Work In Progress.

Today's update is a just a spot it before it flies by.

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I posted a scene I removed from the final draft I am working on of An Average Joe...In The Beginning. Things are going slow because I am still so stressed in RL and something else I realized. I am depressed because of all the work I put in the first draft and I had to leave almost all of that out. I am keeping the first prologue, edited, of course, but the rest is just the short story version of the novel series. Very depressing to realize 120k/1 year's worth of work is basically worthless.

On the other hand, I am working on the assumption I can release the first novel in the series on the 2 year anniversary of the original posting, March 17th, 2015. Cross your fingers, people, cross your fingers. The work I'm keeping is good, but the stuff I keep deleting is less than sub-par because I am forcing myself to write that shit. I need to get the shit out of the way in order to focus on the work I want to really keep.

A very slow process at this point.

Check in with me again in 100 days and see how much further I am. I should have 2 chapters finished by then. *headdesk*

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I am working on more master posts for stories I have in the works. Also, the long nose monkeys on my tv are the ugliest thing outside of a Jimmy Durante caricature. Man, these things are butt-ugly. I might have to write something about aliens eating them to get them out of my nightmares.

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All creative content in this post is copyrighted © 2014 Heinrich Gothrykke. Please don't share it outside of this journal.

There are times when I shall give a little bit of advice here. Originally, that was part of what this blog was about. I would share my knowledge, and things I learned about along the way in small article posts. Being a writer was something I've always wanted to do, reporting was part of that. Sometime around 2 years ago I stopped trying because no one was paying attention.

Now, I'm going to use this to complain a little about what drives me insane about certain writing. Don't worry, I won't go graphic, I'm just tired of not having a recourse to the sheer stupidity and naivete of some writers. I'm not talking about spelling errors or common grammar mistakes, I'll let the actual Grammar Nazis take care of that petty bullshit. No, what drives me insane are simple rules people don't follow.

Seven years ago, I learned from a friend that part of the reason people might not be interested in my works is that they were written with multiple POV characters. Sometimes, even in the same scene. It's not that Omniscient POV isn't readable, it's that I never bothered to warn for it. I didn't think to. It's so damn annoying if you're reading your favorite character's POV and suddenly jump to another character's POV; doubly so if that character has nothing to do with furthering the plot you were just reading.

I can't tell you how many stories I have deleted or wanted to leave a scathing review for doing this in the past few years. Even though I did it myself a long time ago, I still refused to read stories this way. It's not just a preference, this was one of the main rules they teach in school about creative writing. It hurt to relearn this, but I was grateful my friend told me about this. Since then, it is not a mistake I have made again.

Another thing that has driven me batty is that people forget how their characters are as people. OOC, or Out Of Character, is a major flaw in writing. You get the tough guy acting like the biggest puss, some flowery little girl speaking like a space marine with all his knowledge, and you're thrown out of the story. If your character is a calculating killer, he is a calculating killer, he is not some whinging sop.

This is a very dangerous problem narrative wise, especially if you are freeform writing. This is a form of writing where you just write without a set destination or direction in mind. You only do what comes to mind and hope it comes out at least coherent. If you're not going to stick to a plot outline, at least try to stick within the bounds you set for the character. If it starts out dark and bloody, chances are those rainbows and teddybears you're imagining for them isn't going to happen. Not paying attention, you will end up with characters doing and saying things that make absolutely no sense given the plot.

For example, someone established her character as a badass, a top warrior, and a proud individual beautiful beyond belief and skilled at everything he touched, before he even showed up on the scene. Then, when we get a sudden POV of the character, because it suffered from the bouncing POV without warning as laid out above, the character is little better than your average Mary Sue. He wasn't strong willed, he made no intelligent decisions, the character was wracked with self-doubt and self-loathing, was easily cowed, and was just so utterly unaware of his own world and self that he was your typical babe in the woods. The author tried to pass this off as a trait of being an Omega, but she had spent the first friggen half of the story arguing that that attribute was a lie.

