I Have Published My First Book

The Ballad of the Emerald Bard: Opus 01 - The Suite of Seduction, Lost Love, and Revenge.  Is Available Now!

It has been a very long time in coming.  Beyond a long time, really.  So many folks had expected me to publish something right out of high school.  And indeed, I have written quite a bit.  It has been a long road, with life constantly getting in my way.

With the start of the blog, I knew above all else, that I was going to write a fantasy story and put it out there.  The Ballad of the Emerald Bard was wonderfully received, yes, but let’s face it, this blog is more of a hobby.

An Announcement

An Announcement:

I am sure many have already noticed, but I have removed the Ballad of the Emerald Bard from the website.  Why you may ask?  The time has come for the next phase in Deeya’s life.  I am going to publish the Ballads into novel length collections of short stories.  These new editions are unedited (as Blogspot’s policies stated I could not publish “adult” content and still have AdSpace), extended editions that fit together better now that they no longer have to be broken up in serial format.

What this means is, soon, you will be able to buy hard cover, physical editions, as well as a digital edition for you Kindle.  On top of these new versions of the stories, which are radically different, there will be brand new stories!  In the first Opus, the first story is now a much better introduction to the character, showing her range, secrets, and morality.

Anyways, stay tuned for more info!

--Dan

Things that have to happen for me to Enjoy a Book

Everyone that knows me, knows that I’m a picky reader.  Its ingrained in me and nothing will ever change it.  I don’t enjoy wasting my time and I’ve left quite a few theaters because I refused to sit through a movie that was bad.

But movies are one thing, books are another.  Books require a commitment, in fact, any reading does.  It takes your full attention and concentration.  Good ones just yank those from you and push out the world all by themselves.  The fact is, good books are rare, and some of the ‘best’ books in history fall short of me wanting to spend any time on them at all.

My Process of Writing

I’ve always been amazed at how much really needs to go into writing to make it good.  Long fiction especially.  The research alone can be a daunting task.  There are many methods, but only one has worked for me, and I’ve learned it through so much trial and error that I can sometimes get overwhelmed.

First and foremost is the idea.  What is the story going to be about?  And trust me, there are many many many ideas to chose from.  I’ve had two big writing failures in my life.  Most would try to tell me that they weren’t failures, one actually did pretty well.

A Writer's Cool Pen and My Computer

There’s nothing quite like transcribing a novel from pen and paper format to the computer.  Wow.  I mean, extremely wow.  Page after page of letters, all running together, forming an amazing story.

In the end, this makes me realize how much I love typing stuff into the computer in the first place.  Lisa might have my old Ergonomix pen, that you can no longer buy, but even with the most comfortable pen in the world in my hand, I’d still die from writer’s cramp.  Luckily its enabled Lisa to write longer hours.

Status Update of the Blog and Life 08/2013

There’s nothing like a little update on how everything’s going on the website, hopefully I can drum up a bit more interest in certain things while doing it.  We’ll see, though.  If you haven't checked it out, be sure to read the Press Release that came out on August 4th.

As of this last weekend, the 6th serial story in the Ballad of the Emerald Bard came to a close.  The next order of business in the Ballad is to rewrite the 2nd story.  Buried Secrets was a 5 part story that, I realize now, was poorly written.  Part of the grand experiment of this serial webfiction is to fix mistakes after they are published.  Its something I knew ahead of time I wanted to do, so here’s my first chance.

An Essay on Writing - Part 2/2 (Trial, Error, and Accomplishment)

(( Continued from Part 1/2 ))

I know that some planning is key.  Once upon a time, I wrote a short story that people absolutely loved.  So I wrote another, then another.  People loved the story, so I decided to write more of them for people.  Then a friend of mine said, “You realize your main character changed names?”

I remember writing the stories and thinking in the third, “Its time to give this guy a name.”  I thought I had written the first two stories trying to keep everything nameless, but after rereading it, I didn’t.  In fact, other details changed, like eye color....  It was my first time trying to write a series and realizing I need an Outline.  So I went back, reread those stories and took tons of notes along the way.  Then I went back and rewrote the first two stories, and started to conceive and plan the rest of the series.

An Essay on Writing - Part 1/2 (To plan a story)

How far should one go to create a backstory for a novel?  There are so many examples of how far some people have gone and its so hard to choose the distance one should take.

In my fantasy novel, I am currently writing, I knew I had to create a new world.  I then narrowed down that the action will take place only on a specific continent, so I mapped that out and just kind of glanced over some interesting places the characters were going to visit.  Then I had to try to figure out what kind of fantasy it was, did it have dragons, did it have griffins, or was it just like earth, with no real fantastical creatures?