The biggest news of my week, I almost avoided spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but was bum rushed by someone who thought they were being clever and funny.
A little PSA about spoilers kids. If the thing that you're spoiling is universally adored, with no way to have any prior knowledge (i.e: from a comic franchise or book that it was adapted from) of the event, then it's a dick move to spoil it for anyone. Sure, it's frowned upon to spoil anything, but if you've never seen King Kong, and someone tells you about him being shot down by airplanes, you can't be mad at that. It's part of the cultural memoriate and it's your own fault for not being up on it. If you don't know Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father by now, where have you lived for the last 30 years? Hell, the last decade? But say if a new Indiana Jones came out and Indy died at the end and Shia LeBeouf takes over the hat and bullwhip, and you blurted it to anyone that hadn't seen it yet, especially in an open space, that's fucking rude.
Now that that's out of my system, I'm glad I had faith in JJ Abrams to do justice to the SciFi franchise he actually wanted to make since he was a kid.
Aside from that, another boring week trudging through the holidays. Still enjoying a mini-vacation from writing stuff. I wrote a lot this year and I'm pretty burnt out for the time being. Still haven't tacked on the ending to that short I've been talking about for three weeks. On the bright side, knowing I have a weekly obligation to update 3 people on the status of my writing does make me feel guilty for making no progress.
Anyway, I'm out of words for now. I'm gonna enjoy this lazy Sunday while I can. Make sure you do the same. If you don't, I'll know.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
Dispatches from the edge of a whole lotta nothing.
What a terrible blogger I am. I skipped a week and almost skipped this one.
To be fair, I haven't really been doing any writing. After NaNo, I've spit out about 2300 words into my current short. I barfed out a cool intro really fast and realized I had no way to wrap it up cleanly by 5000 words, so I've been mostly reworking the story and writing myself out of a corner. I have the ending all planned finally as well. For a change, I'm trying to write something for publication opposed to something I want to write just for myself to self-publish and retain full control.
I have been giving a lot of thought regarding the indie book/self-publish scene in light of "the establishment". Unfortunately, as much as my punk roots are showing, DIY is awesome to keep things how you always wanted them, but you can't get established without an establishment. The great publishing beast has been in existence since people started putting writing implement to surface and handing it out to people too lazy to remember oral stories. It's seen every technology come and go from cuneiform to eBooks, and it's just adapted every time. So, if you can't hunt and kill the great beast, get eaten and become one with it.
But yeah, really I'm trying for actual publication not just for the legitimacy, but because it's more of a sure paycheck as well. I mean, if you want to make a living doing what you love, you kinda need to make money to live. And working day jobs is bullshit.
The new story is kinda on a solarpunk kick. Mostly because the "movement" (as it's been described in like 3 articles that have been reposted all over the internet) really has nothing to read as far as I've seen. Outside of some book from 1996 written by some spirit-den-mother hippie chick. But it's more optimistic in regards to trying to actually rebuild a world after great catastrophe.
If it doesn't get legit published, it'll fit in nicely with the first wave 2 short story collection I have partially completed. I really need to get on some rewrites with my novel so I can close out wave 1 already. Why do projects never complete themselves in the way you plan them?
So, yeah, that's been my last couple weeks. Farting around writing a story for an aborted genre that claims to want to supplant cyberpunk by sticking solar panels on postcyberpunk, and working/finishing school. About to take my last final of community college. After about 3 years of attending classes over a 15 year span of time, it'd be nice to stop being a statistic and finally transfer to a real university. One can't attend Greendale forever. Right Leonard?
To be fair, I haven't really been doing any writing. After NaNo, I've spit out about 2300 words into my current short. I barfed out a cool intro really fast and realized I had no way to wrap it up cleanly by 5000 words, so I've been mostly reworking the story and writing myself out of a corner. I have the ending all planned finally as well. For a change, I'm trying to write something for publication opposed to something I want to write just for myself to self-publish and retain full control.
I have been giving a lot of thought regarding the indie book/self-publish scene in light of "the establishment". Unfortunately, as much as my punk roots are showing, DIY is awesome to keep things how you always wanted them, but you can't get established without an establishment. The great publishing beast has been in existence since people started putting writing implement to surface and handing it out to people too lazy to remember oral stories. It's seen every technology come and go from cuneiform to eBooks, and it's just adapted every time. So, if you can't hunt and kill the great beast, get eaten and become one with it.
