n1xhax0r

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

So, I’m 15 days into my first Nanowrimo and only 7,200 words through my 50,000 word goal. At this point in the game it’s not looking good for our fearless hero of the blank page (that’s me–in case you were wondering). At first glance it feels like I should just throw in the towel and call it quits, but after running the numbers I think it may still be an attainable goal.

The original goal was to write 1,667 words a day to reach the monumental goal of 50,000 in 30 days.  With only 15 days left and 42,800 more words to go, my daily goals have gone up to 2,854 words a day. That’s 1,187 more words per day than my original goal. It’s going to be a rough count to maintain, but I’m determined to get the end of this month with at least 50,000 words.

I lost 7 days worth of writing at the very beginning of this month, because I was traveling for my job. I found out that it was impossible for me to be creative and focused while being so far from my writing lair. Not to mention that I was in California being trained for a very technical aspect of my job. That made things worse by at least ten fold. It’s hard for me to spend 8 hours of my day trying to absorb very technical ideas and then go back to a hotel room and try to get my creative juices flowing again. I know it’s an excuse, but it’s the best I can offer right now.

Now I’m going to get back to my novel and see if I can bolster the word count some more. Good luck to everyone else in their quest for 50,000 words in 30 days. If you would like to share your Nanowrimo experiences up to this point please do so in the comments.

–Jerry W. Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

It’s been a while since my last post. Life has kept me more busy than usual, but I’m making an effort to blog more regularly again. In this post I just want to fill everyone in on what I’ve been up to during my absence. I got my iPhone, and I’ve sent off for replacement. It quit charging the battery, so I went without a phone while I waited for the repair or replacement. It must have been beyond repair, because the replacement I got back didn’t have a small scratch on the screen. Overall I’ve been pleased with my phone. I just hope that this one lasts longer than a month. There is a new firmware coming out September 25th to allow MMS support on iPhone 3G and 3Gs. I’m looking forward to the added feature, so I will be updating my phone then.

I’ve also been busy teaching my oldest daughter to read and spell words. She’s in first grade this year, and it is crucial for her to learn to read. I feel like the rest of her education hinges on this year and her ability to read by the end of it. This has taken up tons of time, not due to a lack of effort on her part, but rather the words she is required to spell. She gets 16 words a week that range from 4 to 5 letters long. Every Friday she has a spelling test on the words for that week. The words so far have focused on the combination sound of a consonant + r construction (br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, and tr). She has some difficulties with some of the combinations, but she is willing and ready to learn. We work hard on her words, and she is making some major improvements. It’s still an everyday thing when I have her.

When I do find time to pursue my own interests, I usually spend it trying to fill my manuscript with words. It might sound easy, but there is a lot involved in writing a novel. It takes some serious determination and an adamant refusal to throw in the towel. I will admit that I’ve been tempted to just give it up and say it wasn’t for me. I can’t do it, though. First of all, I love doing it way too much, and second of all, I want to know if my efforts will ever be good enough to find a publisher. So I’m sorry that my writing time has been spent writing fiction and not blogging. I hope to find a balance in the future.

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a word nerd. I love words, their origins, and uses. While doing some research for one of my current works in progress I ran into another word nerd’s explanation of the word parkour on a web forum. If you didn’t know I was word nerd, before, then you should definitely know that I am now that I have publicly admitted to reading a forum on word usage. I’m going to post that forum entry by Alissa J. Bratz in its entirety here.

