Category Archives: Novel

Stories related to writing a novel and the process of learning to write and publish.

Ten Thousand Words

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

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tenk words

My manuscript is 10,000 words short.  Let’s say I agree with that, because by convention, tech thrillers are at least 70,000 words, and I only have 60,000.  And let’s say I come up with 10,000 more words.  Where would I put them?

It’s a fair question.  Coming up with 10,000 words is easy.  I’m a writer.  I’ll probably enjoy it.  But where will they go?  Where would you put them?  At the end?  Seems sensible.  I wouldn’t have to move any other words around to make them fit.  They could just line up at the end.  Easy peasy.  But my manuscript already has an end, and endings are sort of final.  The dénouement.  Can’t go there.

By similar logic, they would fit nicely at the beginning, and that’s where I intend to attach most of them.  I’ve already added a few hundred words for one new beginning scene, and I’m going to keep doing it until I have a beginning scene that I’m satisfied with.

This will address another issue, pointed out to me by one of my beta readers.  Very likely a typical mistake on sequels.  I assumed my characters were already introduced.  Character development on sequels is a bit tricky.  I know these people already and I’m not inclined to keep describing them.  I should be adding depth though, so I’ll focus on that too.

Curious to receive feedback from other writers.  I know this is a running blog, but when’s that last time I ran, let alone blogged about it.  I know that people who read blogs often write blogs.  And bloggers are writers.

The first question is how much you worry about following word length conventions.  The second question is how you would go about adding to your story when the shortfall is 10,000 words.

RTFM & the EULA

05 Saturday Jan 2019

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Stash

The holiday break was good for my writing.  I received feedback on my draft manuscript from two of my three beta readers, and I’ve incorporated most of their suggestions.  Some of it was super helpful and will make for a better story.

It’s still overly technical, although I’m certain it’s not nearly as geeky as the first book.  I’m considering dedicating it to those techies who RTFM and the EULA.  If you understood that last sentence, you might be my target market.

I still plan to use my computer mouse tanks photo for the book cover.  I’m also looking for a publisher though.  Assuming I find one, my book cover ideas might not be mine to act on.  If finding a publisher becomes too onerous, I’ll self-publish again.  I’d like to learn the formal publishing process though.  If you know an agent or publisher who is interested in my genre, let me know.

I also, finally, came up with a title for the book, again, assuming I get to name it if I go the publishing route.  I’ve been referencing my manuscript Cyber War II.  It makes sense but didn’t feel very satisfying to me.  I came up with “Full Spectrum.”  The storyline is around Hybrid warfare.  Full spectrum references the mission statement and tactics of US Cybercom.  Another thought I have is using “Defend Forward,” because that speaks to my plot and is yet more language used by the DoD.  They’re both good.

If that’s not enough, I’ve also started writing my third book.  You could argue it’s the 3rd in a cyberwar series, but it’s 20 years into the future and is in the cyberpunk genre rather than tech thriller.  It’s already more fun.  I’m able to take more liberties with reality in this genre.

I’m also reading every day.  I got two books for Christmas gifts.  My new year’s resolution is to focus on reading and writing in 2019.  It’s all about the books.  I’ll try to share some time with health and fitness, but my aperture on personal interests has narrowed over time.  I rarely even watch sports anymore.  Reading and writing.  That’s my focus now.

The End

24 Saturday Nov 2018

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Cyber War

Just finished the first draft of my second novel.  I haven’t named the title yet but I’ve been calling the draft Cyber War II since it’s a sequel to the first book.  I already licensed the graphic above for the cover.  Nothing says cyberwar more than computer mice dressed up as tanks.

Once again, Thanksgiving week plays a special role in the timing of my writing.  Two years ago, I took off the entire week to self publish my novel.  I’m on a slower schedule this time around, taking two full years to get to a first draft, whereas I completed writing the first book in six months, then edited and published two months later.  Still, this week plays a productive role in my personal storyline.

For those of you who served as beta readers the first time around, I promise you, this first draft is much more readable.  I’ve developed my skills.  I can tell it isn’t finished yet though.  It’s 40,000 words less than my first novel, 10,000 too short.  There really aren’t rules on this but the convention for a tech thriller is to be between 70,000 and 100,000 words.  This draft is at 60,000.

