Kiteanic.com

You knew it had to happen sometime . . .

Proof approved, soon to appear on Amazon, among other places.

That is all. Update concluded.

(Runs off and does happy dance in the corner)

Nope, there is no snuck, only Zuul. Sorry if you thought that was a word, Bubba – it ain’t.

(For those of you who care, I used ain’t for ironic purposes just now.)

It’s odd how I learn things sometimes, and no, I’m not referring to the third time I discovered that cooking bacon in the nude was a bad idea. No sir, I’m referring to the fact that my brain can completely overlook something for the better part of two years, eyes passing over it at least twenty times before finally picking up on the fact that this ‘word’ in my story has a squiggly red underline beneath it.

I mean, I see enough of those things when I’m writing. Proper names, locations, dialects, and even the occasional ‘ZOMG’, an expression of disbelief and amazement that hasn’t yet been officially granted word status, much to my disbelief and amazement. I get red squiggly things all the freaking time, and I’m pretty good at going back and correcting any mistakes that might be responsible for producing one of these horrid little things. Sometimes I’ll add a proper name to the dictionary, just so that any instances of that name will go away and not look like spelling errors.

However, it wasn’t until just today that I finally dealt with ‘snuck’.

It had been dutifully underlined and everything, but I guess when I looked at the underline and double-checked it, I said “Nah, that’s a real word, isn’t it? I’ve used it several times in the past, and never once did it sound like an error, or get laughed at by people. I think I heard it on TV once or twice as well. “You just snuck in here?” “What are you talking about, Larry? This is my apartment!” (oodles of audience laughter, clapping)

I do have to give a nod to this big, voracious animal called ‘Teh Internets’ though – it actually contained at least twenty different sites that declared that it was not a real word, detailed a history of its improper usage, and advised that anyone using the word in a novel was a total ass-hat. Although, now that I think about it, the last one was in all caps. I’m pretty sure that was mostly opinion, say from a grammar forum somewhere.

Still, Kudos for Teh Internets. You’ve won this round. Score is Aaron: 5 – Internets: 2.  Don’t ask me to explain the current score. I’ve been told that those files are sealed, and cannot be re-opened without a court order.

Update: Black Glass – On with Chapter 24!

Accomplished some nice re-edits, smoothing out a portion that I was worried about, and managed to make about half a page of headway in the right direction. It’s the first ‘new’ something I’ve written for this story in well over a year, and I’m feeling pretty good.

Update: Pride – zomg, more edits

This is the thing that has me concerned. Every time I re-read this stuff I get weepy, because it seems to encapsulate this beautiful sentiment quite nicely, and it gets even nicer every time I go back and re-edit stuff. I really have to stop it. Not only am I raising the bar on the un-written portion prematurely, but I’m increasing my trepidation over going forward. Everything you’ve done up to this point is golden – what if the stuff that comes next isn’t as good? I can’t think about crap like that.

Yes, you heard me. ‘Crap’. You know I’m dead serious if I’m using language like that.

Dang it!

Isn’t that always the way though? You go leafing through some of your bookmarks and you finally visit your own site, realize what day it is, and go “Whups! Almost forgot . . .”

Long story short – This weekend was an excellent exercise in advanced relaxation techniques. I walked around a lot, watched a movie, played a few rounds of golf . . . it was awesome.

And now I’m heading back to work, refreshed and rejuvenated, ready raring to go, which is way more ‘r’ words than I originally intended.

Update: I got nothin’ done

Seriously . . . it was bliss. But heck, I deserved it. Wednesday will see all sorts of progress on other stuff, I just know it.

Yup, Monday’s going to be a holiday, bringing on the fabled May long weekend. And yet, I will probably still manage an update on Monday. See? That’s commitment, right there.

I’m having fun experiencing things like Holidays now, as opposed to the big bags of freakish misery they used to be. Nothing kills the idea of a holiday more than someone telling you that while everyone else is kicking back and relaxing, making travel plans, splashing on the beach, all that sort of stuff . . . while they’re doing that, you’ll be working 12 hours making sure that everything electronic that would have been behaving normally is treating that day as a holiday. And to top it all off, they make you carry around a big buzzing thing that will screech and shriek if someone notices even the tiniest problem, or suspects that not enough problems have been noticed and figures it’s suspicious.

Now, holidays come and I get to relax. See? (kicks feet up on desk) Relaxation. Aaaaaahhhhhhh.

. . .

Nope, my body’s not buying it either – it’s telling me to do more work. Gah, will I never be able to kick back and relax? Maybe rest on my laurels a bit?

Sonofa . . .

