Author: ajmaguire

Awwww … I get to write a book report.  I think the last one I did was in High School.  Granted, this one is going to be far different from the High School version of a book report, but I’m still pleased to say I get to do one.  I’ll probably have to stop myself from discussing the quality of the prose or hunting for a character arc to discuss like I would in a review.

But!  To writing news!  I’m pleased to say that … yes, I did manage to write Chapter 9 of Dead Magic in spite of the hectic school schedule.  It was challenging, I won’t lie.  But it wasn’t hard in the “I need time to get that done” way … it was hard in the “I’m half thinking about that theology book I’m reading for class” sort of way.  These are two different ways to think and, because it makes me sound smart, I’m going to say that they take up two totally different parts of my brain.  I’ve got the “thinking cap” on one hand and the “fictional thinking cap” on the other.  They don’t play well together.

After getting through the first two chapters of my assigned reading for my first class, I felt quite a bit like a squashed spider. I was walloped by collegiate exposition, drowned in the metaphors used by the authors, and challenged to think beyond the sacred “Three Act” style of fiction writing.

In short, I was a smooshed spider under the very book I was reading, half dead from information overload, but with one leg doing that morbid residual twitch.

Somehow, I’ll re-inflate and start to think like a scholar again.

I realized today that it has been nine years since I read a book with an introduction in it.  I’ve read lots and lots of books, don’t get me wrong, but it’s like I got out of college and the nonfiction part of the bookstore magically disappeared.  Barnes&Noble was suddenly half the size, Borders … did it have nonfiction in it? … The Library … well, aside from going there for researching the Nellis project, I totally avoided the place. (I swear, it smells like learning in there.  If learning had a smell, its right there in between the bookshelves, mingled with the scent of unwashed college students nearing finals week.)

I feel very wimpy.  There’s a lot of great nonfiction out there.  It’s just that, when you’re going through the school years, it’s like the teachers get together and pick the driest, most terrible, longest books possible to torture students with.  For that matter, some nonfiction authors could try to spice up their work.  I’m not saying they should suddenly write about an alien invasion during the Civil War, though that certainly would have perked me up in History 101, but they could try to use some action words.  Verbs, people!  Learn your verbs!

I bought a Kindle.  Finally.  I intended to get it for Christmas this year, but with school next week and half my textbooks available in Kindle format, and with a fabulous sale price, I just couldn’t pass it up.  Hence, my super happy dance.  I’ve got it all registered and my textbooks are on it already (Hurray!).  Also, of course, I planted my own two books on it.  (Pfft, like I could pass up doing that.)

I’ve taken a long look at what my life is going to be like for the next seven weeks (that’s the length of the first major class) and I have come to the understanding that … well … I’m a little insane.  My mother will tell you that this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

So, it’s official.  All writing deadlines are put on hold.  Deviation can wait until December.  Saboteur is already out, so I don’t have to worry about it.  Usurper’s slow crawl of progress will come to a standstill.  The only one that I will make the effort to finish is Dead Magic, but if I continue my chapter per week there shouldn’t be a problem.  Twenty minutes a day, six days a week, and it’ll still be on schedule (hopefully).

Now, please excuse me while I run off to read on my sweet, beautiful Kindle.

Woot!  I got to see Cowboys & Aliens last weekend and I totally loved it.  The manliness on that screen was overpowering.  Daniel Craig continues to showcase his testosterone in ways that boggle the mind.  I mean, the dude can carry a damsel in distress with inspiring nonchalance.  I swoon, I tell you, I absolutely swoon.  He’s not as pretty as Thor, but he can get the job done without that massive hammer.

All right, I’ll stop gushing.  It’s been a few days so I think I’m starting to surface from the sea of masculinity that is Daniel Craig.

Onward to writing news!

Deviation went through my Beta Reader and I now know what I need to do to change the book from decent to magnificent.  I won’t be able to do anything about it until December, but I’ll be penciling in my changes and highlighting the rough spots until then.  And the reason I can’t do anything about it until December is because I start school next week.

Hurray!  It’s been ten years since I last went to school and I have to admit that I’m sitting somewhere between terrified and ebullient.

Well, when it was all said and done, this move to WordPress was mostly painless.  It was just a lot of copy-paste time and me complaining about having to do it in the first place.  But, it’s done.  And I’m quite pleased with it.  As you can see by the top bar, I’ve even updated the Nellis V Project.

I’ve opted out of putting the archive up here.  The archive was mostly for my own use anyway, so I doubt anyone will miss it.  If you DO miss it and you demand to have all of my research up there … well … email me.  We’ll talk.

