E.J. Gette's Blog

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I will be moving my blog to a new home. I have had a good number of years here but I think there is another place that fits my style more.

My blog will now be at Wix. I will post the direct link before I leave here for good.

Thank you to all my readers and may you forever have pen to paper.

Christmas for me is officially over. Anyone who has family far and wide knows what I mean. Christmas at home, visit dad, visit mom, visit grandma, etc. All the visits have been done and all the presents delivered. Now it’s time to get back to work.

Not that I haven’t been working on my writing over the holidays but it has been fairly sparse. I did have a manuscript edited over the holidays and am elbow deep into going over some revisions. I am 50,000 words into book two and moving forward a bit on that.

2019 will prove to be busy, but productive in moving forward on this dream. I am completing some revisions on book one, and am planning a relaunch. I plan to finish book two and get that to market and in the fall I will be hosting my own table at our local scifi/fantasy conference to promote both books.

I wish everyone a productive and creative new year.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, ‘cept myself and the spouse.

Presents she had, I with pen in hand

I was poised to write a scene so grand.

I thought and I scribbled and stared at the page

though nothing came to me, despite all my rage.

I sighed, stood, and looked at the tree

Here is my present, writers block for me.

I know many writers share in my plight

So, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

National Novel Writing Month ended last week. I did not quite make the goal I set for myself but I did accomplish much.

Being a discovery writer had its advantages and disadvantages. For those who aren’t sure what I’m talking about, let me explain. A lot of writers use outlines, very detailed, they go through the entire store in short form and all that’s left is to write it out. This manner of writing is advantageous in that, once you have the outline, you can write along to your hearts content. I have tried outlining, not only do I hate it, but my story grows and changes too much during the writing process. This makes me a discovery writer. I have a general premise of the story, where I want it to go etc. But mostly I just write and go with what ever story develops as I work. I come up with new ideas, plot keys and even characters as I go.

So, while I did not make my writing goal, I did also come up with two good plot keys, a great foreshadowing scene, created a new character and came up with a story arc to carry us into the next book.

I am very happy with my progress over last month and am on track still to finish the first draft by the end of January.

Happy writing! And wish me luck.

My usual Monday post is a day late. I had the day off from my 9-5 job and concentrated on my writing. Being Thanksgiving week, time for writing will be tight. I will be squeezing out every moment I can.

I am happy to say I made good progress yesterday. I hit 40,000 words total on my work in progress. I am 10,000 away from my NaNoWriMo goal and halfway(approximately) done with the first draft of my next novel.

I hope everyone takes the time to be thankful this week. Write, but make time for family too.

I finally decided to start a twitter account yesterday. I’m 46 years old and I’ve made my first tweet. I will admit I was apprehensive about doing this, even though there are so many articles for authors that will tell you how important it is. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks, ‘what should I say?’ ‘who would possibly want to read my random thoughts?’

I’m here to tell you that even in the first day of using it I can see it is so much more than that. Sure, there are adolescents all over the world telling their friends what they had for lunch. But in more of a business view I can see how networking can grow at a very rapid pace. Already I’ve found numerous writers groups, help groups, advice groups and of course editing services and the like.

Everyone else seems to be on twitter. So why aren’t you?

I’d love to hear your comments on the subject either for or against.

There are a good many writers out there that are adjective happy. Snow…cold snow…bitterly cold snow. How many ways to make a noun sound more exciting.

Hi, I’m E.J. And I’m an adverb-a-aholic. I seem to think every action needs a descriptor. ‘Just’ seems to be my favorite. I took it out of my first manuscript entirely too many times.

‘Marty wanted to leave’ vs ‘Marty just wanted to leave’

It’s not a better sentence but for some reason I keep doing it.

We are about halfway into the story, so I thought it was time to share another scene with you. Main characters are always running into obstacles, it’s what we do to them, but when that obstacle is a fear the we force our characters to grow. Keep in mind, this is first draft work.

Rika padded toward the river, head low and ears alert.

“Let’s just find someplace else to cross.” Tova’s voice was shaky.

“Where’s the courage I saw last year?” Keysa asked her.

Rika had slowed and was sniffing the ground in front of her, creeping forward slowly. Her nose was just about to the rock that Tova had been sure moved. Rika suddenly jumped back and both elves gasped as spindly legs started to unfold from the rock.

“tortanak…” Tova whispered.