No doubt, it could use another 10,000 words worth of character development.  I’ll take feedback from friends on that.  I developed some new characters that I actually plan to use for my third novel.  It’s not exactly a trilogy, but the 3rd book will be 20 years in the future, using the more youthful characters from this story, and will be in the cyber punk genre.  Always thinking ahead.

I know that I improved my writing in one specific area for this book.  My biggest criticism from the first book was that it was way, way too technical.  That I should consider writing for people who enjoy reading user manuals.  Fair enough.  Not that I shied away from writing another primer on cyberwar, but I’ve employed a number of tricks to make the learning more digestible.

Despite my confidence on improving in that area, I find it impossible to know if I’ve written a good story or not.  I’m too close to it.  I’m certain Stephen King never scared himself with his own novels.  I’ll find some help on that.  I’m targeting completion of a second draft by end of winter, seek out my ‘ole editor, and maybe publish in the spring.

The Cyphers

02 Saturday Jun 2018

Posted by in cyber war, Novel

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steganogrphy

I belong to a covert writing club.  We publish on the deep web.  Like using steganography.  I probably shouldn’t say anything more.  It started from a private invite.  We publish privately to promote creativity.

If any of this sounds illicit to you, let me define terms.  The dark net is where people conduct nefarious transactions.  Dark net sites are generally also part of the deep web, but the deep web is not inherently bad.  It’s simply web sites that have not been indexed by search engines or otherwise have their access obscured.  The metaphor is of an iceberg.  We use the Internet that’s been indexed for queries.  That’s the tip of the iceberg.  The vast majority of the web is not visible to us, like the deeply submerged section of the iceberg.

This started out as a way for us to hone our craft.  It’s also a good method to draft snippets of dialogue for later regurgitation in other works – for me, my novel.  I’m considering submitting my current writing for review, sort of like the conventional writer’s discussion group.

I’m relating this under my novel category because I think it’s a novel approach (forgive the pun) for writers to practice their craft.  Your contributions can be easily copy/pasted years into the future into derivative works.  A post today by one of the other writers spoke to me so directly, it felt unnatural.  Like the narrator had a Gods-eye view into my life.  That’s impressive writing that does that.  Not only will I benefit from the writing exercise, but I expect to read some really good stories, exclusive to my private group.

 

Virtual Currency

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by in Geek Horror, Novel

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Pretty sure I blogged late last year on my plans to buy Bitcoin.  I finally got around to doing that a couple of weeks ago.  I don’t care to start conducting transactions with virtual currencies.  This story is the best of many I’ve read that details exactly why virtual currencies aren’t really a thing yet, and won’t be for some time.  Perhaps not until quantum computing becomes pervasive.  I’m doing this for the experience.  To be able to relate accurate details in my next novel.  I referenced a bitcoin transaction in my last book but I glossed over the details.  One can’t write a tech thriller on cyberwar without speaking to virtual currencies.

I won’t go into too much detail here on my experience.  I think I’ll mostly provide links to some of the best stories I’ve discovered, and you can click on them if you’re interested.  I actually repeated a number of stories from my ten years of blogs in my last novel, and I will again.  So writing this post is more about building my reference library of content for book two than anything else.  Some of this will be useful to you if you are considering purchasing a virtual currency.

Since my goal isn’t becoming rich, I only purchased $100 of Bitcoin.  I wanted to invest just $5, and that’s an option, but there are transaction charges, and it occurred to me it’s more easy to do the math on $100.  It’s quick for me to understand the $2.99 cost of buying my $100 of Bitcoin is basically 3%.  I’ll incur similar future transaction charges and they would all be much more from a percentage perspective for only $5.

My first step was to read the Internet to understand how to begin trading Bitcoin.  I discovered I needed to register at an Exchange.  I settled on Gemini because it seemed the most professional to me.  It’s run by those Winklevoss twins whom successfully sued Mark Zuckerberg for a substantial share of Facebook.  After registering nearly two months ago, the Winklevoss twins still have not completed verification of my identity.  They did contact me once to inform me that my drivers license photo was too blurry and that I should resend it.  I did.  Nothing but chirping crickets since.  Seeing this as a red flag for future customer service interactions, I signed up with Coinbase – which is probably the most popular exchange.  Took a couple of days for verification, mostly because I did it over the weekend.  Go with Coinbase.

