A.J. Maguire

Author: ajmaguire

  • The Countdown is On!

    That’s right!  In just four days I’ll start posting Persona as a serialized novel online for free.  I have to admit, I’m excited.  I’ve got a seven week buffer, which means I have seven chapters edited and prepped so that if life gets in the way, or if I just need a little break, I can take one and not miss the weekly deadline.

    I’m considering an audio version but I’ve only got the one little microphone and, let’s be frank, the idea of anyone listening to my voice nonstop for twenty minutes makes me a little self-conscious.  For now I’m only guaranteeing the story blog, which you can find here and the Wattpad version.

    I can’t give the Wattpad link yet because it hasn’t been created, but early Tuesday morning it’ll be here.

    The amazing Chris Howard has been hard at work on the cover art for Persona and here’s what we’ve got so far …

    Cover Art by Chris Howard
    Cover Art by Chris Howard

    Honestly, I love it.  It absolutely captures the tone and heart of the book.  This guy is amazing.  You should really check out his stuff.

    And now I have to confess that I’ve decided this blog will be echoing the Fact vs. Fiction page on the story blog for the duration of Persona’s serialization.  The reason I’ve decided this is because I am a single parent who works full-time and goes to school full-time.

    Time is tight and while I have a seven chapter buffer, I don’t have a blog buffer.  If I want to get the fact vs. fiction stuff up at all, I have to sacrifice something.  And trust me, I can’t sacrifice lego playtime with my kid.

    Besides, it’s still a blog post about writing so I’m not really cheating here.

    So!  Here we are with four days left to go.  The story blog is already set up so if you want to sign up via email it’s ready to go.  That just means you’ll get the story delivered directly to your email every Tuesday.

    I’m still working on how to upload a PDF version that can be downloaded and delivered to your eReader of choice.  (If anyone knows how to do that, please say so.  I’m a little lost myself.)

    See you all in four days!

  • Serializing Novels via R.J. Blain

    Just as I promised, I have a guest post from R.J. Blain today on serializing novels.  For those of my awesome, wonderful, perfect Readers who don’t know what it means to serialize a novel I’ll go ahead and explain.  Serializing a novel would be sorta like when stories were posted in the newspaper week after week.  (Think Jo in Little Women, she did that for a while.)

    Since I’ll be serializing Persona (that’s the WWII project I’ve been talking about and yes, I know I changed the title like five different times.  I’m a writer.  Until it’s published it’s subject to change.) But because I’ll be serializing Persona starting in June I asked the lovely and talented (and slightly crazy) R.J. Blain to talk a little bit about her experience serializing novels.  

    R.J. Blain has not one but TWO novels being serialized at present (which really blows my mind), and she has some great things to share.  

    So!

    Meet R.J. Blain — 

    Art by Chris Howard

    There are a lot of things a writer needs in order to be successful. Having the ability to put words on the page is just the start of the journey. Reaching out and connecting with those who want to read your stories is almost as important as the words that you’ve put on the page.

    It’s also a lot harder.

    Let’s face facts: Most writers are introverts. Some of us are introverts with extrovert tendencies, and there is a reason for this – those who spend their time writing aren’t spending their time socializing. An extrovert often finds this process uncomfortable. Introverts find this process uplifting.

    For some of us, it just caters to our special brand of insane, but that’s a different story altogether.

    I have two different novel serializations on my website, and AJ asked me to step up to the plate and talk about the process of preparing and releasing a serialized story.

    I might have winced a little when AJ told me of her plans to serialize a piece. A hundred and one thoughts fluttered through my head, and each subsequent one unsettled me even more. Then, after going through a gauntlet of eulogies for her sanity, I started to grin.

    A post on the process of serialization? I can so work with that.

    My name is R.J. Blain. If you spot my sanity anywhere, please return it to Montreal, Quebec. I’m sure someone from my household will retrieve it. Eventually.

    I started serializing my story, Zero, (http://rjblain.com/zero-a-science-fiction-web-serial/) in January of 2013. Almost six months in, I was 5-10 minutes late on two updates, flirted with the devil many more times than that, and had posted two bonus scenes. I update every Wednesday.

    When I set out to write Zero, I went in trying to accomplish three things: High-quality writing, consistent updates (every Wednesday), and telling a good story. That last point is important: It’s the manifestation of wanting to connect with people who want to read things I write.

