Writer Ramblings: What Fantasy Football Taught Me About Writing

Let me explain how I’ve learned a few things, after you’re done laughing at the concept of learning anything about writing from a game that completely revolves around numbers, watching grown men wrestle for a ball, and showboat like eight year olds after scoring a touchdown. I really have learned a few things. I didn’t post a weapons post last week because I’ve had my head buried in the new outline for Devil Dog and studying football players for the NFL, lots and lots and lots and lots of studying stats, history, updates on injuries, etc. This Friday I’ll have a weapons post up for sure.

So what does Fantasy Football have to do with writing? Something that I feel writers should take very seriously. RESEARCH. Success in fantasy football is not all luck. There is some luck, but in the leagues I play in, you can tell who is researching thorough enough. By researching everything you can and staying on top of all the latest developments, you give yourself an edge that allows you to open up the opportunity to win despite luck. The same goes for writing, even in fiction. If the writer researches to make the details he includes in the book to be accurate, then people who are familiar with whatever it is, will feel it’s authentic and respect the writer.

Netflix, Azeroth and Other Distractions

Well it has happened and just in time for Nanowrimo. The dreaded Writer’s Block has come to visit me. It seems that lately, if I’m actually trying to write anything new, my mind goes completely blank. I ask myself what’s wrong, but deep down I know the answer. I just have trouble accepting it.

Pic by Blizzard Entertainment

“Writer's Block: Situation when writer cannot write: an inability on the part of a writer to start a new piece of writing or continue an existing one” – Bing Dictionary

I don’t really have writer’s block in the sense that I can’t write because I’ve lost my creativity. I do have writer’s block because I’m blocking my own creativity. I’ve filled my head with distractions. Fantasy Football, Mists of Pandaria (the awesome new World of Warcraft expansion), and the worst of all… Netflix.

The title of this post was going to be Sex, Love and Other Drugs because I finally got around to seeing that movie. I absolutely loved it, but those things fuel my writing, unlike the stuff in the title I went with.

Hey You! I'm Still Here, Don't Give Up On Me Yet

Pic by Cellar Door Films via Flickr: WANA Commons

It’s been too long since I’ve posted a blog. I just wanted to let everyone know, I’m still alive. I’ve been writing/editing, and I didn’t want to bore everyone with the little details of my editing adventures every week. You can’t really call them adventures, more like exercises and self-discovery. I’ve been learning a lot more about writing than I ever knew. I’ve learned more the last 6 months editing than I ever did the 20+ years I wrote and rewrote stories without ever really taking it serious. I have a point, but if you have read this blog, you know I like to ramble randomly sometimes. It’s how my mind works, just random thoughts firing every direction. See, I keep getting off the subject.

*Spanks brain for misbehaving.

Now, back to what I was trying to talk about. I’m still alive. I’ve been a little out of touch lately, and I apologize for that. I’m thinking of starting up the Weapons Weekly in January 2013. By then I should have some more artwork to work with, too. I am hoping to be done with Devil Dog as well by then.

For those of you waiting on Devil Dog, it’s still in the editing phase. I’ve been reorganizing the finale to be more adrenaline pumping than before and I’ve started reworking the beginning under the advice of Kristen Lamb’s blogs on structure. Here they are if you don’t know what I mean by structure.

Anatomy of a Best-Selling Novel—Structure Part One

StructurePart 2–Plot Problems–Falcor the Luck Dragon & the Purple Tornado

StructurePart 3—Introducing the Opposition

StructurePart 4–Testing Your Idea–Is it Strong Enough to Make an Interesting Novel?

Book Recommendation: Shift

I absolutely love this series and I'm very excited that Matt Merrick takes himself seriously as a writer. After publishing Exiled and then seeing the critiques about a couple of typos, he gave Shift double the attention. Replacing his original editor and then adding a second copy editor, along with an army of beta readers, Merrick has outdone himself. Not only is the writing improved but the advanced editing is obvious and has made Shift one of the few books I would place out there as a must read for anyone who loves action and adventure fantasies. Here is my review for Goodreads, that will soon be on Amazon. Happy reading everyone. I'll be back Monday with a new weapons weekly about the Aztec culture. Have a great weekend.

Shift by M.R. Merrick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If you loved Exiled, you'll absolutely love Shift. This sequel to the action packed adventure Exiled takes you on another journey through dimensions and battling demons. Chase and company try to not only save the universe, but find out the truth about themselves. Merrick's writing has improved a great deal since Exiled, it's phenomenal actually. Not only has he improved his editing by far, and Exiled wasn't that badly done, but his ability to make the characters even more real has grown. The self searching and character development in this story was very well done. As expected, the story is stuffed cover to cover with adventure, drama, action, a little romance and comedy tossed in to leave no dull moments anywhere. I can't wait for the next in the series. As all serial endings, it leaves it open for another face off another day, but at the same time closes the chapter on the events of the plot. I loved this book. Someday someone in Hollywood needs to see this series, it would make awesome action movies.



View all my reviews

Writer Ramblings: Why Should I Not Publish Traditionally?

