Broken Gods

I have been working quite a bit on my latest novel, Broken Gods, book one of the series The Path of Souls.  It is about to the point where my wife will read it and let me know what she thinks.  After editing based on her feedback, it will go to the esteemed Cooper Book Club.  In its current state, it is approximately 106,000 words, which is right in my initial goal range of 100,000 to 110,000.

This is certainly my most ambitious and complex book, but we shall see what people think of it when they read it.  It is epic fantasy with wizards and what I think and hope is a fairly original magic system.  It is written in third person past tense, which is a return to the style I used in my first couple books before doing three books in first person, mostly in present tense.  I have five point of view characters, and all thirty-eight of the chapters are from their points of view, with a few additional separate chapters (prologue, interludes, epilogue) that are from other points of view.

I'm really quite excited to see how this one is received.  I undoubtedly have quite a bit more work on it before it gets submitted to literary agents.

I already have notes on the book I will likely start writing after this one, with a very preliminary working title of Dice of the Divine, which would be an interesting mix of science fiction and fantasy.  But I won't start that one until Broken Gods gets submitted to agents.

In other writing news, I did have a small publisher respond to my query letter for Spaceman Steve and the Quest for the Awesome Artifact with a request for the full manuscript, which is actually the first time I've had that happen.  So that's exciting, no matter what comes from it.  They are currently reviewing the manuscript and will let me know within a couple months if they're going to do anything with it.  It's not overly likely, but I can hope. :)

The Path of Souls

Today has been a productive writing year.  Early in the year, I finished up work on Praeteran, my fourth novel.  That fantasy book is actually book one of a longer series that also includes my first novel, The Second Shadow.  I did not submit Praeteran to any literary agents, however, as I feel the entire series needs some more work.  I hope to get back to it some day.

In May, I started work my fifth book, which is the silliest thing I've ever written, which is a fantasy comedy novel called Spaceman Steve and the Quest for the Awesome Artifact.  It was the most fun I've had writing a book.  My little reading group (my wife and the Cooper Book Club) enjoyed it quite a bit.  I have submitted it to literary agents, but haven't gotten any further with it yet.  So we shall see.

I have now started work on my sixth novel, which I believe is my most ambitious.  It started with a short story called The Screams, and has since expanded.  Before starting to actually write any more chapters, I spent quite a bit of time with world building, coming up with (what I think is) a somewhat unique magic system, and creating a storyline for a trilogy with both overarching plots that cover the whole trilogy, and smaller plots for each book.  By the end of my planning phase, I had seventeen pages of notes in Word, an Excel workbook with thirteen different worksheets, and a detailed map created in Photoshop (a fragment of which is shown here).  I then started writing, and am thus far on chapter 15 out of the outlined 53 chapters.  This book, currently titled Broken Gods (and part of the series titled The Path of Souls), is epic fantasy, and I hope to end up with book 1 being between 100,000 and 110,000 words, which would by far be the longest thing I've written.  I am trying to take things slower to allow more time for character and world development.  We'll see how the finishe
d product comes out.  Maybe it will get to the Cooper Book Club sometime in the spring.

One Busy Demon

Here is my third attempt at the five word writing challenge.  Just like in the past, I requested on Facebook that five friends each give me a word, and then I would use those five words in a piece of flash fiction (usually less than 1500 words).  This one is a bit different from the first two, and may be a little dumb, but I'm hoping it's at least somewhat amusing in the process.  And thus, I present to you One Busy Demon.

Words:
Platypus
Transmitter
Malevolent
Fraudulent
Homogeneous

One Busy Demon

“Good morning, oh malevolent one.”

“Shut up, Phil.”

“Okay, boss.”

It was another warm day in Hell, making it two hundred forty-three thousand two hundred forty-two consecutive days where Phil documented that it was warm in Hell.  As the chief scribe of the devil himself, this was part of his responsibilities, among many others.  He was one busy demon, as he was also the pitcher and manager of one of the realm’s best slow-pitch softball teams, the Angels.  He had gotten very good at ignoring the people who complained that the name was culturally insensitive.

The lord of the underworld sat at his desk, staring down at a three-dimensional holographic model of the planet Earth, scratching his red chin and scowling.

“What is wrong, Satan?” Phil asked.  “Are you feeling blue?”

“Please stop making that joke,” Satan said in a thunderous voice. 

“But it’s hilarious.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Oh, come on.  Just because we’re in Hell doesn’t mean we can’t laugh.  I mean, you’re feeling blue, even though you’re all red.  Gosh, I crack myself up.”

“Do you remember why my last chief scribe was fired from his position?” Satan asked.

“Because he smiled too much.”

“And do you remember where that former chief scribe is positioned now?”

“In the latrines.”

“That’s correct.  And yet you tell jokes.”

“Oh, I just want you to not be so glum all the time.  Every day, it seems you’re unhappy.  What gives?  Does something specific have you down today?”

“These people,” Satan said, nodding at the slowly rotating Earth.  “They’re making it far too easy for me.”

“Easy?  Isn’t easy good?”

“No, Phil,” Satan said, sighing and putting his horned head into his scaly hands.  “Do I want to dominate these people and make them turn away from my enemy?  Of course.  Do I want to fill their minds with things of the world and distract them from the bigger picture?  You bet.  Am I succeeding in that?  Absolutely.  And it isn’t even close.  But it used to be so much more interesting.  The chase.”

“There is still a chase, right?” Phil asked as he made notes in a tome about the day’s meal plan.  Lutefisk again.

“Yes, there is still a chase,” the devil said, “but the opportunities are becoming more and more limited.  Most of the people simply walk around oblivious to the world around them.  They come pre-distracted.  They are in their own little bubble, disconnected from the things my enemy would want them to seek.  Instead of observing the world in front of their eyes, they spend most of their time staring down at those little transmitters they hold in their hands, watching or reading or doing who knows what.  I still send demons down to possess people to deter them from following my enemy, but they used to put up a good fight against the little devils.  The demons really had to work at it to break the person.  Nowadays, though, people are just like, ‘Oh, I guess I’m possessed now,’ and it really doesn’t change anything because they’re already so disconnected from where my enemy wants them to be.  Things have changed.  This isn’t what I was promised.  This isn’t the adventure I was told about.  This is nothing but a fraudulent bore.”

