Counting the f***ing curse words in my books!

Posted on 2013/12/06 by ecgarrison

4tLsnipOn the recent Star Chamber podcast, I met and chatted with Jorie of JorieLovesAStory, and the subject of profanity and obscenity came up. Now, I don’t seed my books with curse words for specific shock value, but I don’t censor myself, either. If a character would use an expletive, I don’t pull punches and substitute sanitized words. I write the dialogue as I feel is natural.

I did a search in Word to count up each of four four-letter words. I’ll say even I was surprised at the frequency of some words in some of my books:

Book F*** S*** H*** D***
Four ’til Late 22 18 9 16
Sinking Down 17 16 11 11
Me and the Devil 37 26 20 13
Blue Spirit 14 17 14 20
Reality Check 0 15 17 26
Restless Spirit 7 25 5 9

My books are not YA, they’re not intended for kids. In my books, these four-letter words are almost exclusively used only as expletives or gratuitous curses, not graphic. Or even “cheerful” in the case of Gonzo’s peppering of his speech with the F-word. You can see his influence in the Road Ghosts books (the first three in the table) versus my other works, those are almost all his.

Jorie and I have had an open, honest, and polite discussion on the topic in her blog’s comments. What’s your opinion on cursing in novels? Should it be cleaned up for the more sensitive readers, or should it be honestly vulgar when the story or characterization requires it?

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Throwback Thursday – Sinking Down (2008) Cover!

Posted on 2013/12/05 by ecgarrison

sinking_down_old_cover_frontSome people prefer to bury their past. Not me, I love knowing where I’ve been, and how far I’ve come.

I’ve never done a Throwback Thursday post, and I don’t plan to make a habit of it,  but I thought this would be appropriate. Compare my 2008 photoediting work for the self-published edition with Bonnie Wasson’s gorgeous new cover for the much-improved re-release of Sinking Down. Go on and click, I’ll wait.

I’ll say, I was quite proud of what I came up with 5 years ago on my own, and I still kind of like it. In fact, of the covers I’ve created, this is the one that people react to the most, Sinking Down always got picked up and looke dat first when I had my first four self-published books on display. But anyone who’s seen my Whiteboard Wednesdays knows I am NOT an artist.

How it was made: I searched Flickr for Creative Commons licensed pictures. I think I used “lost in the woods” as my search term to find the original to this. Even though the license meant I didn’t have to ask, I did anyway to make sure the photographer knew it would be used for this book. She gave her blessing, and so I went to work in the GIMP photo editor. I outlined areas of skin that showed and changed them to grayscale so she’d look kinda dead. I darkened the gamma and played with colors to make a daytime scene seem like nighttime. The original had the blur already, and I liked that dizzying effect.

So, it’s no coincidence that my ideas for the updated cover started with this, I wanted the eerie quality and sympathy that my original cover had with that version of the Little Ghoul.

Anyway, for those too lazy to click when I suggested it, here’s the new cover: SinkingDown_WEB-smaller

Since someone asked, Sinking Down will be available as an ebook next week, possibly as early as Tuesday, and the print book will be available the following week, just in time to get it, along with Four ’til Late, for Christmas!

AmazonForSite iBooksLogoForSite KoboForSite NookForSite
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Listen to my Star Chamber podcast appearance!

Posted on 2013/12/05 by ecgarrison

I had such fun as a guest on the Star Chamber podcast tonight, talking with Susan Roddey, Michael West, and the delightful book blogger Jorie (who loves a story).

Did you miss listening in live? Well, here’s a link to listen to the show anytime!

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/starchambershow/2013/12/05/the-star-chamber-show-episode-2-featuring-guest-author-eric-garrison

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Sinking Down Cover Reveal! Star Chamber Podcast Guest Appearance!

Posted on 2013/12/04 by ecgarrison
SinkingDown_WEB-smaller

The poor Little Ghoul peers into a pond, her inner self reflected back at her.

HERE IT IS! This is the cover done by  amazing Seventh Star Press artist Bonnie Wasson!  I love it!  Click on the cover image to see the press release.

Of course, this means that Sinking Down will be released very soon now!

Find out more tonight at 9pm Eastern on the Star Chamber podcast, where I will be a guest, talking about Road Ghosts books Sinking Down and Four ’til Late, home brewing and any other things that come up from questions from the listeners!

