Posts published in “Urban Fantasy”

The Dakota Frost, Skindancer series … and all of Dakota Frost’s friends!

Visualizing a Punch List

Published April 20, 2012 by centaur

Me and my buddy Nathan are refreshing BLitz Comics, our online tool to help us (and you!) break through logjams of creativity and just get DONE making comics! (Yes, I know, I'm writing a script, finishing a novel and editing a third, but the Earth continues in its orbit and to get stuff done you've got to just go do it).

To get started, we reviewed the site, page by page, and put together a punch list of things we wanted to update. "Punch list" is a housing industry term I picked up from my wife, a decorative painter, but which I find most people in the software industry know as well: a review of things to do to call it DONE, generated by a complete walkthrough of the home or site in question.

What we plan to do with the site, well, you'll have to see. However, it struck me that our 200 words of punch would make great input for a Wordle, which helps us visualize what we're doing and see how important we think it is. You see that Wordle above. Clearly, the sidebar and the showcase may be getting an update ... :-)

-the Centaur

What Are You Working On?

Published March 24, 2012 by centaur

There's an open call for comments at a post on Write to the End for people to list the current creative projects you are working on. My entry:

Hey, I’m Anthony Francis, and I’m a writer of urban fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. My day job involves the Search Engine That Starts With A “G” and my background is in artificial intelligence and emotional robotics.

I’m working on a steampunk novel called JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, which is aaalllmost ready to send to beta readers. I’m also working on an interactive fiction and a screenplay in the same universe. I’ll be participating in Script Frenzy this April to get the screenplay done.

I’m almost done with the rough draft of LIQUID FIRE, the third urban fantasy novel in my Skindancer series featuring magical tattooist Dakota Frost. I’m excited about this one and hope to have it out to beta readers this summer. The first two novels in the series, FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK, are doing very well.

I’m halfway done with the rough draft of HEX CODE, the spinoff YA series in the Skindancer universe featuring weretiger and math prodigy Cinnamon Frost. I’m also excited about this one which is going in an interesting new direction.

I’ve got the first third of a YA space novel called MAROONED out to the editor. We’re breaking it into 3 novellas and the first one, called “Stranded” we hope will come out this year. This will hopefully be a seven book series.

I’ve got a stalled webcomic called f@nu fiku I’m trying to restart, but while that’s going on I’m working with Nathan Vargas on BlitzComics.com, a project to help blocked comic writers and artists make progress on their dreams.

I’m writing a monthly column on writing on Write to the End called “The Centaur’s Pen” and I’m working on another column for my own website called “Getting Traction”, both as a part of trying to get into nonfiction writing.

I have many more projects in partial states of completion: novels, comics, artworks, webworks, computer programming investigations, games, and so on. But I’m comfortable not making a lot of progress on my side projects, because I’ve got enough main projects to keep me gobstackingly busy.

Just how I like it.

-the Centaur

Just how I like it, indeed. Do I agree with myself? Yes, I agree with myself. I am large, I contain multitudes, but we get along.

It's a surprisingly useful exercise to remind yourself of all that you're doing. So drop in on Write to the End and tell everyone what you're up to!

-the Centaur

I have to fall in love with a story

Published February 29, 2012 by centaur

My fundamental philosophy about writing is very simple: I want to have fun, I want my readers to have fun, and I hope, if we're both lucky, that they learn something.

I've long understood that the third part of this troika, the learning, is both a product and a cause of the mammoth amount of research I do for even the simplest pieces. (And yes, I did look up Fat Albert on Wikipedia just to write the first sentence of this supposedly throwaway blogpost).

I've also understood that the second part, my readers having fun, is why I need to constantly work to hone my craft. That's why I don't self-publish, but work with a publisher with a strong editor who serves as a gatekeeper and holds my work to a high standard. That's why I attend a writing group; that's why I work with beta readers; and that's why I'm writing a monthly column on writing called The Centaur's Pen over at the Write to the End blog.

But only tonight did I realize the first part is why I need to fall in love with my own stories. When I'm writing a story, I can power through it if I have to, daydreaming sequences inspired by music, character and knowledge, weaving those scattered fragments together with the rules of plot and conflict, and winnowing the chaff until what's left is a cohesive whole.