    The rule of three quickly crashed down on me. I had the updates in the bag. I’m pretty good about sitting down and doing what I need to do. I don’t work with a buffer, and I get quite the adrenaline rush when I realize it is 5 pm on a Wednesday afternoon and I haven’t even started my update for Zero.

    I drove myself to epic-levels of stress trying to accomplish the quality I wanted. I want to write a story that people enjoy reading, and the requirement and desire to produce quality writing was equivalent to wearing concrete shoes while skydiving over the Hudson.

    So, I admitted defeat and crossed high-quality off of the list. I just couldn’t spend the amount of time editing fresh draft. In exchange, I am having a lot more fun with the story now that I’m not as worried about the quality. Knowing myself as well as I do, I’ll never be able to totally abandon my desire for quality.

    This is a good thing.

    Songbird (http://rjblain.com/serial-a-romantic-fantasy/) is another experimental piece I’m serializing because of a dare. Terrible reason, but a fun story, and one that plays by different rules than Zero. When I went into Zero, I knew I wouldn’t be updating Songbird consistently. It’s a fly-by-night, pop out of a dark corner and shout, “I’m BATMAN!” at unsuspecting victims type of story. Like Zero, it’s an experiment: Could I write a traditional fantasy with strong romantic elements?

    On the surface, these two stories aren’t that much different. Zero is a soft science fiction. Songbird is a romantic fantasy. One uses political sciences and some futuristic tech, the other includes magic. To me, most science is magic because I don’t understand it more than half of the time.

    Realistically, these two stories are completely different. I don’t write them the same way. I don’t prepare them for serialization the same way. I didn’t even conceptualize them the same way. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a writer over the years is that while there are a few elements of my method that carry over from project to project, no one novel is the same as another, and these two stories are my proof of it. (Every writer is different, so this is commentary about me and me alone.)

    Zero started with three days of plotting, planning, prepping, and world building. When I started scene 1, I had a good idea where I was going. I even had some ideas on how to get there. I had the main characters, and I had a rough idea of how they’d meet despite coming from such different worlds. I had Easter eggs prepared, puns planned, and a roadmap complete with a set of directions.

    Songbird started with nothing. I sat down, picked up my pen, and I started to write. I knew nothing of Kara, even less about Ranik, and I really don’t know where they’re going or if they’ll make it to the same destination at the same time.

    It took me three or four updates before I started loathing Zero due to how I was writing it.

    I never fell out of love with Songbird.

    I feel back into love with Zero, and I feel that the story has a whole-new dynamic because of it.

    I don’t get to write on Songbird even a quarter of how often I’d like to.

    Zero is a patient friend and companion, showing up for a date every 7 days, whether or not the weather is nice. It’s that guy, you know. The one that sits outside at a café on a rainy day waiting for his girl, who shows up disheveled and several hours late.

    I’m convinced Songbird is staging a revolt as the result of neglect.

    Zero is drafted directly to the computer. Songbird is written by hand in a moleskine journal and transcribed to the computer scene by scene.

    One author, two stories, and two very different writing processes to bring these stories to life.

    If you’re planning on releasing a serial, I strongly recommend that you do so knowing what you’re getting into. If you’re going in without a buffer, expect stress. Expect needing a hellish amount of dedication and enthusiasm to push through the bad days. Expect the strong desire to burn the project with fire when you are forced to work on it when you don’t want to.

    Don’t expect the process to be easy. Don’t expect a high number of people coming back to your site week after week. Even if they do, most of them aren’t going to comment, aren’t going to notice you, and they aren’t going to hold your hand. Expect to have a silent audience, one that you engage only through the words you’ve written.

    Expect to get a glimpse of the world of publication, where you are forced to forge connections with people without ever having the chance to talk to them directly.

    Even if you only have one person who sees the story through to the end, that is one more person you have supporting you, even if you aren’t aware that they are there in the shadows. This was one of the hardest things for me when I started serializing Zero and Songbird. I’m an introvert with extrovert tendencies. I want to be noticed. I want my readers to reach out to me. I want to forge those connections.

    I want people to read my stories.

    For me, this was the most valuable lesson I’ve learned so far serializing my stories: I write because I want to be read. I want to entertain someone.

    I want to forge connections with people.

    The hardest lesson I’ve learned so far serializing my stories is that most of the time I’ll never know for certain if I succeeded at making these connections.

