Dear Reader,
I was watching some movies the other day getting myself ready for Halloween, which I know I have a while before you say anything. I wanted to pretend it was Fall and Halloween was next weekend. I love the holidays, mostly the two that come in the Fall and Christmas. In fact, the order goes Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, those are the best times of the year. I’m ready for the weather to dip colder and the world starts to slow down a little.
I know, I have time, but it doesn’t change the longing for it all.
Which has been a problem for me lately, the longing for things to change or the need for something different in my life. Although, the real problem roams around my feet like a hungry cat and it is the feeling I don’t have enough time anymore. The feeling of running out of time has always been one of my biggest problems. I’m sure I know why this feeling is deeply rooted in me, but this is not the place nor the time for me to tell you about it.
This feeling, however misleading, has placed in me a spot where I believe I am farther along in my year than I am. I say this because as I write this letter to you and you, hopefully, read it, I will be finishing September story involving the Talon family.
Now you have only read January’s story and February’s story about the Talons, but I have written all the way up to September and outline until the end of the year. Those stories will be posted soon enough for you to read and enjoy. The problem I’m running into with the blog and maybe, it is not so much a problem, but I have been breaking down my stories into a thousand words sections for you to read. It should make reading the sections a lot easier while at the same time allowing me to keep enough of the story flowing for you to keep coming back.
If I were writing a blog for the news or something else, I would cut my word count down to five to three hundred words, but I fear that little amount of words will hinder my stories. Maybe, the larger word count is one of the reasons my blog has not taken off. Another big reason could also be the fact, I don’t think I want it to get too big. I enjoy it being smaller because it allows me to do whatever I want when I want and if one day it does get big, I fear what might come of it.
The stories on the blog, as you know, aren’t meant to be masterpieces or even the best I can do. They are meant to bring you along with me as I grow in my craft. It is why I do not take anything down if I can help it. I’m sure once my books start hitting the stores I will have to remove some of my blog posts, but we shall see if that is the case.
With all that said let’s go back to talking about the Talons. Are you enjoying getting to know the family?
I can tell you I am and find myself shocked by how things are developing with them. I’m also trying to write this stories like a cartoon, moving fast, and keeping things going while at the same time trying to stay a little light-hearted. The way I am working with the stories is to come up with a title, a short description of the story, and let things unfold within the pages of the tale. Here let me show you:
1. January
Title: Bloody Snow
Plot: Gabriel and Raphael have to go to a base in the North Pole because the base went dark. There they find out the people discovered a Nazi’s suit of armor from Tibet. The armor has the soul of Genghis Khan in it, and someone put the suit on to become an immoral warlord. The man name is Rogan Gardner, and he takes over the base. He wants to start wars in the world to take over and feed the demon in the suit which is known as Aries.
Now if you go back and re-read Bloody Snow, you can see how I stuck to this plot description, sort of, but most of all you can see how I went away from it. I changed a lot of things as I wrote the story because the characters demanded me to do so, but this is how I am working with Talons, very loose.
This is not how I normally write a story, but I was reading where Stephen King says he doesn’t plot out or outline his stories but lets the characters pull him along the path of the narrative. (You can find what I am talking about in Stephen King On Writing. A must read for any writer if you ask me.) After reading about his way of writing, I wanted to try it myself, and the Talon family was the perfect vehicle for me to do so.
Now, I can’t say which way I like better, but I have found for bigger stories I like the outline. I have a lot of writer friends who talk about how they hate outlines because it keeps them within a box, and I can understand that line of thinking, if not for the fact I think they are doing it wrong. I look at an outline like a first draft or better yet a sketch. When you start a drawing or even a painting, you sketch out a lot of ideas, but you are not bound to those ideas. The under-line sketch allows you to build off of your work and any good artist will tell you, “You start light and then move into the harder work.” Other words you sketch first and then start adding the details of the work later. To me, that is all an outline is a very rough sketch, and I’m not holy bounded to it. I can change it if need be because nothing is set in stone until it is sent out to the publishers.
After I have a sketch, I slowly start building my finish novel. So, I guess you can say the blog you are reading is my sketchbook.
So, what I am going to do with the Talon family after the stories on the blog are over? Well, I’m so glad you asked me … I have a few novels I am working on with them. In fact, I have two already written, and I’m now in the middle of typing them up. So, let’s pray one day you get to read the books of the Talons and not just reading about them on a screen, (unless you read your books on a Kindle or something). As for the blog, I’m going to keep posting the rest of the stories I have written for the Talons until their year is over and then afterward, which I believe will be sometime new year, I'll start a new series of stories.
And… and… I'd do some more blogs about how I developed a story, things like how I build characters, worlds, and why I’m not a big fan of first-person stories, but we shall see what happens next.
With a Handshake,
Chase
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