Hello, my small family of blog-ites. This blog will be closing on June 15th due to the fact that its original purpose for existing has long since passed. Please feel free to join me at http://www.byronsuggs.com . There you can find all of my links, updates on my books, and general stuff about what I'm up to...Thanks to all of you that have stopped by!

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! 'Rockapocalypse: A Boy's Tale' is under contract!

I'm happy to announce that my first book, 'Rockapocalypse: A Boy's Tale', is under contract with Written World Communications! I'd like to thank everyone for their interest and support over the last year and a half. Now you get to read it! I'll know more about the publication date as we progress in that direction.

What I'm up to these days...

Half way through edits for Rockapocalypse with my publisher. Also, I've finished a second book entitled 'Cold Currents', a mystery/thriller set in the South. I'm hoping this is my year to go into print. I'm sorry this blog hasn't been updated more often, and I sincerely thank everyone who has followed it. I'm working on another blog with Weebly that will combine the contents of this site and my Wordpress blog. I hope to launch that soon!

Editorial Tutorial…or some form of ‘orial’

It’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ve been busy. Actually that’s an understatement. I thought I would share my experiences, albeit as on-going as they may be, on writing and the editorial process.

First, unless you’re a writer blessed with talents far beyond mortal means, you probably are not the best editor for your work. Why? Because you love your work. Because you don’t handle self-rejection and self-critique very well. Because…well, isn’t that enough? Sure, you can run spell check, catch a few of those seriously stupid words or sentences that crept into your work while you were busy seducing it to paper. Maybe even realize you blew the plot and are able to fix it. But you won’t see it like a reader will see it. You won’t see it like a publisher or an agent will see it. You won’t approach it from a ‘marketing’ standpoint. You simply won’t… because you’re a writer.

With my first book, Rockapocalypse: A Boy’s Tale (now called Rock of Ages: The Keeper, after umpteen million revisions), I contracted a freelance editor to do a developmental edit. It was rather disastrous from my standpoint. My book had various problems and I spent many months re-writing. So much re-writing in fact, that my book changed drastically. Which put me back to square one, and that was not a happy place for me.

Fortunately, I had enough of ‘something’ in my work to get the attention of a small, traditional boutique publisher. After failing to get a contract through their publication board process, for reasons that went far beyond the merits of the book, I was lucky enough to peak additional interest with the owner/CEO, and was offered a collaboration of sorts to get my book up to their publishing standards. Collaboration, you say? Yes. I now meet with the her once a week at their company offices and do a combined developmental/copy-edit on my manuscript. No contract has been offered, but I’m learning a great deal about the editing process and hope it will lead to one in the near future. The really cool thing? It’s not costing me a dime. And that means they’re willing to invest time (=money) in me.

On another front, my second book, Cold Currents, is now under editorial eyes. After a careful search, I landed the editorial services of a well-respected freelance editor with over 40 years experience in the publishing industry. I won’t go into details for discretionary reasons, but he’s associated with a lengthy list of well-known works spanning his career. He’s currently providing a full edit on my manuscript as I write this. The cost will be a bit steep for my pockets, but it’s a sacrifice I feel I have to make at this point. I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous about his pending prognosis. It’s like waiting for a call from your doctor on your lab results.

The hardest part about both of the above? Not touching my work until the editing touches it. I really, really want to get back in there and ‘meddle-in-the- middle’, keep my fingers in it. But for now, I’ll just be content knowing I’m learning as I go with the edits on my first book and that I’ve got a professional’s eyes on my second book.

What are your thoughts on the editing process? Do you think the ‘wordsmithing’ stops with you? Do you have an editor you’re comfortable with that you return to over and over again? Is it important to you as a writer that your work shines to readers, and the industry in general?

Let me know your thoughts!

Disclaimer: This blog post has been edited with the narrow/bias perspective of its originator. Professional quality content should not be assumed by the reader.

