This blog has relocated to... here?

Just dropping a quick note to all the folks who follow the strange musings I post up here on the blog. The blog's location has changed. I've moved from http://thefaultybrain.blogspot.com to http://jayeckert.blogspot.com.

I made the change for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to make the blog a wee bit more google-able by name. Hmm. Google-able. Sounds like a word. Heck, if "Doh!" is now in the dictionary...

Anyway, the old faultybrain location still exists, but it will redirect you right here.

Writing vs Life

Life is just a tad on too fast for me, sometimes. I haven't updated this blog 'o mine in a while. I'm busy trying to write, but I've lost control of my faculties. I'm finding the notion of writing distinct chapters for Mythos has gone out the door, through the snow, into the decorative grass (read: weeds) at the edge of the yard, and disappeared. I've got no idea how much I've written since the last chapter, but I know it's way more than a Mythos chapter can stand. When I post the next Birth of a Novel entry, I'll definitely elaborate.

In between all this, work has intervened. I'm an IT dude, and sometimes I get called. I've received a few calls of late. Darn! I swore to myself I would never, ever, ever talk about the day job here. This is my writing space. Phooey. That's it. Done with the work thing on the blog. Kaput. No more. Really, I'm just using it as an excuse for not getting enough writing done. You know - the writing thing? The thing I love to do and want to do and would give my left [insert body part] to do full time while still paying the mortgage, but can't because I'm just not there yet.

Work's not the only excuse. Meals. Clean up after dinner. Make the spawn (read: children) lunches. Walk the dog. Spend time with the way, way, way better half. Drive the older spawn to his high school fencing matches, and sit there for two hours trying to figure out what on earth is going on and why the judge keeps flailing his arms around like he's signaling Ricky Henderson to steal home. Read!!!! Six hours' sleep. Watch my beloved and accursed Jets 3+ hours on the weekend. With a remarkable amount of luck, maybe I'll have the privilege of watching them a couple more times this year. Blog. Tweet.

I know there's more.

What I'm trying to say is, writing is hard. Making time for writing is harder.

The Evil Inner Editor

The Inner Editor is quasi-evil when writing a first draft. Don't get me wrong. He ensures I avoid fragments and run-ons. He proofs my basic grammar. He spell checks for me, although MS Word does it too, just not as well as the evil inner editor. These are all good things.

But he's always poking at me while I write, making me feel bad.

"That sentence makes me angry. When I get angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset. And when Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, people die!" "

"Your protagonist's dialog is insolent. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds."

"How dare you use an adverb there. I demand the sum of ... one million dollars."

"That scene. Throw me a friggin' bone here."

In short, the dude slows me down. And yes, he's a dude. He's a bald dude with a bald cat and a miniature clone living in an underwater lair.

I very well know it's fine to write crap, at least in the first draft. But will the Evil Inner Editor let me? How do I turn him off? Why can't he just have a look at the first draft once its written, and then give me one cohesive critique? I'll tell you why. The Evil Inner Editor doesn't work that way.

He's an omnipresent, mojo-draining taskmaster that needs to be locked away in a space ship in geosynchronous orbit around the moon until I'm ready for him. Until then, I'll agonize over each paragraph, sentence and word. I need to stop that. I need to stop him. Sometimes, I'll have the mojo flowing. The story finds its way from my head to my fingers, and the word count shoots up. I need to bottle that. That's the genie that keeps the Evil Inner Editor at bay.

I'm going to start paying careful attention when the words rush out. What am I doing to keep the Evil Inner Editor out of my head so that the story can flow freely? Once I get that figured out, I'm going to try it on purpose, and see if it's repeatable. I'll blog about the results in a few weeks.

Birth of a Novel - Part 8 (and the dog butt is not on my foot)

This is the fourteenth entry in my Birth of a Novel series of posts, where I talk about the development of my new YA urban fantasy.


It's been a while since I wrote a Birth of a Novel post. In fact, you may have noticed that the name and layout of the blog looks different. It's true. Around New Year's I messed around with a few variations, but for now have settled on The Sharpened Pen. I'm not sure quite sure how I feel about it. The layout appears pretty clean, and the name of the blog is such that it should be easier to find me via the googles and bings of the world. We shall see.

Back to Mythos then. I wrote two more chapters since my last post on BOAN (Birth of a Novel, the acronym). These chapters are really about:

DUM ... DUM ... DUM!!!

The Prom.

As with many a prom, loads of really good things happen. Magenta gets to act a bit motherly to young Zydeco in prepping him for the prom. It's a nice little scene. Here's a snippet.

---

“Hmm.” Magenta stepped in front of me, the corners of her mouth curving up. She reached up and adjusted the collar of my suit and brushed some invisible dust from the front. “You look handsome.”

And then I saw something that I thought I’d never see. Her gold eyes, shaped once more as diamonds, glistened. “Are … are you okay?”

