July 2020 Update

July has been a busy month. Many words have been done, with many more not done. I went into this month full tilt, despite delays from being summer. Who wants to be inside writing when I live walking distance to the beach. I have published Order of Ghosts Saga Book 1 and Book 2 will be released on August 15. I am finishing up some last-minute details on it. I have more books planned, so making the 7 books published by the end of the year is an actual possibility.

2020 GOALS

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
   • (Bonus) Write 800,000 words as a stretch goal.
2. Write every day of at least 500 words, making words in a row at 731 days in a row.
3. Catch up on editing, allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
11. Write update blogs at the start of every month.
    • Write an update blog for the remaining months.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs
    • (Bonus) Loose another 20 lbs

Breakdown of Goals.

As I have so many goals, and many of them build on others, I will be only going over the goals I am dealing with at the moment.

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
   • I am at 375k words for 2020. This month I wrote 67,439 words. If I keep this pace up, I will be around 641k words for the year. This is good. I am writing way more than I did last year. I have managed to write more words this month than any other month since I started recording.
   • You may have noticed a stretch goal of 200k more words. This is not a sane decision. I recognize this. This is due to me looking at the novels I wish to produce this year and realizing I’m not going to get the manuscripts complete. I don’t expect to get this done as in order to make my 800k goal, I will have to write 2700 words a day. This is a crazy goal for someone who types it instead of dictating. Like I said. I don’t expect to get this done, but it is not for the lack of trying. Next month I need more if I seek to make the 800k stretch goal. I need another 19k words each month to make that goal.
2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
   • I am on day 579 of 731. I am making my goal. It is hard at times, but I am doing it.
3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
   • This is working. I suspect that I will be working on this goal until December. But we will see how I do. I have more to do with editing, I may have to work more on it, but with the added Bonus goal, it may be hard.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
   • I got this one down. I have managed to make it something I do during my normal day.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
   • I have decided to only do covers for books that are getting close. No need to stress over it. At the moment I have covers for the three Order of Ghosts Saga books. I will seek to get more covers once others get closer to publication.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
   • Done! Enlisted. Book one of the Agent O’Neal Saga.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
   • Kidnapped. Book two of the Agent O’Neal Saga.
   • Enlisted. Book three of the Agent O’Neal Saga.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
   • I am only counting books published and not on pre-order.
   • Felix the Fallen. Book one of the Order of Ghosts Saga.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
    • This is being done. I have yet to miss one and I don’t attend to miss it.
11. Write an update blog for the remaining months.
    • This is to keep going. No time to waste.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
    • I should write some short stories.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
    • I need to make a move on this. No one can sign up to something that doesn’t exist.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
    • https://www.facebook.com/groups/nathanpeddeauthor/
    • I now have a real Facebook group. This is a step in the right direction. Come join it. Join the party.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Loose another twenty pounds.
    • My January weight was 277lbs. My weight today 252lbs. I am twenty pounds lighter. This was all done by intermediate fasting. It seems to be working. As the year is only half over, then I will strive to loose another 20lbs.
    • My weight has not moved in a month. I have plateued. This was expected at some point. As of today, I have started the Keto diet. My wife is on it and has lost 15lbs in the threeish weeks she has been on it. Also, her energy has gone up. This is something I need.

Future Plans.

I have so much to do. With the insane publishing plan, I need to buckle down and get things done. This will be hard with summer fun standing in my way. For now, I need to get my hands to the keyboard and write. Complete things and learn more about marketing.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Writer’s Block vs Imposor’s Syndrome

Imposter’s Syndrome:

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one’s accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. Wikipedia

Writer’s Block:

“Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown.” Wikipedia

There is a difference between Impostor’s Syndrome and Writer’s Block. Impostor’s Syndrome is real and Writer’s Block is as fake as the Earth is flat. The reason for this, is primarily that I suffer from Impostor’s Syndrome and I don’t for Writer’s Block.

With Writer’s Block, I don’t see it as real. The basis of it is that there is this mystical muse that allows a person to be creative. If you don’t nurture your muse, then you will not be able to gt anything done.

For me, the Muse is my personal servant. (I would use harsher terms, but not on this platform.) Writing prolifically is a learned skill. It is something a creative can train themselves to do. It is discipline that propels me forward every day. I have talked about this before and won’t go into a lot of detail here.

Writer’s Block is where your subconscious has a problem with what has been written. Either something in the plot was incorrect or the character doing something wrong. Long story short, in the process of writing, something went sideways and must be corrected. Writer’s Block is not seeing the error. To correct it — go back and delete the words.