*drags the thread up from the grave*
Live! Liiiiive!
*lightning bolts*
Okay, now that that drama is out of the way, I’m going to unveil my utter geekdom here, and share the reasons you can’t use parkour as a verb.
As stated, parkour is a noun. However, English turns nouns into verbs all the time. The process is called zero-conversion, zero-derivation (in the case of English), or verbification: when a language changes a word from one part of speech into a verb. For example, in English, "weird" is an adjective, but people often use it as a phrasal verb: "That guy totally weirded me out." Or email: "Send me an e-mail" vs. "E-mail me."
All languages engage in zero-conversion to a degree; English is particularly fond of verbification.
Given this, and English’s propensity towards zero-conversion to verbs, why can’t "parkour" be used as a verb?
Because le parkour is a French noun that has been borrowed from French. French does not zero-convert to verbs as readily as English does (although this is not always the case: verbs like "googliser"=to [look up on] Google, and the like crop up in French often enough. Worth noting is that "Google" itself is a borrowing into French, however it is a weak example as it is a proper noun for a product name, like Coca-Cola or Xerox, and is therefore generally unchanged language to language. Parkour is not a proper noun/brand name.)
All languages borrow from other languages as the need arises. "Need" is generally characterized by the introduction of a cultural element from one speech community to another, for which the receiving speech community has no equivalent. For instance, answer this question: What is the English translation for "burrito"?
In the case of parkour, no equivalent for parkour existed in English speech communities, so the name was imported along with the art form. This bond was further solidified by the application of "freerunning" as a possible English translation, and freerunning’s subsequent philosophical/applicational split from parkour proper. The split necessitated a linguistic distinction between the two disciplines, handily already present via the inital borrowing of "parkour" into English.
That "parkour" is a borrowed noun is significant, because English typically doesn’t zero-convert/verbify borrowed words. Support for this notion has already been given in previous posts with the examples "ballet" (also French), and "karate" (Japanese).
In French, the expression would be "faire du parkour"=to do parkour. French applies the verb "faire" (to do) to many, many physical activities. It’s simply a characteristic of the language:
faire du bateau=to go boating
faire de la planche a voile=to windsurf
faire du roller en ligne=to rollerblade
faire du ski=to ski (although skier is also used as a single verb)
faire du cheval/de l’equitation=to go horseback riding/to ride horses
…etc.
So since "parkour" is a noun, verbified in French by means of a "faire construction" ("to do" construction), borrowed into English, which typically resists zero-converting borrowed words, we have no other choice but to say "to do/practice parkour" in English.
It is conceivable that in the future, English will zero-convert parkour into a verb; but in general that will depend much on whether it gains wide acceptance among English speech communities (to me, personally, it just sounds wrong, but that may be because I also speak French).
It is unlikely that French will verbify "parkour" for two reasons: one, because it is already in wide use with a faire construction, and two, because the noun "parkour" itself derived from the French verb "parcourir,"=to run across or through. So the verb "parkourir" is already taken (phonetically); "parkourer" might take root, but it’s unlikely. The root verb is "courir"=to run; part of a specific verb class (-IR verbs like dormir), and although most verbification in French classifies verbs in the -ER verb class (the most common verb class), it is highly irregular/unlikely for a verb to "jump classes" like that.
So there you also have an actual linguistic explanation, and you probably also think I’m a huge nerd… which I am.
B.A., Linguistics, University of Wisconsin, 1998
*bows*

If you would like, you can read the entire forum here.

Bibliography

Alissa J. Bratz. (June 19, 2007). How to use the word parkour. In American Parkour Forums. Retrieved July 31, 2009, from http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php?PHPSESSID=fb7f726327a07b5722893daeffcbbafc&topic=885.msg57802#msg57802.

–Jerry W. Stewart

Artist: Lady Sovereign
Album: Jigsaw
Song: Guitar

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I saw a tweet on twitter about the Jung personality test. My curiosity got the best of me, so I had to check it out and see what my results were. I want to archive the results, because I think a lot of them are spot on, so I thought what better place than my blog. Without further adieu, I give you the results.

Jung Typology Test Results

Your Type is: INTJ

Qualitative analysis of your type formula:

• moderately expressed introvert
• distinctively expressed intuitive personality
• moderately expressed thinking personality
• slightly expressed judging personality

Links:

• INTJ type description by D.Keirsey
• INTJ Identify Your Career with Jung Career Indicator™
• INTJ type description by J. Butt and M.M. Heiss
• Maximizing Your Study Environment from Keirsey
• The above links describe my personality type in greater depth and provide some interesting tidbits. I’m going to share with you some of the ones that stuck out most to me.

• Here’s an Excerpt of Keirsey’s Analysis of a Mastermind:

• “Masterminds are rare, comprising no more than, say, one percent of the population, and they are rarely encountered outside their office, factory, school, or laboratory. Although they are highly capable leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once they take charge, however, they are thoroughgoing pragmatists. Masterminds are certain that efficiency is indispensable in a well-run organization, and if they encounter inefficiency-any waste of human and material resources-they are quick to realign operations and reassign personnel. Masterminds do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, and traditional authority does not impress them, nor do slogans or catchwords. Only ideas that make sense to them are adopted; those that don’t, aren’t, no matter who thought of them. Remember, their aim is always maximum efficiency.”