But yeah, really I'm trying for actual publication not just for the legitimacy, but because it's more of a sure paycheck as well. I mean, if you want to make a living doing what you love, you kinda need to make money to live. And working day jobs is bullshit.
The new story is kinda on a solarpunk kick. Mostly because the "movement" (as it's been described in like 3 articles that have been reposted all over the internet) really has nothing to read as far as I've seen. Outside of some book from 1996 written by some spirit-den-mother hippie chick. But it's more optimistic in regards to trying to actually rebuild a world after great catastrophe.
If it doesn't get legit published, it'll fit in nicely with the first wave 2 short story collection I have partially completed. I really need to get on some rewrites with my novel so I can close out wave 1 already. Why do projects never complete themselves in the way you plan them?
So, yeah, that's been my last couple weeks. Farting around writing a story for an aborted genre that claims to want to supplant cyberpunk by sticking solar panels on postcyberpunk, and working/finishing school. About to take my last final of community college. After about 3 years of attending classes over a 15 year span of time, it'd be nice to stop being a statistic and finally transfer to a real university. One can't attend Greendale forever. Right Leonard?
Monday, November 30, 2015
Yellow Ocher
I finished my book for NaNoWriMo yesterday morning. And by yesterday morning I mean like 2 AM.
Granted I'm typically awake at that hour and I made myself useful. It's a little disjointed, and there was some laziness in regards to continuity, but I'll have to go back over it with some notes. I'm kinda disappointed that Johnny goes out like a punk, but I made an executive decision that Johnny's absence is a disappointment in general and the closing of his arc should reflect it. I managed to salvage it and make it a little bittersweet. It still sucks, but he gets his reward in the end. I really didn't need 50,000 words to tell the story, and I was tossing in shit tons of fluff just to hit the goal, but I can take it out in the next draft. Regardless of length, I'm really proud of what I made, and think it has some great bits. I just need to cut it, clean it and cook it into its final shape.
I always pictured Some Call Me... as being part of another novella bundle anyway.
Speaking of bundles, I'm working on a new set of short stories. Trying to flesh out a little more of the history of the future. Working on the rise of Pharrel Inc. on the west coast and introducing a major player/villain across a majority of the pre-futuristic Lilim Chronicles. It's all in prep for wave 2 which will begin after To Slice The Sky is released. Some Call Me... will be the kick off for it. What sucks is the more I write the more directions I want to run in and the more stories I want to tell. But I still have so much history and projected tales to write, I wonder if I'll get to them all. I'm still sitting on research books to read as well before I tackle some projects.
Granted, I've been going through all sorts of feelings of self doubt lately. I've had a busy first year of publishing work on my own, but I feel out of touch with the people that consume art out there. It feels like everyone's too scared to step outside of their well defined boundaries of what they think they're supposed to consume or enjoy. Genre lines feel so hard and defined in a world of infinite subgenres. The slightest variation from the norm becomes too odd while adherence to the code is too vanilla.
I was thinking about this today, and my best guess is everyone has a varying level of imagination. It's a shitty answer, but it's probably closest to the right one.
Granted I'm typically awake at that hour and I made myself useful. It's a little disjointed, and there was some laziness in regards to continuity, but I'll have to go back over it with some notes. I'm kinda disappointed that Johnny goes out like a punk, but I made an executive decision that Johnny's absence is a disappointment in general and the closing of his arc should reflect it. I managed to salvage it and make it a little bittersweet. It still sucks, but he gets his reward in the end. I really didn't need 50,000 words to tell the story, and I was tossing in shit tons of fluff just to hit the goal, but I can take it out in the next draft. Regardless of length, I'm really proud of what I made, and think it has some great bits. I just need to cut it, clean it and cook it into its final shape.
I always pictured Some Call Me... as being part of another novella bundle anyway.
