However, after some recent chiding, both from friends and that wall in the photo above, I decided it was time to get back off my ass and get to editing. Again.

If you recall, I’d started the Blue Pen (story, flow, pacing) edits of my novel ages ago. Then life got busy, or editing got hard or whatever excuse I want to come up with. Damn, that was two minutes? Okay, so, long story short, I stopped. And I stopped for a long time, like the better part of a year.

But I’m back now. And I’m cruising through the Blue Pen edits as quickly as I can. That way I can get through the Red Pen edits and then start shopping this book about.

And writing the next.

But, in order to do that, I’ve imposed a strict communications blackout each night. Two hours of solid editing. No Googling. No Twitter. No text messages or phone calls. Just me, that massive timeline above, and Scrivener.

Okay, three minutes. Time to start the tea.

Oh, before I go. I’ve got a title. It’s no longer Project Kingdom. The book is now called “A Heresy In Flames.”

Piece of cake, right

After a sporadic five months, I can say with some certainly that Project Kingdom does not suck. It’s not great, but as you can see above, the bones are there. All I have to do now is go back, cut out the crud, rewrite the crap and fill in the holes.

It was a bit of a rough road to get here, especially as I was sticking to the hard part of Hemingway’s maxim “Write drunk, edit sober.”

If you’re wondering about the image, that’s the revised outline for the book. Those are just eight of the hundredish  pages of content I generated outside of the Project Kingdom story. I have a working notebook that includes geographic data. I have an army guide which delves into unit sizes, outfiting and movement rates. I have crudely drawn maps. And I have an original timeline which I now realize I did not put nearly enough thought into.And, of course, my editing journal.

Those above eight pieces of paper contain every scene in Project Kingdom, and they’re color-coded to let me know what needs to happen with each scene. Green scenes need to be moved to another point in the story. Red scenes need to be written in order for the plot to make sense. And the light blue scenes need a massive overhaul. Black? Those just need a minor overhaul.

Did you just hear that? That was the sound of my social life crumbling. Going to be a sober Spring.

First Draft and Celebratory Champagne

Late in the evening on Labor Day, I finally wrapped up the first draft of Project Kingdom. I popped the champagne, invited over some close friends and threw some steaks on the grill, and promptly put the printed beast onto the shelf with all of my other work.

It wasn’t easy. I wanted to jump right into editing, to maintain the momentum I had built up in August and early September to carry me through the writing period most easily described as “hell.”

But I gave the story some time to breathe and myself some time to recover. Like a cooling off in a relationship, I tried to occupy my time.

I made up for all those late nights drinking and writing by going out, drinking and not writing.

I started playing golf, poorly.

And I got back to reading. I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading, and I put down at least 6 books in the last two months.

But, in the back of my mind, there was always that nagging voice complaining, “Hey man, don’t you have a book to edit?”

You can only shoo that voice away with whiskey for so long (but be damned if I didn’t try.)

So, as November crept into existence, I made up my mind to get back into the process.

I took my manuscript out of the cube shelf it was resting on and moved it to the steamer-trunk-cum-coffee-table. I let it taunt me there for a few days.

I took the cover off the first volume and reverse it, so I could pull printed chapters off individually without unseating the entire work.

And I told myself, repeatedly, “I’ll start editing…right after I finish this television show/movie/book.”

Saturday turned out to be blissfully quiet. I cleaned the house, started the laundry, and did some grocery shopping. Following that, I picked up Project Kingdom and realized just what a mountain I had in front of me.

It has quite literally been years since I read the prologue (which was way too long at 1500 words) and the first few chapters (which failed to introduce the characters and set up the motivations for the remainder of the book…oh and foreshadowing, I needz it).

So, after getting jacked up on coffee, I grabbed my green pen and started carving.

Mighter than a nerdy double entendre

I trimmed and rewrote the prologue, taking it from a bloated and unnecessary 1569 words down to a tight and cracking 400.

It wasn’t so bad, this rewriting thing.

