Not dead yet...but far from immortal

I am still not dead yet, but I think this blog was on the verge of it. I have still been working quite a bit, but not as much as I should be. Writing the book has taken backseat for a little while, since the semester has started again. Even so I will continue to write regardless of what may get in the way. I need to finish the book soon otherwise a may go absolutely insane. As of yet though there is still a great deal of work to do. There is now a finalized version of the Oath of Elorea though...I think I have covered all of the major aspects of their society in a succinct set of lines that reads quite well. Here follows the Oath of Elorea:

I vow to die unto myself. In this way I may live.

Ever shall I be a harbinger of hope, in all adversity.

For those in want, I shall be provider.

For those in illness, I shall bare them health.

For those in weakness, I shall wield my strength.

Ever shall I be the adversary of evil, in all its forms.

The cruel, I am to meet with courage.

The greedy, I am to meet with wisdom.

The wicked, I am to meet with justice.

Ever shall I be caretaker of the land, in all conditions.

Where the soil is dead, I shall work to enliven it.

Where the water is fouled, I shall work to cleanse it.

Where evil has tainted the land, I shall revive its sanctity.

These things I vow and I know them well. They are in my heart.

My blood is for this cause, all the days of my life.

If ever I stray from this birthright, so too shall I lose my inheritance,

And I shall wear the stain of my blood.

So that all will see that I have betrayed this righteous cause.

It actually came out pretty good, and is better than the 'Creed' I had them using before. It's not actually included in the book yet, but I am going to try to work it in at the beginning, perhaps carved into a placard above Gaelen's door. If you want the full effect read it aloud, the words come out rather powerfully I find...

Editing continues

I just got back from a vacation in Virginia, where I actually managed to do some editing on Fire Gate. I've managed to make it about a third of the way through the book now. I've made some major and minor corrections along the way, but I know that most of the heavy editing is going to be in the last few chapters of the book anyway. Still it is a good start, in a fairly short amount of time that I was working on it. The more I consider different names the more I think I like The Elorean. Out of all of the other possibilities that I have considered that seems to fit the best. There are a few problems with that title though. For starters it looks like it was meant to be about a car and someone just took of the 'D' that was suppose to go in front of 'Elorean.' The other problem is that the title is reminiscent of The Hobbit. While Hobbits and Eloreans happen to be very different creatures from one another, they are still unique to their respective worlds and their race would be the defining feature of the book cover which features them. As such I feel that it is a little too closely referencing a Tolkinian  work for it to be in good taste. While the Lord of the Rings may have influenced my writing to a degree I don't want to present my works as just a different take on the same kind of world. Using such a similarly themed title seems like a poor choice on my part. Yet I cannot think of a more important aspect being introduced in this part of the story, since the Fire Gate is hardly mentioned and there are few other major themes that have yet to come into play. I will have to keep brainstorming to come up with a better title, but the story itself is coming closer and closer to its final form.

Fire Gate Finished!

Well, okay, technically it isn't finished yet, but I have reached what I intend on being the conclusion of the story for this book. Now I am going to have to start editing like mad. I was planning on getting this far much earlier in the summer, but as always I'm running behind my own schedule. I have a fairly good idea of the sort  of changes that I'm going to make. A few minor characters are going to have to be introduced by name, and I think I will have to expand upon what happens in a couple sections where, "and then they sailed for two weeks," or "and then they trained for a couple of months." It will give me an opportunity to expand upon the cultures and characters in a more peaceful setting, which I don't take much time to do. I'm also considering some way of prolonging the beginning of the book to give a better idea of Elorean family life. I was thinking that Deshka might not try to hurry them along and insist on resting before heading out(or perhaps Athal is out on a long hunting trip and is not going to be home for another day or so yet). That would let me give an idea of what some of Gaelen's training is like. I also need to expand on Valedectus since several people have commented that they particularly like his character. I myself find him rather interesting and I don't think it would be wise to miss such an opportunity. I'm certain he will be showing up again.

My Mind is going insane without me

Today it seems as if my mind is losing itself without me. I have an incredible urge to work on my book and push forward, but despite this I can't seem to find the words to say. I think it probably has to do with not having written in so long. This is the worst kind of writers block. I know what I want to write, but every time I put it on the page it is phrased wrong, or feels tangential to what is already there. I try trimming up what I wrote before to see if I can make it flow more clearly, but then I simply change it back to the way it was. My mind is screaming "Write!" and I can't seem to muster the will to do so. Yet I think all it would take is just an instance of clarity for the words to flow off my fingers. That may be why I have come here to write. Writing should not be forced, and so I am not going to push until I"m too exhausted. Instead I'm just going to give myself a little nudge here and see if i can start off on something worth while.

On a side note I started working on a program to draw 8-bit sprites. It isn't at all far along yet, in fact it technically just opens a blank page and has a short list of colors available, but it's a start. The game I was working on for my Computer Science class turned out nicely so I am going to use that as the basis of the game and will build it from there. I'm going to have to learn how to use sprites though, which we never covered this semester. In the book there is a section on classes which I understand to be necessary to the usage of sprites so I will have to teach it to myself and use a little experimentation in order to determine how to use sprites.

All in all summer isn't starting well. I still have all the resolve I need to do everything, but now that the moment has come it seems as if I am overwhelming myself with everything I want to do all at once. I need to slow down my mind and just work with the fragments that are before me now. The tallest tower in the world is built a brick at a time, I need to remind myself of this and just keep piecing it together brick by brick (or word by word in this case).

