My writing year: a look back and a look forward

It’s 2014, and like everyone else I’m taking stock of the past year and looking forward to the new one.

This past year has been one of ups and downs in my writing career. I won a travel award for my Iraq reportage, I got into a ghost story anthology, and saw sales of my Civil War novel go up thanks to a free story I posted. It looks like readers like to sample your wares before making a purchase!

The high point was National Novel Writing Month. I’d never done one before. Working furiously through November, I wrote a 71,000 word post-apocalyptic tale called Radio Hope. It’s coming out in February. The turnaround was so quick thanks to my being able to devote my entire energy to the project, plus the helpful aid of my many beta readers. You guys rock!

The big downside to this year was the death of Gadling. It used to be the number one travel blog on the web. I’d worked for it for more than four years, writing more than a thousand posts and doing many fun series to places such as Iraq and Somaliland. Sadly, a reshuffle in the parent corporation led to all the writers being laid off. Now Gadling is a shadow of its former self. Where once a dozen experienced writers reported in from all corners of the globe, now an in-house hack produces one or two rehash posts a week.

It’s sad to see something you love die. On the other hand, it can lead to new things. Gadling took up a huge amount of my time, time I am now devoting to more magazine work and lots more fiction. The year 2014 is going to be my fiction year. Not only do I have Radio Hope coming out, but I’m well into the sequel and plan to write a third in the series before 2015 rolls around. I’m also going to start an action series set in World War One called Trench Raiders. More projects are simmering in my brain pan as well, such as my Tangier novel, so stay tuned!

For my writer friends out there, how did your year go? What will you do different in 2014?

Happy New Year!!!

Indie Life: Ten things I learned from National Novel Writing Month

Like many fellow indie writers, I participated in National Novel Writing Month. I managed to finish an entire post-apocalyptic novel of 71,000 words in the month of November.

It's called Radio Hope and you can download the first 51,000 words for free from Smashwords. I'd love to get some feedback and as a thank you I'll send a free electronic copy of the final book to you once it's released in February.

OK, enough self-promotion. What did writing a novel in a single month teach me? Here are ten things I learned.

1. If you are mostly unemployed (I recently lost my travel blogging job when Gadling laid off all their regulars) your word count goes way up.

2. Keeping your word count up helps with your self-esteem when you're mostly unemployed.

3. Keeping your word count up after the challenge is over maintains your self-esteem. I'm working on the sequel right now.

4. You'll help your confidence if you get a jump on the game by writing a lot on the first day. November 1 was my most productive day, with 5,300 words.

5. Write every day, even if it's just 500 words (my worst day) because that forward momentum keeps you from getting stuck.

6. It's good to find a group to help you. I was down in Madrid on November 1 and got to hang out with other members of my old writers group. We took over the back room of a cafe and wrote like mad!

7. If you give the project sufficient focus, you will not have a drop in quality as you increase quantity.

8. You will, however, make more typos. A lot more. Really embarrassing ones.

9. The online community at the NaNo website is super supportive, helpful, and friendly, and disappears after November 30.

10. It's really, really fun!

Radio Hope is done!

Done! My post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope came out to 71,161 words, 315 pages, and took 28 days!

Tomorrow: editing!

If you want to check out the first 51,000 words, Radio Hope is a free ebook on Smashwords. Anyone who sends me feedback will get a free copy of the ebook once it comes out in February.

Whew! Now that that's over I can get back to more blogging.

I met the National Novel Writing Challenge, so have a book on me!

My post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope made it past the 50,000 word mark yesterday, meaning I beat the National Novel Writing Month challenge in 20 days. As I write this the word count stands at just over 51,000. I think I have about 10,000 more words to go, certainly no more than 15,000. Barring a real apocalypse, I'll be done at the end of the month.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've posted this work-in-progress as a free ebook on Smashwords, available in all formats. I've now updated it, uploading an edited version with several more chapters added. The reason I’m posting this for free is so that you, the reader, can have input in the creation of this novel. What do you like about it? What do you think needs work? What characters would you like to hear more about in later Toxic World books?

Alerting me to any typos would be much appreciated too. :-)

Drop me a line at seansontheweb (at) yahoo (dot) com with your feedback and I’ll make sure you get a free electronic copy of the final book when it’s released on February 1. And keep an eye on this blog for regular updates!

Please repost and share!

Oh, and here's the blurb-in-progress:

An aging citizen of civilization's last community finds leadership thrust upon him. . .
A female gunslinger yearns to find a place to raise her son away from the chaos of the wildlands. . .
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to a village mired in toxic waste. . .
And with the Righteous Horde descending on New City to convert and conquer, all three will have to rely on each other to survive.




Graphic courtesy flickr user Sarah G.

Read a free excerpt of Radio Hope online!

As you know, I'm busy with National Novel Writing Month. The current word count for my dystopian novel Radio Hope stands at 24,137. I've posted the first three chapters on my NaNoWriMo homepage and I'd love to get your feedback. Hit the link to read it!


Image courtesy New York Zoological Society.

Military History Photo Friday: Crystal Radio in the Trenches

I'm hard at work on my National Novel Writing Project--Radio Hope, a post-apocalyptic tale. I'm proud to say that I've passed the 20,000 word mark in just a week. December will be National Typo Correcting Month!

My story revolves around the residents of New City, the only large settlement in a toxic wasteland filled with bandits, scavengers, insane chemical sniffers, and bloodthirsty cultists. One of the few sources of information is Radio Hope, a mysterious station broadcasting programs about medicine, agriculture, food gathering, and other survival tips.

No one knows where this station transmits from or who's behind it. Since you need electricity to operate a radio, only a lucky few can receive its transmissions, until a mysterious trader emerges from the wildlands with a supply of crystal radios.

Crystal radios were the first popular radios. They rely on a crystal detector to pick up radio signals. The crystal uses the energy from the radio waves themselves to power the radio, so no electricity supply is necessary. In the 1920s store-bought radios were expensive and many rural homes still lacked electricity. It was cheap and simple to build a crystal set, though, and soon most homes had one, leading to the boom in radio.

In this image you can see a French soldier in the trenches during World War One listening to a handmade set. I wonder what he was listening to? An opera from back in Paris?

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Civil War Photo Friday: Union troops participate in National Novel Writing Month!

Well, it's here. I and thousands of other writers around the world are hunched over our computers or notebooks writing the first chapters of our books. We need to get through 50,000 words to be a National Novel Writing Month winner. I'm planning on winning.

The Library of Congress says these are men from the Army of the Potomac writing letters to friends and family. Actually this is the only known image of the first National Novel Writing Month, which took place in 1861. The war stopped for the entire month of November while men on both sides sharpened their pencils and wrote novels for the folks back home. You can see them all hard at work here, except for the fellow in front who is sewing his shirt. He had been writing so hard the sleeve wore out!

. . .or not. :-)

All I'm going to do today is focus on my novel and write, write, write! I wrote this blog post on Wednesday just to clear the decks. :-)

Helping out with National Novel Writing Month

I've started a thread on the National Novel Writing Month website for writing a Civil War novel during NaNoWriMo.

If you're writing about the American Civil War, I'll be happy to answer your questions if I can. I've written two books about the Civil War for Osprey Publishing and numerous magazine articles for magazines such as Missouri Life and America's Civil War. I also have a novel set in Civil War Missouri titled A Fine Likeness.

My research focus is on the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and guerrilla warfare. I'll try to answer any questions posed to me, however. I've already had a couple of good ones. Please don't ask questions that can easily be researched online, though. I'm going to be a wee bit busy this month!


Image of bombardment of Fort Sumter courtesy Wikimedia Commons.