Speaking of bundles, I'm working on a new set of short stories. Trying to flesh out a little more of the history of the future. Working on the rise of Pharrel Inc. on the west coast and introducing a major player/villain across a majority of the pre-futuristic Lilim Chronicles. It's all in prep for wave 2 which will begin after To Slice The Sky is released. Some Call Me... will be the kick off for it. What sucks is the more I write the more directions I want to run in and the more stories I want to tell. But I still have so much history and projected tales to write, I wonder if I'll get to them all. I'm still sitting on research books to read as well before I tackle some projects.
Granted, I've been going through all sorts of feelings of self doubt lately. I've had a busy first year of publishing work on my own, but I feel out of touch with the people that consume art out there. It feels like everyone's too scared to step outside of their well defined boundaries of what they think they're supposed to consume or enjoy. Genre lines feel so hard and defined in a world of infinite subgenres. The slightest variation from the norm becomes too odd while adherence to the code is too vanilla.
I was thinking about this today, and my best guess is everyone has a varying level of imagination. It's a shitty answer, but it's probably closest to the right one.
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Red planet blues
Ah, the beginning of a fresh week.
Well, I'm all done with By Starlight. Been plunking away at my NaNoWriMo book, Some Call Me...
The whole exercise of writing a novel in a month is quite mad. I hope you all know this. The people that finished their books days after have more drive than I do. I'm currently ahead of the curve, Sitting at 40.5k words. Making the last crawl towards the finish line at 50k.
My book started out easily enough as Django on Mars and it's sort of mutated into a revolutionary tale with meditations on the nature of consciousness, what value is a synthetic life, and where people call home. I'm a little upset with my going off on an AI tangent. But that's mostly out of fear that I'm not smart or interesting enough to not repeat old ground when I write about AI later. Granted this time around it's looking at an AI that "deserves life" opposed to an AI trying to destroy all humans. I toy with the notion of that, but I took the cowards way out to avoid a Shakespearean tragedy ending.
I was planning on posting my days work every day, but since I was pecking away only a few hundred words a day at some points, it felt like it would be pointless and annoying to do that every day. But when I'm doing rewrites in a month I think I'm going to post the chapters I'm working on.
I find it funny that I have plenty of stories and novels in my head ready to start writing, but this book really sprung up in the last couple months. I jotted down a bunch of notes right at the beginning of my fall semester of school, had a bunch of ideas in my head that clashed together that I realized I could blend into the same work. When I finished up By Starlight - Before Dawn right at the end of October, all the stars aligned to make this book work.
I've always wanted to write a story on Mars. I had an idea for a weird west story with vampire and werewolf cowboys that still needs some fleshing out before it becomes anything workable. And I've wanted to do some kind of more limited tech than cyberpunk allows. All of that together has become this novel that I'm going to get back to work on.
I'm hoping that this newfound dedication and speed of process rubs off when I start rewrites on my first novel I'm going to release next. That's my December project before shipping it off to the editor. Lots of work to do.
Well, I'm all done with By Starlight. Been plunking away at my NaNoWriMo book, Some Call Me...
The whole exercise of writing a novel in a month is quite mad. I hope you all know this. The people that finished their books days after have more drive than I do. I'm currently ahead of the curve, Sitting at 40.5k words. Making the last crawl towards the finish line at 50k.
My book started out easily enough as Django on Mars and it's sort of mutated into a revolutionary tale with meditations on the nature of consciousness, what value is a synthetic life, and where people call home. I'm a little upset with my going off on an AI tangent. But that's mostly out of fear that I'm not smart or interesting enough to not repeat old ground when I write about AI later. Granted this time around it's looking at an AI that "deserves life" opposed to an AI trying to destroy all humans. I toy with the notion of that, but I took the cowards way out to avoid a Shakespearean tragedy ending.
I was planning on posting my days work every day, but since I was pecking away only a few hundred words a day at some points, it felt like it would be pointless and annoying to do that every day. But when I'm doing rewrites in a month I think I'm going to post the chapters I'm working on.
I've always wanted to write a story on Mars. I had an idea for a weird west story with vampire and werewolf cowboys that still needs some fleshing out before it becomes anything workable. And I've wanted to do some kind of more limited tech than cyberpunk allows. All of that together has become this novel that I'm going to get back to work on.
I'm hoping that this newfound dedication and speed of process rubs off when I start rewrites on my first novel I'm going to release next. That's my December project before shipping it off to the editor. Lots of work to do.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Endserenading
It's been another week, and what a week it's been.