I then immediately jumped into chapter 1, completely rewriting the beast. The rewrite successfully defined the protagonist (and changing the spelling of his name), painted a clearer picture of the initial setting and amplified the violence.

I also used the F word on the first page, which may or may not survive further edits.

I’m hoping to move through Green Pen edits – fixing plot wholes, characterization, mechanical errors and shitty writing – by the end of the year, end of January at the latest. From there, I’ll pick up the red pen and push through heavy copy edits – fixing grammar and cutting down on the word count – and I’ll hopefully be submitting this bad boy to agents in the Spring.

You know, as long as the publishing industry doesn’t collapse by then.

Like a proud parent

The above photo is notable for several reasons:

1. It is photographic evidence of me wearing pants on a weekend
2. Despite having been out of the Army for six years now, I still haven’t found t-shirts more comfortable than Army issue brown tees.
and…
3. Yes, I have the gall to hang a Doves’ Some Cities poster next to a Toulouse-Latrec print.

Oh, and that manuscript in my hand? That’s a large chunk of Project Kingdom. For those of you keeping score at home, I am currently halfway through Chapter 29 out of an outlined 40, and sitting pretty at 77,000 words written.

Formatted for editing – double-spaced 12 point Courier New – I realized that I have given birth to a doorstop. The beast is closing in on 400 pages and tips the scale at more than five pounds.

All of these details, rendered in physical form, amaze me due to one very large fact. I cannot remember starting Kingdom. It has sat dormant for the better part of the last two or three months. I like to think that those months was a period of glorious gestation, where I was somehow becoming a better writer and doing things that will better Kingdom, but honestly? If there was a Manuscript Protective Service, they would have placed Kingdom with a loving foster novelist ages ago.

Kingdom’s a survivor, though. She’s moved computers at least twice. Moved apartments. Out lasted a couple of girlfriends. I’m pretty sure that when I started Kingdom I had both a functional car and television. Hell, the beast has killed a printer and untold ink cartridges.

The index cards used for pre-writing that hang above my desk have yellowed from cigarette smoke. And I don’t even want to think about how many bottles of booze have been sacrificed to Kingdom.

Put to the question, I’d estimate that I started writing Kingdom sometime around spring 2009, but I wouldn’t swear by that.

But now, as I wait for the house to cool, and think about lining my stomach before I start throwing bourbon at it, the end feels so close. If I can crank out a measly 5000 words a week, I can wrap the first draft before September. Then, it’ll just be several hellish months of editing. But at least I’ll be able to hold the entire thing.

And after the last couple weeks, that’s damn huge.

Don’t be thrown off by that explanation, 4D mapping is just a method used to equate space and time as measured by light. I can’t crunch the math on it, which is why Summer is safe from me taking her job, but the theory basically states that time and space are the same thing.

The video itself is stunning, and can easily impart a sense of interstellar loneliness on the observer. And it made me instantly flash back to a video that probably had a far greater impact on my childhood than anyone at Warner Brothers Animation intended. Of course, I speak of Yakko Warner’s Universe Song

That song does a fairly good job of driving home an existential crisis, doesn’t it? To think, this show was aimed at grade schoolers.

For those who prefer to feel insignificant with a more upbeat tempo, and loads more British thrown in to boot, there’s always Monty Python’s Universe song from the classic film “The Meaning of Life.”

And I suppose I should say something uplifting now like, even though you got a parking ticket today, you can take heart in knowing that at that very moment, a star, somewhere in the far off reaches of space, was born. But really, that’s not my style. Instead, I’m going to be logging of the Internet in a bit to get back to work on my book.

My current goal is to complete the first draft of Project Kingdom by February 14th. Valentine’s Day. How many stars will be born between now and then?

Yes, that does mean I am starting my own company. And I already have some really cool clients. Instead of operating a strict SEO company, I’m leveraging what I call “conversational marketing” – that is combining smart SEO practices with helping companies take advantage of social media to find current and new customers and turn them into friends.

