Crimsonstreaking past 40,000 words

The blockbuster sequel to the blockbuster sequel to the original blockbuster hit I, Crimsonstreak is Crimsonstreaking onward!

I've hit the 40,000 word mark in III Crimsonstreak: Subtitle Undetermined. It follows II Crimsonstreak: Subtitle Undetermined and the first book, I, Crimsonstreak, which had no subtitle.

Currently, our hero is trapped in the 1970s, an era that confounds and frustrates him because no one gets his pop culture references. To reveal more--such as the reason he's there or who he's with--would spoil both the book and its predecessor.

I should probably add that its predecessor has neither been released or its existence confirmed in the form of a binding contract.

Colts Observations, Week 13

The How Did We Win?/How Did They Lose Corollary? The corollary goes like this: the Lions. I realize this makes no logical sense.

75 yards and 1:07 to victory. With no timeouts and facing a five-point deficit, Andrew Luck and the Colts had to cover 75 yards with just over a minute left in the game. A field goal was never an option. Luck coolly led the team the length of the field--making plays with both his legs and arms.

Let us review:

Play #1: Feeling the rush, Luck takes off, running up the middle for a more than manageable second and one.

Play #2: Luck spikes the ball to kill the clock. Make that third and one.

Play #3: Luck finds Reggie Wayne for 26 yards. Wayne makes a great catch on a throw threaded between two defenders. First down.

Play #4: Luck spikes the ball to kill the clock.

Play #5: Eyes downfield and no one open, Luck outruns Ndamukong Suh, moving along the right sideline for a 16-yard gain. Best of all, he gets out of bounds to stop the clock. The ball is now at the Detroit 24.

Play #6: Incomplete pass to Donnie Avery; probably best that he didn't catch it.

Play #7: The Colts flood the left side line; Luck hits Dwayne Allen underneath for a first down. Allen gets out of bounds to stop the clock at Detroit's 14 yard line.

Play #8: Luck finds Reggie Wayne in the back of the end zone, but Don Carey breaks it up.

Play #9: Facing pressure, Luck fires the ball to Reggie Wayne, who's double-covered. The play never had a chance and the ball caroms out of bounds. It's now third down on the 14 yard line. The Lions call a timeout, presumably to discuss the most dramatic way to lose the game.

Play #10: Luck tries to hit Avery on the right side, but there's little chance for a completion. Fourth down at the 14. Four seconds left.

Play #11: Luck takes the snap out of the shotgun and buys some time. He rolls right and finds Donnie Avery, who's running an underneath drag route. No one's in Avery's area code.

Touchdown. Game over. Colts win.

The final play. I don't usually get into X's and O's, but the last play merits some examination:

The Colts come out with Luck in the shotgun with an empty backfield. The receivers are Donnie Avery, T.Y. Hilton, Dwayne Allen, Reggie Wayne, and LaVon Brazill (at least I think that's how it goes).

Four of the receivers take off for the end zone. Avery, the fifth option on the play, runs a drag route across the formation.

The Lions are playing to keep everyone in front of them and loading up the end zone to prevent the ball from getting in. Since the other receivers are going upfield, Avery is immediately left by himself with no one in sight.

Luck steps up in the pocket and begins drifting right. His eyes remain downfield. He doesn't like his options and sees Avery running all by himself.

Luck flicks the ball to Avery. Again, there's nothing but open field ahead. Avery explodes toward the end zone.

By the time the Lions see what's developing, it's too late. Avery is already inside the five. All he has to do is split two defenders. He has a huge running lane. Ball game.

Galvatron. Calvin Johnson was unstoppable. Even when the Colts had him covered, they couldn't contain him (think about that one-handed grab against good coverage from Cassius Vaughn). I downgraded Megatron to Galvatron only because the Lions lost.

First time for everything. Score an interception for Robert Mathis...the first of his career. It was a huge interception because Luck had just turned the ball over. This kept the Lions from getting more points.

Still more than half full. Luck's completion percentage was 44% for the game. He's definitely a different quarterback on the road. His three interceptions brought his season total to 16 on the year. He's had nine fumbles and lost five of them. Still, the glass is half full because he's winning games and showing big-time poise.