But I'm better off if I fall in love with a story. I need characters to spring to life in my books and derail them, like Cinnamon in FROST MOON or Beneficenitor in HEX CODE (in progress). I need settings l fall in love with, like the Werehouse in FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK or the Werehold in HEX CODE. I need vehicles on which I want to lavish detail, like the doomed Abadulon in DELIVERANCE (unreleased) or Independence in MAROONED (forthcoming). And I need scenes that I desperately want to write, like Dakota's challenging encounter with Transomnia in FROST MOON or her somewhat different encounter with the Streetscribe at the end of BLOOD ROCK.

I realized this need for love of my own work when I caught myself daydreaming about the first encounter of the Freemanship Independence with a mammoth Dresanian starship near the end of BESIEGED, the third book I have planned in the Seren series. A clip of "The Planet Krypton" shuffled through my iPod, I realized how the aftermath of the climactic battle could be shot in the movie ... and then began daydreaming how all the characters would react to what's happening.

Visualizing the Independence docking against the backdrop of a giant door like a Michael Whelan painting, a scenario I can visualize so strongly I was inspired to scribble it down on the spot, the question occurred to me: "Would the hero Serendipity finally secure sanctuary for her people ... or would the war criminal Seren finally be called to account for her crimes?" And how would the crew of Independence react if someone else came to claim someone they'd chosen to claim as their own?

That's falling in love with your story: when you think about it so much that random clips of music inspire you to write scenes, but you don't just visualize them, you are forced to think through how all the characters will react to what happened, how it fits their own personalities, the setting, the story.

That's what you should strive for in your writing: a love for your story that goes all the way down to its bones.

-the Centaur

The Stack is Growing

Published January 27, 2012 by centaur

FROM THE WRITER'S ANONYMOUS 12-STEP SUPPORT GROUP MEETING: Hi, I'm Anthony Francis, and I'm an author. ("Hi, Anthony!") To feed my addiction, I get stuff published.

My first published novel, the urban fantasy FROST MOON featuring magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost, won an EPIC e-book award. It's out in paperback, Kindle, in German as SKINDANCER, and soon to be audiobook thanks to the wonderful reading skills of Traci Odom. The second book in the series, BLOOD ROCK, came out last year to good reviews, and the third book, LIQUID FIRE, will come out later this year. A spinoff series starring Dakota's daughter Cinnamon Frost, HEX CODE, will come out next year, also part of a planned trilogy.

One of my short stories, "Steampunk Fairy Chick," was recently published in the UnCONventional anthology. The story, featuring steampunk adventurer Jeremiah Willstone, is based on a novel called THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE (again part of a planned trilogy) which I've got in rough draft form with a possible release late this year or early next year. Another of my short stories, "Sibling Rivalry," was published in The Leading Edge magazine in 1995, but is now available on my web site. I also write flash fiction. One of my flash shorts, "If Looks Could Kill", was just published in THE DAILY FLASH 2012 (pictured above) and another, "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms", was just published in Smashed Cat Magazine.

My nonfiction research papers are largely available on my research page, including my nearly 700-page Ph.D thesis (hork). I and my thesis advisor Ashwin Ram have a chapter on "Multi-Plan Adaptation and Retrieval in an Experience-based Agent" in David Leake's book CASE BASED REASONING: EXPERIENCES, LESSONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS, and Ashwin, Manish Mehta and I have a chapter on "Emotional Memory and Adaptive Personalities" in THE HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH ON SYNTHETIC EMOTIONS AND SOCIABLE ROBOTICS.

I have more writing in the works, including a novelette called "Stranded" set in the Dresanian universe from which this blog takes its name, and more writing on the Internet. But what I list above is The Stack At This Time - what you can get in print. Enjoy!

