*nomicon

One of the villains in The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster is a professor of antiquities who, as a hobby, has applied his knowledge of dark and arcane secrets to many different fields of human knowledge.  Among the books he has written are these:

Agrinomicon. Summonings, dominations, and banishments meant to increase your tomato yield.
Technonomicon.  [...]

A Brief Writing Update

The current draft of The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster is at 83,523 words.  About 9,000 words longer than the first draft.  I’ve started Chapter Seventeen and I can see lots of places where I need to make fixes already.  I had been hoping to finish this draft before NaNoWriMo starts; we’ll see if [...]

On Selecting a Genre

I’ve decided that I want to play in the same sandbox as Charles deLint, Richelle Mead, and others that I admire, and call Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster urban fantasy, because I can.  It is urban, of course, since it takes place in a city.  It’s not strictly horror, because although horrific things happen [...]

The Problem with Hannah: Or, Learning to Love to Kill Your Babies (a rant on writing)

I got a rejection email today from a market that I had sold to before.  While I’m disappointed, of course, I’m also glad that the editor gave me a personal rejection, filled with solid suggestions for improving the story and a kind note saying that if the market did not have a strong policy against [...]

Writing Update

Today I pushed the current draft of The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster past the 50,000 word mark.  Granted, nearly all of those words were copying and pasting from an earlier draft with no more editing than some minor name changes, but what the hell.
I admit that I’m still not entirely pleased with this [...]

Writerly Update, Ruminations on the Muse

I added 1,221 words to The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster, which I think is a respectable output for a non-NaNoWriMo day.  The trouble I’m having with things right now is that the narrative is demanding that some of my characters be given more scenes, and I’m perfectly happy to oblige; however, this doesn’t [...]

Spilling Words

Exactly 800 words tonight on The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster, bringing an end to the horror that has been the rewrite of Chapter Three.  I see another horrific process of rewriting in the future for this chapter, with one huge ass scene that demands to be broken up, but that’s a process for [...]

Today’s Writing Update (and other minor stuff)

Today I added 1,956 words to The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster; and, unlike yesterday, these words were entirely original words.  I’ve been working on a new scene for Hank, bringing in some more characterization and fleshing out the bad guys some more, and adding a couple of new minor characters.  I actually want [...]

Writing Progress

So far, 4,133 words have been added to The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster.  I wish I could say that was me flailing at the keyboard at a truly superhuman rate, but the truth is that most — in fact, about 95% — of these words were just copied and pasted from an earlier [...]

No Progress

I have no good excuses; at this point, I’m about one full NaNoWriMo ((That is to say, about 50,000 words)) behind in Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster.  As always when I start to fall dangerously behind in a project like this, I begin to wonder if it’s even worth continuing.  But, then, as I [...]

Good Progress

Last night I tracked down some MP3’s of Zooey Deschanel — one of my favorite actresses — singing some old tunes.  I’ve decided that I really like her voice, especially when on the track where she teamed up with Leon Redbone to sing, "Baby, It’s Cold Outside", which is one of my favorite songs.  Tonight [...]

Some progress

641 words on Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster tonight.  It came down to a choice between writing and drilling holes in the cement slab.  I chose writing.  I can drill holes in slab anytime.

Novel Progress

Well, I’m only about 28,000 words behind where I wanted to be at this point in The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster.  I can whip that out in a couple of days, no problem.

State of the Underpope

The Underpope’s Physical State:  First off, Jennifer and I went and re-upped for Weight Watchers.  Losing weight has always been a challenge for me (as opposed to the cakewalk that it is for everyone else in the world, I’m sure), and I’ve never had much success using rewards to act as incentives for myself; I’d [...]

Writing Update

I know this is going to frustrate some of you.
Even though I’m not finished with the current crap draft of The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster, I feel that I’m ready to get moving on the first major draft.  I know where the plot’s headed, and I have my "outline draft" that I wrote [...]