Road woes. Even though they've won some games away from Lucas Oil, the Colts haven't exactly been impressive in their wins. It's not just that they're playing close games on the road...it's that they look like a completely different team, racking up turnovers and penalties. If Detroit had any semblance of a defense, this one would've been over early.

T.Y. Hilton. This rookie receiver is having a fantastic year, including a 60-yard grab that set up an early touchdown.

Donnie Avery. Two touchdown grabs for Avery, including the game winner. When he's healthy, he's explosive.

Fleener sighting. Luck found Coby Fleener on a monster touchdown in the first half that covered 26 yards. Fleener didn't do much else...and I mean that. It was Fleener's only catch of the game.

The Mayor. A solid performance from Vick Ballard, who found some running room early in the second half. His touchdown run was a nice combination of speed, power, and shiftiness.

Settling for field goals. This observation is even more of a no-brainer than the title of Bob Kravitz's column ("Comeback win versus Lions a signature moment for Colts QB Andrew Luck," he boldly proclaims). The Colts defense did just enough on a few drives to keep Detroit from scoring touchdowns. For instance, after an interception from Luck in Colts territory, Indy held Detroit to a 33-yard field goal from Jason Hanson. After giving up a 67-yard run to Joique Bell, the Colts also kept the Lions out of the end zone. These stops made the deficit manageable.

This will end with a whimper. The Colts went into a second half coma after an impressive drive to open the third quarter. Four punts, three three-and-outs, and an interception followed that score. When the Colts got the ball back with about four minutes left, they trailed by 12 points...things didn't look good.

And then...two touchdowns in 2:39. The first one has to boggle your mind if you're a Lions fan. LaVon Brazill gets past the defense when the philosophy has to be "don't let anyone get behind you." Luck evades the rush, shuffles to his left, and then uncorks an on-target throw to Brazill in the end zone for a 42-yard score. After a defensive stop, the Colts get the ball back...and well...you know.

Scoring before the two-minute warning. Another key for the Colts: the touchdown to Brazill came before the two-minute warning, essentially giving the Colts another timeout. This came in handy after the team gave the Lions a first down on a pass interference penalty.

The day Fozzie Bear choked Grover. I didn't hear the broadcast, but my favorite message of the day came from my buddy Nate, who wrote, "You need to listen to Bob Lamey for your blog. He sounds like Grover and Fozzie having a screaming match." My father also said Lamey didn't have his voice. I wish I'd listened.

Playoffs?! Are you kidding me, playoffs?! Um...yes...playoffs. Barring an epic collapse, the Colts will make the postseason and finish with a winning record. I...I...really can't believe it.

Writing a Novel: The Duel with Ideas

Inspired by a post Chuck Wendig wrote earlier this week on his approach to writing a novel, I thought a little more about my own method of writing a book. Wendig is prodigious in his output (a 10,000 word day...one day?!) and has become a rising star thanks to his excellent blog and wise use of his Twitter account (as long as you can embrace his "Wendigian language," which I suppose isn't for everyone).

So, how do I go about writing a novel?

It starts with ideas. I have them and I don't know where they come from. I only know that sometimes I'm sitting around and something pops into my head that must absolutely come out. Sometimes I fight with these ideas. These fights include swords or lightsabers and dramatic music.

I never win.

Instead, the music reaches a crescendo. The idea stands over me, taunting me. Telling me this is it, this is the end.

In this moment, I realize I'm not the epic hero I imagined myself to be. I'm an inadequate swordsman.

A coward.

The idea makes ready the killing blow. Before delivering the strike, it offers me a deal: "Write me and live."

Uncomfortable with the alternative, I cave. I make promises I hope I can keep knowing full well that this idea--the one that stands with the self-assured smile of a triumphant opponent--will absolutely own my soul until it burrows its way out of my mind and surges through my very blood. The story pours forth through a series of days. A 500 word day. A 1,000 word day. A 2,000 word day. Occasionally, I reach the heights of 3,000 words or (gasp!) 5,000+ words.

