Monday, July 28, 2014

My Writing Process - Part 4 - Editing

Editing, I swear it is what I do more and more these days as I am now publishing.  Gone are the days of just writing, writing, writing and storing it up until I can get it out there.
Editing is a very crucial and tedious process, and even through writing both my dissertations, it was just a crucial and critical there.  For me, editing usually ends up creating yet another draft (the official number for Triumvirate is 10, but I'm sure it is closer to 15,  Desperation is on 8).  So how do I do it?
For the most part I sit down with the TV on, some form of alcohol in reach (No I haven't done the IV yet, but hell, it just might be better), and work on my laptop.  I used to print the books out and edit them the old fashioned way, but not so much anymore.  Now it is all done on the computer with microsoft word, with the track changes on so that I can later go through and accept or delete the changes.  With the editing comes the filling in of the small details, as well as fleshing out plot points.  And often, for better or worse, I have added up to 20 000 words on an edit, while deleting away other parts.  Sometimes it comes down to WTF was I doing the day I wrote that, delete it and rewrite it.
Editing also catches grammar issues (not many of us are that good at this point these days, a failing of the schools, but I have improved way beyond what I originally wrote in the first draft of Triumvirate).  Spelling is another one, and as a Canadian we of course have a different way of spelling certain words, but when it comes down to the marketing aspect, well American spelling wins out. But for me, because my PHD supervisor was a Brit, in my drafts you will see a mix of Canadian, American and British spelling.
When I get things to a certain point, I use a piece of software for analyzing my writing.  It catches a lot of things and I pick and choose what I want to change and not change.  After going through this process (it can be before or after I send it to Trevor for his keen eye), I then do send it off to Trevor, who does his thing with it, and then it is back to me to look at the changes and then finally approve or reject his suggestions.  At this point, it now comes down to checking the headings, formats and everything.  And from here it goes into the final draft.
I know that this is only a quick summary, but this work can take up to easily 6 months of time or more just to get to the point where you can look at the final draft and say it is the final draft.
Also with editing, comes the decision on length and that is how I ended up chopping part of Triumvirate out and turning it into a novella to be released for Book II.  The draft, once it is in the file format for printing, well that is when you look at it and decide if the damned book is too big for the price it will cost in printing.
And recently, this while falling under the topic of editing, I was working on Book II and found out that I forgot to transfer another chapter over to the new file.  Some of my files are so old with so much coding having come and gone that I move stuff to wordpad, then back into word.  It was also while at ConBravo that I realized a trade paperback would sell better, hence the decision to take the novella, add in more of that book and rip the original manuscript down the middle.  Now I have an Octology (not proctology you people with your minds in the gutter).  I really need to get a full time editor to do most of this, I mean I do have an editor, but I still do a lot of this.
Overall, editing is very important and should not be rushed.  But alas, sometimes it is hard to not be impatient.
Kind of ironic perhaps given my stories??

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Sneak Peak - Conquest Part 2

Here it is a sneak peak of Conquest , Book II of the Triumvirate Chronicles.  This part covers a small bit during the final battle in the Lonsatia campaign.  I hope to release this in the next 8 weeks.

Lonsatia Prime - Outside Zigurin

     Roni was ploughing his fields around midday, grumbling to himself about the Hegemony presence on Lonsatia Prime.  It was warm and sunny, the birds were singing as they flew around looking for their next meal.  Sweat dripped down from the top of his head, his short, red hair soaked in it.  His lithe body was sore, having hit middle age about five years back.  Roni's blue eyes scanned the field and he knew he had a few hours yet to go before he finished this stretch of land.  He glanced in the distance, barely able to see the towers of Zigurin, the capital of Lonsatia Prime.  Thinking of it made him grumble again as he remembered the mess the Hegemony had made of the central nature reserve.
     Roni looked behind him, swearing he could hear a distant whine.  He cursed as he failed to spot anything on the horizon. Other than clouds.  "Getting' old, and now I'm hearing things," he muttered and went back to work. He shook his head, trying to clear the sound, but he could swear it was getting closer, and now he could hear rumbling.  He looked behind him again and his mouth dropped open.  Roni jumped out of the cab of his plough and stared with his jaw agape.  He could see fighters approaching and they looked like they were about to crash.  The four wings of fighters were approaching in a quadruple chevron formation at supersonic speed, trailing a very large carpet behind them, and causing a sonic boom that could probably be heard for twenty kilometres in every direction.
     Within a minute they passed him by so close he swore all he had to do was jump up to touch the bottom of one of them.  The jet wash from the fighters knocked Roni flat on his ass with a thud, and looking up as the lead fighter of the first chevron passed over.  He thought about what he was seeing for a minute and began to smile, then laugh. The sonic boom almost deafened him a second or so later as the fourth chevron of fighters passed overhead. 
     Roni also had a second job: a spy for the resistance.  He had been taking pictures out here while he was ploughing his field, of ships coming and going from the space port as this particular field was in most of the flight paths.  He climbed up back into his tractor and called up the pictures that had been taken by the automatic camera.  Roni could make out that the fighters all had markings that were strange to him: definitely not the Hegemony emblem he had come to hate, that of the globe and the encircling crescent moons, nor was it the emblem of the old Lonsation fleet, three sinister-woven five pointed silver stars emblazoned on a red triangle.   Instead he saw a sword with an eye in the hilt that was plunged into a green world, much like Lonsatia. Instead of getting back to work, he sat down to watch what would be one hell of a fire fight.  It was what the camera had been lucky enough to catch under the wing of these strange ships that interested him the most: the word freedom painted in red in the Lonsatian language.   Even though Roni did not recognize the fighters, he knew they were there to free Lonsatia.
     Roni jumped into the cab of his tractor and relayed the news that there was an invasion under way back to the resistance so they could be ready to step in and help.