(and below, see my snazzy new links for all the places you can get Four ’til Late)

AmazonForSite iBooksLogoForSite KoboForSite NookForSite
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Will your shopping include Small Press Saturday?

Posted on 2013/11/30 by ecgarrison

If you buy a small press book (like one of mine from Seventh Star Press or Hydra Publications) as a present for someone on your list, it counts for both Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday at the same time! :-O

I’ve decided to combine the two concepts into one: Small Press Saturday!

Four ’til Late is the haunted roadtrip story that kicks off the Road Ghosts trilogy. The second book, Sinking Down, should be out before Christmas.
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Til-Late-Eric-Garrison/dp/1937929221

Reality Check is my “Quantum Leap meets Sliders” science fiction adventure!
http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Check-Eric-Garrison/dp/0615926142

Four 'til Late

Reality Check Cover

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NaNoWriMo: I WON!

Posted on 2013/11/26 by ecgarrison

I won! Woot woot!

I won! 50,122 words in Restless Spirit written in November! I have a couple of chapters I wrote before to tack on the beginning, and at least 2-3 more chapters still to write, but I won National Novel Writing Month for the 6th time tonight.

Damn, I’m tired.

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NaNoWrimo: the end is near!

Posted on 2013/11/25 by ecgarrison

MorpheusNaNoThat’s right, kids, only 5 keyboard pounding days left in National Novel Writing Month!

A week ago, I’d just about given up on this year. My life, as you may see from a previous post, kind of exploded for awhile, and I lost many days writing. Understandable, and failing to get to 50,000 words in 30 days is nothing to be ashamed of.

Except I’m going to win this sucker for the sixth time in a day or two. I’ve got 48,248 words in the bag as of just now, and I’ve got two writing days ’til Thanksgiving and Starbase Indy prevent me from writing any more.

As a dear friend keeps telling me, I’ve got this. Restless Spirit had 4,000 words going into November (which I am NOT counting toward the total above) and I’m going beyond 50K this month for the rough draft. After I do a first pass edit, I’ll recruit some alpha readers to check out the result. That’ll buy me time to NOT work on it for a few months, then I can revisit it with fresh eyes for a rewrite based on feedback.

This has been one of the roughest months in recent years for me even without NaNoWriMo to gobble up my time and energy. Restless Spirit was a half-assed idea to start with, but it’s really come into focus in my mind because of the pressure and constantly thinking about it all month. I’m pleased with how it’s coming out. I hope you will be too.

If you’re still cracking away at your own novel this month, I salute you. Type like the wind and remember to thank your friends and family for putting up with you all this month. In December.

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NaNoWriMo: Playlists for writing *fast*!

Posted on 2013/11/22 by ecgarrison

Disclaimer: I only know what works for me, so this list may not work for everyone. But it’s fun to talk about!

ceiling-cat-writeYeah, I know, this post is counter to NaNoWriMo’s focus on the novel for two reasons… 1) I’m taking time out to write about this instead of adding words to Restless Spirit and 2) creating playlists is an awesome way to not write.

Nevertheless, here are my top 5 wordcount-accelerating ideas, in no particular order.

