Opps. I did it again…

So, opps. It has been a while since I have posted here. I apologize for those that might have noticed. Things happen and things get distracting. Life happens.

So a quick update.

Things have been moving along with my writing. I have decided to go the independent route in regards to publishing. I have been working with my wife and a buddy on a cover. I will post that once we finalize it. But the work that I have been working on has not been Culture shock, or Felix, or Space Courier. I have been working on my old work Dark Ages 2.0

Well, it is no longer Dark Ages 2.0. It is not ‘When the Lights Go Out.’ A much better title. I think it gives it a horror vibe that I really like.

I have completed an editing pass and a proofing pass on it. I fixed some aspects of it that was bugging me. My buddy is going through it with a fine tooth comb and getting me some notes on it. It will be very helpful. He has given me a few chapters back and the notes will help me out a lot. I plan on doing what I have dubbed a voice edit. To those not familiar with my funny jargon, it is when I read the novel out loud to myself and fix anything that reads funny. I do, however, need to wait until my reads get me back notes.

To that end, if anyone wants to help me out and read the novel, please feel free to message me and I can get you a copy of it.

I was intending on this to be about some aspect of storytelling, but I am going to have to keep it short. I will do another post in a day or two.

Later. Keep it shinny.

Nathan Pedde

Ideas and advice

If you want to write novels, then treat it like it is a job. You have to write and get your word count in.

Now to write a novel, it comes from a single idea. I usually start my ideas from a single image or a ‘what if’ question. ‘What if you were vacationing in Tokyo when a society collapsing event took place.’ Or an image of a really cool character. Author Brandon Sanderson wanted to write a story about a guy with a magical beater sword. He wrote his Stormlight Saga Novels from that single thought.

First. Find that really cool idea. Don’t worry about where you are inspired from. Don’t worry if it has been done to death.

Second. Start to ask questions about that idea. Who, what, where, when, why and how. Create your characters, create a conflict. Create a world if necessary. If you need to, write it down. I do recommend writing it down at some point before you forget details. This is where you take that blah idea that has been done before and turn it into something of your own.

Third. Step two takes time. You may find that the idea is hogwash and full of holes. If so, file away and move on. I have about a new idea a week. Most never get written down as they are bad. But once every few months, I have a grand idea that is beautiful. It gets written down and filed for later use. (I have three projects on the go at some point of completion with about a dozen ideas in note books for later use. Kinda like Skyrim Quests.)

Fourth. Plot out your novel. If you are an outliner, outline. Or whatever. Plan the novel. Where is it going? How are you going to get the character from point A to B? What are some of the trials and tribulations that he must overcome? Even discovery writers do this.

Five. Write. Every day. NaNoWriMo style. Go to http://writetrack.davidsgale.com/pls/apex/f?p=228:LOGIN:::::: It is a free tracking site that gives you that chart like NaNoWriMo. I don’t think that it is supported anymore, but I can’t find one that is. I use it though.

Six. (Should be done throughout in my opinion, but whatever) Read. Study. Read books on writing. Read fiction. Listen to podcasts about writing. Watch webinars.

Write like it is not only a job, but a way of life. Getting good at writing isn’t about writing one novel. It is about the process. It is about writing the novel. Polishing the novel. And completing the novel. Over and over again.

A painter didn’t paint one painting and have it a masterpiece. neither do novelists. Write lots. Write many books. And don’t obsess over the one. Learn when it is good enough. Learn when to stick it in a trunk and to walk away.

David Eddings once said to become a writer you must write a million words. Then to burn them. Then you can be a writer.

In conclusion to my rant, plan your book. You can’t just pick it up cold you have to plan it.

State of Pedde- Jan. 2nd, 2017

So it has been too long since my last post and I do not have time to post much on here at the moment. Every moment that I spend writing on this blog, is one moment that I am not working on one of my many projects.

So Christmas happened which is distracting enough. The family got sick with some type of flu.

Now that Christmas is now packed back into boxes, I have more time to get my projects done.

But what do I mean by my projects? And what are my plans for all of my work?

