Posts published in “Challenges”

National Novel Writing Month, Camp Nano, and similar challenges.

Hashtag #stormofghosts

Published July 6, 2016 by centaur

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Once again, starting behind on Camp Nano, but I am starting to get a little traction on the story, thanks to a lot of help from my friends. Of course, the most important thing is taking this week off for vacation, so I’m cutting myself a little slack here - but I plan to take one full day to just get caught up on writing. Hopefully soon. But at least tonight I solved two major problems in the story - how the climax works out, and how and why a couple characters that seemed to get dropped from the story can come back with a vengeance. Onward, fellow adventurers!

-the Centaur

P.S. Upon uploading this, I noticed I made a mistake - I counted writing done yesterday the 5th as being today the 6th (it’s just after midnight). The role of posting about Nanowrimo is to reinforce the purpose of National Novel Writing Month - to provide a public benchmark for your private achievement. Many people are runners, but a marathon provides a specific, external, timed goal at which you have to participate to succeed — and at which you fail if you don’t go the distance that everyone else is at the time everyone else is. My buddy Nathan Vargas worries that this can create a failure mentality, and I agree at that; many people don’t need to be exposed to the possibility of failure, but instead encouraged to success. But as my buddy David Cater knows, a marathon can push you to do things that you never would otherwise - and Nanowrimo can do the same. But that external accountability only works if you externalize it - and that’s why I sign up for Camp Nanowrimo, and why I post my writing goals here. I want to write more than 150,000 words a year - and I rely on all of you to help me do it. Onward!

Camp Nano July 2016: PHANTOM SILVER

Published July 2, 2016 by centaur

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National Novel Writing Month is November, but the Camp version - Camp Nanowrimo - has rolled around yet again, and I am returning to finish the final part of PHANTOM SILVER, which will be Dakota Frost Book 5. For my own entertainment, I put together the above cover, which will NOT be the cover of the final book - but it’s teaching me more about cover design.

http://campnanowrimo.org/campers/xenotaur/novels/phantom-silver-273805

Magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost just wants to raise her adopted children in peace, but when a routine film shoot at a haunted house awakens a real ghost and an ancient curse, she finds herself in a race to prevent the devious phantom from hurting her family ... if the curse hidden in the family silver doesn't kill her first.

Sounds exciting! What’s more exciting to me is that after a long conversation with the estimable Gayle Schultz, I’ve found a way to resolve the climax which could only appear in a Dakota Frost book - or maybe in a Jim Butcher book if he got on a lot of drugs. Now I have a destination - time to finish the drive.

Onward!

-the Centaur

Viiictory the Fourteenth

Published April 30, 2016 by centaur

Viiictory! I successfully completed Nanowrimo for the fourteenth time - adding 50,000 words to PHANTOM SILVER, Dakota Frost #5. And, by working hard, I did it!

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Because of work, life, and other writing, I got behind early this month, and had to press hard to really make it. But I successfully got it off my plate one day early. Because Nano’s site counts words differently than Microsoft Word, I had to push a bit past my Word word count, and so saw something I rarely see on this graph: a negative velocity debt, meaning I could write backwards and still end up finishing the count (at least the Word count) exactly on time.

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For a bit late in the month, especially around the 26th, it was as bad as I’ve ever gotten it: 6000+ words behind only 5 days from the end of the month. But somehow I managed to pull it out, setting a couple of daily records on writing … though I never even came close to my absolute max writing rate of 7,000 words a day.

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Strangely, even though Camp Nano doesn’t have November’s holidays, it still works out that most of the writing gets done near the end of the month. Go figure.

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Alright, late, tired, going to bed, more commentary later.

-the Centaur

Life is More Important

Published April 29, 2016 by centaur

So after catching up for a while on Camp Nano, I fell behind again … because I and my wife traveled back to Greenville, South Carolina to assist my mother’s rehab from knee surgery, and frankly that’ more important than any amount of word count. The good news is, she’s doing very well, and came home from the hospital yesterday … the even better news is, that my wife and my mom patched it up after eight years of not speaking to each other, a feat which I didn’t think was even possible. What a wonderful trip!

