Posts published in “Challenges”

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

The Centaur’s Pen at Write to the End

Published January 21, 2012 by centaur

I'm part of a fantabulous writing group called Write to the End that meets at Mission City Coffee. This group, which started at Barnes and Noble at Steven's Creek before the economy and contracting book market convinced B&N to cut back on their community programs, has been the best thing for my writing productivity since ... well, ever. I'd even stopped doing National Novel Writing Month until I started attending the WTTE, but now I do Nano every year ... and go to the writing group almost every Tuesday. SO ... it's now time to give back. I'll be doing a monthly column on the WTTE blog titled "The Centaur's Pen." In it, I will write about writing: about why to write, what to write, how to write, how to edit, how to get published --- and how to behave AFTER you get published. Now, I am not a great writer, but I'm trying very hard, I think about writing almost all the time, and I've spent a lot of time talking to other aspiring writers and learning about the art, craft and business of writing. So I hope my insights will be of use to you!

January's inaugural article is on "Learning from Publication:" how seeing your work in print can be an opportunity to improve your craft, even though you can no longer change it. An excerpt follows:

Recently I wrote a short story called “Steampunk Fairy Chick” for the UnCONventional anthology. Even though the story went through many revisions, lots of beta readers, two editors and a copyeditor, when I read through my author’s copy I found there were still things I wanted to change. Nothing major—just line edit stuff, a selection of different choices of sentence structure that I think would have made the story more readable. I can’t react to this the way I would with a draft; the story’s in print. And I don’t want to just throw these insights on the floor. Instead, I want to analyze the story and find general ideas I could have applied that would have improved the story before it hit the stands—ideas I could use in the future on new stories.

To read more, click through to Write to the End and "Learning from Publication." If you want to read the story the article is talking about, click through to Amazon and buy the UnCONventional anthology (in print or ebook). Enjoy! -the Centaur

Victory, Official

Published November 25, 2011 by centaur

Well, the team at Nano are handing out winner's certificates now, so it's official: I've won Nano, with an official word count of 55,492 words. I'm still writing more of the story, but am switching to work on STRANDED tonight. I didn't get much done over Thanksgiving, but I did get this chunk written either Wednesday night or this afternoon (don't remember):

I shoves the monster back, between 5 and 6, dinosaur legs scrabbling, towards the loading dock shared with 7 and 8, hurling it backwards through the pedestrian rail which snaps with a tong as Mister Gargoyle falls on his fanny into a Dumpster of yesterday’s garbage. I’m about to leap down on it and rub his face in it, yes I am, when one of those clawed extra-thick raptor legs flies out and connects with my tiger chin. I yelp, shake it off, but when I’m back to snarlin, the monster’s runnin, holdin’ its shoulder, limpin’ off into the night. I stands on the loading dock and lets out my best bloodcurdlin’ roar. I mean, I knows he’s a gargoyle, but I hopes it gives him blood just so it can curdle. But the tiger doesn’t want to give chase, and neither does I. The two of us are of one mind: we gotta go save All Hours Todd.

I've captured almost all of my notes on the story, so it's hopefully safe to shift gears. Though I have to admit it's hard to shake the momentum.

But I have deadlines ... in this case, Tuesday of next week, to get a draft of STRANDED to beta readers in time to get a final to my editors by January 31, 2012. Onward! -the Centaur

Chuggin’ Chuggin’ Chuggin’

Published November 23, 2011 by centaur

Well, Instant Upload is weirdly busted so you get my smilin' mug instead of coffee. HEX CODE is now at 55,000 words:

I'm taking it a little easier now than I was before I hit 50,000 words ... taking more time to read and catch up on email, even taking time to review notes on STRANDED.

But I do want to dump the rest of my floating ideas for HEX CODE into the document while they're fresh, so I don't lose them. From tonight:

I saw this thing earlier, out of the corner of my eye. It easily kept up with me, lopin’ along, twice as fast now that I think about the angles, using its superior speed to keep good cover between it and my line of sight. My only hope is to sit tight and hope it leaves. Then the dragging noise I thought was a trashcan crackles right up behind me. I’m on quadruple frozen now, concentrating on not even moving my tail—harder than you might think if you’re not a cat and don’t got one. I gotta breathe now, but I’m taking it in slow-like, through the mouth, in and out, so that my gut hurts from clenching.

Onward! -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

Why You Need to Turn off the Internet in Nano

Published November 19, 2011 by centaur

HEX CODE has an epigraph, a quote by Cicero. I'm not sure whether it will stay in the final book, but it sums up the theme of the book for me perfectly:

Nature urges Man to wish that human society existed and to wish to enter it. —Marcus Tullius Cicero, first historically verified werewolf.