My plan is to self-publish what I had deemed my truck novels onto Amazon or another type website. Am I going to put them there cause I think that my work has no quality and self=publishing seems like the solution that I need?

Not really. I want to self-publish for many reasons. It cuts out the elitist middle-man. It gives me more say in my work. I get to chose the covers for my work, I will have to pay for them, but they aren’t that expensive. I may be able to make one as my wife runs Pedde and Pedde Photography.

So that is the plan. Self-publish my work. Get them out there with out having someone tell me that my work is bad. I just need to get my work vetted and workshopped by some beta readers.

And that brings us to the projects that I have on the go.

I have five projects at some form of work. I brought all of the trunk novels and I am now going to go through them and I will be getting them ready to be published. I am only going to do a couple editing passes on them before I publish.

1. Dark Ages 2.0. Project is in the most complete state. I have done four editing passes on it before I tucked it away. I have given it to my First Reader (my loving wife) to read it though with a red pen. She is taking creative writing in College, so it works out. Once she is done with it, I will make some edits based on her notes and then it’ll go to my Beta Readers. I’ll make some more edits to tweek it more and then it’ll be ready. I have a cover that is mostly done.
2. Felix the Swift Part 1. This one I am fixing the story/ part way through the first draft I decided to take it in a different direction and turned it into two parts. Once I am done, it’ll go through the vetting process like Dark Ages. This project I am actively working on.
3. Felix the Swift Part 2. This is the second part to the story.. It is the original story actually. I had gotten about half way through the story before I changed it. I will need to do an extensive edit to what had written to the first part before I get finishing the second part.
4. Culture Shock. I wrote this project during the 2016 NaNoWriMo. It is currently steeping as the first draft is complete. Once I am done with Felix the Swift I will be picking this one up to do a couple editing passes.
5. Space Courier. This project is a joint project between my six year old and myself. It is going to be in the Middle Grade age group so that means that the word count is going to be much lower. Like to top out by 55k words. About half or even a third of what my adult fiction comes in at. I am writing this story along with my current project. I don’t think that it will hamper the process of the other projects as it is a much lighter of a story.

Those are the projects that I am working on, on top of all the other distractions of a 9 to 5, and kids and a wife and renos to my house.

Wish me luck?

Cheers.

Listening to the Past

So I have found the series of podcasts called Dead Robot Society. It is a group of writers that do podcasts about writing. It is apparently weekly, but they haven’t posted since early December.

So I have been going back to the beginning blog posts to listen to older podcasts. While I wait for new posts to be uploaded.

The problem is that the podcast is 8 years old. With completely different hosts. I don’t see anyone from the beginning that is currently active with the podcast.

The have been talking about topics like genre and ideas and such.The problem with it is that I disagree with most of there talking points and with the blog being 8 years old, I have no way to have a discussion with them to tell them that they are wrong.

Normally, I have no issue with listening to there 8 year old pod cast. It re-affirms my point of view on writing and how it is supposed to be done.

Now, is there a different way to write books? Yes. There is. Will they be wildly different from each other? Yes. I know of many authors that write there fiction differently than me. It is okay.

The thing is that I can gleam some type of truth from there podcast. Sometimes, there is a piece that teaches me a little on writing that I didn’t know before.

This podcast, however, was particularly bad. It was so bad that it was almost hypocritical. It talked in circles, saying things that conflict with each other.

This podcast was about intellectual property. It didn’t get into the topic of plagiarism or actual stealing. It talked about the idea that you can steal ideas. That if I go and tell people my story ideas, that I should feel bad if someone takes that idea and makes a better story out of it.

I call bull on that concept. That concept is coming from someone who doesn’t understand the concept of copyright. If someone lifts passages from one of my books and puts it in theirs, then that is stealing.

If my main character is a samurai sword welding woman who wears a black duster in a science fiction story and someone takes that idea of her and runs with it, that is not stealing.

If I call the location of my setting, “Lucy’s Pub”, and someones takes that. It is not stealing.

If some one takes my idea that the samurai sword talks to her and is very bitter at being a sword. It is not stealing.