“What?  Who promised you an adventure?”

“It was…” Satan sat up and scrunched his crimson brow.  “Now I don’t remember.  It was who knows how many millennia ago.  Humanity was so much more interesting back then.  They were homogenous, but within their similarities was boundless diversity.  Now they are just carbon copies of each other.  Billions of identical souls simply floating about in the wind, allowing me to push them where I desire, with little to no effort.  These people nowadays make most of their day to day decisions based on feelings and not facts, and feelings are so easily coerced.  I don’t have to be mean and scary anymore.  I don’t have to manipulate them deep to their core.  At most, I just dangle something shiny in front of their face, and they do whatever I want them to.  They don’t even know it’s happening.  It is almost too easy.”

“But like you said, you get to sway them anywhere you want!” Phil said excitedly.  “Isn’t that the point?  You still get to win!”

“Win?” Satan said, laughing a deep menacing laugh.  “When the game is so easy, it sure doesn’t feel like winning.”

“Feel?” Phil said.  “What an incredibly human thing for you to think.”

Satan turned and scowled down at his chief scribe.

“Oh, come now,” Phil said.  “You just need to laugh a little.  Fortunately for you, I’ve been prepping for this for the last few years.  One of these should make you laugh.”

“One of what?”

“One of these.  I think you’ll like them.  First off: a father was walking by a cemetery with his son.  The father told his son that he can’t be buried in that cemetery.  The son asked why.  The father answered, saying he can’t be buried there because he’s not dead yet.”

Satan just stared at Phil.

“Okay, tough crowd,” Phil said.  “What do you get when you cross a platypus with a steamroller?  Any guesses?  No?  Okay then.  You get a flatypus.”

Satan returned his head to his hands.

“Imagine that a flock of birds flies by in a V-formation.  One of the lines of birds is longer.  Do you know why?”

The devil sighed and shook his head.  “Why?”

“Because that line has more birds in it.”  Phil burst into laughter. 

Satan rolled his dark eyes.  “This is not what I need right now,” he said.  “I need a challenge.  Something to make the chase more interesting.”

“What can be more interesting than a good joke?”

“I don’t know, but if I hear one I will let you know.”

“Ouch.”

“Maybe I should see if my enemy would wipe most of the world out with a flood again,” Satan said, nearly smiling at the thought.  “That was quiet entertaining to watch the first time.  It would be nice to have another clean start to the chase.”

“I think your enemy promised not to do that again,” Phil said, flipping quickly through a large tome and pointing at a water-stained page.  “Something about a rainbow or whatever.”

“Ah, yes, you are correct,” Satan said.  “He did promise that, and he tends to be fairly good at keeping his promises.”

“That he does,” Phil said, nodding.  “So, you’re looking for something that doesn’t kill everybody off, but gives the world just enough hope so you can have fun crushing it all again?”

“Exactly.  Is that too much to ask?”

“Certainly not.”

“Ideas?”

“But of course,” Phil said.  “I mean, you already let the Cubs win the World Series, but I’m sure there’s something else we can do.  We could get them to treat Pluto as a planet again.”

“No.”

“We could make all of the world’s lawyers really sick.”

“No.”

“Well then I’m out of ideas.”

“There must be something.”

“Wait… yes,” Phil said excitedly.  “Yes!  I have it!”  He started to draw with a black feathered pen on a piece of parchment.  After several minutes, he held up the parchment and showed it to Satan.

The devil looked over it and then grinned widely, nodding at his chief scribe.  “You’ve done it, you brilliant little demon!”

“Thank you, oh malevolent one!  I remember seeing something similar in one of the tomes, and I thought, wow, the price of the power of the air would certainly have interest in this one!  It is so you!  It is perfect!  It is—”

“Shut up, Phil.”

“Okay, boss.”

Witch Doctor

Here is my second attempt at the five word writing challenge.  Just like last time, I requested on Facebook that five friends each give me a word, and then I would use those five words in a piece of flash fiction (usually less than 1500 words).  And thus, I present to you the result of that attempt, Witch Doctor.

Words:
Salmon
Dachshund
Toenail
Intravenous
Waterfall

Witch Doctor

“My life is in danger,” I said to the small man seated cross-legged on the other side of the fire.  The colorful paint on his face glimmered in the light of the fire, the piercings that covered his body causing strange shadows to dance on the thick trees behind him.  I had hiked for several days through the tropical forest to find this man, the witch doctor of the Eastern Woods, a man known to hold powers that no other man could hold.  He was the cure to the fear that had taken over my life over the last two weeks.  It was all I could think about, and my very life depended on this man.

I had arrived at the witch doctor’s small hut four days ago, explaining to him my dire situation.  I am a man of the people, serving on the highest council in country’s capital city.  There were nine of us serving together as advisors to the prime minister.  There were nine.  Now there is one.  The other eight were murdered in their homes, or on walks with their children, or while riding in a limousine on the way to a meeting.  One by one their bodies were discovered, no signs of death or even a struggle, no life remaining.  I didn’t know who killed them or for what purpose, but I knew I was next.  I had to do something drastic.  Believing my bodyguards and trusty sidearm would be insufficient defense, I sought the man that now sits before me, hoping he could provide some additional protection against the oncoming foe.

“There is a potion,” he had said two days ago in a deep and slowly rolling voice, after I sat down and explained my unfortunate situation.  “The potion will protect you from your enemies in supernatural ways.  You must do exactly what I tell you.  Do not stray from even a single instruction, or things will not go well.”

I didn’t want to believe what I was doing.  In a world of cars flying through the sky and robots doing much of the physical labor, here I am, sitting around a campfire in a forest, listening to a witch doctor talk about magical potions.  I started to regret my decision, and yet, his reputation proceeded him.  This man had done many inexplicable things, and he was paid well for it.  He had only started talking to me when I set the bag of gold on the ground, which was quickly carried away by one of his many similarly dressed servants.  It all seemed too strange for me, but I made myself feel better by remembering that I’m only using his services for protection, and that the potion he is creating is not one of his infamous poisons.

On the first day, he told me to do nothing but sit by the fire and think about the people who may be trying to kill me.  He told me to envision them and their purposes.  I didn’t know who they were, so I mainly thought about the upcoming football games.