My research indicated that one should not leave their virtual currency sitting with an online exchange, given the history of these places having their reserves constantly hacked.  North Korea’s Icarus has made attacking exchanges their specialty of late.  Icarus is the modern day Bonnie and Clyde.

So I purchased a digital wallet.  I think I blogged on this already too.  I received the Nano Ledger S as a Christmas gift.  It’s pretty cool.  Cost about $79.  Another reason why purchasing only $5 would have been stupid.  The idea is one can transfer their Bitcoin from an exchange onto the digital wallet to avoid being hacked.  It’s mostly offline and connects to your computer via USB when you use it.  Transferring Bitcoin is essentially a copy/paste process.  Very easy to understand YouTube video here on how to do that between the Nano and Coinbase.

If I’m honest, using digital currencies is fairly complex.  But for a techie, sort of fun.  I created an account for myself at Bitsane too because I want to trade my Bitcoin for Ripple – another virtual currency that banks are starting to use.  Even more complexity as one cannot directly buy it.  Rather, you have to exchange Bitcoin for Ripple.  Yet more complexity.

There is nothing simple about trading Bitcoin.  It’s not something one can easily do from their 401K account.  But I’m a writer and my genre of tech thriller encumbers me to actually know what I’m talking about.  Fiction allows me to take some liberties, but readers of tech are interested in detail like this.

My Bitcoin stash is currently worth $130, after a single week.  $10 of that came from purchasing it from a recommendation, which you can do too from this link.  It will give you a quick 10% return on $100 transaction.  You and I will both get $10.  Seems like a better business model than actually trading Bitcoin.

WIX is the Website for Authors

20 Saturday Jan 2018

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My friends think I’m technical.  I suppose compared to many of them, I am.  I would argue that ten years in personnel management killed my skills at the command line, but it’s all relative.  I just built a website for my novel.  I probably sound like a techie having just done that, but hear me out.

This morning, I built a decent web site for a book I published over a year ago.  Okay, so maybe I am technical, but lazy?  No, I tried to build a website earlier, it just sucked so badly I never really launched it.  Ultimately I deleted it.  And this is the point of my post, where I share my writing experience for other aspiring self publishers.  I built that first website with GoDaddy.  GoDaddy leverages WordPress for their platform.  Software that competes with Microsoft for the highest number of known vulnerabilities.  It’s so kludgy to use, I’m at a loss for words.  I could never get it to look how I wanted.  I couldn’t even use my own fonts.  That’s a big deal to me because I like to use a stencil font to give a military air to my book.  Think MASH.  I’d show you but this blog is on WordPress so I can’t.

It was my 15 year old daughter who talked me into using WIX.  I’m a happy camper.  Took me less than an hour to have everything looking how I wanted.  Much less than that to launch it but then I  tweaked things for over half that time because I was having fun.  WIX even provides simple-to-use email subscription forms.  Everything was so easy, a writer could do it.  I’m not just being funny there.  My experience meeting other writers is the majority of them are barely technical enough to format fonts in a Word document.  They refer to the people who publish ebooks as ebook coders, like it’s actually software development to publish a book in electronic format.  I’ll admit, it did take me about twenty hours of YouTube videos to learn Adobe InDesign, but seriously, it’s not coding.

So, if you are an author.  One of those writers who is just savvy enough to download Scrivener but not clever enough to integrate file sharing with DropBox, then Wix is for you.  Trust me, stay away from GoDaddy, it’s a POS.  That’s “Piece of Shit” for you non techies who shy away from acronyms and can’t RTFM.

Pensive Thoughts on Blogging, on Writing, on the Year

17 Sunday Dec 2017

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This was the first photo I ever blogged, on December 31, 2009.  I suppose I started blogging at work a few years before that, but it was the same photo that I started with.  I don’t consider myself visually-oriented.  If you’ve seen me dress, you’d agree, but I generally give attention to my blog photos because I feel they oftentimes tell the story better than I can in words.