An Excerpt From Keirsey’s Suggestions on Maximizing My Study Area:

“Masterminds (INTJ) care a bit more about their environment than Architects do, but once they are deep in a project, they can be even more concentrated and focused. The main thing a Mastermind wants is lots of uninterrupted time. They will skip meals, classes, even dates as they pursue the completion of a project.”

An Excerpt From Keirsey’s Finding Your Passion:

“The Mastermind (INTJ) is very focused as well, but more on an internal vision. They are good at solving problems and like to work on tough intellectual puzzles. They are often led into technical positions such as scientific researcher, design engineer, environmental planner. The developing field of genetics benefits from their intensity as does the field of medicine. In education they are most often found at the college and university level. In the professions, they may be a lawyer, a business analyst, or strategic planner. Some have a strong artistic/creative bent and may become an artist, inventor, or designer. Whatever they do, they do it with intensity. Says Kim, “I am constantly teaching myself something new in order to solve the problems that I encounter. My husband leaves me alone when he sees that I am caught in what he calls my “Thinking Time.” I’m unwinding knots even in my sleep.”

My decent into narcissism is drawing to a close. I hope you’ve enjoyed my results. I’m interested in yours. Go take the test here and post your results in the comments.

–Jerry W. Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

In my last post I said, I wasn’t going to work on my first project anymore. I had decided to move on to my second idea, because it felt more like a story that I would want to read. Some advice from my writing friend, Casey, has changed my mind. In a reply to my last post, she said that I had to keep writing the first one, but writing both might be an option, as well. I’m going to attempt the latter. I think writing both stories at the same time has some merit. They are completely different from each other, which gives me a reason to write no matter what my mood is at the time.

Manuscript 1 has an All-American hero for protagonist and the other has a darker anti-hero. One is more of your typical vampire/werewolf story and the other has a lot of religious overtones in it. The good boy is harder for me to write, while the anti-hero seems to flow more naturally. The first is being told in the first person perspective from the hero’s POV, and the other is being told in the third person perspective by an omniscient narrator. With the books being so much different from each other, I can switch back and forth depending on what mood I’m in at the time. I used to think it was a bad idea to divide my attention this way, but the more I thought about it, I realized that in my imagination my attention is already divided by these two ideas. I find myself day dreaming about both of them, so I don’t think it is going to hurt either story to write about them congruently.

What are your thoughts on working on multiple projects at the same time? Do you find it harder to focus, or is this your preferred way to work? I’m interested in other peoples writing habits, and I would love to hear about yours.

–Jerry Stewart

Artist: Soundgarden
Album: Superunknown
Song: Black Hole Sun

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I haven’t blogged in a while. I’m sorry about that, but I have excuses. I doubt they are good excuses, but excuses none the less.

I finally got my iPhone a little while back, and like any other new gadget I get, I had to hack it and figure out how it all worked. It held my attention for about a week. During that time I didn’t written anything, which includes blogging. I’ve been pretty much glued to my phone. Thank God, my wife is very understanding and tolerant of my obsession with new toys. She is very patient with me during these times of distraction in my life. She let’s me know, occasionally, how bad I’m getting, but patient enough to give me the time to come back around to the real world. I’m finally back and ready to write and blog again. I have another smaller excuse to tell you about and then I’ll talk about my current writing.

My family just got back from a vacation in Branson, MO. The kids had a great time riding the rides at Silver Dollar City and so did I. I had to do the fatherly thing and accompany my youngest daughter, Alexis, on some of the rides that I wouldn’t have chose to ride by myself. But I did get to ride the biggest roller coaster they had just before we left for home. Wildfire was awesome—all 30 seconds of it. On the first drop I thought my stomach was going to push my eyeballs out of my head, and as soon as you recover from that you start the loops. I love roller coasters and that one was great. I wish we would have had more time for me to ride it over and over again, but we didn’t.