-the Centaur

Viiiiictory for the Paper Tiger

Published November 22, 2011 by centaur

Once again I've completed National Novel Writing Month. This year, I finished 8 days early. Or, put another way, THIS is what happens if you turn off the Internet during Nano:

I've had a number of interruptions in Nano in the past and this year was no exception. I know I can finish 38,000 words in 10 days and I was initially trying to push to finish at twice the rate, or perhaps finish two books. Well, that didn't happen because of the Galaxy Nexus launch and you can see that in my progress here:

That chasm was the Galaxy Nexus launch (and a few other things tossed in there). But I made it through that, and ultimately succeeded today, sitting in a Starbucks at Santana Row here in San Jose (actually pictured is Michael's Gelato in Palo Alto because the pic from Santana Row hasn't uploaded).

Normally I survive Nano by taking the whole of Thanksgiving week off for a nine day writing intensive. But this time, I've finished early. I still have more to write on HEX CODE, of course, but I now have the luxury of leaning back and thinking through a few twists to the plot, with 50,000 words under my belt making the story solid. So ... I can actually take this vacation ... as a vacation.

So without further ado I present a snippet of the story that was written today ... raw Nano, unfiltered except for a little reformatting and removing some author's notes.

When I found out that Ben was human, or more accurately that elf meant human with special sauce, blabbermouth old me just had to go tell Mom. Then blabbermouth old me had to make up a story of how I found out, which involved a clever lie about school. Not so clever. That just called Mom’s attention to the fact that she now had two underage wards in need of schooling. Getting me into the Clairmont Academy was a pain in the ass, but now they all love us, so getting Ben in was as simple as selecting a school uniform. And boy, does he look hot in it. Hot hot hot. The points to his ears and the green in his skin and the red in the sweater, it’s like Christmas, and that poofy green helmet makes him look like a school uniform tree—when girls aren’t comin up to tousle it. They’re all lookin’ at him. I was sure he had a glamour, but now I’m thinkin it made him look scary. Now he just looks like a boy, a hot boy with funky green hair the girls can’t resist. A passing one does it again and darts off, and I feels for him! He winces, but he clearly likes it. “So, Cinnamon,” Surrey says, setting her tray down, “will you—oh, hello.” “Hello,” Ben says, and there would be a dotted line in the air between their elfin eyes. Surrey’s too frozen to sit down, so Ben stands up, takes her hand, and kisses it with a flourish. “Greetings from the halls of Appalachia, oh princess of Scandinavia.” “Oh, siddown,” I says, and Ben sits down with a plop. He glares at me, but I ignores him. “Ben, this is Surrey Eddington, one of my best friends. Surrey Eddington, this is Benjamin Damon.” My smile grows mean. “He’s my house elf.” “I swear, Cinnamon Frost,” Ben growls, “by the gleaming halls of elfland—” “By the power of Greyskull,” Megan says, sitting down next to the still-smitten Surrey. “Oh, hey, what are you?” she says, and Ben near jumps out of his seat—then plops back down again as Megan scratches her head and says, “Wait … I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”

Next up I plan on ... chilling out, having a nice dinner, and joining my writing group for the evening to review my outstanding projects. First up is probably finishing the edit of STRANDED for my beta readers ... and then finishing Dakota Frost 3, LIQUID FIRE. Or perhaps I'll just chill out and clean up my library for Thanksgiving, and thank God I have it. Good luck in Nano, all! -the Centaur

Nanowrimo 2011 Begins

Published November 1, 2011 by centaur

So it's another year, another National Novel Writing Month. This year, what was supposed to be my first YA (young adult) novel, HEX CODE. Actually, I've already started one called STRANDED, which makes me feel even better about tacking this new genre. A sneak preview of the first young adult novel featuring the mathemagical weretiger Cinnamon Frost, adopted daughter of the magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost:

It sucks trying to do your homework when you’ve turned into a tiger. It’s not that your body turns two sizes too big for your chair, that your balance goes so you can’t stand, or even that your claws are so sharp that you could punch straight through a keyboard. It’s the little things. Big cats are nearsighted, so you need big old dorky “tiger” glasses you can barely get on once your hands have gone to claws. And we’re predators, reflexes tied to movement, so I has to fight smashing the screen every time my mouse pointer moves. And turning into a tiger hurts like getting pummeled with a thousand bars of soap in socks, so the only thing I really want to do after the Change is gnaw on someone, regardless of whether I have three papers all due tomorrow morning.

