Am I lazy? Or, am I too easily distracted? Perhaps, I am prone to procrastination?

As my Uncle Tom Pelkington said when reviewing his hand while playing poker or pinochle, “Let’s check the books.”

The dictionary defines laziness as a ‘disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to exert oneself.’

To this, I plead innocent. Even when I’m resting, I’m planning what, how, and where and when.  Hell’s bells, during chemo at the infusion center, I was always looking for something to do – write, read, mingle with the other patients, learn by irritating the caregivers with a barrage of questions – while dragging a metal tree decorated with bags of heavy metal poisons dripping into my veins (btw, magnesium hurts like hell).

Google ‘too easily distracted’ and you’re presented with 40,100,000 results. My favorite is this one: “Easily distracted people may have too much brain.”

Stop laughing. It’s the opposite of what you think.

Still, what would distract a writer from working on his current work-in-progress (WIP in the jargon)?

Here, I’m guilty of two things – real life and additional WIPs.

OK, real life. As some of you know, to me, politics and economics are like fresh-baked red raspberry pies on a window sill. I can’t resist their aroma and taste. After all, I did spend an inordinate amount of time studying both at university. Especially intriguing is the current popular American sitcom – ‘The Donald J. Trump Show.’

Then, there’s hockey. And movies. And books. And Terri. And Pepper.

Second, additional WIPs. Two projects steal attention from Book 3, The Gathering Fails. They are Book 4, The White Lily, and a story that has no title but is labeled ‘horror.’ Its only page contains 372 words. Here are the first two paragraphs:

“The first time I saw her was from the second floor balcony where I usually write.

“I didn’t see all of her. Just the tips of her long nailed fingers, her nose, her deep-set dark eyes, and a shock of black tousled hair. And all of that for just a heartbeat or two.”

But we haven’t finished checking the books! Back to the dictionary.

Procrastination is defined as ‘the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. It could be further stated as a habitual or intentional delay of starting or finishing a task despite its negative consequences.’

This is where I am most guilty. However, I do plead an extenuating circumstance.

As claimed by many writers, novelists, authors, I too have developed a relationship with this WIP, Book 3, The Gathering Fails. Nurtured during the past year, some parts with roots grown deep for months prior, this book holds a special place in my heart. It’s the longest I have ever attempted. It contains a host of characters I love and respect, all fighting for attention and a larger word count. I cannot deny them. I cannot let them go.

Esoteric as this may be, I find it painful to bring Book 3 to an end.

I must, and I will.

But first, there’s this trip to the eye doctor and Pepper wants to play fetch and I just spotted a possum strolling through the woods beyond the fence.

Yes, I am prone to procrastination. This time. With a heavy heart.

One of my favorite authors in the ‘70s and ‘80s was Lawrence Sanders. You may remember him from the Edward X. Delaney series, the first two (The Anderson Tapes, The First Deadly Sin) of which were made into movies featuring, respectively, Sean Connery and Frank Sinatra. He also authored the Commandment series, the Archie McNally series, and a couple other series, as well as several stand-alone novels and stories, beginning his career as a novelist at the age of 50.

Though I enjoyed reading his more than two dozen titles (mostly in the criminal genre), the one that has stuck with me through all these years is The Tomorrow File, a tale of ‘social-science fiction’. Akin to Orwell’s 1984, Sanders’ story predicts the future in a surprisingly accurate way.

In this story, a patent officer periodically comes across applications which he steals and places in a manila folder labeled The Tomorrow File. His plan is simple: hold the patents until his retirement whereupon he will reap the future rewards of his thefts.

Having read this, I created my own ‘tomorrow file’ of ‘bucket list’ and story ideas upon which I recently stumbled. (Don’t ask how or where). Though the list is full of a young man’s aspirations, some were viable and have subsequently appeared in print or on film though not written by me. (The industrious early bird does indeed get the worm!)

Three fledgling concepts in the file still pique my interest: a horror story involving a stalked writer, a tale about an international serial killer, and a concept based on the book and subsequent movie titled The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. With a more mature eye, and the realization that these untold tales of mine may now be considered derivative, I spent some time over the last several weeks fleshing out plot-lines and characters. Odd how the timing to do this has coincided with the government shutdown.

Yes, it took time away from The Last Elf Series. Yes, I apologize to those who are waiting for Book 3 The Gathering Fails. And finally, yes, I am committed not to pull a ‘Martin’ or a ‘Jordan’, though I have no control over the latter.

Having satisfied my writer’s desire (for the moment) to explore all the stories which insist be told, I am back at work on Book 3. I wish I could say the same for our government.

That t-shirt in the photo was a Christmas present from my bestie and his wife.

