Writing

Mon - February 25, 2008

Lest my ego grow too large...

Posted by Edward Knight at sfreader.com:
I'm about two thirds done with Storm Dragon by James Wyatt. This book gives me hope. It gives me hope that if a book written as poorly as this one can get into hardcover with a major publisher that I still have a chance as a writer.

You just gotta laugh.

Posted at 07:50 AM

Thu - February 14, 2008

Dragon Forge cover on Amazon

It's probably been there for a while, but I only just noticed that Amazon.com has the cover of Dragon Forge. It's purty.

I have the bound galley of the book in front of me as I'm working on Dragon War, book 3 in the trilogy. I am on vacation this week and next, which means that my work on the 4e core rule books is pretty much finished and I can finally return the time and attention that I stole from this book for months as I was trying to get the DMG finished and then adventure H3, Pyramid of Shadows. Two weeks of full-time novel writing. Wild and wacky.

Oxymoron of the day:
"Top News: Jane Fonda uses vulgarity on Today show"

All right, back to it.

Posted at 03:20 PM

Sun - November 18, 2007

Writing 'n' stuff.

Two Storm Dragon reviews: Mania Books and Publisher's Weekly.

This morning I finished the sixth draft of an outline for Dragon Forge. There are still some holes and themes I need to think through a little more, but I think that I could start writing tomorrow, only a week behind schedule. That means I have to make up 6,000 words over the next 19 weeks, which should be easy to do.

Meanwhile, Dragon Forge is back in its editor's loving hands. So that's one thing off my plate.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is finished, of course. So let's see. I am:
• Still writing the Dungeon Master's Guide.
• Just about finished outlining Dragon War and ready to start writing.
• Trying to finish the Dungeon Master's Guide art order.
• Trying to keep in touch with the Monster Manual and Player's Handbook now that they're in editing.
• Working closely with Bill Slavicsek and Mike Mearls to hammer out the last lingering rules issues in the game,
• Still trying to get the house looking beautiful, though my mother is already here and my brothers arrive in the next couple of days.
• Still feeling stressed...

Posted at 04:05 PM

Wed - October 17, 2007

Another Storm Dragon review

Graeme's Fantasy Book Review has posted a . . . not altogether unfavorable review of Storm Dragon. He gives it seven out of 10.

Bits I liked:
"There’s also a real sense of purpose about the writing that I found refreshing. Wyatt doesn’t hang around or take you off down blind alleys"
"The story itself is a good one and will keep you interested . . ."
". . . there’s enough there to make me look forward to seeing how the trilogy pans out . . ."

Check it out. Heck, I'm just glad people are noticing it.

But to make myself feel better, I will also post snippets from the good folks on the Worlds of D&D forums :

Zot: "One of my favorite Eberron novels so far. Absolutely no hardcover regret here"

Jetty: "It is a great book and rightfully published in hardcover. . . it has a good story, great characters, interesting locations and a lot of surprises. "

DragonReader: "the book is excellent. James Wyatt has crafted a great story and populated with a bunch of extremely interesting characters . . . . This was a very well written and engaging book. It really grabbed my attention and kept it all the way through."

Sturm Jaeger: "The characters are fascinating and the plot is very intriguing. . . I enjoyed the entire novel. Interesting locations, complex characters you care about, excellent action scenes, fun dialogue. Very well done!"

Go check out the great forums over at Worlds of D&D—lots of Eberron authors hang out there, too.

Oh, and read Storm Dragon, too. Five out of six readers surveyed loved it!

Me? I am:
• Writing the Dungeon Master's Guide
• Outlining Dragon War
• Revising Dragon Forge
• Finishing the Player's Handbook art order
• Trying to keep in touch with the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual now that they're in editing
• Starring in a production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Still trying to remodel this darned house, before my family arrives for Thanksgiving.
• Feeling a little stressed...

Posted at 09:27 PM

Tue - September 4, 2007

Storm Dragon Tidbits

The First (?) Review!
A very favorable review has just been posted on The Beezer Review. Many thanks to the author, BeezerMN, for such a thoughtful review—and for calling it to my attention! The same review appears on the amazon.com page for the book.

