Stop the presses

It might be noticed, by whom I am not too sure, but I have changed my current project. I have taken up a new short story: The Cage of Motley which will be part of the Kingdom Crisis world, though perhaps not part of the podcast here. I like the story a whole lot and if I can pull off keeping it under the 6k word count I might being willing to take a bit of a risk with it.

The plan is to knock out the first draft over the next week. I have been awful about my goals lately so who knows how this will work out.

Another story complete

Well weighing in at a healthy 7688 words is The Solider and his Queen, which I think needs a new title but so far everything comes out cheesier that what I have already. Ah well.

So now on to some hard core edits of The Wailing Stone and catching up on audio work for the podcast. Speaking of which at the moment it looks like I am still on track for the release this weekend of part 1 of Thief’s Folly, the reading and the lengths are all weird with this story so I am not sure if it will be a 2 episode story or a 3. I will know better next week after part 1 is out and I edit the second (and third?) parts.

On the NaNoWrMo front — I am still hoping to participate but my outline and prep work is far from done and I have one more short story that is baking at the moment… so it is a wait and see. Then again I said the same thing about the podcast and I am 2 episodes in with a 3rd releasing in two days.

Those are my thoughts for the moment. Yea me for finishing another story… now onto the next project. Just keep writing is the moto.

– Brian Clay

State of Writer

I am currently recovering from some sort of super crud that my son’s kindergarten class cooked up. As a result I am behind in my writing and my recording.

At the moment I don’t think it will impact the release of the next episode.

However, my writing schedule has fallen off more significantly. I was expecting to have The Solider and his Queen completed at this point and midway through edits for The Wailing Stone. Well the story is not only not done, it is turning out to be about 1500 words longer than I originally thought.

The reason why this is causing me stress is that I had hoped to have October cleared to work on outlining and planing for NaNoWrMo.  Best laid plans. So October will be for finishing the current story and editing Wailing Stone, which needs more work than I expected.

– Brian

Writing Update (and podcast news)

I finished the 1st/2nd draft of The Wailing Stone it clocks in at 6,600 words. It was a hard story to write, quite a bit darker than my usual stuff and definitely an experiment. I learned a lot about my writing and myself with this one. It will need some real work in the editing phase to clean up some stumbles. The pod-casting of this one will be in the November/December time frame.

I am now starting The Solider and his Queen, tentative title by the way. This is a ghost story of sorts that was inspired by some research I was doing into Russian folklore, which ended up going somewhere completely unexpected. This story will most likely end up being about 5,000 words and will be in the podcast schedule as the last 2009 story (maybe).

About the podcast: Well I have been watching my subscriber numbers bounce around, up and down from day to day but on the whole they are going up. I have also been getting some nice feedback in addition to some helpful advice. Which has resulted in me doing some rerecording of Episode 2 to work on the computer fan vibration that can be heard in Episode 1. Tons of lessons learned so far and I am so grateful to everyone that has lent a hand in helping me improve.

– Brian

Checking the Pulse

Welcome to September 1st 2009!

In a mere 12 days I will be posting the first episode of my podcast, which will be the first half of Duty Calls. I have been flipping and flopping about releasing it as one episode, which would be more than an hour of content, or breaking it into two. It really changes everyday; right now it will be two episodes mostly because it fits my release schedule better.

Thief’s Folly is in edits right now and is schedule for podcasting in October, which gives me plenty of time for the last couple of rounds of edits. This one is longer and looks like it will be broken into three bits, but that could change after the edits are done.

Wailing Stones is coming along nicely, for a first draft anyway. I had been thinking of following it up with Leap of Faith, a story about a religious scholar experiencing a crisis of faith; however, I have this little ghost story, very short and very fun that I have been playing with and it might bump itself up in the queue. It is funny, as soon as I finish one story (or get close to finishing) the order of writing changes all around. Ah well, since I am the boss I get to decide, right?

So I am now interrupting this me blog to plug a couple of other author/podcasters.

First — Phillippa Ballantine

I just finished listening to her latest podcast novel Weather Child , a super natural thriller set in a post World War I, New Zealand. The story was captivating and unique there were times where I would stop what I was doing and just say “Wow, that’s so cool!” The writing painted the perfect picture without wasting words, I could only dream to write so well. The podcast itself is just wonderful, I could listen to Pip read just about anything and it would entertain me. Do yourself a favor and subscribe to the feed (there are links on her site or you can subscribe through iTunes) it is a story well worth your time.

Second — J Daniel Sawyer

The current novel Down from Ten which has been describe as The Shinning meets “Clue” is a great story and the cast is doing an outstanding job. Warning – it is an in-flight podcast so when you catch up with the episodes you will be dealing with “cliffhangers”!

Though it is his other podcast novel I really wanted to mention, The Antithesis Progression: Predestination and Other Games of Chance, first the title is just plain awesome, I am aware that for the sake of “selling” the novel the title will be tweaked to be more approachable, which is only sensible; however, the Lit geek in me states firmly that the title is perfect and should be left alone. Okay, that said the title isn’t the only awesome thing here. The story is fantastic, driven by a cast of characters with powerful agendas that makes this space – spy – political – thriller come to life unlike any other podcast novel I have listened to. Take the time to check it out.

Something to keep in mind both novels are definitely for adults, not kid or office safe content.

Lastly –

Yesterday, I receive my copy of Scott Sigler’s The Rookie, think Star Wars meets the Godfather during Any Given Sunday and it sort of scratches the surface. If you are at all interested in football or sci/fi you owe it to yourself to go over to www.scottsigler.com and order a copy. It is not going to be on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble, his publisher is trying to build a different brand for him so Scott published the book on his own. This not a vanity press product, I promise you that this book looks as good, if not better than any hard cover best seller. Buy it, read it and tell a friend, you can’t go wrong with the FDO!

Remember Sept 13th the stories start!

– Brian Clay