The material above is actually from the 1500 words of "seed" material I started prior to National Novel Writing Month. I always start with a seed, be it 500 words or 10,000, but commit to fulfilling the Nano challenge by doing 50,000 additional words. This year my final target, counting the seed, is 51544 words. Time to climb that mountain!

Already 1129 words into the challenge (not counting the seed). Go Team Centaur! -the Centaur

Rebel Magicians of the Urban Jungle

Published October 21, 2011 by centaur

I've a guest post up at Reader's Entertainment News blog: Rebel Magicians of the Urban Jungle.

When I wrote FROST MOON, I had fun exploring all the different kinds of tattoo magic … but already, I had started to wonder: what other kinds of magic live in this alternate Atlanta where werewolves run in the night and vampires rule like gangsters? In the sequel, BLOOD ROCK, I explored one new magical practice: magic graffiti. The basic premise of the Dakota Frost universe is that if magic is real, then magic is real ...

To read more, click through the link. Y'all come back alive, hear? -the Centaur Crossposted at the Dakota Frost blog.

The Centaur at Write to the End

Published October 19, 2011 by centaur

Over at the Write to the End site, I've written a brief trip report of my Georgia Tech talk on the Dakota Frost, Skindancer series . It was a lot of fun and I had a great time. It also includes a reading of the first twenty minutes or so of FROST MOON. Enjoy! -the Centaur

Who Am I?

Published September 7, 2011 by centaur

me in front of the bell bridge books promotional material for BLOOD ROCK

Who are you? Good question. I'm Anthony Francis, and I write stuff and make computers jump through hoops for a living. What have you done? I'm most notable for the EPIC award winning urban fantasy novel FROST MOON and its sequel, BLOOD ROCK, which are about magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost and are therefore hopefully both more interesting than my ~700 page PhD thesis on context-sensitive computer memory. Also on the computer side, I've done some exploration of robot emotions. What are you doing next? Forthcoming in the Dakota Frost series is the third book, LIQUID FIRE, and this November for National Novel Writing Month I plan to work on HEX CODE, the first in a spin-off series featuring Dakota's adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost. Are you working on anything other than Dakota Frost? I've also recently completed a rough draft of the first book in a new series, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. A short story set in this universe, "Steampunk Fairy Chick", will be included in the forthcoming anthology UnCONventional. What are you working on currently? I'm also currently working on a fourth new series with the working title STRANDED, a young adult science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, featuring a spoiled young centauress who must rescue a shipload of children who have crashlanded upon a world she wanted to claim as her own. This story's set in the "Library of Dresan" universe from which this blog takes its name and which was setting of my very first unpublished novel "homo centauris", which I am now happily milking for its 57 billion year backstory. Anything else? I have a flash fiction story called "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" to appear on the Smashed Cat Magazine. I've also published one short story, "Sibling Rivalry" in the Leading Edge Magazine. I have a webcomic, f@nu fiku, on hiatus. And I'm actively involved with helping people succeed at 24 Hour Comics through tutorials that I and my friend Nathan Vargas have put together at Blitz Comics. Is that enough questions for now? Yes, it is. Please enjoy. -the Centaur

IT’S HERE.

Published August 16, 2011 by centaur

IT'S HERE. BLOOD ROCK has arrived at my home. Order the latest installment in the tale of Dakota Frost at one of these fine booksellers:

and of course, on Kindle. Crossposted on the Dakota Frost blog. -the Centaur

Future Books

Published July 18, 2011 by centaur

piles of notes between caffeine fuel and computational engine

An exchange from Facebook:

Anthony: Just finished a rough draft of JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE ... my fourth completed novel! Wallace: Anthony it is great that you have 4 what are they? We know Frost Moon, blood Rock, what was the 3rd? Barbara enjoyed putting them on audio. Anthony ‎#1 is one you haven't heard of ... HOMO CENTAURIS is my first completed novel written in the early 90's. The next two were FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK ... the third one in that series, LIQUID FIRE, is about 75% done. THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE is the first in a new series. P.S. The working titles of the next three Dakota Frosts (4,5,and 6) are SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER and SPIRITUAL GOLD. The working titles of the next next three (7,8, and 9) are something like SPIRAL NEEDLE, HELICAL LANCE, and CIRCULAR KNIFE. And the working titles of ... I'll stop there. I can keep going, but I won't ... don't want to spoil the surprise. I've already mentioned some of the later ones online. :-)

Assuming I get that far ... no, I'm planning to get that far, and farther, God willing. -the Centaur Pictured: piles of notes between caffeine fuel and my computational engine.