• Since I use a PC, every Sunday is back-up day. I save everything I’ve written during the preceding week to an external hard drive and two flash drives – even it’s just one line. If you’ve ever lost anything to a BSoD, you’ll certainly understand.
• Last night, I received a “MACHINE CHECK EXCEPTION” error. This proved the wisdom of a regularly scheduled Back-up Day.
• Back-up Day is not to be confused with Bag Changing Day. Though both may be scheduled on the same day, they involve different paraphernalia.
• Reading three books simultaneously is more difficult at 67 years old than at 27 years young.
• What are they? – Satis’ Redemption of Erath Book 1, Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, and Mankiw’s 7^th Edition of Principles of Microeconomics.
• Why do I read more than one book at a time? Idon’t know. Been doing it since I was in the engineering program at Pitt. Even did it when I was in the USAF’s basic training program. “Are those books in your locker, Fedorka? Sergeant, yes, sergeant. Are you a book-learning man?Sergeant, yes, sergeant. The UCMJ, Nine Princes in Amber, and The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Which are you reading now? Sergeant, all three, sergeant. You read three books at onetime, book-learning man? Sergeant, yes, sergeant. Well, you’re gonna read one tonight, aloud, to all of us. Which one will it be, book-learning man?Sergeant, the UCMJ, sergeant. Good choice, son. I look forward to it.”
• In truth, Lewis and Mankiw are re-reads.
• Lewis was given to me by a close friend. Thanks,Mike.
• Mankiw was undertaken to patch the potholes in my memory. Thanks, chemo.
• If you’ve never read Lewis, you should. Start with Main Street, Babbitt, or Arrowsmith before you tackle It Can’t Happen Here. Lewis is an acquired taste akin to the enjoyment of Yalumba grapes.
• As for Mankiw, meh. It’s a textbook.
• Now Satis’ story is well written and way imaginative and perfectly offsets the other two, sort of like a cold glass of cow’s milk with a plate of spaghetti in Terri’s red sauce.
• Spent too much time the last 3 weeks on Book 4.
• Okay, back to Chapter 62 – Wilkins’ Goods. See y’all (yinz) later.

Took a much needed 10 days off, what with the holiday and the struggles of the never-ending Book 3.

Thanksgiving was the best in years, featuring our little extended family and the best turkey Terri has ever roasted. We laughed and ate well, laughed some more, played ‘31’, and laughed until my laugher was tired. This Saturday, we polished off the leftover turkey in a soup rich with flavor, noodles, and chunks of turkey and vegetables – perfect for this sliding-thermometer weather of San Antonio.

Started back in a few days ago (though I did add a sentence or paragraph here and there when none were looking). Rearranged a few chapters, fleshed out few more, and finished off two new ones.

What’s the hold-up? We thought you had the entire story mapped out, you say. Why is Book 3 taking so long?

Well, there are two reasons.

The first is that Book 3 was always intended to finish the story of Chork’s ‘childhood’, to get him to the point where he begins his ‘more formal and regimented’ pursuit on Gunter’s Island to become a knight. However, along the way, Chork has drags his feet and meets new characters. Though the book continues Chork’s story as the main protagonist, that ‘bastich’ Emperor Rhince (just had to get in a Johnny Dangerously reference) and his sorcerer-agents continue to wreak havoc on the realms of Brehm.

Those new characters, a host of both good guys and bad, are the second reason. Once they appeared as planned, they demanded their own special times on stage. Afterall, they argued, what fun is to be had by just showing up in the middle of our story? (And yes, the characters do talk to me 24/7).

I caved to their un-ending nagging but suggested a compromise. No long back stories, guys. And, since most of you are headed to the same dots on the old map, I’ll explain how you get you there.

So, the number of chapters in Book 3 continue to add up.

The good news is: There’s a lot happening in Book 3. You’re gonna need a scorecard.

The better news is: I’ve developed a scorecard.

Though started in the print version of Book 2, I’ve finalized the icons for chapter headings, ala Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time epic. Those icons clue you in to who the chapter is about. If you don’t give a hoot about Shatayir and his sandwich making skills, you can skip that brief chapter (though I caution you because some of these characters play a key role later in the story).

More news: These new icons will make their way into an updated edition of Book 1 while my editor, the incomparable Arlie Marx, rips apart Book 3.

You can view these icons on my website here.

For the first time in my life (and hopefully, for the last), I committed the first cardinal sin of epic fantasy reading – reading the books out of proper order. I sincerely apologize to the talented and imaginative author, Satis, for doing so.

Why did I do such a horrid thing?

Well, after I volunteered to participate in his Book 3 (Ancients & Death) Launch Party, Satis graciously sent me a copy of all three books to read and review. I have no viable excuse that explains why I believed Exile to be the first in the series. BUT I did, and off I went to immerse myself into a very well-written and entertaining story.