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I lost my momentum the moment I hopped on that plane, and after that it was tough to get it back when I was caring for Mom - you can see the dent in the schedule around the 20th - and getting back on track after that required a full court press. But, in the past several days, I was able to do just that, and managed to pump out 2000+ words on all of the past five days, and double that on three of those. As of tonight, I am caught up.

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As for now, there’s two days left, which I could tackle at a normal pace—though I’ll likely try to finish by Friday so that I can chill out on Saturday and have a nice relaxing weekend.

Wish me luck.

-the Centaur

Reality intervenes, but …

Published April 26, 2016 by centaur

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… we may still pull it out. We’ve been in worse scrapes ...

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Er … well, no we haven’t, but it’s still clearly possible. More news in a bit.

-the Centaur

Now it’s starting to feel possible again …

Published April 20, 2016 by centaur

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I was literally dreaming all night about the chapter I wrote today - I got up several times with tears in my eyes, as one of Dakota’s enemies unexpectedly turned into one of her strongest allies. Fascinating what a fictional world can do to you. But the upshot is, I got 4,000 words done for two days in a row … and have a clear path for what I need to write tomorrow.

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We may win this one yet! Assuming I survive this weekend’s craziness! Which I can’t tell you about, but … aaaa!

-the Centaur

Now that’s what I’m talking about …

Published April 19, 2016 by centaur

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4200 words today! Keep that up for 3 more days, I’ll be more or less back on track.

And then I’ll still have 18,000 words left to write this month. AAAAA!

Onward!

-the Centaur

Briefly …

Published April 18, 2016 by centaur

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Is the novel back on track? NO. But am I up to speed? YES.

Of course, I know I’ll lose more days, so really, to finish, I’m going to need to do even more than the—hork!—2750 words per day that my spreadsheet predicts I’ll need to do to get back on track.

But I’ve gotten a much better groove, the story is starting to dovetail nicely, and some sections which felt out of place have, after a few moves, found a nice home in the story.

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The rocket is taking off, but there’s a long climb ahead.

Back to it.

-the Centaur

The good news and the bad news

Published April 17, 2016 by centaur

The good news is I wrote ~2800 words yesterday, more than I needed. The bad news is I wrote 900 of those words by hand in my notebook (so as to not disturb the other diners in the dark and quiet restaurant with the typing coming from my glowing laptop), and took most of this afternoon’s writing session to get them all typed in. Argh! Still, I’m happy with the results ...

“So,” Avenix said. “We have begun to seek out, in all our holdings, other threats—”

I raised my hand. “Hang on,” I said. Filling in the blanks, this ghost had to have been a fae hunter; that’s why they called me. But Avenix wasn’t saying that outright: he seemed to be feeding me my own lines. “You feared a threat to your realm … started a search for dangerous use of magic … then called me to deal with the problem. Did I get that right?”

“Well … yes,” Avenix said.

“Don’t lie to me!” I said, slapping my hand on the table. “What’s your real goal?”

“I am not lying to you,” Avenix said.

“Why would he lie to you?” Nyissa asked. “It’s a reasonable course of action—”

“Are you all insane?” I said. “Do you have no memories? Ten years ago—ten months ago—you’d have all been tearing each other apart, lashing out at everyone in sight, blaming anyone you could get your hands on to deal with your problems. You’d have been at war with Sidhain just because this happened on her doorstep—”

“Not likely,” Avenix said, shuddering.

“Save it! She has a real bad attitude,” I said, “but she’s pretty damn inoffensive for an alleged apocalyptic horror, and I’ve seen you in action against witchhunters! You can’t expect me to believe you’re all playing nice just because I came along!

Sounds like Dakota and Avenix are going to have it out. Onward!