Rough Draft of The Clockwork Time Machine

Published July 13, 2011 by centaur

I just completed a rough draft of my fourth novel! My first steampunk work, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, clocks in at 90,000 words of completed story! [caption id="attachment_1128" align="alignnone" width="580" caption="The Title Page and Draft History of THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE"]

[/caption] Here's another excerpt for those who like a tease ...

With Patrick’s blunderblast slung over her shoulder, Jeremiah whizzed through the streets on her autocycle, discharging its cylinder flat out, its teakettle scream and clanking frame adding another layer of mist and noise to the steam and bustle of Boston. Her legs were tensed, her knees bent against the pedals, half to jump the cycle over curbs, and half to keep the juddering vibration from the cobblestones of Beacon Hill from rattling her tailbone clean off. She squealed to a stop before the Moffat’s, pulled the cylinder and tossed it to a street urchin. “Top me off?” she asked, hopping off onto the sidewalk with a whirl and pulling her bag out of its basket in one smooth motion. “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said, taking the cycle. His eyes lighted on her vest, her denims—and on the big brass buttons on her lapels, a steering wheel, sword and airsail overlaid with a stylized V. “Are you an Expeditionary?” Jeremiah smiled. “Yes,” she said, ruffing his cap so that tufts of blond hair showed. “Maybe one day you’ll become one too. Polish the brasslite a bit and there’s a second shilling in it for you. Quick now; I won’t be long.”

I've got some cleaning to do and a whole 'nother draft before the beta readers can see it, but still ... on to LIQUID FIRE! -the Centaur

BLOOD ROCK Radio: Preparing the Reading

Published July 5, 2011 by centaur

I thought it might be useful to see the script a bit closer to completion. The script-style "SPEAKER: Dialogue goes here" style is my idea, and the color coding is an idea suggested by my wife (I'd been thinking of it but it was her suggestion that prompted me to actually do it). I also time it, and put time notes in the script when producing the sound bed - the list of music tracks that goes with the dialogue. Previously the time notes were scribbled notes on a printout, but I've got a little more time now so I'm doing it right. Oh, and I've eliminated the Seven Dirty Words - trickier than it sounds as you can't easily do a search and replace. I prefer to practice at least three times - once to get timing, once with the soundbed, and once for polish. If time permits, I do these on the three evenings prior to appearing on Ann Arbor's show just before going to bed, as there's some evidence that sleep improves memory consolidation (e.g., here, here and here). But having a nice relaxed holiday afternoon to practice counts too. See you all tomorrow at 7:20AM on Ann Arbor's Unbedtime Stories. -the Centaur Pictured: a screenshot of the reading script. Crossposted from the Dakota Frost blog.

BLOOD ROCK Radio, Redux

Published July 4, 2011 by centaur

a page from the reading of blood rock, pre-seven-dirty-words cleanup

Hey there, Cinnamon and Dakota fans ... I'll be reading from the revised-for-print version of BLOOD ROCK on Ann Arbor's Unbedtime Stories on KFJC 89.7 FM for the whole month of July. Interestingly, this is the SECOND time I've made the early morning trip to Foothill College to read from BLOOD ROCK ... the first time was two and a half years ago and marked the first time I appeared on Ann Arbor's program. The text has changed slightly, but the story remains the same. I hope you enjoy! -the Centaur Pictured: my reading copy of BLOOD ROCK, prior to search-and-replace of the Seven Dirty Words. Crossposted at the Dakota Frost blog.

Plotting from the bottom up

Published April 8, 2011 by centaur

Recently I was asked about how I plot books:

I was wondering if you could help me out a bit. I've always wanted to create my own comicbook from my own design and mind but I always, I mean ALWAYS have problems coming up with and sticking with a good plot. I can make the basis of the story, the characters, the world and different terms and creatures but I can never stick with a plot or make a good one that I know will drive the story. Could you give me any advice on these things or some pointers on how to make a really great story I could draw out? I'm so close to it blossoming I can taste it!

