Month: September 2019

Delirium

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

Today’s post is going to be short. I was up all last night with a sick kiddo. That’s not hyperbole. I was literally awake from 11pm-5:20am. I slept for a whopping total of two hours. Not even two consecutive hours. So I’m a little out of sorts stringing words together today.

I usually write first thing in the morning as a way of starting my day. I’m most productive in the morning and there’s just something great about getting the writing out of the way so I already feel accomplished well before lunch. Even in my sickest, I can usually power through, but today was one of those rare exceptions. I haven’t been this tired since the twins were born. Even then, I don’t think I ever had an all nighter this bad.

I used to keep a daily total. I’d jot my numbers down along the margins of my outline to record a positive or deficit to my average word count so I always hit my target. The only time I keep such figures anymore is during NaNoWriMo as I’ve become pretty good at averaging out. As you can imagine, writing was skipped today. I’m okay with that. I’ll just hit double the words tomorrow to make up for it.

In case you missed it, I was interviewed on Authors Interviews last week. I’ve been interviewed a couple times before for different things, but this was the first time I’d ever been interviewed as an author so I thought it was pretty cool! Hopefully you will too!

Here is my interview with Dan Melnick — authorsinterviews

On By Dan MelnickIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie. Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age? Hey everyone, I’m Dan Melnick and I’m 35. Fiona: Where are you from? I’m originally from Pennsylvania right outside of Hershey – where all the chocolate […]

via Here is my interview with Dan Melnick — authorsinterviews

The Process

On By Dan MelnickIn Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I typically experience some growing pains when I start a new project. I need to ease into it. “It” being both the habit of contributing daily words to a document and the ability to hold a new world and all its complexities in my head. I give myself a couple of weeks to get back into the swing of things, but with Partners in Crime, I was off to the races from day one. Getting back into the head and world of Elias, The Architect, supervillain extraordinaire of Altered Egos was like riding a bike. That’s saying something because I never learned how to ride a bike. Don’t look at me like that. I grew up on this steep hill with lots of woods all around. It was a whole thing.

Anyway, I guess this means I really “get” this character which is good, I suppose, since I fully intend on him leading a series. This is the first time in like eight years to have shifted my writing time table so much. I typically start a manuscript around June or July and take about four months to finish a book. Then I spend the rest of the year revising and polishing that book. By the time I’m happy with it, it’s next June or July and while I’m pitching the old one, I’m starting a new one. There was no real rhyme or reason as to why the summer was my go to start date. That just tended to be my writing habit and schedule time after time, creating a cycle. That all changed thanks to the size of Land of Blood and Sky.

Starting later in the year than usual means that I’m actively looking forward to NaNoWriMo this year. I relish the excuse to crank out 50k words in a month and put a sizable dent in the book. Now, I suppose, I could just do that now. I mean if you remember, I didn’t get a chance to really participate last year thanks to family obligations so I held my own NaNoWriMo in February. I could make my own again, starting today even, voluntarily sitting out NaNo, or do two back to back, but the idea of cranking out 100K words in sixty days … well, it doesn’t quite scare me, it’s more like just thinking about it is making me tired and I’m already exhausted thanks to little kid with the sniffles who didn’t sleep last night. I’d hate to burn out so quickly.

Besides, my brother wants to participate this year. He’s a writing appreciator and has dabbled with some stories over the year but doesn’t have the time to spare. A big part of NaNoWriMo is the community aspect, so it would be fun to have a writing buddy again.

So yeah, while the timing of Partners in Crime throws me, it’s actually a refreshing change of pace. I’m excited to be back in Basalt City and I’m eager to get into the manuscript so I can try this whole full time novel writing thing I’m attempting to do. My beta readers should have their notes of Land of Sky and Blood back to me by October and the goal is to not drop the ball on Partners in Crime while I edit LoSaB at the same time.

Normally I don’t ping pong back and forth like that between projects, I’m too eager to get one finished for pitching, but this time around I’m eager for the work. Change can be good.

MMMMM …. Is Good Yes?… Pleeaase.

On By Dan MelnickIn PersonalLeave a comment

Did you hear a metaphorical shovel striking earth this morning? I certainly did. Partners in Crime, the sequel to Altered Egos is officially started. I realize that doesn’t mean a whole lot to you all as you can’t read either of them right now, though. My goal is to finish the first three novels of the series before the first one, Altered Egos, comes out to help with rollout momentum.

Speaking of momentum, I also decided to do something different this time. Because writing isn’t a full time job for me, I’ve only ever worked on one project at a time with something akin to metaphysical horse blinders on pretty much all the time. Things get a little more muddled when I’m waiting or editing one work – I’ll usually get started on some aspect of another, but I still try to keep them all compartmentalized. That means there are some lulls for me throughout the year and definite times when I’m not writing.

This just won’t do anymore. So while I’m writing PIC, I’m also doing prewriting for Altered Egos 3. Usually, I would wait until PIC is all wrapped up to hit the prewriting phase for the next project, but I’m trying to flow from one to the next as seamlessly as possible now. It should definitely speed up my output – so hopefully you won’t be waiting too long to read these books I keep talking about – and it’ll also make the material more related to each other as I’ll be better positioned to make changes along multiple points in the series.