-the Centaur

Back in motion, but not yet on track …

Published April 16, 2016 by centaur

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Several times in the past few days, I’ve finally gotten up to speed on Camp Nanowrimo. Only problem is, because I got so far behind, I need to go 50% faster than I’m already doing … and to catch up this weekend, even if such a thing was possible, I’d have to write eight times as much as I’ve already written today. Aaaa!

Still, onward!

-the Centaur

A Partial Answer …

Published April 15, 2016 by centaur

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… to how I made so little progress yesterday: halfway through yesterday’s writing session, I started entering yesterday’s wordcount into today’s row of the spreadsheet, effectively cutting my apparent wordcount for the day in half.

That would do it.

No excerpts; I just experimented with a new chapter 1 and I want to try it on for size before I share it. But it seems to dovetail nicely with what I’ve already written … and it was 800 free words, springing fully formed from my pen, uh, keyboard.

Onward!

-the Centaur

Gaah!

Published April 14, 2016 by centaur

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Gaah! How do I spend an hour writing a new long scene and only get 500 words out of it? 17% done, 30% behind. Aaa! Still, I got this. Just … need … to … write … faster ...

-the Centaur

“Can’t talk; I need to rescue a vampire from a ghost”

Published April 14, 2016 by centaur

A real conversation from my life. Love my life.

-the Centaur

Surfacing

Published April 13, 2016 by centaur

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Is the novel back on track? NO. But I am reaching the point where I have enough traction in the story that I’m starting to make real progress. I’m 14,000+ words behind, I need to write over 2,500 words a day to finish my 50,000 words in the month … but at least I’m making real progress now. An excerpt:

The looming tower of Brendelbane Manor leered down at me, its three irregular windows looking even more like a skull. Yes, it was the same room, the nook at the front of Alissa van Kreveld’s room—but was there now flickering light within?

And … was the thing we’d seen Alissa van Kreveld? The phantom hadn’t looked like a Scottish refugee or a woman of Dutch descent; its hair and face had looked distinctly Asian, like a concept drawing for a mash-up of The Grudge and Memoirs of a Geisha.

So if it wasn’t her … who was it? What was it?

In horror movies, it seemed like you had a fifty-fifty chance of a ghost being a human ghost or a real demon. My personal experience told me next to nothing about ghosts, but any kind of phantom had a seventy percent chance of being a projectia, and a ninety percent chance of it turning out to be something hostile.

I stopped for a moment. No. That was my bad attitude talking. Chris Valentine’s projectia, the Streetscribe’s projectia, Cosgreave’s specter: all hostile. My Dragon, Arcturus’s vines, Avenix’s tentacle monster: all benign. The odds were closer to fifty-fifty. Even if this ghost had chased us out of the property with phantom fire, it might not be a hostile.

Still … my girlfriend was inside, and this thing spat phantom fracking fire.

Screwing up my courage, I drew my sword, ascended the steps … and went inside.

Onward!

-the Centaur

Blood in the Water

Published April 8, 2016 by centaur

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Well, shoot. Camp Nano not going well so far. Blast ye, taxes. Is the date right? Should I make Dakota worry about her taxes too, just to be mean? Checking The Grid … no, dangit, her taxes wouldn’t be due until the next book. Sigh.

Back to work.

-the Centaur

Back to PHANTOM SILVER

Published April 3, 2016 by centaur

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Back at work on Dakota Frost #5, PHANTOM SILVER, for Camp Nanowrimo. I’m at 50,000+ words already and hope to get it to 100,000 words the month of April, then finish the book off in Camp Nanowrimo in July. My summary from the Camp Nano page:

Dakota Frost --- Skindancer, magical tattooist, chair of the Magical Security Council, and harried mother of a teen weretiger and a teen half-elf --- still has to pay the bills. Fortunately that involves something awesome, being a headliner on the supernatural debunking show The Exposers billed as the Skeptical Witch.

Too bad their latest adventure turns up a very real ghost, which latches onto Dakota to help dispel its ancient family curse. Add to that a reawakened fae curse, an invasion from the land of the dead - and an annoying older brother - and you have a recipe for disaster.

and an excerpt of yesterday’s writing:

“Alright, your turn,” I said.