I talked my oldest daughter, Brianna, into riding Thunderation with me. That was her first adult roller coaster experience. She handled it well, but the look on her face was priceless. She was completely shell shocked while we were on the coaster, but assured me that she had fun when we got off the ride. I asked if she wanted to ride it again, and without any hesitation got a resounding NO in response.

We also got to take the kids to the Dickerson Zoo in Springfield, MO. they had a blast feeding the carp, goats, and giraffes. I got a few videos of the excursion that you can find on my Facebook page and later, when I get around to it, on my Youtube channel. We also got to eat at my favorite restaurant, Joe’s Crab Shack. Brianna wanted to be just like me, so she had snow crab from the kids menu. I had Alaskan King Crab. Yum!

Now, a little about my writing. I’ve been working on a story for a little over a month, now. I spent almost six months with the story in my mind before I sat down to write anything. Even with all of that planning, I’ve been struggling to finish the first chapter. The hero is just too All-American for me; I think. I’ve had another idea floating around in my head for a few months that is more my style. I like the anti-heroes and unlikely heroes. The main character in this new idea is a mixture of both. The story is a little darker with some religious overtones. I’ve decided to abandon the first idea (for now), and work on the new one. I think the story will flow from me easier than the one I’ve been working on, and as a bonus, it is a more original idea. I’m looking forward to getting started writing out character notes and plot developments. Bring on the writing.

I want to leave you with two questions:

• How are your manuscripts coming along?
• Do you think it’s ok to abandon an idea if it’s not going anywhere? or Should you keep trudging through the story until you make it work?

–Jerry Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

Today is the first Manuscript Monday. Every Monday, I’m going to talk about my current WIP and encourage you to talk about yours in the comments. I’m also open to any suggestions for my work in progress.

I’ve got a quick announcement before I get into my current project. Drum roll, please. I will be meeting with my critique partner, Casey, for the first time this evening to discuss our manuscripts and plans and poke holes in each other’s work. This will hopefully be both a trying and rewarding experience.

Now, let’s talk about what I’m working on. I started playing with the idea for my current work about six months ago. It’s taken me that long to get started on it, because I was busy building my writing lair, and honestly, I have been a little timid about taking up writing again. It’s been a rough start so far and I’ve only got about 1,700 words. I actually wrote 1,200 words the first attempt and decided to throw out those first 1,200 and rewrite. The first attempt just wasn’t something I was proud of, but it was necessary crap that needed to get out so I could get to the good stuff.

I’ve struggled a little bit to find the time to write, and I’ve also struggled with staying focused on the project when I do find the time. I’m hoping the added pressure of having to show some one else my work every week will help me stay focused on my goal. I’m not pushing myself too hard on this first novel, because I’m still developing the process as I’m writing the rough draft. I’m using a different program to write this novel than I did my previous two and there is a bit more of a learning curve. It can be an easy program to use, but it has a lot of extra features in it that I would like to be able to use, too. I wish the folks who make Scrivener would make a Windows or Linux version and share the love with those of us not quite willing to pay for a Mac, yet.

I’ve been reading a lot of Adult and Young Adult Urban Fantasy and Paranormal stuff. I always have. I used to read more Sci-Fi, but at the same time I was reading anything I could find with a vampire, werewolf, or dragon in it. So, naturally, my WIP is a Young Adult Urban Fantasy. It’s about a 15 year old boy that moves around a lot because of his dad’s military career. He gets settled somewhere and everything is not as it seems. I don’t want to get too detailed about the actual characters or plot, but I will talk about the different parts of the story (just not the details). If you want to know, then hopefully it will be published and you will get a chance to read for yourself.

That’s all for this Manuscript Monday. Oh, and a quick side note. I got my iPhone 3Gs order today. Yay, for me!

–Jerry W Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I’m in my writing lair with time to for my WIP, so this is going to be a short blog entry. I hope you don’t mind.

I’m very excited that I’ve found another writer in my local area that just so happens to work with my wife, Holly. Casey is a terrific friend to both my wife and I, and like me, she is interested in being a published author someday. We’ve decided to meet once a week to talk about our current WIP’s and critique each others work. This is perfect for me, because I work much better under pressure. Having some one to keep me accountable and create a deadline of sorts, keeps me motivated and focused on my writing. I would like to thank Casey for being that person and Holly for introducing us and putting up with my creative needs. I’m sure Holly won’t mind me having some one else to talk to about writing, because I know she has to be getting sick of hearing about it from me.