Quote:
"With this novel, Mr. Wyatt has proven he will no doubt make a name for himself as a fantasy author. I, for one, hope his career is long and storied as his books are a joy to read. I can easily see myself recommending this novel to many, many people."

Wizards' Press Release
I had no idea this was written and put out. Only some deep digging through Google search results turned it up. A more focused Google search reveals that it was picked up, though it appears most widely on financial pages for Hasbro. Huh.

Posted at 08:44 PM

Sun - September 2, 2007

Storm Dragon on wizards.com

Now that it's September, the Wizards books site is prominently featuring Storm Dragon. You can get some awesome wallpapers now, in addition to the sample chapter and author profile that have been up for a while. Check it out!

And remember, as the real estate agents say, if you like Storm Dragon, the highest compliment you can give me is to recommend my book to others . . .

Posted at 10:01 AM

Thu - August 30, 2007

Well, that went even better than expected.

114,572 / 112,600
(101.8%)

Since I last posted, I wrote another 1,376 words and finished the book. Epilogue, "part starts," and all. That was quite a day: 4,007 words total.

With an 8-hour work day in the midst of it all.

That feels all right. Time to email it off. I guess I can sleep in tomorrow. Good night!

Posted at 11:50 PM

This, my friends, is what it's all about

It has been an awesome writing day. I wrote a perfectly respectable 1,292 words this morning, bringing the second-to-last chapter to a close. Then I went in to the office feeling like I couldn't wait to read whatever I wrote next! Then at home this evening, with my wife at rehearsal and my son happily reading about Animal Crossing: Wild World on some web page, I've cranked out another 1,339 words, at least half of that last chapter, and I have that same feeling. I guess that's a good sign that the book is a page-turner, if I can't even wait to write the next page!

If all goes well, I'll finish at least the last chapter tonight. That would leave only the epilogue (you know I love my epilogues) and the "part starts"—like Storm Dragon, each of the book's four parts are going to start with a few verses of the Draconic Prophecy, which I need to pull together. That should be easily within the realm of what I can do in the morning, then I can email the whole thing off and be done with it for at least a couple of weeks!

My plan is to enjoy a solid 9 days off from work and perhaps about another week off from writing in the mornings. Then I want to get a good, solid start on the outline for Dragon War. Having that under my belt will mean (a) that when I do any revisions necessary for the final draft of Dragon Storm I'll be able to think more about what's coming down the pike, and (b) once I'm done with the final draft of Dragon Forge I'll be able to plunge into writing Dragon War with as little delay as possible. Which is good, because the first draft of that book is due on April 1...

What a happy, happy time next spring will be. I'll be wrapping up my hardcover trilogy, and book 2 will be hitting the shelves. The Fourth Edition Player's Handbook will be coming out. I'll be coming up on my 15th wedding anniversary and thinking about doing something crazy like jetting off to Italy to celebrate. Yeah, after this week of vacation, I'm basically living for next spring. C'mon, April!

Posted at 09:04 PM

Tue - August 28, 2007

A storm of dragons

Today is the official release date of Storm Dragon! I saw it at Barnes & Noble this evening, but Border's didn't have it in stock yet. Amazon shows it in stock and indicates that it's number 33,593 in Books. Very exciting!

Oh, and I did an interview that's up on the Wizards site.

Have you seen my YouTube video? I'm pretty sure I revealed too much, here. Hard to take it back now, though.

I've added a link to my "blog" on the Gleemax forums over on the right. Eventually, that will move off the message boards and onto a proper blog page. What's the future of aquela.com in the world of Gleemax? Answer hazy, ask again later.

Finally, Dragon Forge. Have I mentioned that I'm taking a vacation next week? Labor Day is Monday, my birthday is Friday, and Hasbro gives us our birthdays off. So at the cost of three vacation days I can spend 9 days out of the office. It's my plan to be finished with Dragon Forge by Friday morning so that I can relax on Saturday, play in Andy's D&D game on Sunday, spend some time at GwenCon the next weekend, and put in some serious work on finishing up our new house during the week in between. I'm really looking forward to this vacation, and in particular to not setting my alarm for 6 A.M. every single day in order to get up and go write. That, my friends, is incentive.

