Finished! (Kind of...)

If you'll ever-so-kindly glance to the right at my progress bars, you'll notice that I've finished revisions on Duskfall, which was once titled Before the Dark, which was once known as The Rising, which is the novel I've been working on for some time, now.

The manuscript is now in the hands of some alpha readers/writing groups, and I'm awaiting their feedback.

It feels good to be finished, even if it's really nothing more than a hiatus.  I'll be working on a couple other projects in the meantime, as you can also tell by the progress bars to the side.  These projects include, but aren't entirely limited to,

• two short stories that I'll submit to subsequent quarters of the Writers of the Future contest,
• a top-secret steampunk project that I can't discuss but I'm REALLY excited about because, hey, steampunk, and
• revising some of my older stories and submitting them to journals/magazines and forming a new collection that I'll submit to the Utah Arts Contest.

So, I have some things to keep me busy until my alpha readers get back to me.  I'm excited for these new projects, but I'm also surprisingly excited about (eventually) getting back to the novel.  There were some pretty rough parts of revision, and I suffered many a moment of "this sucks and I can't write!" syndrome.  The manuscript still has a long way to go, I think, but there just might be something there.

In other news, one of my other goals for the next couple months is to, ahem, blog more.  So, there's that.  I have a lot to blog about, honestly, I just need to be disciplined enough to do it.

So, here's to discipline.

Cruise! (Part 2)

More pics from super awesome cruise time...

Tons of shows on the ship, including the full broadway version of Chicago.

Next stop:  Jamaica.  We went on an excursion where we hiked up a waterfall, basically...

All had to hold hands in a line.  It was awesome.

We kissed once or twice.

Yah, seriously.  A waterfall.

And we ate DELICIOUS Jamaican jerk chicken and pork.

And a weird fried cornbread thing.

View from our cruise ship...

Second formal night!

Our beloved floor # 6.  And my very attractive wife.

Me looking rather dashing, if I do say so myself.

They had outdoor movies.  Seriously, this cruise ship was massive.

I'm pretty sure the #1 reason people go on cruises is to see the wildlife.

Tons of delicious places to eat on the ship, by the way.  I gained 10 lbs and I don't care who knows it.

Oh, there was another zipline.  This one was ON OUR BOAT.

Seriously, believe me when I tell you this ship was big...they had outdoor rock walls.  (And an ice skating rink, for that matter, not shown.)

Seriously.  Tons of places to eat.

Last stop:  Cozumel, Mexico.

So, yeah....basically it was a wonderful and amazing trip and we had boat loads of fun, pun completely intended.

Cruise! (Part 1)

For those of you who may not know, my wife and I did a little pre-emptive 5-year anniversary trip a few weeks ago.  It was awesome.  Following are some pictures that prove said awesomeness.  Warning:  Lots of pictures follow.  Hence, this is a very [physically] long post.

We stopped off in NYC for a day-long layover and hung out with Rachel's sister and her husband.  Basically, we got our Empire State of Mind on.

 View from Empire State Building.

9.11 Memorial.

Our cruise!  On the Royal Carribbean ship Allure of the Seas (apparently the largest cruise ship in the world, or that's what they told us anyway).

First formal night.

I mean, lesbee honest...the only reason to tie your own bow tie is so you can wear it untied like this at the end of the night.

First stop:  Haiti.  Or Royal Carribbean's version of Haiti, anyway.  It was beautiful, but a little, er, commercialized.

Ziplining in Haiti.

 View from the top of the zipline.  That's our ship, way down/over there.

Beach.

Cruise Ship.

I decided to actually use the panorama feature on my phone.  Wasn't too shabby.

The End Draws Nigh

In case you haven't noticed, my % counter for my current WIP--Before the Dark--is at 95%.  My self-imposed deadline is this Friday.  I think I'm going to make it, folks.  Then it's on to alpha readers!

[In other news, it's been a long time since I posted, I know...things got busy.  Apparently that happens, with me.  Also, pictures of awesome 5 year anniversary trip with the wifey to come, so stay tuned.]

Don't hold your breath

I'll be taking the next week off; my wife and I have been married for almost five years, and we're kinda celebrating. So, yeah, that's awesome and I'll catch you all later!

Kafka-esque

I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.

Have I ever told you that Franz Kafka is my hero?

One more thing (about grit)...

An addendum to my previous post.  Here are a few words from Elizabeth Bear:

The least reflective of the grimdark seems to me to be a little too busy wallowing in splatter and gratuitousness--violence, betrayal, rapine, raping, pillaging, cannibalism, torture...pick three...or four...as if those things were an end to themselves.... That nihilistic view of the world is essentially a juvenile, sociopathic, self-justifying fetish, and most of us eventually grow out of it.... But what some critics ignore is that the best of the current wave of gritty fantasy does not buy into this fallacy.... Instead, it embraces a balance closer to reality:  that the world is arbitrary and unfair, and that sometimes even well-meaning people do awful things: desperate, vicious things.  But also, that complete jerks, sociopathic monsters, can and do accomplish good--sometimes purposefully, sometimes not.  People are not good or bad, but people.  The best gritty fantasy reflects this, considers it, attempts not to spin a morality play but describe a complicated and ambiguous arc of people doing what they feel they have do to.

Like.