I refuse to read a story where the characters are OOC so much that you can tell it's the foolish fantasy of the writer placing themself in the story and trying to pass it off as canon characters. If it had been original characters in the same setting, I probably would have read it and enjoyed it.

My example is the same problem I had with Loki in The Avengers and Thor 2, and in minor part, Thor 1. People make this big to-do about Loki being this great evil, this huge monster, this genius mastermind, a liar and a wordsmith. Yet, he comes up with a plan so stupid and poorly thought-out that the worst Skientists in the world defeat him with little effort, all while hissing like your typical queer villain. That last part was mostly in Avengers. Never once was the one who could trick the skies of their stars with his words present. This incompetent comic relief was played up in Thor 2, there only to make these symbols of Fascism appear glittery and wholesome in comparison. It was all OOC, we got to see and know Loki in Thor, he's scheming, dangerously intelligent, wise, and a bit of a drama queen when pressed beyond his limits. Note, I didn't include a smooth-talker in there. Loki never once proved he could sell ice to an Inuit.

Which brings me to the final complaint I have, you have to have a coherent plot that ends. There has to be a point to the story with a resolution. Plot twists are great, a mind bending story that leaves you guessing right up to the end is fanfuckingtastic! But there has to be a point, even if that point was 'life has no point, you're born, live, and die, that's all', that is still a point. Some writers don't follow this rule of thinking, 'the journey is the story, there is no goal, we simply continue on, until we don't.' Good for you, now go write some biographies and get the hell out of my genre. I want a resolution to that 1500 words and 3 weeks of my life you wasted! You're not George RR Martin, people aren't going to wait 25 years for you to come out of the bathroom and finish telling your damn story.

Today's update is a note about rewriting.

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It's coming, it's coming! I am working on the first chapter for An Average Joe...In Love. The outline: Chapter 1 - The Rally. Charlie is caught up in an Anti-Martian rally that Jerome and Sonya have dragged him to. We learn a bit about the world he lives in now, how it differs from our own, and set up the rebellion plot.

~!~

But, that's not all! My first novella, the one that started this all, the one that got finished, was the first in a series, but was never published, I have the plot for the rewrite! It's going to be bloody and glorious. It's going to be bloody glorious.

You want the plot? Can you handle the plot? It might take a few fingers if you're not ready.

Here we go:

Jack Metier is the victim of a serial killer, the only known survivor. According to the press and the police, he died in the attack. Jack isn't his real name. In reality, his girlfriend/fiance was the intended victim. The killer only took Jack because they were together when the killer struck. Jack's injuries were supposed to let him bleed out slowly while he watched his girlfriend slowly drown in a tank. They were then posed at the roots of a mulberry tree under a street lamp as ill-fated lovers from an ancient tragedy, Pyramus and Thisbē. Jack died on the street, but someone resuscitated him. Due to his body being found and the staging of the scene, it wasn't connected to the other murders.

In the story, a year has passed, Jack has healed, but there are lingering affects on his psyche and body. The police are looking into the possibility that he might the killer's unintended victim. They come knocking on his door.

For the past year, he's been recuperating in the remote wilderness with the stranger who saved his life. Jack has no idea who he was, but he's haunted by nightmares, the memories of his abduction/attack. An examination reveals that he has memory loss due to brain damage. He'd been dead for too long by the time his savior revived him and had a stroke when his blood started pumping again (blood clots built up in his arteries heading to the brain).

Jack knows things about the case, he remembers when they prompt him during interviews/casual conversations. He can provide details they don't have, but make sense considering the nature of the crime. It reawakens full memories of his torture at the hands of the killer and he has a psychotic break in the middle of a diner.

Only the arrival of his mysterious savior can calm him, and the police begin to question the man's role in all this. Jack refuses to believe them and stops cooperating. The thing is, though, he knows almost nothing about the man. They've been mostly isolated, and still, they've not even confided much in the other. Yet, he won't even entertain the idea that the man who has come to mean everything might be somehow involved with the horrific events of his past.