If someone took all three of those ideas and put them into a book. Then that could be called stealing. Maybe.

But if all three of those ideas originally found from three or more places, books or not. It is not stealing.

You see, there are no new original ideas out there. Everything has been done before and often. Even that grand idea that you have that is, like so original.

To help prove my point, I will break down James Cameron’s Avatar. More specifically where some of the ideas and concepts may have came from. Now I won’t do the whole movie as it is a long movie, but I will a couple few ideas and concepts.

First. The story is roughly from the story of Pocahontas and the story of Moses. Main character is brought into a different society to eventually decide to join that society and to fight against the society of his childhood.

Second. The concept of having the rider control the animal that you are riding mentally. It can be found in David Eddings Belgarion books. Not a new idea.

Third. Alien planet that air can kill you. Not a new idea. Standard science-fiction trope.

Fourth. Evil corporation that only wants there product and damn the consequences for anything that gets in its way. Another standard trope. You can find it anywhere from the Umbrella Corp of Resident Evil to the Company of Aliens. It is not anything new.

Every idea and concept of Avatar can be found elsewhere. No single idea of the movie is original.

Should the authors and writers of those ideas start claiming plagiarism to James Cameron? No. Unless a vast majority of the movie has been done in a single source, then it is not stealing.

Is there the possibility that something may be close and is so by dumb luck? Possibly.

Should an author be afraid that someone might steal his work? Work, yes. You have to be careful. Don’t put the full work online without taking steps to justify your copyright. Keep original drafts of the work on your computer. That sort of thing. Talk to a copyright lawyer or visit there websites if you want some real advice on copyright law in your jurisdiction.

Should an author be afraid that someone may lift your story idea? No. A single idea taken from a book is inspiration. Not theft. By being inspired by single ideas all over the place, you create a single work that together as a whole is original. Even if the building blocks are not. Like the kid building a Lego masterpiece. (With out instructions of course) Each block and piece are not original and are a dime a dozen. The masterpiece together is original and unique.

If you are so disheartened that you can’t stand the thought of someone using an idea of yours in there work that you throw the fiction away in disgust, then you need to rethink some of your choices that you have made. Maybe get into something less creative.

Just a though.

Cheers.

N. A. Pedde

Distractions Part 2

I have talked before about distractions. I listed the different types of them that I face on a day to day basis. Today I am going to talk to you all about writing times, protecting the writing times and routine in regards to distractions.

I write best when I develop a routine with my writing. I push all of the distractions aside and set the time aside and I write. With having kids, I usually write after they go to bed. That means that I have a lot of late nights.

I also make sure that my wife knows that I am writing and what my word goal for that day is. She knows that if I get my goal done, then I may have time to do other things. I write best when I write at the same time each day.

What does that mean for you? What type of distractions do you have to deal with each day? Write them down in a list if it’ll help you. The develop strategies to get the word count done. If the internet is distracting, but you like to listen to random music when you write, then go down to your local music store and buy some CD’s. Do you remember what a CD looks like? If not, google it. It’ll blow your mind. While you are at it, google 8-track, record player, Beta Tapes and the VHS. Just saying.

I have heard of some writers that have to take there laptop out of the house cause there family is too distracting. They act like it is a real job (cause it is you fools) and they go to an ‘office’. If you are like me and can’t afford to rent out a brick and mortar office to go to, then there are other options. I do like to go to coffee shops occasionally, but the cost of the coffee is sometimes prohibitive. There is other options as well.

The author that I mentioned before went to a friends house where he ‘rented’ out a small room and wrote there. He found that he could write without distractions there and get his word count down.

What you need to do to get the words done will be differently than me. I find that it is different from project to project. What works for one project, is different for a different one. I find that having a set goal, like NaNoWriMo works really well for me.

As of this writing, I am trying to get back into working on my Felix books. It is hard for me to do and I don’t really know why. I am trying a website called write track. http://writetrack.davidsgale.com/ It is a small website that I don’t think is supported by anyone anymore. But it gives me the ability to calculate my word count daily like the NaNoWriMo tracker. This one gives you more details in the program. It is working, but I gave myself too long to do my project. But that’s okay. It is Christmas after all.