Impostor’s Syndrome is that innate fear of being a failure and having people recognizing that fact. This is something I fear. It is something I have to fight with every day. Though some people also claim this isn’t real, it feels realer as there is no concrete solution for me. No way for me to convince myself otherwise.

Correcting Impostor’s Syndrome is hard as it involves rewriting reactions and mental state. I hear it is possible to do, but it is hard. I don’t have a path to walk.

Have you ever dealt with Impostor’s Syndrome?

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

When things get Tough

The last few months with COVID, going to school, and having the kids at home makes it hard to get anything done. The kids demand attention. My wife wants me to be more than just a body clacking at the keyboard. This is all understandable. The kids are just kids. They don’t understand the greater picture of what is going on. They don’t understand that writing my novels is my job. I’ve managed to talk to them about what is going on, and I think I have convinced them. However, when they ask a thousand silly questions in a row, I have my doubts.

My wife is another story. She is my confidant and business partner. She helps me with some of the non-writing aspects as well as being a sounding board for me to figure things out like new story plots and such.

There is also financial toughness. COVID has put millions of people out of work, and that causes hardship. Paying rent, bills, food, etc. That is all up in the air for most people. For me, this is not the case as I am going to school and have student loans, among other things.

For me, toughness is when things stagnate and slow down. I like having a purpose and being able to strive to accomplish that purpose. This is a big part of my writing. Having a goal and a mission to keep things from going sideways.

For many people during this COVID pandemic, they are without work, stuck in their homes, and bored. They have no purpose — their purpose was work. They have to passion — it was watching the game on Sunday. Many are being paid unemployment or some type of subsidy to get them through financial difficulties. However, the abundant amount of spare time leaves the mind idle.

So, after all of this, I ask what are you doing during this pandemic. For me, the answer is simple. I’m writing and publishing.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

I did a thing… then got to do another thing!

So I wrote a thing and then I was invited to another thing.

Alive After Reading is a podcast where Tim talks to writers about writing and everything in between. I am not the only author on the show. He has interviewed some like Paul E Cooley, Sarah Johnson, and H.M. Gooden. Take a listen, you won’t be disappointed.

But to my weekly blog.

Throughout my time blogging, I have written about various topics from futurism to my theories about motivation and everything in between. I tend to talk about what I want, and I may repeat myself. I’m not much of a good blogger. I just write words on Sundays, some of them have a specific topic, the rest are ramblings. Like this one.

As a writer, my greatest strength is that I write lots. I don’t see it as I see others who write more. My wife kindly reminds me that more traditional published authors only write and publish a single novel per year, and I have already got that done, and its only May. I will have two more novels published before July. Plus, I have three more novels, another trilogy that will be published by the end of the summer.

This excites me as it is two years of work is coming to frustration. A lot of time was spent learning my process. How do I write a boatload of words, plus edit them without losing momentum? Also, how do I write every day, while juggling school, novels, second drafts, edits, proofreading, marketing, social media, my wife and my kids?

That is what took me two years to learn. Juggling my priorities to the best of my abilities. My solution is to keep my goals reasonable (my wife laughed at this line when I told her) and to lose the unneeded things in my life. This was video games, movies, and TV. The parts of my life I don’t need. I write instead.

If you want to get a goal done, then sacrifices must be made with an eye for priorities.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. All of my books are available on Kindle Unlimited, and if you have a subscription, they are free. Help support me by reading my books. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

COVID 19 and Loneliness

With most people being locked in their houses, going on months for some, a sense of loneliness has spread across people. People are going crazy as no one can interact with anyone. It’s like a bar that needs to be filled up, Sims style.

Being a bit of an introvert, it didn’t take much for me to be content. For me, when I was working at a real job, I had a certain amount of social interaction with my co-workers. After I was laid off and I went back to school, I had some from my class-mates. I was able to use them to fill that bar.

With COVID, I haven’t talked to anyone I met in university. My need for social interaction is not coming from anyone I met there. Which is fine as the level of social interaction was face to face and not online. Most of them I talked to on campus.

In the course of both stages of my life, I spent some of it online. My online writing contacts were there. Is it enough to make me feel fulfilled?

Not really. Writing to someone in a chat is different than in person. There is video chat, but it still is not the same.

The reason I talk about this is not to complain about what I am going through. There are some that are going through worse time. This is to talk about how I didn’t see the social interaction I was getting. I thought I didn’t need social interaction.