    That’s okay, though. It’s okay because I don’t need to know that it’s happening to be aware of the fact that it is, even if I’m not told this is the case to my face.

    In a way, novel serialization is a leap of faith. It’s a risk. It’s a challenge. Success is hinged on the will of others and my ability to connect with people I’ve never met.

    Is novel serialization right for you?

    Only you can answer that question. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that knowing one person’s method (or lack thereof) will give you the keys to the universe and to success. It won’t.

    If you decide to serialize, make your own way. Forge your own path, and never stop writing.

    Good Luck.

    ~R.J. Blain (http://rjblain.com)

    (Special thanks to R.J. Blain for luring me into a guest post with chocolate.  I totally dove into the trap when she promised Godiva’s.  And, just as a side note, I’m sooo glad I’m not crazy enough to jump into serialization without a buffer.  I have no idea how she does it, but I would have slammed my head into a wall by now.)

     

     

  • Choices

    Well, tomorrow I’m going to have a guest post from RJ Blain, who is another relatively insane author I’ve been stalking on Google+ for a while now.  (I don’t think it’s really stalking when she’s in another country, but … eh … we’ll let her decide where the creepy boundary is.)

    Anyway, you’ll love her.  She’s crazy and likes chocolate.

    I thought about putting the post up tonight but had one of those “writer” moments today that I just had to get out.  Honestly, it’s amazing I can remember this eureka moment since a bird quite literally attacked me thirty seconds after I had it.

    I’m not kidding.  This little black bird flew right into my back.  I thought maybe it was an accident but it came back and proceeded to dive bomb me again.  I nearly swung my sandwich bag at it, but thought I might get bird-crazy on my Italian Subway sandwich somehow and decided to just run instead.

    Yeah.  I ran from a bird.  I’m not proud.

    In my defense, it had beady black eyes and reminded me of those nasty crow things from Snow White and the Huntsman.

    Where was I? … Oh, yeah … the Eureka moment.

    One of the elements that is severely lacking in my fiction (or at least my early fiction, I have been working on this) is that of choice.  What I mean by that are major choices, choices that the character knows won’t end well no matter which direction they pursue.

    ALERT:  The following examples are spoilerific!  DO NOT READ if you hate spoilers. 

    Example #1:  Doctor Who The End of Time.  That’s like the last episode David Tennant was in and he gets to a point where he has to choose between shooting the Master, or Rassilon (Timothy Dalton’s character).

    For a dude who has spent the last several years adamant about not killing anyone, this is seriously a bad decision for him.  We get to see him flipping between aiming the gun at Dalton or the Master and then Dalton again and then the Master.  (And in the end he chooses neither, but … eh … it was the fact that he was put in the position to have to make such a choice that added tension to that climax.)

    Example #2: Supernatural What is and What Should Never Be.  Poor Dean Winchester finds himself having to make a very serious decision in the end of this episode.  He was attacked by a djinn and is in this dream world where his mother is alive and his family is mostly intact while the djinn slowly consumes his blood.

    For a guy who has a history of putting his family (and innocent lives) in front of himself, he is suddenly confronted with a choice; stay and live in the “world” that has been created for him, or gut himself in the dream in order to wake up.

    Of course, there’s no guaranteeing that he’s right and that he’s in a dream at all, so the decision also has the fear of mortality laced into it.

    Sweet, holy tension, batman!

    Dean delivers this wonderful line just before he goes to shove a knife into his gut, too —

    “No, I’m sure.  I’m like … ninety percent sure.  I’m sure enough.”

    ….

    You see what I’m saying here, right?

    It’s all about choice.  In fact, we can sum plot up as being Character A must choose Path A, B, or C.

    All right, so that’s an oversimplified look on plot, but it really does work.  Characters are defined by the choices they make — at least the good one’s are.  So my eureka moment today was when I realized that I hadn’t really given my characters tough enough choices to make.

    Rock, meet hard place.

    And then the bird attacked me.

    There might have been more to that eureka moment but I was busy running.

    You can’t get avian crazies when a bird dive bombs you, right?  It’s not like a freaky bird plague I should be worried about?

     

  • Star Trek Into Darkness Review

    That’s right.  This science fiction geek totally went to see Star Trek this weekend. I’ll admit that I sorta knew what was coming because I follow Tor.com and they had some reviews up there (they said not to read the bottom comments due to spoilers, but I read them anyway because … yeah … I just couldn’t help myself.)