Great question! I'm not sure I'm the best person in the world to answer it - my first pointer to anyone on plot would be Ayn Rand's The Art of Fiction - yes, I know, it's Ayn Rand, but if you're one of those idiots who can't see past your unjustified distaste for her political philosophy, well, then you deserve to miss out on her opinions in other areas which might prove of more value to you despite your disagreements - but I do think about plot quite a bit, so I'll give it a go. A lot of what I do is simply write cool scenes I enjoy ... and then think hard about who's the protagonist and what's their major conflict. Once you know, for example, the protagonist is a magic tattoo artist, that suggests she's going to be in conflict over some tattoo related thing - like someone skinning people who have tattoos. Once you know the conflict, then you can design the climax - well, your tattoo artist will eventually have to meet the evil skinning person, who will want to make her a victim. That basic strategy - write stuff that's fun, figure out who the protagonist really is, find what conflict they're embroiled in, design the final conflict, then work backwards from there - has worked very well for me. Why take this approach, rather than, say, starting with some theme and working back from there. Start with an abstract goal? Yuk! That might work for nonfiction but in fiction it's a recipe for heartless exercises in craft - and craft can't sell a story. The instant someone notices you're telling a story on skill alone, you're done. There are prominent authors I can't read anymore because I realized they had some point they were driving to and were using all of their craft to get me there ... even though there was no reason to go there in the first place. That might work in a movie with a lot of explosions, but it's not going to sustain a 300 page book. So. I need concrete events, realized situations with full-bodied characters where interesting things are happening. In short, I need to be entertained - in my writing most of all. That's why I start with "cool scenes" - I write to entertain myself first, so I have to write what I enjoy writing. But I want others to enjoy it too - someone once said the hallmark of a great writer is that they take what they find interesting and make it interesting to other people. To do that, to make my stories interesting to people not invested in my characters, I need to create a strong conflict that will engage. And to do so, I listen to the story. Whether the story features a tattoo artist accosted by a werewolf deep in the Lovecraftian underbelly of Atlanta - or that same tattoo artist and her adopted weretiger daughter out school shopping in the sun - those first key scenes of the story, those first inspirations, will tell you what belongs in the story. If the story begins with Dakota school shopping with Cinnamon, then some part of the story must hinge on Cinnamon and Dakota in a school - or that scene's got to go. If the story features a magic tattoo artist investigating magic graffiti, then some part of the story must hinge on our tattoo artist confronting the graffiti artist. And for the story to really be interesting, something important must be at stake - generally, life has to be on the line in the kind of melodramatic action adventures I write, but it can be more subtle if you're writing something more subtle. One famous way of looking at this idea is Chekov's Gun - "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." Ayn Rand's take on this is similar: you should decide on your theme (what your story is about), then your plot-theme (what type of events realize your theme), then your conflict (what is being fought over in the plot) then the plot itself (the actual sequence of events) which will then dictate the characters, scenes and settings in your story. I believe in the same causal structure, but prefer the opposite order. I let my subconscious play scenes out I find entertaining, and then let the characters and the situations tell me who they are, what conflicts they encounter, and what themes I should explore. You have to find your own way of doing things, of course; every writer is unique, and it's your unique story and vision that matter. Whatever you have to do - outline or no outline, start from the beginning or write backwards for the end - just do it. Just write, and eventually it will all sort itself out. -the Centaur

Take Care Of Yourself Before It’s Too Late

Published March 21, 2011 by centaur

Gabby naps, with the sabretooth skull in the background.

I can't even begin to tell you all that I've gone through recently: sleep deprivation, tonsillitis, tinnitus, internal injuries, a trip to the emergency room (unrelated), and near disasters at work. I've started another blog entry to explain what's been going on, but even that had to be put on hold by other disasters.

The quick point I want to pass on is that I work hard sometimes. I used to describe as working two jobs: by day, my work at the Search Engine That Starts With A G, and by night, the author of the Dakota Frost series. Both could take 40 hours a week or more, meaning normally almsot every nonworking minute ends up on writing.

