A.J. Maguire

Author: ajmaguire

  • End of Week 3

    Is it really week 3?  Well, I suppose the first week was only two or three days long, so I won’t feel bad that I’m only sitting at 19762 words.  And I really, really won’t feel bad about that number since it is finals week and I have 1.5 projects left to do and a lovely multiple choice test waiting for me.  (The .5 project is mostly just gathering some pictures and the other one is an essay, so I should be able to finish relatively quickly.)

    I am seriously excited for the next two weeks, though.  Because after TODAY my summer classes will be done and I can play with my Camp NaNoWriMo project with more intensity.  And I do mean intensity because I just found out that one of the passengers currently on board Jorry’s ship the Zephyr was actually hired by Devon’s real mother to track him down.

    Sweet holy conflict, batman!

    In Jo’s defense, she sorta thought Devon’s real mother was dead.  And the lady did leave her three month old baby behind when she got arrested, so … yeah … Jorry feels fairly justified in her choice to keep him.  (Fairly justified.  She does have the moral capacity to see how murky the situation really is.)

    But, let me tell you, the scene where she gets confronted with this information was super fun to write.  Here, I’ll cheat and leave a snippet on this board as well:

    “That boy’s name is Devon Barlow and he is my son,” she said very quietly. “He is more a part of me than my own skin.  If I ever hear you even whisper such a story on this ship again I will disembowel you.  Are we clear?”

    Well, alright, so that’s more of a quote than a snippet.  If you want the actual snippet you have to go over to the Camp NaNoWriMo page.  At any rate, I need to run off and finish my finals so that I can breathe again.

     

  • Week 2 Round-up (Belated)

    Why yes, I’m several days late in posting this.  Truth is, I made a sudden decision on Friday evening that I was going to travel down and visit my mother for the weekend.  Thus, my blogging time was replaced with a flurry of packing whilst my son clung to my leg and cried; “Grandma! Grandma! Grandma!”

    OK.  So he didn’t cling to my leg, but he did get excited about going to see her.  (He always does.  She spoils him rotten.  Which is, apparently, her job.)

    In any case, if you look at the Camp NaNoWriMo page you can see that I rounded up last week at 14984 words.  Which is superfabulous considering my busy schedule.  I’m not very hopeful for this week considering it is both finals week for summer school AND VBS (vacation bible school) for my son.  But we’ll see how it all turns out in the end.

     

  • Day 3 of Camp NaNoWriMo

    Alright, so it’ll get a little crowded up here if I post all of my word counts every day.  I’ll be putting that up over on the Camp NaNoWriMo page anyway, so there’s no need to be redundant.  However, I also want to spend most of my time trying to … you know … write the novel I’m trying to write for this thing … So I’ve decided that on Friday’s I will post a quick recap on what I’ve done for the week.

    This will be taking the place of my regularly scheduled blog posts.  But I figure the title of my blog is “Writing Mayhem” and what is more chaotic and resembling mayhem than the idea of trying to write 50k words in one month?

    Pfft!  Nothing!  Nothing at all, I tell you.  It’s craziness personified.

    So!  Here is my recap for the first (half)week of Camp NaNoWriMo ::

    I have been introduced to Ms. Johanna Rorry, otherwise known as Jorry or Jo, to her compatriots.  She is, as she has told me, a deserter from the military.  She and her best buddy Seach Barlow (don’t ask me, that’s what he said his name was) both ran away from the military after receiving a distressing call from Jo’s husband — Relo Bomani (I recognize that the names are weird, but in the spirit of NaNoWriMo anything goes) — that they needed to run for their lives.

    I don’t know what was threatening their lives just yet, but I imagine I’ll find out later.  Whatever it was has kept them in hiding for 80 years or so … and I explain the science behind their freakishly long lives within the book.  They are the futuristic equivalent of truckers, meaning they haul food, provisions, and fuel to each of the space stations peppering the galaxy (also explained in the book). This keeps them mobile and anonymous, which is exactly what two deserters from the military would want.

    But .. uh-oh … I have to upset their balance in Chapter One to keep the plot interesting.  So I threw a baby at them.  (Not their baby, they’re not romantically inclined, and I didn’t have it fly through the air, so calm down.)

    In any case, I am ending this week with a word count of 5,076.  Which is super-fabulous.