Update: Hamlet – Officially started. 1/130 done

That’s not precisely exact, the 1/130, because the page count is going to increase the more formatting I do. When I take the original play and paste it into my template, it tends to ignore little things like “Spacing” and “formatting” and “not looking like someone’s eaten the entire dictionary and then puked it out into several small, disorganized piles”. I’ve gone through and fixed the formatting on the original text for the first couple dozen pages, but when it comes to new content I’ve only finished the first page or so. Good page, though. Very amusing. Trust me.

Update: Pride – Re-edit up to section 2.10 done

Yup, now I’m just re-reading up to that point to get my head back in that story, and not so I can move a bunch of words around. Two of the best scenes I’ve ever imagined have already happened in it, and there’s about 3 more where that came from . . . the kind of scenes that might just make you blubber like a little girl. Especially if you already are a little girl – that would increase the chances of that happening dramatically.

Update: Black Glass – Chapter 23 80% done

Forty chapters in total, going at a good clip. Re-hashed the previous three chapters in a big bad way, which I think was part of the reason for me leaving it for such a long time. From 21-23, it seemed really forced, because of what I had to have the characters do. Two very different people declare a truce and talk about each others cultures for a while, and they didn’t really want to. Not in the story, but in my fingers . . . they didn’t want to talk about it. I ended up having to do all the talking for them, and in the process I used a whole bunch of words that I know they wouldn’t have. The whole thing sounded off, and I knew I’d have to ditch most of it, and now that I have, huzzah! I’ll still probably go back and do a ton more editing, but at least it’s feeling a little less forced at that section, which will allow me to go on with the rest of it. 35k words left to go. Who knows, this could be the quickest writing comeback ever! Woohoo!

Well, I’ve arrived at a tentative plan when it comes to the question of “What’s next?”  Now all I need to do is figure out the fine details, come to a conclusion regarding exactly how to proceed with it.

See, I had a metric buttload of choices in terms of prospective projects, theoretical projects, and in-progress projects. There were so many that I had to come up with a list of them and start crossing them out, one by one. It was hard, but I did cross out several, and was left with just a few.

It was getting progressively harder to cross things off at that point, and I started thinking in terms of ‘compromise’. I mean, did I really have to devote 100% of my time to any one project? Sure it’s a good idea, and responsible, and it increases the chances that I’ll actually get something done, but do I have to? Hells no! And considering how little time it took to throw Macbeth together at 100%, I figure I could take it easy with something longer, like Hamlet, using about 30% or so of my total effort. The proportion could increase or decrease depending on success levels, humor levels, serotonin levels, any number of influencing factors. I could get so caught up in it that I go 110%, and finish it even quicker than Macbeth, but we’ll put it at the 30% mark for now.

Another one that remained on the list was “Pride”, the story that I’ve brutally edited and then simply ignored for far, far too long. It needs to get done soon, because it’s a story that takes place ‘now’, and I’ve finished about 40% of it. If you wait too long between writing sessions for something happening ‘now’, you end up with in-book culture shock. It’s kind of a giveaway when you mention cassette players in the first chapter, CD’s in the middle, and MP3′s near the end. Geeze, how long did that novel take you to write? I dunno . . . let me check my Aztec calendar.

It does have some risk, since I’ve come to understand one or two plot holes in the outline I didn’t see before. It requires expertise, and polish . . . but hey, I can do that, right?

So, two projects at once. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. But then I ran into a problem – there’s this trilogy, see . . . it starts with ‘Black Glass’, which leads to ‘Soul Garden’, and then ends with ‘Bone Dancer’, and it’s freaking awesome. They’ll be about 80k words per story, more or less, and I’m about 47k into the first one.

Yup, over 50%. That’s been bugging me for a while. Not to mention the fact that it was one of the quickest outlining jobs I’d ever done, and was pretty easy to write so far. How hard would it be to throw about 30k its way?

Hamlet is way too easy, Pride might be way too hard in terms of ‘jumping right in’. Black Glass might be just the sort of thing I need to ease my way into it . . . tackle some easy writing in a totally made-up world before trying to do some harder writing in a mostly real one.

So, call it 30%, 30%, and 50% when it comes to distribution of projects, something that is very likely to change amounts drastically in the coming weeks. We shall see.

(And yes, the math does add up. If you don’t think it does, then you’re not giving 110%)

Update: Tentative plan – 110%

There. Another ‘actual’ update, all bolded and everything. I did a whole bunch of neat stuff, like started the formatting for Hamlet, and edited the heck out of both Pride and Black Glass on a re-read, but I won’t get into those details just yet. For now it’s good enough that I’m back to bolding the word ‘Update’ at the end of my post, and then following it with some nonsensical meanderings. More to follow, I’m sure.