I am pleased to say that Deviation is in the hands of one very wonderful, beautiful, perfect Beta Reader.  This means that the book is currently out of my hands and I can breathe.  I got everything done with it that I planned to have done before classes start on the 22nd, so that’s a relief.  (Yes, I really CAN stick to a deadline.  Even self-imposed deadlines.)

Since Saboteur is in the hands of the publisher, this means that the only thing I have to worry about (aside from getting ready for school) are the works in progress.  That would be Dead Magic and Usurper.  Dead Magic is priority.  It’ll be done in December (another self-imposed deadline) regardless of school.  I can write two-thousand words in an hour, that’s how I know it’ll be done.  (Just imagine what I could do with a full 8 hour day doing nothing but writing?)

Story Bibles!  For the first time ever, I’ve had to build a story bible.  This is probably because sequels are still a new thing to me (meaning I’d never written one before Saboteur).  But now that I’m neck-deep in sequels I understand and see why the story bible is so imperative.  I mean, I really don’t want to give the wrong colored eyes to a beloved character.

Well, I’ve copied and saved all of my archives from the Blogger site.  Color me sentimental, but I like to keep that sort of stuff.  I won’t take it off line until Friday, I just want to make sure I have everything ironed out before I hit the delete button.  I figured out how I can put the Nellis Project over here, but I’m going to save that until Friday as well.  (We all know that Friday is the day I get most of the networking stuff done.  The rest of the week I’m working/ caring for the toddler / WRITING NEW CONTENT.)

Which, of course, brings me to the new content announcement!  Chapter Seven of Dead Magic is well under way.  In fact, I’ve got poor Winslow fighting something he’s never even seen before, which is fun in its own right.  I did manage to write myself into a corner, however, and I’m trying to figure out how to save Mr. Winslow Agoston from losing his arm.  (No, I’m not going to spoil it and tell you, you’ll just have to wait for the book to be done.)

Speaking of spoiling things … I’m going to send the revised Deviation out to one very special, very adored Beta Reader.  I want it to be the best it can be, after all.  The greatest thing about this Beta Reader is that they don’t know it’s coming.  I plan on ambushing her for help tomorrow.

Surprise!  Usurper is on Chapter 6 now!  (Sedition, Saboteur, Usurper, just to remind everyone on the order of these books.) I wasn’t planning on keeping up with Dead Magic on this one since Usurper is … well … HUGE.  And I do mean HUGE.  It’s going to have to be two separate books.  I see that already, but for right now we’ll still just refer to it as one book because I don’t have a title for the fourth.  And, since only the Alpha Readers have seen Saboteur, I can’t tell you anything about it yet.

And for the record, I do like the WordPress outlook better.  It feels and looks nice.

The mountain of things to transfer from site to site is larger than I expected. Still, I hope to have everything converted over here — to include the Amazon page that shows an update of my blog right on it — by the end of Friday. Argh. Such a hassle. Still, this site feels a whole lot nicer than the other one, so it’ll be worth the effort.

After several weeks of trouble with my former Blogging site, I’ve decided to move over here to wordpress.  And, to be frank, I think I enjoy this setup a gazillion times more than the former website.  There’s just something more professional about it, I think.  That being said, I’ve got a lot of moving and altering and quirking to do in order to move things over and make them look right.  So!  I’ll do the update I tried to do over on the other site right now, that way you all can see that I really have been working the last three weeks.

Saboteur was sent in to the publishers earlier this week.  Because I couldn’t explain my “oh, shoot!” moment when it happened, I’ll just give a rundown here.  I sent in the query, expecting the same 6 month wait that I had last time, but got an immediate (as in two hours later) response asking me for the manuscript “at my earliest convenience”.  Which, in publisher-speak means “right frigging now”.

So I stopped everything else (poor Dead Magic keeps getting put on hold) and did a massive overhaul of the manuscript in 4 days.  Yes, people, 4 days.  (Thank you, Holly Lisle, for your “How To Revise Your Novel in 7 Days” class.)  Because this was over the weekend, the publishers didn’t mind so much.  In any case, they have the manuscript and we’ll see how it goes from there.

Speaking of Dead Magic, I’m happy to report that I’m on Chapter 7 right now.  Right on schedule.  If I keep it up at a chapter a week, the rough draft should be done in December.  The other work in progress (Usurper) is crawling along at 300-400 words a day.  I’ve done this on purpose so that I can get Dead Magic done without killing myself when school starts later this month.

Deviation … well, Deviation is like that kid I put on time out in the corner and forgot.  It’s thrown the dunce hat back at me and wants to know when I’m going to be done with it so that I can flirt with publishers in earnest about getting it … you know … published.