Lonsatia Prime - Approaching Zigurin

     Savage kept his fighter low and close to the ground, flying more on instinct than on sensors.  He was scanning ahead on minimum sensors so as not to give away their position.  It was not looking good in his opinion.  He could already pick up cannon emplacements on the tops of the tallest buildings visually that would be able to shoot down their bombers if they didn't take them out in time.  Savage knew his fighters were next to invisible to the Hegemony sensors as they were travelling underneath the range of their scanners, but there wasn't a thing he could do about the sonic carpet his squadron was trailing over the planet's surface.  Nevertheless, he felt fairly confident that his squadron could reach their targets well before any sort of serious Hegemony resistance could be scrambled and launched from the air fields.
    "Wing leaders," said Savage breaking radio silence.  "Track gun emplacements and set up targeting solutions.  Be ready to accelerate point two five faster than attack speed."  Savage cut it short to decrease the chance of being overheard by any Hegemony listening stations that might be active.  They were still a good couple hundred kilometers out of the city limits.  He checked his sensors again and saw that the ships at the ceiling had pulled back a bit, probably to give them enough time to deal with the guns, no doubt detecting the gun emplacements.
     "Increase to attack speed," ordered Savage.  The entire squadron surged forward, covering the distance between their position and the outskirts of the city in less than three minutes.  "Increase another point two five.  Wing two, and three, you are on either side, wing four and one will be down the middle.  Watch those buildings and set yourself up to take out the upper floors."  Savage locked his sights onto three targets using the multi-target mode of the computers on his craft and began weaving in and out of the buildings that bled out from the outer city limits.  He slowly increased his elevation as he went, getting ready to open fire.  He could see everyone below was stopping to look up at the invaders, but Savage ignored them.  They were now on the outskirts of a city that measured over two thousand kilometers end to end.
     Savage tensed as he was coming into range.  The alarm went off from his targeting computer and he squeezed the upper trigger on his control stick.  Green energy shot out from his wings, enveloping the building top.  The upper floors exploded in a flash as the power supply for the cannon that the Hegemony forces had installed atop the building exploded, doing what his lasers would not have been able to do on their own.  Savage flew right above it and into a heavy fire zone.  Sensing the attack, the other cannons opened fire the minute he cleared the building.  He sensed rather than felt two wingmen destroyed by crossfire between the buildings.
     Savage cursed and juked his ship, avoiding the cannon blasts as quick as they came at his fighter.  He quickly brought his fighter down below their line of sight and lined up the next target.  He sensed an explosion near him and noticed he lost another of his wingmen.  "Fuck," he muttered as he prepared to launch a torpedo.  He waited for a confirmed lock and launched it.  It raced away from the fighter as Savage pushed his fighter into a dive.  The torpedo impacted, turning the top of the building into a mushroom cloud.
     Savage scanned his sensors and saw he was down a total of three ships, a quarter of his squadron, but the guns on this side of the city were neutralized.  He sighed, their deaths resting heavy on his shoulders.   Savage took his fighter back down, skimming the street.  People were scrambling to take cover as he flew overhead.  On the street ahead he could see Hegemony soldiers mobilizing.  He sighted them and squeezed the trigger, chewing up the street and through them.  Savage smiled briefly as he went by, happy to see the Hegemony troops scrambling. 

     "What do you mean we've lost contact with the defences on the north side of the city?" demanded  Nonx in the operations room.  "Is it a communications glitch?"
     "No sir, it just went down," replied the communications officer.  "I could have sworn I heard explosions under the last communiqué from there before it we lost it.  The last telemetry seemed to indicate one man fighters possibly, but I can't be sure.  As well I am picking up strange signals that just don't mean anything right now."
     "What the hell is going on?" asked Harpson, his huge mass waddling into the room.  "I was just talking with the defence towers and then they were gone.  Get them back."
     "We can't sir," replied the comm officer.
     "Order all fighters scrambled right away, we are under attack!" declared Nonx.  "They must be using fighters.  We sure as hell can't pick up any large ships in orbit."
     "How can you be sure, and how dare you give orders out?  I am in command here!" said Harpson, in a defiant stance.
     "You were in command," said Nonx, removing his pistol from his belt and shooting Harpson.  Harpson hollered as he fell to the floor. His flabby, starfish-like hands flew to the wide, smoking hole in his chest, and his eyes rolled up to show whites.  Ignoring the meaty thud that signalled the end of Harpson's military career, Nonx turned back to the specialist.  "Scramble all the fighters, I want to know what in the hell is going on.  I want visuals and I want them yesterday!"  Nonx ran over to one of the scanning stations and saw what he feared.  "Are those fighters in the air yet?  We have bombers and fighters coming in from the north on the ceiling.  They must've taken out the defences."
     "The fighters are on their way sir."

