Convention Time Again

I'm not talking about Wizard World. It's been several times since I've been to one of those and I knew as I left the last one, that the next time I returned would likely be in a professional capacity.

What I am referring to is the third annual Cape Comic Con (sometimes known as Ken Con). It just wrapped up and I think it was probably the biggest success yet. My services were drafted to serve as a judge for the costume contest on Saturday and that was a lot of fun; every one of the entries was really good, each having their own places to shine where the others didn't.

I took the opportunity to also pick up a few X-Men comics from the glory days of the franchise (the 1990s), along with an independent book called Bushi Tales. On Sunday, I dove head first into a HeroClix tournament, using the latest version of my Apocalypse team. I didn't find out until it was over, but the last game I was in was the championship match. I barely lost that one, but it was one of the best games I'd had in years.

With it being convention time, you'd think I wouldn't get any writing done. You'd be right and you'd be wrong. In the days leading up to the convention, I managed to keep that streak of editing one chapter a day going. I got through eight chapters in eight days before I slowed down. I also wrote a great sequence for Mind & Machine featuring a particularly cruel battle between Commander and the demon Dural.

But that leads things back to the the normal flow of things. I've got work again tomorrow, the first time I've had to go since last Wednesday. Regardless of that, I'm making a great deal of progress and I hope to meet all three of my goals yet. It's still a fine possibility.

Back on Track

In the past few days, I have edited one chapter of Vitamin F each day. I have also managed to transcribe a few pages of Mind & Machine. The most interesting thing about the whole process has been that I've been writing one-paragraph fights as part of a larger chaotic battle.

A few minutes ago, I started watching an odd anime series called Gasaraki. It's a very realistic take on mech anime, with more modern-day politics than you can imagine. (I never thought US grain prices would be a key plot point in a mech anime, but I was wrong.) It's also got ten tons of Shintoism--come for the mechs, stay for the ritual dancing--and ancient mechs called kugai.

So I take a moment to say that I haven't forgotten Ashes of War by any means. I'm not looking to reawaken it again yet, but I have far from forgotten about it.

I've also been reading three books at once. It's a crazy thought, but I've balanced it so far. At work, I read The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks; it's a solid bit of fantasy, although it leans on Tolkien a lot. At home, I read Small Favor by Jim Butcher, the lastest Dresden book. I'm also reading The Ruins by Scott Smith; it's a descriptive book with vivid images and characters who have little written out dialogue.

Things are on an upswing. Let's try to keep them that way.

Slacker of War

I was going to do a lot better. Then I found out that God of War II finally dropped to $20. I've been playing it way too much. It's a fun game, much more brutal than the original, although there are times I think it may be unnecessarily complicated.

Aside from that, I did make a little more progress. I've edited three more chapters of Vitamin F, two of those being fairly long. As far as page length, I've already shaved 4 pages from the book, and I'm just a little more than a thrid of the way through it. I remember the length arguement Stephen King made in On Writing: Second Draft = First Draft - 10%.

Mind & Machine isn't doing as well. I only transcribed a measly two pages from my notebook. I can do a lot better than that, and I have to. Although I can say that I've finally found a way to make one of the weirder plot wrinkles work with the overall story.

On a side note, one of my coworkers asked me through the course of conversation what my ideal woman would be like. I just pointed out a paragraph from Mind & Machine and let her read it.

The final of the three goals hasn't really been approached in the past week. I'm still well aware that I need to find an agent, but I haven't done much recently to find that agent. I figure this is something that will happen once I've got that second draft of Vitamin F finished.

Reinstituting the 100 Days

In the Fall, I decided at an arbitrary point to give myself 100 days to finish the first draft of Vitamin F. I didn't succeed in that regard, but I did make a lot of progress thanks to the added motivation of a deadline.

I noticed my lack of progress as of late and decided that I needed a splash of motivation. So, within 100 days, I've got a few goal that I need to have met, or at least made great progress with.

1. Have the next draft of Vitamin F finished. This doesn't just mean I've got another draft, it also means I've got the long synopsis to go along with it. For those who have been reading it, this doesn't affect anything with you. I'm giving myself a deadline. I won't put any such restriction on my readers.

2. Send at least one query letter to a literary agent. It's a big step, one I need to start pursuing. I've got a friend who writes and draws children's books. He's got amazing ideas and visuals, he just doesn't have someone who knows where and how to fight the battles to get his work published. For guys trapped in middle America, it's almost impossible to get noticed without help.

3. Have 1/3 of Mind & Machine typed out. I've been writing on this, just not typing it. I need to do more of both. I'm confident that I can make a lot more progress if I put forth the effort.

I'm going to try to make a weekly progress report, just to keep track of such things. Maybe it'll help me keep going.

Better Now

For the past few days, I've been a bit down because of everything tied to my lack of a love life. I've done what I could to deal with it and get over it, but it just didn't work. I'm not sure why it's ben so hard, but that's the way life goes sometimes.

Anyway, what I did was take that depressed feeling and try to work through it, try to get around it. No dice. I tried to completely separate myself from the feeling. Again, no luck. Navigating around that bit of complication in my life, I looked at it very closely. I didn't mean to, but that's what happened. I realized what it was like to really hurt--really feel like my heart was empty.

I took that idea, the thought that my rotten luck might be tearing my heart to nothing one little piece at a time, and spent a few minutes staring right at it. And that's when I realized that was exactly where I needed to take things with the climax of Mind & Machine.

In that, Commander is supposed to be in a state of extreme anguish, a point where he's lost EVERYTHING. So, Commander bashes his fist on an unbreakable barrier holding the girl he's in love with. He crushes his hand, but gains nothing. Finally, he screams and punches the barrier again and again. He gets nothing out of it. He stops and remarks on how his heart has been slowly torn apart, leaving him empty. And he finally breaks through.