I’ve been thinking about putting my blog on hiatus for a few months.  I don’t know that I will but it’s fair to say I haven’t been putting much thought into my blog stories lately, and that makes me a bit sad.  It used to be I would curate my thoughts all week before finally capturing the story into words over the weekend.  Even some of my longer posts only take me five or ten minutes to write because I’ve already written the stories in my head.

I should perhaps reword my statement above and say I haven’t been putting stories into my thoughts lately, because that’s how I think.  I wouldn’t say I’m a vocal storyteller.  I lean towards laconic.  But my pattern of thinking is to structure free thoughts into stories.  I imagine I have the same thoughts roaming around my mind as anyone else, but I typically form a narrative for them.  It’s clear to me that I should have considered a career in journalism back in college, but then writing is and has been one of the strongest components of my job and career.  From the fifty or so emails I type every day to the PowerPoints I create for Sellers and Customers.  I’ll be putting a few hours into creating a story today for how my company markets security information and event management.  In a PowerPoint form factor of course.

Working on a Sunday segues into why I might pause my blogging.  Not that I don’t have the time, as I already said it takes very little effort for me to actually write.  It’s that my free thoughts are so focused on work right now.  And I haven’t been reading much fiction lately, which has always been my muse.  I suspect I’m going through a boring phase so why write about it?

It is my personal digital platform to leverage for marketing my book, but it’s not like I’m doing anything now in that arena either.  Ellie said she would build me a website for my writing over Christmas break, maybe that will replace my blog.  I stopped blogging back in 2014 for over a month and no one seemed to notice.

I think what I’m struggling with here is that I don’t want to blog if I don’t have anything halfway interesting to share.  It is a good exercise even if I have nothing clever to say.  It helps me to be introspective.  And it’s practice writing.  I have a good friend whose writing I love to read.  Every paragraph is like a Dali painting.  Each sentence a masterpiece in creativity.  Yet he rarely writes because he says it’s a struggle and he doesn’t enjoy the process.

I’m the exact opposite.  I can write about nothing and find it easy.  That might actually be a bad habit that blogging isn’t helping me with.  If you’re a writer, than you are familiar with the strong attitudes authors have toward blogging.  They either say it’s a good exercise and serves as a marketing platform, or they despise it as cheapening the medium.  I’m asking myself that question now.  I’m wondering if it’s in my interest to continue or to take a break.  We’ll see.

Country of Origin

11 Saturday Nov 2017

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runnersblogstats

What’s up with Greenland?  I could understand if they don’t run much up there but do they not have Internet access?  These are my running blog stats illustrating the country of origin for my site visits.  I have zero hits from countries in gray.  I’m fine with a large swath of the Middle East dissing me but I’m a bit put out by the handful of countries in Europe that apparently don’t run.  Belarus has just earned a bad place in my next novel.  I’m planning an attack from the Baltic States.  Nothing from Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania either.  I’ve already figured Macedonia into my storyline but I might rethink that now.

prostateblogstats

The stats from my prostate blog are thinner and I get that.  I haven’t added to it in three years.  Still, does no one in Greenland ever get cancer.  Someone needs to visit to make sure those boys are alright.  I’m not above being spiteful.  I plan to do some writing this weekend and I’m making my list of enemy states.

 

Source Material

21 Saturday Oct 2017

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IMG_1611Want to flatter a writer?  Send them a selfie reading their book.  Works for me.  This man has nerd written all over him.  My target audience.  My tribe.

Cyber War I is as much a primer on computer security as it is fiction.  And as far as fiction goes, I didn’t make much up.  DDoS attacks.  Ransomware.  I took everything from the headlines.  I figured there might be a market for cybercrime fiction because I couldn’t find any.  Some stories play it up by saying a massive DDoS attack leads to some sort of dystopia, but that’s about as much tech detail they provide.

I read a number of nonfiction books for source material.  I will say, they were very good reads.  Such good stories that they read like fiction.  Fatal system Error by Joseph Menn and Kingpin: How One Hacker Took over the Billion Dollar Cybercrime Underground by Kevin Poulsen.  Reminds me of the first cybercrime book I ever read, a solid twenty years ago, The Cuckoo’s Egg by Clifford Stoll.