In other news, my wife and I have been watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance on Netflix and I gotta say, I’m just blown away every episode! I remember when they announced the series and the internet was pretty excited about it and then it was released and … nothing. As far as I know, we are the only two people on the planet watching this show! Okay, that’s not true obviously. A simple Google search will tell me otherwise, but I don’t want to do that in fear of spoiling something for myself.

But seriously, the care and detail in this show is staggering. I used to say “It’s like a fantasy movie that just happens to be filmed with puppets” but it’s more than that. It’s a cinematic fantasy movie that just happens to be filmed with puppets! I’m sure the script just has characters doing things as if they were actors and to the benefit of the show, if they can achieve the desired action practically, they’re going to do it it! There’s some CGI to smooth things over that often enhances the visuals. Except when it doesn’t – looking at you Skeksis tongues. But usually, it’s pretty good. Great even! Even though its a Netflix show, I want physical DVDs with the hope that said DVDs would come with behind the scenes making of featurettes like the Lord of the Rings.

You could be cynical and propose this was all a cash grab praying on our collective nostalgia. And maybe it is, but that doesn’t take away from the tremendous amount of work they put into it. I watched The Dark Crystal as a kid, but I wouldn’t show Age of Resistance to my kids until they were older. (Not that they could follow the current plot anyway. Even I have a hard time telling the Gelfling characters apart sometimes.) It’s a little violent. Somebody gets their eye eaten away while they’re still alive and I now know the color of Gelfling blood. I suppose Netflix knows their audience and target demographic well. We liked the movie when we were kids, but we’re all grown up now.

When my wife and I started watching the show, I couldn’t stop grinning. Nostalgia is just that strong. But at some point, it stopped being about my love of what was and became a love for what is. I am thoroughly invested in this show now. If my desk could support any more tchotchkes, it would probably have a line of all ten Skeksis right now, but alas.

I was going to be on board with this thing no matter what, but I knew they had something special when my wife turned to me at the midpoint of the season and said “Okay. They got me.”

Presentation Does Matter

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal, Writing ProcessLeave a comment

I’ve been playing a lot of Skyrim on my Switch lately in those rare instances when I’m allowed to turn my brain off for a while. Skyrim is an odd choice for me, not because it’s a huge RPG — I love those — but because I’ve already played it when it first came out over seven years ago and decided that I didn’t like it.

The urge to pick it back up again came to me on a whim and boy am I glad I listened. Aside from the inclusion of the DLC material, there’s nothing new about the game on Switch. It’s still the game I played seven years ago and put down. So what changed?

I think its the portability aspect. I love having this entire world in my hands. Usually, I hate open world games. Its part choice paralysis and part narrative pacing problems — I’m looking at you Final Fantasy XV. See, in open world games, you’re given the main quest line to follow and then as you go through it, you’re constantly running into peripheral things to do. With the fate of the world or empire or whatever at stake, it kind of breaks all narrative immersion when you stop to help someone find their chickens. Find your own dammed chickens! But I digress …

This time, I knew what I was getting myself into. I decided just to play the quests I wanted as long as they were relevant to the plot in some way. Each decision, I massaged out in my brain so it was all part of a single narrative experience. And the fact that I could take this entire world with me in the palm of my hands was what sealed the deal. Even if I only have ten minutes to spare, I can just dive in and lose myself in Pict, the Dragonborn for a bit.

It reminds me when I tried reading Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind for the second time. I’d heard all the usually things when it first came out, read about fifty pages, and just couldn’t get into it. I figured I’d never read it. Who has the time to read books they don’t enjoy anymore? Then fast forward a couple of years. My wife is pregnant with the twins and going to sleep at 8pm every night. Good thing the Switch doesn’t exist yet, so instead, every night when she’d fall asleep I’d read. I read A LOT!

That Christmas my mom had joined the Rothfuss train and bought both The Name of the Wind and Wise Man’s Fear for me as presents. I’d finished whatever I was reading and needed something new and figured why not. I owned them now and if I didn’t like them, I’d donate them. I’d been working through a stack of free books and a trip to our library to offload them was on the horizon anyway.

Now the copy of tNofW I’d tried before was the big, honkin’ tome you’re probably familiar with. The version I’d been gifted was this little thing (I’ll find the exact edition when I get the chance), still a hard back, with the thinnest, softest pages. It kind of forced you to hunch your shoulders a little to hold it. And the nature of the narrative being told in the first person made it feel like I was reading someone else’s journal. Like Skyrim on the Switch, something just clicked and it just pulled me right in. I thoroughly enjoyed it and even read the next two.

As writers, the goal is to pull a reader into your world through the power of your words alone. But it certainly helps to present those words in an appealing format. I have a definite appreciation for layout that I never had before which was why when I was working with the cover artist for Fairfax Cleaners, it was really important for me not to display the main character on the cover. So many urban fantasy covers feature some photo realistic – or real realistic – protagonist just kind of standing there and looking badass, I guess?

Personally, I find the covers boring. And unless you have some quality art production behind you, that style is so easy to screw up and look cheap. It may be just me, but I think it’s kind of a trope at this point and I wanted nothing to do with it. So instead, I opted for a severed foot, a bloodied hacksaw, and some rubber gloves. Let the words paint the picture of what my protagonist looks like. I wanted the art to prime that stage. The right presentation can prepare the reader for the journey, but it’s up to the writer then, to make sure that journey is one worth taking.