Rush - Presto

Rush has been one of my favorite bands since the mid 1970s. This album, which I recently dug out of the shelves, was one I did not enjoy when it was released. This was mainly due to the previous album, which I found very disappointing.
I've been listening to this one in my car whenever I leave the house. I've found a new appreciation for it. Alex's guitar is back to the forefront and the over abundance of keyboards is gone. The keyboards are still here, but they augment the music on this CD rather than dominate. The lyrics are intelligent and Geddy's voice is strong.
Instrumentally, the album is well put together. There is not a weak song on the disc. If I had to pick one song from this CD to add to a favorites list, I would have a lot of trouble deciding.
 Overall, this release is excellent.

WRITING
The re-work of Shadow of the Ghost is going well. I've managed to find a way to get Lord Ky's real name (the one he couldn't say) into the story. This is something I could not find a way to do in the original version. I'm also trying to do some sketches for the interior. Hopefully, I can find a way to incorporate them into the kindle version.
 The new story is also progressing, slowly but surely. There are some interesting twists in this one. This story takes place within the Eldar forest. It will enable me to delve into the Eldar society a bit and step away from the elders that exiled Lord Ky in the first book.

More later...

New place for blog

I've moved my blog to my website. You can view new entries at Tanner's Blog. This gives me a place where I can better understand how to set things up. I also have a bit more control of the content there.

I'm back

It has been too long since I've posted here. For today, I'll post a little update. Shadow of the Ghost is being reworked and re-edited. When that is finished, I will publish the new version via Create Space. I'm hoping that I can simply replace the kindle guts so that those that have already purchased the original version can download the new version without buying it again. Since I've never redone a book, I'm not sure how that will work.

I'm also working on a new story, working title: Kyrean. This story starts about 250 years after the end of Vengeance of the Ghost. Most of the old characters will be there as well as some new faces. I'll include a sample at the end of this post. The story is about half completed.

I've also returned to college. I'm working on a degree in game programming. If all works out the way I plan, several games will be developed using the world of El-Elasia as a setting.

Excerpt from Kyrean:

Maki lay still. He could not remember where he was or how he had gotten there. It felt as if he were lying on cold stone. He opened his eyes. A canopy of dark leaves swayed gently and silently above him. He could not feel the breeze that appeared to be moving through the trees. Slowly, he sat up and looked around. He was in a forest, but everything around him was black: the tree trunks, the leaves, the undergrowth, the grasses. There was no variation in color. Maki could see a few shafts of light that broke through the upper canopy, but even they did nothing to brighten the landscape.

A strong breeze buffeted him and he thought he heard the word 'stand.' He was unsure if the word came from the breeze or his own mind, but he was sure that he was compelled to oblige. He stood and tried using his senses to determine if anything or anyone lived here.

Nothing.

Maki frowned. He should have been able to sense the plants he could see at the very least, but his senses revealed nothing to him. Once again the breeze stirred around him. 'Walk.'

Then he noticed that the pathway on which he stood differed from all else. It was a dark gray in color rather than black. He started forward. After the third step, the breezed commanded him to stop. He stopped and waited. He had no choice.

'Look.'

Maki had no idea what he was supposed to see, but he searched ahead and to the sides. Frustrated he shook his head.

'Down.'

Maki looked at the ground at his feet, then back where he had started. Footprints. His footprints. The breeze came again. To Maki it seemed to sigh with disappointment.

Maki frowned. The path he walked upon was packed to the consistency of stone. How did he leave footprints. He backtracked and covered his trail and tried again, concentrating on walking as softly as he could. Three steps, stop, look.

Footprints again.

He hid them and tried again. And again. And again. He clenched his fists, angry and frustrated. 'Impossible,' he told himself and turned to continue down the pathway. Before his foot could touch the ground on that first step, the wind blasted him and knocked him back to his starting point.

'No!'

The back of Maki's head hit the ground hard. The canopy above him grew blurry as the pain of the impact shot through his mind. He tried to sit up, but the dizziness caused him to crumple to the ground again. He lay still staring into the swaying leaves above him until he could see them clearly, then tried to sit up again. Slowly. This time, he made it. His hand searched to back of his head where the pain was the sharpest. Nothing. No blood. Not even a knot.

