Works in Progress Eternal

Works in Progress (as of 1/8/09)

Fantasy

Ydron Chronicles (510,549)

1. Dancer (Rak 1) (55,098)

2. Novice (Rak 2) (55,726)

3. Priest (Rak 3) (33,405)

4. Dark Servant (Rak 4) (210,474) (Complete, in revision)

5. Thearch (Rak 5) (87,062)

6. The Hybrid (Stand alone) (68,784) (Complete, in revision)

7. The Temple (Stand alone) (Outline only)

Science Fiction

Rovanis Chronicles (61,648)

1. Yeri 1 (10,650)

2. Yeri 2 (15,919)

3. Yeri 3 (8,491)

4. Yeri 4 (6,404)

5. Yeri 5 (20,184)

6. The Forest (Stand alone) (Outline only)

Dark Star Chronicles (157,051)

1. Razorback (39,000)

2. Ghost Fleet (Outline only)

3. Last Stand (66,513)

4. Masquerade (86,638)

Total Word Count: 729,248

Publishing vs Nursing

I freely admit that I am an aspiring author who would very much like to leave my current career to write full time. But isn't that the dream of every aspiring, unpublished author? I am at least realistic. I know the odds are against me.

And after today's news of publishing houses laying off, restructuring and possibly placing freezes on acquisitions, now is clearly not a good time in the publishing industry. Publishers Marketplace dubbed it 'Black Wednesday' and bad news seemed to come from every direction.

Agent and editor bloggers that I follow and admire seem beside themselves as they worry about what's going to happen next. My heart goes out to all of them, and I hope they all weather this crisis in good form with their careers intact.

It's at times like these that I reflect upon my day, er, night job. As a Registered Nurse in a cardiac ICU, I don't have to worry about lay-offs. I have to worry about mandatory overtime and whether or not I'll get Christmas off.

There's a nursing shortage. If the hospital I worked for went under, I could find a job within days if I wasn't picky, a month at the utmost if I was picky. And given that sort of job security, I'd be crazy to want to leave the field.

And yet, as an author, I'd be able to set my own hours, eat like a normal human being, use the bathroom on an as needed basis, and see more of my family. But I'd be at the mercy of the economic climate and how well my books sold.

For now, I shall remain a CVICU RN. Yes, it means I'll have to work Christmas and New Year's, but at least I'll get holiday pay on top of the overtime.

Horses in Writing

As a writer of fantasy and a lover of horses, this blog post was pretty much inevitable. The following is a primer for those people planning on putting horses into their novels in any way, but particularly as a form of transportation.

1. The horse is not a machine. It needs to rest, it needs to eat, it needs to sleep. It drinks lots of water, very messily. And then the horse smears it’s wet, grain-and-dirt-and-snot coated muzzle across the shirt you’re wearing.

2. The horse has a mind of its own. It can get cranky. Or frisky. And they startle easily. The horse is a prey animal and wired that way. Its instinct says run away first, then wonder if that flapping thing is really trying to attack. So sometimes the horse goes sideways because a leaf flips over in the wind. Sometimes, the rider doesn’t go with the horse.

3. Some horses will hold their breath while being saddled so that the girth is too loose. And some horses will try to scrape their riders off on trees. And then there is propping. Propping occurs when the horse stops suddenly, usually at a gallop. The horse stops by planting its stiffened front feet to the earth. Propping them, see? The problem with that is simple: the rider rarely sees it coming and ends up flipping over the horse’s head.

4. Horses have bad habits, too. They need mental stimulation. A bored horse who has been in a stall too long picks up vices. Cribbing, for example. Cribbing is when the horse starts biting and chewing on the stall itself, and swallows air as a result. There are a whole host of stable vices that the budding author can look into.

5. The rider. The escaping princess leaps onto the back of a horse in her silk dress and gallops off into the night? She falls off after ten paces because silk is slippery. So are the bare backs of horses. Okay, she has a saddle. Ever try mounting a horse in a full length skirt? And side-saddles aren’t well balanced, so no cross country, which makes it easy for the guards to catch her. Dress sensibly: boots, long pants.

6. The characters ride all day long, hand their horses over to the stable boys, and saunter into the inn. Riding all day long is hard physical work. It’s exhausting. After a full twelve hours or more in the saddle, even given stops for nature-calls, the character shouldn’t be able to stand up straight, much less walk, much less saunter. And both people and horses can get saddle-sores.

There is plenty more to think about when using horses in a novel. The best recommendation I could give you is to find someone who owns horses and will let you experience the joys of riding AND taking care of their needs.

Brevity

As an aspiring author, my work is often critiqued as being too detailed. I am told that I need to keep it short and sweet, giving only as much information as the reader can handle. Okay, I can see that. We don't want to bog the story down unnecessarily. But if you're too scant on the detail, the reader ends up confused, and puts the book down in frustration. Me, I err on the side of abundance.

Perhaps it's a knee-jerk reaction to work. I spend a lot of time writing a lot of things as briefly as is humanly possible. For example:

'9/26/08 1830 Nsg. Report rec'd, assumed care of pt. Assessment per flowsheet/path plan. VSS, afebrile. Pt NPO 2400 for LHC in AM. SR on monitor. BP, HR WNL. Will cont. to monitor pt.
2030 Pt c/o CP. CP protocal init. EKG shows no changes. Pain relv'd nitro tab x 2. Physician updated, orders rec'd and noted.
9/27/08 0130 Pt c/o CP. See flowsheet/code sheet. Physican notified, orders rec'd. Vent settings: PRVC 16, TV 450, Peep 5, FiO2 100%. Pt to OR.
0430 Pt back from OR. Vent settings unchanged. MT & PL CTs to LWS. Pacer wires taped. VSS, afebrile. SR on monitor. BP, HR WNL. Assessment per flowsheet/pathplan. Will cont to monitor pt.'

Now, from this, can you tell what happened?

Here's the translation. 6:30 pm. The patient is fine, and going for a cardiac catheterization in the morning. Because of that, he can't eat or drink after midnight. At 8:30 pm, the patient had chest pain, which was relieved by two nitroglycerin tabs. The EKG was fine, the doctor was updated, gave a few orders, which were done.
At 1:30 in the morning, the patient went into cardiac arrest, was given CPR, drugs, and several shocks. He was also sedated, intubated and placed on a ventilator. Since he was already in the ICU, he wasn't transferred, but the Cardiothoracic surgeon came in (yes, at 2 am) and took the patient to surgery for emergency bypass surgery. (guess the cath got cancelled).
Patient came back at 4:30 in the morning, with chest tubes hooked up to suction, pacing wires attached to his heart, and many other new wires and tubes. And yet, stable once more, by nursing standards for a fresh post-op open heart patient.

Is it any wonder I rebel and give the detail?