The quote is my own tweak of a couple of different translations of this quote by Cicero - and of course Cicero wasn't really a werewolf. But I wanted to look up something about him, some damn thing about his tomb or whatever (not knowing at the time he'd been assassinated by the state and probably has no tomb) and made the stupid mistake of checking on Wikipedia. The sorry result, 30 minutes later, is what you see above. I'm turning off the Internet now, and I hope if you're doing Nano you do too. Because I think XKCD put the problem with Wikipedia best:

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing ... but browsing it isn't writing. Get back to work, nanoers! Onward! -the Centaur

Back on Track

Published November 19, 2011 by centaur

So, now that the Galaxy Nexus site with its snazzy 3D viewer has launched, now that I'm on my long lonely but highly productive 9-day Thanksgiving vacation, now ... I'm back on track. I hit 40,068 words in HEX CODE today, 38,524 added this month in Nano. So I've got 11,476 words left to go for HEX CODE. Since it's early in the day and I have two more writing sessions to go, I hope to actually finish that this weekend, or at least by Monday. Then, unless I'm going gangbusters on HEX CODE, I plan to go back to STRANDED to send to my beta readers, and after that try to finish LIQUID FIRE. Doubt all of that will happen in November, but I want to go from juggling 4 novels in my head to having 4 novels with beta readers! Oh, I almost forgot ... a snippet of HEX CODE:

The three will-o-the-wisps comes together, their colors merging as they swirls around each other into one big ball. The sphere brightens, shimmers, intensifies within its formless shield of mist—the light coming together with a ring and a dark spot, which whirls to face me. O.M.G. The three will-o-the-wisps have formed together into a giant eye. “Remember!” the Huntswoman cries. “You can hurt it with your sword, but not enough. It has a shield. You can defend yourself with your shield, but not enough. It has teeth. But it has one more thing, and that is the key. Find that, and you will find your victory.” “Oh, great,” I says, hefting my dumb little wooden plank blade. “Thanks. Even Yoda sent Luke after dreams before Vader.”

Actually make that 40,092 words ... I wrote some more when I went to grab the excerpt. Enjoy. -the Centaur

It’s ALIIIIIVE….

Published November 17, 2011 by centaur

I avoid talking about work on my blog as a matter of principle - even to the point of never directly referring to The Search Engine That Starts With A G by name, unless I'm talking about a product - but in this case I think I have to make an exception. The Galaxy Nexus phone from Samsung and Google has launched, and the marketing site contains a 3D model of the phone developed by my team (pictured above). Guys, great job. I'm proud to have worked on it with you.

I have a lot more I want to say about it, but at this point (2am) after an 14 hour day ironing out all the wrinkles in this launch I look about how I feel. Time to GO HOME and tackle this again tomorrow, make sure no fires are going ... and then, celebrate! Oh, and please enjoy the phone and all its Androidy goodness! -the Centaur P.S. My opinions are my own and are not that of my employer, even if I do think my employer is awesome. And I don't speak for my employer, though I did run this by them first to make sure they were cool with it. Some restrictions may apply to your limitations. Do not taunt happy fun ball.

Life Intervenes

Published November 12, 2011 by centaur

So I was going gangbusters on Nanowrimo ... until life intervened. I work at the Search Engine That Starts With A G. It's a fun but tough job that nonetheless leaves me with a great work life balance. I have time to work, time to write, and time to spend with my wife and cats (friends tend to get short shrift though :-P). But we have a software release coming up, and as usual for software development schedules (but unusual for The G) everything was under-resourced, the project was late, and no time was left for integration. This was a last minute project, a great opportunity for my team that came up at the last minute, so this is a bit understandable. But it's still been a bear. I was still writing though. Half my team's out sick, on trips, whatever, and I'm still writing. I'm doing the lion's share of the integration, the rest of the team doing the lion's share of the coding, and I'm still writing. Then we get down to the wire ... and still have showstopper bugs. At this point this week we were supposed to finish, attend a research symposium, and then join our research colleagues on an offsite. My boss was reluctant to bail on this, but I told him I was planning to skip the symposium and the offsite, to work on Saturday if I have to ... because there just wasn't enough time for me to finish my work otherwise. Not even if I temporarily dropped Nano.

Nano got dropped anyway. My bosses agreed with me, we mostly bailed on the symposium and almost all of us bailed on the offsite. For the time of this last push, my Nano tracking sheet lists zero, though I'm sure I got a couple of hundred words in that day (just didn't track them). We worked long into Friday night ... and nailed all our P0 bugs. But actually I didn't get any words done that day - I'd forgotten to charge my laptop. I do a lot of writing at breakfast, but without the laptop I had to break out my notebook and plan the story. It's become much more elaborate recently, and this gave me a chance to think. We came back and tackled the project again today Saturday, nailing all our P1 bugs and some of the P2s. I packed up my computer for the office move and prepared to leave, when my boss had a brainflash about fixing the first of our customer requests. He asked me for pointers on how to fix it ... but I knew how, my laptop was already open in my lap, and I could do it before I could explain it. So I did. My boss pushed the code to the site ... and lo and behold we'd nailed the first of the customer's requests, transitioning from bugfixes to pre-launch polishing in a 40-minute last-minute push that was faster than everything that came before it. Boo-yah. So when I went to dinner tonight, I gave myself permission to have a great meal, go get some great coffee, to chill out, and not to Nano. I'm ahead, and can get back to it tomorrow, which is completely free thanks to our hard work and my previous time getting ahead at Nano. But I'd forgotten to charge my laptop Friday. I'd written notes; I'd ruminated on them all night. Not even meaning to. And so, when I sat down for coffee ... the words, they just started spilling out. And I easily made today's word count. Double boo-yah. Here's a sample:

“Sinny and Tully, sittin’ in a tree,” Mom says. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” I finishes. I turns red as a beet, looking over at Tully and Ben. Tully’s just leaning against the rail, watching Ben fume as he scrubs the floor on his hands and knees. “But while we’re there in the orchard, this fae comes by, offers us some fruit—” “I swear,” Mom says, “I will slap you through this phone if you ate that fruit.” I holds the phone an arms length away again. I don’t know all of Mom’s powers. For a moment I’m scared she can do it.

Never eat the fruit of elfland ... unless you're a smart little spellpunk who specializes in tricky logic problems. So, back to HEX CODE, and here's hoping life continues to stop intervening. Onward! -the Centaur

20,039 Added Words (4,344 of Them Today)

Published November 6, 2011 by centaur

This post should be titled "wheew". I've now just reached the point where I've caught up with my crazy goal of writing at twice the normal rate. I've written just a notch over the required 3,333 words a day, churning out 20,000+ words in HEX CODE (and that's NOT counting the 1500 word seed I started with).

I had hoped to be this caught up last night, but I erred and went to one of my favorite coffee houses and found it closed an hour earlier than I thought, cutting in to my writing time. I could swear these hours are new, but maybe I'm just hallucinating.

And when I got home I had to play with the cats, such as the cute little monster above, a feral, stray or perhaps just terribly surly cat that just might be our orange cat's father (or mother - I didn't get close enough to enquire). Regrettably, since we already have too many cats, they mark, and feral cats have been trying to get into our home, I had to shoo Mister Orange Cat away, gently touching him with my flashlight, which freaked him out as he didn't know what it was - no matter how much he whapped at it, it didn't react. He actually looked OFFENDED as he scrabbled away atop the fence. I'm sad to have to do that, but his possible son below is more than enough trouble - we can't take in any more cats.

The point being, I was exhausted, but by the time I did all my cat triage, I just fricking collapsed into blissful unconsciousness. Today, however, I had no plans. While I overslept for church, as I irritatingly often do, I still got up reasonably early thanks to Daylight Saving's Time. So I had an extra hour to get out, get to a Panera ... and get caught up. I got my day's writing done pretty quickly, got a notch more ahead, and then went home, fed the cats, cleaned the pee left when the rains discouraged one of them from going outside :-P and resumed writing with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the background. A friend called, I hopped in the car while talking with him, and by the time we were done I was standing outside Chipotle with only 250 words to go. Short story, by taking the laptop out first and turning the internet off, I made it to 20039 words.

Now I'm freezing my ass off in a surprisingly chilly Barnes and Noble, sipping on a Frappucino (yeah, I know, cold drinks on a cold day, shut up, there's a reason my Top Gun name is Iceman) and taking a short break. Soon I'm going to dive back to it and try to finish another thousand words or so to give me a comfortable buffer. If all goes well, if I can keep up a bit less than the pace I've done so far, I should be able to coast through the second half of November. Maybe, just maybe, if I get done early enough ... I can go see The Thing again. Onward! -the Centaur

Ahead of where I need to be, behind where I want to be

Published November 5, 2011 by centaur

Well, I'm ahead of schedule for Nanowrimo ... or am I? I've been determined and lucky enough to complete at least 1667 words every day, so I'm ahead of where I have to be. But I'm trying to be crazy this year. At first I thought I would do TWO books, but now I'm thinking I want to do ONE book at twice the rate. Why do this to myself? Well, one reason would be to finish early. I could start a second book if I wanted to, or finish the first book, or, God forbid, actually use the week of vacation I've taken Thanksgiving week as a fricking vacation rather than a writing marathon. Or maybe it's because it takes Nanowrimo out of a safe place. Unlike 24 Hour Comics Day, I've succeeded every time I'd tried at Nanowrimo. Trying to write twice as fast takes me out of that comfort zone. If I fail, well, I'll still almost certainly succeed at the Nano challenge. If I succeed, well ... then maybe I can write 100,000 words in a month. And the most important thing about writing is writing. The more you write, the better you get. (The second most important thing is getting prompt, high quality feedback; the third most important thing is taking the feedback seriously and acting on it. But I digress). I've finished today's quota of 1,667 words. But yesterday I slacked, also only writing about 1,667 words. To keep up the accelerated pace, I need to catch up, to write almost 3000 more words today. But it's only 3:52 in the afternoon, and I have the whole day ahead of me. So here's seeing what I can do ... and I don't think I can lose, either way. -teh Centaur