Memories can save you $$$

'Get your Van Halen tickets now!'

That was the subject line of the email I received in my Yahoo inbox yesterday. I stopped everything I was doing and ran upstairs. My wife was in the bathroom putting on makeup.

"You wanna go see Van Halen?" I asked.

She gave a me a deadpan look, eyeliner pencil poised for the punchline. She was, at best, a quasi-fan of the band.

"When?"

"In May. Denver. Pepsi Center."

"How much are the tickets?"

I hadn't paid attention to that. The aging teenager in me was to blame. 'IT'S VAN HALEN, DUDE! THE ORIGINAL VAN HALEN!' he implored through pimples and a pre-cro-magnon haircut when the thought briefly flitted across our brain.

I ran back downstairs and clicked my way to the ticket site. I pulled up the concert tour, searched the venue map for the best seats and drilled into the PURCHASE NOW link.

Section 231: $200 per seat

Section 426: $320 per seat

Section ...blah, blah blah 'really expensive seats here!'

My teenage self left the room, surely embarrassed by my old man reaction. I walked upstairs and passed by the bathroom, uninterested in engaging my wife in an 'I told you so' type conversation.

"How much were the tickets?" she yelled, not one to be denied validation.

"Third of a mortgage payment or two months worth of groceries!" I yelled back, not slowing down. I didn't have time to be ridiculed. I was on a mission: find my old Van Halen CD's.

The irony of this?

Back in 1979 (or 1980?), I saw Van Halen live. I paid $20 for an outdoor concert that featured Van Halen, Boston (yes, THE Boston), the Outlaws and Poco.

$20, folks.

I was fifteen feet away from the stage when David Lee Roth flew out of the scaffolding in a harness and glided across the stage doing his hammy poses prior to rocking the bark off the nearby trees and causing dozens of screaming girls to spontaneously lose their undergarments.

$20

I was drinking PJ from a red solo cup when Tom Scholz of Boston came running onstage playing the opening chords to 'More Than A Feeling' and slipped, landing hard on his ass. You know what? He never missed a note. Not one.

Or maybe the PJ was just that good. Who knows?

Or more important, who cares?

The way I figure it, those memories will stay with me until I grow so old I don't need to remember them. They were priceless in what they offered for only $20. Not $200. Not $1000. In fact, after seeing those ticket prices, I felt like I'd robbed a liquor store with a Pez dispenser.

Those good memories saved me money. Besides, who wants to pay two months worth of groceries to watch old men try and reclaim their glory days?

Maybe they should revel in their own good memories and stop tempting that teenager inside me. Or maybe I should just go mix a batch of PJ and dance naked to my CD's. :-)

Slaying the Beast, Surviving the 365, or Just an Excuse to Party?

When I was younger, I gleefully rang in the New Year like everyone seems to do. Friends, booze, food and music, party hats, buzzers, confetti, and some things I won't mention, were all a part of the event. It didn't matter WHY we were there. The general thought was WHY NOT?

As I've aged, the New Year celebration has become a complex beast to me. I watch the hordes of people in Times Square at the stroke of midnight and wonder WHY?, because WHY NOT? does not seem a logical or valid response to me anymore. I wonder if they all feel as if they've conquered some vile, horrendous beast that attacked their lives all year. Or are they just happy they survived personal, economic and social challenges for 365 days? Or maybe they're celebrating togetherness? That would be nice. The tribe of mankind hunkering down together against the evils of nuclear annihilation? Or maybe they've never been able to turn down a good party?

Oh, I imagine there would be good reasons to celebrate the end of a calendar date (albeit symbolic at best). Things like beating cancer, publishing your first book, being in the black instead of the red with the business you started last January, etc.. But what if you looked back and nothing spectacular happened other than the fact that you woke everyday, had your health, had your family safe and happy, wherever they may be. What if, like me, you gave thanks for these things every day? What would that leave you to celebrate on New Years eve?

