in hopes of capturing her attention as the last great hope for American literature.  And failing that, I will quietly take the $700 check and peddle my next brilliant opus down the street.  I'm easy.

"The Star Collection" is a flash fiction piece of only 898 words that reaches into the hereafter.  Built from the theme: The grass is greener on the other side, it follows an old man's transition onto the other side where he discovers heaven has been around him all the time.

The evolution of this work was a step out-of-the-box from start to finish.  I woke up yesterday thinking about star formations, and by the time I got out of the shower the outline was pretty much complete, as was the simple theme.  By lunchtime the first draft was complete and ready for some of the more technical research, and that night my wife read through the draft.  The next day (today) the final draft was ready, a potential magazine found, the story was submitted just after dinner, and two hours later a confirmation notice was received saying it was in the system.

Okay, that all said and done, its now time to move onto my own slush pile and final draft ready the next one.  No rest for the wicked.