“What?” Keysa was just staring at the rivers edge as the creature pushed itself up off the ground.

“River spiders. They come to the river to lay eggs and will protect them with their lives, oh, and they’re poisonous too.”

“Spiders.” Keysa stood frozen as she watched more of them unfold and stand. There were six of them standing along the shore now.

Tova nodded.

“Spiders.”

Tova nodded again. “What’s wrong Keysa?”

Keysa actually took a step backward. “I hate spiders. I would rather see Nahhir again.”

“As long as you don’t get bitten by one you’re fine.” Tova drew her sword. “We can do this.”

Keysa stared at the tortanak as the started to move, frozen to the spot, a distant look on her face. Rika was slowly backing away from the creatures unsure what to do and not getting any direction from Keysa.

“Keysa!” Tova yelled, taking a fighting stance but looking worried about being the only one.

Keysa’s fists were clenched into tight balls and her heart thumped in her chest. She took another step backward. She wasn’t doing nothing though. She was feeling the wind, but she was too much of a wreck to draw in any magic.

“Keysa!” Tova hollered one more time before moving between her friend and the spiders. The first one came in range and Tova swung, the blade grazing over the hard shell over the abdomen. Rika too had decided to help keep Keysa safe and was engaged in an exchange of blows with one of the spiders. All this Keysa saw but didn’t see.

Spiders. They could have been anything, but they were spiders. A scene played in Keysa’s mind, a scene that kept her from helping her friends. She was remembering the day as a child she had climbed into a hollowed out log and crawled through a nest of spiders. They had scurried all over her body, she had been covered in them. All she had been able to do was curl up and cry as the spiders explored the invader to their home. An immeasurable amount of time had passed as she screamed for help until her brother had come to pull her out. Even then he was there for her. Where was her brother now, where was level headed Kalin?

A scream from Tova shattered the scene in her head. Keysa blinked her eyes and took in what was going on around her. One of the tortanak had it’s fangs in Tova’s leg and she had fallen backwards, desperately whomping the thing with her sword. Rika, who sported several scrapes from the pointed ends of the spindly legs, leaped into the thing, at least managing to dislodge it from Tova’s leg. Tova tried to stand again and whimpered in pain at the attempt.

Her friends were hurt. She had done nothing.

Keysa backed away from the scene a few more steps, then stopped. She planted her feet and threw her arms out to the sides. Her eyes narrowed as she looked over each of the creatures, each one advancing on her and her friends.

This had to stop now.

It was time for her to be the strong one.

For the second time she reached into the wind. She had seen Kalin do it, she had felt him do it. Little by little her fingers began to tingle, then her arms and it slowly spread through her. She knew the tingle, she was drawing in magic. She tilted her head back and looked to the sky, opening herself to the power.

The torrent of it flowed into her and if she had thought the earth had been a well of magic the wind was even more so. She was filled with it now and struggled to maintain control, to not be swept away by it. She could understand now why her brother, who had never used magic before, had such difficulty with it.

Now, what to do with it. She swung her arms out in front of her and pushed the wind out. A new wind blew, a wind created by her and it flowed out in front of her. Rika had already felt what she was doing and had limped over to stand beside her, but her friend was still in the path of the wind, still trying to fend off the tortanak. Keysa drew her arms closer together, and with that action narrowed the blast of wind that flowed out of her. She had created a focused lance of air and now picked of the spiders one by one. Tova pulled herself out of the path and slowly started to make her way to Keysa.

Keysa moved the air lance to the nearest of the tortanak. At first it only slowed the creature and Keysa pushed more magic into it. The force slammed into the creature lifting it off the ground and throwing it into the river itself. She drew back on the power and aimed for the next one, opening herself up once again and blasting that one too. She picked off each of the spider creatures this way, leaving them to struggle in the river’s current and be taken away.

What kind of word is that you ask? For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.

I do not officially participate myself as I am a believer in writing quality story when your muse is cooperating. I do not discount the program though and would encourage anyone with a glimmer of writing a novel to participate. The program focuses on quantity over quality with the goal being 50,000 words during the month.

I myself like to write when my muse is stuffing ideas into my brain. I do, however, have 2200 words so far this month and seem to be on an idea roll. At this rate I would only be at about 13,000 words for the month, with probably extra on my days off from my 9-5 job. I would say 20,000 by the end of the month. And I’m ok with that.

Either way, happy writing.