I don’t believe I’m the next Stephen King, that’s every writers dream, but few of us can grasp the depth and complexity of Stephen King's abilities to ever compare ourselves to him and not feel ashamed. He’s a prodigy. What makes him even more awesome is that he knows this, but does not flaunt it, although he has no problems at all speaking his mind. Most often in the context of writing and writers, he’s absolutely right (Sorry Twihards).

This is not a King worshipping post. I do have a real point here. What is it? Ok, My point is, I am not Stephen King, I just aspire to be like him. I don’t want to be exactly like him. I am my own person with my own stories and none of them are like King’s stories. About the only thing I know my editor has said to me that King’s has probably said to him was, “Tone down the gore a little. Any more brain matter on a wall and it’s going to be too much to stomach.” Okay, maybe my descriptive voice was better than I had expected, in that someone would actually get sick reading about a bullet wound to the head. I got it, no problem. I aspire to make a living writing, just like Stephen King does. Writing stories and doing all the things that come with writing a book and publishing it.

Welcome To My Imagination (Cover Re-Reveal)

Illustration by Steven D Jones

Just a quick recoloring of the wording. Threw in a little light on the lettering so it doesn't blend into the rest of the darkness too much, but still looks bloody. Increased the size of my name as well so it didn't just look like crimson scribble. It's no longer a crimson I don't think, but that was probably too dark of a red for the darkness of the rest of the cover. This stands out a bit more I think.

Ok, back to revisions for this book, have a great weekend everyone! Don't hesitate to let me know if you see anything that could still use improving.

Wrtier Ramblings: Nanawrimo!

Believe it or not, that title is not a typo.

I’ve gone and done it! I signed up for the Nanawrimo for 2011. I have no idea really what that all is other than a writing marathon, but I figure it’s a great excuse to knock out the first half of another book. Since I can’t start the writing for it till November, that rules out the horror I was going to work on, I’m still in research phase for the Back to the Future Terminator crossover fan fiction I’m planning and I’m already 12,000 words into the fantasy. So I don’t feel comfortable writing any of those for my Nanowrimo.

Lucky for me, I already have an outline set up for another project. I’ll be done with my polishing on Devil Dog pretty soon and it will be sent out to editors and beta readers this month. I’m very excited and nervous at the same time. My baby is growing up already.

So the big question is what am I going to write if I’m already going to be pretty deep into the co-written horror, the fantasy is already started and Devil Dog will be in the hands of strangers? The only real solution is Devil Dog 2! Why not, the outline is written and I have concepts and plots designed for a full seven book series. I might as well start getting the sequel drafted.

50,000 words in a month! I am very excited to attempt this and somehow my wife is ok with it. So here I come. Bring it on November because I will write you down.

Writer Ramblings: A Tip From My Editor

How many writers out there finished a manuscript for the first time or just finished rewriting it for the fifth time and now you’re avoiding the self-edit and polish phase? You read over it about three or four more times to make sure you get all those kinks out and that it flows and so on and so on. You know it needs a real thorough pass through, or maybe you haven’t edited it at all because you hate grinding back through what you’ve written again. A lot of writer’s take a break and come back later. Although that helps, it didn’t make me want to edit any more than I wanted to before.

Long story short, most writers hate editing for one reason or another. I have the story memorized so when I go through it over and over, I generally know what’s going to happen and it becomes monotonous and dull to pick at. When I just read the story I’m excited, but editing is not really reading casually. I’m looking for anything I can do to improve what is already there.

I shared my disdain for such a grueling tedious task with my editor. He decided to share a method with me that could help with editing something that’s been read several times already.
He said, “Read it out of order.”
I was stunned. How you could you do that and keep on top of the story? It would just be confusing. So he explained. And once I put it into practice, I started enjoying the editing. It added a sense of adventure and mystery because I never knew what part of the story I was going to be editing next. So instead of a constant stream of the same story, I saw flashes of it, and I am learning which ones need to be more entertaining as well.

The idea is to pick a random chapter. Comb through it for all the things you want to improve on. One chapter at a time isn’t so bad and since it’s been ripped out of the middle of your book, you might catch something that doesn’t make a ton of sense or is too vague, because it was continued from a previous chapter. I found this with the first one I pulled. The first word was “She.” Ok, I looked at it and the first paragraph never mentioned a name. I knew who it was because I wrote the scene, but that sure might confuse a reader.

Once you’ve edited that chapter, write out a short summary on what occurred and any key points that were in the chapter. This is important for later. If you can’t really come up with a summary nor have any key points, then this is a good time to think hard about deleting the chapter or rewriting it.

The method I used to randomly select my chapter is index cards. I wrote down the chapter numbers each on separate cards and then shuffled them. Flipped them over and started at the top. So far I’ve increased the speed I’m editing at from one chapter a week to one a day.

Once you have completely gone through your manuscript, go back and read the summaries in the proper order to make sure the story flows at a steady pace and so on. Go back to chapters where the summary feels dull or out of place or maybe just doesn’t fit into or have a true purpose to the plot. Another good use for the summaries is titling your chapters. I enjoy attempting to create titles for my chapters and if I can come up with good titles for every chapter then I’ll keep them, otherwise I toss them all. The summary will absolutely speed up that process.

Thanks for reading. I just couldn’t keep this editing tip to myself. I hope some of you find it useful. Now back to editing.