  • Camp NaNoWriMo

    For those who aren’t already aware of the pure awesomeness that is National Novel Writing Month I feel the need to inform you of what it is.  Basically, during the month of November, crazy people (like me) attempt to write 50,000 words in thirty days.  I’ve only won a handful of times — possibly less, I haven’t kept count since starting school — but I can tell you that my published book Witch-Born came out of NaNoWriMo 2008.

    If you’re familiar with that book then you know that it’s actually something like 104,000 words all together, but that’s hardly the point.  The point is that the first half of the book was done in a one month and the second half — which always takes longer for me given the need to tie all the plot lines together and that … ahem … I tend to have a lot of action — was done through the month of December.  After that, I took a year or so to edit it.  (That’s really not that long when you count the months where Alpha Readers had the manuscript and I was left in suspense until I heard back from them.)

    But why am I talking about National Novel Writing Month in August when it’s not official until November?

    Because the crazy people over there at the Letters of Light Foundation host multiple events throughout the year.  These events include Scriptfrenzy and — you guessed it — Camp NaNoWriMo!  This Camp starts TODAY!

    That’s right!  If you’re a glutton for punishment, or if you love words and want to string them together into some strange, convoluted plot where the antagonist becomes the protagonist and the maiden in distress turns out to be a troll in disguise … well then, head over to Camp NaNoWriMo and get started!  It’s free, it’s easy (relatively) and it’s fun.  Your domestic animals may get neglected for thirty days and you may forget to bathe once or twice, but it is otherwise harmless.

    Personally, I’m in summer school, I have a child, one cat, and a full-time job … but I signed up anyway.  I’ll likely lose (again) but my brain needs a break from the projects already on my plate and, quite frankly, I’ve had this science fiction novel simmering in the back of my mind for about six months now.

    So!  In the spirit of Camp NaNoWriMo, I have made a new page where I will post snippets of the work.  I warn that these will be grammatically terrible and might have strange last names like  JoHanna I-Don’t-Know-Yet, but there will be some form of accountability on my part.

  • Cultural Anthropology

    Two weeks ago I had to turn in my final assignment for Cultural Anthropology class.  This assignment consisted of spending several hours in a culture not my own and then, basically, writing about it.  The trouble in this situation is that I am a wallflower.

    I can happily research and write, but when it comes to stepping out of my shell and talking to other people … well … Let’s just say I’m socially awkward.  (In my defense, I think that most writers are.)  So you can safely assume that I was dreading this assignment.

    But the actual experience was wonderful.

    I got to the Basque restaurant Leku Ona intent on trying the food and meeting a Basque person in order to observe and interview them for this paper.  I got there slightly early and was a little lost, wondering where I should go and what I should do, but then this group of people walked in.

    I apologize for not remembering all of their names, but the gist of their story was this; one couple was celebrating retirement by touring the United States for three months and the other two women were friends who had known them prior to their move to Oregon.  Anyway, this group spotted me and welcomed me to sit with them, and — going outside of my comfort zone — I did.

    Personally, I think Providence was watching out for me.  Left to my own devices, I doubt I would have gotten what I needed for my assignment.

    The man, Don, was a retired Pediatrician and his wife was absolutely the most engaging personality I’ve yet to meet.  When they discovered why I was there, they set about trying to help me.  They chatted to the waitress, who got the very Basque chef to come out and talk to us about his country.  And the big kicker came at the end of the meal, when we received an invitation to go into the kitchen to see the chef stuff squid and make black sauce.

    All in all, it was an incredible experience.  I’m hoping that one day I can be as gracious and giving of my time and table space as these wonderful people.

  • Book Review : Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

    I’ve been a fan of Writing Excuses for a long time now.  I promised myself that I would start to read all of the books from the authors who put out Writing Excuses since they take the time out of their busy schedules to put out this podcast for free.  I started with Brandon Sanderson because he writes Fantasy and I love to read and write Fantasy, so that just made sense.  I read the Mistborn series, which I loved.

    And now I’ve read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal — and she totally gets props for having a cool name.  (I mean, really, say her name three times fast.)

    Being a Jane Austen fan, I walked into this book with a small amount of trepidation.  (Of course I did, have you heard of the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?)  But as I realized that the author was handling the setting, the time period, the language, with the respect it deserved, I relaxed and truly enjoyed this story.  While I saw who the dastardly man was before he was revealed in the book, I was too busy trying to figure out which man Jane would end up with.

