Murder at Avedon Hill Gets a Publisher

http://www.pgholyfield.com/maah/archives/298

Murder at Avedon Hill is being published later this year by Dragon Moon Press. For more information, visit the Murder at Avedon Hill website.

Episodes 3-5 are up!

Episodes 3-5 of Murder at Avedon Hill, my podcast novel, are available at http://pgholyfield.com/maah

I'm especially happy with Episode 5, which features guest voices Christiana Ellis and Matthew Wayne Selznick.

Tag in the Seam Pimps Murder at Avedon Hill, and vice versa :)

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm a big fan of Leann Mabry's pocast "Tag in the Seam." She provides insight on being a 'real woman,' and she shows great comedic talent just 'being herself.'

I did a promo for her podcast last month, cobbling together some sound bites and adding a voiceover to tie it together. Not high comedy, but she liked it enough to post it on her site.

In her most recent episode she mentions me and plugged the fact that I have my podcast starting soon. For those of you that are coming over after hearing her podcast, my first T-Minus podcast leading up to the start of the novel will be posted after the first of the year, after we move to another hosting company and I convert this site to WordPress/Podpress.

But before that I hope to be announcing that a short story I wrote will be appearing on a popular podcast... I'm just waiting to hear if/when it might go up before releasing any details. :)

I took the day off today to continue the final edits of my novel. So it's time to get back to it... Later guys!

Preparations Continue

Several events will take place over the next few weeks that will be very important for the book and the upcoming podcast. First we (my one website and the many my wife has created and maintains) will be moving to a new hosting company, one with a LOT of bandwidth (yeah!). Because of this I will be moving from blogger to wordpress (and podpress). While this means leaving blogger, which I have enjoyed, I will be moving to a blog that integrates so much better with podcasts. Along with this I will be revamping my website. I will most likely be taking a page from Lonnie Ezell's website, as he does a good job of meshing Book and Podcast within his site.

Mid-month status

Just throwing out (or up) all the stuff I've been working on (in no particular oder):

1. Novel final edits: what I had hoped to have done by November 1st is still taking place. I'm around 60% done. If the family ever mends, I'll plow through the rest and upload to Lulu.
2. Map for novel: Starting to shape up. I've got a few more mountains to do, and then rivers, forests, cities, and roads.
3. The Nanomonkeys Podcast - I've done most of what I need to do for this. I've got a mid-month update sound file to edit and send to Chris Miller today. I had wanted to do interviews with the nano participants I interviewed at the beginning of the month, but it ain't gonna happen.
4. NaNoWriMo - behind in my word count, but happy with what I've done so far. While the novel is a murder mystery set in a fantasy world, this is a ghost story set in that same world.
5. Podcast short story - I have a short story that will be podcast soon on a popular podcast. I have a guest voice that will appear on the story that is going to make this even better! I can't wait to get it done and share what this is all about... soon.
6. Tag in the Seam - I did a promo for Leann Mabry with the Tag in the Seam podcast. I'll point a link to it once it starts getting played.
7. My T-minus podcasts - As soon as I'm done with #1, I'll be doing three or four "T-Minus" podcasts leading up to the start of the Murder at Avedon Hill podcast novel. More on this soon.

Once the crud leaves our family alone, I'll be very happy. BELIEVE me.

Short Story on the Misfit Brew podcast, Episode 16

I recorded a character study for Mick Bradley's Vegas After Midnight RPG setting and it was played on his Misfit Brew podcast in September. I forgot to post about it here (which was stupid of me). After all, it is the first of many steps that I will have to take in order to take over the podcasting world... muwahahahaha (evil laughter).

The story gave me a chance to work on my vocals (in preparation of doing Murder at Avedon Hill as a podcast novel), to work with music files from the great website Magnatune.com, and to continue learning how to edit and lay down tracks in Adobe Audition.