He covered the footprints and tried again. He started to count his failures. Taking three steps, looking, backing up and erasing his trail. Over and over. He finally lost count. He felt he had been trying for days or weeks to move without leaving a trail. Finally, he succeeded.

'Walk.'

Maki walked. The path led him through the silent forest. For a long time, nothing varied. Then he approached an area that felt vaguely familiar to him. 'An Eldar village,' he thought. The moment the thought passed through his mind, he knew he was wrong. There were no houses, no gardens, nothing that would suggest it would be a village. It felt like one anyway. He entered the village moving slowly, carefully.

Again the breeze came. 'Search.'

It had been so long since the breeze had spoken to him that it startled him. He froze, regaining his composure, then started searching. He moved through the village going from one side of the path to the other. Somehow he knew that he could not leave the gray area and enter the blackened forest, so he kept to the path.

The trees that lined the path were huge, completely blocking his view of the forest beyond when he drew near to them. Their trunks had what appeared to be cubbyholes in them. Some had many small ones, others had one or two large ones. They had not been carved into the trunks. Maki could see the bark covering the inner recesses. He had the impression that they had grown this way.

He searched the area for hours, examining hundreds of trees. He could not fathom the purpose of the cubbyholes but he had the feeling that they were like display cases for special collections. None of the cubbyholes housed anything though.

The path he walked spiraled inward. He finally arrived at the very center of the village of strange trees and froze. In the very center, a young Eldar, younger than he was, sat in a strange chair that had wheels instead of legs. Only the boys black hair and eyes matched the surroundings. The boy wore a dark green tunic and leggings and had the same olive toned skin that Maki had. He stared back at Maki placidly. No emotion could be seen in his expression.

Maki tried to go to him, but could not move. Then, as he watched, the boy and the chair crumbled in on themselves. In seconds only a small pile of black dust remained.

Then the breeze returned. It wound itself around Maki's body like a serpent.

'You.'

'Are.'

'Mine.

I'll post more soon. I hope you enjoyed the teaser.

Almost a totally wasted day...

On Amazon.com, in the fantasy forums, there are several threads called KTT. The object is to be the last person to post and 'kill the thread' to win a signed book. The real pleasure is in actually participating in the conversations and enjoying the rather insane banter that goes on there. Somewhere during the last part of KTT 11, I got busy and did not keep up with it. Today, after a twelve hour effort, I finally caught up. It is now a 'zombie' thread, since the book has already been won and the thread killed per se. But people are still posting. I think one of my favorite aspects are the filks that get posted there.

As a result of wasting all that time catching up with KTT 11, I thought my 1k a day quota would fall by the wayside. Fortunately, my muse cooperated tonight and Vengeance is still progressing at just over 1000 words a day. I think I'm going to try to break the 50k mark tomorrow. We'll see.

Have a great whatever, more later...

Blasted muse and the tricky games she plays...

There are times when the muse gives you a perfectly played out scene then sits back and laughs at you as you struggle to find a way to get to it. Tonight was one of those times. It took over three frustrating hours to write the first fifty or so words of Chapter 16. Afterwards, the story flowed like a flash flood. In spite of the little games my muse likes to play, I made my daily quota. Unfortunately, kaben nine had to be neglected. He is currently sleeping off a rather rough day in Martel's torture cellar so probably needs the rest anyway.

Edited to add: I should wait until I'm awake to rant. The next paragraph is not targeted to the entire group of atheists/agnostics. I'm sure the vast majority of them are intelligent, open-minded people. The ones I had in mind are the obnoxious, ignorant, and noisy few who do not believe that their religious freedom rights end where the next person's begin. If they are so easily offended, that is their problem, and their problem alone.

