Category: Fiction

Sneak Peak: ‘Son of Hel’

This is a draft of the first chapter of Son of Hel, my novel currently in progress. It is rough, so naturally contains some overused words or wordy phrases. This is to show the expansion of the concept over an earlier version of the same work. There is of course no guarantee that any of the following will be in the final.

I’d like to see that land beyond Pole. That area beyond the Pole is the Center of the Great Unknown.

——Admiral Richard Byrd.

#

It was the End of the World.

It was a place few mortals had seen—and most who had seen it had not survived to tell. At the pinnacle of the Earth, the Arctic Ocean’s surface turned to ten feet of ice, but beneath that ice, the deep waters still flowed. At the Symmes’ Hole, the very lip of the world—a vast opening 16,000 miles across—the water poured over a great cliff down into the planet’s interior in a massive waterfall that dwarfed every other spectacle on the planet. Deep in the world’s crust, in mazelike caverns fed by this tumbling sea, were light and life and vast civilizations that the men of the surface, crawling like maggots on a corpse, could hardly dream of. The water flowed through these subterranean networks like blood through the arteries until it at last emerged at the Symmes’ Hole of the south, a never-ending waterspout thousands of feet high.

But the Symmes’ Hole at the North Pole was not a mere void: Standing in its exact center, jutting starkly into the sky and supported by no one knew what, was the Black Precipice, a dark, windswept mountain tall enough to rival Everest, entirely of lodestone. This mountain it was that caused all compass needles to point inexorably north.

Though enormous, the Black Precipice was invisible from the distant lip of the Symmes Hole, shrouded as it was in a thick ring of icy mist. Few explorers had glimpsed this terrifying mountain, and most who had, had soon met their deaths in the bottomless drop of the waterfall. Though clever in his inventions, man had not yet built the flying ships capable of crossing that chasm and landing safely on the Black Precipice’s craggy cliffs—so those who dwelt on its rough and barren slopes remained, for the time being, unharried by the rapaciousness of human greed.

Continue reading “Sneak Peak: ‘Son of Hel’”

‘Rag & Muffin’ Is Finished (for Real this Time)

Rag & Muffin is finished. It’s done. It’s out of my hands and off to the publisher. It’s been through the editor, through the proofreader, and then back through me. That’s it.

I edited this one to death and then continued editing after it was dead. By the end there, I might have been doing more harm than good, so that meant it was time to get rid of it.

I have no word on a release date, but at least the book is now on someone else’s desk instead of mine. Now that that’s gone, I can work in earnest on Son of Hel. I’m still in the research phase of that one.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Editing
Due:5 years ago
100%

The Kill List

My final stage of editing is to go through what I call my “kill list,” a collection of my worst writing habits and the quirks that I try to edit out of the final draft.

A few people have previously asked to see my kill list, and I demurred because it is a collection of personal mistakes. However, I’ve reconsidered; for what it’s worth, I present the list here at it presently stands.

These are the most common errors in my own writing, at least that I’m aware of. Removing these from Rag & Muffin will be my final act upon the manuscript before it leaves my possession for good.

  • Overuse of LEAPT
  • Overuse of JUMPED
  • Comma before BUT eliminated in independent clauses except in cases of extreme constrast
  • BECAUSE and CUZ: No comma before except for clarity
  • THAT vs WHICH: Former restrictive, latter not
  • SINCE: Comma after main clause if it introduces reason rather than temporal information (non-restrictive)
  • AS: Usually no comma after main clause unless explaining a situation
  • Excess instances of AND and BUT at beginning of sentences
  • Excessive use of APPARENTLY
  • LAY, LAYING, and LAID (make sure used correctly)
  • No comma before AS IF
  • EACH OTHER vs. ONE ANOTHER (two characters vs. more than two)
  • VERY, A LITTLE, A BIT (overuse)
  • Double check that LY words before adjectives are adverbs
  • SUCH AS: comma on nonrestrictive, no comma on restrictive
  • Comma before TOO only when a pause is wanted or there is an abrupt shift
  • Eliminate EVEN THOUGH
  • Use ALTHOUGH at beginning of sentences and THOUGH otherwise

A Review of Grammarly Software

The process of editing my next novel, Rag & Muffin, is—mercifully—nearing its completion. To facilitate this process, I decided to shell out for a subscription to Grammarly Premium. I have just finished running the novel through it.