I've steered clear of this celebration for many years now. To be honest, 12/31 feels like 1/1 to me every passing year. If I could be ten years younger on 1/1, I would certainly funnel champagne on 12/31 to celebrate. If I won the Powerball lottery on 12/30, I would probably be celebrating way before 12/31- 23:59, wouldn't you?

I watch the faces of people in Times Square, look for some indication of what they are actually celebrating, thinking, hoping that each had something significant that explained their over-the-top exuberance. But it's possible, just possible, that they like a good party. So be it. We make our own peace in the world and if that helps them to face another calendar year, I'll raise a glass of cider to their honor.

What did you celebrate this News Years eve? I'd like to hear about it!

Here's to good fortune, health and happiness for all in 2012!

Have You Failed Lately?

Failure, to most of us, is a bad word. It’s a last resort. It’s the one thing we try to avoid at all cost. We choose alternate words and phrases to mask this painful word. Words like ‘unsuccessful’ and phrases like ‘come up short’ or ‘almost succeeded’. Either way you dice it, if you tried to obtain a goal and didn’t succeed, then you failed at attaining it.

But is failure such a bad thing? Life is full of lessons and every lesson is defined more by failure than success. Where would we be if we didn’t learn valuable lessons in life. I like to think of a failure as a reason to try harder, a reason to keep on keeping on. I’ve failed at many things in my life, but I know I’m not a failure because do not accept the ‘failure’ attitude.

So, whether you’re a writer, a teacher, a student, a homebody, or just anyone, keep striving to reach your goals, to grasp your dreams, to succeed. Being a true failure is only possible when you give up on what you believe in and embrace an attitude of failure.

Spiffy fact: In case you failed to notice: Failure, or some form of the word, was used 11 times in this post.

Darn! I forgot I had this blog here!

Not really... just been so doggone busy. In fact, I'm heavy into learning all about ebook conversion software. Why, you ask? Because like it or not, the doors are blowing off the traditional publishing model. Ignore it if you want. It's a quick fix society...has been for years. I've played by the rules, played nice, followed the guidelines, waited patiently.

Nobody has ever said, "You suck as a writer! Don't quit your day job...", so I've maintained the course. But I can't ignore the technology, the tools that are available in a free society. Or the growing tide of self-pub mania. Oh, I've not completely pulled out of the trad-pub realm, just keeping my options open. It's like this...if I came to your playground with my dodge ball and I saw you and your friends playing like a bunch of octogenarians wearing depends and sporting walkers, the dust collecting on the ball as it sailed through the air in some odd (and very slow) time warp, and was told I would have to be voted in to play, I would go form my own dodge ball game. I wouldn't care if yours was the Queens dodge ball league and had been around for 150 years. It's that simple.

My first book has undergone a metamorphosis that would put The Fly to shame. I've done all I can do with it, but it will be published. I will not surrender. My second book is coming along nicely and I just did a line edit on the first 200 pages. I've also "sold" a story to a literary publication that will be in print by January and I'm fishing around another short story as I write this. See? I have been busy!

Here's the deal with the trad-status, per say. I'm working with a trad-publisher to get my book in print, but when, no one can say. There is NO contract, just a "gentleman's agreement". I will not live forever. For the life of me, I cannot understand why traditional publishing takes so long! I know the ins and outs of the process, but there seems to be a floating lag factor that cannot be nailed down and stomped like the turtle-paced, snail headed monkey that it is. We've come too far to be operating like scribes from the 16th century. That's why I'm learning ebook stuff. Enough is enough. Sure, I know if I go that route it will be a struggle, but it will be a struggle that I have control of. It will be a struggle that will keep me engaged in the process and not sitting around waiting for the turtle-paced snail head to tell me what's going on.

Well, that was refreshing. Just needed to get that out.

What’s That Smell? Well, it’s NOT team spirit…

Along with all the good things about being a writer, there are a few that we’re not so fast to brag about to our friends and family. I’ve tried to list a few here.