Recently, that's become like four jobs: my old project at the Search Engine, a brand new project at the Search Engine, both with hard and conflicting deadlines, a scientific paper for my new project, also with a hard deadline, and my fiction writing, also with deadlines. Each one could be a full time job. Aaa.

Recently, this came to a head: I'd finished my scientific paper, had a breather on the writing, yet still knew I was going to have to work hard, nights and weekends, just on my two work projects. So I decided one night I needed to take a break, to chill out, to go to bed early and catch up on sleep. To recharge my batteries.

Too late.

That night, when I got home, planning to crash out early, one of my cats urinated all over our curtains, then tracked it through our house, necessitating a 3:45AM cleaning job (cats will urinate after each other unless it is completely cleaned up), just before a Monday at work. The next night I was kept up by a sore throat, was worn out Tuesday, and was diagnosed with tonsillitis on Wednesday. The throat pain caused sleep deprivation, the coughing fits caused hemorrhoids (yuk!), the nasal congestion caused tinnitus and hearing loss in one ear, and all of this indirectly caused my trip to the emergency room (more on that later). This went on for days, then for over a week. And all of this just before a huge presentation at work, which we figured out we needed to cancel much too late to cancel - so I had to keep working, even though I could barely keep working. I couldn't really code in my exhaustion, and when I did readings for my other project - and I did work on my other project, because its deadlines wouldn't stop either - the textbooks actually blurred when I sat down to read them.

It was almost two weeks later, a day after the presentation, when I finally crashed, for essentially 36 hours straight.

So my point, and I do have one, is that you should take care of yourself. Now. While you're still feeling good about yourself. Because if you wait to take care of yourself until you're all worn out ... it may be too late.