She drew back a few wisps of short, black hair and cocked her head just a little. “Yes. It’s just, well, I’ve never been particularly maternal. There were never any little hatchlings.” She chuckled but there was no mirth there. Her lips thinned. “And this is going to sound completely cliché, Zydeco, and I abhor clichés. If I could, I’d collect all the clichés in the world in a stack of papers and then I’d burn them to ashes in one blow.”

I blinked. Magenta was rarely at a loss for words, and this was no exception. “What are you--?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “What I’m trying to say, Zydeco, is that if I had a child, I’d be happy … I would be proud … if that child were you.”

---

I'm weird. I like these little tender scenes. There's a bunch of inner voice from Zydeco who mulls over what it means to have Magenta - the dragon woman - react like this. Any-hoo, I followed this up with some scenes of hint-dropping/foreshadowing. Zydeco picks up Tameina at her place and we finally get a little peek at her dad. It's brief, but I need to get Daddy in the story just a bit more.

There's some Mythos folks kind of "there" in the background, and Hunter and pals still following Zydeco around. And then... they arrive at the prom - at this old city hotel with paneling and a distinct 70's vibe. It also becomes apparent that there are more Mythos around the school than Zydeco realized.

Now then. Former mythological creatures wouldn't have had much dance experience, right? So there are two options for such creatures at a prom.

You have the Blaine "totally fearless" option, a dance worthy of Elaine Benes from Seinfeld.

On the other hand, you might have someone like Zydeco, who is simply not comfortable dancing. Fortunately, Tameina is with him, keeping him calm and luring him into a slow dance. Well I posted a bit of that scene on the blog for the Official Kissing Day Blogfest. From that moment on, this chapter gets a bit on the romantic side for Zydeco and Tameina, as they enjoy the night and talk a bit about the future. Even though Zydeco isn't sure about his future, what with the bad guys rounding up Mythos left nad right, he's in a state of bliss. And as the guy writing their story, I was so happy for both of them.

But we writers must maintain a sadistic side, too. Don't we? As the evil bastard I am, I crash their euphoric night around them. When Lex shows up, do good things ever happen? My goal with this chapter was to make things just totally awful for Zydeco, and I think I pulled it off. I'm very mean in this chapter. And I'm not done grinding Zydeco into the sidewalk with a steel-toed boot. Poor, poor Zydeco. Still, I actually felt pretty bad for Tameina, too. She's such a sweet girl and doesn't deserve any of what happens.

I expected to dig down and plant some "seeds" in these two chapters. Sadly, I realized that some of these "seeds" required planting earlier on, so I'll need to return to some earlier chapters and spread them like wildflowers. So now I've got all these notes like "THIS BIT OF TAMEINA BACKSTORY MUST COME EARLIER!!!". There's even one bit of story I introduced in chapter ten that I expected to resolve in chapter eleven, but I forgot to do so! Yeesh. So there's another note to go back and fix it.

One other lesson I'm beginning to learn is that I've got to learn to turn off my inner editor while writing. It's slowing my writing down as I struggle to get certain paragraphs just right. I must bottle the editor and save it until I revise.

Anyhow, thanks for reading and stay tuned for more.

To read about the last chapter, saunter on back to the previous entry.

To check out the next chapter, slip and slide to the next post.

The A in 2010 to the Q in 2009

Happy New Year, everyone!  And as promised, here are the answers to the remaining questions that came in during 2009. Thanks to everyone who participated. I truly appreciate the questions and the opportunity to share a bit of me through the answers.

Mireyah’s questions
Q) What is your favorite music to write to? (Presuming that you write to music.)
A) There is no one artist and the type of music varies from Rock (current and classic), 80’s music, Broadway soundtracks, you name it.

Q) What is your favorite position to write in? IE: sitting at a desk, laying on a bed, reclining, etc.
A) Sitting at a desk

Q) What is your favorite deadly animal?
A) The rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail or the Black Mamba

Q) What is your favorite non-deadly animal other than a pug?
A) Who says pugs aren’t deadly? Fox.

Q) What is your favorite electronic device other than the computer?
A) DVR

Q) What is your favorite snack and drink when writing?
A) Coffee and cookie/brownie.

Q) What is your favorite mythological creature other than the griffin?
A) Kraken. But, it’s hard to write in their POV.

Q) What is your favorite social network?
A) Twitter

Ralene’s questions
Q) Who is your favorite character that YOU have written?
A) Zydeco Caschan from Mythos

Q) Who is your favorite character someone else has written?
A) You mean besides Harry Potter? Ender Wiggin (Orson Scott Card)

Q) Where is your favorite place in the world?
A) Kanapali Beach on the island of Maui. I’ve been there once on my honeymoon.