On another note, I read an article in Linn's Stamp News that an atheist/agnostic organization is protesting the release of the upcoming Mother Theresa stamp. I find it a shame that these people, who must be very unhappy, can find nothing better to do than to try to make everyone else's life as miserable as their own. My thoughts are: if you don't like the stamp, don't buy it. On the last census I read, only 2% of our nation's population fall into the atheist/agnostic religious category. That works out to be about 2 people out of a hundred. Granted, there are other religions besides Christianity out there, this group seems to be the only one who is offended by such things. Since they are so few in number, maybe they should find an isolated island where they could all go and be miserably happy together without ruining everyone else's lives.

Anyway, more updates later...

Combined Council - 1

Chapter 15 is completed and with it the Combined Council loses another member. I won't go into details and spoil the fun. Both Vengeance of the Ghost and kaben nine enjoyed my attention today. The 1k a day quota was met, though barely. I'll be starting Chapter 16 tomorrow which will focus on a little chaos at the farm.

So far in this volume, Delmaria has refrained from kicking anymore buckets.

Updates and such...

Both Vengeance of the Ghost and kaben nine are progressing well. I've set a personal quota of at least 1,000 words a day for Vengeance. So far, I've been doing well with keeping that goal. kaben nine is the story I intend to finish after the release of Vengeance. There is no quota for it. I work on it when it becomes a distraction. It is a completely different style from the Lord of Chaos Trilogy. There is only one main character and it is a darker tale. The chapters are also much longer. So far, it fits more into the 'Horror/Thriller' genre with a bit of fantasy thrown in for good measure.

Vengeance will explain the origins of Stumpy. Several of the other gods have already been introduced this way in the first book. Some who have not, died before the opportunity to do so presented itself. The trilogy will end with the third book. Although some of the characters may appear in future stories, I'll be taking a break from them at least until kaben nine is complete.

Stamps:
I managed to find an older edition of Michel's Austria Specialized catalog rather cheaply priced and am now the proud owner of it. Mr. Schneider told me that even though it was written in German, it would be a great help in identifying the earlier stamps and their variations. I find this to be very true so far. Besides, Google Translate is very helpful. I've learned that sometimes I have to split the German words to get a translation, and with some fiddling here and there, everything I've encountered in the Michel guide, Google can translate.

I've begun working on a web site for my stamp collection. Part of it includes a cross reference of three of the major stamp guides and their numbering systems. I'm not totally happy with the layout yet, so expect it to change. It is also far from completed, although, the majority of my feeble collection is posted. You can find those pages here.

Autographs:
Slowly but surely, I'm getting my autograph collection scanned and posted to my facebook page. There are over a hundred there already and there will be at least that many more to come. Drop by and check them out!

Stamp Stuff...answers

There is this really kewl stamp store based in Illinois that I usually go to when I have a dollar or two to throw at my collection. It is run by Ralph Schneider and I asked if he would look at the last post I made and answer some of my questions. I did not think he would have the time to do it or if he did get around to it, he would get back to me in a week or so. His answers arrived just a few hours after I sent him the link.

His store is here: R. Schneider Stamps

Scott # 1: (MI 1Xb) orange on hand made paper.
Scott # 2: appears to be hand made paper, but he wasn't sure.
Scott # 3: The first is hand made paper, the second he couldn't tell. Neither are laid paper.
Scott # 5: Both are type II printing (he did explain that how to be sure would be a very long answer.)

He did not mention # 4, but he did lead me to the book I need to get to do my research. I think I mentioned that neither Scotts, nor ANK provided adequate descriptions as to determining what is what. Mr. Schneider recommended the Michel Austria Specialized catalog. He also recommended that I join AUSPS (Austrian Philatelic Society) which I will look into. From what I can gather at this time, joining would be a great learning experience.

Vengeance of the Ghost is progressing. The editting session of last weekend was a great help. Some rather jumpy parts to the story were ironed out so that it reads much easier. Besides that, their input is always great motivation.

More later,
Tanner

A couple more stamps:

This poor stamp (filler till I can get a better one) is Scott # 28: 3 kreuzer green from the 1867-72 issue.
This is Scott # 29: 5 kreuzer rose also from 1867-72 issue. I believe it is the Type II variety.