Finishing the Novel, Vegas, and Preparations for NaNoWriMo

October is going to be a busy freakin’ month. I’m in the process of editing the novel, which has to be done by October 25th. I’ve added 4 short scenes to the book, one to add one more ‘action’ sequence and the others to show a little bit more about the main protagonist’s motivations. Now I’m going through my print copy, marking up the margins and deleting everywhere I can (I’ve got to get the word count down). Once that is done, I’ll apply the edits to my soft copy and then hopefully have the 20th-25th for one last read-through and edit.

While this is going on, I’ll be finishing the map I’ve been working on using CC3. I’ve got most of the main elements completed, but I still have a lot to do to make it shine.

Sunday I leave for Las Vegas. It’s the same conference I went to last year (a users’ conference for a software company… my real-life job is training people how to use this company’s software). But this year my wife Liza is coming with me, so it will be a lot more pleasant than last year’s event.


But that will take away a good five day chunk of time from me and the novel. In addition, I will be working with Mur Lafferty of the I Should Be Writing podcast and Chris Miller of the Round Table podcast (and others) doing work with the upcoming NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I’ve got an idea for a story that I’ll do for NaNo; the goal is 50,000 words in 30 days.

This is why the novel HAS to be finished and sent off by the end of the month.

Wish me luck!

The final sentence...

has been written.

I wrote it a while back, but haven't posted much lately about the novel (been busy yapping about podcasting). It took me a while to find a good ending scene. I was reading Terry Brooks's Sometimes the Magic Works and in it he wrote:

Don't settle for a beginning that doesn't feel strong and compelling or an ending that doesn't completely satisfy. Make your story arc the rainbow it deserves to be.

Frankly it took me two months longer to reach the end of my first draft because I wasn't satisfied with anything I was coming up with for the end of the book. Finally I thought back to one of the firt comments I got from my friend Scott. He asked me why the main character allows his companion, a young man he seems to be protecting, to be placed in constant danger. Finally it hit me. I found a way to explain why this happened throughout the story, enhanced a story arc that will appear in future novels... and got me an ending that made me happy.

Now I've got a hard copy with 300 pages of edits to go through... and 4 scenes to add. And oh yeah, I'm around 30,000 words over where I wanted to be.

Preparing for Dragon*Con

I am looking forward to Dragon*Con in Atlanta at the end of the month. I bought a couple of t-shirts (one for Four Ugly Monsters and one for the book), my wife created and ordered business cards for me (tied to the novel; you can see the business card here. I am really looking forward to attending the podcasting track and meeting a lot of the podcast authors I've been listening to for the last six months.

I also hope to attend some of the panels on Battlestar Galactica, and if there is anything dealing with the the Joss Whedon universe I'll be checking in.

I have continued work on the book. I am on the last few paragraphs of the first draft, which I will finish tomorrow.

Current word count: 144,221

Last update... I recently recorded a short character backstory for a play-by-post campaign I'm going to take part in starting in September. It may be played on the Misfit Brew podcast at some point; I will post a link here if this happens.

Actually, here's the last update. As I might have stated before, I plan on doing an audio version of Murder at Avedon Hill. A group of podcasters have started a support group for new podiobook creators and I'm getting great feedback on my first test recording. I hope to start doing more with this over the next couple of months.

A notebook... who knew?

I belong to a forums for writers offered by Mur Lafferty (I Should Be Writing, link over on the right). On one of the threads on that site people discussed the need to always carry a notebook with you, in case you have ideas, thoughts, snippets of dialogue, etc.

I've never been one to write down ideas that pop into my head. I usually just let them mull around in my brain until I have a full story idea and then start writing. Now if the thoughts are tied to my campaign/world setting, that's a different story.

But I've never carried around a notebook, per se. Until the other day, when I was sitting in a seminar and the hosts gave us a cool marketing toy that just happened to be a metal covered notebook. Since the seminar was soooooooooooo entertaining, I began thinking about novel ideas... and short story ideas. And then I started writing them down in my new notebook :)

I fleshed out what could end up being the fourth Land of Caern novel. :) And then I mapped out a short story -- the first non-fantasy short story I'll write since I took a creative writing class in 1993. I'm really excited about it, although it won't be a happy one... just an emotional one.