On the second day, he told me to venture out into the forest.  “Travel west three miles, to a large tree long split in two by fire from the sky,” he said.  “You must then turn north, travel two miles, until your ears perceive the noise of rushing water.  Follow the noise to the base of a great waterfall, and there you will find many living things in the water.  You must bring back a specimen from the base of the falls, and only from the base.  There will be fish of many different kinds, rainbowfish and angelfish and leaf fish, but you must stand in the water and wait, and soon enough you will find a silver fish with blue markings.  You must reach in with your hands and catch this fish and bring it back, alive.”

I did exactly what he said.  I stood there in the water for two hours before the silver fish came swimming by.  It looked like a salmon.  After several attempts, I pulled it from the water and placed it in a small water basin I had brought with me.  When I returned to the witch doctor, he was still sitting by the fire, but there was now a black pot sitting over the flames.  I sat the basin beside him.  He reached into it and pulled out the fish and proceeded to break it in half, which I hadn’t thought possible to do to a slippery fish.  A thick blue liquid poured from its insides into the pot.

On the third day, he told me to follow a path.  “Travel the road to the east four miles,” he said, “until you come to a small village with dwellings built from the forest.  In the middle there is a well of stone.  You must sit down and wait.  People will walk by, but you must not speak to them.  A young maiden will approach, with a silver dress and blue flowers in her hair, and she will fill her bucket from the well.  You must then offer her this.”  He held out his hand, showing a violet berry.  “You must take what she gives you.”

I did exactly what he said.  I sat for two hours before the young woman with a silver dress and blue flowers in her hair approached, filling her bucket from the well.  I then offered her the berry.  She took it, ate it, and then did one somewhat normal thing, followed by several very abnormal things.  She took a cloth from a pocket in her simple dress and laid it on the well.  Reaching back into the pocket, she took a knife and cut off several long brown hairs from her head, placing them on the cloth.  She then cut off several of her eyelashes and a piece of a toenail, placing them each on the cloth.  Finally, she folded up the cloth and bound it together with twine from her pocket.  She then took her bucket of water and left.

Sitting back in front of the witch doctor, really starting to think this may have been a bad idea, I watched as he took the girl’s hair, eyelashes, and toenail, and dropped them into the pot, mixing it with the blue liquid from the fish.

On the fourth day, he told me to once again venture out into the forest.  “Travel west three miles, to a large tree long split in two by fire from the sky,” he said.  “There you will find many living things in the branches.  You must climb the tree and bring back a specimen from the largest of the branches, and only from the largest.  There will be birds of many different kinds, macaws and trogons and lorikeets, but you must sit on the branch and wait, and soon enough you will find a silver bird with blue markings.  You must reach out with your hands and catch this bird and bring it back, alive.”

I did exactly what he said.  As I sat on that branch waiting, I wondered why I didn’t stop by this tree two days earlier, but I decided not to question the witch doctor.  I waited for two hours before the silver bird with blue markings flew to the large branch I was sitting on.  The bird allowed me to catch it easily and place it within a small metal cage I had brought with me.

Sitting back in front of the witch doctor, I watched as he took the bird and used tweezers made from two small bones to extract something small and black from the bird’s mouth.  He dropped it into the pot, mixing it with the blue liquid from the fish and the girl’s hair, eyelashes, and toenail.

It is now the fifth day, early in the morning.  I half expect him to send me to a dog park, instructing me to wait until a silver dachshund with a blue collar approaches.  Instead, I find myself laying on my back on a mat near the fire.  The witch doctor sits, stirring the pot, as it generates blue bubbles.  He then takes a very modern looking syringe and sticks it into the pot, filling it with the potion.  He comes over and, without saying anything, sticks the needle in my arm, filling me with an intravenous injection of magical potion.  For a moment, I feel nothing.  And then I feel terrible.

The witch doctor stands over me, and then smiles, and then grins a terrible grin.  “It will be quick, worry not.”

I try to ask him why I feel so terrible, but I can’t form any words.  I can’t move.

“Your ambition has granted me a much simpler task than I had with the others, your fellow councilors, coming to assemble your own concoction.”

What?

“All ends lead to new beginnings.”

My vision starts to fade, and then…

Mallory

This is my first attempt at the five word writing challenge.  I requested on Facebook that five friends each give me a word, and then I would use those five words in a piece of flash fiction (usually less than 1500 words).  And thus, I present to you the result of that attempt, Mallory.

Words:
Remote
Pirate Ship
Cosmic
Sparkling
Barley

Mallory

Many days have come and gone since the last abandoned ship showed itself on the horizon, drifting aimlessly upon the ocean.  It is the reason I put together our team to navigate the waters for months at a time.  Our current sixteen week exploration is only five days from completion, and while this mission has been an overall success, it is still missing something to set it apart. 

We are not the only such team attempting to profit from the mysterious vessels, and we are far from the most successful.  Teams have come from both sides of the Atlantic to scour the seas, and most of them have at least found one of the centuries-old ships.  There are many theories as to why such crafts have been discovered over the last several years, having somehow floated upon the water undiscovered since the American Revolution.  Some include references to the Bermuda Triangle, while others sound like something out of science fiction or some sort of paranormal horror film.  I do not know why the ships have started appearing, and it is not really of my concern.  I have my sights on something else.

The ships have come in different sizes and styles.  Some are cargo ships, and the teams that discovered those crafts plundered a wide variety of antique objects of historical significance.  Other ships were strictly for passengers, perhaps transporting British diplomats between Europe and their western colonies.  Pirate ships have been found, of course, full of cannons and the occasional treasure horde.  These finds are the main reasons our team is out searching, seeking the one great discovery that will make us richer than we could ever imagine.  We have watched videos of other teams coming across such ships, grown men weeping at the sight, the ship shimmering of bright gold in the cosmic rays of the midday sun.  That is what we want.  There is a ship out there for us, we know it, and we will not stop until we find it.

The strangest thing about the discovered ships is that they have all been completely devoid of human remains.  It would be expected to find the occasional body.  Perhaps a sailor who died of starvation on his voyage, or an apprehended prisoner found shackled to the walls in the brig.  Yet there has been nothing.  Not a skeleton, not even a bone.  I assume the sea travelers all abandoned ship and lived out their days on some remote island somewhere, only to watch their ship drift off and disappear into the horizon.  It is still strange, though.