     "Watch it boys, keep fast and low," instructed Savage.  He had ordered the remainder of his squadron back down to the deck to avoid fire from above, but it left them dodging buildings, and their forward speed slowed.  The alarm horn of Savage's sensor sweep suddenly brayed, quite loud in the cockpit of the fighter.  He looked at his sensors and saw enemy fighters taking off.  "Shit.  Wing two, take one fighter from wing three and intercept those Heggy fighters now!  Warn them upstairs, too.  Repo Man Eight and Ten, in with me, our first target will be the air fields.  Let's go!"
     Portryl, the leader of the second wing answered Savage, "Just saw them, sir.  We're on them!"  The fighters of the second and third wing broke away in response, streaking ahead and above of Savage, and the remaining fighters of the lead wing.  Savage looked up to see his wing mates move up and out of the maze of the city, on a direct intercept course for the launched fighters.  Savage took his fighter up fifty meters, clearing a lot of the lower buildings.  He could finally see the park in the near distance, and the air field carved out of the middle of it. 
     Savage increased his speed a bit more, his two wingmen following suit.  When in range, Savage opened fire, tearing into the air strip the enemy fighters were taking off from.  With cold precision, he and his wing mates hit fighter after fighter on the ground and those taking off, leaving behind charred wreckage.  But still some of the Hegemony fighters had managed to get off of the ground.  Next, they turned on the hangars, Savage's wing mates each dropping one of their bombs, turning the hangar into a fireball.
     Veering up, the first wing came into fire from the buildings on the other side.  "Watch that fire from those buildings," Savage warned.  "What's the status upstairs?"
     "Going well, one.  We've destroyed all of the fighters.  The bombers are about to make their runs.  We have only lost two of them.   Good clean up job."
     "Good, tell them to hit the main bunkers first and circle around for the power supply and communications next.  We don't want to give them too much time to warn any of the defences.  We're moving in to take out the rest of the cannons on the buildings.  Savage out."
     Savage climbed higher and set up his run on the remaining cannons.  This time it was much harder with laser blasts zipping by his ship.  He found himself weaving to avoid most of the hits, a few of them close enough to singe the sensors on his fighter.  He targeted and blasted the first two cannons into fireballs before his ship was struck from above.
     Using instinct, Savage took his ship down low, his sensors screaming he had two ships on his tail.  "Damn!" he cursed.  "Where are you two?" Savage shouted into his comm unit for his wing mates, "I'm hot with two on my tail!"  There was no response.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

The Pelbar Cycle - a Review of Sorts

The Pelbar Cycle is a series of 7 books set in post a post apocalyptic world around 3000 AD as far as I can tell, and I was attracted to this series by the book cover that I will show below.  It was entire the book cover.
Williams wrote a masterpiece series, that you can, if you will, start with any one of the first 6 books in any order and really not miss too much.  Book 7, The Sword of Forebearance, should be read as the last book, simply because it brings it all together, much like the rug in the Big Lebowski.
The story is set in post apocalyptic North America, where some disaster befell at least N. America sometime a thousand years ago.  The maps look different, names are different (the Great Lakes for instance are now all one and called the Bitter Sea).  There are areas called empty spaces that are full of radiation and death if you walk through them.  The former citizens of the US are split into several small groups such as:

The Pelbar who live along the old Mississippi River (called the Heart River), they are ruled by women
The Sentani - nomadic peoples who wander the plains
The Shumai - also nomadic people who wander the plains - known for their legendary Axemen
The Peshtak - a brutal often cruel people
The Tantal - they live on the shores of the bitter sea
The Emeri - live in the midwest of the old US

There are more but this is just a smattering of the different cultures that arose after the disaster.  One of the nice things about this series is that each book always introduces new characters and cultures, and sometime we don't even see our favourites from previous books.
The premise of the story, as told by the characters adventures, is really the coming together of these different, often hostile cultures through a time of about 25 years.  We see many parallels to real history, such as the settling down of the plainsmen into camps and farms, much like the Native Americans did, albeit in this series, it wasn't forcefully done.  We see how the cultures evolve to work with each other, how each influences one another, and essentially, it is the rebirth of civilization.  How Williams does this with the individual characters is spectacular; choosing both male and female protagonists, and using them to explore their world.  There are many elements of many stories in this series and it is all well put together.
You must wonder why I have not included much in the way of plot details in this series, but honestly, you need to read it for yourself.  You will either hate it or love it.  Each book adds more to the story of the rediscovery of North America.
This series has influenced my writing some.  In one way, it has allowed me to come to terms with characters in my books that you see in one book, but not another.  I also do not hold one character sacred over another, much like Williams.  If they die, they die.  So be it.  There were places when I originally read the books where I was like WTF?  they just killed so and so.  It makes the writing more realistic and more powerful.  And as in my writing, without revealing too much, it was this series, and Asimov's books that showed it is OK to have history not fully explained all the time, or for that matter, maybe just left a mystery.
Well, I do suggest you read this series, it is hard to find (hell I have 3 copies of the complete series for emergency puposes), but well worth it.

Yup, I actually bought it for the cover!!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

ConBravo - Part 3 - The Life of Brian....errr What Next?

So, what am I taking away from ConBravo that will help me in the future?  One thing that kept hitting me upside the head was just how the trade paper back edition was selling, while the nice 6x9 edition wasn't.  In reviewing this observation, I made a decision about Book II in that quite simply, even with the novella taken out, I still cannot get Triumvirate into a trade paperback (the limit is 760 pages for publishing in this format).  So that being said, I am pleased to announce that Book II will be called Conquest, while Book III is now Triumvirate, and that the novella will simply not happen as it is being put into Book II.  As for Genesis, I will put it into the trade paperback format as well.
Second, it was hard work selling books there and I couldn't have done it without Megan's kickass go out and pull them into the booth.  There were 4000 attendees, so I did fine with respect to the sales for an indie author.  FanExpo will be 90 000 people, so I hope the sales will go up.  It is possible that Conquest will be ready for it, but I won't rush it, no reason that if it isn't ready I can just announce the date there and I think once people read Desperation, they will come back for more, and honestly, I will likely have book III out around Christmas.
The type of people at the con were also more along the lines of gamers than book readers and that made it tough as well.  But you have to be persistent that is all there is to it.  I was mentally exhausted by the end of it, as well as just damned tired, and here on Tuesday, I am still tired.  The other vendors were good, they would stop and talk to us, and we were right beside the region's largest games seller.  People were friendly from the start. 
So moving forward from here, get some real cover art going, get everything into trade paper back, and also be ready to sell electronic copies.  I found some software that will do all the formats for me.  Just be ready to sell, sell, sell. Hell I might even fully embrace and create Alexander Dundass. 
On a final note, was it all worth it?  Yes it was, I sold books, getting the word out to people out there I exist.  Now I just need to convince all of you to part with your money.
I do want to end with a few thank yous:  Megan, I couldn't have sold what I did without you, and I did learn, and to Ellie Di Julio, the awesome author who agreed to share a table with me. 
The booth at ConBravo 2014.  I really do need a banner.