Family not Spared...

Samantha finally got the bug. She's starting to feel better today (after two car seat incidents we don't have to go into here). Alexis has not gotten it; hopefully the drugs she's been taking for her first respiratory infection will keep this out of her.

Accordingly, I haven't been meeting my writing quotas this past week. I have been able to spend some time going through my hard copy, continuing my line edits. I'm up to page 200 (out of 310). The goal is to finish the first draft by the end of the week, and then go through my line edits (of course I've said this several times before). While I'm doing that I'll be adding the new scenes I've mentioned before.

Current word count 137,637

Three Steps Forward...

Two Steps back.

I wrote approximately 1200 more words over the last three nights. Getting over my hump of stressing over the impact of the climax of the novel and just finishing it, knowing I'm going to go back and edit it anyway.

I got some feedback from my father in law on what his first reading of everything up to chapter 40. He pointed out the same thing that my friend Scott said, which is that the novel gets slow for a few chapters early on. It's a mystery, so the main characters are out meeting people that could be involved in the murder, but I needed an action sequence to break up these chapters.

I figured out how to handle this... I'm adding a "hunting" event that will bring another chance for Arames (the main character) to interact with Father Jorrus, an undead hunter intent on discovering a vampire he believes is hiding in Avedon Hill.

It will be good, but it's another 2,000-3,000 words that I'll have to add. Considering I want to cut around 30,000 words of this novel before I'm done, I'm going to have some issues later on.

Back in the Saddle (sort of)

Recovery time completed (mostly). Spent time during lunch today working on copy for my 'teaser' podcast.

With no background in radio or music or any other recording industry, I need to learn how to record my own voice, how to edit my narrative, how to mix in music, etc. I also need to determine if my current computer setup will be sufficient to produce a podcast novel with the production value I’ve heard in other podiobooks, especially those from Podiobooks.com.

After I finish this post I will spend another hour or so working on chapter 41 of the novel.

Word Count and Work Shops

Murder at Avedon Hill Word Count
134,798 / 100,000
(134.8%)

I decided to take a page from Mur Lafferty and add a word count for my novel here. You'll notice that my word count is higher than I really want it to be. I will be doing my best once the first draft is finally done to pare it down to 100,000 words. If I don't succeed, I'll be okay. It's simple economics though-- the more words you have, the more expensive the book will be to print.

I joined the "I Should Be Writing" Writer's Workshop, moderated by Mur Lafferty. I'm posting Roh-Kin out there for people to review. Hopefully I can get some good feedback on the short story.

Dedicating Time

I'm setting aside two to three hours a night to write now. I've got to finish this first draft. Argh.

In case you missed it, I love podcasts. Mur Lafferty is my new hero.

Podcasts:

I Should be Writing
GeekFu Action Grip

I pulled my blog into my main website using a floating frame. I normally hate frames, but this one page looks cool and is integrated into my full site very well. Let me know if you think differently.

Someone want to loan me some time?

I simply don't have the time I need to do everything I need to do... nothing new to most of us, but I just wish... ah, just shut up and get back to work.

I'm trying to finish the non-art elements of a content pack for the rpg accessory company I work for, Four Ugly Monsters. I've got to get this done this week, as we plan on releasing this content pack next week. Today, with the help of my wonderful wife, I finished working on a new online store for the website.

In addition I've got to do around 150 pages of edits for my book tomorrow, so I can print out the pages for an editor I have.

Next I have to finish the last couple of chapters of the book. I'm taking off from work this Thursday and Friday to get this done. I've got to finish the first draft by the end of this weekend.

I've also got some things to finish at my 'real' job, including a demo of the testing application I support for a testing group I don't know. Always fun doing that.

Again, nothing out of the ordinary. I've just got to suck it up and do it.

Later.