Well here’s the thing – I’m starting to think that I’m stuck.

I mean, true . . . it’s only been a weekend so far, and also true is the fact that I’ve been needing a bit of a break. True as well is the fact that this isn’t exactly writer’s block I’m talking about here. Far from it, in fact. ‘Writer’s Deluge’, if you will.

I promised myself a little bit of time to think about what it was that I’d be doing next, sort of weigh the pros and cons of each of the projects that were lined up against the wall, waving madly at me and yelling “Oh, pick me! Pick me! MEeeeee! Over heeeerrrrreeee!”

After a good solid weekend of considering, I’m pretty certain that I’m going to have to resort to some sort of Survivor-esque reality show method of narrowing down the field. Maybe I’ll make them jump through hoops, have them fight each other or something.

Wait a second! Zomg! Fictional characters in yet-to-be-written novels fight in the author’s imagination for the right to get written, with the loser-

Grrrr! No! Bad imagination! No more new ideas!

(covertly writes that one down)

So, my update? The proof of Macb- . . . uh, of The Scottish Play is on its way, and will be gracing the shelves of Amazon soon, if that place even has shelves. I somehow doubt it.

In the meantime, I resolve to spend even more time figuring out what it is that I’m going to do next. I believe it’s going to be a pairing of Hamlet and something else, with Hamlet being done at about half the speed that Macbe- . . . that The Scottish Play was.

Where did this reluctance to say the dude’s name come from, anyway? It’s not like it’s cursed or something! Watch – Macbeth, Macbeth Macbe-

(A large anvil falls on Aaron’s head)

(Anvil takes a bow. The audience goes wild)

What’s happening right now? Well, I’ll probably be able to better articulate it once the weekend is over and done with, but for now, let’s just say that the Scottish Play is done, and it’s been released into the wild, and . . . there’s a bunch of people that have noticed.

I did a fair bit these past two days, but for now, let’s just leave it as one of these moments . . .

AAAaaaahhhhhh . . .

(pulls tab off of beer can)

Update – The Scottish Play – 100%

’nuff said. Drinks are on me!

If you can find me, that is!   . . . (hic)

WOOO!  Party!!!!111 oneoneone!1

I had an odd thought last night. Not ‘Hey, I wonder how many ping-pong balls I can stuff in my mouth’, or ‘Why are they called apartments when they’re all built together?’  Nothing like that. I lay there in bed, asking myself the question, ‘What makes something funny?’

Really, the timing couldn’t be more poignant. I mean, I’m sitting down and going over the most recent draft of M____ AKA ‘The Scottish Play’, with someone who I approached in order to increase the amount of funny (or ‘funnay’) in the play, right after doing a pseudo celebration of the old one, handing out a few copies here and there, generally proud of myself. Why I should, at this point, look at something and go “Hmmm, what makes that funny?” seems a little odd.

I mean, shouldn’t I know by now? If I didn’t absolutely, positively know that the previous one was funny, should it have gone out at all? Shouldn’t I, a funny guy, just know what’s funny before it has a chance to see the light of day?

Honestly, I know what’s funny. I laugh when I see it . . . and that’s how I know. But understanding the actual mechanics behind what makes something funny is a little bit more work.

Think about it – let’s say there’s someone out there who is studying sociology, and he decides that his graduation thesis is going to be based on humor. How big a topic is that? What makes something funny? Why do people laugh? Can you even think of a bigger topic than that one? Jeeze, how the hell am I supposed to even begin my understanding of something that huge, never mind dissecting it and bending it to my will. What business does anyone have trying to be funny? Don’t they realize the work involved? The studying?!?

On the other hand, sometimes it’s like breathing. I don’t mean that it comes as natural as breathing . . . some people aren’t funny at all, and I’m pretty sure that they can still grab a lung-full of air every now and again. No, I mean it in the sense that sometimes we think about breathing, and the rest of the time we kind of ignore it, let it happen without really meaning for it to happen, or not happen for that matter. It’s just part of being who we are. You don’t need to know exactly how the lungs work in order to continue to breathe, do you?

Well, okay . . . knowing enough not to block off the air supply to the mouth helps. You know what I meant.

Maybe being funny is more of an art than a science. Maybe it’s something you sort of need to figure out in the moment and analyze after, and not vice-versa. Maybe trying to be funny actually messes you up. Maybe over-analysis prevents you from accomplishing what you were attempting to accomplish.

See? I’m doing it again. Geeze, let it go already, Aaron!