Monday, July 21, 2014

ConBravo - Part 2 - The Holy Grail...err I am really there, here are the goods.

Well, ConBravo 2014 was my first convention ever, as an attendee and a vendor.  Man I had culture shock the first night, I know people dress up in costume and all that, but to see it unfold in front of my eyes, well, that was a different story.  I hope it has prepared me even just a little bit for FanExpo in August. 
I did sell some books, and if any of you who did drop by the booth read this, thanks for dropping by and talking to both Ellie and myself.  We both work hard at our craft and it means a lot for us to see our books go out to readers. 
I was glad that my trade paperback versions came in in time as they were the seller of the day, nto te 6x9, so I think I will retire my 6x9s and sell what on sale.  It was a fun show, the vendors were friendly, we had some come over and chat with us and some of the networking that went on, well that was cool too.
I am now sitting here exhausted on Monday night, surprised I even held it together at work, for doing this kind of thing really leaves one tired, and FanExpo will have longer hours. 
Well I am going to leave it here, with a photo of the Macarena that a group of people, including siesta Spidey did, I will have more insights about what has come out of ConBravo for me in the next entry.  As always, thanks for reading.


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

My Writing Process - Part 3 - The First Draft

The first draft, that dreaded first draft.  It took me years to sit down and write the first draft of Triumvirate (recall it was the first book I ever wrote), and I wrote it chapter by chapter, and hell I wrote the ending of the book and finished the part between it and the middle after the fact, once again chapter by chapter. Often when I write, I just sit down at the computer and off it goes, and I even killed off someone and it took me five minutes to go back and see what I had done.
The beauty of the first draft is that you get the ideas down, the ideas you want to pursue and it doesn't matter if in one chapter a character has blond hair, while in the following one, it is now black, or hell, bald.  The true idea of the first draft is to just get the fucker down on the screen.  Now I doubt I am unique in this style, but if I didn't have computes, man I would be doing this long hand and then beating it out on the old typewriter.  I still remember one of my friends had a character walking into a sticky situation with no rifle, and then three hundred words later, bam, the dude was blowing away critters with a .306.   This is normal, there is nothing else to be said about that.
I know in evolving my story from the first draft onwards, there were many changes, especially in who they were just what they were.  It was while writing the first draft of Triumvirate that the first draft of Genesis arose, which then led to the first draft of Huntercats as it answered questions that I needed to move Triumvirate on from the first draft stage.
The first draft allowed me to use whatever the hell language I wanted as means to unequivocally get across mood in a very direct and primitive way.  In the comparison of older drafts of my work versus the later ones, there is less swearing, less dialogue in fight scenes, because when it was put in there, it was there for a reason. 
Environment plays a key role in being able to write and keep everything in mind.  My writing used to be done in a smaller bedroom that my computer shared with my two rabbits who, well anyone who has pet rabbits knows how bratty they really are.  So despite the distraction of fighting rabbits off and on, and a cat that tried to break them up, I got stuff written.  But the trick was I had one place I always sat down with, either with a coke in the day, or later, booze.  I had my references around me, all that I needed was at my fingertips.
Many authors make notes before they write, that is entirely up to you as a new author.  Me, I hardly ever make any notes beyond key things that I need to know, nor do I always plan a scene ahead of time.  I find it is much more exciting to just let it unfold and go with the flow.  Overall, don't worry about mistakes in your first draft, rather just go with it, get  your ideas down on paper, the course your book is taking, and fix it all up when the time comes for editing.  And it is through editing that you will come to appreciate the image below, because a lot of first drafts end up going no further than just that.
Yup, been there and done that.

Monday, July 14, 2014

My Writing Process - Part 2 - The Creation of Characters

Ahhh yes the creation of characters, the ability to set out a cast of people who all need to be unique not only in looks, but also in personality and such.  People alone are very complex to try and create, I mean do we really know everything about the people around us in real life?  Now try coming up with an array of characters where me, the author, has to know them, their ins and outs, their flaws, what makes them tick, even down to their sexual orientation.
Now this would be easier if all my characters were just from one planet, but instead they are from many, so now I have to create entire planets and where I have, I don't always go into detail, but with respect to Acronia, yes that culture is well developed, while Dubrilla, not much is ever mentioned at this point.  Hell I haven't covered much of the history of Veloxora, but a lot of these things will be dealt with through the novels as needed.
Naming is another thing, I have been criticized for using so-called comic book names in many places, but this is explained, and I don't give a flying fuck what people want to discuss concerning names.  I have evolved some of the names, for instance, Preacher's real name is revealed, as is Remi's.  And for that matter, Jeb Dogonabar was once known only as Hunter, while Roloxus Dranlox (introduced in Triumvirate) was for a long time just known as Bounty.  Canes got a real name as well, but one has to get to the heart of the cultures in which these characters grew up, and keep in mind, some of the characters in Desperation are 110 000 years old and grew up in a much different galaxy, as well as different purposes.
But all in all, this entry does link into the one on First Draft and such, as honestly, I don't always develop the cultures until somewhere around the 7th or 8th draft (yes that is how much I spend on editing).
Now so far I have only been talking about the humans.  Yes my world has aliens in it, many species in fact, but it will be quite some time before I reveal what truly happened to them and why they seem to be absent in Desperation and Triumvirate.  So now, add in all of the shit I did for humans, but on top of that I have to come up with alien cultures, aliens that look like aliens, how ancient are they, and what weird physiology do they have (I still remember an argument I had with my buddy Trevor Patrick over whether or not to make some critter that is not marsupial here on Earth, but making it marsupial-like and writing it into the culture.  The tack I took in that argument was that Pruchovia was not Earth and therefore our rules don't strictly apply).  I really have a lot of respect for the writers who developed the Klingon language.
So at the end of the day, it takes a damned lot of work to set up characters, and often I do base some of my characters on people I know as it makes it easier.  But for the most part, most of mine are from scratch, especially Lons and Skardo, as the only real criminal I ever knew is likely long dead (he went away for murder when I was around 10 and he was already in his late 50s).  So I always appreciate those that can write a novel and bring on in some good characters.
Yup, it is all this and much more!!