“Mo—uh, my Lady Frost, I do not think—” Benjamin began.

“What did you say?” the sphinx said, claws scraping against granite.

“You asked me a riddle, now I ask you a riddle back, correct?” I said.

“You wish to duel me?” the sphinx said. “I accept!”

“Wait,” I said, befuddled, “weren’t we dueling already?”

“It was a riddle challenge,” Benjamin said. “Trolls ask one, sphinxes three—”

“The riddle game is from The Hobbit, Mom,” Cinnamon said, tugging at my arm.

“The riddle game is an ancient and honorable mode of dueling and I accept,” the sphinx roared, stamping one paw, so that all three of us cringed back. “I accept! We must answer three riddles each before we pass by; at the first slip … the winner takes the loser as the prize.”

Oh dear! Sounds like Dakota and her brood are in trouble!

Now to brew up more of it. Back to work.

-the Centaur

P. S. Planning it out, it looks like the next three Dakota Frost books will dovetail nicely with the first three Cinnamon Frost books, so I have a loose hexalogy on my hands. I had to look that one up, God help me. (And I pray He does.)

Nanowrimo Triples Your Productivity

Published January 30, 2016 by centaur

So I’ve got enough data now - two months - and it shows my productivity in non-Nano months is about one third of the Nano goal. Because December and January are 31 day months, by now I should have produced a notch over 100,000 words if this was National Novel Writing Month … but instead I’ve produced a notch under 30,000.

The picture is a bit muddled since my productivity in successful Nano months is slightly higher than 50,000 words, and my productivity this month is slightly higher since I’m not counting some writing (some edits to stories, plus all the nonfiction writing I do at work). But it shows the social effect.

Nano triples your productivity.

-the Centaur

Building Inventory

Published January 3, 2016 by centaur

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I’m taking on a new writing project - posting once a day on this blog this year - and, naturally, the first thing I open when i start a writing project - after Word or Ecto, to write the text - is Microsoft Excel, to track what I’m doing. Maybe that’s a sign of my so-called “left brain analytical tendencies” (NOTE: the left brained / right brained nonsense is a MYTH, used here for entertainment value only); after all, Quentin Tarantino once said “you can’t write poetry on a computer” and I doubt he spins up Excel on his yellow notepads. But a lot of successful cartoonists I know, like Bill Holbrook of Kevin and Kell, got their start on their most successful projects by getting an inventory - a month or two of backlog that they could use to prevent themselves from getting behind, and the only way I know to get that far ahead is to actually track what you’re doing.

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It’s been a useful exercise so far. I found about half dozen old blog posts that never got posted (some quite stale now) and found many other ideas popping to mind just by writing them down. I also realized the limits of my Excel-fu, as the nice diagrams I generate for my Nanowrimo progress are actually the outcome of a lot of careful tweaking which I can’t easily replicate quickly.

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But the exercise is really helpful. Just like all the other things in my life I’ve gotten more disciplined about tracking - my Nanowrimo progress, my word count, my short stories, my TODOs, my office piles - I’ve found great benefits come quickly, and it brings clarity, focus … and a great feeling of relief when you hit Save and are one more unit ahead of the onrushing wolf.

-the Centaur

The Benefits of Social Support

Published January 3, 2016 by centaur

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One of the things I’ve noticed is that its a lot easier to do things with social support. "Back in the day we used to call that peer pressure, son.” - but not so fast, Tex; hold on. When you try to do something for yourself, by yourself, it’s easier to give up; but when you involve another person, it’s far easier to hold yourself accountable.

Now, I think there’s some actual scientific studies on this, but that’s not what I’m referring to: I think I have directly observed this in my own life. You are the easiest person to fool, of course, but I am trained as a scientist, which means, in part, that I observe the world, that I record what I observe, and I analyze it, looking for patterns. And above, you can see that the only two times I failed at a National Novel Writing Month like challenge were the two months I didn’t do it with the social support of the formal challenges - when I tried it in the off months of August and December.

