Pens and Swords » Writing Journal

Pirates & Swashbucklers on Sale Now

Kameron — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 14:00:57 +0000

Avast, matey. Thar be sails on the horizon. Prepare to come about, ye bilge rats. My, she’s a buxom beauty, ain’t she boys. Fire a warnin’ shot ‘cross ‘er bow. Now draw yer blades and board ‘er smartly before ‘er captain can scuttle our prize.

Yes, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and if you’re not very conversant in the lingo, here’s a translation of the above:

Stop what you’re doing. Today is the official release of Pulp Empire’s Pirates & Swashbucklers anthology. Head over to CreateSpace and order your copy now. If you do so before October 10th, you can use the code 43X7BLJ4 to get 15% off the cover price.

That’s right. “Relvan’s Rescue,” one of 17 New Pulp stories about pirates and their ilk collected in this volume, is now available for your reading pleasure. My thanks to Nick Alhelm, the editor and publisher, for helping Janner Kohl to finally see print. I hope you enjoy his adventures as much as I do.Similar Posts:

Pirates and Editors

Kameron — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:00:30 +0000

I got an update from the publisher of the Pirates & Swashbucklers anthology that will feature my short story “Relvan’s Rescue.” The book is being proofread, and authors will receive galleys in the next 2-3 weeks to review. The current launch date is September 19th, which also happens to be Talk Like a Pirate Day. The publisher had originally hoped to release the book to coincide with the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but had to push it back due to a schedule conflict with another anthology he was publishing. The current launch date is also about a month before the DVD release of the Pirates movie, and the publisher is hoping to get some traction from that.

I’ve started another Janner Kohl short story that I hope to finish before Black Gate’s next submission cycle. This one takes place earlier in Janner’s career with the Brigade and focuses on his friend Mig Daro. It’s titled “Mig’s Rebellion.”

Finally, the start of school is just two weeks away. I have to make an appearance on campus a little early, however, because I am interviewing this Thursday for the position of fiction editor with the Salmon Creek Journal, the university’s literary magazine. It’s a volunteer job, (I’m already getting paid to work as a “consultant” in the Writing Center) but I really want the experience as I look at the future possibility of running my own webzine and publishing anthologies.Similar Posts:

Small town writer

Kameron — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:00:41 +0000

It’s been almost three weeks since we packed up the family and moved to the smallest town I ever remember living in. The plan is to be here for the next two years while I finish school. Moving to a small town did not hold a lot of appeal for me. Many of the conveniences I grew used to would not be readily available. I’ve already run into issues with trying to find bathroom hardware to repair the tub.

Things aren’t all bad, however. The slower pace has been nice, though unemployment contributes to that as much as the environment. I can get to anywhere in town within 15 minutes walking, or 5 minutes by bike, as long it isn’t raining. I haven’t ridden my bike this much since I was twelve.

My most frequent destination is the local public library. I’ve schedule my weekdays to include two hours of writing every morning at the library. The time has been productive from the start. I completed two pages the first day. The second day, I was on pace to exceed that, having written a page and a half in the first hour.

Then the laptop died.

The screen had been going fuzzy and streaking for the last month or so. This thing was a good ten years old. I had just finished a major dialogue exchange when it froze. I sat there banging keys for a bit, hoping it was just a CPU bottleneck, but nothing budged.

That’s when it occured to me that I hadn’t saved the document since opening it. All that work, that beautiful dialogue, gone. I rebooted, and opened Word. Thanks to Bill Gate’s foresight, Word rescued a copy of my manuscript from the crash. Unfortunately, the last autosave was 30 minutes earlier. Half of what I had written was gone, lost in the digital void. I started rewriting, the words still fresh in my mind.

The computer froze again. It did it a third time before I even had a chance to type. I threw up my hands and surrendered. Lunch drew near, so I packed my things and headed back home. After lunch, I used my mother-in-law’s computer to log on to Dell and order a new laptop. I was not to be foiled.

