Category: Fantastic America

My Grammarly summary came in – I have had over one million words checked as of last week! I’m not patting myself on the back too hard, but it is still an important milestone in my journey. 🙂

  Writing is full of coincidences.  When I first started to read, the books I chose (or that chose me) were by Piers Anthony.  He would write a small summary in the back of later books of the coincidences that came up while he was writing.  I thought some of those were neat and some of those seemed a bit of a stretch (even at 12 years old).  I’m a believer in the coincidental now.

  I’ve been writing in earnest (this time) for two weeks.  My coach lived in one of the settings in my book, at the time of the events I’m writing about, giving me full access to any details about that location.  Last night, I was putting together another location for a scene I’ve yet to write.  I chose that location over a year ago.  I went to revisit it on Google Earth and it happens to be right next to the site of one of the happiest memories of my childhood, an amusement park in North Carolina I haven’t visited in over forty years!

  I know there are more coincidences ahead, I may even have over looked some already.  I have no doubt all will be revealed in time.  I can’t wait to find out what else awaits me!!!

Jerry, the main character of the short story tie-in to the book I mentioned yesterday, is very different from Pearl the Ghost. Where she’d like to help the living, Jerry could care less, I’m not sure how, but if there is a way to care less, he’d find it. I’m writing him into the book in part, because he is so alien to how I think or the things I would do. Jerry is just about anyone’s idea of evil. You’ll meet Jerry if you read his story, in a mental institution, the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, in Bridgewater Massachusetts, to be specific. He’s not the kind of fellow you’d want to meet in a dark alley (or really any where in real life for that matter). You’ll find out what other things Jerry and Pearl have in common when I release his short story for free, right here in this blog and on my Renegade Galaxy website!

I’ve been writing this book (This Time) for less than two weeks, and I’ve already accumulated close to 30K words – that’s a third of the way to my target! But that isn’t all I’m doing, I’m planning for a larger story arc, and I have a short story about one of the characters in this book. I’m trying to figure out how to format it as an E-book, set up a page to give it away and talk about how the character influences the larger narrative. Whew! Plus finishing the 60K words I have left to reach my target, Fantastic America is really taking shape at last!!!

I’m over 26000 words into my 90000 word novel – Time is flying and my word count is too! I’m filling my sandbox right now, and all these words likely won’t end up in the finished product, but just keeping track of my progress gives me incentive to press on. As uncle Stan would say, EXCELSIOR!

She’s the oldest resident of Shady Valley Tennessee, from the book I’m writing, Fantastic America. You’ll get to know her a little better in the book, but without giving anything else away, here’s how readers will meet her:

  “Pearl, for the people who will watch this interview, could you tell me who you are?”

  “I’m Pearl Barrymore, mistress of this house, born in Hick’s Ford, Virginia colony, May fourth, 1763.  I died in this very house, June 10th, 1808, at the age of forty-five.”

Pearl has a message for the living, and a warning to go with it. Strange forces are afoot, and Pearl has just enough information about the otherwise inscrutable events to propel the story forward!

Tonight was one of those times where the words just flowed for me. I got the ideas down, felt the rhythm take over, and let the words fly. Not every night is like that, and maybe tomorrow I won’t like how the words on the page read back. Either I’ll like it or have to edit sometime down the road, but for the sake of progress and momentum, tonight was an excellent way to start the week!
I won’t run out of things to post here as long as this writing marathon goes on, but if any of the four folks out there who read this want to ask any questions or make any comments (like an actual conversation). Have at it – I think comments are enabled (if not I’ll have to figure that out too!). Otherwise I’ll spout off about what I’m writing, how I feel about it, and where I want this all to lead (spoiler free of course).

Magic takes several forms in my book. Without getting spoilery: The characters in my story have no idea what magic is or is not, readers will have to discover that along with them. I can say that much of what they encounter first will be dark and frightening. There is more to what is happening than they will know, but I’ll leave those surprises for readers to work out for themselves.

In my story magic doesn’t appear full blown after a long absence, but builds over time like water flowing into an empty vessel. That makes magic weak at first, and keeps many magic creatures that might wander into the world away. An exception to this are creatures from the Dark Domain of the Dead. Since they are already dead, Earth’s environment poses no challenge to them. The first, most obvious danger in the story comes from mindless, animalistic zombies, animated corpses only intent on eating the flesh of the living, and spreading their undead taint among an unprepared world.

Fortunately for the world of Fantastic America, people don’t remain unready for long. Imagine the chaos of actual zombie outbreaks, and how modern epidemiologists would respond. Still, ravenous undead remain a looming threat in the steady march to awareness of just how much the world has already changed, and a foreshadowing of home much change is yet to come!

I thought I’d take this blog a little further than a journal of my nightly writing routine. I’ll tell you all a little about the story itself. I’m writing a contemporary fantasy (I really struggled to categorize the narrative). It’s definitely Fantasy, but not High fantasy, or Magical Realism… It’s not a good fit for Urban Fantasy either. Let me tell you what it IS and you can decide for yourself.

Fantastic America is the answer to a question I asked myself: What would people in the world we know do if magic suddenly worked again after being dormant for thousands of years? How would national governments, religious institutions, and individuals react to the upending of the status quo humanity has taken for granted all that time?

Well, the journey to answer that question is wrapped up in what I’m writing! You’ll meet characters who embrace the return of magic, those who fear it, and those who want to stuff it back into what ever box it’s been hiding in all this time. Few people can use this powerful new force, even they have no idea how it works. One thing is certain, the return of magic also reveals that we are not alone. Monsters long thought to be myths have come to nightmarish life. Humanity must find ways to cope with the dangers that continue to emerge from the return of magic, and that friends, is only the beginning…

And that’s ok! Today I’m playing taxi driver, disrupting my carefully crafted overnight writing routine. I still got time in the seat to write, but not as much as I’d like. Still, you have to live life to write about it, and I don’t begrudge my family a moment of time. Tomorrow (or later tonight, really) is another day! Also, I’m officially over 10% into the novel despite interruptions…

I’m still making headway! Another 3000+ word night. I reached a small milestone tonight. I’m halfway to the first 25% of the word count for my manuscript (My target word count is 90,000) so I’m right at 11,250 words so far! I don’t expect every night to be this productive, but I’ll take them as long as I can keep churning them out!

It’s the end of August as a write this, and for those of you who don’t know (99.999% of people on planet Earth) I started writing a new book this month! It’s called Fantastic America, and I hope you’ll love it. The book is contemporary fantasy, but if that doesn’t mean anything to you, that’s okay. Its the start of a series set in a version of our world where magic suddenly returns to the Earth after thousands of years. It’s not the end of the world, but it might be the beginning of the end!

I’ve started this book before, I’ve started this series before, but I’ve never finished any of it. What’s so different this time you ask? PLANNING! I have done all the heavy lifting up front: research, a story arc, and a more detailed outline than I ever thought I could write. I’ve written by the seat of my pants so long that I never finished what I started, until now.

I’m almost a month in to this planning, and I have to tell you, I’m excited! The first book has practically written itself. The characters have come to life at my fingertips, their dialogue flowed onto the page as if I was just recording what they were saying over my shoulder. The scenes are vibrant, sometimes creepy, and always entertaining, at least for the few people who have read what I’m planning. I’ll keep everyone updated here as I progress through the chapters I write. Along the way I hope to share snapshots of the journey, the highs and lows, and maybe even teasers of the story, its characters and settings.

I’m sure it will be a wild ride – I’ve set a deadline for All Hallows Eve – October 31st, 2020. Check in with me here to see how I’m doing!