If you can’t tell by now, I’m a big fan of peer groups. I’m not so big on collaboration, because I don’t like people to be involved in my process while I’m hashing out a result. This is the same for my creative work and my day job as a systems administrator. I like to do the work alone without some one looking over my shoulder. I don’t mind telling some one how I got my results, but I get self-conscious about my process knowing that some one is watching. Critique or peer review groups are different. When I know that I have to show my work to some one when it’s finished, I work with a sense of urgency and purpose that I don’t get if I’m left to my own devices. If you don’t have a peer group, I recommend that you find one. See if it works for you like it does for me.

I’m off now to get to that WIP before I meet up with Casey for a critique on Monday. By the way, Casey has started a blog, too, and I encourage you to check her out here.

–Jerry W Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I got a few responses from my last post. A big thanks to those that took the time to comment. I think most of the ideas I laid out in the previous post are solid enough, so I’ve decided to go forward with them. I’m going to introduce Manuscript Monday starting this coming Monday. Manuscript Monday will be a post talking about my current work in progress and a prompt for you to talk about yours in the comments section. I’m going to give Publishing Tip Tuesday a try, but I’m not sure how long it will survive. I don’t want a gimmick for everyday of the week and 2 may be too many, so we’ll see how it goes. You can expect my take on publishing advice I’ve read from publishers that I follow and read.

I’ll also be adding a writing prompts page. These will show up in the newsfeed, but I’m going to keep them off the main page. These will be random for now, but if readers demand it, we will create some structure to it. For now I will post a prompt when the mood strikes me, and I will publish a short writing work to go with it. If the prompt inspires you please write something in the comments or place a link in the comments to your own website, blog, or whatever.

I will also be doing some series posts, but I haven’t decided on what order or which topic. As always thanks for reading.

– Jerry W Stewart

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve been trying to think of some gimmicks for the blog. I have a few ideas that I’ve stolen borrowed from other blogs, but I would like your input. I really want this to be a daily blog, but some days, I’m not sure what to write about. I would like to have a reoccurring weekly post on a specific day, and I would like to do a few series post.

Some ideas for a reoccurring post:

• Work in Progress Wednesday (Elena Johnson) – discuss our current works in progress
• A writing prompt once a week followed with short stories or links to ss posted in the comments
• Publishing Tip Tuesday – a weekly tip about getting published

Ideas for a series of posts:

• How to query an Agent
• Do you need an agent?
• Finding the time to write

Those are just a few of my suggestions. I’m open to yours. Please let me know which ideas interest you or any new ideas that you would like to see me write about. Also, let me know what works on my blog and what you think doesn’t work. One thing I’ve already decided to do is to exclude the book reviews from the main page. I’m going to restrict them to the Reviews page only. I would rather my main page be filled with writing advice, publishing tips, and the like.

Thank you in advance for your comments. Any and all constructive comments will be greatly appreciated. Rude comments, as always, will be deleted.

– Jerry Stewart

Artist: Hinder
Album: Extreme Behavior
Song: How Long

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I was approached recently by some one who had recognized themselves in something I wrote. The person that confronted my was angry and hurt by what I had written. She asked that I remove her from my work, so I reread the post to see what exactly I had said to warrant such a response. After reading the post carefully, I decided that I had not viciously attacked the person or slandered in any way. I respectfully declined to change anything about the post (except a few typos I found), and I stand by that decision. If you want to read the post and judge for yourself, you can find it here. After this encounter, I decided that my stance on the matter would be helpful advice for writers. Before I give you my stance, I give you this disclaimer, first. Truth and spite are not the same things. Spite leads to slander, malice, or liable, and those things can lead to lawsuits. Be forewarned.

TELL THE TRUTH WHEN YOU WRITE!