I’m still outlining and researching more than actual writing, for my next novel.  I would tell you that my new job has slowed down my progress, but that’s not to say it’s because I’m too busy with work that I haven’t the time to write.  It’s that all the discovery involved in a new job occupies my free thoughts.  I wrote my last novel during my ten and fifteen mile runs.  Nowadays, my free thoughts center around all my work projects.  It’s so hard to discipline random thoughts.

I’ve discovered a new trick though.  My buddy Dave has prompted me to listen to podcasts again.  Dan Carlin and Sam Harris.  Something I used to do more regularly ten years ago.  I downloaded four cyber security podcasts and began listening to them on my ten mile run today.  Excellent method to obtain source material for my next book.  Absolutely brilliant use of my time.

 

Dmitri and the Wallet

14 Thursday Sep 2017

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DmitriHow big is your wallet?  Look at the objects on this tabletop.  I bet your wallet is not as big as Dmitri’s is.  I don’t really know his name.  Like any other guy, I was minding my own business in the hotel lobby when I was engulfed by a gaggle of techies attending some international conference for the betterment of humanity.  This guy sits in front of me, blocking my view of equally attractive people, and proceeds to pull out his wallet. Seemingly to make room for, not just one, but two smart phones.

To his credit, he used both mobiles at the same time.  Possibly dueling the same issue that was so important to him that he worked it while his comrades drank voraciously nearby.  Sounded more to me though that he was working some tech issue with skilled subject matter experts on the one phone, to the point he could set it down occasionally, while he yelled at the Help Desk on the other.  The wallet, despite serving as a focal point to at least me, was lost in all this performance art.

If you think it’s bad how I’m making fun of this guy, you should consider how much worse it is for me to take a photo of a complete, non-celebrity stranger, and post it online.  I don’t care.  This guy has earned a role as a European hacker in my pending novel.

Day 3

10 Sunday Sep 2017

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Wrapped up my final sessions today for this weekend’s writers workshop.  I swear, the alliteration in that previous sentence was unintentional.  Or maybe the result of so much learning.  I didn’t focus this year on a single area.  Last year I did focus on sessions related to character development and story arc.  I mixed it up this year.

I took one marketing type of course that gave hints on how to write good cover copy.  That’s the advert an Author writes on their back cover for paperbacks, or inside jacket on hardcovers.  A publisher would typically write this if an author has one, but indy writers have to do most things like this themselves.  There is a convention to writing cover copy that I didn’t know about, although I actually followed the rules fairly well on my initial novel.  I write my share of product announcements at work.

I took a course on writing subtext, which is another thing I believe I did well at just naturally, but then subtext does tend to write itself.  The other classes were about character development and story structure.  My most unique class, taught by Diana Gabaldon, was on white space, which is the absence of words.  What to leave out.  And also a bit on the aesthetic quality of positioning words and paragraphs on the page.

Overall, the conference was both interesting and fun.  It’s cool to be with so many others doing the same thing as me.  I’m struck by the large number of writers in their 70s and 80s.  Writing is their hobby.  This interests me, and I take the opportunity to talk with them, because writing is my retirement plan.  It’s a really good hobby because books can require extensive research, which is good for an aging brain.

Another objective of this workshop was to motivate myself to get back into a regular writing routine.  Time will tell but I’m optimistic.  Diana Gabaldon told the story of how she makes time.  Her three kids are grown now but she started writing when they were all under six years of age.  She would wake up at midnight and write until 4am.  She continues this practice today.  I’m simply going to target the evenings between dinner and bedtime.

Day 2

09 Saturday Sep 2017

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8am

RMFW’s independent writer of the year for her young adult fantasy, The Rampart Guards,  Wendy Terrien poses with me at 8am for a photo.  “Much too early for a photo,” Wendy said.

bookstore.jpg

Because writers tend to read, I consigned some paperbacks to the conference bookstore.  Haven’t noticed any sale yet, but I’ve also been aggressively handing out my writer business cards.  Karen and I came back from dinner tonight on the hotel shuttle with a number of attendees of another conference just starting to arrive – the International Open Source Software Foundation.  We joined the crowd in the bar for a nightcap.  One one side, my writers’ tribe, on the other, my tech boys.  I’ve never felt so included.

Day 1

08 Friday Sep 2017

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Diana

I got here in time for dinner.  I could stop there.  Dinner is always good.  I wanted to get here by noon but that didn’t happen.  Turns out, dinner here was awesome.  Diana Gabaldon is a hoot.  I even learned how to pronounce her last name.