And speaking of social media, I presented on that very topic – of honing in your passion and finding others who share it – at this month’s Social Media Club here in Richmond. I had a blast and will post the videos of said presentation when they become available. I use the plural because not only was my presentation recorded, but I was also interviewed by Jolie O’Dell who came up what I believe she called “Robb’s Theorem on Furries in Niche Marketing.”

The basic premise of that theory is that furries, people dressed up like animals pretending to be people, is perhaps as far removed from normal life as any particular niche or vertical can be. And yet, when you take that passion and expand it onto a global scale, furries measure in the millions. If such a finite passion can measure in that quantity, other niches can reasonably duplicate that kind of community.

The video interview wasn’t the only bit of press that night. Grid Magazine was in attendance and snagged not only the photo of my above, but also a fairly good recap of the night in general. I do believe that this article officially marks the first time I’ve been on the other side of a printed byline. Yes, I’ve been on the local NBC affiliate a few times, but there is a special place in my heart for printed journalism.

And finally, in fiction writing news, I am now a full chapter into the second act of Project Kingdom. In the traditional Three Act Structure, this one is always my favorite. Why? Because the first act is really a setup, establishing the characters, pushing the hero on their call to action, setting the characters on their chosen paths and providing small victories which seem huge at the time. The first act, in other words, is driving by the characters. In the second act, everything is taken away from them.

Mark my words, the second act of Project Kingdom is where things get real. Across the board, characters find their best laid plans going to waste, and even those pulling the strings find themselves losing control. People die. Things go wrong. Powers shift and roles are revered on a regular basis. And I’m exceptionally excited about writing it.

But I’m going to pound out a short story first. Why? Well, I watched the documentary “Postcards from the Future” on Friday night, and Chuck Palahniuk got me all inspired. I started thinking about technology, darkness, and the digital artifacts we leave behind. Throw in a castoff line from a Washington Social Scene Song…(“If any rock’s going to save my soul then what the fuck is it waiting for?”) and a story started to brew.

I banged out an outline in a few minutes, and I liked what I saw. I still don’t know the characters, but I’ve got 4,000 words left on my goal for WriteClubRVA, and I figure it’s about time I knock out something I can show.

I guess that means people are going to get a free story from me. If you’re wondering what my short stories typically look like, I’ve got a couple online in my portfolio.

*Bonus points if you got that movie reference. Hint – it’s my all time favorite film.

As a war veteran, I’m more than familiar with death. The problem is, how far do I water down life and death in combat for my readers?

I’m prone to lean towards realism while trying to maintain the sense of story. After all, I know that war is something for people with a serious stomach, and I don’t want to turn off any readers.

So, the first kill in my novel is rather cinematic.

Setting the scene

Edmon, the spearman in the following, is one of the two protagonists in my novel. He’s just one of dozens of characters, but the story follows him rather closely. In the following scene, he engages in the first act of fatal violence in the book. It’s by no means the last.

In an attempt to make the scene easier on the reader’s palate, I’ve made it more cinematic. My question is…

Too much?

A cry caught his attention, and instinct guided the blade of Edmon’s spear upwards. His eyes locked in horror on a pair of hands raised over a head, grasping the wooden handle of a large rock hammer.

Those hands went limp. That rock hammer fell slowly, tumbling downwards. Edmon watched it as it passed arms that framed a face covered in a beard, black tattoos, and soot. He watched the hammer fall before rough shoulders and a bare, barrel of a chest. He watched it fall in front of a stomach splashed red and wet in blood.

The hammer clanked and clattered against the ground, jumping up and down a few times until finally settling with a handful of shivers. Edmon reached forward and pushed the Bayard warrior with his foot, freeing the end of his spear. The fallen warrior slumped onto the ground, groaning slightly as Edmon kept on his flanking run.

The later violence proceeds in a much quicker manner, however, this scene greets the reader a scant five pages into the first
chapter.

What do you think?

How do you handle violence in your works? How do you handle violence in your works? Do you hide it behind clever art, or deal with in blunt realism?

As a war vet, as some one with kills attached to his name, I can say that there is no sense of morality attached to the act. But, for the reader’s benefit, should I construct one?