Stomach is starting to heal from the hernia surgery. Turns out it’s painful for your guts to come out, and JUST AS PAINFUL to put them back in again. So, you know. Don’t do that.
Keep that shit on the inside, if you have the option.
Because I’ve been anchored to the couch for medicinal reasons, been watching a shitload of The Walking Dead, old episodes, and they just remind me how great season 1 and season 2 were.
Coming May 30th, 2017! Here’s the cover, by the hyper-talented artist Andrea Garcia.
Deadgirl 3 is officially on its way, and I cooked up a little promo poster:
Hey, good and gentle peoples who read this blog! I try not to spam you guys because you’re all so attractive and swell individuals, but it’s not every day the sequel to your first book comes out. Which it did. It does. For me. I mean.
My book is out today. Kindle / Ebook / Phone right now, but the paperback is coming soon. Anyway, I’d really appreciate it if you checked it out or at the very least sent the word along to someone you think might dig it. Anyway, here are the links to Amazon and then I’ll leave you alone I promise.
Here are the Amazon pages forĀ Deadgirl: Ghostlight and the original Deadgirl if you missed it. They’re basically Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style adventure/thrillers narrated by a smartass.
Previous Guides: #1,Ā #2, and #3.
Last time: Solin walked down a single street. No, seriously. Also he vaulted over a cow, I guess?
The Morali land was large, but Solin was soon at his destination (passive ā watch those āwasāes). A copse of trees rose up in the middle of the plains, following the course of a wide stream that broke off of the Sabrienne river to the east. As he got closer he slowed down, both for fear of disturbing his friend and simple exhaustion. He slowed to a jog, and finally a brisk walk (unnecessary comma, the sequel), allowing his muscles to stretch out and his blood to slow down. (Okay. This is a common move I still have to try hard to keep out of my writing. So first I said āhe slowed down.ā Then, in the next sentence, I DESCRIBE what slowing down is. In case you donāt know. Itās partially my tendency to over-explain, and partially an artifact from the first draft. This kind of thing is okay in a first draft because itās really just telling the story to yourself. Later drafts need to be leaner. Take out the tell āhe slowed downā and leave a punchier remnant of the show, like āHis run decayed into a jog, then a leisurely stroll.ā) It felt good to be tired, properly exhausted. Solin didnāt fear toil; he was just terrible at it. (STAHP. We get it. We all get it.)
Just a completely altruistic, non self-serving reminder that the sequel to a book I wrote is coming out in one month. Which I also wrote. I wrote both, is what I’m saying.
Last time: Solin tried to help the blacksmith, taught an adjunct class on how to use a dolly in excruciating detail, broke some shit, and then ran down the street.
I took a week off because the Walking Dead finale broke my shit, but I’m back.
A block or two later, his heart calmed, and he was sure Jayne wasnāt following. (āHeart calmedā is a nothing phrase ā weāre here to evoke emotion. Even a clichĆ© like āhis heart stopped poundingā is at least evocative and descriptive. Iād also reorder this sentence ā āHis heart calmed a block or two later when he was sure Jayne wasnāt following.ā Get rid of a few unnecessary commas and bring the action out front.
However, what Iād really do is reorder the sentence as above, getting the subject and verb out front, AND Iād give it more active language with an amusing voice ā it was supposed to be a funny scene, after all.
So, something like this: āHis heart found its old familiar rhythm three blocks later when he was sure Jayne wasnāt chasing him with a rake.ā)
Still, heād done enough harm to the populace for today. Time to go see āole long face. (The voice is a MESS here. Thinking something like āheād done enough harm to the populaceā is something a robot or a snarky college professor might say. But then in the next sentence itās ātime to go see āole long face.ā Folksy language. Voice is important, and this neophyte writer didnāt spare one moment to even think about it).
Start at the beginning with the 1st Asshole’s Guide to Editing.
Last time: Solin woke up and left his house, which took 1,000 boring words.
āBlacksmith!ā Solin shouted. (Good thing Solin said this. I hadnāt mentioned this new characterās profession in at least one (1) seconds).
Jayne raised an eyebrow and leaned across his workbench, āLayabout!ā (This is just a good opportunity to point at that āraising an eyebrow and leaning across a workbenchā is not a dialogue tag. Turn that comma into a period).
Solin frowned.
āDonāt fret,ā Jayne said, āNothing personal. Sure could use a bit of help, though.ā
(While weāre on dialogue attribution and formatting, apparently I didnāt know how to do it. This is an actual draft I sent to people, too, which is a real shame. āDonāt fretā is a sentence, so āJayne saidā ends with a period. The rest of his dialogue is a new sentence. The only reason to cram that comma in there is if the dialogue tag is breaking a sentence, as in, āWe could go outside,ā Mister Roboto said, āif weĀ want to get eaten by giant space frogs.ā)
For HashtagThrowbackThursday, I thought it might be fun to go through my first, unpublished, piece-of-shit fantasy novel one chunk at a time. I wrote it when I was 19, but thatās really no excuse. I’ve since improved, thank God, with published books like this one and this one.Ā
At first I just wanted to share my editing-snark with someone who isnāt me, but I realized that this ungodly manuscript might actually be of some use as a teaching tool. Better than sitting in a drawer, I suppose.
Letās dive right in, folks. The red ink represents my current thoughts and feelings, and the black ink represents a bad novel.
If this is remotely interesting to you, I might make this a weekly feature. Let’s do dis.
Meet the girl who just won't die . . .
All the world's a stage
On the road again...
We all go a little mad sometimes
This is the end, my friend
B.C. Johnson 