Diana gave a motivational speech.  Or it was standup comedy.  It was one of those two things.  She said, “…ballerinas aren’t born on their toes.”  And later on, “…because a man in a kilt, you can be up against the wall with him in a minute.”  I think she was drinking Diet Coke.

I’m also watching the news this weekend, tracking the storm.  Am I the only one to notice how these storms come in across the Atlantic?  They slam into Cuba, then flip off that island like a pin ball up into Florida.  Do you think that’s why Florida doesn’t like Cuba?

I can see how Floridians would get tired of that.  Still, the channels I watch don’t give any details on the fate of the Cuban people after flipping that storm across the Florida Straits.  Anyone know?

 

Royalty Check

01 Friday Sep 2017

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I really feel like retirement is just around the corner.  I can taste it, it’s so close.  Just ten thousand or so more royalty checks per year at this scale and I’ll be living on an island somewhere off passive income.  I’m being cheeky of course.  I should appreciate any sales and I do.  As inconsequential as this check is to my overall financial well-being, it felt good to receive this in the mail.  Fortunately, my electronic fund transfers from Amazon are slightly larger and more frequent.

I’m told 90% of all books never return more than $1000 in their printed lifetime.  My expectations are low.  But I am serious when I tell people that this is a ten year plan.  That I truly hope to be earning a low five figure income once I’m retired.  The trick will be to establish a catalog of a half dozen or so books by then.  Becoming a better writer will help too, and I expect repetition to provide those skills.

Toward that end, I’ll be attending my second writers’ workshop next weekend – the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference.  It’s unfortunate timing as my undergrad alma mater Texas State will be in town to play my grad school CU.  I hate to miss that game but this will be worth it.  I learned tons last year.  And that experience was perfect timing as I’d finished my first draft and the lessons learned aided me tremendously with my second draft.

I’m hoping for this year’s conference to kick-start me on my current draft.  I started writing my sequel to Cyber War I in January but stalled out in May when I changed jobs.  I think I can begin to make time for writing again if I just get motivated and focus.  I need to stop drinking in the evenings like Hemingway and start writing like him.  Looking forward to this workshop.

The Sands Casino

23 Sunday Jul 2017

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BlackHat is in Vegas this week.  That’s the big cyber security conference for my tribe.  I’m not going, I actually leave for vacation mid-week, but it draws my attention to my novel, Cyber War I.  Allow me to explain part of my story.  I often tell people I didn’t make much up, and it’s true.  I called the casino in my story, the Arabian Nights.  Think about it.

The Sands isn’t actually a casino anymore.  It used to be.  Now it’s the name of the corporation that owns some of the largest casinos in Las Vegas and Macau – the Venetian perhaps being the most famous.  The Sands Corporation is majority owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson.  You might know him as a prominent GOP contributor.  His elimination of financial support lead to Bush having to withdraw from the 2016 primaries.  His pro-Isreali speech at Yeshiva University in 2013 lead to his casino empire experiencing a major cyber attack by Iran in 2014.

The details are a little fuzzy to me now, but what I recall was he gave a speech where he proposed that the US should detonate a nuclear bomb in the Iranian desert.  So that they would know what a nuclear attack looks like.  Sheldon’s idea of a deterrent.  Iran didn’t find it amusing.  A few months later, Iran attacked Sheldon’s casino in Bethlehem PA, where they obtained privileged user credentials that allowed them to proceed with a major cyber attack against the Sand’s casinos in Vegas.  The week-long attack cost Sheldon well over $40M.  Inadvertently, Iran took down the Active Directory services which stopped them from gaining access to the Macau casino network.  That would have pushed the cost over $100M.

If you read my book, which only an exclusive 100 people in the world have, you’d know this is all fairly transparent.  Sheldon is Sam Sumner.  The Sands is the Arabian Nights.  The larger story of course is based on Iran responding to the US Stuxnet attack against their centrifuges.  And the climax ends at the BlackHat conference.  Even though it took me a couple of years to start my book, I knew I was going to base it off this Sheldon storyline after reading about how his speech at Yeshiva University led to his casino attack by Iran.  Why bother making stuff up?