Still plugging away at the NaNoWriMo book. I cracked over the halfway point of 25,000 words just after midnight Friday. Making the slow but steady climb to 40k by next Saturday, keeping at least a day ahead in regards to word count. It's a good thing they give out badges for this thing. I will do anything for imagined prestige and internet points. Or at least my gamerscore agrees with that sentiment.
All my energy has really been focused full force on Some Call Me... as I've been mucking about in Act 2. I really hate falling prey to the slowdown in the middle period, but when I obtain enough writing skill to pen a Mad Max: Fury Road style, balls to the walls, non-stop action thrill ride, you better believe I'll do it. Of course, while I'm totally an action genre fan, and love to write fight scenes like erotica writers make fuck scenes, I also enjoy contemplating my navel when I'm allowed the open freedom of novel writing. I hope that some day in the future that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass on a review. I can see it now...
"Bollweg's prose is as bloated and over-indulgent as a King Crimson album. He meanders about tired concepts with hardly any new insight on the subject. In the rest of his work, he builds a house of sticks surrounded by a paper thin facade of flashy gimmicks and hyperviolence..." - Guy Someone LA Times Book Review
Wow, future me has not grown at all as an author.
Speaking of growing as an author, this week is the post of the final chapter in my latest novella, By Starlight. We've gone from Cyberspace, to the real world, and now we're in the subconscious of the Universe itself. It's now time for our intrepid heroine Tressie and the ravenous Succubus Gribelle to end this chase. Who will survive, and what will be left of them?!
I've got nothing left to say this week. Enjoy the story after the jump...
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Sleepwalk
This past week has felt like a year.
Sales were actually existent for By Starlight - Before Dawn. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy in eBook or Paperback. If you bought it in paperback, you can get a free kindle version through matchbook. If you bought it on Smashwords but would like a paperback, I'll be running a promotion Thanksgiving weekend for 50% off. And while I make sure all my products are the best quality I can make them, I'm a fan of the printed word, so the paperback is the preferred version in terms of formatting and style. And it looks great on a shelf when you're not reading it!
My busy week has mostly been filled with me plugging away at Some Call Me... for NaNoWriMo. I'm at the close of Act 1 and 15,813/50,000 words in. I've also been annoying about my progress on social media already, so I'm less excited to be throwing up my hands in the air and celebrating the first week of my new novel being written.
I really should be more excited, because the story is turning out really fucking cool. Of course it's a mess currently, and being done for the word count at this point. But, there's definitely a diamond surrounded by a bunch of coal in there. I've been wanting to write something set on Mars ever since I read Bradbury's Martian Chronicles back in 11th grade English class when I was supposed to be following along in Huck Finn. And while I've read more than my fair share of cyberpunk and generic Science Fiction, I haven't really delved into Steampunk as a literary genre (really only read Bruce Sterling/William Gibson's The Difference Engine. If you have suggestions where to go from there, please share in the comments). Or westerns.
I've never read a western. Watched tons of sing-songy Gene Autry ride alongs, rough and tumble John Wayne and Henry Fonda fodder, and blood and whore drenched Spaghetti Westerns, but never read one. So translating the feel of the idealized Wild West on a planet that will kill the shit out of you if you step outside, all won by the power of your steam powered sidearms, it felt like a fun challenge. And it really has been. I've been having a blast writing it, with only one day of slogging through that dreaded but necessary exposition so far. I haven't been this stoked about writing something than I was when I first wrote To Slice The Sky.
But you didn't come here to see my rattle off things that I'm currently writing (unless you did. Did you? If so, sorry, your time in this world grows short. The collectors will be by shortly with pliers and hacksaws to make sure you never make that mistake again). You're here to read what I've already written and polished into a presentable state. We're almost at the end of By Starlight. Our players are gathered into place, and shit is about to get real as we slide into the action packed climax.
So here we are this Sunday. Part 7/8 of By Starlight.