Upon our return from a weekend of camping, FedEx delivered the new laptop. I was back at the library the next day. I couldn’t recall the exact dialogue that had been lost (shame on me for not writing it down in a notebook; I was too frustrated by the laptop’s demise), but I came up with a satisfactory alternative. My pace slowed a bit to a little over one page per day, but I plowed through two major scenes in Shattered Amulet. If this level of productivity continues, I may add Saturdays to the schedule. I’m not sure I’ll finish the novel in the two months I have before school starts, but I’m certainly going to give it a shot.Similar Posts:

The Lost Art of Drafting

Kameron — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:00:55 +0000

At some point in the past, I lost the ability to draft. That is, I was no longer able to simply write down my thoughts as they came without my inner editor rearing his ugly head and bringing my creative process to a screeching halt. Everything needed polish as soon as it hit the page.

The loss of this ability likely coincided with the advent of word processing software as my dominant writing medium. The tranistory nature of words on a virtual page make it so easy to just backspace over anything and everything that gives my inner editor pause. Back when I was writing on real paper with real lead (or ink), erasing errors was enough of an effort that I just pushed ahead. Those “errors” got evaluated once I was done, and resulted in another draft if I couldn’t live with the original composition.

Any remaining vestige of drafting as an art was further buried by my habit of procrastinating on papers during college. Writing a paper the night before it was due required perfection on the first attempt.

In an ironic twist, it may be writing for college that restores my ability to draft. One of the classes I am taking this term is a teaching methods course that focuses on writing, and one of the methods we’re learning is the formation of writing circles.

These are not your traditional writing circles that focus on critiquing the work of its members. Instead, the purpose is to boost confidence within the writer by creating a low-risk environment where they are free to just write. The circle chooses a topic and time is set aside for a quick write based on that topic. The writing can be in any genre, or mode, desired: poem, letter, essay, memoir, short story. The point is to write as much as you can within the allotted time.

In class, we have 5 minutes to write in a journal before we share with our circle. I have found the process quite liberating, and might even start a local writing circle based on these principles over the summer. I don’t think I will revert back to writing a first draft on paper, but I am retraining my mental process to allow for the freedom of just putting my thoughts into words without any oversight from my inner editor.

Have you lost the art of drafting? Do you keep a writing journal, or write your first drafts on paper before starting a Word doc? Would you consider going back to paper? Share your thoughts on drafting in the comments.Similar Posts:

Relvan returns from Black Gate

Kameron — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:09:42 +0000

I heard back from Black Gate today on “Relvan’s Rescue”. Return time was about 6 months. John O’Neill, Publisher and Editor of Black Gate, was nice enough to send a personalized email, which included an apology for the delay (their stated return time is 3-5 months). Fellow author Marcy Rockwell often comments about the nice rejections she gets, and I finally understand what she means. I think this was the first rejection that made me feel good. Here’s what Mr. O’Neill said:

Almost. I was very impressed with “Relvan’s Rescue” — it’s well written and has a terrific setting, and some fine characters. But it takes just a little bit longer to get underway than a small handful
of other pieces I’m currently considering. I’m afraid I’ll have to return it, with regrets.

I hope you’ll try us again when we next open to submissions.

I readily admit that the story doesn’t jump right into the action, and I’ll take another look, but I’m not sure I’ll make any changes before I submit it to another market. Now, I just need to remember who was next on my list.Similar Posts:

Treating it like a second job

Kameron — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:00:56 +0000

I began the process of dissolving my company earlier this summer. Goldbox Media Group incorporated back in June of 2006, and for the past three years, I poured time, money, and less tangible resources into the production of an online game. It was my second job.

The decision to quit that job was not an easy one. It meant swallowing my pride. It meant asking my family to shoulder a financial burden that I had promised they wouldn’t need to. It meant letting go of a dream.

I picked up an old dream I had let lie by the roadside. I wasn’t ready to fully embrace it yet, though. I’d been burned by dreams, including this one, and I needed some time to heal. My family needed some time.

