Author: Dan Melnick

Delirium

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

Life Update

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Has it really been three weeks since my last post? Wow, well I guess I was being lazy that first week after Land of Sky and Blood edits.

Update: My mom liked it. Honestly, I’d be weirded out if she didn’t. She’s an avid reader and always wants whatever I’m working on and the dutiful son I am, I send them her way. It’s like the adult version of putting my artwork on the fridge I guess.

Then the week after, we had some illness in my house so I was taking care of everyone for a while which meant no post.

Now here we are. So what’s up with you?

I’ve been slowly working on my outline for the Altered Egos sequel Partners in Crime. This step is always exciting and daunting because anything can happen. The rails aren’t there yet and I’m still creating from whole cloth. I’m still nailing down good story beats as I take my pages and pages of brainstorming notes and massage them  into something coherent that someone besides my mother would want to read.

When not doing that, I’m avoiding working on that short story that needs finishing, but I’m reading more. I used to read all the time, but being busy at work and at home has unfortunately slowed me down. I know. A writer who doesn’t read. But I do! I promise!

I’m actually reading Dark Hollow the second Charlie Parker book by John Connolly right now. I didn’t really care for the first one – my writer brain couldn’t get past the Matrix code – but my uncle swears by this series and he’s a pretty great guy so what the heck, I’ll give it another shot. I’m glad I did because this second one is much better than the first in my opinion.

My main gripe with the first book, Every Dead Thing, is that after the setup, its basically divided into two acts except Act 1 has nothing to do with the setup promised. It’s kind of a big waste of time. I get now that for the character, that first act is more meaningful but it feels like I was forced to read a backstory before we got to the novel itself. I just couldn’t get past the structure.

Dark Hollow, though, is much more streamlined and personal (which is a weird way to describe it if you’re familiar with the premise) than the first book so I like it a lot more. Also for whatever plot or pacing problems I think Connolly has, my lord, can that man write some metaphors. His stark yet vivid descriptions are awesome. So at the very least, I feel like I’m in writing class once again looking at that Matrix code, but this time I’m studying it to see how its done.

I don’t know what it is about his writing that does this to me so I can’t just fall in and enjoy the narrative – maybe he jumps around too much – but whether I like ’em or hate ’em, I’m finding Connolly’s books to be educational.

So that’s me, what’s going on with you?

And Done

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Well, I did it! I hit my August deadline and Land of Sky and Blood is currently off with beta readers. I’m always looking for more readers so if Asian-inspired epic fantasy is your thing, I’d love to have you on board.

Wow! What a weight off my shoulders. This was my longest book yet, but it also required the most worldbuilding and character details. I have four main POV characters, so there was a lot to wade through at the end and it’s cleaned up as much as it’s going to be for the time being. It’s time to let it fly.

So what’s next?

There’s a short story I really want to finish. I wrote the first six pages which is essentially the setup and absolutely fell in love with it right before I was getting to the good part. Then I had to put it on hold to finish these edits, so coming back is weirdly intimidating. I have to make sure that lightning didn’t escape the bottle.

After that, it’s beginning work on the Altered Egos sequel. A couple weeks ago I decided that instead of starting a new IP I was going to pour my energies into Altered Egos and subsequent books pretty much going against everything I’ve always said about my writing career. I didn’t want to waste time writing books that no one will read. But that’s because I was thinking of only the traditional model. I’ve really come around to the idea of publishing my own series and so far the world I think best fits this model for me is Altered Egos. That and I’ve been dying to get back to those characters 🙂

I’ve had a lot of fun with Fairfax Cleaners, but before I expand that universe — and I totally plan to, I already know what the next couple of books are going to be — I’d much rather play with my supheroes and villains first. Altered Egos is nearer and dearer to my heart, so my new plan is to write those sequels and then self-publish that series.

The real trick is to fill this time with work.  I don’t do waiting so well, especially when it comes to waiting for beta readers to get back to me. But like a fish or a cat, I guess, I’m putting the shiniest of shiny things in front of me to distract myself as I wait around. If I’m really lucky, I’ll turn those time-killing exercises into some real progress.

Sooooo Close!

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I finished my latest read through of Land of Sky and Blood over the weekend. That’s 561 pages, 163k words, all cleaned up. I still can’t believe it turned out that long. Now all I have to do is rewrite the opening chapter and I’ll be ready to hand it off.

At this point I’m desperate to give it to my beta readers. I thought I’d be cutting things left and right Edward Scissorhands style, but I think I ended up adding to the overall word count! I feel like Cillian Murphy in Sunshine when he’s staring out the spaceship at the sun. I just can’t look at the manuscript anymore. I’m all crispy-skinned and immolated over here and need some outside opinions.

My original goal was to be done by August 1st. I’m giving myself until the end of the week though. Either way, come a week from now, you better be seeing the words: “And it’s sent!” Then maybe I can finally relax.

Keeping the post short and sweet today so I can get back to it. I’ve already pulled myself out of one internet rabbit hole once I started reminiscing about Sunshine — seriously, before me typing that reference, I hadn’t even thought about that movie in like ten years — I can’t afford to fall down another one. That chapter’s not going to rewrite itself!