    I was cheering for two specific men, and since I don’t want to give it away for anyone I will refrain from any spoilers.  Still, the fact that I was guessing while halfway through the book says something about the writing.  One of the saddest moments for me when I’m reading a book is when I figure out the ending before I get there.  This book managed to keep me uncertain straight up until … well … I can’t say because then it would give it away.

    Basically, this is a classy book.  It’s a book that takes romance without running it through the hot-and-steamy-bath that everyone seems to want these days.  It’s refreshing and wonderful and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.  (Mothers, you can totally let your daughters read this book.)

  • Spider-Man (aka – Beware my Geek Side)

    It all started with my uncle.  He loved comics.  This love of comics spread from his children to my brother and, eventually, to me.  My brother, however, was the big Spider-Man lover.  He collected just about every offshoot of the bug-boy while we were growing up.  Thus, I gleaned quite a bit of information just from listening to him rave about Peter Parker.  

    When I learned a new Spider-Man was being made — as in, fresh from the start — I was torn.  I just didn’t think anyone could play the part of Peter Parker as good as Tobey Maguire did.  I mean, the dude was perfect.  He was so geeky and quiet, and he did a great deer-in-the-headlights impression whenever MJ (Mary-Jane) talked to him.

    That said, I loved Andrew Garfield’s rendition of Peter Parker.  I can’t say I can pick between either since I loved them both for different reasons.  Garfield’s Parker had more strength to him, making his jump from supreme-nerd to web-shooting superhero a little more believable.


    Plus, there’s the web thing.  Because in the original movies I was a little twitchy about the webs being a side-effect of the spider bite.  One of my favorite editions of Spider-Man was based off the simple plot device of letting those little web-shooters run out of steam.  Poor Spider-Man ran out of web mid-swing whilst trying to get home with spaghetti sauce (I think that was it — it was some kind of tomato sauce) and fell onto a rooftop.

    This did two things for me — it made Peter fallible without having to pit him up against a super-bad-mutant-or-otherwise-scientifically-enhanced-guy; and it gave me something to worry about.

    In the edition I’m referencing, Peter finds himself in a position where he believes he is dying.  (That might be a spoiler.  Sorry.  But the comic has been out for like … years now … so I don’t feel too bad.)  Anyway, his first thought is of none other than Gwen Stacey.  This is another spoiler, if you haven’t read the comics (or been related to someone who consumed them like they were necessary to their very existence like my brother did) but Gwen Stacey is kind of … er … doomed.

    Sorry.  But she is.  

    Because any Spider-Man geek will tell you that her death was a pivotal moment for Peter Parker’s character.  There are debates raging still about who was his true love — Gwen or Mary-Jane.  Personally, I’m a Gwen Stacey fan all the way.  (Yes, it’s totally like the comic-realm fight of Team Gwen vs. Team MJ.)

    So, while I enjoyed the original three with Tobey Maguire running about in spandex, this new Amazing Spider-Man put right some of the things that were done a little wrong.  We got the web-shooters.  We got Gwen Stacey.  And … yeah, we got Dennis Leary.  

  • Book Review : Redshirts by John Scalzi

    As already admitted on this blog, I am a nerd.  I love Star Trek.  I enjoy Star Wars.  I read science fiction, fantasy, romance, and just about anything that crosses my desk.  I have an active Audible account thanks to the people at Writing Excuses (a podcast that every single writer in the world should listen to) because they introduced me to it.  I’m also on Goodreads, where I can share my love of the written word to anyone who wants to listen.

    If that wasn’t nerdy enough, I also play Star Trek Online.  Granted, my time is limited with work, son, writing, but I have managed to reach the level of Captain — *insert squeal of pleasure here* — and sometimes allow my son to help “fly” the ship.  He’s four, so I don’t feel too bad when the Borg constantly destroy us.

    With that in mind, Redshirts by John Scalzi was right up my alley for reading material.  Quasi-trekkie, playing off the known joke about how red-shirted individuals on the original show would inevitably die a horrible death, I walked into this book ready to laugh.  And when I discovered that none other than Wil Wheaton was performing the book, I positively beamed with delight.

    I loved this book.  I listened to it while at work and was laughing so hard in some places that my coworkers were concerned for my mental health.  (I work in an upstairs area from them so they couldn’t see the headphones, they could only hear my laugh.  Which, now that I think about it, might have seemed a little creepy. )

    I won’t give any spoilers, but I will admit that about a quarter of the way into the book I was concerned because I was getting attached to these Redshirts.  I didn’t want to see any of them get their faces eaten by exotic alien creatures.  But they had the dreaded red shirts on, so one part of my brain was always waiting for the curtain to come down on them.

