In Compliance with Heinlein's Rules...

I sent a query out last night to a potential agency. The query included a synopsis and the first five pages. I fudged and sent them the first six pages of The Lioness that you can read on another page of my blog. Hopefully it will do the trick.

Sometimes I'm not sure I'm not just talking to myself. If you stop by here and read my ramblings, please leave a comment.

Thanks!

Dave

Heinlein's Rules

Robert Heinlein is one of my all time favorite authors. If not the all time. (It would be a tie between Heinlein and Verne). He wrote an essay about writing "speculative fiction" in which he stated five rules for writing. I thought I would post them here tonight, as they seem to back up my decision to push forward with my original plans for Tycho Station and the rest of the DragonHawk Saga. So, without further ado, here's Heinlein's Rules for writing:

Rule One: You Must Write
I try to write something every night, even if it is an entry here on the blog or some notes on one my stories. I don't always manage to write. Sometimes life just refuses to cooperate. But most of the time I am successful.

Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
Last summer I finshed Tycho Station. So I complied with that rule.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
Well, that one was broken. Guess it's time to comply.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
I've made a couple of half hearted attempts, with no luck (obviously)

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
Got to do Four before you can do Five...

Okay, now I have a plan. I know what I need to do. Time to get to work!

Dave

Damn the torpedos! Full Speed Ahead!

For the past year or so, I have dithered and waivered and hemmed and hawwed (?) around with Tycho Station, wondering if I should break it up into two stories, remove parts and make it smaller or maybe just start over. I have heard fellow writers and actual authors who have said that at 800 plus pages and over 218,000 words it is way too big for a first novel. So, I spent the last month moving, cutting, revising, editing, blah, blah, blah....

Enough! Sweep all that stuff aside and go forward with the version that I like. Its the only version that makes sense to me. Its a bit rough, but I think it will work...

To celebrate my decision I have added a new page called Exercpts from Tycho Station. You can find the link right under the DragonHawk Saga map. Click on the page and read about The Lioness.

Then leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Thanks!

Dave

Time to kick the tires and light the fires!

It occurred to me at work today, as I was struggling to write some terminal learning objectives and some enabling objectives for a refinery training program that I am working on. I realized that I was tired of tweaking things, fussing with templates, reformatting styles and shifting content around. Time to get back to what is important, THE WRITING!
So back to Tycho Station to finish the down-sizing and editing. Need to get it into position to be marketed. That's got to be the highest priority.

Cheers!

Dave

Gonna enter a contest...

I found out about a writing contest that I want to enter. Its called "Writers and Illustrators of the Future." It is a short story type contest (maybe a "novella"?) with a maximum length of 14,000 words. I have decided to take a "flash back" from one of my stories and try to work it into something that I can enter. I've only got about 2500 words so far, so a lot of work left to do. I've got until March 31 to enter the contest and even if I don't win anything, the judges will send me a written appraisal of my writing. That alone will be worth the effort. Here's a link to the website. Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.writersofthefuture.com/index.htm

Thanks!

Dave

Cats & Dragons & Dogs

Hi Everyone,
Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I have been working on big project at work that has eaten up a lot of time.
Andrew's cell phone science project was finished up and turned in. Can't wait to see what he gets for a grade. Yeah, we all chipped in and helped out, but isn't that what we are supposed to do? In case you don't know, Andrew is my grandson. His dad is divorced and he and Andrew have lived with us since Andrew was about 2. I help with his homework all the time. The trainer in me comes out and I try to help him in a manner that helps him understand what he is doing. I mean, he is 11 and in the 5th grade. We didn't do science projects like this in the 5th grade. We did science projects in Jr High. That's what they intermediate school now. I guess the term "Junior" is not politically correct?
Anyway, I hope he gets a good grade. He did work hard on it.

Cats & Dragons & Dogs... We have a new dog. Andrew has a new dog. An Australian Shepherd named Nawla. She's about 11 weeks old now. Tonight Andrew and she started obedience training. Our vet tells us that she is a very smart, very trainable breed. These dogs traditionally herd cattle and sheep. We don't have any cattle or sheep, but we have another old dog, Kassie, and two cats. Nawla has been terrorizing them a bit, just puppy stuff. Wait until she gets bigger. And smarter. They'll never know what hit them!
Speaking about Cats & Dragons... I have been working on background stuff for the past month or so. I have consolidated my development manual with my reference manual, because I had conflicting notes in both that I needed to resolve. I also have this spreadsheet where I have a quick reference of people, places and things that needs to be  synced with the manuals. Its a lot of work, but it is work that needs to be done.
If I was a real author... I would have done proper background work... Hmm, let me think about that.
Sure, that might be valid. But this thing called the DragonHawk Saga has grown quite a bit from the original concept and the original one story. Now I have ten stories, about a half a million words and many, many hours.
But I did write some new words tonight, other than stuff in the reference manual. I wrote a bit in the prologue of The Dragon Hunters, the first story. Seems there's the Rahhol DragonHawk (He's one of the bad guys!) who is plotting against the Tycho Star Traders...
Well, I hope to get some work and writing done this weekend. Supposed to be bad weather.
Guess I will post this and wrap things up for the night.

Thanks for reading!

Dave

Time out for a little science!

My grandson is working on a science project. We are conducting a survey about cell phone batteries. If you would like to help, downn load the form. (I saved it as a graphic!) Take the survey and send it back to us! Soon!

Thanks,

Dave