I started writing again, in small chunks, but with regularity. A half-an-hour or forty-five minutes during my lunch. Sometimes 25 words a day. Sometimes 500. I reconnected with an old friend and, in time, he opened up to me once more. I discovered new and interesting things about him, fueling my enthusiasm for the relationship.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the average productivity of a “professional” writer is 1000 words a day. The manuscript for Shattered Amulet surpassed the 20k mark last month. Increasing my productivity to professional levels would make finishing a first draft by the end of the year a realistic goal, but requires a greater commitment of time on my part. No more playing computer games or watching TV during the week after the kids are in bed. I’d need to treat it like a second job.

Excuse me while I go fill out an application.Similar Posts:

Training my inner editor

Kameron — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:00:29 +0000

I am not a prolific writer. I like to attribute this to my struggle to maintain a regular schedule of writing, and that once I establish a habit, my productivity will increase exponentially. There is some truth to this assessment, but it is only a part of my problem. I need to train my inner editor if I really want to pump up my word count.

Your inner editor is that little voice in your head that tells you when something in your writing isn’t working: plot points, characterization, and language. Especially language, in my case. My inner editor hovers over my shoulder, watching every single word I type, and eagerly brings my flow to a grinding halt if I have not chosen the perfect word on my first attempt.

Technology has enabled my inner editor. He knows how easy it is to hit the Delete or Backspace key. Procrastination in college helped him further erode the concept of a rough draft. There’s no time to rewrite when you’re working on a paper due the next day.

I’m suffering now from these personality quirks and bad habits because they’ve allowed my inner editor to disrupt my creative process. Instead of just pouring out the words in my head into a rough draft, I struggle to push out more than a couple of polished sentences at a time.

I need to be able to turn my inner editor off until my first draft is done. It’s not that I think editing shouldn’t happen at all during the initial writing process, but rather that my inner editor has gotten so out of control that I need to take such a drastic step to rein him in. That means ruthlessly squashing my urges to hesitate over the use of a “to be” verb or word repetition, and just type.

It’s not going to be easy. In fact, I imagine I won’t see much difference in my productivity for a couple weeks because I’ll be spending as much time strangling my inner editor as I was searching for the solution to what wasn’t “working.”

What I really need is one of those shock collars you put on dogs to train them not to bark. Have scientists identified what part of the brain the inner editor lives in yet? Then I could just hook up an electrode between it and a battery, and press a button to jolt him every time he rears his troublesome head before the rough draft is done.

Do you let your inner editor run free or keep it on a short leash? What exercises have you done to train it so it doesn’t interfere with your creative flow?
Similar Posts:

Feeling like a writer

Kameron — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:00:20 +0000

I write for a living. I spend eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, sitting at a desk writing. I write business requirements, use cases, test cases, and technical documentation. It is a rare occasion that I finish my day feeling like a writer, however. No sense of euphoria or completeness, as though I’d found my calling.

My lunch time writing has become a highlight of my work day, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of progress on my fantasy fiction projects. “Relvan’s Rescue” is finished and making the rounds. I finished the second chapter of Shattered Amulet and am pounding out scenes from chapter three.

Moments of “feeling like a writer” have been common over the last few weeks. They came as I hit some of the milestones I’ve mentioned, so I decided it might be a fun exercise to analyze those milestones and compile a list of generic events that trigger those “I really am a writer” feelings. The list could then serve as encouragement during those dark times when I wonder why I even bother turning the stories in my head into words on a page.

I feel like a writer when:

I finish writing an entire scene in one sitting.
I don’t have the urge to immediately go back and edit what I just wrote.
I finish writing 1,000 words or more in one day.
I spend more time writing than I do thinking about what I want to write.
I write the last word of a scene, chapter, or story.
I drop the manuscript in the mailbox or click Send on the email with the manuscript attached.
I read “by Kameron M. Franklin” under the title.