By far, Exile is the best fantasy novel I have read in several years. Here is what I said on Goodreads:

The Redemption of Erâth: Exile by Satis weaves an intriguing tale of survival and friendship as it follows the death-defying perseverance of Brandyé and his quest for life’s true purpose in a surreal world threatened by impending Darkness.

The true measure of a well-written epic fantasy requires marked character development, clever use of setting, a coherent plot, proper pacing, and interesting but not overbearing detail. In Exile, Satis scores high in each of these categories.

Suffering unrelenting remorse for the death of his best friend’s sister, Brandyé is exiled to wander in a bleak world bereft of sunlight and hope. His struggle merely to survive becomes a quest for purpose and redemption. Buffeted by fate and pursued by fiends bent on his destruction, he finds friendship in places where civility and humanity have long been abandoned to the darkness, and stumbles across amazing civilizations locked in the timeless battle between good and evil.

If you’re looking for an up-lifting read, a tale of perseverance and undaunted friendship, set in an imaginative world of intriguing characters, you need look no further than the story of Brandyé and Erâth.

#

DO NOT compound my error – (1) Consolation, (2) Exile, (3) Ancients & Death are the proper order. Pick up Redemption of Erâth and treat yourself to a good story, well told.

The first draft of Book 3 of The Last Elf Series, The Gathering Fails, continues to grow.

As some of you realize, the first 2 books came in under 90k words in 52 chapters. (BTW, exact word count and total # of chapters must always be divisible by 13).

After outlining Book 3, I surrendered to the fact that Chork and friends were pushing for more. So, I set my sights on a final length of ~100k words in 65 chapters.

Alas, I failed. This morning’s first-draft projection is clocking in at just over 121k words in 78 chapters.

But, it’s not my fault!

New characters abound, and they clamor for attention. At every turn, Emperor Rhince’s minions wreak havoc on the realms of Brehm, and they demand history record their accomplishments.

Maybe as usual, the second draft will remove at least 10% of the word count. However, elves, dwarves, mages, and sorcerers can be very adamant about their page counts. (Not to mention, that sandwich maker and those two assassins who will chirp like baby birds at feeding time).

What’s an author to do but give in and lay that heavy manuscript on his editor’s doorstep. (I see a craft-beer sodden meeting in my near future).

Of course, the plan still calls for the release of The Gathering Fails in early 2019.

But tell me, what’s your definition of early?

A day late on my weekly post, but I have an excuse. My daughter, Kristi, threw me a birthday party at the Flying Saucer yesterday.

That’s right. Another year older. Left the ‘Lemieux Year’ and began the ‘Goligoski/Bissonnette Year.’ How many of you remember Alex and Paul?

Though I thought he was out of town, my editor and bestie showed up to surprise me with a bag of bag of necessities.

Cody Sams presented me with a framed picture of the original hummingbird drawing.

Unfortunately, ‘Shatayir’ has Sunday off; but, the Phily-style Dipster was very good as usual, as was the No Label Ridgeback Ale.

Also, as usual, I forgot to take pictures. One day, I will step into this era of selfies and photo documentation of events.

Thank you all for the wonderful gifts and for making my birthday special.

By the way, Cody was wounded while mediating a disagreement among the canine attendees – Pepper, Abbie, and Maggie. Luckily, the Saucer had a band-aid for his boo-boo.

 

The first thing I do when beginning to read an epic fantasy is to familiarize myself with the map of this new world I’m about to enter. If none is offered, not only will I struggle to follow the characters’ journeys, I’ll also grapple with the geo-political, climatologic, and socio-culture nuances that should flavor the unfolding story.

To help me write my first novel, I penciled a crude drawing of land, seas, mountains, rivers, and towns. This provided me with a sense of distance and direction. It also forced me to understand and define the cultures of realms and city-states and sparsely or non-populated areas.

For a better presentation of my first novel, I swapped the pencil for a pen and tried to mimic an old version of Tolkien’s map of Middle Earth. My reward was an adequate but obvious hand-drawn image.

Such hand-drawn maps can be turned into assets in your novel. They can be what the character uses. They can be personalized by the character who uses them, with scribbled notes pointing out especial locations or danger areas. Though maybe a trope, they can be piece-meal, providing suspense or sub-plots.

However, I wanted maps that had a touch of formality, that looked ‘finished.’ Not all of us would-be fantasy novelists have cartography and calligraphy skill sets nor a fat wallet to hire someone who does.

I cast about online for an affordable, easy to use, ‘finished-results’ producing application and chose Inkarnate. Review my Inkarnate maps here.

What follows is NOT a ‘how-to’ but a personal review of the application based on affordability, ease of use, shortcomings, support, and recommendations.