Saturday, July 12, 2014

My Writing Process - Part 1 - In the Beginning - The Idea

Oh what fun it is to sit here and think about how my writing process works.  It is by far different than one would expect perhaps, but then each author is no doubt unique (and I would love to hear the story behind those guys writing the bigfoot porn, man would I ever, shit I might get into some of that myself).  Anyway as usual, I digress, I am good at that, especially since I am on a third gin and tonic this evening, with some red wine mixed in.  Ahh the happiness that comes with it.  As it is, I am sitting on my deck, in the dark, writing this entry.  My colleague Ellie Di Julio posted something about someone describing the stages of writing and I thought I should maybe do one about how I write.  Maybe somewhere it will help someone. 
I guess my ideas in some sense, start with both a mix of actual history and movies, and probably the biggest influence when I was younger was Star Wars.  I mean unless you saw it in 1977 when it came out, there is no way in hell you cold understand the profound effect it had on people, even with special effects considered primitive by this day and age.  Watching that movie, inspired me as a kid to always play Han Solo in the play ground when we played Star Wars. which was something we did all the time.  I wanted nothing to do with being a damned Jedi.  But as it stands, it was such things as this that led me to imagine lots of different plots that we could play with on the play ground (hell I remember after Empire Strikes Back was released, we were trying to imitate ATAT tracks in the snow, while building a snow fort that would be the Millennium Falcone taking them on).  Through the years I imagined many things that Han Solo would get into.
Now as I got older, I did start writing small plays, what one could call 1 act plays at best.  Perhaps only one of my childhood friends (Gab) actually remembers any of this, but it was a time. He said he loved them, whether he was being nice or not, well he's never owned up to it.  Anyway, for years after this I dreamt of a sci-fi world where a man named Savage (a nickname I had as a child, thanks to dear old Gab (man we need to have those cigars and scotch)) was fighting a war.  I dreamt of this world for probably over 20 years.  the ideas floated and evolved, but my main issue was that I had no means of getting them down on paper.  I had no confidence in myself that I could actually write a book.  Hence 1998 comes around (I was born in 1972 to give you reference, and was alive when the goal that was heard around the world was scored) and I have in my hands one important thing:  my Masters thesis.  It was 208 pages - a novel by many accords.  I had written my first work ever.  Stoked from this, I started writing my first novel ever, Triumvirate, in part using it as a break to get away from studying for my PHD comprehensives, but as a means to fill the time I was staying awake at night.  I wrote my ideas down, formed the story from said ideas to produce what is probably the grittiest war epic that has been seen for quite some time.
I am an avid history buff and as such I looked at many aspects of many wars such as WWI, WWII, the vietnam war and of course I made it through Gulf War I.  But the ideas were flowing, and it was time to write the series that I had dreamt of from childhood.
So here is an idea of where my ideas came from, a big inspiration being StarWars, Star Trek, B-movies, and whatever sci-fi seemed good.
Now below is one of a few surviving shots of a 19 year old Alex Dundass, just to show that I am real.  I am the one on the left and was taken in July 1991 (in the last century!!) at the final party I had with my high school buddies.
Yup that is me on the left in the Guns N' Roses Shirt
 

ConBravo - Part 1 - The Meaning of Life....errr Preparation

Wow preparing for a convention is fucking nuts.  I will be posting 3 entries about ConBravo because I can. So below are some of the goods I am taking to ConBravo to sell, gotta take some good stuff.  I will be able to take cash, credit card etc for this.  What I mostly need everyone is support in buying my books, and taking that plunge to actually give me your cash and let me send you an autographed copy.  I would love that.  I have made my books available in as many formats as I easily can, and so lighten up out there and take a chance.
I am also working on making business cards for people to take with info, but I need something catchy on them, perhaps a baby bunny picture.  Also I hope by Monday to have my revamped website up and going. I honestly do not know how I will make out, but I hope I sell most of what I take there, who wants to drag all that stuff back with them.  The pic below is the latest shipment, all of the most recent editions, which have been updated for sale.  That means I will have some of the older editions I have, with the typos available for a cheaper price....
Well now that the trade paperback is ordered (yes I am offering 2 different sizes as a good friend of mine pointed out that it would be nice to have an edition that would fit in a purse) and I hope it will be in for the show, if not I am going to take advance orders and such.  I just might change from business cards to post cards to give away, with something catchy that was suggested to me (hehehe, it will make up a facebook advertizing page).  The one thing I am missing, but I will get eventually, is one of those stand up posters or two that are about 6 foot tall and so on that you pull out.  I will likely offer a draw on a special edition of Desperation (a hard back) and a bundle for both Desperation and Genesis.
Well other than to get the edited Genesis up, this is about it with what I am doing to prep.  The next one in this series will be about ConBravo itself, I hope it will be good.
Some of the Goods!!

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

A Q and A with Alex Dundass - Part 1

So presented here is an interview with Alex Dundass, with the questions asked by his keeper (yes he has a keeper and only lets Alex out for a few hours in the day, but more time in the evening).

Question 1 - How did you get involved in writing?