That’s all that I wanted to talk about today.

Until next time.

N.A.Pedde

Ideas Part 3

Ideas. I just got one. Is it going to cause a rash? Or is it fatal? What do I do with it now that I have it? Oh noes, I just got a bad idea, how do I get rid of it?

First. How do I get my ideas?

I will usually get a single idea or a scene or a character.

In Felix the Swift, it was the idea of a thief coming back out of retirement to do one last job.

In The Long Journey Home, it was the idea of a guy coming back to his hometown five years after a society collapsing disaster. The idea was of how does conflict and trauma change a person.

Are these ideas run of the mill standard bullshit.

My one word answer.

Maybe.

Those ideas are so broad and vast in nature that they can go any which way. If you give that initial idea to a hundred authors, you would have a hundred different stories.

Once that idea pops into your head. You must incubate it. I say ‘must’ as it has to happen. If you start writing an idea before you incubate it, then there is a distinct possibility that it might be crap.

Incubating is how you sort the good and from the bad.

In medicine, when you get certain diseases, they must take a sample of the disease and grow it in a lab. Once disease has grown, they can tell what it is. The small sample is not enough to determine anything.

Translating that into the realm of story ideas, the little idea that pops into your head has to be grow. You have to use brain cycles on it. You need to expand on the idea, add details in you head, ask questions about it. Fill in holes. See how it forms.

You can either write it all down in note form or just keep it in your head. It depends on how well you remember stuff. I can keep multiple story ideas in my head at once, some people can’t. If you can’t keep it together in your head, write it down. You are big people. you decide what works best with you.

I do, however, have a story idea thresh hold. Once that story idea has a passed that thresh hold without me determining that it is utter shite, then I will write it into once of my hundred of 80 page cheap note books. I will write down all of the info that I can so that it is saved.

If you start to incubate it and then you realize that it is very similar to a TV show or a movie, or you determine that it is utter shite from another way, the best thing to do is to realize that it is shite and tell yourself that. Get it out of your head, put the notebook away.

You may find that that story idea will come back to you at a later date in a different form. It may or may not be any good. It is for you to decide.

Anyways, lots more to talk about, but it’ll have to wait until later.

Cheers

N.A. Pedde

Ideas Part 2

Ideas. Where do they come from? How do you get them? Are the contagious?

In basic, plan speaking. Ideas are like going to the liquor store and shopping for scotch. There are shelves and shelves and shelves of utter crap cheap scotch that will make you drunk and probably feel like shit the next day. However, there is that good scotch that sits in a corner of the shelf. The price tag is a touch heavy for most people and they stay away from it.

Where was I going with that analogy?

I am not sure. Anyway.

Ideas are like vacation hot spots. There are the standard run of the mill spots that are filled with slobby tourists. They might even be fun to go visit and to check out one day, but they tend to leave a bad taste in your mouth. There are those great vacation spots out there. Those hidden gems. Those spots that are not highly known about and are wonders to see and to experience.

That is a good analogy of book ideas.

We are all hunting for that great idea, but all we get are the standard run of the mill book ideas that have been done a gabazillon times and will be done another gabazillon more before this year is out.

If you get one of those ideas, should you use it to write with?

In a one word answer. Yes.

Just because you get an idea that has been done to death, it doesn’t mean that you should not use it. Use it up. Enjoy it.

Going back to the three answers, ideas are everywhere. They fill the muti-verse, the universe and Narnia. They are everywhere. Ideas can be found under rocks, inside cabinets and usually come to me while I am squeezing out a deuce or singing in the shower.

Usually makes for a funny sight of me scrambling to get a note pad to write that shit down.

I will pause to let you get that image of me out of your head. Or back in. Your choice.

However, like the cheap bottles of scotch and the cheap vacation hotspots, or bad porn on the interwebs, over-done ideas are everywhere and they fill up hollywood. It is our job as writers, novilists and authors to recognize the good ideas from the bad, and to throw the bad ones back into the verse like the cheap crap that they are.