Last of the Finals

My semester is now officially over. My last final ended just a few hours ago as of the moment of this post. With the coming of the summer I am going to be able to delve into writing my book again. The small amount of work that I lost should be made up by the end of the week and I should be able to come to the conclusion by the end of the month. After that I will begin working on the editing next month, and I expect to be able to add all of the changes that I have decided on in that time period. By the end of the summer I should be in a position to start sending my work to publishing agents.

The school year is coming to a close, and since I don't have any classes this summer I will be able to dedicate myself to writing and working. I've also quite enjoyed the computer science class that I took this year, and you may be seeing some of the results from that. I believe I will have to get a compiler so that you can download my upcoming projects. First and foremost though I will be working on my book, as this is far closer to completion than anything else I've been doing. I've checked my backup files and I only lost about two thousand words with my flash drive. A small chunk from what I've managed to recover from before. This summer I should be able to edit Fire Gate and have it ready to start sending to publishing agents. I am going to have to change the name of the book though, which has been mentioned before. Once I have a decent amount of editing done, and the book is in a more complete state I will post the first couple chapters here. That way I could start asking opinions for potential titles without giving too much away.

Misfortune and small things

It seems that I have been subject to a fundamental law of nature. An object possessing little volume will of  course take  up limited space and an object which takes up limited space is easier to be misplaced. Which is apparently what I've done. I lost my flash-drive. Argh! It seems as if sometime a couple days ago I used it in a computer on campus and neglected to put it back into my pocket. As such I am now going to have to redo a significant deal of my homework. Fortunately though my back-ups for my book were only about two-thousand words behind what I had on my flash-drive. I haven't lost too much then in the event that I never recover my flash-drive again. If I do manage to get it back then I think I may invest in a small GPS chip so as to be able to locate it anywhere on the surface of the Earth. That way if I limit myself from extraterrestrial travel I will have a pretty good chance of finding it again.

Working on Fire Gate

I've been making slow and steady progress with the most recent write up of Fire Gate. I think I'm probably going to have to change the title to something else. I don't think i will get to editing it until this summer, but there is a good possibility that I can finish it at least by August. At the moment thought I will have to delay writing in favor of my various classes. I still have two papers and three quiz's to catch up with before the end of the semester. Unfortunately I have to give these priority over concluding Fire Gate. Once I get back to working on it the writing should go quickly since now have a fairly good idea of how I am going to have the conclusion work.

Post Test

This is a post just to test my readership. I have a few followers at this point, and I just wanted to see who would come by to read what I write. If you happen to read this post, feel free to comment!

Smashwords Again

I am going to expand my library on smashwords.com. From what I've seen around on the site it is possible to get a fairly large following, but it just takes some time. Since I have a few old short stories that are no longer under contract, but have been previously published, I think smashwords would be a great place to put them up for a wider audience to see. The problem is some of these works are not as polished as they should be, especially considering that they are already published. With a little editing I think they will make a great addition to what I am already offering on smashwords.

In addition to these old short stories I have quite a bit of poetry that is all ready for an audience. I have looked around various places to see if i could find some markets for them, but in general I don't really like many of the places I see, or they wouldn't like my kind of poetry. Therefore I am going to sort through my various poems and make a selection from amongst them in order to put another collection on smashwords.

All of these are going to be free, since not many people are really all that willing to pay for poetry (especially since the masters of old are all in the public domain at this point) and because the short stories I have already published are already available for free elsewhere. I've also decided my first collection of short stories on smashwords should be free as well, given that not many people seem willing to pay for it anyway. I'd rather it is read than to be paid for it.

Thoughts on Writing

I've spoken to people about being a writer before. When they ask what I want to do I usually tell them I want to write. With a certain amount of self-reflection though, this really isn't the best answer I could give. It seems to me that writing isn't something that I simply 'want' to do. I enjoy it, in much the way one enjoys a meal. There is a certain amount of pleasure that I derive from writing, but at the same time if I went without eating for too long I'd starve.

Writing is more than just something I feel that I want to do in my life. It is more of a necessity. When I go without writing for a long while I tend to become jittery and agitated. I start to get annoyed with people practically for no reason at all. So I've come to the conclusion, that whether or not I publish, I will write. I don't think I can go without it.

So, even though writing is something I enjoy I believe writing is an affliction. Living without writing is like living without food, I find I can only last so long. Even if all I do is ramble onto a piece of paper and discard it, I feel better. I write for myself, and this concludes me to the assurance that I won't stop writing, regardless of how long and how fruitless this pursuit may prove. This urge to write is a curse that I bear happily, despite my dependence on it.

Fire Gate rewrite nearing editing stages

I've put Fire Gate through a major overhaul, as in I've completely re-written it. After getting some feed back from a few different individuals I decided that certain aspects of the first write up needed to be changed. I've altered the way in which Celestial wizards use magic, making them more reliant on prepared enchantments so that they are significantly less powerful, making the Ardytes more of a threat. I also changed the main character himself, since  he was more or less a tool I used to drive the plot on the first write up.  The original main character felt quite flat to me by the end of the story. So I gave  Gaelen, the new protagonist, all of the character traits that he would need in order to fulfill what I needed him to. The plot follows the same basic  course  as the first write up, but I'm ending the story  about half way through the first write up. I think I may change the title to something else since the Fire Gate does not yet play much of a role in the story. Perhaps, "The Elorean" or something similar.