Well, this is a big question, so let's see if I can keep it short.  I have wanted to write for years, in the sci-fi genre, and always had tons of ideas, especially after seeing Star Wars in the movie theatres before it became known as Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope.  It was after writing my Masters Thesis (only 100 pages were expected, but I wrote 208), that I realized I could write a book.  So as I was starting my PH.D., I started writing Triumvirate (this was in 1998).  The rest is all written down history now.

Question 2 - How old are you?

I am 42, but my eye doctor will tell you my eyes are closer to 65, while my knees are around 55.

Question 3 - What is your favorite fruit?

This is easy - grapes - but only after they are pressed, fermented and aged and then bottled.  Red or white matters not, I am the alcohol slut.

Question 4 - What is your favourite drink?

Well, I love gin and tonic (5 parts gin, 1 part tonic), scotch (single malt, or whatever I happen to see in my second home, the Liquor Store), wine of course, vodka, tequila, and most kinds of alcohol.  On my liver's days off I drink just club soda.

Question 5 - So you mention you saw the original Star Wars movie in the theatres, what is your take on Episode VII?

Oh god, now you are asking the hard questions, why oh why.  Let me start by saying that I have seen all 6 to date in the movie theaters, as they came out.  When I first saw Darth Vader in IV, you just knew he was badassed, hell he killed his former master (although we didn't fully understand this at the time, not until III), but what Lucas did with II and III, was as Cheech and Chong say about Springsteen in Nice Dreams, he's fucking it all up.  Anakin was portrayed as a victim, when if you go with first impressions in IV, Vader was no fucking victim, he made victims.  It was VI where I was disappointed that Vader came out as a victim.  Real life doesn't have happy endings, Vader shouldn't have had either.  Now with VII, well now that Ford is out for 6 months, they are discussing what to do as apparently he was lead (another bad mistake, let's get new shit going, use the old, but concentrate on the new ones).  And then, we will see Captain Kirk as a Jedi - because Mark Hamill looks more like Bill Shatner than Bill Shatner (check it out, someone swore Shatner was in Criminal minds). 

Question 6 - Do your co-workers know that you write and are now publishing?

Only one of my co-workers actually knows that I exist and am publishing, as does my supervisor.  Both keep it to themselves.

Question 7 - The toilet gnome - what the hell man?  And are the rumors of a sequel true?

Ok, look when you are sitting in a lab, and only getting 3 hours of sleep a night  because you just can't sleep, your mind wanders.  And it really wanders and this is what happens when it does this.  Unlike some of my other writings, I was sober for this (yeah I know quite shocking) and at the end of the day, the toilet gnome is a reflection of my internal creativity (my mind was once described as a maze with many ways in and no way out).  As for a sequel, hell ya, written in 1998, and now in 2014 I am writing the next sequel. hehehehe

Ok enough for now, until Part II comes out.  Perhaps maybe just before Con Bravo

I think this is self explanatory!!!!

Monday, July 7, 2014

A Deeper Look at Desperation

Desperation was an interesting book for me, most of it was written over a time period of about 4 weeks back in 2008 while my wife was away seeing family.  It involved several writing sessions with Trevor Patrick(not only does he help me edit, but we also co-author some works together, that are going to be out soon) coming over to my house, where we would sit and write out own stuff and discuss issues with plots we were having.  It also led to something like downing around 40 bottles of wine in that time period (I wasn't kidding when I said there is a lot of alcohol involved in my writing), and it led to one scene later in the book, written while mostly hammered.
Desperation is a book I honestly hadn't anticipated writing at all.  My goal was to be stubborn and market a book coming in at 220 000 words, that was only semi-standalone, and would be the first of most likely a trilogy.  Man was I wrong.  When I wrote Desperation, Triumvirate, Duality and Unity (the last two are working titles and may change) we're already written, I had to really think what this book would be about. Would I step back in time and describe the beginning the war (nope too much of a time gap), so I decided I would focus on what got Savage out to Lonsatia, and do the famous Sigma 6 battle that was mentioned in Triumvirate, and also how did one of his closest Admirals end up not making it.  I thought, given what Savage was like, that it would be cool to have him start off in a classroom.  He does have a unique perspective on the war per se, and it jumped into my head, to create an event that would not only create controversy with the protagonist, but would show he had one set of balls.
Lons and Skardo came out of a session of heavy drinking to be honest.  I knew that I had to deviate somehow from my normal villains, and well out popped the most despised characters I have ever written.  I was uneasy at first with these two, but finally I just said fuck it, and then pushed the boundaries.  I never reveal how these two came to be this way, that perhaps is for the story on how they got exiled to begin with, but we shall see.
It was a good adventure in writing Desperation and it proved that I could just sit down with 3 or 4 basic ideas and create a standalone novel that was not a bad size.  It also opened up a whole other world on some characters that I honestly didn't know existed, but sets things up for some interesting stories to tell.  Now I will leave you with an excerpt of Desperation that has to date only been available if you bought the book.

The Setup:  Admiral Savage is in battle to save the Territories of the Twentys' main uranium resources, and he is losing the battle.  He is forced to make a decision, and the outcome is only revealed is you read the book!!