Our own ship, a large freighter named Mallory, was repurposed from its transatlantic trade route and now holds the remains of our last several finds in large cargo containers.  The containers will be brought to our headquarters in South Carolina and unloaded into the warehouse, and hopefully the loot will sell for enough to finance our next three month mission on the high seas.  Finding a treasure horde would allow us to retire, though I do not believe I would.  There is always more to find.

“Captain!” comes the voice, pulling my eyes from the maps that cover the walls of my office.  A man runs in through the door, a wide smile across his face. 

“What is it?” I say, not wanting to be disturbed.  I spend much of my time studying the maps and watching weather patterns, attempting to discern the places a drifting sea vessel would be most likely to be discovered.

“A ship!  We’ve found a ship!”

“Good,” I say, standing and walking through toward the door.

“And Captain,” the man says.  “There is a shine.”

I raise my eyebrow at him.  “We shall see,” I say, not wanting to be too optimistic.  I quickly make my way to the bow, joining dozens of my crew.  Just ahead of and well below us, there is indeed a ship, a great structure of dark brown wood.  It is dwarfed by our own cargo ship, but it is significantly larger than any of our previous finds, perhaps even larger than any of the other finds by the other teams.  A small number of cannons protrude from its gun ports at a variety of angles, some obviously damaged and others completely missing.  The cannons were there only for defense from pirates, as this appears to be a trade ship.  The vessel does emit a shine, but I am still hesitant.  However, as I watch it come closer, the shine becomes more pronounced, and I finally allow myself to smile. 

The ship is full of gold.  I watch the sparkling coins and jewels, piles of riches larger than anything we’ve ever seen.  I feel a tear falling down my cheek and quickly wipe it away.  This is it, I know it.  This is what we’ve been looking for.

Mallory stops and anchors with the trade vessel directly on our starboard side.  I do not need to give a single order, as my crews know exactly what to do when we come across a find.  Each crew member goes through months of training before they are allowed on such a mission, as I will not allow our expeditions to be slowed by ineptitude.  I smile as the boarding bridge is lowered, the ladders are let down, and the initial boarding crew scampers down and across quickly, and soon they are aboard it, and then…

And then the air around the trade vessel shimmers, with thin streaks of color twisting around the whole of the craft, and the men and women who boarded it can no longer be seen.

And neither can anyone else.

I am suddenly alone on the deck of Mallory, completely alone in the middle of the sea.  I see none of my crew on either ship, nor do I hear them.  For several moments I can only stand there, my unbelieving eyes staring at the vacant deck.  I feel cold and can see my breath.  And then, my eyes move toward the trade ship below me, the gold shine filling the air.  I feel myself smiling, though I know I should not be smiling.  And yet, smile I do, and I am then approaching the edge of the ship, climbing down the ladder, walking across the boarding bridge.  My eyes have not left the gold that shines brightly.

I step down onto the craft, walking up to a small wooden table with high piles of gold coins.  I hear myself cackling as I reach out and take several of the coins, running them through my fingers.  This is it.  This is what I’ve been looking for.  This is the answer to all my questions.

I then realize that the coins don’t feel like coins.

The whole of my vision shifts, and suddenly there are not coins in my hand, and there are not piles of gold or mounds of jewels.  I peer at my hand and see small fragments of yellow.  Corn kernels.  All around me there are massive piles of yellow, but not of the kind I have been seeking.  There is wheat and bananas and barley, and more corn, all scattered about.  I begin to see bones, some scattered about and some in full skeletons, piled high and buried within the food of the ship, as though this were a floating mass grave.  The more I looked, the more bones I saw.  They were everywhere.

I shiver in fear and then turn toward Mallory, knowing I need to return.  I run for it, leaping over the side of the trade ship.  Or I try to, as I instead slam into something that I cannot see, an invisible barrier that shimmers with streaks of color as I bounce off it and fall to the floor, landing between two skeletons in a pile of corn ears.  I scamper up, attempting not to completely lose my mind, and again run toward the edge, but I abruptly stop.  I watch as the boarding bridge is raised back to the ship, and the ladders are pulled back up.  I look to the deck, and for a moment I see nothing, and then suddenly the deck is full.  I bring my hand to my mouth as I watch skeletons walk upon the deck of my ship, and soon they are running off into its interior, acting very much like crew should act.  I turn and see piles of food, but the bodies have all vanished.

When I turn back to Mallory, I see nothing but the blue of the ocean.

The College Football Eight Team Playoff

I was very pleased when college football decided to go with a playoff system.  It is much better than the BCS system that it replaced, which was itself much better than its predecessor.  A four team playoff is good for the game.  However, were I given the reins from the NCAA, I would expand the field to eight teams, and then put a system in place that does not rely on the discussions and opinions of a playoff committee to determine which teams made the final eight.

Right now, that playoff committee chooses what four teams make the field.  They can take many things into account, including a team's ranking, impressive wins, and who they lost to.  They can think about injuries and off the field issues.  They can think about tough road games and bad refereeing.  They can look at the whole picture to choose which four teams they see as most deserving.  The problem with this, in my eyes, is that everything is based on opinion.  I would propose a system where most of the field is selected not by opinion, but by the champions of the five major conferences.  You win your conference, you get into the playoff.  It's just how it works in college basketball, and pretty much every other sport in the country.  Leagues are made up of divisions; you win your division, you get into the playoff.  The same theory should apply here.  Many sports have wildcard or at-large playoff entrants, but in the end, teams who do not win their conference or division are never guaranteed a spot in the playoff.  Just ask the 2008 New England Patriots, who finished 11-5 and missed the playoffs.  Fair?  Maybe not, but conference and division championships are the only way to guarantee a playoff spot.

The three remaining spots of the playoff would be filled with the three highest ranked non-champions.  Yes, there is opinion in the creation of the poll, of course, but going this route will leave no question as to who will make the field.  Win your conference, get in the playoff.  If you don't win your conference, be one of the top three non-champion teams in the country, get in the playoff.  There would be no guessing, no who-will-the-committee-select type questions.  You then take the eight teams that made the playoff, and you order them based on their ranking, and that gives you the eight teams, seeded from 1 to 8.  Done, let's play some football.

The 2016 playoff committee has just released its playoff bracket, which looks like this:

As an Ohio State fan, I am very excited that the Buckeyes are in the playoff.  However, I'm not sure I would have given them the spot over Big Ten champion Penn State, considering the Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes during the regular season.