Scott # 41: 2 kreuzer brown from 1883.
Scott # 42: 3 kreuzer green, also 1883
Scott # 43: 5 kreuzer rose from 1883.

All of these stamps are fillers until I get better copies.

Stamp stuff

One of my many hobbies is stamp collecting. I've been playing around with it on and off for many years. My most recent delving into the hobby is focused on Austrian stamps. Stamp collecting, regardless of the country or subject, has many nuances that must be learned. For example: the first five Austrian issues have quite a few varieties. They were issued on two types of paper, handmade and machine made and there are several varieties to the actual designs and colors. I'm finding that the Scott's catalog and the ANK catalog are not much help with determining which is which.

Scott # 1. I have yet to discover how to determine the paper used for the issue. The Type I variety is supposed to have one heavy line around the coat of arms center. The Type III has two thinner lines around the center. I'm not exactly sure which lines they are talking about.

1 Kreuzer yellow. Either 1850 or 1854 (depending on the paper.)

Scott # 2:

2 Kreuzer black.

Scott # 3: I have 2 of these and I'm not sure if they are the same issue or one of each issue. The first one, when compared to the second one, appears to be handmade paper. This is a guess on my part. It could be 'laid paper' which is another variety for this stamp.
3 Kreuzer red.

Scott # 4: This one, like numbers 2 and 3, could also be on ribbed paper. I have yet to find out how to tell if the paper is ribbed or not. The ribbed paper variety is for the 1850 issue.
6 Kreuzer brown.

Scott # 5: I believe that these are both either type II or type III due to the '9' being much higher than the word 'Kreuzer'. Once again, the thick line or 2 thinner lines around the coat of arms will determine the final outcome. Once that is determined, the paper used needs to be identified.

9 Kreuzer blue

I'm posting this blog in the hope that someone sees it and helps rid me of some ignorance. I would be greatly appreciative if someone does that!


More later...

More progress...

Vengeance of the Ghost has finally broken the 30,000 word mark and Chapter 11 is written. I'm finding the third book to be much darker than the first two. I believe Arienna, Mistress and Kht-dulm are the reason for this. Just like most nasty-bad types, they like to get a lot of attention. Chapter 11 features Kht-dulm and sets up some other stuff that will happen soon.

I know of at least one reader who had difficulty with seeing Karnak as evil. His role in the story makes it very difficult to show his 'true' self. I do try to bring out his nature in some of his dialogue. If it were his story, things would be much different. I mention that, because I don't believe the evil characters in Vengeance will disappoint that reader.

kaben nine has also made a return visit to me. Before long I will have to return to his story or he will begin depriving me of sleep again. As for now, Chapter 12 begins tomorrow. Next Saturday, I meet with my support group friends and I'm really looking forward to it. These meetings are usually quite unpredictable, but they always center my focus and make the writing process much easier. I don't think I'd have made it this far without those people.

More later,
Thanks for reading!

Progress, slow but getting there...

Vengeance of the Ghost is progressing. I've finally finished the first draft of Chapter 10. It has taken so long that I am going back over the story before beginning Chapter 11. This helped solve one of the problems I've been having. Chapter 4 originally had the seduction of Simon by his older sister in it. This being the third book of the series and that subject matter appearing for the first time, I decided to cut it. This left Chapter 4 rather skeletal and rushed. During the re-read, I worked on it again. The skeletal framework gave me a good start to building the new Simon. I think it reads much better now.

The second problem I've been having was that I was fighting the story to make it go my way. This began in Chapter 10. At first it was going to be the start of the war between the dwarves and the deep-elves. That didn't work so I changed it to concentrate on what was happening to Tal. The result was that a certain elf was going to die, or so I thought. Apparently, the story didn't want the character I wanted to kill the elf to do the deed. The story had other plans. After fighting to get my way for over a month, I decided to surrender to the story and things turned out much better. The elf that was going to die still lives, though probably not long and another problem that I would have had later has been solved. Hopefully, I'll be caught up with my re-read and moving on to chapter 11 tomorrow.