So my current word count is . . .

108,643 / 112,600
(96.5%)

If you're particularly clever and observant, you will have noticed that I'm cheating a bit, here. Up until now, I have put 120,000 words as my target. My contract actually specifies a total between 100,000 and 120,000. I tend to write long, so I've been aiming for the higher number. When I reached the halfway point time-wise and the one-quarter point word-count wise, I revised my goal somewhat. This current target is based on a realistic estimate of how much more I actually have to write to finish the book—about one and a half chapters plus an epilogue. (My chapters average a little over 2,400 words.) So that's an honest 96.5%, and a confident assertion that I'll turn in this book on Friday.

Speaking of which, why am I writing this instead of that??!?

Posted at 11:26 PM

Fri - August 10, 2007

STORM DRAGON

It bugs me that prototype covers get out there, on Amazon and even on the Wizards web site, and they never seem to go away. Here: I scanned the cover of the actual hardcover book.

And on the Dragon Forge front:

90,069 / 120,000
(75.1%)

Posted at 10:35 PM

Mon - August 6, 2007

Storm Dragon Sightings

I've been remiss in mentioning this sort of thing. Heck, I've been remiss in mentioning anything. But I have one of the first copies of Storm Dragon to come off the presses, and I think it will be available at GenCon—which, incredibly, is only a week and a half away! It's competing with Ed Greenwood and Jean Rabe on the Wizards book page, and its own page doesn't have the final cover, but there is a sample chapter posted. Go check it out! And then buy the book. It's worth reading in hardcover. Trust me. ;)

I am scheduled for two signing sessions at GenCon, sitting alongside Keith Baker both times. There's also an Eberron meet & greet, or maybe two. I don't have my schedule in front of me, so I'll try to remember to post the times when I do.

On the Dragon Forge front, I've been writing like a screaming maniac, with a target of 1,000 words a day. I've hit that target 44 of the last 51 days, so I'm feeling good. Normally, I set targets and continually fail to hit them until a crunch time at the end. This time, I went into crunch mode close to the halfway point of my writing time, and I've sustained it against all expectations based on past performance.

So here's where I am:

84,970 / 120,000
(70.8%)

My deadline is pretty much Labor Day, which is the week of my birthday. I'm planning some kind of vacation.

Posted at 07:40 AM

Wed - January 24, 2007

Writing and revising

I had a strange realization this morning. I am finding the task of revising my novel for a final draft much more daunting than the task of actually writing the thing.

See, the writing process was very straightforward. I took my outline to Starbucks every day and put more words on the page. It was a purely linear process—even though I wanted, at times, to go back and revise things I'd written before, I didn't have time. So I basically started on page 1 and wrote straight through to page 294 or whatever it came out to be. I could measure my progress day by day, as demonstrated by the word meters I put up here once in a while. A very manageable process, once you get past the initial, "Holy cow, that's a lot of words."

But working on the final draft now, I feel like I'm confronted every day with this enormous behemoth of a novel, and it's hard to know where to attack it. I've been trying to handle it as a linear process like writing: Start on page 1, make edits according to the notes that my wife and my editor have given me, and carry on through to page 294 or whatever it turns out to be. But it doesn't really work like that. Much more than in the writing stage, I feel like I have to think about the novel as a whole. I need to think about the arc of the main character's development, and make sure that the change is happening at the right pace. I have to jump around within the document a lot more, sometimes moving chunks of text from one place to another, and occasionally leaving little "@@" marks in the text so I remember to go back and mess with stuff later. It's a much more challenging process.

I don't remember In the Claws of the Tiger being like this. I feel like the linear revision process worked for that book—maybe because I had more time for the first draft, and I'd already gone through it once myself before I even sent it to the editor.

