I don’t do this often, actually I don’t think I’ve ever done this. Gonna throw out the first few pages of the new story I’m working on for your perusal. Feel free to let me know what you think and enjoy! Oh and it’s unedited so no nitpicking. Read the rest of this entry
I’ve decided I’d let Mack answer some small annoyances I come across every now and again, with a couple scenes that I guess I should have put in book one. This is the first one. if I have enough fun with it I may start doing more every couple of days. I’ve been kind of missing the boys lately. Read the rest of this entry
I know most everyone has seen this already, but it hit so close to home for me (no pun intended) Read the rest of this entry
Well, I was stuck until the other day when a good friend of mine let me bounce ideas off of him for a bit. Within ten minutes he had taken those ideas and helped me figure out which direction to go in the latest story. I’m not a fan of being stuck, as I’m sure no writer is. I never seem to get stuck on the big picture or during action scenes, and rarely do I have trouble with dialogue. I tend to get stuck on those in between scenes You know you finish off one scene and you know where you need to go next but it’s the bridge to that next section that I tend to get screwed up on. Sometimes it’s only for a couple hours, during the first two books though I would sometimes be stuck for a week or more before the proverbial light bulb would go off.
With the new book I have figured out that if I can talk to one of the couple people I bounce ideas off of that I get unstuck much easier than I used to. I don’t know if it’s me getting more experience or I learned to find someone to talk to earlier is all. either way it’s working and I like it. Let’s hope it lasts.
I would like to thank the folks that act as my sounding board. I’m pretty sure they’ll read this and know who they are.
Back to work with me. Enjoy your evenings!
Don
Hi and welcome to my new website! I’ll be doing all my blog posts from here as well as posting updates on new books, events and appearances. I’m still getting used to all this so it may be a while before I get it all down pat. Until I have the great and powerful Rodney helping me out. Thanks buddy for such a great set up and background!
I suppose it’s time to openly admit it. Some of my characters are based loosely on real people. I can’t say they are completely based on these people because I’ve never actually been through the end of the world with any of them so I don’t really know how they’d react to all the things I’ve put them through. A lot of my dialogue in my stories is based on what I believe these people would do and say. To me it helps me make sure my characters are as realistic as I can make them. I’ve always hated books, movies, or TV shows that had horribly unbelievable dialogue. From the very beginning one of my main goals was to have good if not great characters.
I’ve spoken to some of my friends who know this little secret and all have said that the dialogue sounds perfect and can tell who the characters are just by what they say. I take this as a great compliment. Amusingly enough, I was hanging out one day with a group of my friends and somehow a conversation about a tank or driving a tank came up. I let them play out the conversation, only nudging it in a certain direction and then waited. After they were done I started laughing when they asked what was funny I told them that I had basically written that conversation in my first book. It was almost verbatim. Read the rest of this entry
I did a Google search yesterday for the title of my books. It’s been mentioned to me before that I should do this every once in a while to see if someone is using your work for their own purposes. Until yesterday I never found anything out of the ordinary. I came across a blurb on my Google search that said After the Storm Book Trailer. I started to panic. I’ve never made a book trailer! For a very short time I thought the worst and figured I had been pirated. Come to find out I was wrong, in such a cool way.
When I got to youtube I saw that the girl who had made the book trailer had clearly stated that it was for a school project. I was NOT being pirated…in fact it seemed my book was to be someones book report, how cool is that? I watched it with rapt interest the first time, and again right afterwards with giddy enjoyment. It was one of the coolest feelings I’ve ever had to find out purely by accident that someone liked something you did enough to put that much care into a project. I may not have a movie yet and for all I know I may never have one, but I do have a book trailer made by someone beside myself. I now know how great a feeling this was I can’t imagine how awesome it would be to watch a movie made of my work. let’s hope someday I get to see what that feels like 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Don
I’m torn today, on the one hand I was going to blog about how the third book is coming along. On the other, the protests and violence in the middle east has reached a fever pitch and looks to get worse before it gets better. As well as the fact that our own political election seems to be tearing the country apart, making me wonder if this will or how long before this leads to violence here as well.
I started back to work again this week after being out sick for three weeks, well it should have only been two weeks but then my work needed a note and my doctor wasn’t in yada, yada, yada. Anyway, so it’s day two and I have to say after being out for that long it makes for a very tiring end of the day. My job isn’t even that hard, mostly driving around, but by the time Iget home the last couple days I’m just about ready to pack it in. need to get back into work shape I suppose.
If I could just get the second book finished I could probably actually consider writing as my real job ( Oh how wonderful that would be!) I will say this though being back at work and on the road has put me back in the right frame of mind to get back to cranking out a bunch of pages soon. Driving along by yourself for long stretches helps me work out plot, subplots and any issues I may find myself stuck on. It must be great to drive up next to me on the highway, considering I usually talk to myself and say dialogue outloud to make sure it sounds right. I must look AWESOME, or completely insane. I prefer AWESOME!
Back to work with me, enjoy your evening or day, whatever, 🙂
Don
I’ve spent a good deal of time at home lately because I screwed up my back. It’s better now (I’m sure you were all worried). But that isn’t the point of my post tonight. Because I’ve spent all this time at home I’ve had a lot of time to work on the second book, and it is coming along nicely. Every now and again I get stuck on teh story, something doesn’t fit right or something just isn’t working for me. Whatever it is I get stuck.
Which brings me to quiet time. Even though my house is usually very quiet during the day I find I still need that break when I’m not staring at the laptop or the TV isn’t distracting me in the background. I seem to find the most peace when I’m out on my porch smoking a cigarette. I know it’s an awful habit and quitting is imminent, I’m sure. I’m getting way to old to be doing it for much longer.
I do seem to get my best results though. It’s quiet and I have nothing to do but sit and let my mind wander. I’ve always been good at letting my mind wander. Usually it involves pretty girls but since I’ve started writing it now tends to be about plot lines and story issues. For some reason almost every time I get to have some quiet time I end up figuring out the next cool subplot or how to start the next chapter> I never know what it’s going to be which is probably why I think it’s so much fun, it’s like surprising myself!
Anyway, I just thought I’d mention quiet time since I’m about to go have some to see where my story takes me next.
Thanks for reading and enjoy the day!
Don