The Quick and Dirty

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Y. K. Greene

So where have I been and where’s that book I promised you – a year ago?

Truth of the matter is, my dear dedicated reader, that it’s been a long nasty road that I’m not done traveling yet and I can confirm has been seeded liberally with landmines. The gist of it? I picked up a part time job because editing is expensive. Various important appliances (computers, cars, you know the things I need to live) have broken down and been jury rigged into a state of “please don’t die just yet.” My grandmother has had a stroke, recovered and gone home, had another and resigned herself to hospice care for what will very possibly be the rest of her life. Mom made great strides in her own health that all came crashing down like a castle of cards as soon as her mother got sick and I didn’t help matters much by immediately catching a flu so bad it reminded us both that people can still die from the common cold.

It’s been bad, dear dedicated, and it’s likely nowhere near done being bad just yet. While I’ve been occupied with all of that I’ve gone and let this vital lifeline grow dangerously thin and that’s not helped matters one bit. A writer that isn’t writing is a very unstable and hazardous person indeed. So in the interest of getting healthier (while still recovering from that monster flu) I’m preping “Toxic Ash” for paperback release and working on the rewrites of “Tasting Ash.” It’s slow going, a little like an athlete that’s been out of competition for a long while, gained a bit of a gut and a lot of self hate, before finally starting to train again more for their sanity than for any love of the game itself.

I don’t love editing. Editing is a very special kind of hell that’s only true competition is the dreaded formatting for paperback publication that will come next. But there’s a very special kind of healing magic to be found in reading your old work over again. A kind of wonder and ego boosting pride to read a few pages that aren’t half bad and realize that maybe you don’t suck half as bad as the mangled manuscript you’ve been wrestling with off and on for a year has led you to believe. That maybe, just maybe, you can polish this old turd into a diamond after all. You’re not entirely sure of the exact alchemy you’ll have to perform, to transform turds to diamonds, but there before you is the proof that you’ve done it before and you’ll do it again and again and again.

Probably.

So long as you can just keep with it long enough.

Wow, That Was Fast!

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Y. K. Greene

And we’re back.

A lot faster than I had originally expected too. Kind of makes my head spin all the stuff that’s gone down in the last few days to make this possible. I did so much more running around town than I’m used to, got so much more exercise and sunlight!

And absolutely no writing done.

Some people can write a bunch of novels and have brilliant and involved lives complete with kids and friends and two or three jobs. I’m the hermitage type that can be alone in the woods for years and still only crank out a single novel or two. I want to be faster and more dedicated but it’s time to face facts, that’s not how this works for me.

Now things are back to normal-ish and I’d love to promise I’ll finish up “Tasting Ash” this month and move onto formatting but I know better. I hope a more unflappable concentration is something I can get with lots of practice, gaining more writing muscle by pushing myself to write more under more distracting conditions. Because right now it seems more like a hard coded limit that I can’t increase I can only learn how to work around.

A Tale of Two Shadow Orgs

Posted on August 27, 2015 by Y. K. Greene

I’m busily cranking out words for “Tasting Ash” but there have been a few moments during the writing of the new book that have left me feeling a bit adrift because this novel is going to be a very different animal from everything that’s come before.

Up till now Ash has been, a protected Company employee with an unlimited budget, years of experience and training; set in her own element, a world very similar to our own but one where shadow organizations tend to take things a step closer to madness. Still for the most part she’s been living in the real world and doing relatively realistic things.

And then the Corporation got a hold of her. Now that’s she’s in Corporate control – well Toto, let’s just say it ain’t Kansas.

Then I realized that the difference in tone is all about the two shadow organizations and their completely different core values.

The Corporation: founded by Helen Raymond (with unspecified assistance from Buddy Jenkins) some two hundred years ago, is a family oriented company that specializes in concealment and secrecy (having a bevy of both Cleaners and Killers in their employ). Despite her mischievous nature it’s obvious that Helen goes out of her way to preserve the illusion of normalcy in the world, simply by how close to normal Ash’s life has been up to this point.

The Corporation: founded by a bunch of people we don’t know yet, a few hundred years before the Company, is far more interested in pushing the boundaries of reality and looting everything of value they can find in the borderlands and beyond (they use that loot to create war machines and finance even more looting). Their orientation is a little like the way some people teach children to swim – toss them in the deep end and see who floats or doesn’t.

And boy did they throw Ash in the deep end.

There are other shadow organizations in Eldritch Elysium that haven’t appeared yet (though the old families of various cities have been mentioned in passing) and hopefully none of the others will be kidnapping Ash as an introduction so their core philosophies will likely be a lot more subtle. There’s also a few free agents running around with enough power to warp reality but mostly no inclination to do so that will probably be making appearances in later novels.

Up to this point the Corporation and the Company have been mostly ignoring each others activities. The Corporation is the older of the two and found the Company’s specialties highly useful for delicate work that they couldn’t be bothered with while the Company was content to have Corporation among it’s client list but didn’t appear to have the kind of firepower necessary to go up against it in open war. That balance has sifted rather drastically.

“There’s No Such Thing As Magic”

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Y. K. Greene

Hamartia by Junedays on DeviantArt

Here I am, deep into book three of the Eldritch Elysium series, “Tasting Ash,” and I’m already coming up against the great thorny caltrop I laid down to wreck myself in “Toxic Ash.” I knew damn well that in a story dotted with shape shifting boyfriends and their poisonously beautiful sister and an old lover suffering under a debilitating curse that sooner or later I’d want to just toss in a little of the old razzle dazzle and let it explain away all my ills.

So I made sure to state it clearly once and for all so i couldn’t go back and add in a big ol sorting hat later on. Now that Ash is stuck deep behind enemy lines and is learning far more than she ever wanted to know about Caine, Caliban, Jeb, Klyde and Ophelia’s very messed up heritage I really really wish I could just wave a magic wand over the whole thing and call it done rather than wading through science journals and websites looking up the minutia of science that explains only half of anything and only half of the Corporation for that matter.

Because while there might be no such thing as magic, there certainly is something going on that’s beyond the realm of science. It’s in the gap between the first Helen’s brain surgery and impregnation, it’s in the extra bit of DNA that makes Ophelia kin to Blanche and it’s running lose and unfettered in the halls of the Corporation where scientists work in their pristine labs to distill something monstrous useful mundanity.

I feel a little like the parent, diligently informing their child that there’s no monster in their closet or under the bed–while checking the bars over the windows and doors as well as the handgun under their pillow. A monster by any other name is still gonna kill your ass.

Now go to bed.

Been Awhile

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Y. K. Greene

I know, I’ve been dang nigh nonexistent in the blog for–a very, very, long time. I decided to put my all into finishing the outline for the new book, “Tasting Ash,” which is finally done. I’m neck deep in writing the novel now and already turning my eyes to the outline of the next book and thinking about releases and covers and all kinds of backend bullshit no one wants to hear about really.

As things keep moving right along I’ll try to finish up my series on using Scivener to write work with serial novels instead of single edition works. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback on those so I’ll definitely keep putting them up till I feel like I’ve covered all the basis.

But for right now, since it’s been so long in coming and so difficult to get back to, I really just want to concentrate on writing the books themselves and getting them out the door in as timely a manor as possible.