The story owns me.

That's what it feels like. That's why, non-writer friends, we can never answer the question "Where do you get your ideas?" The answer takes us to a dark place where we have met our weak, corrupted, cowardly soul--a place we do not wish to revisit unnecessarily.

Okay, okay. That's a little dramatic. Plus, it leaves out a lot of the other things you need to do in order to fulfill that blood contract with an idea. Trust me, if the act of writing simply boiled down to exorcising mind demons on the page without any additional work, writers would have it easy.

Here are a few more things I do while writing a novel:

Logline/Pitch. I tend to work well with concepts so I like to come up with a logline or pitch. It could be a simple book comparison (it's Watchmen meets The Firm) or something more conceptual (the new girl at a superhero-for-hire business teams up with a masked vigilante to uncover a conspiracy involving ray gun-toting squirrels). This helps me refine the tone of the book.

Outline. I'm not a detailed outline guy. I don't go chapter by chapter outlining key events and every single plot point. Some writers do this--that's fine. Instead, I try to figure out the progression of my story. This helps me find my themes and character beats. If I have an idea for a big "moment," it'll have its roots in the outline.

Choose an ending. I don't start a book without knowing how I'll end it. Is that ending set in stone? Of course it's not. As the book progresses, characters will start to take things over and shape the course of the narrative. The intended ending could get some tweaks or may get thrown out all together. I think of this as a road trip; I know where I'm starting and the ending tells me where I'm going. Anything can happen in between. As in an actual road trip, you have to stop to fuel up. You see a great outlet mall. You decide to stay an extra night in that quaint bed and breakfast. That's all part of the journey.

Daily writing plan. Nothing writes itself. What separates authors from people who like to write is that authors sit down and do what they need to do. Can I write 5,000 words every single day? No...I don't have time for that. Can I get 800? A thousand? As long as I have about 45 minutes or so, the answer to that is yes. Everyone's mileage will vary here, but the key is to sit down and write the darn thing.

Word count projection. I ballpark all my novels in terms of word count, but I'm not beholden to a specific one. If I plan on 80,000 words and the story ends at 79,999, no big deal. If it ends at 83,000 words, no big deal. I like to set a goal because it gives me something to aspire to.

Character sketches and world building. I can't draw worth a lick, so when I "sketch" a character out, I mean I do it in words. I often write bios of key characters and map out important events. In the case of the Crimsonstreak series, these have become part of the book in the form of appendices. These things are extras, but they help everything feel more tangible to me.

First draft, then drawer. Once the first draft is complete, I pop open a bottle of bubbly because I'm finished and never have to worry about writing more. Oh wait...it's the exact opposite. When the story reaches its conclusion, the first draft concludes. I take that draft and put it away for a week or two and try not to think about it. I don't literally throw it in a drawer (I write on a PC!), of course.

Make it suck less. First drafts stink. They're terrible. The problem is that most writers don't think that's the case. It's our "baby," right? After keeping the draft in a figurative drawer, I go back and read the whole thing. I use a Kindle keyboard for this, making notes I sometimes don't understand because the Kindle keyboard is terrible. Still, I go through and look for inconsistencies, weak characterization, and poor plot points. I may do this two or three times before I feel like I've wrangled the book.

Let others make it suck less. After I go through the book, I send it to some readers who make notes and tell me why I'm a terrible person. They ferret out inconsistencies that I didn't catch, identify points where the writing is unclear or weak, and analyze the plot structure. With their notes, I go through another draft.

Last pass. This is a bit of a misnomer because I will definitely have to do more revisions. However, I'll go through the book "one last time" (again while making clumsy notes on the Kindle keyboard) and try to strike out any typographical errors or other mistakes.

Submission. After a few drafts, I'm ready to submit. More revisions will likely be ahead from an agent or editor. I don't have an agent, so I can't really comment on what goes into that...I can only say that I imagine the agent will request some revisions before sending it to an editor. The editor will also likely request additional revisions. The hope is that the novel won't need significant changes, but I'm sure it varies by case.

So there you go...my individual take on tackling a book from start to finish.