Categotry Archives: Bloodleggers

Three weeks in…

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Posted by W.J. Howard

…and I’m already late posting our weekly update. “Behind” is today’s word, boys and girls.

Novel News

Anyways, no new news on the release of The Courier. Cross your fingers for next week.

Am spending the rest of this week catching up on 4 short stories I’ve written for Friday Flash and Grand Scares, volume 2. I’ll have a couple out tomorrow and the other two by the end of the week, so stay tuned for some FREE fun fiction to read.

No Bloodlegger news this week, but I am attempting to bug R.J. about our progress as I’m writing this. Only we’re discussing his team, the Packer’s loss instead.

Networking News

I’m busily working on setting up the Bloody Heart’s Valentine’s Day Blog Hop, hosted by my publisher Vamplit Publishing. We have a facebook and Google+ page and everything. Yeah, that was meant to be sarcastic. What’s exciting is we’ll be working withe Dark Media City on this hop along with many other indie publishers, filmmakers, artists, etc. so there will be an amazing selection of horror to choose from on Valentine’s Day.

The biggest news in networking is I’m partnering with my dear friend Rebekah Welch, The Colorado Connector on a new project. Rebekah and I have worked together in the past, so getting this up and running should be a breeze. We are starting a division of her networking group for creative geniuses across the Denver metro area.

Nifty News

I heard somewhere that beagles are the most used dog in labs due to their incredible sniffers. Glad to see these guys will have a future filled with love and mischief, like our little Mabel who spent the first 7 years of her life in a cage barefoot and pregnant.

Twitt

Like the New Site?

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Why the changes?  I’m creating a website for my husband’s business and decided to move my blogs to his server.  Am also pointing all blogs here including Bloodleggers and The Courier.   R. J. and I will post here later this year instead of having a separate blog.  Everything’s incorporated into one place now.  Also added a home page for quick news blurbs.  I’ll also be adding a forum on the site eventually.  Until then, pardon the mess.

Twitt

Bloodleggers #3 on Blood Reads

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I owe everyone an apology for causing the delay of the next part of Bloodleggers.  A couple hours after I woke up on my birthday back on the 17th of the month I realized I’ve been dealing with writer’s block for quite some time.  I wrote about it in my blog in Okay, I’m Blocked…Now What? back on the 19th if you’d like to know more.

Anyways, R.J. had a part ready for editing while I was throwing my 10th draft into the trash can a few days before the part three release date on the 25th.  Hooray for responsible writers!  So we got to work last week on editing his part.  It was supposed to post yesterday, but I set the date to 2011 instead of the current year.  OOPS!

My family decided to spend another day in the mountains yesterday, so I didn’t realize until this morning I’d made a boo-boo.  Luckily, I took another look at the post because I’d also left in a three paragraph discussion between R.J. and I that copied in from the comments on the manuscript.

Okay…all is well now.  To read it, just click here.  Or use the link in the left column.  ENJOY!!

Twitt

A New Chapter – A New Laptop

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For those of you who have been following along, you know that back when INew Laptop was working on first chapter (on the very first version of it), I had my laptop of 11 years… die.

It was a sad day. Let’s be serious though, it was an old IBM Thinkpad T21, an underpowered, old machine. It was good enough for Word, though, and that was, at the time, all I needed.

But then, last Friday, my wife spoke the magic words, “Go get yourself a new laptop.”

So now, I have a brand new (not really, it’s a refurb) Samsung R530 notebook. It’s weird to have a screen this big, and this sharp, and be able to run Windows 7 on it, without it dragging like a snail.

The nice part is, over the weekend, I was able to get in time writing while we were on a little vacation in the woods. Now, I’m typing this using Windows Live “Writer” which lets me write Blog posts from my laptop with full editing, and importing of images, and other editing features I’d normally have to do by hand.

Ah, the miracles of modern technology.

On the Bloodleggers front, you may be wondering what I wrote over the weekend… Well, I’ve had an idea for a while for a chapter late in the book, so, over the weekend, I thought, what the heck, and started that chapter. So, without giving too much away, it’s a scene between Knox and someone very important among the bloodlegging hierarchy.

So, new laptop, new chapter, and vice versa. It’s been a fun weekend. Now if I could just get work down to less than 60 hours a week…

R.J.

Twitt

While I Attempt To Pick Myself Back Up

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Okay, who said this?  I’m feeling too lazy to look it up.

“Success is measured not in how many times you fall down, but by how many times you get back up.“

It’s in Literary Agent, Rachelle Gardner’s blog post Good to Great today.  I really needed to read about her recent trip to the U.S. Olympic Training Center.  Used to live not to far from there.  Anyways, loved that Rachelle says,

“What impresses me the most is this: These athletes are talented and gifted beyond the ordinary. They’re already elite before they get to the training center. They’ve won hundreds of competitions in their sport. They know they’re “good.” So what do they do? Do they sit back and expect coaches to come knocking and invite them to join the Olympic team?