    Anyway, I enjoyed the movie.  No, scratch that, I loved the movie.  My mother and I had several debates about it because she is … Well, let’s just say I’m a Trekkie because she was a Trekkie first.  I was sort of born into it.

    She was not so happy about certain plot elements that mirrored the old movies.  Me, I liked the fact that they did this.  As a storyteller myself I can see why they did it and where they were going.  My mother, on the other hand, was hoping for something new.

    And, let’s face it, the whole point of Star Trek is to see something new.  They “boldly go where no man has gone before” and encounter “new life and new civilizations.”  So I do see where she is coming from.

    (Mild spoiler: the very end of the movie seemed to suggest that any future movies within the Star Trek genre were going to head out into unexplored territory.  At least I hope that’s what that whole sequence meant.)

    That said, I’m going to have to agree with some of the other reviews I’ve read on this subject and that is on the matter of James T. Kirk himself.  The last movie left his character rather smug.  I mean … of course, they were going to make him Captain.  He basically saved Earth.

    This movie ripped that smugness away from him.  It helped him grow up.  The Captain Kirk that is now at the helm of our beloved Enterprise is one we can rally behind more fully.

    So!

    I loved the movie.  I loved the character growth within the movie.  I even loved all the tongue-in-cheek brushes we had with the older films.

  • I’m a Guest!

    This week I’m a guest over at Toni V. Sweeney’s blog!  I talk about the trouble I had naming a particular character in the upcoming serialization of Persona, and … well … the difficulty in picking names for fiction in general.

    If this is an issue you’re familiar with, or you just like seeing how crazy writers really are, then head on over to Toni’s blog!  I’ll be there for a week.

  • Iron Man 3 – Review

    All right!  So we all know I’m a comic geek and it shouldn’t be a surprise that I totally dragged my son to go see Iron Man 3 today.

    I have adored Robert Downy Jr. as Iron Man and he did not disappoint in this third installment of the franchise.  In fact, his portrayal of Tony Stark felt even more genuine this time since the poor man was still recovering from the fight in Avengers.  We got to see him struggle with the understanding that he is not invincible, that he might not have what it takes to keep those important to him safe.

    As an author who pays attention to characters, this movie really exposed that struggle in a vivid way.  Also, we got to see Tony fighting without all his cool toys.    Granted, we got to see a LOT of his “toys” in the end, but during the rough middle — that point where the character has been stripped of everything — Tony had to sort of get back to basics.

    And I won’t lie, I totally adored that it was a kid who helped him figure that out.

    Now, I do admit that something felt a little off in the movie.  After a great deal of thought, I’m going to point at the music.  I missed heavy metal blaring out.  I understand they were showing a different side of Tony, that the character was changing and the movie needed to help reflect that, but … dude … Iron Man needs that oomph.

    Which brings me to my final point; Pepper.  I don’t want to spoil the movie (remember, I hate spoilers) but Pepper did something at the end of this movie that made me twitch.

    Please don’t get me wrong.  Pepper is a strong character.  She has to be in order to survive life with Tony Stark.  But that strength isn’t really reflected in a physical form.

    Now, I’m an author who writes female protagonists who kick serious butt.  I’m normally all for women getting gritty.  But that tendency has to be shown very early on.  The Pepper we’ve seen from the beginning wasn’t really like that, which is why this particular moment in the movie threw me off.

    So!

    All in all, I loved the movie.  I missed the music, but Tony’s journey was an excellent one to follow.

    And my son … Yeah, he just loved all the suits.  (He’s five.  He doesn’t get the whole “heroic journey” thing yet.)

  • Research

    This week I rewrote almost all of Chapter One of the WWII project, which I think I might title Sullied Heritage instead of Crossweathers, but we’ll see.  (Many thanks to Tressa Green for taking a moment out of her day to  help me brainstorm.)  In the middle of the rewrite I came across several problems that deal completely with research.

    I couldn’t for the life of me find record of the Elaine, though I know I found it in an obscure book several years ago.

    That wasn’t too much of a problem, I just started researching different boats that sunk and came upon the Ceramic.

    However, the Ceramic sunk right around midnight and there was a massive storm going on at the same time (which accounts for how many souls were lost at sea after the sinking).  The original draft had the boat sinking in the late evening with the sun setting.