This is not true. I need social interaction, like everyone else. I also doubt anyone who says they don’t need social interaction. Those scenes in I am Legend with the Will Smith character so lonely that he is talking to mannequins as if they are real. For the longest time, I never truly understood the scene. I never understood how a person could get so lonely that he has gone nutters.

Being locked up in my house, I can see that happening. Of course, my life is nowhere as secluded as the fictional character. Humans are social creatures, and we can’t get away from it.

In conclusion, I wonder how you have been reacting to being secluded in your home? Which secluded movie character do you identify with?

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free on Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

April 2020 Update

With the ideal of keeping honest and transparent, here is a breakdown of April.

COVID-19

With still being locked down in my house, and everywhere closed or operation in a take-out only function, I have yet to get out to write much. My standard writing procedure is to rotate the place I write in. Most times I write at my desk. Except when I get “cabin fever” and must get out of the house. Before the COVID-19 bull, there are a few coffee shops I like to write in. One of them is Starbucks. But I only use that as they have a policy stating they can’t kick people out. The other is a coffee shop right on the beach. Being stuck in my house, I had to figure out how to stay productive.

Goal Recap.

2020 GOALS

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
11. Write update blogs at the start of every month.
    1. Write an update blog for the remaining months.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs.

There are my goals for 2020.

Breakdown of Goals.

As I have so many goals, and many of them build on others, I will be only going over the goals I am dealing with at the moment.

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
   • I am at 204k words for 2020. This month I wrote 48,670 words. If I keep this pace up, I will be around 614k words for the year. This is good. I am writing more than I did last year. I want to raise that number for the year up, so I will have to do better in April
2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
   • I am on day 487 of 731. I am making my goal.
3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
   • There has been changes with this number. I looked back at my Felix story and decided to make some big changes in regards to the magic system. This means I now have an additional two novels to be edited. On a plus side, I have received edits for my Des O’Neal books. Look for updates on that in the next few weeks.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
   • This is being done. I have more focus on this than my other goals. Editing finished work is a week spot of mine. The time getting it done at least. I have been getting more editing per day than words. (Especially with changing Felix #1 and #2.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
   • Working on this. Hard going, but expect updates on it soon enough.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
    • This is being done. I have yet to miss one and I don’t attend to miss it.
11. Write an update blog for the remaining months.
    • This is to keep going. No time to waste.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
    • I should write some short stories.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs.

Future plans.

I am getting close to being about to publish some manuscripts. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it isn’t a train. I hope to get things moving and up. Being in the fifth month, I have yet to publish anything. I need to change that. I hope things will move soon and I will have some new titles being launched.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Zero to 500k: A Story of Perseverance

To fully understand how far I’ve come and to put things into context, I will explain in brief, my writer’s journey so far.

In December 2018, I was a different author. In 2018, I was about to quit writing; hang up my hat; walk off into the sunset. In 2019, I had more confidence, my writing is cleaner, and I have published books. The reason for my change – a half-million words and thirteen manuscripts completed.

I was in my last year of high school and taking English 12. At that time, I wanted to follow my idol, David Eddings, and write fantasy novels. I had a world in my head, needing to get out. My English teacher told me to stop trying. I did scrape out a ‘C’ in her class.

Fifteen years from then, my life changed many times. I went to film school, got married, got into a career, had two kids with my wife, moved across the province, got laid off from my job of seven years, and decided to go back to university.

I spent seven years working on my first novel. I thought it was great, but after re-writing it six times, I destroyed it and the horse it rode in on. By summer 2017, I’d written seven incomplete manuscripts in different stages of completeness. I had the squirrel syndrome terrible.

During the entirety of 2018, I finished and published my fantasy novel after three attempts to complete it. Another writer friend, who is also self-published, encouraged me to publish it. At the same time, I managed to complete a post-apocalyptic novel I’d been working on, then a military sci-fi. None of the three made any traction, and by December, I wanted to quit and call it a day.

My accomplishments to that point were I had 25k words average per year written over fifteen years of writing. It’s not very fast for an independent author who relies on steady and speedy publishing to be successful – publish or perish – or so it is said.

In my mind, I was a failure:

1. My stories were decent, but they’ve been better.
2. I was not ready to publish when I did.
3. I knew there were errors in them, but I didn’t know what they were or how to fix them.
4. Despite having three novels completed, seven were incomplete, and I couldn’t focus on any one project.

I tried my best, but perhaps my English teacher was right. I thought maybe I should quit; fifteen years of trying and failing can’t be lying after all. Luckily for me, I have a writer friend who had my back. He saw the diamond in the rough when I only saw shit. “Polish a turd still makes a turd,” I said.

