So here I am. This is obviously my first post and I'm hopeful it won't be my last. I have no illusion that anyone will care about what I say but I'll say it anyway. I'm sure I'll talk about anything and everything from my struggle to get in shape to my nerve wracking classes at the Art Institute, but the primary function of this site is to represent my writing and my first book, A Gathering of Storms.
I once again spent my entire night line editing. The process of removing as many weak/unnecessary words as possible and now I see them everywhere. I've used several in this blog and I'm not going to touch them. It's very hard to have an open dialogue without using the dreaded -ing words, but I have to admit every one I remove from my book makes it read better, at least to me. I figure I'll be done with line edits by the end of the week and then I'll have to figure out what I'm going to do with my book.
Do I go on the agent search or do I try my hand at self publishing. Lately I've read some simply amazing self publishing success stories, but I've read just as many assessments that state they are the exception and not the rule. That makes a lot of sense to me, so as appealing as it is I have my reservations. On the other hand when it comes to finding an agent my cloud of self doubt is firmly in place. I imagine my query letters going straight from the mailbox into the shredder without even being opened and a very clear image of some pompous ass sitting behind a desk laughing at my hard work. Is that what will happen? Probably not, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Either way I'm going to chronicle my journey right here for anyone who happens by and feels like keep tabs on the drama.
Well, lets get started. A Gathering of Storms goes a bit like this. "In the wake of a series of unfortunate events a trouble young man sets out on a journey to save the woman he loves before she becomes a monster." Catchy tagline huh? Well, I like to think so, but what do I know I'm still a desperate starving artist with big aspirations.
Like many people I've spent hours reading the endless masses of young adult fiction that is being deployed on the book shelves on a daily basis. Some of my favorites are The Hunger Games and The House of Night series, but that wasn't where my initial love of the craft blossomed. I've been at this for a long time but I've never done anything with it. I've been told that in the 1st grade when my teacher asked the class what they wanted to be when they grow up I said "a writer" while everyone else said fireman and policeman. I don't know if that story is true or not, it's become one of those memories that I was told instead of remembered. What I do know is that I've wanted to write for as long as I can remember and I have. I've wrote several screenplays and started a great deal of novels, but I never finished any of them. The screenplays at least made it from point start to point end, but I never revised any of them. It's a reflex I developed to deal with my fear. Writing is a process I understand what comes after the piece is finished is alien to me. However, I'll figure that out soon enough, I'm not getting any younger.
A Gathering of Storms, began over 11 years ago as a passing thought, because I read a lot of Anne Rice and watched a lot of anime. I know right? A marriage made in heaven. Anyway, I never wrote any of it for real. I juggled ideas in my head and kept coming back to it over and over again in between other projects, but never tackled it. Then the Twilight craze hit. I'm not big for crazes, but this one intrigued me, because after I watched the first movie I felt like there was something there that the filmmakers didn't touch on, so I read the book and found that even the author hadn't touched on the element that appealed to me, and I felt it was a miss opportunity on their part, so I revisited A Gathering of Storms, again. The vampire has become a very romantic creature over the decades, but I think the vampire has a monster has taken a back seat to the romantic vampire. I wanted to create a story that turned the convention back on it's heels. A story where the vampire comes into a young couples lives and throws everything into chaos like a force of nature, and only love can beat the monster.
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