Tesla’s Travels – Research and First Chapters
Tesla’s Travels is moving ahead faster than any of my other projects. I spent a long time outlining, designing, and constructing the world. Unlike Journey to God, Tesla’s Travels has to be designed to support two books, and two short stories. While there is a short story and book that won’t fit directly into the Tesla’s Travels story vein they will exist in the same universe. So, I had design give independent stories that all use the same foundation material.
Non-fiction books are flying into my home, and I am reading them as they arrive. I needed a massive foundation in various disciplines in order to write Tesla’s Travels. Sadly, to push this project ahead, I became a recluse. With all the foundational information completed, I began writing.
I am sitting at six chapters and counting. The goal is to be done with this book by the end of June or the middle of July.
Updates to the Manuscript Section
Upgrades have been made to the manuscript page. I rewrote the manuscript page’s main section, added the Journey to God subpage, and updated the Primo Capite and the Others subpage. These updates should clean up all these pages. It is weird, I want to share information about these manuscripts, but I don’t want to give away anything important. So expect the manuscript section to be a revolving door with different information as I try to nail down the perfect blurb.
On a secondary note, I have sent a treatment of Journey to God to the agent who sent me the personalized rejection letter. It took me awhile to get all the necessary parts in place. Also, it was weird handwriting a letter that required perfect grammar and spelling. In the end, I realized my handwriting is atrocious but my spelling and grammar are solid.
Journey to God and Tesla’s Travels
Journey to God has officially moved from a work in progress to a completed manuscript. Soon, I will be writing it’s blurb in the manuscript page of the website. Many lessons were learned from Primo Capite and the Others: grammar, sentence structure, editing, and time management. All of those lessons culminated in completing Journey to God in a semi-polished state with minimal secondary editing, which is now done. Also, I got an editor that has been fantastic and has helped me grow immensely in my own abilities. If you want to see an example, look at the short story section (that section is there to show my journey and growth as a writer).
After I finished Journey to God, I began editing the manuscript. It was a breeze because the writing was stellar in comparison to Primo’s first run. Once I finished editing, a wave of uncertainty sent me spiraling (for about a day). Luckily, I had three book ideas lined up. So I began the heavy process of creating the plot lines, world, and demographic information for Tesla’s Travels. This piece will be the precursor to the short story: The Bohr’s Protocol. Unfortunately, to make sense of the world I will have to change The Bohr’s Protocol to fit the world of Tesla’s Travels. So, the chornological layout of these stories will be: Tesla’s Travels (book), The Bohr’s Protocol (short story), and a second book (no working title yet).
Well, there are two of the three book ideas. The third book is a secret. However, a should be releasing a hint in short order.
Lastly, I will be querying the agent that sent me my first personalized rejection letter. As stated in My Journey to Writing section of the website, this letter is framed and sits next to the computer I work on. I am drafting all of the paperwork to send her Journey to God and hope this piece is more to her liking. For some reason, I feel obligated to give her the first opportunity to see this piece. More than likely, it is because her letter inspired me in a weird way. That single failure showed me that someone was listening. If no one was listening, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.
Journey to God, my Odometer
Miles keep getting added to the book. Around 5:00 PM today, the word count was: 59,366. Saturday and Friday night were spent getting ready for the first climbing trip of the season (I am exuberant over here), but I was able to get some text on the page during the afternoon. Then came today, I hit my stride by turning off my phone and listen to some Gustav Mahler. Four amazing chapters poured out of me, and I realized that I am close to done. Journey to God only has three to five chapters till the rough draft is complete. As I write this post, I realize I am spent. Thus, I decided to go to bed now (8:02 PM my time) and continue writing in the morning.
There is some good news, the short story hiatus will be lifted soon. Oh, and don’t worry, I have been stock piling all the ideas that I wanted to write over the last couple of months. Based on my pace, expect a short story in two weeks. Journey to God should be completed Tuesday and that means my self imposed ban will be lifted. Man, it feels good to read and write.
Getting the Rhythm
For five weeks, I was too busy to work on Journey to God because school work was taking up the majority of my week. Last semester in a class, I touted my ability to sit for hours on end and fall into my work with no realization of time’s progression. Yet, life happens and the effect is my writing declines. I want writing to be my priority, alas, it isn’t always possible with school and work. During these lulls, where I cannot write, I traditionally read heavily and outline other works. Yet, these extended periods of “life” create a problem where I cannot get into my rhythm of writing for hours on end.