1. First, there’s the “zone”. You know. That moment when your writing is smoking hot and nothing can stand between you and that Pulitzer Prize? When you’re completely engrossed in creativity of a divine nature so high in the planes of existence that you feel immortal? Okay, maybe that’s flourished-up a bit, but you get the drift, right? How you look and act to others is a different matter all together. To them you look “slightly out of it”. This is followed by, ‘Do you feel okay?’ and ‘Is everything all right?’, inevitably leading to the dangerous one, the one that you should avoid if at all possible: ‘Are you listening to me, dear?’

2. Time. Before you took up the task of covering writing media with words, time was pretty much a task master with specific lines, angles and rules. Day job? Arrive at 8, leave at 5. Movie? They’re scheduled for showing, so pick a time and don’t be late. Doctors appointment? 2 p.m. sharp! (plus one “not so sharp” hour while you wait for the doctor). But if you’ve truly taken up writing, truly committed yourself and jumped in with both feet, you’ll discover that “time”, for you at least, grows fuzzy, losing those lines, angles and rules. Appointments missed, trash not put out in time, missed the last showing of the movie you’ve waited months to see, and the list goes on and on.

3. Which leads me to that smell. My wife works outside the home. That said, I am left with the task of preparing certain foods over the course of the day. I’m good at getting it started. I’m just lousy at stopping it. (See 1 and 2 above.)

I mean, who can stop when they’ve got four injured/bleeding characters speeding to the hospital and one of them is about to lose her unborn baby, and perhaps her life, on the backseat of a half demolished minivan? Did I mention the fate of the world hangs on their success of failure? I’ve done countless mad dashes from my office to the kitchen once the smell of seared, burnt or flaming food has permeated my senses. Dangerous? Yes it is. Insane, actually.

I will have to find an alternative for this conflict of interest and necessity, but one thing is for sure: whatever the solution, it will not interfere with my Pulitzer Prize-winning work-in-progress.

Do you have quirks as a writer that go against the grain of the world around you?

Sneak Peek at Concept Cover for New Novel!

New cover art concept added on my website! Latest visual for my next novel. For bigger pic, click on it!

Encore! (Not)

Okay, I was trying to think of what to blog about next, but I couldn’t concentrate. Sentences jumbled together in my head, tripping over one another in a slapstick way. I almost walked outside without my pants on this morning. My coffee grew cold in the mug because I forgot it was sitting there. Why? Because of Gordon Lightfoot (is that an Indian name?) Yes, I’m talking about the Canadian singer/songwriter/poet, etc.. It seems my frontal lobe, in a conspiratorial fashion, booked Mr. Lightfoot for a marathon concert in my head. The song list consist of one song: If You Could Read My Mind.

It started a few weeks ago when I came across an article about this song. It renewed my interest. In my youth, it was one of many songs that came out of my transistor radio and made the summer months more enjoyable. Yes, I know. Why would a young boy be interested in such a sentimental song, right? Well, my musical taste varied greatly, even at an early age. But like most people, the actual lyrics were not all that clear to me. I loved the tune and most of the words. It wasn’t until I looked them up on the internet that I truly saw the lyrical beauty of Gordon’s words.

Two phrases that I never realized existed made this song familiar to my soul all over again. In one (I won’t quote these word for word) he said that heroes rarely succeed. This seems like such a raw and honest assessment of everyday life, and is probably why the few who do succeed are more endeared to our hearts. The second phrase was one of emotional candor that I thought was the crowning moment when the song becomes really, really personal. He tells the woman he’s singing to that for this moment, right now, let’s just be honest and stop all the pretense. These two phrases made the song special to me all over again. I saw it in a new light!

And that was the error of my folly.

I’m not a negative person. I am not an angry person, by nature. But I’ve had a few falling-outs with Mr. Lightfoot over the last week or two. Do you know what it’s like to be mad about something that only exists in your head? That in itself disturbs me greatly.