    So my rewrite had to change the time, date, and weather.  But all of that is really OK with me because I feel like it’s a stronger chapter because of it. (Of course, I’m rewriting stuff that I wrote almost ten years ago, so it’s bound to be stronger now.  I think I could sneeze a sentence better now than I wrote back then.)

    All of these changes got me to thinking about how different it is to research things today.  Ten years ago I was in the library a lot and even purchased several books on WWII to help me.  I do still love the library, but a lot of the information I need is far easier to get a hold of via the internet.

    Such as the rationing in both America and Germany.  Or the names of which boats were taken down by submarines in the Atlantic.  Or the bombing in Ulm in 1944 (which I didn’t know about until I started this research).

    There are some things that I learned through people, though.  Such as the yellow pill that was rubbed into margarine in order to make it look like butter.  (I’m not kidding.  Apparently that’s real.  I’ll never look at margarine the same way.)  Or the eyeliner women used in order to draw a line on the back of their legs so that they appeared to be wearing pantyhose.

    I say all that to get to the main point, which is that I super love the Googles.  I got more information out of one night of research than I had in hours scouring the library ten years ago.  And it inspired me to add a Fact vs. Fiction page onto the story blog for the WWII novel (which is still scheduled to begin release June 1st.)

    This page will take what I put in the story — such as the sinking of the Ceramic — and explain what really happened versus what I chose to include in the book, with a little bit about why I chose to do it that way.  It’s mostly for those history buffs out there.  Or people who might be curious.  And, of course, for me, since I find the whole process of researching this novel fascinating.

  • Theme Songs

    Every book I write tends to have a specific soundtrack to it.  It’s what I listen to for thirty minutes or so before I sit down and actually start writing, which I know sounds a little crazy but … Eh … Whatever works, you know?

    Sedition was written listening to the Gladiator soundtrack.  Seriously, that’s how Trenna Silvanus “grew” for me as a character.  However, that music didn’t fit for its sequel, Saboteur.

    No, for Saboteur I totally rocked the Thor soundtrack for like eight months straight during the initial draft.

    Witch-Born was a little tricky.  I actually don’t remember the name of the band who made the album I listened to, or the album itself.  It wasn’t my usual fare and got lost during one of the great computer renovations of 2009/10.  It was heavy metal, though, I remember that.  No lyrics, just some really hard guitar playing.

    I totally blame the whole concept of Winter Tournament on that album, though.  I had some seriously cool battle scenes whizzing through my head thanks to that music.  Not all of them made it into the book, of course, but a couple key moments did.

    Deviation, which I am excited to announce will be released through Double Dragon Publishing in Summer 2014, was written to the music of Battlestar Galactica Season 3.

    And Dead Magic, also to be released from Double Dragon Publishing, had a theme track with The Planet of the Apes.

    I imagine you can see a pattern here.  All of these soundtracks had no lyrics.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that when I’m ready to start writing on Usurper I plug in my headphones and listen to The Chronicles of Narnia.  (If you laugh at that one, then you didn’t pay attention to the music.)

    However, my WWII book Crossweathers is utterly different.  I thought that listening to the Band of Brothers soundtrack would shove me into Nazi Germany and help me soak up the “mood” of the book long enough for me to write it, but I was wrong.

    Normally I would be in a state of panic without a “theme track” to follow this close to my committed time for working on the book.  (I’m scheduled to start revamping a chapter a week starting Monday, April 29th.  And then I’m going to start posting the work as a free, serialized novel on Wattpad June 1st.)

    But I stumbled onto this gem of a song by Ross Copperman called “Holding On and Letting Go” and the story just clicked in my head.  So, while the song has lyrics and what have you, I have still labeled it the “theme track” for Crossweathers.  (That’s just for my personal reference, I have no connection with Ross Copperman.  It’s just the song I will listen to before I get to work.)

    Does anyone else have “theme songs” they listen to when they write?

    Better yet, do you think you have a theme song for your own life?  (I watched Sound of Music last night and decided “How do you solve a problem like Maria” was totally appropriate for me.)

  • Trunk Novels

    I’ve gone through and deleted most of my trunk novels.  To be honest, several of them were dissected; meaning I took characters I enjoyed or a concept I thought was cool and then placed them inside a different book.

    In fact, Nelek Dyngannon from the Sedition series came from a trunk novel.  And the concept of the “tapped” came out of my alien abduction story.