Q) What is your favorite number?
A) Thirteen (I was thinking seven)

Q) What is your favorite New Year's memory?
A) We were married for only a year or two, living in an apartment in Fairfield, CT. Friends from college stayed with us. We went out to dinner and this retro dance club. We bought our first television as a married couple on New Year’s Day.

Kurt’s questions
Q) Who would you like to be stranded on a desert island with? Just 1 person.
A) The professor from Gilligan’s Island. He’d have full electricity, plumbing, satellite TV, wi-fi, and a MacBook all by piecing together some vines and coconuts within a week.

Q) My all time favourite (sorry to be boring...lol...) If you had 1 wish what would it be?
A) That the world was a safe place for my kids.

Q) Where in the world would you want to live the most?
A) I haven’t found that place, but it would have San Francisco’s climate, New York’s culture, and a nice view of the ocean.

Q) If you could change the past, would you do anything different?
A) I would have started writing much earlier in life.

Q) If you could have any one thing in the world what would it be?
A) Happiness.

Dawn’s question
Q) Who is your hero and why?
A) Jeez, Dawn. Why don’t you throw me an electrified steel ball with sharp spikes pointing out from every direction? LOL. I haven’t had a single hero that has impressed me all my life. However, of late I’ve been thinking Jo Rowling. Why? Watch JK Rowling: A Year in the Life. It’s not the rags-to-riches aspect that impresses me. It’s more her character. She had a difficult childhood, a difficult early adulthood. She overcame depression and adversity and decided she just wanted to write, thinking that the worst that could happen was that she’d be rejected by every publisher in Britain.

Now then, I'm to pass along the Favorite Gnome Approved Blog award. Seeing as how a major portion of it is Harry Potter related, I had to think long and hard on who's prepared to answer the Infamous Harry Potter questions. So, Frankie, this one's for you. I know you'll do us proud!

Happy New Year!!!!

I see I still have some questions to answer for the Q&A, which ends at midnight tonight. Midnight in New Jersey, I should say. Well, heck, it doesn't really matter since I'm not going to sit down an post the answers until tomorrow after I see Avatar.

Speaking of questions, I'm still looking for more in the form of "What is your favorite ____?" You can post them here or back where I answered the Infamous Harry Potter questions.

Speaking of Harry Potter, have you all checked out the awesome, A Very Potter Musical? This is a fan made parody show that takes you through all seven books. It's beyond cool.

Happy New Year's and stay safe. Here's a funny video with the voices of the South Park kids dubbed over a scene from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.


Harry Potter & South Park 7 (cartman Gets Bitch Slappped) - Click here for this week’s top video clips

Q & A Part I

As part of my continuing effort to remain out of blog prison with a bunch of angry garden gnomes, I have been asking folks to post "What is your favorite _____?" questions that I will endeavor to answer right here.

I'm looking forward to the questions and the beads of sweat forming on my prodigious forehead as I hatch the answers. I'll continue to take answers right up until New Year's Eve, and will answer the last set of questions New Year's Day. All of you -- my faithful death eaters -- er, I mean my loyal and not so loyal followers, you can ask more questions right here, or on where I answered the Infamous Harry Potter questions.

So, without further ado....

Annie's questions:
Q) What's your favorite song from the 1980s?
A) Why not start with the most difficult question of all time. The 1980's - High School. College. MTV playing music videos. There are so many possible answers, one more trite than the next. I will go with Don Henley's, New York Minute, off The End of the Innocence.

Q) What's your favorite season and why?
A) Summer. I can walk the pug at 11pm in shorts and a t-shirt. It doesn't get dark till late. Barbecues!!! I don't have to shovel.

Q) What's your favorite movie BESIDES Harry Potter?
A) Now who said my favorite movie was Harry Potter? None of the HP movies are at the top of my list. My favorite movie(s) are Kill Bill, Volume 1 and Volume 2. Quentin Tarantino at his best. Uma Thurman. Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, David Carradine. The music. The action. The BLOOOODDDDD!

Frankie's questions:

Q) What's your favorite ice cream?
A) Chocolate Peanut Butter. The peanut butter chunks are critical.

Q) Who was your favorite teacher? (dig into the memories, kiddo)
A) I attended the State University of New York at Binghamton (oh, SUNY Beeee, oh SUNY Beee). Professor Warran Wagar taught two particular courses I took: History of the Future and World War III. Yes, those were real courses and were phenomenal. The lecture hall was enormous and his courses were always full. He was a fantastic teacher and he turned all of us on to reading a lot of fantastic science fiction.

Q) What's your favorite tree/plant?
A) Red dogwood for the color. Also, most any evergreen in winter. My least favorite? My neighbor's cottonwood tree that sheds cotton all over my backyard, rendering it useless for several weeks each summer.

Q) What's your favorite sky? (Weird, I know. Sunset, sunrise, storm, etc.)
A) Sunset on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The horizon is stunning.

That's all for now. Keep those questions coming!!!!