9027 Added Words

Published November 3, 2011 by centaur

Still not making any progress on STRANDED, but HEX CODE is flying along - I'm getting about 3,000 words a day! The Writing Allies group tonight made many great suggestions and I've gotten whole scenes out of it, but the coffeehouse is about to close so time to be done for the day and go home and noogie a cat. Doing my best to keep it up ... excelsior! -the Centaur UPDATE: Make that 10,004 added words. I'm writing at double the normal rate, in the hope I can finish early and have some time off at the end to work on STRANDED ... or, heck, maybe even take some of the vacation days I set aside at the end of the month as VACATION! Whoda thunk it? Onward!

UPDATE UPDATE: Make that 10,350 added words. Had a brainflash while brushing my teeth. Now I really am going to bed - it's 2:18 AM. Excelziiszoorzzzzzzz...

5836 Added Words

Published November 3, 2011 by centaur

So ... HEX CODE is at 7380 words, which is 5836 more than the 1544 word seed I started with. I'm 12 percent done, a little bit ahead. Onward! -the Centaur

Nano Rules That Lead to Progress

Published November 1, 2011 by centaur

Mocha Freeze at Cafe Borrone, With Laptop Reflection

This is my sixth year attempting Nanowrimo and my sixth (and seventh) Nano book, and I've learned to adopt a few rules to help make the thing progress.

Nanowrimo comes first. All existing writing projects should be scheduled for before or after Nano. One of the worst experiences I had was trying to finish 38000 words of Nano in 10 days after having lost almost half of it to editing FROST MOON.
The Internet stays off until 1,667 words are done. There are a dozen reasons to use the Internet - to look something up, to check your email, to blog on Facebook. DON'T. Not even if you're ahead. Get a whole day's writing in before you log on. In particular, NO BLOGGING, Tweeting or Facebooking until you're caught up. Turn your Internet off if you have to - that's what I do, writing on a laptop.
Don't read+eat, then write; write+eat, then read. This one may not apply to you. I have a day job at The Search Engine That Starts With A G, so to get writing done, 3-5 days a week as wife, cats and friends permit, I go to dinner by myself, read something to feed my head, and then go out for coffee and write. But sometimes writing gets the short shrift when you do that, if you're reading something interesting or get lost in email. Normally that's OK; you should read more that you put out in writing. In Nano, I have to upend this and write first, come hell or high water.
Look things up later - use <angle brackets> if you have to. Even if you don't have the Internet, there are ways to look things up when you're writing. Don't. If you don't know Marcus Tullius Cicero's name, just write <cicero's name> in angle brackets and go back later, searching for angle brackets and looking things up. Your writing will thank you.
If you know the plot, write all the beats down, then expand them later. My process involves thinking about stories long before I write them. I think of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand ideas for every one I write down. I've been thinking about HEX CODE, for example, for a few years, and my head's full of ideas. So sometimes, even when your writing juice is gone, you can quickly bang down the beats of the plot - "Cinnamon leaves for the Rogue. She gets paranoid by the park. She thinks she sees somebody. Then Tully surprises her and gives her grief." There's 500 words tomorrow, all planned out today.
Use the Nano community. There's a South Bay Nanowrimo community and while I haven't had time to go to their events this year I did have time to learn from their wisdom. In particular, they had a suggestion to get a head start by going to a Denny's on Halloween and starting writing at midnight to get an entire day's writing in before the first day had really started. I was too wiped to do that, but ...
Get a head start. ... but I was not too wiped to set my alarm for thirty minutes past midnight and to get up and write at home. I stayed up from about 12:45 to 3AM, alternating between writing and puttering with the cats. I got a lot written - 1129 words. Then I took my laptop to lunch and finished out my day. Then I took my laptop to dinner and started work on the next day. Then I took my laptop to Cafe Borrone's and finished out the SECOND day. The result? I wrote 3500 words today. If I can keep up 1667 words a day, then I'll finish a day early. Woot!
Track your progress. I use a spreadsheet which I'm going to detail in a later post, but the long and the short of it is that you need to do 1667 words a day to finish 50,000 words by the end of November. Track your progress and hold your feet to the fire.
Write, write, WRITE! Enough said? No. There's a lot of planning you may need to do to finish Nano. WRITE FIRST. Get yourself a day or two ahead. THEN PLAN. Some of your best work will come from winging it.