This is important. I can’t stress it enough. If you want to write well and you want people to read what you write; you must, at all costs, tell the truth. I don’t care if it’s fiction, (auto)biographical, non-fiction, or a blog post. If you don’t tell the truth to the best of your ability, your readers will see right through what you’ve written and lose faith in your writing. With so many options available to your readers, the most detrimental thing you can do is lose their faith. Readers are fickle and that is their right. They will exercise that right by choosing something else to read. As authors (or aspiring authors), our goal is to write the story we have to tell and hope that it will find an audience. We don’t write a story only to lock it away in a filing cabinet somewhere to collect dust through the years. We send it out into the world and try to find an audience to read it and take with them what they can from it. Yes, I know there are exceptions to my generalization, but I’m not referring to those exceptions. I’m referring to the majority of authors who write to be read.

What do I mean when I say, tell the truth? In writing, it may seem confusing to tell the truth all the time. For example, how do you tell the truth in fiction? When you write fiction, you are telling a story that takes life in your imagination, not in the Real World. To me it doesn’t matter whether the tale you write is from the Real World or the imagined one. The important thing is to tell the truth about the story that comes out of either world. If your imagined character would swear like a sailor, then her dialogue should reflect that. Don’t substitute a euphemism in your characters speech because your afraid that your sweet-old-primary-school-teacher or [insert family member here] won’t approve or think less of you for putting it in print. This is writing. Either write with a spine and stay true to your story or don’t waste your time trying.

If you’re telling a story from your past, you don’t have to mention the person’s name that wronged you, but if it’s important to the story you have to be able to convey how badly they wronged you. You may choose to be vague and leave the details to the readers imagination, but the story won’t ring true if you slap some fresh paint on it and call it something else. It should be absolutely clear that you were wronged by said person and that you are not happy about it. This is the truth, this is what readers want to read. A reader wants to be a part of the story, and leaving out the good parts to save some one’s feelings robs the reader of the full experience. If the story is worth telling then the parts that may offend some one, are usually the same parts that make it an interesting story to tell.

Be true to your story, tell the parts that need to be told, and let the people who will get offended find a way to cope. Remember, that if they do get offended then they are either guilty of something or some one that you will never see eye to eye with, anyway.

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

Rachel Caine gives us Midnight Alley, the third book in the Morganville Vampires Series. This book picks up where the third book leaves off. Rachel uses the cliffhanger model in her series with style. Each book wraps up the current dilemma and then opens a new one to leave you hungry for the the next book.

An Excerpt from Amazon:

Claire Danvers’s college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it’s giving night school a whole new meaning.

(more…)

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I’ve started writing fiction again. If you read my previous post, My Reading and Writing Autobiography, then you are familiar with my writing history. If you haven’t had a chance to read that one I would encourage you to read it first, since this post will assume that you have.

It’s been a long time, since I made an attempt at writing fiction. I thought the words would come easy and the grammar would just work. I was wrong. Writing is a skill that requires practice to master. If you get out of practice, then don’t expect to pick up where you left off. Give it time and it will start to come back to you, but don’t expect to get right on the first attempt.

I’ve been kicking around a story for about  six months now. It started off with a single character in a setting that captured my attention. It has grown into a trilogy in my mind with intricate plots and growth of the main characters through out the trilogy. I finally decided to sit down  and put words to paper. In my first attempt that’s exactly what I accomplished – words on paper. I reread my first 1,000 words and decided that the scene and characters where there, but the writing was poor and the dialogue was forced. I started to trash it out right and start from somewhere else in the story, but I didn’t want to spend more time writing junk. I comprimised, and rewrote the first 1,000 words.The second attempt reads much better, and now I feel like I can press on.

Sometimes you have to hammer out the words to get the bad writing out. You can always rewrite, revise, or try again.

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

The second book in the Morganville Vampires Series, The Dead Girls’ Dance, kept me turning the pages from beginning to end. This sequel to Glass Houses, provides a back story to Shane that comes back to haunt him. Shane’s dad is back for revenge, and Shane becomes collateral damage. Claire has to save her new boyfriend with the help of her friends.

An Excerpt From Amazon:

Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls’ Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

(more…)

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

I recently asked Rachel Caine a question on a Bitten By Books. When I get the opportunity to ask an author a question I try to make the most of the question I’m asking. I usually ask how an author has honed a particular writing skill that they excel at in their work. What better way to learn (next to practice) than to ask a master of what you want to learn?

Rachel is a master of dialogue. Her dialogue comes alive in the minds of readers in a way that makes you feel like you’re eavesdropping on a private conversation. The dialogue between characters breathes life into each and every one of them, whether they are a main character or simple a stand in.

