Category: Talking

Sea of Secrets / The irony is not lost on me.

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Yeah, yeah — I know I ranted yesterday about the sins of the flesh, and the evils of money.

But today – buy my friend’s book!

Sea of Secrets – by Amanda DeWees

I’ve known Amanda for a long time, and she is super-classy and dripping with charm and a certain delightful malevolence. I haven’t read the book yet [other than the excerpt on Amazon], because I plan to obtain a copy clandestinely from the author herself under the cover of night, while wearing a dashing cloak.

Think of it as karma, wrapped in chocolate. The nicest thing you can do for a new author is buy their work, with actual money. Think how happy a waiter is when you give him a nice tip — this is easily like 4.3 times that exciting for the author. Or 80% as exciting as when you get a new puppy.

How can you keep such joy out of another human’s life? Do it!

Click on the [tastefully designed] picture of the cover, and you can purchase this book on Amazon in Kindle or print formats.

I know this period is a favorite for a bunch of you — and you will definitely enjoy Amanda’ style.

 

 

Eve Forward by Neccessity

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Hey — anybody read this book? It’s awesome.

Why? That’s a whole ‘nother blog post — what I’m curious about is where the heck has the author, Eve Forward, disappeared to?

This book has been out of print forever, easily fetching over $500 on Amazon, and more on eBay and rare book sites. And I though “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the author put out an ebook version, or ..hey, I wonder what she’s writing now?”

A rudimentary websearch turned up a nearly barren wikipedia entry, and a wordpress site that may not even be hers. http://www.eveforward.com

So, come on WP nerds — what’s the deal? Someone out there in the vast internet’s gotta know.

Writing Schedule

G. Derek Adams9 Comments

After much deliberation, I have only conservatively adjusted my writing schedule. I wrote 9 pages last week, and really wanted to be a badass and set my benchmarks up to 10 pages a week, to force myself to finish the rough draft that much quicker.

But in a moment of sober adulthood, I kept it at 5 pages per week.

I know — I’m a little dissappointed in myself, too.  But The Schedule has been a great security blanket while working on That Thing, and I knew it was wiser not to put myself in danger of falling behind.

In other news, writing is cool.

A gray afternoon.

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

Man, it’s hard to be grumpy when your evening consists of a stage production of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, followed by performing with a local burlesque troupe.

But I’m doing a pretty good job of it.

I’m still going to work on That Thing, and update my writing schedule.

But I will be petulant about it!

Petulant also sounds like the name of an Elder God.

Or a good cat’s name.

 

 

Clackety-clack.

G. Derek Adams6 Comments

There’s something nice about typing. The comforting clack of the keys and the black words sliding across the white empty box.

At my day job – I type a lot. A LOT. 100 emails is an average day. And when I sit down in the morning, I actually feel a dim sort of muscle-pleasure at the prospect of typing. On weekends, or days away from a keyboard I feel an odd sort of regret.

I’m also particular about keyboards — I miss the giant, tall-button clacky ones from older PC’s ..and typewriters! Man, typewriters were awesome.

So, the eternal question – why do you write?

Because I like to type, apparently.

Century of Words

G. Derek Adams21 Comments

Very productive couple of days on That Thing – I just crossed the 100 page mark!

I know it gets old, me crowing my feeble accomplishments — it must seem so unimpressive to WordPress at large. But this is the first time for me on a long-form writing draft. [I know, I know — I should just give up and call it a “book” or “novel” — that neurosis is a whole ‘nother blog post.] The first time I’ve ever had 100 pages of my words in one place — all existing and crap.

My writing schedule called for me to be hitting this benchmark by  3/3 — so I am nearly two weeks ahead of schedule! I don’t want to jinx the productiveness of this week, but on Friday I’m officially going to recalibrate my schedule — don’t want any danger of getting lazy, or losing the forward momentum. I’m shooting for around 140 pages/45,000 words for the first draft — very exciting to feel I’m so close.

I know, I know — lots can go wrong in the next section. But as any unpublished or semi-published author can tell you — you gotta take the days of deluded optimism when they come. There will be plenty more rays of Infra-Doubt to dodge later on.