Savage picked himself up off of the deck of his bridge and sat back down in his chair.  The smoke was getting thicker and fire lapped at some of the control centers around him.  “Status!?” he yelled.
            “We are still operational sir, warp inducers are currently offline, engine output down to seventy-five percent.  Weapons pods are still putting out one hundred fifteen percent of normal output,” replied the young man at engineering. 
            “Keep up the weapons output for as long as possible.”  He looked at the battle display and saw that his reinforcements had arrived.   Savage quickly punched orders in through his displays and sent them to the reinforcements.   “Let’s see how the Heggies like that.  Bastards.”
            The Bloodwing shook as it came under heavy fire on the port side from passing Hegemony cruisers.  The vibrations knocked a few of the bridge crew to their knees, wincing from the shaking and beating they were taking.  More fires erupted as laser fire danced across the hull close to the bridge.  Damage control crews rushed onto the bridge finally and started putting out the fires that were spreading from console to console. 
            Battles with the Hegemony were tough on the naval ships of the Territories of the Twenty.  The Hegemony navy was somewhat more advanced and had higher impact weapons.  As a result, the Territories ships normally spent a few days in dry dock receiving repairs.  So far all attempts at energy shields by their scientists had failed.  So for now, they had to deal with heavy damage during battle and use damage control crews to do emergency hull patches and to jury rig the electronics that were damaged in the heat of battle.
            Savage turned to the battle monitor and saw that they were about to push through the enemy lines.  “I’ve got you now Propoose, I have you now,” muttered Savage, clenching his fist.   Savage opened up fleet wide communications.  “Keep pushing forward, if you get too damaged, fall back and let the next ship in line take over.  Savage out.”
            A proximity alarm went off and Savage’s eyes widened.   “Sir, enemy cruiser off our bow, it's on a collision course!”
            “Evasive maneuvers!!”  He felt the ship lurch underneath him as it went into a steep dive.  His stomach was thrust into his throat, and by the retching around the bridge, he was not the only one.  Using his Guardian powers, he got it under control and saw that they were still going to hit.  “Fuck,” he whispered as he reached out into space and into the mind of the pilot of the cruiser bearing down on them.  With a little push, Savage took control of the pilot long enough to get the pilot to veer off, missing the Bloodwing by mere meters.
            “That was close,” said the fair haired commander piloting the Bloodwing.
            “Dammit, keep an eye out for that,” ordered Savage.  This would’ve never happened if Trent was here.  Damn I can’t keep track of the ship and the fleet.
            Having been distracted by the imminent collision, Savage finally turned back to the battle and his gut went cold.  “How in the hell did I miss that?”   Three thousand Hegemony ships were now on the outer arm of the battle engaging his reinforcements from Hawthorne.  “Where the fuck did they come from?”  A chiming came from his chair and he hit a button, producing Sloane on the left viewer, blood spilling down her cheek from the gash in her forehead.
            “Admiral, there is no way we can take on those reinforcements.  Our ships are too damaged and we are simply out numbered.  What are your orders?”
            Savage closed his eyes and reached out, looking for an answer.  A brief vision came to him showing his defeat at Dubrilla if he stayed, but if he did not win, he also saw the Territories in flames.  So there’s no hope, after all these years, there’s no hope
            “Alert all commands, general retreat starts in ten minutes.  Order all fighters to berth at the nearest ships.  Set warp coordinates for Veloxora for relatively undamaged ships, for those that need repairs, Sholtan or Malanata.  Savage out.”  Savage smashed his fist into the arm of his chair.  “Get me the President of Dubrilla immediately.”
            “Yes sir,” replied the communications officer.  A haggard man appeared about a minute later, fear in his eyes, his short blond hair plastered back with sweat on his balding head.
            “Where are you going Admiral Savage?” demanded the President of Dubrilla, wringing his hands, hope in his voice.
            “The battle is lost and we’re forced to retreat.  There are just too many ships here for us to take on, and given the situation I warped into, I can’t project a win at all.  I cannot possibly take on three thousand of their vessels even on the best of days with a full complement from our fleet. I sure as hell want to know where they’re getting such resources. I suggest you surrender to them and hope for the best.”
            “Hope for the best?  Hope for the best?!  What in the hell is that supposed to mean?!”
            “Listen; didn’t you hear what I just said?  We’re greatly outnumbered here and if I stay and fight, they will win no matter what.  We can’t afford to lose any more ships defending Dubrilla.  I’m sorry, but if that simpleton Grooben had done what he was supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.  I am sorry to leave you like this, but we have no choice in the matter.  Savage out.”  Savage slammed his fist down and cut off the President.  Truth be told, he did not want to retreat; he wanted to fight.  But to win this battle would be impossible; he simply didn’t have enough ships to accomplish that.  Then it hit him.  The only move left to ensure that the uranium reserves did not fall into Hegemony hands as well.

            “Get me Sloane, now, before she warps out.”  With barely a pause, Sloane appeared again, medics around her.  “Dianne, no fucking way I’m letting the Heggies get the uranium.  Order your two back squads to play cat and mouse with the Heggie fleet near the mining moon.  I’m going after the mines.”

This is a hint as to what happens!!

Saturday, July 5, 2014

More on Stephen King...