Using the above described eight team playoff method, the playoff would look like this (I am using the AP poll for the rankings):

Conference Champions:
Alabama (SEC)
Clemson (ACC)
Washingon (Pac-12)
Penn State (Big Ten)
Oklahoma (Big 12)

At-Large Births:
Ohio State
Michigan
Wisconsin

This year's bracket would create a few oddities: all three at-large teams are from the Big Ten, meaning that four of the eight playoff teams are from that conference.  In theory, there could be a rule in place that limits the number of teams from any particular conference.  The bracket also creates a repeat matchup between Ohio State and Oklahoma.

However, I believe this eight team playoff provides the most straight-forward and fair way to determine a national champion for college football.

Vote on the Title of my Book! Yay!

I have continued work on my fantasy novel, presently titled Praeteran.  I have just hit 71,000 words, which, while still a little short, is in the range that I wanted to hit.  While I do have a few more edits planned, I am hoping to have the first person other than me read it in the very near future, which should be easy enough, because she lives in the same house I do.  :) I will likely then have more edits based on her feedback.

For now, however, I have been thinking about the title, and I thought I'd see what my legions of loyal followers think about it. And thus, please vote in the poll! Yay for democracy in action! (In a non-binding way!)  

What should I name my current novel?

Praeteran Update 2

I have recently completed the rough draft for my current novel project, a fantasy novel currently titled Praeteran.  I seem to write rough drafts short, as I have been quite under my final target word count each time.  This rough draft was less than what I'd like it to be at the end by at least half.  It ended at about 35,000 words, and I will get it to between 70,000 and 90,000 words by the time I am done with it.

One thing I have done is rework the outline for the whole series.  I initially envisioned and outlined The Anarchist Chronicles as a five book series, but I have since shortened it to a trilogy, allowing me to move a bit from what was previously book two into book one.  I am in the middle of revisions of the whole manuscript, as well as writing additional chapters for these outline changes.  I have a lot more work to go, but I have upped the draft from 35,000 words to 47,000 words.  There is a lot more work to do - extra chapters to write and lots of detail to add.  But I am on my way.

One thing that I realized I did not fully explain in the last blog entry was about the viewpoint and tense of the book.  Like I said, I am doing the book in first person, like I did with my previous book, Override.  However, unlike that book, there will not be a single viewpoint character, but multiple, and the viewpoint character will change at every chapter break.  This will be interesting, as this is considered by authors to be a more difficult way to write.  The top of each chapter will list the viewpoint character for that chapter, but you also have to give each of the viewpoint characters a distinct voice.  I am trying to do that, but we will see how successful I was when I have other people read it.  (Which will be a while, of course.)  Most of the book will also be in present tense instead of past tense, except for a few choice chapters.

The Aspiring Author

I've been upping my writing work recently, on two fronts. First off, I have sent off query letters for my recent science fiction novel, Override, to literary agents. If any of them have their interest piqued, they will ask for a full manuscript, which would be fantastic. I sent off such query letters for my first two novels, The Second Shadow and Queen of Men, never getting a request for a manuscript. In theory, my writing is getting better, and so my chances keep going up. So we shall see. :)

I am now working on my fourth book, a young adult fantasy novel tentatively titled Praeteran.  This is actually related to my first novel, The Second Shadow.  I have outlined a five book series titled The Anarchist Chronicles, with Praeteran being book one and The Second Shadow being book three.  If I manage to write the whole series, I would rewrite that book three.  I am doing something a little different this time around.  Override was the first book I wrote in the first person point of view, and I am continuing that strategy with Praeteran (and likely with the rest of the series).  I am hoping to hit 90,000 words with this book, which would make it the longest I've written.  I'm presently at 12,118 words and moving forward.

Override

I have posted a couple times before about my current writing project, a more science-fiction based story currently titled Override.  I have hit somewhat of a lull in my writing, but I hope to be past that soon.  It is being written in first person, uses a good dose of sarcasm, and is (hopefully) more of a character driven book.  So we shall see.  However, I wanted to post an excerpt from the first chapter to show the kind of story it will be, and to get any first reactions to it.  So if the writing seems terrible, just let me know, and then maybe I'll stick to the normal fantasy writing I've done before. :)


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Life is good.  And by good, I don’t mean that it holds a high quality, or that it is naturally benevolent.  I mean it is skilled.  Skilled at reminding me just how much my life sucks.

What do you do when you’ve royally screwed over everything you’ve ever done?  Your life up to the present point has been an impressive assortment of tremendous miscalculations.  It’s nearly as though every choice you’ve ever made has been incorrect, from the shirts and pants you throw on each morning, to the woman you’ve selected as your lifelong mate.  Each morning, you wake up and prepare yourself for the job you should never have accepted, in the career field you don’t understand or excel at.  You’re surrounded by evidence of the truth that haunts your every waking moment: your life, at this very moment, is precisely the opposite of all you had hoped it would be, and completely reversed from everything it should be.

This sounds like the start of a self-help book.  But it’s not.  This is my scourging life.

Not that these exact examples have anything to do with me.  Seriously.  I just tried to come up with relatable things, things that normal people might have felt disappointment with.  The mistakes I’ve made are really not anything like this.  They’re much, much worse.

So, I’ll ask you again.  Actually, no, wait.  What in God’s green but now black and brown Earth am I talking about?  This is just inner monologue.  If I start to get responses, then I’ve obviously gone farther off the dock than I thought.  It’s a defense mechanism, as I’ve heard from a million different court-appointed counselors.  I also tend to daydream, moving my attention away from things in reality that I don’t really want to deal with.  And that’s what is happening now.  If you, nonexistent voyeur upon my thoughts, could see what was happening in front of my eyes at this very moment, you would want to escape from it too.  I only hope the sight is gone before I wake up.  It’s really rather frightening, though I have to admit, I have no idea why it’s happening.  I seem to be blocking out the last few moments.  Some part of my defense mechanism, I’m sure, or selective amnesia or some other psychological jargon that I wish I didn’t remember.  Well, whatever happened to bring me here, it appears to be really rather frightening.  I guess I already said that.  I pray that my bladder can restrain all of its contents.  I’ve heard of people having their life flash before their eyes in a moment of extreme panic, and I suppose that’s what this is.  Oh, good, cause all those wretched counselors haven’t made me rehash these events enough.