You’ve likely heard of Grammarly; due to heavy advertising, it’s a product that’s made itself widely known, deservedly or not, as a top choice among automated grammar checkers. Its reputation for accuracy may be undeserved and appears to have been artificially boosted by fake review blogs. Its most basic functions are free and can be added to popular browsers as a plug-in. However, a premium account, which runs at an outrageous price ($29.95 per month or $139.95 per year), is necessary to unlock is allegedly more advanced features.

Since Rag & Muffin is precious to me, I decided to shell out the money for a single month, download the Microsoft Word plugin, and see what I think of it.

Continue reading “A Review of Grammarly Software”

The Last Stage of ‘Rag & Muffin’

Rag & Muffin has been accepted for publication. I just got it back from the proofreader, who wanted only minor alterations, mostly  typos consisting of extra spaces that sneaked in somehow.

Before sending it back, I’ve decided to try a Grammarly Premium account and run the book through it. So far, I’m moderately impressed, though not wowed, by its suggestions. I think it will result in one more additional layer of polish by the time I’m finished.

Probably not worth the subscription price, though. Not yet, anyway.

Anyhow, running through this is going to be time-consuming and monotonous, but once I’m finished, the book is done on my end. I’ll send it in with a draft for a back-cover blurb, and then it is out of my hands.

Also: Last word I got is that Dead to Rites is really, truly on the final stage on the publisher’s end. Stay tuned.

‘Rag & Muffin’ Submitted for Publication

… And good riddance.

I’m going to try to produce a review for tomorrow, but for now, I’m drained. I have finally got through the last edits on Rag & Muffin, my first (or third?) novel.

This has been a long time coming—and I mean a ridiculously, embarrassingly long time. To give you an idea, I first conceived of this dark, subversive, deconstructive magical girl story before Puella Magi Madoka Magica existed.

Yes, really. I could have spearheaded the dark, violent magical girl trend—except I suck.

Yeah. It’s been that long. I was too sluggish to take advantage of this idea, so my muse romanced somebody else instead.

That’s not necessarily so bad, though: I had a lot of skill to develop before I was able to get this story into a polished form. I also had to get my personal stuff together because this book was for reasons I can’t state in detail an emotionally and spiritually taxing project. I had genuine “agony and ecstasy” while working on this. It is (at least in my opinion) a deeply ugly and deeply beautiful story, and I sometimes felt as if I had to rip my soul apart piece by piece to complete it.

My editor said she had a rough time going through my draft. I think (hope?) that’s a good thing, that it has the impact it’s supposed to: I ripped my heart out and stomped on it to write this, and my goal is to rip your heart out and stomp on it also.

I wanted to sprain your stomach muscles with laughter when I wrote Jake and the Dynamo, and I want to tear your heart out with Rag & Muffin. My goal as an author is to rupture organs.

Some compare writing a book to giving a birth, but creating Rag & Muffin has been more like gestating a xenomorph chestburster. It’s wicked and nasty, and I personally also think it’s beautiful. It’s a story of the highest ideals and darkest lusts mixed up and shaken together. It has guns and Kung fu and furries and gothic lolitas dumped into the setting of Talbot Mundi’s pulp fiction with a heavy dose of dungeon punk thrown in for good measure. It’s about sex and death and God, which might be the only important things in life.

It’s about growing up. It’s about getting religion. It’s about losing religion. It’s about kicking ass and taking names. It started as a simplistic and puerile revenge story, but then it grew—and grew.

