I reject your reality! I'll substitute my own.

Reality can be a stone cold witch. So, what can we do about it? My instinctive response is "Not much," but to be fair that's not really true. Oh, we're not going to start shooting fireballs out of our fingertips, nor turning our hated foe-men into frogs, sheep, or goats, don't get me wrong there. What we can do, however, is change our circumstances. Right now I'm living in a big place, and lately there's getting to be far too many people here. So change it: we're working on getting into an RV and touring the country, it's a dream both Erin's father and my Aunt Lynn shared, despite the pair of them being from opposite ends of the country. But there are other options as well.

Okay, so I'm a little cheat in one regard: I do write, even if I've never published anything more than the occasional blog post. I can lose myself in my head, thinking about the worlds I've created and selfishly kept all to myself! Well... there are tidbits here and there, little teasers into my head, but mostly it's still kept here. Well, I am actively working on sharing one with the lot of you soon, so that's something. When it's done I'll publish on Amazon and see if any of you think it's worth reading.What can I say, I hope you'll enjoy it! But there are ways other than trapping yourselves in my head to escape this reality. Hmm... but how?

Here's an idea: Movies, television, books, and video games! Just about everyone in the country does at least one of these things, though some of us do them all, and it's a fine escape from reality for a short time. One idea I had for a book was a man in a coma. He wakes up to find himself in a steampunk world where science works, but the whole world went a different route to get there. Maybe more dieselpunk. As you get further into the book, he is temporarily awakened from his coma and you learn that he's still alive. But is what happens in the world of his dream no less a reality? It feels real to him, smells real, he can still be hurt there, at least it seems that way to him. If he dies there, will he die here? He spends as much time as he can escaping our world to live in his, and the ending is a kicker. Someday I really MUST share with you. Any ideas of your own? I love hearing about them. See you on Facebook or G+!

Writing and me

So, few of you know this but I've been 'working' on a book, off and on, for the past couple of years. I know all of the tips, I've given them out a few times. Set small goals, require yourself to do a little today, a little tomorrow. Keep going forward, don't stop in the middle of something to go back and edit. That's a great way to keep wasting time on it. When the book is finished, leave it alone for a week or so, then come back and read it. As you read, then you can edit. Just remember to finish, first. As you edit, you may find that one section looks better somewhere else. So you move it, then change your mind and move it back, or maybe you just don't like it at all and take it out. For reasons like this, I personally recommend the yWriter series. I've used yWriter 5 for years now, although I just upgraded to yWriter 6. It's free software, I'll leave a link below.

So, back to my book. From what I have let others read, I've gotten nothing less than encouragement. I've heard that it's great so far, what happens next? Shut up and take my money, that never ceases to make me grin. Realistic characters, with villains you can hate and protagonists that make you want to laugh, to cry, to scream at, and take home to protect. I really do need to finish this sometime, with praise like that it feels like a lot to live up to. Of course, I tend to jump around a bit, and then I need to go in and fill in the blanks. So much for following an outline, huh? I'll work on it!

The bright side is that I've found a few good folks for editing and proof reading. I know enough about converting from rtf to other formats, I'll be switching to epub and mobi files, but I didn't really trust myself to just finish it and publish without at least a few readers checking it over, first. They're good people, I've also left their link below as well. So, all of you out there looking to get a book written, I've got one other bit of advice for you. It doesn't matter if you think it's crap, or if you think it's the best work every written. Finish it, send it out for editing, and put it up on Amazon. You may be surprised by how many people like it.

yWriter site:
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter6.html

Editing/proof reading/author services site:
www.cmwauthorservices.com