Anywho, this is my story, one that should never be told, since it never should have happened.  I am not who I should have been, or who anyone should have been.  I did not become what I was purposed for.  No, I’m not looking for pity, so wipe that sympathetic frown off your fictional face, cause I’m sure you haven’t hit the bull’s eye with every one of your choices.  But I’ve never hit it.  When you see all those marks on the wall, not even hitting the target, think of me.  Cause that’s where all my shots have hit in life.

What can I say?  I’ve been rather efficient at stupidity.

Or so I’ve been told.

It all started on the eighth of June, in the year 2182, in a run-down motel northeast of Saint Paul, Minnesota.  No, I admit that it doesn’t sound like the most exciting place to start a thrilling story, but what do you think this is, science fiction?  This is still just my life.  Anywho, it was the Happy River Motel, I believe.  A lovely little spot overlooking the Saint Croix River, except for all the roaches and the smell of death.  I don’t really remember that day, for I didn’t even start it alive, yet it is a day that will ever be important to me.  You see, it was the day I was conceived.  I know the date because it was carved on my father’s tombstone.

Jobs, iPhones, and Novels

Did you know that my life is, in general, not all that interesting?  Yes, it's true.  I know it's shocking.  Thus, nearly five months between blog posts.  I might end up doing something in the near future, where I use an online random blog topic generator to come up with ideas for posts.  (I am, of course, always accepting questions for Ask Cooper Anything, for this blog or for Don't Feed the Hypocrite.)

Here is a quick recap, however, of a couple of the interesting less boring things from the last few months.  First, in July, I transitioned from contract worker to full time employee at Rust Consulting in Minneapolis, doing database programming.  It's nice not to wonder whether my contract will be extended every few months.  I also finally joined the twenty-first century, trading in my old dumbphone for an iPhone 5S, and I've been quite happy with it.  It's nice to do all the smartphone related things, but especially nice to have a GPS device, and once again to be able to read my Kindle books on the bus.

In writing news, earlier this year I started work on a science fiction-esque book, presently titled Override.  It's quite different than anything else I've written, and allows me to write from a first-person point of view, and lets me write quite sarcastically.  I also set out to write a different book for NaNoWriMo, which challenges you to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.  While I am not going to come anywhere close to that goal, I do have a decent start on that story, which also has some science fiction elements and is presently titled Sensur.

I've been having an interesting thought run through my head concerning these two stories: with a little tweaking, they could become compatible.  So now I'm considering combining those two stories into one, which may end up as a book with dual timelines, where everything comes together nicely (in theory) at the end.  I'm still considering whether or not to do this, but I like the idea of it, I just need to work through some things and determine whether it makes sense to do it that way.  That would certainly be unlike anything else I've ever written.

So we'll see.

Ask Cooper Anything 5: Where to Live

"If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why? Assume for the purposes of this question that the people you want to live close to would also be there, and that you would be able to find a job."
- Erik C.

To come up with this answer, I had to start be eliminating the places I wouldn't live, coming at this from a practical point of view.

For starters, and this may seem incredibly lame to some people, I'm going to go ahead and disqualify a massive percentage of the world.  I actually wouldn't really have any desire to live outside of this country.  There are places around the world I think would be neat to visit (New Zealand, England, Egypt), but this country is my home and I don't ever see myself living away from it.

Next, however much I love the ocean, I don't want to live next to it.  Especially in Florida, or any place where hurricanes are a real possibility.  That's just something I would never want to deal with.  While places like California eliminate themselves due to the ocean, I also wouldn't want to live anywhere that has a good chance for earthquakes.

I don't want to be too far south, as I'm not a fan of scorching heat, and I really do enjoy being able to experience all four seasons.  Geographically, Alaska is my favorite state, because of the mountains and the ocean.  I'd be more likely to live near the ocean in Alaska than in Florida, but the high temperature in southern Alaska is maybe 60 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, so the window for enjoying the outside during that time is fairly small, and I want to be able to play softball and do other such outdoor activities for a good amount of the year.  So no to Alaska.

Oddly enough, my current state of Minnesota fits everything pretty well so far.  The one thing that it is missing is my favorite geographical feature: mountains.  So, I would probably choose somewhere with a similar climate to Minnesota, but more mountainous.  This puts me a little farther west or southwest, ending up in western Montana, or perhaps somewhere in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, or Colorado.  I do like having access to the big city, and yet I'd be just as happy being in the middle of nowhere, though preferably with some kind of city within reasonable driving distance.  I'd love a large amount of (low maintenance) land, where I can't see any neighbors.  As long as I can have access to high speed Internet.

I'd probably end up picking somewhere in western Montana.  That probably is quite a pathetic answer to some people, but it seems pretty nice to me.

Ask Cooper Anything 3: Color and Sadness

"Well Erik and Tim asked complicated questions. So I'll ask - what is your favorite color?  and what makes you sad? You are always happy."
- Gina C.

My favorite color is green.  Specifically, forest green - a nice dark color.  After we recently had water coming in through the egress window in my office in the basement, the wall needed to be repainted.  I could have painted the whole office, but instead I opted to paint just that one wall.  So now my office has a dark green accent wall.  Which is pretty neat.

I do sometimes consider switching my favorite color to black.  It's an exceptionally close second.  Green has held on thus far to retain the crown.  The color I would choose for different things depends on the circumstance, though.  For instance, I think black, dark grey, or silver cars look the best.

Oddly enough, my favorite color used to be blue.  Back a long time ago.  I think I switched it some time in my early teens, maybe.

Concerning sadness: I don't particularly enjoy being sad.  Not that anyone does, of course, but when I become sad, I tend to maneuver my mind to focus on something else instead.  Sitting around focusing on whatever is making you sad doesn't really help much.

That being said, one of the main things that makes me sad is something I've written about a few times on these blogs: my own shortcomings and failures.  I hate it when I'm working on something, or playing something, and make a silly mistake that I shouldn't make, or I am unable to do something I think I should be able to do.  Things that happen that cause me to doubt my own abilities, my own competence, or my own intelligence.  Especially when other people see me do it, and then I start to assume that they're now also doubting my abilities, competence, and intelligence.  It makes me sad when I fail.