The Power of Editing

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I’m only 410 pages into my 554 page manuscript. This is another polish round, so I’m reading it start to finish and cleaning things up as I find them. It’s faster moving than it was in the beginning, but I’m ready to be finished. The next round I can do some more surgical fixing followed by a line by line polish after that. At this point, I’m ready to get the manuscript in the hands of beta readers. I don’t want make it perfect if the whole thing needs to be reworked. What’s the point?

But all this gets me thinking just how much the story can change as its being edited. I don’t just mean rewriting and cleaning things up either.

So here’s a great example: I have four main POV characters. In the beginning of the book, each character gets his or her own chapter. As these characters come together by the end, the chapters get a bit more muddied as I jump between POVs. Now I can keep them that way because it works thematically — total accident by the way — or I can cut them apart, mixing and matching the whole way through.

Benefit of keeping them as they are: More time in the respective character’s head means more investment from the reader.

Cutting them up: Holds interest longer as more seems to be happening since we’re jumping back and forth. POV changes also create more stopping places for the reader which would be a bad thing if it means putting the book down or a good thing if means people push on for “just one more section”. Who knows?

I feel like I want to cut them up, but I’m on the fence. If you’ve ever read Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities trilogy, I think of those books as the gold standard. Each one has only like nine whole chapters, but those chapters are huge. Lots of section breaks and POV switching. Terry Pratchett wrote that way too. Actually, he wrote without chapters and just broke when he felt it necessary.

However, Stranger Things season 3 is warning me otherwise. In the beginning, I liked the cutting back and forth, but it eventually got annoying because I felt like there wasn’t a lot of overall progress. Right when something good started happening in the story we’d cut away leaving me more frustrated than interested. Now, in my opinion, that season had its own problems later on, but this point still stands.

That’s just a structural thing. Rearranging chapters only changes the presentation of information and not what is being said. Yet it could completely change the feel of the entire book. That’s how important editing can be.

“Great books aren’t written. They’re rewritten.” Michael Creighton said that I find myself coming back to that again and again like a mantra.

Okay, that’s enough from me. I need at least another forty pages done today to keep on schedule. Happy writing and editing, everyone!

Just a reminder that Fairfax Cleaners is still on sale all of July. As much as a dollar on Amazon or as little as totally free on Apple Books!

Crisis on Multiple Dans

On By Dan MelnickIn Personal2 Comments

I’ve been on vacation that last two weeks with the family. There was plenty of rest and relaxation. Also some stress and aggravation from trying to herd three small children to “HAVE FUN”. And driving. Lots of driving. So many car arguments.

My lowest moments? I transformed into a capital “D” Dad on this trip and had to say dad things like “I’m turning this car around and we’re going home!” and “Now NOBODY gets a movie!”. It’s awful. My kids turned me into a monster. But aside from that, it was a pretty fun trip. We went out east to visit my parents for a week and then drove south to surprise the kiddos with a secret Disney World trip the following week. So it was kind of eventful.

Two weeks away also meant two weeks away from writing. And in those two weeks I received a couple more rejection letters.  You’re never going to make it as a writer if you can’t handle rejection and boy have I gotten some letters over the years, but these two hit kind of hard. They were some final nails in the coffin of a particular work and I was realizing that it just wasn’t going to sell.

So in the midst of the Florida sun and Disney World I was also experiencing an existential crisis of what to do with my career.

I’ve always had this dilemma of striving for traditional publishing versus self-publishing. There are good reasons to go either way. Bad ones and pitfalls too. Even more than that, I’ve written seven novels now over the course of seven years and the last four books I’d say have had somewhat open endings or at least room for a sequel but I’ve never written any followups.

The life cycle of my books tend to go something like this: outlining and writing the first draft takes a couple months. Then polishing and editing takes the second half of the year. Usually while it’s taking me a year to write one book, I spend that entire year pitching and querying the last book. Once the new book is ready, I rotate the old one out, start pitching the new, and start writing something else. Thus the cycle continues.

My way of thinking was why write a sequel to a book that no one will read. Well, a lot of self-publishing thrives on series. Even my own Fairfax Cleaners I’ve envisioned to be a Hidden City series. I was going to hold off and publish those intermittently with other works. At least that was the idea, but down in the Florida sun I’ve come to a new decision. I do want to write a series, but while I love Fairfax Cleaners, Altered Egos is nearer and dearer to my heart. I’m going to finish editing my current manuscript and then I’m just going to dive into the Altered Egos sequel. I’m not going to lean into self-publishing anymore, I’m going all in. I mean, I wanted to write a series anyway so why not? What’s stopping me?

I’ve come full circle on this. I originally get into novel writing because I wanted to write comic books and got tired of convincing other people to draw stories for me. With that notion, if I love something and think its worth reading, well then maybe I should do it myself again and get it out there.

The writing industry is about the market, but the writing art is about passion. And right now I’m passionate about writing about a supervillain protagonist in a world of superheroes so that’s what I’m going to do. If I think these stories are worth reading, then there’s probably a couple people out there like me who’d appreciate them as well.