I experienced the fear of not being able to sit and write, this week. Sitting was making me itchy and I was unmotivated because of fear. I wanted to write, I had the ideas, but they weren’t coming out like the used too. In two days I wrote a combined total of ~4000 words. This was good, but it wasn’t my pace for writing in a day.
Now, I am finishing up a day of writing, and gearing up for bed, but I wanted to share. I got my rhythm back, and was able to crank out ~8000 words today. With my old pace back, I should actually finish Journey to God by next week. Just in time for me to go on a climbing trip. I will have a pen and a journal with me. I am hoping to come back with a new short story. The forest has been kind to me, and many pieces have been birthed from a wooded campsite.
Journey to God is currently: ~48,000 words.
Everybody Loves Updates!
Some quick notes:
1) I am free from my classes for a week. That means I have put the hardest course in the program behind me (finished the semester). During that class, I didn’t have time to write, so I am devoting the next week to writing and finishing Journey to God.
2) I submitted to the Amtrak Residency Program (I doubt I will get it because they want you to have a social media presence and I don’t), for other writers here is a link: Amtrak Residency Program. During a hellish day in the kitchen, I lost the seven hours I wanted to devote to Journey to God. With that loss of time sticking in my brain, I decided riding a train for 5 days would be a wonderful way to get away from the everyday distractions that comprise normal life. Would be nice to see Montana.
3) Began outlining my first short story since Love, Journey to God is still the priority.
4) Doing massive upgrades to the website and the About Me section is starting to get populated with data.
Either way, time to get back to work. Thanks for sticking by me as I dropped off the face of the Earth!
Updates on the Modifications
Well, some of you have noticed that the website has experienced drastic changes. After I learned the back end was stable, I decided to upgrade the front end and make it more visually appealing. In order to do that, I commissioned a great friend to handle the logo design, my letter head, and business cards. This is my old roommate and, arguably, one of my best friends. You will see that the Chameleon* tags have begun to disappear over the last week and be replaced with my logo (the quill in wax). I just wanted to personally thank him on my website**. Since I don’t make money on writing, I am currently paying him in beer and hugs! Thank you for everything you have done, and continue to do, you are a great person and exceptional friend!
*Chameleon refers to the theme I purchased from Elegantthemes.com. After modifying their code, their name and website links have disappeared, because I chose to never advertise on my website and maintain a transparent operation. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the rough layout that has begun to form!
** If you are interested in his work, use the contact form to reach me. I will pass your information onto him. I refuse to allow any advertisements on my website, thus his information is not available, but if you are interested I will reach out to him on your behalf.
Changes to the Website
Originally, this website was designed to be a place to display short stories and give updates on my manuscripts. I also wanted to show my growth as a writer. To do this, I began leaving short stories on the website to show my personal progression. Since this site was designed to show my growth and provide updates on manuscripts, I made it a secondary priority to my actual writing. As some can see, this is technically the second site, the first website was lost and the backups failed. While the work was preserved, all the formatting and text that was written directly into the site disappeared.
The original reasons for the website will remain: display my short stories, show my progress as a writer, and give updates about my manuscripts. However, there will be changes to the appearance of the website. Some functionality will be modified to help with flow. This site was to prove that I had a stable platform before spending time and money developing it further. Now that I know it is stable, I will be modifying the appearance over the next month. My primary priorities are my master program and Journey to God. Thank you for reading, and I hope you like the modifications!
First Short Story of 2014 – Love
I didn’t stick to my hiatus and took a day off to write my newest short story: Love. Now, I am going to be short winded and just post the link. Time to catch up on lost time with Journey to God. Enjoy!
Love – The State of Affairs
Journey to God is going wonderfully. The second novel is flowing well and is on track to be completed by the end of February. However, I am still reviewing my previous works and had to break from my forced ban on short stories.
I wrote a new short story today, instead of working on Journey to God, Love. While progress was made in the novel, it was hampered by the new piece. My editor will be finishing the edits shortly, and that means a new piece will be added to the website. Look for it this week. This new piece is short, in word count, but that is a choice I made in hopes of working on my minimalism. I feel like the density could be a draw back, but the goal was using the least amount of words possible to convey the phenomenon I try to discuss.