I was so excited that Rachel took the time answer my question, that I just had to share her answer on my blog. The following is copied from the comments section at the virtual release party for Carpe Corpus (which you can get to following the picture like above).

Rachel,

I love the Morganville Vampire Series and I truly appreciate all the freely offered short stories on your website. They are amazing and so are you for offering them freely to your fans.

When I get the chance to ask an author a question it is usually about the writing process. Your ability to bring such life-like dialogue to the pages of your novels is something I can only hope to mimic in my own works. How do you make the dialogue ring so true in the mind of the readers? Do you say it out loud as you are typing it or what?

Thanks,
Jerry W Stewart

Comment by Rachel Caine — June 30, 2009 @ 8:13 pm

50. Jerry, thank you, what a great compliment! I love writing dialogue, but it’s one of those deceptively difficult things, no doubt about it. I do sometimes read things aloud, but I’ve been doing it long enough that I hear the character voices very clearly in my head, so it’s gotten a lot easier over the years. I do think that reading aloud helps get a rhythm to your dialogue and prose as well, though. I highly recommend it.

This is a great tip from Rachel, and one that I’m honored to have. Go and ask her your own questions at the launch party and be entered to win a Sony eBook Reader. Also, I encourage you to read her books for the great stories and to learn how to write dialogue like a professional.

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

The novel I’m working on has a little to do with parkour, aka free running. I know very little about parkour or the people who practice it, so I’ve been on Google trying to find out everything I can about the sport. In the process I’ve found a lot of amazing videos and wanted to share a few with you. I hope you like them. Also I’m fishing for comments, since my previous posts haven’t warranted any, yet, so I want to leave you with a question. Do you think a small mix of parkour could be successful in an action packed urban fantasy YA novel? Why or why not?

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

A little history about my writing experience:

Before I learned to read, I used to go with my mom to The Bookworm, a small used book store in my hometown. I would always get a handful of used comic books, and she would get a paper grocery bag full of romance novels. Those would last her about two weeks, and then we would go back and trade in our previous spoils for new books and comics. I couldn’t read my comics, but I would look at the panels and create in my imagination the story I thought the panels were telling. When my mom would read my comics to me, I always felt a sense of pride when the story would parallel my own imagined version.

When I learned to read in the first grade, I read any of the primer books I could get my hands on. By second grade, I had moved on to young science fiction novels, like Isaac Asimov’s Lucky Starr Series, and by third, I was reading adult novels, mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. I still read and collected comics, but those didn’t take me long finish, so I would get my fix on the fantastic and heroic by reading novels and short stories. I was constantly in search of a hero I could idolize, a fantastic idea I could use to fuel my imagination, and an adventure to glue them together. When I wasn’t reading I was outside creating my own heroes and adventures, or inside creating those adventures with an endless supply of G.I. Joes, Ninja Turtles, and Transformers.

As I got older, the stories I read, though still a passion of mine, didn’t satisfy me as they did before, so I started writing my own short stories (and a few poems but mostly to impress girls). I was always afraid that my stories weren’t up to par, and in all fairness, they weren’t. I decided that my stories were for my personal gratification, and I never showed them to anyone. When I turned 16 I wrote my first attempt at a novel. It was a cheesy sci-fi epic about robots and sexy alien women (16 year old male with hormones, do the math). It was awful, but I felt accomplished. I had finished a novel, though I’m not sure now what the actual word count was and my bet would be that it was shy 40,000 words or so from mainstream. Nevertheless, it was a feat to be proud of, and I was beaming. When I read my imagined masterpiece, I realized it was awful and that no one should ever have to endure reading it no matter how much they loved me or how related they were to me. I hide my manuscript and grew a little discouraged.

I still wrote a few short stories after that, but my heart wasn’t in them like they used to be. It wasn’t until I had taken a few writing classes at UCA (University of Central Arkansas) and received high grades in my writing classes and teacher and peer compliments that I found the motivation to attempt another novel.