Well, daunting or not, it has to get done. I know it has to get done, because I saw the book listed on Amazon. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

Posted at 09:32 PM

Fri - January 19, 2007

Holy Cats!

Amazon.com has a page for my new novel! The Storm Dragon: The Draconic Prophecies, Book 1. Apparently it's coming out August 28, which is about a week earlier than I expected. And it showed up on Amazon (as our products often do) a few months earlier than I expected...

Want to see? Take a look at my new Amazon.com store! When you get there, click on Fiction over on the right.

Posted at 12:07 AM

Thu - January 18, 2007

Bruce Cordell on outlining

My co-worker and friend Bruce Cordell posted recently about his experience outlining the first novel of his new trilogy. It was neat for me to read another author's thoughts on a process we've all gone through, and to compare my own feelings about it.

Bruce said he's never been a fan of outlines, preferring to just write as he goes. My sense is only slightly different: I never even thought about outlining a novel until I was asked to submit one. I always assumed that when I did write a novel, I'd sit down and write from the beginning to the end, making it up as I went along. And over the years I made a couple of feeble stabs in the direction of a short story, writing as I went along, and each time sort of petered out, not knowing where the story was going.

So when my editor for both Tales of the Last War and In the Claws of the Tiger asked for, first, a pitch (a pretty brief summary of the plot of the book) and then a chapter-by-chapter outline, I was taken aback. But I found myself able to write such outlines. And then, much to my surprise, I found that having an outline made it possible to write the story or the novel. I sat down every morning with my mocha valencia and knew what I had to try to write that morning, even if I didn't know exactly what words to put down. It turns out that is the hard, or at leas the time-consuming part. To sit down and know what the characters have to discuss, what they need to do, what needs to happen in the world around them, and to struggle to find the words to express all that can be pretty disheartening. Usually once the caffeine from that triple-shot coffee delicacy kicks in, the process gets easier.

Like Bruce, I enjoy both the structure an outline provides and the freedom to deviate from it. As I wrote this novel, I kept a file called "working outline," which I used to guide my day-by-day writing, but also marked up thoroughly, so that it remained a faithful outline of the plot of the novel even as I veered away from the original plan. There's at least one place where I wrote, "Wow, that chapter ended up very differently than I expected!" and then struck through all the rest of the text of the outline for that chapter and filled it in with something new. And when I got to the last couple of chapters, I threw the outline away completely. That working outline file also served as a handy place to make notes about things I wrote that I knew I wanted to pick up later on. It was a handy thing to have alongside my actual novel file (one big Word file, ending up at 1.8 MB!).

I also kept a character file, with some basic information about each of the major characters in the novel. I had notes about D&D stats (I never statted these ones up completely), physical description, mannerisms, and favorite exclamations. For In the Claws of the Tiger I had a timeline file as well, where I tracked the action of the novel day by day. I started one of those for this novel but fell away from it... I'm sort of wondering if I should go back and fill it in to make sure I'm not making any weird mistakes about continuity.

So there it is—a reaction to Bruce's comments, with some extra thoughts of my own about the writing process. Make of it what you will...

Posted at 10:31 PM

Oh, yeah, there's this...

I've been remiss about updating, partly because I got a .Mac subscription in September and I'm still trying to decide in my head if I want to move my blog to that server and perhaps even let the aquela.com domain name go. That would make me sad, but how long has it been since I've done any work (or any gaming) in Aquela? A very long time.

But the important thing is this, as of this past Sunday (the 14th):

120,555 / 120,000
(100.5%)

I've started working through the manuscript toward a final draft. That's a much happier place to be: sitting at Starbucks with my printed manuscript on one side (covered in my wife's notes), my editor's notes on the other side, and a cinnamon dolce latte in my hands, without any word-count target for the day. There's still some time pressure—I need to get this done so that I can start outlining and writing the next book! Oop—did I spill the beans?

Posted at 07:00 AM

I forgot a milestone...

Milestones

Despite the fatigue...

Just this:

In the Claws of the Tiger feedback and discussion

Milestone

Writing versus "bookwork"