Stymied, the police are obliged to leave town and follow the leads of a new case. But someone else arrives with knowledge of Jack, drawn by press coverage. Then a local girl disappears, and all hell breaks loose.

What do you think?

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Not all rewrites are created equal. Tonight's rewrites are brought to you by the letter H, for Hannibal. As in, watching the show has really inspired my love of violence in fictional media. Wow, that show is wonderfully violent. Hannibal helped inspire the rewrite of Jack Metier as well, so, thank you Brian Singer.

Today's update is an excuse.

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So, you might have noticed I didn't post anything for a while. I've been slowly getting my head around the new plot I have for An Average Joe. Well, I got the prologue plotted out, then started it early this morning before going to bed.

Then, this afternoon, I had to work in the yard and my blood sugar crashed from dehydration and only having artificial sweeteners today. When I become fatigued, I lose control of my fine motor skills and emotions. My hands start to twitch and I can't look straight ahead. I start to rock, my mind doesn't like to focus on anything for too long, and speaking becomes incredibly difficult. This is my natural state which I fight to interact with people. If I become too agitated, I sound like I am whining and whimpering, on the verge of crying.

So, I was not in a good way. Then, my computer froze up and would not restart. It took several hours and several boot attempts to get it to enter a diagnostic mode and get it to restart from there. Needless to say, I am stressed so freaking badly.

I don't think I can handle writing right now. So, I will work on this later.

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These kind of updates won't be typical.

Title:Adrift - Beached - Alone - Left
by: Heinrich Gothrykke
Genre: Sci-fi: Space.
Length: Short story series, appears in Forest 4 The Trees.
Tags/Warnings: Space Travel, Future Fic, Character Deaths, Violence, Bigotry, Character Isolation, Cybernetic Technology, Infedelity, Deserted Planet, Seduction.
Summary: ADRIFT: Jason is one of a shrinking minority who's own body rejects any form of cybernetic devices. The days of non-interface devices and shops are numbered, which is why Jason prefers life on the frontier, serving in the great fleets where technological advances are either first or last to appear. His current assignment sees him heading out beyond the known worlds to a recently settled system with a jackass he's served with before. Things are going as predicted between them when the entire crew freezes. The ship in transit needs to be constantly monitored or the drive's fluctuations will shut down. Not other options but to flee, Jason abadon's ship with as many people as he can take with him before the core goes. BEACHED: Jason has crashed on a planet in orbit of a dwarf star outside a stellar nebula. With help unlikely to ever come, he's faced with trying to survive while figuring out what happened. Donovan, the jackass, awakened shortly after the crash, but everyone else remains comatosed. With no other choice, Jason puts them in a deep stasis, and shuts all other systems down to prolong their chances. The two of them must survive on the planet without many technological comforts, and, for the first time, Jason finds himself at an advantage. ALONE: Jason, lonely, has stopped reacting to Donovan's taunts in a negative manner. He's certain it's stochholm or Eutopia syndroms, madness is the only explanation for why he feels the man is coming onto him. Things aren't perfect for them on the new world, half the planet is toxic to the touch, but things are going...okay? Then a signal reawakens their transport from standby mode. Someone, inexplicably, has found them. LEFT: Jason and Donovan are joined by Sheila, who brings word that she's alone, but not by choice. The Shut-Down has affected many worlds. No one knows if it's an attack, a virus, a glitch in the programming, there's even rumors it was an act of self-preservation, a preemptive attack by an artificial entity. Sheila came searching for the source of the first shutdown, the recent colony, where people first reported random people stopping in the middle of their activities and eventually dying without lifesupport. She was scanning for possible signals when she found received their message, drift and resonance decay made it impossible to decipher, but she got a firm location. She planned on investigating after the colony. The colony sent out a DNL (Do Not Land) Beacon before she arrived, and she ordered her crew to turn around as that is only sent when even coming near is certain death. Her crew shutdown during course plotting and she was alone, left to drift on a slowly dying ship. She came to find them with her last act as her ship's core went nova in orbit shortly after arrival. Like Jason, she has no implant. Also, like Jason, she's caught Donovan's eye. Unlike Jason, she has all the right parts.
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Chapters

© 2014 Heinrich Gothrykke, all rights reserved.