-the Centaur

Taking a Sabbath from Microsoft Word

Published February 6, 2011 by centaur

I'm not a very literal Christian, but I do believe that a lot of Christianity is good. But I don't think it's good because God says so - I think it's God said so because it's good for you. One example is the Sabbath. But what is a Sabbath? Going to church on Sunday, then sitting around reading psalms? No, a Sabbath is first and foremost a day of rest, and second a day of worship. And God doesn't ask us to observe it because he's needy for worship: he asks us to do it because we need time off. I'm not going to go into the Episcopal theology which suggests that Jesus doesn't care what day you take your Sabbath as long as you do take one - I'll let my fundamentalist and atheist friends thumbwrestle over that one. I'm just going to take it as a given that we need a day off. So ... what does the Sabbath have to do with Microsoft Word? In my personal life, I'm like a submarine: I disappear into whatever project I'm working on (see the bursty timing of my blogposts as evidence for this). And even though I usually have something on the order of four to six major projects going at once, I'm really only good at focusing on one of them at a time. My current project: revising my second novel BLOOD ROCK, which I've been doing since something like September, responding to hundreds of comments from my editor. I'm down to the wire now. The book is over 100 pages shorter and tighter after months of edits. I've gone from a HUGE list of TODO items that sprawled over two pages down to a short list of items I'd written on the back of a receipt. One of my last items is re-reviewing all the remaining Microsoft Word comments, which I've been doing over the last several days. But as I did so, I found that somehow I'd either lost my memory or Word had neglected to show a whole bunch of comments to me. Months ago, I went through the entire document in detail resolving differences and addressing comments before starting my big tightening edit, and yet there are real, material important comments I would remember if I'd seen them that only showed up in the last few days. Having observed Word's behavior looking for possible bugs, I'm guessing either it was collapsing comments when there were lots of edits on a page, or, more likely, this is a scrolling bug that caused some comments to appear "over the top of the page" and thus effectively become invisible. Another alternative is that it might have to do with the "ribbon" ... I recently switched from Word 2004 for Mac to Word 2011 and the interface for comments seems to have changed. A simple interface change; they happen. But that's not the point. My frustration is that even minor offhand comments from the editor can lead to big changes. If she asks me to delete something on page 204, I might just do it --- but if I don't agree, I generally think hard about whether I need it, whether it's important to me, and if so how to integrate it so deeply into the novel that it's inevitable --- ideally to the point where she'd tell me to put it back in if I took it out, though I don't know if I ever achieve that. :-) So now I have a whole load of comments that I'm essentially getting fresh. Worse, they're commenting on things in sections that I had previously reworked in response to the editor's written comments, sections where I didn't think there were major in-line comments. So I've spent a great deal of effort fixing things in response to the revision email, the suggested changes, and a long hallway conversation with the editor at Dragon*Con, but I'm now finding dozens of things, both little and great, that would have potentially changed what I would have done. So ... what does Microsoft Word have to do with the Sabbath? Well ... I am taking today off. :-) I have a great job at the Search Engine That Starts With a G, but it takes a lot of time - partly work, partly travel time, partly mental recuperation time. And I have a wife, and friends, and cats. By lugging my laptop to breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee, I can eke out 3-4 hours a night 3-4 days a week, but that's not enough, and generally need to work on my writings on the weekends. This gets especially intense when editing, because I can't futz around doing research reading or shift gears to another story if I'm stumped; I've got to keep my brain focused on the EDITING process. But my frustration reached its limit last night. I blew my stack and fired off a few frustrated emails to the editor, and decided to take today off. To use the Sabbath that God gave us. I don't have a link to the great sermon that Father Ken of Saint Stephens in the Field gave on the topic, but I do have a link to my atheist friend Jim Davies, who takes Saturdays completely off so he is free the rest of the week to pursue the top priority items on his nobility list. The theology is different - but the idea is the same. The point? The moment I decided to take the day off, I felt completely liberated. I'm going to do something fun like ride a bike or design a robot brain - or maybe visit a bookstore for something other than their wifi or coffee. Before writing this blog post, I spent the previous hour implementing "Hello World" in every language installed on my new Macbook Air as part of a project to crack my programming knuckles again (and oddly, the hardest language was Awk, which I actually use so much at the command line it's like a reflex. Weird). I've been wanting to do this for weeks, but I've spent it revising. Now instead, I've had a little fun. My batteries are already recharged. Maybe you're one of those people who find it easy to take time off. Good for you. If you're not, especially if you live in the Bay Area ... take a break. Maybe not even take a break from work; take a break from whatever you won't let yourself take a break from.

BLOOD ROCK now under 500 pages…

Published January 1, 2011 by centaur

Editing BLOOD ROCK in response to the notes from Bell Bridge Books is progressing. It's been quite the challenge, but I've preserved the bulk of the book and got it to under 500 pages. I'm going to try to get this editing pass (#2) done today, a third editing pass done next week, and send it to the editors the following week. -the Centaur UPDATE: BLOOD ROCK is now 488 pages (as my personal reading copies are formatted, which is probably about 400-450 pages of a normal novel), meaning I've successfully cut 100 pages from the novel. And, as I hoped, I JUST FINISHED THE SECOND REVISION. On to pass 3.

Where is BLOOD ROCK?

Published November 27, 2010 by centaur

National Novel Writing Month Kickoff Card

A fan wrote:

I would like to purchase Blood Rock, but I have not been able to find it anywhere.... Can you direct me to a site which has it for sale? If it is in fact for sale? I am a little curious since your site says it is in Beta release, but the site has not been updated in several months, so I am unsure as to the status of the book.

Well, sorry about that ... Blogger changed their terms of service and the Dakota Frost site is frozen until I can fix it. The answer? BLOOD ROCK is in editing right now - the publisher wanted some big cuts, but I'm in the last throes of National Novel Writing Month right now and had to put BLOOD ROCK down while working on my new series. I'm picking up BLOOD ROCK December 1st and hope to have it to the publisher before the first of the year, so if all goes well it will be out in March. I'm well into the sequel to the sequel, LIQUID FIRE, which I hope will be out the following October. -Anthony

FROST MOON on Unbedtime Stories

Published August 3, 2010 by centaur

Tomorrow morning at 7:20am, I'll be reading from FROST MOON on Ann Arbor's Unbedtime Stories radio program on KFJC. Actually, we plan to have me reading from FROST MOON every Wednesday for the rest of August! Tune in and enjoy...