Nethermore

By the time I sat down to write last night at 9:30pm, my body and mind were telling me that staying up until 4am the night before was just not going to work with my current writing schedule. I forced myself to write for about ten minutes, and I realized that just wasn’t into it—my mind just wasn’t working well enough for me to care about the characters or the situation. I was hating the book.

So I ate dinner and then went to bed before eleven last night. And when I woke up at 2:30am, I felt completely different about the book. I stared at the ceiling for an hour—as I tried to go back to sleep—and the whole time I was thinking about how cool the book is to me.

It’s amazing what a little sleep and food can do for your outlook on life. I’ll have to chock that one down on how to keep a consistent writing schedule: Remember to eat and sleep!

Stayed up until one this morning working on the book, pushing to the 25% mark. I feel like I should celebrate or something! You know, open wide the door to the party yurt, drink goat’s milk, and eat strudel.

Afterward I stayed up for another two and a half hours to finish reading the book a friend of mine wrote. Any book that keeps me up that late has got to be a good. I’d recommend it to all ya’ll but it hasn’t been published yet. He’s written some great short stories that have been published in some of the top markets, like Writers of the Future and Analog. He’s definitely a writer to watch and an all-around nice guy, too.

My current opinion of my own book is that it’s moving way too slowly. The book’s about a place called Nethermore, and I haven’t even gotten the characters there yet! I’m barely coming upon the first major confrontation of the book and I’m already (supposedly) a quater of the way through.

They say you should write what you like to read. Maybe I should have held off on the Robert Jordan and Tad Williams when I was growing up.

From now on, updates will occur in the late evenings so I’m not thinking about, “What should I blog about today?” while I’m at work.

Tentatively this is what you can expect each day from Nethermore.com.

Monday - Nethermore novel update
Tuesday - Random silliness / stories
Wednesday - Thoughts about Writing
Thursday - Stinky Hobo
Friday - Yurt Sightings
Weekend - Random stuff, if I decide to write anything at all

As always, if you have input, or things you like or don’t like, let me know by comment or by email.

–”Stewart!”

We haven’t gone anywhere! Honest!

My webhost had a few problems this morning (even their own website was down), so on their behalf, I apologize for the downtime. I don’t know what caused it, but the host was very quick in getting things back up. Kudos to them!

Now back to our regularly scheduled yurt.

I didn’t want to write last night. I didn’t want to do anything. I was four chapters into the book and already hating everything about it. Most novelists don’t feel this way about their books until three quarters of the way through. I felt like I must be doing something wrong.

And maybe I am. But I won’t know until the book is done. If I don’t finish it, there’s no way to know if how I’m writing it will work, and if I don’t finish it I won’t be able to go back and fix anything. If I don’t finish it, I won’t learn anything, and I won’t ever be able to make a living as a writer.

I wrestled with my mind, trying to pull myself together enough to stick it out and finish the book. Or at least give it a go for one more night. If I had written the book five years ago, I wouldn’t be in the situation I’m in right now. There’s a good possibility that I would be published by now and possibly even doing well enough to support myself.

Then I told myself that I can’t begrudge the lost time. It’s not coming back, but I can learn from it. I can start now and stay steady now as if today were that day five years ago when I wished that I’d started.

Now is the time.

If I don’t push through today and stay consistent and true to my writing goals, then tomorrow will have exactly the same problems as today.

I won’t have grown. I won’t have moved on. I won’t have accomplished my goals. I still won’t have a yurt.

And I’ll be five years older, looking back on a day much like today when I could have pulled myself together and continued forward.

I refuse to have to look back on today with the words, “I wish I had” running like a digital marquee through my head.

Now is the time.

Had my brother add a new background this weekend. Kind of looks like a flannel blanket to me. Anyway, it’s the traditional Royal Stewart Tartan, so it fits in with the whole “Stewart!” theme.

What do you all think? Should it stay or should it go?

Rough night for writing. I’ve been averaging 1000 words an hour, but last night I averaged between six and seven hundred. Just had a tough time getting into the writing thing. Even though I was undisturbed at the cat house, a recent conversation with a friend had me a little distracted.

But I’m not going to let a random thing derail me.

I finished writing a night sparring scene that was punctuated by fireworks. I don’t know if it will work, but it had the feeling of an art movie in my head while I wrote it. Think the movie Hero, but with fireworks instead of colors.

I also finished Chapter Three, hit the 10% mark on the progress bar, and made a few notes for the next few chapters. Things are coming along.

In other news, nethermore.com received just over one hundred unique hits on Wednesday. Thanks to all of you who are stopping by. By the end of the weekend, I hope to have some galleries up on the as-of-yet unposted artwork section. I’m also looking to be around 30k words by Monday.

Here’s a funny little article that gave me a laugh.

–Stewart!

I’ve been a very, very bad author. Someone should just preempt my July 31st deadline and peg me with fruit right now because this has been a terrible week for working on my book.

I was doing fine until Thursday rolled around. I moseyed into the doctor’s office that morning with a friend whom I had asked to drive me there. Anyway, despite my having brought my uber-used Mobile Pro with me, I couldn’t write a word on it. I was too nervous, too petrified of what was going on.

I was given strict instructions to sleep for the rest of the day and that I shouldn’t be on the computer at all. I spent the evening wishing I was allowed to write. I almost broke the rule. Then I realized that the doctor had said nothing about watching TV–too bad my roommates took that when they moved out. I would have watched Final Fantasy: Advent Children on the laptop, but alas, I had foregone borrowing it from a coworker.

Most of the writing I did on Friday was in the doctor’s office or during a concert. Because the writing is on the Mobile Pro, which has no way that I know of to count words, I have no idea how much I’ve written and I’m not adding it to the progress bar until I can get a handle on that particular chapter.

Just as a side note, I wrote during the opening act to Debra Fotheringham at her concert on Friday. No way was I going to write during Debra’s songs and miss the music. Go take a listen at her myspace page. In an age of knock-off pop bands and bleached hair, Debra is neither derivative nor does she bleach her hair. Plus, she’s got an jazz-angel voice that will keep you entranced. Another very good reasons to listen.

Moving consumed the rest of Friday evening and most of Saturday. I don’t enjoy this sort of thing. Moving reminds me of all the stuff I’ve accumulated, it takes time, and it keeps me away from writing. Fortunately I have some very good friends who showed up to help out. If they had websites at all, I’d give you links to them. Instead, here’s a link to what some of my friends like to do more than anything in the world, with the exception of preparing to throw fruit at me.

Went to Salt Lake Saturday evening for the reception of an old roommate of mine, who unfortunately doesn’t have his own website, but if he did you could find it here. I’ve been listening to the Hunt for Red October when I’m in the car, and I’m halfway done as of last night. I love the way Clancy can bring the plot of a story together and paint the picture of a world most of us have never seen. I’m sure the process is very much akin to writing fantasy novels. I’d love to see what Clancy could come up with in that genre! Plus he mentions the Idaho Naval Reactor, where my dad used to work.

It’s been a mad mad mad mad weekend. I’m stoked to be getting back on track with the writing goals. But I’m not getting down about not meeting them this last week. It’s all been practice up to this point. Now that it’s May, it’s time to pull out the big guns and get some stuff done.

–Stewart!

I had too much to eat for dinner last night and had strange dreams because of it.

Overeating is a rare occassion for me, but I certainly did that yesterday. After writing group we went to eat at Tucano’s, a Brazilian-themed restaurant that prides itself on offering meat straight from the spit and delivered to your table. All-you-can-eat.

I noticed that I was mentioned over on areleejensen’s LiveJournal recently.

Isaac is a skinny fellow with glasses and a somewhat impressive desire to turn writer. I don’t know how good he really is - he read snippets from rough drafts he’s written, but that was just before he tossed them on the fire. It was never enough for me to make a substantial judgment. He’s very dedicated, though… and that’s scary for people like me who want abstractly to be published but don’t work as hard as they should.

I blogged about the same campfire a few days ago. She also talks about my roommate Matthias.

Matthias was tall, dark, and had a rich European style. He stood by the fire in his silver collared shirt, pressed slacks, and expensive italian leather shoes with a hand on his hip and his thin pink lips pursed thoughtfully. I almost laughed out loud at the glorious cliche he presented as he explained in his rolling voice why he liked Vienna better than Paris. He’s the mysterious foreign exchange student… he looked like the type who would keep some Italian tucked beneath his tongue in Romantic emergencies… always ready to steal a shy glance at your legs when you cross them and your skirt creeps up.

Areleejensen sure has a knack for description. Now Matthias is a great guy, but I personally don’t think he’s as mysterious as this paragraph makes him out to be. But hey, he’s European, so we Americans like to romanticize that aspect.

Maybe I should start talking with an accent.

“Stewart!”

I started submitting stories to magazines when I was fourteen years old. So the subject of what name to publish under always lurked in my mind. You know, just in case one of those stories got published.

Let’s face it, Stewart is a fairly common name, and it seems to be a good name to be writing science fiction and fantasy under, because the Stewarts have more than their share of the book shelf. I can think of at least three, and there are probably more. George R. Stewart wrote Earth Abides. Sean Stewart is a very good writer and has won the World Fantasy Award a couple of times. Ian Stewart writes hard science fiction.

When I get published people will mix me up with Ian at least–probably because of the hair. Even when people know my name, I still get called “Ian” or “Alex.” And when they do get my name right, many of them spell it wrong. As a little kid, I never could figure out how I could get a mediocre grade in spelling when my gradeschool teacher couldn’t even spell my name right on the report card. It seemed so hypocritical.

So I think it’s natural that I’ve considered writing under a pen name. I’ve had the opportunity to take writing classes from some of my favorite science fiction and fantasy authors. Dave Wolverton suggested I write under the name “Isaac Knight.” Scott Card thought it silly that I would want to use any name but my own. And Brandon Sanderson’s response was simply, “Stewart!” said in a Scottish accent.

And that’s what sealed it. Rather than appear to reject my heritage (this is probably what it would seem like to my extended family) I would embrace it and magnify it. This is what will distinguish me from the other Stewarts. I will be the Stewart that says, “Stewart!”

Thus the Scotsman.

In the next few weeks I’ll add the Tartan and then the kilt. Maybe we’ll get a Claymore in here somewhere.

Until tomorrow then: “Virescit Vulnere Virtus!”