Affordability

• The Standard (SD/1x) version is free. It provides you the capability of producing a simple map with limited surface palettes, structures, and topographical images (see map titled ‘Brehm’).
• The Pro (HD/2x) version will cost you a one-time payment of $25. It provides more palettes, structures, and topographical images to create finely detailed maps of realms, cities, towns, estates, and castles as well as simple maps (see map titled ‘Kent’). PLUS, you are licensed to publish your maps in your eBook, Paperback, or Case Bound work. (You don’t want bad people to steal your work; don’t steal the work of the good people at Inkarnate).

Ease of Use

• Learning how to use the tools is quick. Of the 11 tool buttons, 5 (sculpt, brush, object, pattern, and text) are needed to create your map. The other 6 are ‘admin’ type tools for downloading, saving, scaling, note-making, zooming, and titling.
• Perfecting your ability begins immediately after your first use of a tool and proceeds exponentially. You simply select, point, and click or drag.
• At last count, there were 281 objects from which to choose from bridges to guard house gates, from elven cities to docks, from craters to graveyards, and more.
• Also, at last count, there were 27 pattern objects (topographic items) including trees, mountains, dwellings, and hills, all seasonally or climate-specific.
• The ability to impose a grid enables you to scale and calculate distance.
• You can be as detailed or as simple as you wish. You can build a castle, a town, a vast continent, or an entire world.

Shortcomings

• You cannot copy and paste localized sections to create another more detailed map. You must redraw. (Though, there is an ingenious method using Photoshop).
• Once placed, some objects cannot be altered (sized, rotated, or moved) only deleted and redraw
• Some placed objects (such as farm houses or market shops) have a random ‘stable’ of images that appear. So, if you have a favorite image, it may take several tries to acquire it. On the hand, you can make good use of this bitter-sweet shortcoming, especially for creating variety in a village, as an example.
• Potential obsessive detail quickly becomes tempting. It’s easy to go beyond overboard, especially with trees.
• There is no ‘undo’ button.
• There is no ability to download a B&W image, required to hold down publishing costs. You’ll have to learn how to manipulate saturation and color intensity.

Support

• During business hours, a click on the conversation icon gets you near immediate contact with support staff. I have found they are courteous and eager to help.
• They say they are constantly looking to improve their product and they do. So, as you read this, some of my comments may have become invalid.

 Recommendations

• Log in and try out the Standard version. Learn how to use it. If you’re as satisfied as I was and want to create more detail and publish your maps, upgrade to the Pro version.
• Save often. Without an ‘undo’ button, this will save you tons of rework.
• Reverse engineering is better. Rather than start with the vast ocean and outline your coast, begin with a solid block of land and cut away your shorelines.
• Mountains go first. Rivers and lakes next. Towns and cities follow.
• If something is out of place – a single mountain, a vast crater, a lake with no feeding rivers – make sure there is an explanation in your story (who put it there and why).
• Follow common sense when placing communities, unless your story gives a specific reason why the first settlers abandoned theirs.
• Roads go last, and common sense dictates they are usually as straight as reasonable unless there is something to avoid
• Stay consistent with your sizing percentages (even from map to map when appropriate).
• Learn topical and geological rules. Deserts don’t exist at the poles; rivers don’t flow up-hill; etc.
• Geography affects culture. We wear flip-flops and shorts in San Antonio nearly year-round for a reason.

How-to-use links

These are the links I visited and found useful. There are a host more, some specifically created to help with drawing coastlines, rivers, towns, castles, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVDmrujnSag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzRImMOv3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_iRhv5W1d4

Cody Sams is an artist, musician, and graphic designer who co-designed and co-produced the SRVIVR Clothing brand. With his wife Kristi and their two furry babies, Zinc and Maggie, Cody lives and works in San Antonio, Texas.

He first became interested in drawing when he discovered comic books at a young age, but it didn’t fully get his attention until his later art classes exposed him to American pop artists such Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Keith Herring. His preferred methods, pointillism and stippling, stem from his affinity to the Ben-Day dot printing utilized in Silver Age comic books and much of Lichtenstein’s work.

Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. It relies on the ability of the eye and mind of the viewer to blend the color spots into a fuller range of tones. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from impressionism.

The term “pointillism” was coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works of these artists and is now used without its earlier mocking connotation. It is a technique with few serious practitioners today, and is notably seen in the works of Seurat, Signac and Cross.

You can find a growing gallery of Cody’s work by clicking on the hummingbird image.

Book Two, Decision at Donham, of The Last Elf Series is now available in paperback on Amazon. With  a table of contents, maps, and an author’s note and afterword, it’s 330 pages of easy to read type in a comfortable 6×9 size. Click on the cover to get your copy today.