art from paradise lost

Blurb Poster

My wife seriously blew my mind when I asked her for a teaser/review blurb about the book.

I just had to share it on the poster I was making.

12/21/13

happy first day of winter. 52,000 words finished on ye olde booke.

so,

got up earlier than the birds, took the deck today and a memstick to the coffeeshop and only got 2000 pounded out. eh. i got 5000 the night before at steak n shake. add wifi and my productivity goes into the toilet.

if there was only a way to have a great coffeeshop and me NOT being able to access the internet... that would be wonderful. i guess i could make a password on the deck and have my wife set it so i wouldn't know it lol.

it's good though because i've moved/transitioned well into the next major part of the book. this has only happened once before and we were also setting up the character so this time, when it happens, it is like butter on a bald monkey: pretty smooth.

ok! test writing time!

"the sunlit backdrop exploded over the mountains like a whores kiss on a hurried sailor."

a little something i cooked up upon reflection that i have not written enough scenic background into my book. still working on it. i don't think whores and sunshine go well together normally, except maybe, in this one sentence.

have a good Christ-mass.

talk at ya soon.

12/19/13

hit the 50,000 word mark... and beyond! :) 50,073 to be precise.

thank you all the wonderful people at steak n shake for making late night writing a dream come true with cheese fries!

Book Reading

11/21/13

after a wonderful money making fourteen and a half hour day - i here sit; ready to....write? sleep. dang. the good news is, i only work four hours tomorrow so i can devote some time to making a dent in the middle.

so... i'm reading michael crichtons book: timeline and was wondering why i like him so much. i dunno.

i think that his style is often, as i am reading, disjointed and random... but he does things on purpose. why? i think because he wants to establish certain facts about his characters. like: say for instance, that he wants to show that they have compassion. he will have someone killed and zoom in on the characters tears falling off of their cheek instead of coming out and telling us that they are a compassionate soul. brilliant! show me don't tell me!

so, yeah. it works... i've just never known why before.

i also enjoy neal town stephenson and his insanity. he will not only tell me how the character is, on the inside, he will build up elaborate stories-within-stories to show just how far the character feels this way or that way... and will teach me science at the same time.

this is probably the same reason that i enjoy arthur conan doyle.

hmmm. it seems i did a bit of writing after all?

nah. this doesn't count.

off to bed!

11/18/13

making some quotes for a fake book by a pen name of myslef to put at the chapter headings for the book..

pretty interesting. i needed to say some things that my protagonist couldn't say, and, as i am writing this first person, from his perspective: this is what i went with.

here is one of maybe thirty:

"It is the morrow to weep, to mourn: for the unknown that crashes down upon us. Today is for the sacrifices that come, one to each man. It is the reflection of yesterday that brings us hope and charity in our everyday steps forward from there."

-Ratuna Fonsaire, “The value of sacrifice”

(but not really)

11/11/13

i have had a chore of building the middle part of the rising climax of the book, so as it does not get boring and think i have finally pulled the proverbial sword from the stone so that i might slay the dragon of writers block.

indeed, i hand-wrote a two page outline that spells out most big things until the climax...

thinking that it might still be too slow, i called my wife and started asking her questions about speech to action ratios in some of the better books she read.

and it's like a 75% to 25% ratio in the better ones that are in my genre, so i am adding more complications and things to keep things fluid and not lose interest...

when a writer DOES lose their audience, it often occurs in the middle... but the trick is to ramp up the struggle between the protagonist and his quest, build on what is already going on, and push the fight onward.

so this is what i did today.

it looks pretty good.

i even had to change some things on my reference maps and charts that i have been working with.

it's just that good.

i look forward to finishing even more than you look forward to reading!

Possible Cover Art

this is a quick mock up of what i want it to feel like

10/17/13

topic: word cheat counting and conversations

-----------------------------------------------

went thru and added up all the extra text that i can't use now, but will use later (is this cheating?) and it came up to 42,000 words. great start.

the story is shaping up pretty well. much to add. much to go back over. things to look at. people to kill.

i have found myself explaining things better the second time than the first time in several instances. i will re-read and say: "gee! didn't i explain this before?" and go thru and delete the first part or add the second part into the first. on one occasion, i called it "just a more in-depth look" and kept both parts.

conversations are now easier to write than before. as in the case of screenplay writing, where you have -

------------------------
jim - dang it (hits hand with hammer)
alphonse - i know! (shows bandaged thumb of his own)
------------------------

you now have -

------------------------
"dang it" jim said angrily as the hammer struck his thumb.

surprised and relieved that he was not the only idiot in the room, alphonse held up his thumb to show jim. "i know!"
------------------------

which is much easier now that i have been away from screenplays for a while.

that's all for now!

-pauly

p.s. "Proper Capitalization" appears in my book. blogs are a different story.

10/13/13

working late at night at the old steak n shake.

37,121 words.

i have entered in to a pact with my protagonist.

i do not want him to die and he does not want to die, but he is in a book where he may very well be forced to die.

i hope this turns out to be a false need and he finds a way of escape.

i am rooting for him!

10/10/13

34,645 words.

going for 100,000 words based upon new research.

1/3 of the way there.

looking good.

plot points built inside of dynamic rising action.

looking good.

at steak 'n shake.

they have a power outlet that i can plug my lap-top into.

ihop does not.

lennys (dennys) does not.

long live steak 'n shake... where they bring you a water with your coffee.

10/3/13

put in three hours on the book text.

two days ago i put in 12 hours of research.

things are looking good.

9/16/13

spent this morning typing on the book at http://www.sgreclaimed.com/.

27,580 words down. a quarter of the way (or so) down... several more to go.

the protagonist has come to understand several problems but has yet to discover the biggest problem (the premise) of the book. this will come as a shock and a surprise to him and will unhinge his belief that his own problems are anything at all.

so the tiny problems that are solved are met with even larger problems.

jennifer, my wife, is my chief editor as well as my number one critic and has told me that there is not enough action in the book yet... well, it's not a jason bourne novel so it's not action packed from beginning to end.

so discoveries will lead to more discoveries with a climax at the action packed ending.

so far we have had mostly setup and introduction, as this is a very different type of novel than most that i have read. which is good.

i don't want to write what others have written, but i know it will be enjoyable to the:

1) avid reader
2) sci-fi fan
2.5) fantasy fan
3) scientist
4) conspiracy nut
5) nut

i don't aim to please... i aim to create, and create well.

wordsmithing! it's a fun thing!

8/20/13

sat down at McAlister's Deli today and wrote another couple of thousand words here and there in the book.

i've expanded chapters 2 into three total chapters and edited some of chapter 1

this is good due to the fact that the main plot issue is going on at this point and you need to know the character a little better to understand what he is trying to do at this point.

we needed to know him a little better as readers... basically.

i am now at 18,554 words in the book.

the book is "by the gates of the garden of eden" and i am pretty sure you will like it.

my wrist hurts. i'm gonna call typing done for the day.

-p

5/5/13

reworked my prologue the other day.

woke up this morning with some cool revelations on plot issues.

typing away.

1/24/13

made some links to my other books over on the side.

i didn't realize that this is my sixth book.

nice surprise.

1/20/13

This is the title of my new book.

You may want to keep checking in from time to time to see how the progress is coming.

Right now you can just imagine what I am going to write about.

-Pauly Hart