    But there is one trunk novel that I just can’t seem to let go of.  I keep telling myself that I’m going to re-write it.  It’s my World War II story and I started it at least ten years ago.  I have close to ninety thousand words recorded from that story, but it’s all in bits and pieces.  There are sections missing — important sections, too.

    And there are at least three different endings I could choose from.

    I could assign this book as a “little darling” or I could attribute my inability to let it go to the fact that I love WWII history.  (Not that I love all the terrible things that happened, of course.)  But for whatever reason, I just can’t seem to drop it.

    So … I think I’m going to go ahead and start the rewrite this summer.  I’m already on the last leg of Usurper (Hurray! The characters have reached the mainland and are headed to war!) and the second book in the Tapped series is already underway.  (Meaning it’s been outlined and I’ve decided which POV characters I’ll have.)

    Now, because this is a trunk novel and what I could consider a “little darling” I am going to do something different with it.  I’ve been hunting for a project that I could post online for free via Wattpad and a story blog for some time now and this one seems to fit.

    For one, I have no real hopes of it ever getting published.  As much as I love history, particularly WWII history, the book is utterly fictional and I fear many people prefer to read WWII books that are at least loosely based on a true story.  We’ve been spoiled by Band of Brothers and other such stories.

    For another, there are elements in the story that stretch the boundary of belief.  For example, the original story-line had our heroine (because yes, I have to write a female protagonist, we all should understand this by now) getting shot down in a plane over the Baltic, where she was picked up by the Nazi’s.

    That story line was rejected during one of my gazillion edits ten years ago and changed to having her boat sink — the Elaine, by the way, which is a real boat that was really sunk — but even that story line makes my “suspension of disbelief” feel like it’s getting thrown into the atmosphere.

    See what I said about a re-write?

    I’m actually still struggling with the idea of keeping the book in this particular format (the boat sinking sequence) or going ahead with writing a new opening sequence.  It’s sort of like having to stress the Fiction in Historical Fiction rather than stressing the History.  The boat sinking makes for a great, exciting opening, and it seems to be my style to start things in the middle of the action.

    But, while the Elaine was a real boat, the people I have written are entirely fictional and the idea of Nazi’s taking in a half-drowned American woman and not assuming her to be a spy is a stretch.  Granted, the book starts prior to America entering the war, but still … Yeah …

    Side note — I did read about how the Allies planted fake information on a body and let it float to the enemy, who took the bait and thought the information was real.  Which, to me, was supremely clever.  What’s more convincing than a dead body?

    So!

    Starting in July (probably) I will set up the WWII story — titled Crossweathers, by the way — on Wattpad and give it a story blog.  I’ll post a chapter a week after that.

    I know some people manage to put two chapters up a week (LJ Cohen, for example) but I am still in school and have other deadlines to meet as well.

  • Graphic Detail

    As I’ve set aside my science fiction while readers are going through it I picked up Usurper again.  That’s the third book in Trenna Dyngannon’s series for those unaware.  Trenna is, by all appearances, my most popular character and I have to admit I love writing her.  She’s gritty and tough and vulnerable all at once … and funny.

    Diving back into this High Fantasy novel I noticed a stark contrast between the amount of graphic detail I provide with Trenna as opposed to my science fiction. It may be because I’ve “lived” in the world of Dyngannon for so many years that I see it more clearly, but I’m not sure.

    Science fiction … or at least space science fiction … tends to limit my graphic detail to what you can see on a space ship.  If you’re not in the pilot’s nest looking out the viewport then basically there’s just ship … more ship … and, Oh, look, even more ship … to see.  Which, I’m sure you can all imagine, can be a challenge.

    Now that I think about it, this probably explains the drastic difference in word count between my 100,000 word High Fantasy novels and the 65,000 word Science Fiction.  Reading through the manuscript again I can see how this story (the science fiction story) is more involved with the characters and their growth than my previously published fantasy novels.

    So there was really a trade-off.  What little I have involved in graphics was made up for in the personal journeys of the characters.

    That said, having written the science fiction I can now see how I am implementing what I learned about the “personal journey” into my current fantasy novel.  I believe this will make for a stronger all-around book in Usurper and am excited to see how it turns out.

    For the science fiction, I am challenging myself to take the whole book through a purely “Graphic Detail” edit.  That means I will be focusing completely on description.  I’ll probably even use a different colored pen.  (Pardon me as I squee.  I do adore having any reason at all to use different colored pens in my editing.  Red just … you know … hurts sometimes.)