Title: An Abduction By The Sea.
by: Heinrich Gothrykke
Genre: Fantasy
Length: Novella
Tags/Warnings: Violence, Rape, Character Death, Sword Fighting, Viking Knockoffs.
Summary: Summoned to battle on his wedding day, Kyron returns victorious to a town under attack by an unknown and brutal enemy. Quickly overwhelmed by the superior force, the survivors are taken with whatever their abductors can carry. Kyron manages to escape during a water mission and find his way back home. Alone, he tries to rebuild his life, but finds he's not alone.
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Chapters

© 2014 Heinrich Gothrykke, all rights reserved.

There is never much one can say about a person that will make a difference once they are dead. It will all be taken and then quickly forgotten. The memory of their loss is the only thing about the event that will live on.

Tonight, I grieve for the loss of a woman who's sheer beauty touched me with a sweet haunting string. Her words gave me an understanding of the world I know now.

In my deepest sorrows, I know she could still teach me hope. And still I rise.

What are a few words? An expression of beauty so profound it devastates with it's loss.

Today's update is something simple.

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There is nothing new to report. It's been an unproductive couple of days. I've been sleeping longer and having little-to-no energy for anything beyond taking care of the farm work and house work. I barely even exercise.

I think I'm done.

Title: Memories Lost, So Vibrant These
by: Heinrich Gothrykke
Genre: Science Fiction/Horror.
Length: Novel Length - 40 chapters+
Tags/Warnings: Alien abduction, Mentioned Rape, Violence, Language, Body Horror.
Summary: For one family, the world ended on a strange night when Sean Laughton was eleven. A storm wiped out most of his hometown, killing many people, including his father and brother. With only his mother and the clothes on his back, they started over and moved past the tragedy.

At thirty-six, Sean thought things were fine. He's untroubled by his past, a happily married teacher, and trying to start a family. Sure, things are a little shaky given the economy, but he's got it better than a lot of people. He's even volunteered for summer school to tide them over, with hopes of a substitute position in the fall. The situation wasn't terrible by a long shot.

It's a blackout migraine during the last day of school that fundamentally changes his world. Suddenly, he's seeing strange lights from the sky, he's being followed every where, even his own body has turned against him. When people he's known his entire life start to disappear, Sean's left questioning, is it trauma induced paranoia, or something else...

Plot Notes: Plot Index/Table of Contents

Chapters:

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2


© 2014 Heinrich Gothrykke, all rights reserved.

Today's update is just a quick note.

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I haven't made any progress on anything mentioned in the last update. No writing was done, no character development in print form, nothing. I've been watching Farscape to get back into my sci-fi roots. Several of my novels and short stories revolve around science fiction. I desperately want to get back to it.

For so long I've been focused on the human side of things. That's nice and all, but there is almost nothing I know less about than human relationships, mostly because I don't give a fuck. Most people aren't worth knowing and there are too many people to get to know them all. Just treat them all with kindness and dignity and you'll be fine, is my motto.

What have I been doing? Farming. I've been trying to get back to my regular exercises. Watching Farscape. Listening to Solange Knowles music, because bitch is fierce and I love her so much right now. Dreaming up plots for stories I haven't been writing.

I did come to a decision. I will be doing the ezine for free. I plan on testing the resulting fic on you first. To that end, the master posts for these stories will be left open for the public to read and marked as such. The master post will include which issue the story appears in as well.

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Tired of me yet?