So, consider this an exercise in exorcising this song from my head. Yes, Gordon, it was and will always be a hauntingly beautiful song. No Gordon, I cannot live with it looped inside my head for the rest of my life.

Have you ever had a song to get stuck in your head? How did you get rid of it? If you listened other music to drive it away, did it work? Or did it get replaced by another song? Feedback, please, before they find me naked in the street screaming horrible things at Mr. Lightfoot and banging my head with a skillet.

And yes, he IS singing If You Could Read My Mind for like the 800th time today as I type this…[expletive deleted]!

New Author FAQs Page !

Come on over and check out my new Author FAQ's page!

The Soup of Life: A Personal Reflection

In my lifetime, I've come to realize that soups full of many things, are usually the best soups. The ingredients, taken individually, may not be to my liking, but blended with many ingredients and simmered adequately, they make a satisfying meal. Life itself is much like that. Each occurrence in our lives are like the individual ingredients, some good, some not so good, but in reflection, the soup was pretty good.

As my wife and I celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary today, I couldn't help but reflect on that soup. As this year has unfolded, we've experienced some good and bad ingredients, and the combination has been rather bittersweet for me. The good has come in the form of the realization of what I want most out of life in personal growth: to pursue my writing, my passion. The completion of my first book, and the trails, errors and growing pains that a writer must endure, has been every bit as frustrating and satisfying as I would expect life to be. The excitement I feel now, as I write my second book, is fulfilling on a level that I've never had the pleasure of experiencing. My wife has been an solid supporter of this dream, and for that I am eternally grateful.

The bad ingredients, on the hand, have truly been bad. Yes, the bad has come in the form of the realization that we will lose a lot this year. As I stood on the shores of life watching countless people being swept away by economic disaster, I was blindsided by a disastrous wave of my own. The only consolation being that our children are making their own way now, building their own lives, and are no longer dependent on us.

Remember that soup? I'm not writing this to complain about those bad ingredients, or to toot my horn over my love of writing. Life is like a good soup. It will come with good and bad ingredients, but blended together and simmered over time, that soup will taste just fine on reflection. A soup full of those ingredients will be a life well lived. As for my wife and I, we will move forward and eventually reflect on how good the soup was in 2011. We will have each other, and we will survive. But one thing is certain and constant from this point on: I will write everyday, I will write with passion for what I love, and I will do it for the rest of my days. And if the first 29 years are any indication, my lovely wife will be there until the end.

Repetitive Phrases: Are they always bad?

Most writers will eventually hear the criticism “you’re using such-and-such (a phrase) too much”. You know, things like “{dialogue}, or so I thought.” Or “He could have left it like that, I guess.” There are thousands of examples, but let’s just say any group of words that are repeated throughout the manuscript.

But is it always such a bad thing? Well, I would say if it occurs like 238 times in your work, it’s probably excessive. But 50-60 times? It depends. In my opinion, the one place where you have to be really careful with repetition is in 1st person POV stories. While repeated phrases are generally not good, in 1st POV such phrases may be part of your character’s make-up. Or to be more precise, the “voice”. Like a person that says “you know?” at the end of most of their sentences (or at the beginning, as I did above). Sometimes it’s just part of who they are.

So, if you're paring down those repetitive phrases in your 1st person POV novel, be careful not to strip the “voice” from your MC. Find a good balance, one that minimizes but doesn’t sanitize. Try to stay true to your character.

Our writing characters...where do we get them? Every writer has a process of developing characters in their stories. And like every story, our characters are made up of bits and pieces, if I may, of characters we've used in the past, or read about, or saw on TV, etc..


But do you ever use bits of yourself in your MC? Or maybe in a supporting character? I think we all do, whether intentional or subconsciously.