During the writing of the first two novels, I had several friends encouraging me along the way. They provided the support I needed to believe what I was writing was good enough to publish. Over the last few months, real life has made their lives too hectic to give the story much attention and my support and belief went with them. I have no bad feelings towards them, they are friends and I realize that other things are far more important than reading someone's story. It just makes the writing far more difficult. I find myself questioning every word I put on the word-processor. I'm sure they'll be back when things calm down, but until then, writing will probably be slow.

At this point, I still plan to have Vengeance out by May or June. That will be delayed if the book has not reached the standard of professionalism I expect my stories to have. I'll keep posting updates as the book progresses.

Thanks for reading.

Roadblock...

Both Shadow of the Ghost and Legacy of the Ghost had places that seemed like someone had set up a roadblock to hinder their completion. Vengeance of the Ghost, not to be left out, has one as well. For Vengeance, it is Chapter 10. I know what needs to happen, but the words refuse to find the page. In spite of this, it is progressing, quite slowly, but progressing.

GenCon 2010, which is a gamer convention, will occur without my presence this year. Maybe 2011 will prove to be the year I can attend.

More updates...

Vengeance of the Ghost is progressing well. I'm currently working on the first death of the story. I'm hoping to have that crispy corpse as well as the rest of Chapter 10 finished tonight.

Shadow of the Ghost will be republished via CreateSpace very soon. The best part of this is that the price will be reduced considerably.

GenCon Indy 2010: At this time, it looks like I will be found on Author's Avenue at GenCon Indy next August. I will have the entire Lord of Chaos trilogy with me as well. Depending on my inspiration, kaben nine may be there also. My first priority is to complete Vengeance so kaben may not make it by then.

About time for an update...

Vengeance of the Ghost is progressing well again. The first nine chapters are rewritten to fit some new subplots into the story. I'm really happy with where it is headed. The ending has not changed, just the road traveled to reach that ending. At this time, I'm going to say that the release date will still be mid to late spring. I hope those who have followed up to this point find the story to their satisfaction.

kaben nine is once again out of the storage bin. I'll be working on that story on and off while I mull over how I want chapters of Vengeance to go. I probably won't post any more of that here. Those that want to read it will have to wait until it is completed.

I'll be back with more news, stamps and autographs more often again. Thanks to all that have purchased my books. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and will continue to enjoy it as the rest of the story unfolds.

Delete or...

Upon waking this morning, I thought about the words forced onto the computer yesterday. By the time I sat before the monitor, I had convinced myself to delete the whole chapter and try again. Fortunately, I avoided the story until after I had imbued a decent dose of coffee. My thinking cleared a bit and I decided to read what I had written the day before and see what I could salvage. As it turns out, I added a few things here, changed a few things there and pretty much kept the whole thing. Afterwards, I went on to complete chapter 9. To make the quota, I also got a good start on chapter 10. Vengeance of the Ghost is still making progress.

Today, instead of a stamp, I'll post an autograph. Many years ago, I was at a Sci-Con in Virginia Beach. Among the guest was this gentlemen. He was very pleasant to speak with and signed two books for me.
More later,
Tanner

Simon says...

Writing was an exercise in frustration today. I think part of it is the lack of interest in Legacy of the Ghost. So far the paperback version has yet to sell a single copy. The kindle version is not doing much better. I wish I knew how to get more readers. Those that have read the first book seem to have enjoyed it, but they aren't moving on to book two yet.

Anyway, I managed 1,500 words for Vengeance of the Ghost. Most of it was forced and will probably have to be rewritten or deleted altogether. Then Simon mentioned something about how the stream in The Garden reacted to Tal and things started flowing a little. On top of that, Arienna is starting to show interest in Mistress, though she doesn't know who Mistress is just yet. Arienna is just intrigued that Mistress was able to pull off what she did and wants to take her home as a new pet, so to speak. We'll see how that turns out. There may not be enough of Mistress left to take home. I haven't decided yet.

I have decided to post a stamp or autograph or both from my collection from now on. Tonight it will be a stamp. It's Austrian, ANK # 1. I'm not sure if it is the handmade paper variety or the machine-made paper variety, so the date of issue is either 1850 or 1854. One day, I'll learn how to tell the difference.