Other saddening things include all the suffering in the world.  I know that I have been incredibly blessed in my life, more so than I could ever deserve, but there are many people who have been born into situations that I can't even fathom.  I find it sad when people endure terrible hardships that were not of their own making.  Mostly, I find it saddest that there are so many people completely oblivious that there is a God that loves them, or they simply reject God.  Either way, they are living their lives without a savior, whether or not they know they need one.

Ask Cooper Anything

As part of my desire to keep an active blogging life (and to counter the fact that I often have trouble coming up with topics), I've decided to see if there is anything my wide reader base (sarcasm) has any thoughts on what I should write about.  So here is your opportunity to send me questions concerning any topic you have on your mind.  I am posting this on both my personal blog, Chromiden's Chronicles, and my more serious-natured blog about life, Don't Feed the Hypocrite.  The type of question it is will determine which blog the response gets posted to.

So ask me anything - about the goings on in my life, my opinions on certain issues, general advice, my views on certain aspects of the Christian life.  Or whatever.  I'll answer pretty much anything, openly and honestly.  Feel free to post these questions as blog comments, Facebook comments, or send me a Facebook message or an email [ cooper [dot] joel [at] gmail [dot] com ].

It's quite possible that I won't get a response from this, and that's more than alright, I just thought I'd give it a try.  :)

So, It's Been Eight Months

Hi, this blog is actually not dead.  It may not be interesting, but it's not dead. 

Sadly, I don't have a major list of exciting things that have happened since my last post, but here's a little bit of a recap. 

After being laid off from Helgeson Enterprises (which has since been sold and renamed) last April, I went three and a half months being unemployed, which was absolutely fantastic.  I was able to do some house projects (previously covered in this blog), and just enjoy not having to go to work.  But, life costs money, so eventually I had to get a job.  After several interviews over the summer, I started a six month contract at Rust Consulting in Minneapolis, doing SQL database programming and development.  It's been a good job, and the people are great to work with.  I had been hoping I would be hired on full time when my contract ended in February, but instead, my contract was extended by three months.  So, it won't be too long and this contract will near an end as well.  Rust could hire me on then, or extend the contract again.  I'm also keeping my eyes open for other opportunities, especially any that are closer to home, as Rust is in downtown Minneapolis, and I have a 45 minute bus ride to work every day.  But, it's a good job, so no real complaints.

I have done a bit of work on my Reclamation card game.  It's no longer a customizable card game, but is now a card-based board game.  A lot has changed, and I'm excited to test it out, which I should be doing soon.  The game has changed enough where a different name may be needed, and I'm considering Parable of the Talents, or something to that effect.

While I failed miserably at doing this during NaNoWriMo, I am now ramping up my work on my next novel, presently titled Override.  It is different from my first two, as it is more science fiction and written in the first person.  It also may be a bit darker.  I still have a bit of outlining to do, including considering whether to write it as a standalone book or perhaps the first of a trilogy.  I am excited to keep working on it.

I submitted my fantasy novel Queen of Men to literary agents a few months ago, but got no response.  I am going to try and improve my query letter, and then send out another round of queries, including a bunch of snail mailing.  So we'll see.

I'm sure other things have happened since last July, but, that's all for now. :)

House Update: Office and Theater Room

The office

Next comes two of my favorite rooms.  The office is where I spend most of my time, as it has the computer and my cards in it, and has been decorated in a sufficiently geeky manner.  (It's really the only room in the house I have complete control over.) :)  I like Star Wars, by the way.  The office is actually the biggest bedroom in the the house, but it made the most sense as the office - it was the only one that had a cable connection in it, and we didn't see ourselves ever using it as a bedroom.  There's a bit of unused space presently.

Theater room

As soon as we saw the family room downstairs, we knew what we wanted to do with it.  Thus, the theater room was born.  In January, we purchased a 60 inch Sharp LED TV, and hung in on the wall.  We bought a Blu-Ray player a little bit later (though I only have one Blu-Ray presently: the first Hobbit movie).  We also have our Wii plugged in here (playing MarioKart on this thing is pretty great fun).  We have since then bought a love seat, and moved part of our upstairs sectional couch downstairs, as the full sectional couch did not fit into the theater room.  Megan brought her large VHS movie collection, and we put up shelves and bought a DVD shelf.  We then put up several movie posters of some of our favorite movies.  So yeah, it's a pretty great room, if I do say so myself. :)

Theater room

The office

House Update: Closet and Library

Finished closet

The next project for the house was a closet remodel.  Our bedroom is next to the "library", and we've decided that it will never need to actually be used as a bedroom.  My wife came up with the idea of basically moving the closet from that bedroom, so that it is part of our bedroom instead.  We asked Jim from Vail Builders, the same guy who did our kitchen, what the cost of the closet project would be.  He quoted us at about $3300, a bit more than we were hoping for.  Thus, I used the experience gained when helping my brother Erik finish his basement, and took on the project myself.  Since materials totaled around $300, we saved about $3000 doing it ourselves.

Finished closet

I started this project slightly after being laid off in April, so I had lots of time on my hands to complete it.  It ended up being finished over a period of about 3 weeks.  It involved a few steps - creating the opening in the bedroom wall and installing the door, and creating a frame for the library wall, and finishing that wall.  After lots of cutting, spackling, and painting, the project was complete.  Certainly things are not as clean cut, straight, and pretty as if we had paid someone to do it, and imperfections abound, but we saved a lot of money on the project.  Side note: the closet door was a double in the library, and became a single in the bedroom, due to us not wanting to move around an electrical outlet.  It certainly could have been done, and probably very easily, but alas, it worked out.

Library - after

Library - before

The new closet became my closet, and all my clothes are now there, and my bureau was moved down to the spare bedroom.  The last part of the closet project was the setup of the inside - I bought and cut down several large shelves, and cut down the pole for hanging clothes.  It can certainly handle a lot more clothes than I own, but it works pretty well for me.  We then painted the bedroom grey, with a blue accent wall.  The library was then fitted with several large bookshelves.

It was a fun project, and gives us a little more room in the bedroom, plus more wall space in the library for bookshelves.