“No, they do the opposite. They give up everything and work harder than ever to take themselves from good to great. They spend at least 40 hours a week focused on improving their game. And they were already one of the best.“

I’m having a bit of a “I want to quit” crisis this week.  I don’t really want to quit writing.  This is the first time I’ve really been faced with this overwhelming feeling that quitting is the best option.  Maybe go work at Target or Wal Mart instead.  Bow out and do something easy and brainless.  Really crappy feeling by the way.  I’m guessing this is just another one of those hurdles we writers have to get over. 

I have to argue with Rachelle though.  Star athletes spend their entire life with the support of their families and coaches.  Fiction writer is one of those occupations like starving artist that’s considered a hobby.  Mom and Dad tell you you’re nuts from the get go if you tell ‘em you want to write novels.  “Make sure you have something to fall back on.”  And who can afford a coach?!?  Personally, I’d love it if the drill sergeant therapist from on the Geico commercial would beat down my door right now.

It’s a good thing we now have the Internet, where we can support each other.  Lots of great writers’ groups out there, like Vamplit Writers.  We’re all very supportive of other writers for the most part.  Great blogs like Rachelle Gardner’s to supply the motivational posts.  Still…no one to hold me back from filling out an online application to Target.  Sign!

Twitt

Bloodleggers #2 on Blood Reads

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“The humans are ignorant and undisciplined. Transformation to our kind without the proper trials and necessary years of indentured servitude is an error in judgment.”
–Elder Ysabell of Clan de Bohun, Scotland, 
The Congress of Glenluce, 1183 A.D.
November 5th, 2008, Mile High Mortuary, 6th Avenue, Denver Colorado

Regina Todd paced the shiny concrete floor of the crematorium holding a cell phone against her ear with one hand and nervously flicking the black polish off her thumbnail with the other. “C’mon, Piers,” she grumbled, “answer.” READ MORE…

Twitt

Hell Week

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It’s hell week again, or should I say hell half week.  Wednesday is the next release of Bloodleggers and I’m pulling my hair out, still.  So I’ve opened up a bottle of wine and toasted to the hair I have left.  A new wine I haven’t tasted, Raia 2007 Shiraz.  Not bad.

My greatest challenge has been changing from a terse 1st person present tense, as The Courier is written, to 3rd person.  If you don’t read my personal blog, you won’t know that I’ve got a goal to finish releasing The Courier on Twitter by July 31st, which I will do.  Only problem is it takes my brain about an hour to switch completely between the tenses.  So when I go back to edit I’m constantly catching a bizarre mix of tenses.

So what was my other challenge?  Giggle giggle.  A few sips of wine down and I’m already feeling loopy.  I’m a serious lightweight. 

Oh yeah!  It really sucks to try to match another author’s voice.  Grrrrr…  My thought is it will be easy to tell what I’ve written vs. what R.J.’s written for awhile.  Then the parts we write together once Regina and Knox meet will also stand out.  I just have to get over it. 

More sips of wine.  From this point on I take no responsibility for improper grammar or incoherence.  Oh, also watching the last hour of Lord of the Rings in TNT (Sam’s saving Frodo from the orcs), so I’ve got that distraction going too.

Anyways, I might sound like I’m complaining, but taking on the writing of a novel with another writer has been one of the smartest decisions I’ve ever made.  I really felt like I’d gotten into a rut with The Courier.  This has forced me to intricately analyze both our writing styles, and I feel I’m becoming a better writer as a result of it.

So come Wednesday, I’m hoping you love and hate Miss Regina Todd.  She’s a little difficult.  And I’m really hoping you’ll like Magnus MacKay, her uncle, who you’ll also meet.  He’s becoming a main character as we continue our planning of Bloodleggers.

Twitt

Bloodleggers #1 on Blood Reads

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The first part of Bloodleggers has been published on Blood Reads. READ IT…

WIN A FREE EBOOK

In honor of our first release, we’re holding a drawing to win a free eBook published by eBookUndead. Leave a comment on Blood Reads before the release of part 2 on July 28th and you’re entered to win. Hope you’ll drop by Blood Reads to read.

Twitt

Zero Day

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Spent the last few days editing, and working with Wendy on the prologue which posts…

Tomorrow!

Yes, that’s right. Today is zero day. If you look to the left (at least before tomorrow morning), you’ll see the counter has inexorably worked it’s way down to the point where the day counter has expired. Time has run out. Tomorrow morning, 6AM (GMT), the first pages of Bloodleggers will appear on the web.

No, I’m not hyperventilating. Well, maybe just a little.

Twitt
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