Ahh back to Stephen King.  The reason I do return to him is that I read everything of his as a kid.  He was a master at putting together a world, an entire history that kept me captivated throughout the year, especially during the summer months.  I can well remember the first King book I ever read - it was Pet Semetary.  Now I had heard of Stephen King because of such movies as The Shining, Carrie and especially Christine.  As movies go, they were so-so, as I have never found anyone that could take a Stephen King novel and turn it into a good movie.  I actually remember shying away from those three novels because the movies were so-so.
Pet Semetary opened a whole new world for me that summer and I did all I could to get a hold of every Stephen King book I could find.  I went through Salem's Lot, Cujo (OK the movie here wasn't bad, but it blew me away at the time that there were no chapters), The Dead Zone, The Stand and of course I finally read Christine, Carrie and The Shining (I have to say that this one creeped me out in places).
Stephen King provided an escape for me, an escape into an equally probable world.  I found that he could create these worlds that I could literally climb into and ignore everything else around me, and he wasn't beyond the odd comment about things sexual, but also not too heavy into it either.  I can remember reading The Stand for the first time (I had the version with the black cover and the raven or whatever it was, it was a cool cover), and I was blown away by Randall Flagg.  Who was this character, what was he all about?  And why was he appearing in so many different books, most notably the Dark Tower Series.  To say the least, it was this interest in Flagg, or whatever he called himself in other books, that made it an escape into another world for me, one that I could easily visualize to escape boredom of the summer or even school.
There was a period for me where King could do no right.  It started with Gerald's Game.  I had to fucking struggle to read it, and a good part of the reason is quite simply that there was too much detail.  I like a book that moves and around that time, he began to get into too much detail, and sometimes not enough movement forward in the plot.  The last King book at the time of my starting to fall out with him, was Dolores Claiborne.  I never really got the book, nor did I really want to.  I found it somewhat boring to be honest.  So I went years without reading too much King, picking up the Regulators and Desperation (no this did not inspire me to call my first book Desperation, it honestly came down to either that or Salvation) mostly because the hard backs were on for 5 bucks each, but really not others.  Then King started back into the Dark Tower Series after a long hiatus, which ultimately led to his retirement (although he has retired far less than the Who).
Some of the more recent books I have picked up and read and thoroughly enjoyed them, much like in the old days.  I have to wonder if King realized something was off with his writing and gave it up for a bit until he got his mojo back.  The one about Kennedy was awesome, as was the Dome (this was more like classic King, reminds me of Needful things, the book that taught me a hammer smashing into someone's skull goes thunk).  The Cell was awesome, his version of zombies, and a bash at modern society and their reliance on technology.  Tales from a Buick 8 - reminded me some of why I didn't like King for awhile, but hell, it turned out good in the end.
Overall, King is a good author in my books (haha pun intended).  He can still weave a story that takes me back to my childhood of reading his books.  It was honestly with him I hit a few milestones for reading - first real horror novel, first novel over 1000 pages that I read - It, ah h good old Pennywise the Clown and the Turtle.  I am often on the lookout for King's books as they are released.
My recommendations for King books to read, here are my top 10, not in order, except for numbers 1 and 2:

1. The Stand - both original and extended version
2. The Dark Tower Series
3. The Shining
4. Salem's Lot
5. Carrie
6. The Bachman Books
7. Firestarter
8. The Dead Zone
9. Cell
10. It

Hmmm, notice how many are classic King. Other notable mentions are Needful Things, Tommyknockers, Misery, Eyes of the Dragon, Cujo, Desperation, The Regulators, Joyland, 11/22/63 just to mention a few.

 Roland at the Dark Tower
 I just love this pic of Jack Nicholson - also one of the first horror movies I watched.
 And of course The Stand

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

What I Hate about My Writing

     A while back I promised this entry, well here it is, my long awaited entry on  what I hate about writing my stories.  I know I have things I hate, and I doubt I am the first, nor do I think will I be the last that hates certain things about his own work.  You take Led Zeppelin, they had their loves and hates with song writing, and when it was all said and done, they hated Living Loving Maid, the song that always follows Heartbreaker on the radio, so much, they never, ever played it live, nor did they even consider it.  They just hated it.
     Now in many ways, I have certain things that I hate writing, fight scenes being one of them.  When it comes to sword fights, I usually know the beginning, the end, and somehow fill in the middle part of it.  Perhaps it would be better if I could act it out, but let's face it, I don't know how to sword fight in real life, but I do have references via TV and the movies.   But it simply comes down to that when I write a sword fight, I have to choreograph it in my head, actually 3 fucking D visualization.  I typically start out with a fight being about oh maybe 500 to 1000 words, then over about 10 edits(Yeah I work on them that much), I end up with close to 3000 to 4000 words, with many actions.  The next problem is trying to not repeat any of that.
     Naval battles are another.  Outside of air force pilots, there are few humans on this planet that have ever had to fight in 3D to the extent that a space battle happens.  There are many things to take into account, and that scene from Wrath of Khan where they comment that Khan has only ever fought in 2D, and as such, Kirk orders the Enterprise down 10 000 kilometers.  And Khan falls for it.  And that therein is the issue sometimes with doing naval battles:  you have ships moving towards each other and they can move up and down, and whatever technology you have for locking weapons on target, has to compensate for all this shit.  But it is important, and much like fight scenes, I take quite some time to go from draft to final version of the battles.  Hell, I have two battle sequences in mind that I literally stretched over at least 5 scenes and sometimes minimum 5 points of view.  This is why I don't like doing them, but in doing them, I get the final details in pretty good.
     Now that I am publishing stuff, it is, for the most part, set in stone.  I hate that because up until now, if I had a new idea, I could just go back and change it.  Can't anymore.  Ahhh such is life.
Characters can also be quite challenging, trying to instill unique personalities on so many of them; sometimes I kill them off just to keep it simple.  And if I spend a lot on a character versus lesser time for some of these, and then kill them off, it is the name of the game for me.  No one is sacred.
Overall at the end of the day I enjoy writing, and there will always be something I hate to tackle, and I know I am not in a unique position on that, but as I learned from going from undergrad to the other side and being a teaching assistant, you see things differently and get a better understanding of what the hell is going on.  Maybe you the reader will too, reading stuff about how I write.
     Of course now there is also the editing that goes on after a piece is written, I mean who doesn't bitch about editing (if you do find someone, please send them in my direction).  It doesn't matter how many cute programs you use to edit, how many times you end up going through it on your own, you are going to miss stuff.  The author, except in very rare cases, cannot at all, catch all there is to catch, and hence why we rely on editors.  I tried and failed to a pretty damned good degree on some pieces.  Oh how it would be nice to just be able to write it out and that's it.  For Triumvirate, Book 2, I am on at least the 10th full edit, and one more by me to go before it even hits the editor.
     At the end of the day, despite all the bitching, writing is a good release for me, I just wish all parts were equally fun (this written by the guy who has only been editing for the past 4 weeks at this point!!).
     Now for the next entry, it will either be a deeper look at Desperation or perhaps a sneak peak at Trimvirate!!
Ahhh man he's on the fucking soap box again!!