What are some of your “feeling like a writer” moments? Share them in the comments.
Similar Posts:

Beta reading before submitting

Kameron — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:00:59 +0000

I finished the rewrite of “Relvan’s Rescue” on Friday. The manuscript sits just shy of 11,400 words. That’s almost 4,000 words more than the original version I submitted to several markets a year ago. The story is in the hands of some beta readers, one of whom has been tasked with trying to find ways to cull 1,400 words. I’d really like to keep the word count to 10,000 or just under, as that opens more markets.

The first market I plan to submit to is Black Gate, which recently opened to submissions again. They were closed during my last round of submitting. I think the quarterly publication would be an excellent home for Janner Kohl, as “plot-driven epic fantasy with colorful settings and interesting characters” is a good description of the mercenary captain and his adventures.

I have mixed feelings about beta reading and critique groups. My wife reads everything I write before it gets submitted, of course. And I usually ask my mom, an English professor, to look over my manuscripts, too. I don’t often solicit the input of others beyond that, for two reasons.

The first reason, and perhaps the most important, is because the only real opinion that matters is the editors’ you’re submitting to. That isn’t to say there isn’t anything of value that beta readers or a critique group can add. Other writers can provide insight into craft, and beta readers can give you a sense of how well the story flows. But that still doesn’t guarantee it will meet the standards or tastes of the editor.

The second reason is more applicable to novels than short stories. When working on Maiden of Pain, my publisher expressly told me not to share the manuscript with a critique group. My editor was to be my sounding board. This is totally understandable from a business perspective, as it puts their investment at risk.

If I’m totally being honest, my reticence is also due in part to a lack of desire to critique the work of others. I shouldn’t expect what I don’t want to readily give. It takes a lot of time and effort to participate in a critique circle, time and effort that could be spent on my own writing. And there’s also the risk of “creative contamination,” the coincidental or unintentional cross-pollination of ideas that can lead to messy outcomes.

How useful are beta readers or critique groups to your work? What do you look for in the way of feedback?Similar Posts:

Superhero stories without pictures seem less super

Kameron — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:00:24 +0000

I’ve been reading comic books about as long as I have fantasy fiction novels. My dad bought me my first comic book, a Superman and Plastic Man team-up, when we moved from New Jersey to Iowa the summer after second grade. I spent many summer days after third grade with my face buried in a Ghost Rider comic I check out from the public library. The full-color depictions of people with cool powers defeating evil grabbed my imagination and hasn’t let go.

I became a “serious” collector and reader in junior high, but it wasn’t until I started playing the Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game that I started to develop my own superhero stories. My early forays where in the original medium, pages of penciled panels. I traced the work of my favorite artists, picking poses that reflected the scene in my head, but filling in details so they matched the superheroes I created: Sergeant Steele, Captain Galaxy, Lightning Lad, Meltdown, and others.

Eventually, I got to the point where I could recreate scenes I saw on the page by eye. I took an art class my senior year in high school, and a couple more in college, but it became apparent to me that I lacked natural talent. I could spend hours and hours honing what skills I had to become a serviceable illustrator, or I could pursue a path that took better advantage of my given abilities and inclinations. I chose the latter.

That didn’t mean I stopped thinking of superhero stories. I have notebooks of story synopses. I’ve fleshed several of those out as short story or scripts. I’ve contemplated grouping arcs together into novels, but always pull back from committing.

Capes, cowls and colored spandex in non-graphic formats are few and far between. Martin’s Wild Cards series, Soon I Will be Invincible, and the novelization of the Marvel and DC universes are recent developments. I enjoyed Soon I Will Be Invincible, but constantly found myself wishing there were illustrations of the characters in costume, and possibly a fight scene or two, interspersed among the prose.

For me, the genre–while not inseparable from the medium–lacks impact when the visual element is removed. Something is lost in the translation. Perhaps this disconnect is fueled by my strong desire to see my own superheroes in four-colors.

What about you? Can superheroes survive in a prose-only format? Do you prefer to see Superman and Spiderman stick with comic books?Similar Posts: