Huzzah!  Mikolaj is back from vacation, which means new pages!!

There is so much going on right now that I don't even know where to begin.  Let's start with a brief update on the Moorcock Project:

There's a fellow named Rocco who publishes (sort of) a magazine called Dragon Roots.  At Gen Con, he also publishes an anthology filled with stories written by the authors from Gen Con's "Authors' Alley".  I was flattered to be asked t appear in the latest antholgy, MIssing Pieces Volume III.  I would desperately like to give you a link directly to the book so that you can buy a copy, but Rocco hasn't updated his website in forever .  Given my own track record on that count, I shall forgive him.

The story I wrote for his book is related to the Moorcock project: one of the principle characters is (most likely) going to be the main character of the book.  He's a wizard named Gavoche. Astute readers will note that he has the same name as Kells' old master, but he's actually a separate character that inhabits a completely different fictional reality.  I have a tendency too re-use names until they attach themselves to a truly cool character.

Anyway, this fellow Gavoch, like some of Moorcock's protagonists, is very much an anti-hero.  He has a lot in common with Kells, actually, but he's far more charming and something of a smooth operator.  But I'll be letting him speak for himself soon enough: if Rocco doesn't update his website by next week, I'm going to post the short story right here!

First things first: In case anyone could possibly forget, this weekend is GenCon 2012!!! I'll be in author's alley near the signing table if you want to come by and say hello!  It's also worth noting that I have a short story appearing in Missing Pieces vol. III from Dragon Roots press.  I'd link you to their website, but it looks like Rocco hasn't updated it in a while...

 Now, on to even more interesting news!

I'm sure many of you are familiar with fantasy author Michael Moorcock , who created such iconic characters as Elric of Melniboné and Jerry Cornelius . His output has been prodigious, and looking at his bibliography it's hard for someone like me (who writes relatively slowly) to imagine one guy writing all that in one lifetime. I've heard a story (probably apocryphal) that in the case of his earlier more pulpy writing, he could crank out a short novel over the weekend.

According to wikipedia he did claim at one point to be able to turn out 15,000 words on a good day, which is amazing to me. I have heard tell (again, I have no idea if this is actually true) that his trick for writing a "weekend novel" was to actually do a lot of prep work before hand: do some pre-writing to get a good handle on the main characters, and then break the story down into sections and chapters and create a very detailed outline. So, before he sat down to bang out the first draft, he knew ahead of time what had to happen in every chapter, and all of his plot and development was mapped out, so he could just lock himself in a room for three days and have a first draft on Monday morning.

That kind of methodical approach to a short novel sounds just like the kind of thing that would work for me, since I'm a big fan of prep work and planning when I write fiction. So I've decided to try to follow that plan, and build up to writing a 120 page novella over a weekend. I'm a very busy guy with a lot going on, so that weekend will likely remain some distance down the road. I'm thinking sometime after the holidays, which are the busiest time of year for my job. However, during the run up I should have plenty of time to plan the book.

I'm going to work through some of the planning stages here, so this should becme a semi-regular feature.  Watch this space!

Next installment: The Protagonist