    There was one portion of the plot that was a hiccup for me — the discussion of back-stories, which I won’t explain because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone.  Suffice to say, my rational brain was trying to make sense of a purely irrational thought-process.  But in the end, I chose to ignore this hiccup because … well … I was enjoying the book so much that I just didn’t care.  And … I mean, come on, it’s science fiction.  Fiction being the operative word.

    If you’re on Goodreads, then you can see I gave it 5 stars.  If you’re on Audible — I don’t think you can find me because that’s got a different name on it — but I gave it 5 stars all around there.

    Thank you, John Scalzi, for the wonderful book.  Thank you Wil Wheaton for the wonderful performance.  It was truly a blast.

  • Short Stories

    This week my very first short story EVER came out in the Love and Darker Passions Anthology from Double Dragon Publishing.  The cover is creepy and I haven’t read everyone’s stories yet that are in it, but I’m totally proud of it.  The story is titled “The Man Who Loved Medusa” and it’s the very first story in the book.
          (I mean really, look at that cover.  It gives me the willies.)

    (Also note, if you go the Amazon page you can get a sneak peek at the first bit of Medusa’s story.)

    When I was invited to do a story for this anthology, my first worry was that I wouldn’t know how to write anything less than 90 thousand words.  But as it turned out, I was able to manage this story in under 5 thousand words.  During the process, however, I have to note that there were several differences between novel writing and short story format.

    Let’s face it, you just plain don’t have time to fill the reader in on all the aspects of the world, setting, characters, plot and what have you when you’re working with a short story.  Every time I wanted to go off on a tangent, I had to pull myself back and putt a 1″ picture frame around what I was trying to say.  (Thank you, Ann Lamont, for the 1″ picture frame analogy in your book Bird by Bird.)

    Using Lamont’s analogy here became extremely helpful in writing this short story.  It kept me focused on the who, what, why, and how of the story in front of me.  Note I left out the when and where of the situation.  I learned very quickly that everything — every word, description, and dialog line — had to serve multiple purposes.  The when and where came out within the framework of answering the who and what of the story.

    This was supremely tricky for me, but I’m very proud of the way it came out.  And in fact, I was invited into another anthology for next year dealing with folk tales, which brings me to the second portion of this post; I finished my second short story ever.

    This second short story I am calling, for right now, Fish Wish.  It’s just the rough draft so far, but I can tell you that I threw lunar bases, moon dust, space travel, near asphyxiation, divorce, the folk tale The Fisherman’s Wife, and the term nano-fishers into a big blender and pressed puree!  And that’s not even the best part.  The best part is that I managed to do it all in less than 2 thousand words.

    Bwahahaha!

    But really, the challenge of writing short stories has made a vast improvement on my novel writing as well.  While I can get away with a longer word count in a novel, the task of allowing setting, dialog, and every word to do more than one thing in respects to my storytelling is … well … wonderful.

  • History Class

    About a year ago I had this crazy idea to go back to school.  (Hey, I’ve got this GI Bill thing and I figured I ought to use it.)  Anyway, among the wonderful classes I get to do this summer is Survey of World History.

    Here’s the kicker — it’s a 5 week long class.

    All of world history in 5 weeks.

    I was so sure I was going to fall over dead from subject overload, but I have to admit that I’m not.  This is the end of week 1 and I am loving the class.  In fact, I’m loving it too much.  For the first three days of class, I couldn’t sleep because I’d get done reading my history book and the Greeks and Romans would be smacking each other around in my dreams.

    (Hey, I’m a writer.  Weird dreams come with the territory.)

    It doesn’t help that I’m already fascinated with the Greek and Roman periods.  In fact, I wrote a short story called “The Man Who Loved Medusa” that just came out in the Love and Darker Passions Anthology.  (It’s the first story in the book, too.)

    History is a great place for inspiration.  History shows us how complicated we are as human beings.  History shows us how ugly we can be to each other, and how heroes are born.  It shows us how far we’ve come, how much we still need to improve, and gives us hope for something greater in the future.

    My favorite subject is probably the Romans.  (Sparta was pretty tough, but let’s face it, the Romans just had this whole … audacity thing going for them.)