I Need a Clone! (or two or three)

If you're like me, you have way more story ideas than you have time to write them all. A question that writers--both successful and struggling--get asked a lot is: Where do you get your ideas? If you're a writer the answer is simple--your brain is constantly "open" to receive ideas. As writers, we live, eat, breathe, sleep stories. Stories are our nourishment. If your passion in life is telling stories, then it's only reasonable that you are always thinking about stories--or at least programmed to receive stories.

I've been this way for years, and always I have a backlog of stories that pile up. Stories I know I'll never get to and never write. Sometimes it's frustrating. I'll be working on a project--like I am now, trying to finish my latest novel. And Bam! I get a story idea I just have to explore. Then I get back to the novel. Then Bing! Another story idea pops in my head. I have to follow it--like Alice down the rabbit hole. I can't leave it alone. What if it's "the one?" You know what I mean? The one true story that, once it's created, will live on throughout eternity as the greatest piece of literature known to man. Or at least the best thing you've created that you can hang your hat on and say with pride--"Yeah, I wrote that. Pretty good isn't it?" And feel a sense of pride that you came damn close to reaching that pinnacle of self-expression. It's not riches or fame we seek--it's the satisfaction of knowing we wrote a damn good story. That's what it's always been about.

Which brings me back to the clone dilemma. Yes, I need a clone. Not because I'm too busy to finish current projects, but because I have too many ideas floating around. A new story fills me with excitement. It's the excitement of wondering what this story is about, who are these characters, and what will happen to them. It burns inside you and takes you away from what you're doing and in the end you just have to tear yourself away and leave it alone and get back to finishing what you're doing. But it's like Pandora's Box sitting there in a corner (of your desktop). Waiting to be opened. Waiting for the secrets to be revealed. It's tempting. Too tempting. I don't know how other people deal with it. How does Stephen King deal with it? He had so many stories he had to create an alias just to get them all out.
I'm not as prolific as King is yet, mainly because I have to keep my day job, and mainly because, at heart, I'm a lazy bastard who has to force himself to write. But each month and year the stories pile up. At least I'll know the well will never run dry. But there's also the danger of the well spilling over. No one talks about that. The over-abundance. The spillage of ideas. Sometimes you go to the well. And sometimes the well spills over and comes to you.

Part two finished!

Finished Part Two of the new novel. My goal is to hopefully have the rough draft completed by end of October.

Part 1 Finished! (rough draft only)

Finished part one of the new novel--right now titled The Lake Town. It's a horror novel with some sci fi elements (natch). Unlike Ryan's Run this one is an adult novel. Basically it's about what happens when an alien artifact crashes into a small lake and begins to infect several of the town's teenagers--turning them into homicidal maniacs. Homicidal maniacs with a purpose though. I won't give away the purpose right now. Please feel free to guess.

It's planned out to be three parts, the first part is titled "Impact." The second part is titled "Infection." When I have some of the rough edges smoothed out I'll post a sample.

The plan is to have it finished by January and enter it into the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (ABNA). If I make it to at least the quarter-final round I'll get a Publisher's Weekly review. Much like I did with Ryan's Run--and you can read the review in my previous post. If I get a good review (after making the QF round of course) then I may shop it around to some agents or just post it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Once it is finished I will return to Ryan's Quest, the sequel to Ryan's Run. Sorry for the delay. I know I have it posted on the website that it will be available Summer 2013, but I will have to push it back a year at least and have a sample up as well.

Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award

So it's been nearly a week since Amazon announced those moving on to the semi-final round. Alas, Ryan's Run did not make the list. However, I did receive a good review from Publisher's Weekly. I am including the full review below. Note that everyone's book who made it to the quarter-final round was reviewed by Publisher's Weekly. Not all the reviews were positive, based on the ones I read on the ABNA discussion boards. Also, all the reviews are pretty much the same length and format: a summary of the novel with a few lines of analysis.

ABNA Publishers Weekly Review

Sixteen-year-old Ryan Whitaker and his best friend, Ralph Speckler, are on an art field trip in Chicago when Ryan draws a girl with a scar on her face and then becomes obsessed with finding the girl. Ryan’s brother Jack was killed the year before in Afghanistan, and Ryan thinks of him as the hero and of himself as “just the comic book geek.” Seeing the girl changes his life. He soon learns that she’s real, but in a parallel world, where he soon ends up. Much of this well-written book involves plotting by Ryan’s small group, headed by Mungo, who owns the comic book store. The author’s statements on war, which are presented through Ryan's thoughts, do not slow the story nor do they feel like tacked-on lessons. The protagonist is sympathetic, even loveable. He wants only what is right. Violet is a strong female who puts the love of her people before her own safety. As Ryan rushes against time to save each world, the bad guys get closer. Except for a disappointing ending that feels like a setup for a sequel, this book is a page-turner.

