Month: April 2019

said my editor as he joined me at the Flying Saucer on Thursday afternoon.

Of course, my eyebrows climbed up my forehead and my heart skipped at least one beat, maybe two.

He placed his cigar case, mobile phone, and half a dozen printed beer chits on the table between us. With a chuckle, he produced a flash drive which held his review of Book 3 and said, “Before I forget, put this in a safe pocket. It’s not two volumes and 400 pages with footnotes and redactions.”

I replied with the obligatory short laugh at our inside joke, stuffed the drive into my jeans’ pocket, and shot him a quizzical look.

“The battle at the end,” he prodded, forcing me to abandon thoughts of fame and fortune. He examined the chits and, with a soft grin, selected the first of three beers he would enjoy over the next four hours.

His grin became a scold. “The visuals are great, but you went Hollywood on me. No armored knight would spur his mount to leap over a line of armed defenders and expect to survive.” He mimicked jabbing a spear or sword overhead into the belly of a flying horse.

“And I thought Sabrine was one of the good guys. Did you intend to make her act so evil? At best, the general would clap her in irons, or at worst, yank the sword from her hand and run her through. She’s not his queen. Why would he stand for her bullying?”

“Your title doesn’t fit. The attempted gathering is but a small part of what the book is about.  Its failure seems inconsequential.  It appears only in one scene. You then watered down the impact of it ‘failing’ with all that came after that scene. Unless, of course, you …”

Thus, the first rewrite of Book 3 begins.

First, without the relief provided by lignocaine, the author shall extract the rotting molars of Hollywood tripe, TV garbage, and literary trope from the manuscript’s maw.

Second, upon completion of proper research using accepted and bona fide resources, the author shall implant new dentures composed of common sense and reality.

Third, the author shall kill his ‘little darlings’, reduce ‘info dumps’ to a terse phrase or two, repair plot holes, redirect wayward character behavior, realign ‘inter-book inconsistencies’, and restore logical flow to narration and dialogue.

And last, the author shall wholly remove the designated chapters and re-order the remaining chapters as specified to reflect the originally intended story line, thus saving the title “The Gathering Fails.”

Were the four hours complete torture?

No. Not by a long shot. Comments like these were bestowed:

• “Chapter 10:  You do a great job of painting Donty’s view of Valisa, of their interplay.”
• “Chapter 11: Another one where you do a great job with what you do …”
• “I love when Dexter says, ‘It’s not him.’”
• “Absolutely love where the plot is going …”

He then turned the discussion to a suggestion he had made a while back – Take some of the removed chapters and character ‘info dumps’ and turn them into short stories. Publish them individually or as a companion volume or both to further marketing efforts for your epic story.

As the sun set, as the craft beer and Shatayir’s tasty cuisine graced the table, I began to feel as if I were Chork at an inn on the road to Gunter’s Island. Across the table sat a hummingbird mage – a wizard who smokes cigars and knows things – a friend who tells you that you have wandered from your intended path – a true friend who guides your return to, not the easiest but, the correct road – a best friend who makes the arduous journey to published author more fun.

Get yourself a hummingbird wizard, the best available to you and your situation.

And don’t go Hollywood on him or her.

I’ve updated the on-line glossary to include the principal characters and locations mentioned in the soon-to-be published Book 3 – The Gathering Fails and made some minor corrections where they were needed.

I’ve also made one critically important change. The last-born elf of Goneska has changed his name. Previously known as Maccabee Damario Rockshard, this mountain elf is now Dexter Rockshard.

Why and how? Well, for several reasons.

As many of you know, my characters are based upon people I have known and met through my life – family, friends, personal and professional acquaintances. As some of you suspect, the members of the Blue Leafs are a special sub-set of those people. They all come from a specific time and place, an especially difficult time when their friendship and an MMORPG saved my sanity and saw me through some very emotional crises. In effect, the real Blue Leafs became a second family.

One of these friends was named ‘Mighty Dex’ which he derived from traits he assigned to his online character. For a time, we called him ‘MD’ as it was quicker to type. Inevitably, it devolved to ‘Doc’.

I wanted to pull that nickname into my story but ran into several issues; the chief of which is the term ‘medical doctor’. That term made no sense in my fantasy world. Also, in game and in real life, Mighty Dex was not a dedicated practitioner of the healing arts.

My editor and I discussed what I should do. I nixed his idea of using ‘Dexter’ because I was caught up in the TV series and the name carried baggage. (We even discussed the phonetic spelling ‘Emdee’ as the character’s name). In the end, he grudgingly allowed me to make up a difficult and lengthy name which I could then abbreviate to MD.

I wasn’t completely satisfied, but I learned to live with it … for a while.

Now, you need to know three more things. First, the original, real MD would wake up an hour early every single day and log onto that MMORPG to play for exactly one hour. Second, he was with me online when the game was brought to a very emotional end. And third, my younger daughter works with children on the ASD spectrum.

The collision was inevitable.

As I fleshed out the literary character under my daughter’s (and her co-workers’) tutelage, his behavior took on characteristics identified as on the ASD spectrum.

Suddenly, the name ‘Dexter’ dropped its old baggage and brought a smile to my face and to my heart.

(Spoiler alert) – It also modified the ending of The Last Elf series.