I was 20 years old and married when I sat down to my shiny new Mac and started writing. My wife, then, would rather spend time with her friends than with me, so I had a lot of time to myself. I used that time to write. I plowed through the first draft in about 6 weeks. It was another science fiction novel about cybernetic futuristic warfare. When I read over it this time I was proud. I held it gingerly, like it was an ancient piece of parchment that might fall apart in my hands. I couldn’t believe that I had written something that I actually wanted other people to read. I made some revisions and saved everything on my computer and printed a copy to put in my filing cabinet.

Taking the advice of so many authors, I decided to take a break from my manuscript and come back to it later for the first major revision. A week or so had gone by when I woke up to the smell of smoke and the screeching of the alarm clock next to the bed. The wall closest to my side of the bed was engulfed in flames, and smoke was rapidly filling the small bedroom. I grabbed the first pair of pants I saw, which were my wife’s—not mine, and followed her out the front door. The house went up in less than 20 minutes, and inside the only copies of my manuscript burned as well. I went into a complete state of shock and became utterly disappointed that I had failed again.

Life got really hard for me after the fire and I lost the motivation to do much of anything. I stopped dreaming and started working. I spent all my time working and pushing my dreams to the side. My wife spent all her time with friends and various other pursuits, and I didn’t care enough to get out of the marriage. I was depressed for a few years after the fire for a lot of different reasons.

I’m 28 now, and I’ve got smoke alarms in the house and my home owner’s insurance is current. I’m a Systems Administrator for a utility company, and have learned the importance of having backups for my backups in multiple locations. I divorced the wife mentioned earlier a few years ago, and I am, now, happily married to the woman that I wish I would have waited for the first time I decided to marry. I’ve started reading a lot more and my genre of choice has changed. I read more paranormal fiction than anything else, and it spans multiple genres, so I find it where I can. I decided about 9 months ago that I wanted to give writing another chance, so I started preparing. I now have a man cave, that is for me to get away in, and inside of the man cave is an office, my own personal writing lair. I have my wife to thank for making it all possible and supporting me in pursuit of my impossible dreams. I love her more for it every day, and hope that I can do the same to help her to achieve her dreams, as well.

Now that everything is in place, I just want to say that I’ve started writing and dreaming again. I hope it’s true what they say about the third time being a charm.

–Jerry

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

Ok, so I’ve been waiting on payday to get the new iPhone 3gs. Payday is finally here, well actually tomorrow, but a lot of good it will do me. My friend that works for AT&T here in Conway, AR sent me a text message a little bit ago to tell me they were out of iPhone 3gs’s. This is the worst news I’ve gotten in a while. I’ve been waiting to get an iPhone knowing that the new one was coming out in the summer. Then I had to wait until payday to be able to afford one, and now there aren’t any iPhones anywhere in Arkansas.

I know there may be some places online where I could order an iPhone and get it shipped to me, and I may look into that option tomorrow. But I was going to pick one up first thing in the morning, and now I can’t. Yes, I know I’m whining, but I really want one. :p Oh well, I guess I can wait a little bit longer (only because I don’t have a choice).

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

Rachel Caine is an amazing author. I’ve read 3 of the books in this series so far and I’m absolutely amazed by how alive her characters are. She adds so much dimension to their personalities through true to life interactions with each other and incredibly accurate dialogue. All of the books in the series that I have read so far have cliff-hanger-endings, but I love that in a series. It keeps me reading the series as if it were one long story rather than a collection of loosely related stories.

Amazon Excerpt:

From the author of the popular Weather Warden series. Welcome to Morganville, Texas. Just don’t stay out after dark. College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school’s social scene: somewhere less than zero. When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don’t show many signs of life. But they’ll have Claire’s back when the town’s deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood.

(more…)

Originally published at Jerry W Stewart. Please leave any comments there.

In search of a potion for her dying mother, Clary sneaks into the City of Glass and is immediately caught up in a life-and-death battle. As the children of the Moon (werewolves), Night (vampires), and Faerie gather for a war that will rend the heavens, Clary calls upon her untrained powers to control an angel who will save or destroy them all. Readers should be familiar with the first two installments in the Mortal Instruments series, but there is nevertheless plenty of romance, loss, honor, and betrayal to make the journey worthwhile. An experienced storyteller, Clare moves the plot quickly to a satisfying end.

To save her mother’s life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters — never mind that enter-ing the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunter (more…)