{"id":99,"date":"2014-04-19T21:41:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-20T01:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/?p=99"},"modified":"2014-04-21T08:16:27","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T12:16:27","slug":"99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/99\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Hop"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is my very first Blog Hop! I was tagged by a fellow writer Andrew Baker in his blog<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Thanks Drew!<\/div>\n

Blog Hop Rules<\/b>:<\/h2>\n

Answer the four questions below, link back to the person who invited you, and link to the people who will be posting the following Monday.<\/p>\n

1. What am I working on?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Too many things. I\u2019m writing the sequel to \u201cOut of Nowhere<\/em>,\u201d my story about an immortal healer hiding out in a paramedic\u2019s uniform. My second book, \u201cIn Every Clime and Place<\/em>\u201d is being formatted and should be out within the month. It\u2019s a near future s\/f space Marine story. I\u2019m plugging away at another fantasy short which I\u2019m serializing on WriterLot. It\u2019s a pulpy, old school sword and sorcery thing done in the vein of Leiber\u2019s \u201cFafhrd and the Grey Mouser<\/em>\u201d tales. I have a handful of these, and pretty soon they may wind up bundled in to a collection.<\/p>\n

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Which genre?<\/p>\n

My urban fantasy story is devoid of werewolves or vampires. It\u2019s got more in common with a detective story as far as style and feel. Except the protagonist isn\u2019t a detective, really, he just is thrown into a situation where he has to investigate a threat. And I think I keep the scale smaller than a lot of urban fantasy.\u00a0 Our hero isn\u2019t saving the world, just his life and his friends. Which, when you think about it, is plenty, really.<\/p>\n

My fantasy stories are closer to the old pulp shorts. Again, the focus is small, close. The characters are thieves, adventurers. It\u2019s not about saving the world or defeating a Dark Lord. It\u2019s about making a score, making enough to pay the next weeks rent, the next bar tab. I think the intimacy of focus helps the reader identify with the characters. Most of us aren\u2019t saving the world, we\u2019re just scraping by, protecting those close to us. Having to confront personal threats, and make choices about what lines we\u2019ll cross to meet those threats is fascinating to me. And it hits home, because while we may not have sword fights in dark alleys, we do confront those lines and dilemmas in our daily lives, and the decisions we make reveal our character. And create our character.<\/p>\n

My space Marines story, \u201cIn Every Clime and Place<\/em>,\u201d is unique, I think, in that the protagonist isn\u2019t an officer, like we\u2019re used to seeing in Space Opera. He isn\u2019t a ship\u2019s captain or a platoon leader. He\u2019s a corporal, an enlisted man in a grunt platoon, with just enough rank to have people he\u2019s responsible for. So he experiences some of the burden of command while still being at the fore. Again, I wanted the reader to be there in the mud, with sore feet, at the point of the spear.<\/p>\n

So I guess the common thread of how my writing differs, is that I write in genres that are usually epic, but my characters experience those events in a close, small, personal scale.<\/p>\n

3. Why do I write what I write?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Because nobody else will.<\/p>\n

I feel I have a story to tell, and I tell it. I don\u2019t set out to write a story, I just get an idea and run with it.<\/p>\n

4. How does your writing process work?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a mess.<\/p>\n

I start with an idea. Sometimes it\u2019s just a situation or a character. Then I sit down and start writing. I don\u2019t plan the story, or outline, I just kinda scribble. I call it my Blitzkrieg theory of writing. I drive to the sea, getting to the end of the story and cutting off the BEF. I bypass the tough points and leave them to be mopped up by the follow on forces in the second edit.<\/p>\n

Long ago, when I started my first book, I kept revising and rewriting as I went. Instead of a complete draft, I wound up with a first chapter than had been rewritten six times. Revising stalls me, and every new thing I write forces me to go back and revise everything earlier, so it turns into a vicious circle.<\/p>\n

So now, I just write. If I can\u2019t figure out how to make a scene work, I leave a placeholder and write the next scene. As I write, I get into a creative mode and the story takes shape. Then, when I get to the end, I go back and fill in the gaps, smooth over the joints and fix the inconsistencies.<\/p>\n

As far as how I work, I don\u2019t set word count goals. I put time aside to write, and it goes how it goes. Sometimes I get things really flowing and I can tear through pages, sometimes it\u2019s a struggle. I\u2019ll write a sentences, walk around the room, get a cup of coffee, write another sentence. It can be grueling. The important thing is to put aside that time and force myself to write, even if it\u2019s a slow, uphill struggle. Most of \u201cOut of Nowhere\u201d was written at the ambulance base between calls. I was working two jobs at the time and our son had just been born, so free time was rare and precious. I just brought my laptop to work and if we weren\u2019t running emergencies, I\u2019d chip away at the book.<\/p>\n

Now I have more time because my son is in school, so I try to write when he\u2019s away. I don\u2019t want to miss out on his childhood because I\u2019m banging away on a keyboard. I still bring the laptop to work and write there when I can.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Be sure to check out answers from Ren Waron<\/a> and Ray Coulombe<\/a> next Monday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is my very first Blog Hop! I was tagged by a fellow writer Andrew Baker in his blog Thanks Drew! Blog Hop Rules: Answer the four questions below, link back to the person who invited you, and link to the people who will be posting the following Monday. 1. What am I working on? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,23,19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-e-books","category-publishing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.inkandbourbon.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}