He suggested giving this writing thing one more try. I wrote a list of goals to be ambitious. I needed to push myself, starting with writing every day. Writers write, after all. The ambitious goal I made was to write 500,000 words; dividing it equally per day came to 1370 words. But the idea was to write every day and then see what happened. I was unsure, but I wrote it anyway.

365 days later, and my mentality changed. By writing every day, it built up the discipline needed to bridge the gap between an amateur and a professional – someone who didn’t quit when the road got rough.

*That is the flowchart I made to help track my progress.*

I’d never used a word tracker to that extent before. I found they never helped me. The green represents days I wrote over 1400 words, while the yellow is anything lower than 1400 but over 150. Any day under 150 words would have been red. I didn’t have a single day under that number.

Besides developing the discipline to write, I learned other lessons:

1. Motivation failed me for fifteen years. I learned motivation was as useless as climbing a mountain while wearing flip-flops. It’s easy to become unmotivated.
2. Discipline is the reason I stay up late to get work done. It’s the reason I make a sacrifice to accomplish my goals. Discipline is the reason I seek to improve as an author. It is the reason I wrote 526,997 words in 2019 and the reason why I’ve continued the trend and have written 119,658 words in 2020 as of March 11, 2020. It’s the reason why my writing streak is at 437 days in a row. Keeping the writing streak going became the reason I wrote some days.
3. Forcing a daily minimum, allowed me to write on days where I wasn’t motivated. Some days I went to write the 150 words and then pumped out two thousand.
4. Writing a novel shouldn’t take years to accomplish. It’s not a hobby or a casual task. By writing to make those goals, allowed me to complete the seven incomplete manuscripts and write five more to complete twelve novels.
5. Protect your writing time. Writing takes more time each day than is expected. The family means well, but unless the house is on fire or flooded or both, then time needs to be protected.
6. Writing a substantial amount highlighted the common errors I was making and gave me material to get workshopped.
7. Not to get tied up in other people’s word counts. Other people’s circumstances are different than mine, and I should only look at my own.
8. A big word count is not the end all. There’s more to do than writing the words. There’s editing, book design, cover design, marketing to get a handle on.

The moral is there is never time to quit and to ignore motivation as it goes nowhere. A better strategy is to learn how to discipline oneself into getting the work done. Find a system that works and to keep it up. For me, it is my writing streak. What will it be for you?

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free on Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

February 2020 Update

With the ideal of keeping honest and transparent, here is a breakdown of February.

Before I start. Oops.

At the end of January, there was supposed to be an update posted for the month. This had been missed. It had been written and not posted. So this means goal 11 will not be able to be completed. But that’s okay. I will make the other blog posts and keep going.

To sum up January, this was the second-best month I have ever done at 57k words. My editing is doing well making the daily editing goals.

Goal Recap.

2020 GOALS

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
11. Write update blogs at the start of every month.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs.

There are my goals for 2020. I won’t be able to get the number 11 cause of my goof. But I will get others. I’m sure there are going to be many that I won’t be able to accomplish.

Breakdown of Goals.

As I have so many goals, and many of them build on others, I will be only going over the goals I am dealing with at the moment.

1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
   • I am at 105k words for 2020. This month I wrote 47,811 words. If I keep this pace up, I will be around 631k words for the year. This is good. I am writing more than I did last year.
2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
   • I am on day 426 of 731. I am making my goal. Every little bit helps.
3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
   • I have five manuscripts waiting to be editing or currently being edited. Progress is being made. I think.
4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
   • This is being done. I have more focus on this than my other goals.
5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
10. Write one blog post a week.
    • This is being done. I have one to talk about today, which will go up after this one is done.
11. Write update blogs at the start of every month.
    • See above.
12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
    • I should write some short stories.
14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
15. Set up a Patreon account.
16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs.

Future plans.

More of the same, but with more short pieces written. With the three I am apart of, it has helped my Amazon Rankings and has gotten me a few sales. I do want to get a few other books published, however.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

The Cell: Review

This is something completely different. A review of a book.

Enjoy.

In 2005, the King of Authors, Stephen King wrote the biggest pile of toilet paper I have ever read, and I’m a Creative Writing Major, so I read a lot. Cell is full of broken promises and a wandering plot. Clayton Riddell is a graphic artist visiting Boston to get his first book deal. At 3:03pm, the “Pulse” blasts everyone else’s brain into jelly, then turns them into ravenous zombies. Clayton needs to find his way home in Maine to find his kid, who he left with his ex-wife, all before the child gets turned into a brain-dead beast.