I do have more thoughts on this subject, but they will have to be for a later time.

Cheers.

N. A. Pedde

Third Post

So I am writing one more for the day. This one is about the distractions that we must navigate past. I only have written 600 words tonight due to having a cat and a lazer pointer. Endless entertainment. For me, I am not sure about the cat. I think that he was having a blast. Maybe…

My standard distractions that I must fight through.

Youtube. I find funny video’s and movie clips entertaining and distracting. I do, however, use youtube for the different types of music as I tend to write to music. I wrote Dark Ages to Johnny Cash music. I got my first draft of Long Journey done to Mumford and Sons. Sometimes I get distracted on the way to the youtube music channels.

Kids. I have two kids and they can get distracting. Ballet, Piano. It can get pretty busy in the house.

Christmas. It is December. Need I say more?

Wifey. She needs time too. I understand.

Renos. Luckily I own my own home and I am currently in the middle of some renovations. Actually I bought a fixer upper and it is taking me a long time to finish them.

Day Job. 9 to 5 jobs suck. But necessary. Not going into any more of this.

Video games. I have 98 games in my steam account. I have a problem okay. I know I have a problem, but when steam has megasales, I just can’t help myself. Stop judging me!

Until next time.

NAPedde

 

 

Different Stories

So I know that I said that I would only be posting blog posts every few days or something, so this one is a freebee. (Not like you have to pay for this.)

I am going to tell you about some of the different story ideas that I have. But before I do, I have to say one thing.

Am I afraid of someone ‘stealing’ my ideas. In a one word answer.

No.

Ideas are just that. Ideas. You can tell a group of a hundred writers to write a story using a single idea and the hundred different writers will each come up with a different and unique story.

I will start with the Trunk novels that I have actually not destroyed due to there great suckage.

Dark Ages 2.0. It is the story of what would happen if all of a sudden that a solar storm knocks out power to the entire globe. Bam. No power. Think about all of the stuff that you would loose. Look it up. It is scary.

Felix the Swift. Thief extraordinaire is a thorn in the side of the local nobility. What happens when he is brought low due to his crimes. Forced to work in a dark, damp mine. Will he earn his freedom? Will he find revenge to the wrongs that were done to him? Will he ever see daylight again?

The Long Journey Home. Darren is visiting his father in Tokyo Japan. At age sixteen, he is looking to move to live with his father. During a visit over spring break, Yellowstone Volcano blows it top setting off a chain of earthquakes and tsunami’s. How will he survive living in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet with out rule of law of even the basic of services left intact?

Those kinda turned into book blurbs, didn’t they?

I will be posting more about ideas, how to get them, how to nurture them in the coming days and weeks.

Cheers.

N.A.Pedde

 

 

First blog post

This is my very first blog post at WordPress. I am intending this to be a daily or a near daily blog post of a couple hundred words each day of my thoughts and feelings for that day. It will not be edited from when I wrote it and it may have inconsistencies and speeling errors in it. I apologize to all the gramanazi’s out there that may be offended by my lack of caring about my spelling or lack thereof.

I am an amateur author and I am currently working on my fourth, maybe it’ll turn into my fifth trunk novel. What do I mean by a trunk novel? It is a novel that an author writes when he is first starting out. They are usually sub-par and are generally weak books. An author can have up to a couple dozen of these works before they start getting novels accepted.

Now what do I mean by my ambiguous trunk novel count? The first complete novel was very bad. It was 100k words of utter crap. I deleted it. Novel number two was my Dark Ages 2.0 book. My third is my Felix the Swift book, which may or may not turn into two books. My fourth is my Long Journey Home book.

Now you see why it is ambiguous?

Now granted that Felix the Swift and The Long Journey Home are only at the first draft complete stage, I am not sure that if they count completely. So I am not sure if that counts or not.

But then again, who is counting? Or is all of that me just trying to stoke my own ego? Do I even have an ego? I am not sure.

All of which will be a subject for a much later date.

N. A. Pedde