“The reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.” – S.S Van Dine, “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” (1928) One of the oldest principal elements of writing a mystery novel is to ensure that everything the reader ( more… )
Disclosure: the series I’m working on has nothing to do with pirates, I’m just an asshole who likes to talk in pirate-speak sometimes. I’m 50ish pages in already. I spent a few weeks plotting out the course of the series, and I think it’s good to go. This time I’m ( more… )
I’m a lazy person, I haven’t updated this site in… more than a year. That laziness extended to my book writing, but I finally got things back on track and pushed Her Things out the door like an overdue baby. I haven’t even bothered to advertise, or even get reviews ( more… )
I called the second arc of the first novel, “Fury of the Gods,” because it deals with the story’s transition from romance to mystery. The first half of the novel dealt with the two protagonists budding romance and the mystery between them, but its the romance that takes center stage. ( more… )
Yikes. Work on the novel is progressing so fluidly I forgot to update this blog. I’m at 170 pages now. I’m not trying to write another 300 pager, so my goal is to end at about 220 (?!) ish, maybe, possibly. As far as arcs go, I just finished the climax ( more… )
Last Sunday (March 29th, 2015) was the end of the six weeks. I only have 100 pages done. I didn’t do all that great for a few reasons: * I got sick immediately after the start date. Didn’t write for most of that week. * Plumber jackhammering in my house ( more… )
Even when people provide “in progress” glimpses of their work, it’s not really in progress. What you’re seeing is just a carefully chosen snapshot of what they’ve recently done. My text buffer is a mess. I have seven lines that are in progress at the end of this document, two ( more… )
Stare at your computer and start screaming: “HAVE SEX.” “HAVE SEX GODDAMN IT.” “STOP IT. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING.” “NO, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT.” “GODDAMN IT WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT.” “NO. NO. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN THINK THAT’S APPROPRIATE.” “PUT THAT DOWN THIS INSTANT.” “I HATE YOU. ( more… )
Things in the novel are getting a little darker than I initially planned. What I’m working on right now is a mystery drama/romance — to be clear, it’s not some smutty work where characters start banging right out of the gate. There’s a lot going on with regards to motivation ( more… )
I lost several days due to sickness, and then after that, general apathy. So far I’ve produced about 500 words a day, but I’m hoping to ramp that back up to 1,000 shortly. Coffee helps. Coffee REALLY helps.