Finally, one more word of wisdom. Don't start work on your second Nano book until you've finished your daily quota for the first. It's better to finish one book than it is to have two half finished books in the month. Remember, it's better to be done! In fact, I'll go further and say you should take a little break between the two of them, to say, for example, blog your Nano writing rules, just so you'll tackle the second book fresh. This advice only applies to insane people trying to do 2 novels in Nano. So, the result of me following these rules? 3500 words done today on HEX CODE:

And seriously, I'm only 96 extra words into STRANDED. Instead of trying to complete two Nano books, I'm going to try to make progress on completing my beta reader draft of STRANDED during my Nano downtime, as long as I'm making ahead-of-schedule progress on HEX CODE. And if I finish that ... THEN I can think of tackling STRANDED as a second Nano. -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

24 Hour Comics Day, Redux

Published October 2, 2011 by centaur

No, I'm not doing 24 Hour Comics Day 2 weekends in a row ... but my buddy Nathan Vargas is. He's the other half of Blitz Comics and through an odd set of circumstances involving the Alternative Press Expo we ended up signing up for a 24 Hour Comics event at Mission Comics 1 week before today, the official 24 Hour Comic Day. (And I completed mine!)

I owe too many people too many things (fixing my wife's computer, finishing edits of "Steampunk Fairy Chick", finishing a draft of STRANDED, doing an interview, scanning last week's comic, etc) to do 24HCD again, but after tonight's Doctor Who finale I did drop by around midnight tonight with donuts and good cheer.

We hung out, gave donuts to the security guards, and watched some Batman fan film. Then, while the toiling artists toiled, I spent some time cleaning up the images from last week's 24 Hour Comic Day (which I had scanned while watching Doctor Who). I just finished, it's only been two hours, but it already feels like another 24HCD!

However, I'm happy with the results, and will do 24HCD again next year. I particularly like the dual page spread from Stranded, but I'll hold it back until I get the whole comic uploaded to Dresan.com and will instead tease you with the first page of the novella:

The first page of the adapted STRANDED novella.

Onward! Upward! Homeward, for me! And best of luck to the toiling comickers here in Sunnyvale! -the Centaur

A 24 Hour Comics Day Timeline

Published September 28, 2011 by centaur

24 Hour Comics Day can be quite the intimidating challenge, especially if you haven't done it before. Because Nathan Vargas and I had tried it before and failed, we started thinking hard about how to succeed - and I in particular started thinking about timing: how to break down your hours, how long you typically take breaks, and so on. To keep myself on track, I started writing down panel timings as I was working, an almost unconscious decision that soon turned into a policy. As a result, I produced a nearly complete timeline of events of a successful 24 Hour Comics Day. Everyone's method will be different, and this may not apply to you. But it shows at least ONE successful approach: preparing ahead, bringing good food, other refreshments and adequate supplies, getting planning done early, keeping each page tight, noticing that you're falling behind, finding faster ways to do things, taking breaks to stay energized - and never, never, never giving up.

