February 2008

A while back I was given some interview questions and then had the interview only to have the audio lost.  (It was stolen in Argentina.  Seriously).  I still thought the questions were fun, so I’m going to answer them in text.  Book 2 is 70,000 words long and I’m making decent headway.

Here is the first question:

“You have an educational background in theology, you’ve taught in high schools, you’ve been a truck driver for awhile, and you’ve even delivered pizzas for a short time.  With such a diverse background of occupations, how is it that we find you now writing fiction?”

Well, circumstances changed so that I came off the road to watch my children.   It is hard to write with all that noise, but I did manage to scare up some free time.  During one stage of the writing (the end) I had to get up at 5 in the morning for about 2-3 weeks in order to finally bring it to an end.

Fidelis really tracks with my background of experiences.  For one thing, I conceived of the book (and in fact, the whole series) while driving truck.  The thing almost came into my head fully formed.  Fidelis covers a guy traveling back to find his family.  He begins in New Mexico and has to journey to Indiana.  That is a trip I made by truck on numerous occasions and I began imaging what life would be like if I had to make the trip on foot.  Also, when you’re out on the road away from your family on a regular basis you really feel the pain that Fides (the main character) endures  frequently.  Basically, my life has been doing what has to be done because it has to be done or my family would suffer… thus the truck driving, thus the pizza delivery.  That is what Fides is about, too.

Well, since the last time I posted I’ve added 60 pages, single spaced, to Book 2.  Its been both more difficult and easier to make progress. Easier when I can get to actually writing, but more difficult to get back at it.  I’ve been writing at the margins of the day.  I expect to be getting up around 5 in the morning the next few days to arrange for some solid writing time.

Unfortunately, progress on writing book 2 hasn’t been what I would have liked.  I focused November-December on selling book 1 rather than writing book 2, but I thought January would have seen me writing more.  Circumstances are what they are.  However, finally fed up with circumstances and just brimming with writing desire, this weekend I sat down and blocked out the world and wrote twenty, that’s right, 20 pages, in about a 4-5 hour timespan.  That is 20 pages single spaced.  That is 16,000 words.

You might wonder how that is possible.  Well, while it is true that I hoped to write in January, it isn’t wasted time.  I did plenty of reading for research purposes and contemplated the story frequently, so writing it was merely recording what had been imagined earlier.

Anyway, it is clear that generally speaking, writing during the day is just going to be impossible.  Hence, today I was up at 5 a.m. and I knocked out another 4 pages or so before the kids got up.  (On account of the kids, this blog post has taken more than thirty minutes to compose).  How often I’ll be able to do that is open to debate, on account of the fact that the kids have been getting up three, four, and even five times a night.  Needless to say, I’m often pretty tired and getting up early in that state does not put me in a writing mood.

However, if I can block out the time, at say 5-10 pages in a sitting (which is what I was able to do with Fidelis), I can have the text completed by the end of February and there is still hope for a summer release.  We’ll see.

In other news, I am expecting to be featured in a national print mag in March.  This will be a great opportunity for me.  As far as I know, this is a done deal, but I have had enough ‘done deals’ fall through that for now I want to wait before naming names.

I’m not sure where the podcast stands. I have audio enough to complete chapter 1 and distribute it but I don’t know where the rest of the book is.  When I know more, I’ll let you all know.  I know I have some subscribers.

And about the role playing game… the same circumstances that keep me from writing keep me from engaging in the game.  I did clear out a million and a half abandoned dwellings.  ;)  I still have lots of ideas for the game, though.

Getting book 2 out is the latest top priority, however.

That’s all for now.