Update:  Macbeth – 99.99999% done

Seriously. Soon, my pretty . . . soooon.

Update: Pride – Going over, yet again

Funny, but I found a few sentences that were just wayyyyyyyy way off, and fixed them up. I got Pride, I got Quarry, I got Black Glass, and I got Poison Princess all figured out and ready to go. No matter what I decide to do, I’ll certainly be prepared.

Well, it looks as though we might have actually hit the plateau at work when it comes to high-speed doing-of-stuff, and that the rest of the preparing for trade-show goodness will be comparatively relaxed and casual. That is, unless there turns out to be something horribly, horribly wrong with the work I’ve already done, and I have to re-do it in a panic, my very job hanging in the balance.

Trying not to think of that possibility.

So, yes . . . aside from that extremely unlikely scenario, this week should be all about winding down a little, taking some time to relax.

Update – The Scottish Play – T-minus 4 days and counting

Really, all that needs to happen now is a little photoshop work, a quick once-over in a bar over beer and pizza, and uploading the files. Once that’s all done all that’s left is ordering a proof, and making certain that I’m carrying two handfuls of confetti with me at all times so that when the proof arrives I can reach into my pockets, pull it out, hurl it into the air and yell “Wheeeee!”

Hopefully this time I’ll remember not to do it inside somebody’s car.

Update – Uhh . . . I don’t know.

Yup, the other half of the equation hasn’t really been thought about all that much – with the wrap-up of project-ness, I will suddenly be sans-project, which is not to say that I don’t have ideas . . . I mean, please. Don’t make me laugh, Bubba. No, I’m just not certain which of the many projects that are currently sitting anywhere between 20% and 60% finished I’ll wish to focus on, or if I should listen to my gut and begin the 3rd Shakespeare project just as quickly as possible.

Stupid gut.

I think that today should be spent mostly pondering that question, and when the time comes to take a break, and I’ve got an hour or so that I can devote to writing, I won’t be staring at a blank piece of paper. No, I’ll be staring at the documents directory of my netbook, eyes going from folder to folder, possibly saying “Eanie, meanie, minie mo . . .”

Some people go on about how hard it is to write. I seem to have difficulty when it comes to actually relaxing.

Things are pretty hectic at work, this being one of the busiest times for the creative/artistic people at the company. So, on any given day it kind of works like this: Get to work, work for a few hours, realize I’ve missed my break, turn my chair ninety degrees and work on Beast for 15 minutes (Right now it’s Macbeth, but really it can be whatever I happen to be working on) turn back to desktop and work for another few hours, realize I’ve almost missed my lunch break, turn ninety degrees, etc etc . . .

I get lots done during that time, it’s true . . . but there’s a conspicuous absence of sandwich-chewing look-out-the-window relaxation moments. This is true at work, as well as at home. I mean, didn’t I mention what happened in Monday’s post? I sit down, declare “I’m taking this weekend off, because I deserve a break!” and then wham! Suddenly I’m posting about how my project is 98% done, and wondering what I’ll do next. Score: Work – 1 Relaxation – 0

So, maybe I need baby steps. Maybe I need television! Geeze, there’s a scary thought.

Still, the plan this weekend is to spend one day doing stuff, and spend one day not doing anything. The prospect of not working on stuff for a whole weekend was just too much for my brain to handle, I guess. Gotta slowly ease myself into it.

Update: The Scottish Play – Second and inches

As I mentioned, no real point to percentages at this point . . . it’s so close I can taste it, which is odd, because I don’t recall gnawing on the proof of Romeo and Juliet when it arrived in the mail. Still, if I can taste it, maybe I went a little bit insane and just don’t remember. Maybe I should floss or something . . . get some paper particles out from between my teeth. That might help.

Cover is mostly done, just need to slap two things together and sprinkle a little mojo on it, check for spelling, and voila! I’m sensing that sometime within the next two posts I’ll have a little update prepared that includes a cover and clickable link.

And then it’ll be right back to work. Because I just can’t seem to help it.

Update: Quarry – New outline 95% done

When you actually finish writing a book, the lessons you learn stick with you. What you can do, what you can’t, it all sort of nestles in the back of your head somewhere and informs any plans you might have to do that particular activity again. The original outline/plan had merits – it had problems too. Now, I think, it mostly has merits. Same story, more or less, and my only real concern stems from the point-of-view shifting that will need to be done. Essentially, you’re following the good guy, but jumping over to the main bad guy and various assorted minions from time to time to get their perspective. There’s a couple of jumps over to another character, one of the good guys, and I’m just not entirely convinced that’s necessary. Figure that out, and I’m set.