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The same thing happened this year: my December writing, which I’ve consciously tried to keep up each day, has in truth been quite spotty. Now, there are vacations, holidays, and the year end crunch in there, but it’s surprising that I got so little done - and perhaps NOT surprising that the days I did best were the regular writing group days of the 29th, the 22nd, the 15th, the 8th, and the 2nd (at least best compared to the days immediately around them; the 22nd was thin).

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So I got a little over 1/5th of the writing done in December than my typical November (and a lot less than in this previous November, which was epic). Perhaps that’s because in Nano I’m writing new material, and in December I also edit, but still, the social support - a group of peers who are trying to accomplish the same goal - really seems to help.

My wife and I have noticed the same thing at the gym; so has my friend Gordon. Jim Davies and Lou Fasulo do the same thing with their epic New Year’s resolutions. Agile development is a mixed bag at best and active, harmful voodoo at worst, but its daily standups nonetheless have the same kind of social effect.

So if you want to do something … consider finding a friend who wants to do it too.

-the Centaur

Welcome to 2016

Published January 1, 2016 by centaur

Hi, I’m Anthony! I love to write books and eat food, activities that I power by fiddling with computers. Welcome to 2016! It’s a year. I hope it’s a good one, but hope is not a strategy, so here’s what I’m going to do to make 2016 better for you.

First, I’m writing books. I’ve got a nearly-complete manuscript of a steampunk novel JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE which I’m wrangling with the very excellent editor Debra Dixon at Bell Bridge Books. God willing, you’ll see this come out this year. Jeremiah appears in a lot of short stories in the anthologies UnCONventional, 12 HOURS LATER, and 30 DAYS LATER - more on that one in a bit.

I also have completed drafts of the urban fantasy novels SPECTRAL IRON and HEX CODE, starring Dakota Frost and her adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost, respectively. If you like magical tattoos, precocious weretigers, and the trouble they can get into, look for these books coming soon - or check out FROST MOON, BLOOD ROCK and LIQUID FIRE, the first three Dakota books. (They’re all still on sale, by the way).

Second, I’m publishing books. I and some author/artist friends in the Bay Area founded Thinking Ink Press, and we are publishing the steampunk anthology 30 DAYS LATER edited by Belinda Sikes, AJ Sikes and Dover Whitecliff. We’re hoping to also re-release their earlier anthology 12 HOURS LATER; both of these were done for the Clockwork Alchemy conference, and we’re proud to have them.

We’re also publishing a lot more - FlashCards and InstantBooks and SnapBooks and possibly even a reprint of a novel which recently went out of print. Go to Thinking Ink Press for more news; for things I’m an editor/author on I’ll also announce them here.

Third, I’m doing more computing. Cinnamon Frost is supposed to be a mathematical genius, so to simulate her thought process I write computer programs (no joke). I’ve written up some few articles on this for publication on this blog, and hope to do more over the year to come.

Fourth, I’m going to keep doing art. Most of my art is done in preparation for either book frontispieces or for 24-Hour Comics Day, but I’m going to step that up a bit this year - I have to, if I’m going to get (ulp) three frontispieces done over the next year. Must draw faster!

Finally, I’m going to blog more. I’m already doing it, right now, but one way I’m trying to get ahead is to write two blog posts at a time, publishing one and saving one in reserve. This way I can keep getting ahead, but if I fall behind I’ve got some backlog to fall back on. I feel hounded by all the ideas in my head, so I’m going to loose them on all of you.

As for New Year’s Resolutions? Fah. I could say “exercise more, blog every day, and clean up the piles of papers” but we all know New Year’s Resolution’s are a joke, unless your name is Jim Davies, in which case they’re performance art.

SO ANYWAY, 2016. It’s going to be a year. I hope we can make it a great one!

-the Centaur

Pictured: The bookshelves of Cafe Intermezzo in the Atlanta airport, one place where I like to write books and eat food.