Sales were actually existent for By Starlight - Before Dawn. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy in eBook or Paperback. If you bought it in paperback, you can get a free kindle version through matchbook. If you bought it on Smashwords but would like a paperback, I'll be running a promotion Thanksgiving weekend for 50% off. And while I make sure all my products are the best quality I can make them, I'm a fan of the printed word, so the paperback is the preferred version in terms of formatting and style. And it looks great on a shelf when you're not reading it!
My busy week has mostly been filled with me plugging away at Some Call Me... for NaNoWriMo. I'm at the close of Act 1 and 15,813/50,000 words in. I've also been annoying about my progress on social media already, so I'm less excited to be throwing up my hands in the air and celebrating the first week of my new novel being written.
I really should be more excited, because the story is turning out really fucking cool. Of course it's a mess currently, and being done for the word count at this point. But, there's definitely a diamond surrounded by a bunch of coal in there. I've been wanting to write something set on Mars ever since I read Bradbury's Martian Chronicles back in 11th grade English class when I was supposed to be following along in Huck Finn. And while I've read more than my fair share of cyberpunk and generic Science Fiction, I haven't really delved into Steampunk as a literary genre (really only read Bruce Sterling/William Gibson's The Difference Engine. If you have suggestions where to go from there, please share in the comments). Or westerns.
I've never read a western. Watched tons of sing-songy Gene Autry ride alongs, rough and tumble John Wayne and Henry Fonda fodder, and blood and whore drenched Spaghetti Westerns, but never read one. So translating the feel of the idealized Wild West on a planet that will kill the shit out of you if you step outside, all won by the power of your steam powered sidearms, it felt like a fun challenge. And it really has been. I've been having a blast writing it, with only one day of slogging through that dreaded but necessary exposition so far. I haven't been this stoked about writing something than I was when I first wrote To Slice The Sky.
But you didn't come here to see my rattle off things that I'm currently writing (unless you did. Did you? If so, sorry, your time in this world grows short. The collectors will be by shortly with pliers and hacksaws to make sure you never make that mistake again). You're here to read what I've already written and polished into a presentable state. We're almost at the end of By Starlight. Our players are gathered into place, and shit is about to get real as we slide into the action packed climax.
So here we are this Sunday. Part 7/8 of By Starlight.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Where the latex meets the skin.
Welcome to the show. Today's a big day. Hope those of you that are celebrating have an awesome Halloween.
You might notice that today's post is not just on time, but early. Well, that's because the story that I've been unfolding for you the last four weeks, By Starlight, is finally available in the world. You can purchase your very own copy in eBook format on Amazon or Smashwords. Or if you prefer the weight of a tome in your mitts, the paperback is also available on Amazon and CreateSpace. If you purchase the paperback, you can get a Kindle copy for free on Amazon for use on your Kindle device or app.
Of course, the first book in The Lilim Chronicles, Urban Legends of the Future, is still available for free in eBook format at Smashwords.
I'm also posting early because tomorrow being November 1st kicks off National Novel Writing Month, or it's more affectionate name, NaNoWriMo. I hadn't heard of it until 2012, and by then I was balls deep in writing my upcoming novel, To Slice The Sky, and didn't want to switch gears or grandfather in. 2013 I was working on short stories that would eventually become the aforementioned Urban Legends of the Future. And 2014 I was compiling Urban Legends for release this February. But this year, this year is different.
For one, I'm actually in between projects perfectly at the start of the month. For two, I actually have a novel I want to write that I'm excited for. For three, it gives me an extra excuse to update more on this blog, particularly above the next two weeks when I wrap up posting the rest of By Starlight. I'm hoping that keeping myself updated with what I write for my word count per day will be added encouragement to pull myself through.
I'm writing a retelling of Sergio Corbucci's Django/Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo with Steampunk cowboys on Mars. I already finished the basic plotting and storyboarding for it. In 24 hours, I'll get to begin hammering out the first bits of the story. It's going to be all kinds of fun, as well as still tie into The Lilim Chronicles. Johnny Marko from By Starlight and Sucking Out Loud will also be a major player in this title, making good on his promise to get the hell out of Hollywood.
Continuing on with the ballad of Tressie, Johnny and Gribelle in By Starlight, we left our heroes and villain all in precarious states. It's time for the big party we've all been waiting for, and a showdown in meatspace between Tressie and Gribelle. Who will survive and what will be left of them?!?!?!
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