BEFORE THE EVENT
T-Minus 1 year: Fail to finish 24HCD ... Again. Resolve to take more life drawing classes. As a result ... actually took more life drawing classes and practiced. T-Minus 4 months: Reminded by Nathan about 24HCD. Started to panic. Nathan mentioned he was thinking about how to succeed this time. I started thinking about that too. T-Minus 3 months: Drunk guy at a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival hears us talking about 24HCD. He suggests we should do a tutorial. We go to Slave Labor Graphics, find out they aren't set up to host a full 24 hour event. A tutorial or boot camp starts to sound like a better idea. T-Minus 2 months: We decide to do the boot camp. After a marathon brainstorming session where we came up with the name BLitz Comics, we start meeting every Wednesday, producing tutorial materials. T-Minus 1 week: We do a runthrough of the bootcamp. Around this time, we find out that 24HCD at the venue we've chosen is not October 1 but September 24 ... 1 day after our boot camp. Panic. T-Minus 18 hours: Last minute trips to University Art to buy notebooks, pens, pencils for the boot camp (which will also be used at 24HCD as well). T-Minus 15 hours: BLitz Comics hosts its first 24 Hour Comic Day "boot camp" at Kaleid Gallery. The camp includes a 45 minute tutorial (that ended up going on for an hour and a half) and included 2 1-hour drawing exercises. I learn precisely what I *can't* draw in just 1 hour. T-Minus 12 hours: Boot camp concludes. Hours of packing required. Get to bed at 3:30am, get up at 7. T-Minus 3 hours: Pick up Nathan. Trek to Mission Comics begins with a hearty breakfast at Stacks, a trip to Starbucks for coffee, and a trip to Safeway for bagels, cereal, tangerines and bananas. T-Minus 1 hour: Traffic jam. Panic should be in full swing now, but we just had coffee, a hearty breakfast, and have gone through boot camp. No worries. T-Minus 1 minute: Pull in front of Mission Comics; Nathan runs in with our art supplies and I leave to go find parking.
24 HOUR COMIC DAY BEGINS
11:00AM, September 24th: Driving around for parking. Find a great place. 11:15AM: Arrive at Mission Comics. Nathan has found primo spots halfway back the main table; we're sitting opposite each other but are in easy view of the window, door, bathroom and 10,000 comics. 11:21AM: PLANNING PHASE Start comic with a planning page. Consider two ideas; decide to go for broke and adapt my novella "Stranded" rather than wussing out with the stick-figure "Story of Blitz Comics" which I had already done a 1-pager on anyway. 11:30AM(ish): Skim novella I'm adapting, especially chapter headings. Decide on a rough breakdown; can probably draw half the novella. Pick a good stopping point. 11:38AM: Did the 24-page thumbnail sheet. Laugh at my foolish notion that I can draw half the novella. Some things that take a line in the novella need a full page; other things that take a full page don't even need to appear at all or need to be completely rewritten. Added talking animal to the plot as the only way to make the story work (it's OK, it's a robot). Break down the pages into approximately the first third. 12:13PM: Done planning. Total planning time: 52 minutes In my experience, it can take 2-4 hours to plan if you don't have a story in mind (the first two years I had vague stories in mind but no novella in hand to adapt). As it turns out, that extra 3 hours of planning would not have hurt me. 12:13PM: START PAGE ONE Did a space scene (not recommended from the boot camp!) as the first image. 12:30PM: Panel 1 Done. Blacks are surprisingly time consuming even with wide Sharpie. 12:45PM: Panel 2 Done. More blacks, more time; starting to get worried. 01:08PM: Panel 3 Done. Damn spacecraft again. Almost no blacks, but it took longer. 01:34PM: Panel 4 Done. Closeup of a character in a pose I'm bad at. Argh. Total page time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. Did some calculations; need to DOUBLE my page rate to succeed. 01:37PM: START PAGE TWO No black space vistas on this page at all. Maybe easier going? 01:43PM: Finished roughs for the page. 02:10PM: Panel 1 Done. Getting a grip on figures, sound effects, word balloons. 02:25PM: Panel 2 Done. Needed to know fuse ratings to fill in detail on the end of a fuse pulled by central character. Decided to use phone instead of computer to look it up - the answer was "in kA" and 207 is a good super-high number. This worked so well I resolved not to turn computer on until I was "way ahead". 02:39PM: Finished Panel 3. Liking this "draw people from the back half obscured" trick. Total page time: 1 hour, 2 min. Need to pick up pace by at least 20 minutes. 02:39PM: START PAGE THREE One huge panel, but 4 characters and some perspective. 02:48PM: ~10 minute break + boxing in outer panel border. 02:58PM: Central character outlined 03:02PM: Dialogue outlined, drawing characters around word bubbles. LOVE the technique! Had to spend more time looking up the appearance of a bird's eye for a drawing. In hindsight, I'm glad I did that rather than wing it, I had to draw that bird eye on a helm maybe a dozen times or more over the comic. 03:22PM: Page finished. Finally ahead (ish) but not really: hour 4.5 with only 3 pages Total page time: 43 minutes. Counting the 9 minute break. 03:22PM: START PAGE FOUR Back to a multi-panel page with black areas. 03:34PM: ~12 minute break. 03:39PM: Panels done. Realize my target time (45 minutes) is 4:07. Oh shit. 03:51PM: Roughs done for Panel 1, a closeup of a character's face. 03:58PM: Panel 1 done. Came out rather nice, perhaps the nicest face in the comic. 04:02PM: Panel 2 done. 04:11PM. Panel 3 blacks done. Great music from band "07" is playing over Mission Comic's sound system. 04:16PM: Page finished. Total page time: 54 minutes. Almost on schedule. 04:16PM: START PAGE FIVE More panels, 5 this time, but no black areas. 04:21PM: ~5 minute break. 04:24PM: Pencil panel borders done. 04:27PM: Ink panel borders done. 04:40PM: Panel 1 done. Realize my human profiles suck. So do my full figures. Ugh. 04:49PM: Panels 2-3 done. 04:55PM: Panels 4-5 done. Total page time: 39 minutes. Not sure how I pulled that off. 04:55PM: START PAGE SIX More space vistas! And crosshatching! 05:04PM: ~9 minute break. 05:05PM: Pencil borders done. 05:09PM: Ink panel borders done 05:11PM: Dialogue done - needed adaptation from novella. 05:16PM: Frame 1 roughs done 05:31PM: Frame 1 blacks done 05:38PM: Frame 2 done 05:45PM: Frame 3 done 05:53PM: Page finished. Total page time: 58 minutes. Black backgrounds will kill ya. 05:53PM: START PAGE SEVEN 05:55PM: ~2 minute break ... then pizza arrives! 