As I said, I'm pleased with the review and I'll definitely use it to promote the book on my website. It's funny though, the one bit of criticism--that the ending is "disappointing" because it "feels like a setup for a sequel" sounds strange. The ending is a setup for a sequel. I don't know how that makes it "disappointing." Unless of course, this reviewer prefers his or her books to be tied up in neat little bows by the end of a novel, with no cliffhangers. *SPOILER ALERT* Ryan's Run ends in a cliffhanger. 

But that's the nature of the beast. Not all critics will like your work. 

Now I'm at work on next year's submission, an adult horror novel with some elements of sci fi. I apologize for those who want the sequel to Ryan's Run--Ryan's Quest--to come out as planned this summer. But unfortunately, also the nature of the beast, is that career comes first. I'm pretty excited by this new novel, and need to get it done so that it is ready to be entered by next January. I think those who liked Ryan's Run will really enjoy this new novel. And I promise I'll return to Ryan's Quest when I can. 

Nook!

Ryan's Run, now available on the Nook for the same low low introductory price of .99!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ryans-run-hunter-parker-price/1114902469?ean=2940016245799

Ryan's Run is available for a free download on Amazon. I was a bit skeptical about the free promo that Amazon runs when you sign up for their KDP select. But there's been a significant number of downloads--and by "significant" I mean over a hundred, which for me definitely qualifies as significant. The book's only been out for three months and I haven't been doing much to promote it other than entering it in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest (later on that). So to see numbers creeping up to two hundred downloads makes me feel good. I hope they enjoy the book and come back for the sequel--or leave a good review.

In the Beginning Was the Bean . . .

Before writing Ryan's Run, the first in the Parallel War Trilogy, I was working on an ambitious series involving time travel, parallel universes, and zombies. Don't ask me how they all fit together--I barely can remember all the details. Like I said, it was an ambitious project-- too ambitious. It had multiple characters who weaved in and out of each other's story at different times and places and in different universes. So I put the story aside to work on other stories. Those didn't pan out, but something struck me while I was working on the more ambitious story: I had an image of someone looking into the Bean--the famous Chicago sculpture at Millennium Park--and seeing someone that wasn't there when he turned around. He could see her reflection in the mirrored surface, but that was it. It wasn't part of the story--just an image that came to me. For some reason that idea stuck with me, and when I returned to the story it easily fell into place. That happens very rarely.

Mostly--for me anyway--working on a story involves constant revision. The final plot of a story usually bares very little resemblance to the initial ideas. But Ryan's Run was different. Don't ask me why, maybe it was because I borrowed a lot from the ambitious story that ran wild--simplified it, and then added to it piece by piece from that first image of a guy looking into the Bean and seeing someone who wasn't there.

Down to its core, Ryan's Run is a boy-meets-girl story. Since I already had the initial idea of how they meet--and of course they don't really "meet"at all--how do you meet someone who's not there? All I had to do was answer some basic questions: Why was he at the Bean? Who does he see? How can she not be there? The answers came quickly. Since this was a YA novel involving a teenage boy, it made sense he would see a teenage girl. Love at first sight--kind of. But then came the tricky part--how could she not be there. **SPOILER ALERT**. Since I had spent a lot of time and energy working on a story involving parallel universes it seemed logical that she lived in a parallel Chicago. And Bam! There it was. Two worlds collide. Of course, there was some tricky stuff to work out. Why does only Ryan see the girl and no one else? How does he travel to another universe? Why? Those were minor questions to answer. Things fell into place and Ryan's adventure took off. Sometimes as a writer you never know where a story will go or where it will end. That can be frustrating and exciting, depending on the story and the people involved. And then there are those times when you know exactly where a story is going and where it will end. And that can be exciting as well.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog: Have Words. Will Write. The title is a nod to the old western series Have Gun. Will Travel starring Richard Boone as a wandering gun for hire. I grew up watching tons of western shows like this. I think this is where I got my first taste of storytelling that involved good versus evil. Later I would get into comic books and fantasy novels that traded on the same themes as the westerns shows.

Now I've published my first novel on Amazon called Ryan's Run. It's a science fiction adventure novel for teens but doesn't stray too far from the good versus evil theme. It's about a boy named Ryan who suddenly and mysteriously finds himself being transported to a parallel universe--an exact duplicate of the Chicago he lives in--except this Chicago has been ruled by ruthless aliens for the past twelve years. It's the first book in a trilogy called the Parallel War. Ryan has to escape the aliens, find out why he's the one who is being brought to this world and for what purpose, and maybe even fall in love and help the survivors fight the aliens. It's a lot to do. I hope you take a look at it. Here's the Amazon link if you're interested.

That's it for now. Check back in or subscribe to see what else I'm writing about. Mostly it will be about the writing process. The self-publishing process. And whatever dark corner my mind happens to wander into. Leave a comment or email me if you have any questions. Once again--welcome and thanks for reading!

http://www.amazon.com/Ryans-Run-The-Parallel-ebook/dp/B00AQABIH8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359900134&sr=1-1&keywords=Ryan%27s+Run

Coming soon

Stay tuned!