Admittedly, the opening section of the novel is amazing. It reads like the best of the Zombie Apocalypse genre. From page one to where Clayton and his companions get out of downtown Boston, tension rises and the threat Clayton might die is real. He doesn’t know who to trust but must trust someone.

Despite the initial promise, this story is not meant to be a Zombie Apocalypse. The author meant the novel to be a psychological horror; the first broken promise of Mr. King. Once the first day is over, tension from the zombies disappears, never to be seen again, like the precious time it took me to read this horrid piece.

King gets nothing accurate with firearms. One: it’s called a magazine, not a clip. Two: revolvers don’t eject spent brass on their own. Three: in the United States automatic firearms are banned. Four: the AK-47 has been banned in Massachusetts since 1994. Five: even if obtained from out of state, it won’t fire thousands of rounds a second.

In addition, Clayton and his companions don’t use the looted weapons in any meaningful way. This adds another broken promise King in his Godhood doesn’t fulfill.

The Zombies develop from the standard brainless ones to something different and unique. This strategy is meant to adapt a dry trope. However, the developments of the zombie evolution into new psychic beings aren’t seen by Clayton. It’s told to him by a plethora of useless bit characters, all of whom exist to tell Clayton one fact, and to never be seen again.

The last major issue in this crap-tastrophe is Clayton’s kid. Throughout the novel, Clayton yearns to find him, but he doesn’t try to get home. He wanders around the countryside getting sidetracked. Spoiler, the reader isn’t introduced to the boy until the very end of the novel.

Why is this strategy an issue? There is no tension generated with the kid. He’s just a name repeated. If Emperor King had put one tiny scene at the start of the novel, introducing the reader to Clayton, his ex-wife, and his kid playing on a cellphone, then there would be tension, a plot worth reading and forgiveness for the other sins. If he had done all that, I wouldn’t have thrown this book across the room and off my balcony, before going outside to retrieve it as it was assigned reading for a class.

Studying past battles to Write about the Future

As you may know, I am a lover of history and a futurist. I have previous blogs where I talk about some of my thoughts on the future. I also study history.

I look at the reasons events happened and how it affects the people living through the events. This is for two primary purposes. Studying historical geopolitics allows for more realistic stories. And stories are about people, after all.

Events in the past have echoes that reverberate through time. This can be argued by using the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty that ended World War One) and how it helped sew the seeds of World War Two. Another example is how the end of World War Two set the stage for the following Cold War. One event sets up another as no event happens in a vacuum and no events happen without context.

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the Vietnam War and the Korean War without understanding why the Cold War was even a thing. Once the Cold War is understood, then both events become clear. The reasons the leaders made specific decisions will make complete sense once the context is understood.

For an author, this is important to make sure the situation the characters are tortured in, makes sense. There are dozens of novels with unsubstantiated geopolitical events with armies waging uninformed events. Understanding geopolitical history can allow science fiction and fantasy authors to have realistic settings.

An example of this is where a science fiction story has a large amount of trench warfare. Understanding the events of World War One and World War Two will tell the author that trench warfare is impossible if one of the enemies is mobile. The French learned this the hard when Divisions of Panzers circled around the Maginot Line. In World War One, trench warfare was a reaction to the use of machine guns and artillery. This devastated infantry in the open without cover. In World War Two, trenches were used on a smaller scale to hold specific strategic points. In a futuristic science fiction story, trench warfare will only happen if mobility is removed. Why hide in a trench when you can drive back to safety?

Living throughout the event is a single important person. This one person is who the story is about. A story can’t be easily told about the event. Then it becomes a history text. This is shallow and dull to the reader. 

Studying how a person lived in the middle of a vital event allows an author to truly understand him. A soldier fighting in World War One will experience war differently than World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. These soldiers all experience the horror of war. However, it’s unheard of a soldier in the Vietnam War to have to go over the top to charge the enemy trenches. Soldiers of World War Two enjoy knowing which way the enemy is, luxuries a soldier of Vietnam never experienced.

What does all of this mean for an author?

That is simple. The urge to write a futuristic story that mimics a historical event or situation is great. I’ve read a few where the soldiers fought a large, final melee charge at the climax of the book. This makes no sense when they have rifles and bullets. A futuristic science fiction battle would be different if the enemy has a battle fleet in orbit. This is also evident when an author tries to explain how the war started. One event breeds another, which breeds another.

Once the geopolitical and methodology of the event is set up, then the soldier’s experience can be modelled to make some type of sense. If a soldier on the Western Front of World War One had to describe his war, he might choose “Mud.” One fighting in Africa in World War Two might use the word, “Sand.”

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.