06:38PM: ~43 minute dinner break. Yum! 06:39PM: Pencil border. 06:43PM: Ink panel borders. 06:48PM: Roughs. 07:10PM: Panel 1 "done". 07:19PM: Further polish (it's a large and important panel that introduces Serendipity, the protagonist). 07:29PM: Panel 2 done. 07:36PM: Panel 3 done. Total page time: 1 hour, 43 minutes. 07:36PM: START PAGE EIGHT 07:53PM: ~17 minute break (flagging a bit?) 07:54PM: Pencils. 08:00PM: Panels 08:08PM: Panel 1 rough / dialogue. Realize we're in hour 10 now. 08:24PM: Panel 2. 08:38PM: Page finished. Total page time: 1 hour, 2 minutes. 08:38PM: START PAGE NINE 08:54PM: ~16 minute break 09:06PM: ~12 minute break (someone came by to talk?) 09:08PM: Panels penciled. 09:13PM: Panels inked. 09:18PM: AAARGH! Blocked. PHUQ IT. 09:26PM: Panel 1. Some of the facial positions are hard. Screw it. 09:35PM: Panel 2. 09:44PM: Page finished. Total page time: 1 hour, 6 minutes. 09:44PM: START PAGE TEN 09:50PM: ~6 minute break 09:52PM: Penciled panels. 10:00PM: Inked panels. Realize it's hour 11 (actually 12, but never mind) and you should be working on page 12 or more. Cut it in half! 10:11PM: Panel 1 done. Damn black space around spaceships again. 10:28PM: Panel 2 outlines done. Was intimidated by this crowd scene, easier than I expected. 5 people and 4 ghostly background outlines - 9 people total! 10:34PM: Panel 2 done. 10:40PM: Page finished. Total page time: 56 minutes. 10:40PM: START PAGE ELEVEN 10:46PM: ~6 minute break 10:47PM: Pencil outlines. 10:49PM: Panels inked. 10:57PM: Dialogue for all panels inked. This really helped, but as I found out later, I was reading in columns but other people read left-to-right, so this was a flaw. Zoned out around here. 11:14PM: Panel 1 done. 11:28PM: Page finished. Total page time: 48 minutes. 11:28PM: START PAGE TWELVE - on a roll, no break. Thought it was hour 12, actually hour 13. 11:34PM: Panels and dialogue complete. Met Google guy, should contact later. Also found out about Mobcomics, a comic publishing platform. 11:38PM: Panel 1 done. 11:44PM: Panel 2 done. 11:51PM: Page done. Total page time: 23 minutes. That seems almost impossible! But it happened, in part because I was skipping pencils or just doing light pencils on certain characters. 11:52PM: START PAGE THIRTEEN 12:00AM: Break. Didn't even realize it was midnight and September 25 now. Did realize it was not hour 12 but hour 13 (not true, actually hour 14 had started). "On Schedule" ... NOT! :-) 12:07AM: Script complete. All those people who are complaining that by adapting a novella I'm "cheating because the script is worked out already" can go jump in a lake. It isn't that simple. That's why they call it ADAPTING, folks. 12:21AM: Page done. Total page time: 29 minutes. This page went fast because it was primarily diagrams and dialogue, no figures - this is the point where the crew of Independence realizes that they're screwed if they don't land. 12:22AM: START PAGE FOURTEEN 12:32AM: ~10 minute break. 12:45AM: Panel 2 done. 01:03AM: Page done. Total page time: 41 minutes. I don't know it yet, but I'm just about to get caught up with where I "should" be to finish on time. 01:03AM: START PAGE FIFTEEN 01:04AM: No significant break, really. 01:14AM: Panels done. 01:38AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. I don't know it yet, but I am now officially AHEAD. 01:38AM: START PAGE SIXTEEN 01:55AM: ~17 minute bathroom break 01:58AM: Panels done. I now realize my hour count was off and this is hour 15. 02:06AM: Panel 1 done. 02:15AM: Panel 2 done. I am digging that it's hour 16 and I'm progressing on page 16. 02:23AM: Page done. Total page time: 45 minutes. We may win this thing yet! 02:23AM: START PAGE SEVENTEEN 02:31AM: ~8 minute break 02:34AM: Panel borders 02:45AM: Panel 1 done ... digging that it's STILL hour 16 and I'm on page 17. 02:54AM: Panel 2 done. 02:58AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. I am now officially a page ahead. 02:58AM: START PAGES EIGHTEEN AND NINETEEN - DUAL PAGE SPREAD 02:59AM: On a roll, jazzed that I have finally gotten to a dual page spread, will LEAP ahead now. Sure, it's a gigantic outer space vista that requires some actual diagramming and thought, but its SO COOL that I'm going to go from just about ahead to way ahead in one swell foop! 03:07AM: Borders and sketch done. 03:16AM: Inks done. 03:39AM: Blacks done. 03:47AM: Page done. Total page time: 49 minutes. I am now TWO pages ahead. 03:47AM: START PAGE TWENTY 04:04AM: ~17 minute break. 04:21AM: Panel lines done. 04:28AM: Page done. First (and only time I had to use whiteout) because I was inking and not sketching. Total page time: 41 minutes. I am now THREE pages ahead. 04:28AM: START PAGE TWENTY-ONE 04:35AM: ~7 minute break 04:43AM: Script done. Repeat note to snarky guys who don't know what "adapting" means. 04:44AM: Boxes done. Wow, that was fast for that many panels. 04:51AM: Panel 1 done. 04:54AM: Panel 2 done. Largely skipping pencils now. 04:57AM: Inks on Panel 3 done. 05:04AM: Panel 3 blacks done. 05:09AM: Panel 4 inks done. 05:13AM: Panel 4 blacks done. 05:26AM: Panel 5 done. 05:31AM: Panel 6 done, page done AND IT'S STILL HOUR 18. Total page time: 1 hour, 3 minutes. 05:31AM: START PAGES TWENTY-TWO AND TWENTY-THREE 05:33AM: ~2 minute break. I am so glad I put in two dual page spreads. And this is my favorite page - a redo of the very first drawing I did of Serendipity two or three years ago, before I even knew her name: a young centauress with her barrel draped in tapestries, bouncing along a field of wheat towards a castle beneath a gas giant floating in the sky. Had to completely redo the drawing, but ultimately this was the point of the story. 05:38AM: Border done. 05:48AM: Sketch done. 06:06AM: Page done. Total page time: 35 minutes. Woo woo on dual page spreads! 06:06AM: START PAGE TWENTY-FOUR 06:13AM: ~7 minute break. The last page is a huge single panel "to be continued". Go for it! 06:41AM: DONE and DONE! Total page time: 35 minutes. DONE and DONE! Total comic time: 19:20 minutes!
AFTER THE EVENT
Not timing it. Chilling out. Futzed around for an hour or so, talked to people, texted my wife. Took a nap around 7:40 to 8ish, then read a comic I'd bought during one of my breaks. Chilled out a while, looked at other people's finished and unfinished comics, then when Nathan finished, bought one more book, thanked Leef of Mission Comics and went to get the car. We packed up, had a great breakfast at Mel's, and I dropped Nathan off at his apartment right at 11am - two 24 Hour Comic Day victors.