  1. Punk Rock! Just last night, I rocked out to a 2 vinyl album set of The Ramones. Thanks to the hard driving, breathless tempo, I got the 2000 words I planned in under 2 hours. In fact, in that time, I also did another NaNo-no-no, because somehow my first person novel slipped into third person for 700 words and I went back and fixed it, rather than marking it to fix later. Since my usual wordcount rate is about 1000 words per hour on average, that was a good night. In addition to The Ramones, I’d recommend The Offspring, The Pogues, Green Day, The Donnas, and Flogging Molly. [EDIT: How could I forget Mojo Nixon?!?\
  2. The Blues and Classic Rock. This is a little more specific to some of my writing, my Road Ghosts novels (including Four ’til Late) are supernatural road trip adventures, so this calls for road tripping music. The Blues has that steady rolling beat of the railroads and highways that gave birth to Rock & Roll. Watch any episode of Supernatural, hear what the Winchesters listen to, and you’ll see what I mean. Recommendations: Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Elmore James, ZZ Top, Nirvana, early Rolling Stones, Canned Heat… Too many to list, really.
  3. Science Fiction soundtracks. Nerd alert!?! Oh come on, science fiction has been embraced more and more by mainstream crowds in the past couple of decades. Scifi soundtracks are full of highs and lows and often a sense of urgency. Plus, they rarely have vocals, so when I’m particularly distract-able, I don’t want half my brain tracking the lyrics. Favorites include Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Star Wars (A New Hope), Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy, Space: 1999, Star Trek (2009), Bladerunner, and Sherlock Holmes (2009). Okay so the last one isn’t scifi, but it’s *almost* steampunk, right?
  4. Carefully crafted Pandora stations. Yep, this is another big time suck, but if you teach it well ahead of time, Pandora can dish up an endless playlist on a theme of your choice. One time, I was writing an adventure for a Fantasy / Wild West adventure, and for inspiration, I built a “station” with “Ghost Riders in the Sky” as the seed, then added classics like the Ramones version of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and some TV themes and of course, Johnny Cash. For a more tranquil atmosphere while writing, build yourself a New Age sound starting with Ray Lynch and Enya and go from there. Classical “stations” are often amazing for clearing the mind, too.
  5. Custom playlists. Yep, this is where I make a playlist for a specific book or character to get me in the right frame of mind. If Road Ghosts had me playing a lot of Robert Johnson and ZZ Top, I needed something different for Blue Spirit, which has a young, brave, reckless main character in Skye. So that list had Alanis Morisette, Melissa Etheridge, Bessie Smith, No Doubt, Gnarls Barkley, Queen, Black Crowes, and Sinead O’Connor and others to inspire the kind of thing she’d claim as anthems or favorites. Recommendations: Ask your main character. Might help you learn more about her or him!

Do you have go-to music mixes that you’d like to share? Please leave me a comment, I’m always interested in new ideas!

(The 630 words in this post could have spent on my novel , dang it!)

Wordcount: 37,773

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NaNoWriMo-ing ahead despite “life happening”

Posted on 2013/11/18 by ecgarrison

Alphasmart Neo

It’s been a rough week. My stepdad passed away. Work was extra-specially contentious and difficult. My stepdaughter was t-boned by another car that ran a red light late at night. The driver of that car ran off on foot. We were in the hospital until the wee hours having my stepdaughter’s injuries checked out, only to get up 4 hours later to go to a funeral 90 minutes away. Then, during a nasty storm that had tornadoes damaging other parts of the state, our house lost power from afternoon through mid-morning the next day.

Needless to say, all this emotionally draining stuff hitting so close together left me with no energy or time to write. I thanked last-week-me for writing like the wind to get a good lead, because I started off today behind “par” to be on track to complete by the end of the month.

I had the day off, and though writing went slow, and time was taken up dealing with the tail end of the power outage, I wrote enough to regain a 1 day lead on “par”.

Life happens, and writing can’t always be priority #1, not even during National Novel Writing Month. To get through the harder stuff, I had to give myself permission to be behind, maybe even not “win” this time around, despite 5 other “wins” behind me.

But maybe I’m still in the game after all. I just hope “life” lightens up a bit for awhile. I’m due.

Quote of the day from Restless Spirit:

The L.T. glanced up at the sky again. “You sure it’s not alien mind control tech?”

I laughed, I’m ashamed to admit. But really, how much more ridiculous is the idea of alien technology than a magic item infused with life-draining shadow powers?

31,682 words

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More NaNoWriMo bits. Restless Spirit, Chapter 15

Posted on 2013/11/15 by ecgarrison

justminnieIn which Minnie sasses a troll.

Limestone’s hand gripped my shoulder, stopping me short. He leaned in and murmured in my ear, “Mind yerself, pretty thing. Hate to see you squooshed. Boss needs you, yer fine. After that? Well, better watch yerself, that’s all.”

Minnie said, “She’s not in this alone, blockhead.”

I said, “Hush. That’s a kindly bit of advice for a troll, isn’t it?”

“Har. And blockhead’s a friendly endearment. Weren’t for the iron-handling, I’d wonder if the little one had a bit of troll in her.”

Minnie made a raspberry. “No troll in me. I’m a special snowflake.”

“You bet. Har. Now go, before you end up in someone’s belly.”

29,059 words.

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