It’s not about revenge anymore. It’s about saving your soul. It’s about you—you, you son of a bitch.

Amazon Censors ‘Rag & Muffin’

I’m just about finished with the current round of edits on Rag & Muffin. I’m currently on a long weekend from work, during which I’m entertaining my smol Asian gf. But I’m grabbing a few minutes here and there to put the polish on my manuscript.

Now about this post’s sensationalized headline: Amazon has come out with new “rules” that they will not allow book covers in which guns are firing, pointed at the viewer, or held by a minor.

That pretty much makes any conceivable cover art for Rag & Muffin impossible, since the book’s concept can’t be conveyed visually without an image of a minor holding guns. This is Minors Holding Guns: The Book.

And you can bet that Amazon will not be applying this rule to any big publishers. They won’t be banning manga. In fact, images of minors holding or firing guns are still easy to find on the platform:

Art from Gunslinger Girl depicting a young girl firing a submachine gun.
Still on Amazon.

This is obviously an excuse to crack down on indies and is likely a precursor to more aggressive censorship.

It’s worth testing how consistently Amazon can apply this rule, so I’d like to attempt to upload Rag & Muffin with relevant cover art. If the book gets rejected, my plan is to suggest to my publisher that we produce an image that says “BANNED BY AMAZON” in big letters, and put right in the book’s description that the content of the novel is too hot for Amazon to handle. Anyone who buys the book, either in print or digitally, will of course get the actual cover art.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Proofing
Due:5 years ago
80%

‘Rag & Muffin’ Progress Update

I am currently finishing up Rag & Muffin, having received the initial comments from my editor. This is in a sense my “first novel,” which is why it has taken longer, and been more painful, to complete than Jake and the Dynamo was.

Even my editor found this project somewhat painful. As she told me when she sent her initial edits, the story is “unrelentingly dark,” though she also stated that “the mood and the background and the eeriness and the culture are all supremely well done.”

I can’t describe openly on the internet all the difficulty I went through to produce this manuscript, but I can say that it was a long, hard road, and I am glad to be nearly done with it.

I can’t give a release date for this, but I expect my final edits and submission to be done probably by the end of the month.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Proofing
Due:5 years ago
50%

‘Dead to Rites’ Is on Its Way!

I don’t have a precise release date yet, but Dead to Rites is getting close to its release. We had a bit of a mix-up involving different versions, but that’s resolved now. I learned something from my experience with the first book and, though it would be crazy to say that volume 2 is error free, I think I can say that it is much more closely edited.

So, if things go as planned, the book should be out next month—I hope early next month. The format has been completely revamped, and I’m excited about it because this next volume will be much more readable and stately-looking than the first. If you thought volume 1 was an attractive book (I thought so, anyway), volume 2 will look even better.

And of course, I’m crossing my fingers in expectation that it won’t be very long after this I’ll be announcing the release of Rag & Muffin.

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Nominated for an Award

I confess I’ve never before heard of Happy Frogs, but it is apparently a fledgling organization with some interest in promoting science fiction and fantasy.

The Frogs’ recently created Ribbit Award has this year been renamed the John W. Campbell Literary Prize because WorldCon recently relinquished the name of the famed sf editor for its award for new fiction. I had caught wind of that name change a few months ago and didn’t quite believe it, but it is apparently real.

In any case, Jon Del Arroz recently announced the nominees for the newly minted Campbell award, and Jake and the Dynamo is a nominee for Best Fantasy Novel. I am just arrogant enough to say that, if nothing else, I am confident it is the funniest book on the nomination list.

I am of course honored and humbled. This couldn’t come at a better time, either, since the sequel is due for a release in the near future.

In any case, remember to vote early and vote often if you think magical girls deserve a larger place at the table in the world of speculative fiction.

I certainly think they deserve a larger place. I mean, have you seen the way they eat?