And that's it. I'm pleased to see that even with adapting the novella on my side, I still finished early enough to absorb the 3-4 hours I took getting the story straight on the previous two 24 Hour Comic Days, so I think the technique would work even if I didn't have a story to tell. Knowing how many stories I have buzzing around in my head, that's never likely to happen - but if you're a 24 Hour Comic purist, it's good to know that preparing ahead, carefully tracking your page timings and shooting for 45 minutes or less per page is a technique that can make you succeed. Best of luck on your own comics! -the Centaur (Anthony Francis) Crossposted at BLitz Comics.

BLitz Comics 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp @ Kaleid

Published September 23, 2011 by centaur

blitz comics boot camp september 23 2011 at kaleid gallery in san jose

Nathan Vargas and myself are facilitating a 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp at Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose tomorrow, September 24 from 7pm to 11pm. For those that don't know, 24 Hour Comics Day is a challenge held each year to create a 24 page comic from scratch in 24 Hours. Nathan and I have tried this five times between the two of us, and we've been discussing techniques to succeed over the last year. Then a drunk guy manning a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival overheard us saying that and said we should put on a tutorial. And since we have a policy of always following the advice of random drunk guys when it sounds like they are serving as a hotline for God, we said OK!

Our work has produced a pretty nice 24 Hour Comics Day Survival Kit which is now getting distributed to a lot of 24 Hour Comics venues. And it's free under a Creative Commons license! So you can download it and use it on your own. But we're going one step further and providing a "Boot Camp" where we'll help participants create a 2 page comic, involving discussions of comic theory and 2 hours of drawing exercises. So please show up and enjoy ... or at least check out Blitz Comics and our survival kit if you want to survive 24 Hour Comics Day. -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

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

Viiiiictory … A New Series

Published November 27, 2010 by centaur

Once again, I have completed National Novel Writing Month! This year’s entry is the first in the Jeremiah Willstone series, THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE:

On an alternate Earth, the feminist revolution started a century early, technological progress doubled ... and Mary Shelley's granddaughter Jeremiah Willstone is an adventurer defending the world in a flying airship! She's used to fighting off monsters with nothing more than goggles, an electric gun and the advice of a half-human computer, but what will she do when her own uncle changes the rules of the game ... with a Clockwork Time Machine?

I've posted a few snippets in this series ... let me see if I can find one which doesn't give any key plot elements away.

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.” “Yes, ma’am,” he said, walking the cycle off. Jeremiah turned to the tottering three-story shop, glancing up at the enclosed balcony jutting out from the newer brick buildings around it. Beneath the balcony, carbide-etched into the thick window of carbonate glass, were the words: MOFFAT’S MECHANISMS & MYSTERIES Her mouth quirked; as usual, today she was in the market for a bit of both.

Unlike last year, I didn't have to write 38,000 words in only ten days. But I did do pretty well; I still have a few days of writing left and I'm going to try to push further on the story. [caption id="attachment_797" align="alignnone" width="450" caption="Victory Point for Nanowrimo 2010"]

[/caption] Prevail, Victoriana! -the Centaur