But sometimes the evolution isn't as subtle as that. In my first book, my MC was a boy named Pete Travers. Pete actually started out as me. He was me. And the setting was the town I grew up in. But over time, the book evolved. The town got a new name and Pete, well Pete evolved into someone that only Pete could be.

I must admit that somewhere along the way I felt just a little sad when I realized that I had been replaced with another character. But the fact was, Pete was much better at pulling off this story than I was. (Yes, I know. This is getting borderline weird:-)

So, how do you develop your characters? I'd like to know!

Fiction Outlines: How do you approach them?

This is for the fiction writers out there. If you're an habitual outliner, I need your opinion. Do you approach it like a synopsis, or do you go commando with bullet style?

I'm a wordy person. My first book went through numerous revisions and whole blocks of chapters ended up in the wastebasket. I want to try a different approach with my second book. I'm three chapters into it and I'm just now embarking on an outline approach. But I chose the synopsis-style route, and to be honest, my first chapter outline is dangerously close to chapter length. And that's with "tight" writing.

Comments appreciated!

Wamego, KS is as Americana as you can get.

Standing in front of the Oz Museum, I felt the same isolation that I did watching the opening scenes on that rural Kansas farm some 45 years ago.

A moment in my mind...

When I was ten, Nana took me to see a piano recital. I hadn't wanted to go, but she insisted.

It was awful.

The tink, tink, tink, the swelling and falling of sound. I wanted to jump up, rip off my summer dress and dance like a Russian Cossack in my knickers and sock feet, all the while screaming Spanish curse words.

But one glance at Nana told me this would not be a good idea. So I suffered.

For art, no less.

*** Another character has surfaced in the author's mind. Will she be heard?

Laughing Triggers

I am flypaper in a world of buzz words and spiffy sayings. No, it's true! If you have the great misfortune to be anywhere near me when you utter some fabulously original and witty phrase, you will undoubtedly see it fly from your mouth and stick to the side of my laughing head (where it will be absorbed and cataloged for reference). But most of these quirky words and phrases don’t come from others. I have enough outspoken nutcase characters within myself to keep me entertained. (No, I am not the “Sybil” of the new millennium.) An example of my madness comes to mind.

Doodads. That’s right, doodads. I hadn’t heard that term in years. Probably would have never uttered it again, except for the fact that my young protagonist needed something to describe a certain part of the male anatomy. So, I threw it in…

…and read it out loud.

I didn’t expect to laugh, much less fall out of my office chair. (Probably a result of too much revising?) I crawled from the floor and sat down again, glancing at my screen. Why did I read it again? I don’t know, but I didn’t wait around to fall again. I literally ran from my office, tears streaming down my cheeks. I passed my wife at the top of the stairs. I ran through the den and out the side door, searching for copious amounts of fresh air to inhale. The result? It stayed in my manuscript, and my wife hasn’t divorced me…yet. I even reference “balloon hat” along with it. (You would have to read it to understand…or maybe not.) It will never win any Sexy Prose awards, but maybe, just maybe another person will get the same enjoyment from it that I got. Just maybe…

Addendum: *idea before I published*

Backstory: It’s dry here. Very dry. You spend 355 days a year moisturizing your skin. The other 10? Standing in the rain.

So…catchy phrase for my WIP is already down.

Ready?

**** The Itchy Nipple Tavern *scratch* *scratch*

Do you have a humorous saying or word that makes you grin instantly?

No? Well, go find something to laugh about. It’s a great stress reliever.

The Storyteller Within Your Story

Finding "voice" as a writer can be tough for some of us. It can be found in any number of POVs, but first person is usually the most obvious. Here's a question I have for you: while your "voice" as an author can be strong, especially in your MC, can you find a strong, compelling "voice" with your supporting characters? Can you create that kind of magic within your story? Can you hold the reader entranced with this character's voice? Can you create a powerful "storyteller" aside from yourself, or your MC? You'll know it when you do. And your readers will know it as well. It can be a powerful layer of depth for a writer to achieve.