House Update: Kitchen

After - appliance garage and pull out drawer for bins

So, the first big thing we did on the house was have some work done on the kitchen in April.  We had a contractor (Vail Builders) push back the wall in the kitchen (reducing the size of the adjacent bedroom, the library), and add in additional kitchen cabinets on each side.  One side is the pantry - lots of wide, deep shelves.  The other size includes a pull out drawer for the trash and recycling bins, and an "appliance garage", along with some extra shelving.  It was an expensive project that took about four weeks to complete, but it certainly adds a bit of space to the kitchen, and that was one of Megan's complaints about the house.  It also added room for us to open our freezer door completely.  We then painted the kitchen red.

Before

After

After 

Pantry

Been A While

The day after my last blog post, I was laid off from my programmer position at Helgeson Enterprises in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  I had been there for 11 months.  It had been, overall, a decent job, though I wasn't sure if I was going to want to stay there for all that long anyway, though it would have been nice to have another job lined up before leaving.

Thus begun my hunt for a new job.  I have gone nearly three months without finding something, but I'm sure something will work out.  All in God's timing, though I often wish he'd hurry himself up a little bit. :) Anyway, I've had several interviews, including at TCF Bank, Goodwill/Easter Seals, Dunwoody College, and LPS.  I felt pretty good about each of those, but nothing came from it.  TCF did have me back for a second interview, though, so that was good, even if they called me the day after to tell me they were passing.

I've gone nearly three weeks without an interview now, and I admit that I've started to get a little discouraged.  Something will certainly work out, and God is in control, and I usually don't just sit around thinking about it, but I've started to lose a bit of sleep over it, waking up in the middle of the night, wide awake, unable to go back to sleep.  It's silly, really.

At least I get unemployment - only about half of my normal salary, but it's still something.  Also, having all this time off has allowed me to do a bit of work on the house.  I will be (hopefully) posting several posts in the near future, showing some of the work I've done, and talking about the work we still have to do.

Having the time off has also granted me some time to work on writing.  I am currently working on a more detailed outline for The Anarchist Chronicles trilogy, and when I am pleased with that, I will begin writing book one.  Hopefully creating a detailed three-book outline will help the overall story.

I assume I will find another job at some point, though I sometimes wonder if this is God's way of telling me that I need to change things.  Maybe I need to focus more on writing.  I'm very tempted to submit my novel Queen of Men to literary agents very soon, to see if anything comes from that.  But we will see.  Other times, I wonder if this is a good time to go back to school and get my Masters degree, but that would possibly/probably require taking out additional school loans, which I'd prefer not to do.  Ah, who knows what the future holds.

In Case You Didn't Already Know Enough

So, I've been lazy and/or uninteresting lately, thus resulting in a definite lack of blog posts, though I have added a few entries to my other online writing endeavor, Don't Feed the Hypocrite.  Over the past several weeks, I've been slowly assembling the next in my series of facts.  Here are twenty-five more, after the original sets of fifty and twenty-five.  If you don't care enough to read on, I'll understand.  No hard feelings.

1. Geographically, my favorite state is Alaska.  Basically, I love mountains.
2. I am a grammar and spelling Nazi.  Pretty much whenever I send out an email or text message, I read over it at least once to ensure it to be error-free.  It drives me crazy when I find out later that I missed an error.
3. I am not materialistic, but I do have attachments to certain physical items, like cars and places I've lived.  I still miss my first car, even though I like my current car infinitely more.  If I had the space to store them, and a wife that would allow it, I just might hunt down each of my previous cars and buy them back.
4. It would take me forever to grow a beard, if it would ever happen.  It grows slow enough that I only shave every week or two.
5. Other than chocolate and peanut butter, my two favorite types of candy are cinnamon candy (like the "Fierce Cinnamon" Hot Tomales) and sour candy (like sour gummy worms).
6. I sneeze quite loud.  My wife refers to it as "screaming while I sneeze."
7. In elementary school, I once accidentally stabbed a fellow student in the hand with a pencil.
8. I'm a decent tipper.
9. I love chocolate and peanut butter together.  Growing up, chocolate was the more important of the two, but it has recently seemed quite possible to me that I like peanut butter more than chocolate.
10. I once cheated on a test in school by writing answers on a pencil.  I've also cheated on tests by typing hints and answers into my graphing calculator.
11. I was once threatened with expulsion from high school for installing freeware imaging software on school computers (a program I was using for one of my classes).
12. I once gave a demonstrative "speech" in school where I stood in front of the class, folded a paper airplane, and then sat down, without saying a single word.  I hated speech class.  (I've always thought that I'd rather write a 20 page paper than give a 5 minute speech.)
13. Despite my terrible shyness and social anxiety, I am surprisingly adept at smalltalk with strangers.
14. I can't whistle.
15. I love spicy food.  I'd like to try a ghost pepper at some point.
16. When I was young (around 6), I peed my pants a few times during baseball games, at least once while playing catcher, leaving a puddle on or around home plate.
17. I love games.  I've pretty much never played a game or sport I didn't like.  Even if I am not good at something, and get routinely defeated at it, I always thoroughly enjoy it.  While I am very competitive and like to win, it's the experience that ultimately matters, not really the outcome.
18. When I'm driving alone, I sing loudly with the radio, with my head and arms bouncing merrily to the music.  I assume I get all sorts of odd looks from people.
19. I'm a fiddler.  Not, you know, with a musical fiddle, but I'm often fiddling with something in my hands, like a pen or pencil or whatever happens to be lying around, especially when sitting at my desk at work.  This includes a small soccer ball I sometimes roll around my desk.  I also often sit with a pen in my mouth.
20. When I was a teenager, I had a dream that my father was chasing me with a pistol, trying to kill me.  After I got married, I had a dream that I killed my wife's dog with a large fork.
21. I've been to two proms and had two girlfriends (though calling one of them a girlfriend is kind of a stretch), and never once was it because I asked the girl out.
22. I love roller coasters, but I'm not a fan of the smaller rides that just spin you around.  I once threw up after riding one.  Right at the exit gate.
23. I love to laugh, and laugh often, sometimes at things other people don't find funny, and I then have no explanation for why I found it funny.
24. I'm not really a private person.  I don't care what other people know.  This includes things like money - my salary, what I paid for my house or car, and so on.  Most people don't like to share such things, but to me, they're just numbers.
25. I'm a computer geek who owns a cell phone that was outdated when I got it 3 years ago.  It has no data plan and no touch screen.  There goes my geek cred.