Vengeance quota met, kaben nine branded, stamp

So far, my quest to write at least 1,000 words a day on Vengeance of the Ghost has been successful. Today I finished chapter 8 and got a good start on chapter 9. There's a lot going on in the final chapter of the trilogy so this book might prove to be the longer of the three. I have no doubts that it will be longer than Legacy of the Ghost. The only character whose fate remains unknown to me at this point is Mistress. She has a couple paths that she can travel. Arienna will have some say in that.

kaben nine is still hanging around in his torture chamber. His host likes to label all his toys with his brand and kaben nine is no exception. I am enjoying composing this tale. The support characters are proving to be a lot of fun to work with.

There was a comment on yesterday's blog that requested a picture of my favorite Austrian stamp so far. I had planned to put a stamp here, but for a different reason. The one pictured below is not very valuable. As a matter of fact, it could probably used as postage in Austria without much financial loss. The reason I chose this one is that it was issued on May 8, 1958. This stamp is the same age as I am.

Austria and Vengeance...

Way back in May, some stamps were ordered for my birthday from a stamp dealer in Austria. They arrived today along with the catalog that dealer publishes each year. The catalog, ANK, is a specialized type thing that features Austrian stamps. Granted, it is written in German, but every stamp issued in Austria up to 2009 is pictured there. It's a great help. So, I spent most of the day organizing my collection.

I neglected to keep track of the time during this organization task. When I finally closed the book, happy that my collection was stored in chronological order, it was already 2 am. The rest of the night I devoted to writing. Since I have set a daily quota for Vengeance of the Ghost, that's the story I delved into. Chapter 8 is coming along well. After ending Legacy of the Ghost the way I did, I don't want to keep my readers waiting too long to find out what happens next. As a result, kaben nine did not make any progress today. At least he was nice about it and left me alone.

More later,
Tanner

The hypnotizing cursor...

I write using OpenOffice.org Writer and I'm sure other computer word processing programs are the same, or at least similar. As the program waits for me to add words, it has a vertical black line that flashes to show me where these words will appear. Most of the night, I sat hypnotized by this little black vertical line with no words to introduce to it. Finally, after a bit of a fight, I put a close on Chapter 7 of Vengeance of the Ghost. I'm not at all happy with the words that finally got placed there, but it allowed me to move on. So, Chapter 8 got it's start tonight. I've set this 1,000 word a day quota for Vengeance, and so far I've been able to do that. Today's total: 1,100.

All the while I was fighting the end of Chapter 7, kaben nine was being a good little boy and hanging quietly in his torture chamber. I'm not sure if he knew he would formally meet his target for the first task tonight and was delaying it, or if he just wanted to be like the other story and be stubborn. Regardless, his story progressed as well.

The amazon.com price of Legacy of the Ghost has finally dropped to $11.99 which I am very happy with. It's much better than the price of Shadow.

One final note, as of today, I've seriously started pursuing a degree in applied mathematics. I really love math and upper level math teachers seem to be the only type with any demand in this less than wonderful economy. Before I begin, I think it best to take a refresher in pre-calculus and calculus. I'm looking forward to that.

More later,
Tanner

kaben nine got pushy tonight...

In spite of that, Vengeance of the Ghost continued to progress with another 1400 words added to the manuscript. The story is unfolding well. The way things are going, there is going to be a lot of death in the last book of the trilogy.

Then kaben nine decided he had waited long enough so I had to deal with him. He has this sneaky way of telling me about chapters I'm not ready to write so that I'll finish the one I'm on. I only managed 600+ words on his story, but I have the feeling that he'll be out of that torture chamber tomorrow night. Then it will be a short visit with granny for him.

For those following Samaya's blog, (it's linked on the side there), she has a great picture of a fire that happened on her mountain some 8 years ago. When I saw it, I was immediately reminded of what Ky did to LaVerran Keep in the first chapter of Shadow of the Ghost.

More later,
Tanner