performing and writing

I've actually had a few performances lately. I played a couple of times in January. And last Saturday, I played at some kind of party in a multi-million dollar home above Park City. On Tuesday, I played a Valentines dance at a church in Springville, and on Friday, I'll do one at the UVU institute building. Back in November and December, I had no pay gigs at all, which was discouraging.

I've actually had time to get some good practicing in, too. The last couple of days I've been able to put in an hour and a half each. Of course, it seems when I get a lot of practicing in, I don't get as much writing. It's hard to find a balance. A lot of writers want to get published so that they can quit their day job, but I love my "day" job. What other occupations can you "play" for a living?

I'm in limbo as far as writing goes. I hate to start a new project and then have to stop when I need to focus on editing book 1 again. This week, I'm mainly just trying to improve my chops. I'm studying a little on grammar, and I'm also working on disecting Harry Potter. By that, I mean I read each sentence carefully, analyze it's function and analyze its construction. It's very informative, though it takes a long time. I compare it to transcribing jazz solos and analyzing the notes the soloist played.

Also, I've resolved to write in this blog more. One thing I learned from a recent writing podcast is the importance of maintaining websites and blogs. For those who don't know about it, a great source of writing inspiration comes from www.writingexcuses.com. They have a lot of useful insights, check them out.

Answer to the ultimate question

A depressing thought hit me this morning. This is the last day that I am the answer to the ultimate question about the life, the universe and everything. Yes, tomorrow I turn forty-three. What a boring age. At least forty-two was an exciting number. I even celebrated my 42nd birthday by watching Disney's version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. What can I do for the 43rd?

Outline for book 3 done!

I am not an outliner. I used to try to create outlines, but couldn't. I didn't realize that I was a discovery writer until three years ago. So, what I did this time was 'discover' an outline. I took a week and a half and put myself in the improvisatory writing mode that I get into when I discovery write. I think I came up with a pretty good story doing this. Plus, it will be easier to make changes before I start writing the full draft. Thus far, with my first two books, I didn't know the outline until after I went all the way through the draft. Then I had to try to fix things in the story, and it could get messy sometimes. Hopefully, with this newly discovered ability, I can streamline the draft process.

Now, as far as my project schedule, the first thing up is doing another draft of book 1 before publication. I'm still waiting for my editor to get back with me before I can start that that project. That's why I did the outline for book 3; to kill time until then. Anyway, I also recently finished draft 2 of book 2, so after book 1 is tucked into bed, I'll do the third draft of book 2. Then, I'll do draft one of book 3. Of course, since I just finished the outline for it, I want to start it now, but I have to tell myself to be patient and do things in their proper course. This will give me time to ponder the outline and make adjustments before I start writing. Again, I hope this will speed up the drafting process.

2nd draft of book 2 done

Yesterday marked a milestone, the completion of the second draft to the sequel of Dragon War Relic. It needs some major reconstructive surgery, along with a title. I'll probably wait to do the third draft after I get the final touches finished on the first book. It's tentatively scheduled to hit book stores in July, so that's going to take priority.

Also, I'll be on a panel at the 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' writing convention at BYU next month. I'll be on the Friday at 1:00pm panel about writing suspense. I don't know if I'm much of an expert at suspense, but I'll contribute my two bits.

Split personality

Okay, it's been a while since I posted anything. Things have been busy with the holidays, in addition to all the other things I keep stacking on myself. That's a good thing, though. The reason why I used to never get anything done was because I would keep thinking about doing things, but not actually doing them. Of course, my main project has been to finish the second draft of my sequel. That's going slower than I'd hoped, but it seems like the second draft is the most difficult. That's the one where you have to work out all of your plot problems from the first draft.

My other project is putting together a jazz improvisation class to start at the end of January. I think I have a method that can teach people to play good sounding jazz solos in only six weeks. Of course, that means I need to design a website for it, write a lesson plan, and record play-along recordings for it.

This gets me to my dilemma: being a musician and writer. I seem to only be able to be one at a time. The days that I focus on music, I have a hard time getting to the writing, and vice versa. It seems that I can only do one creative endeavor at a time. Hopefully, I'll find a way to balance the two, but I haven't yet.

It's Official

It is now official. My novel Dragon War Relic is going to be published by Cedar Fort, Inc., a publisher right here in Utah County. I'm now in a holding pattern waiting to get scheduled to work with an editor. I'm hoping the book will be out by next summer, but I don't know how the scheduling works, yet. In the meantime, I'm now working on the second draft of the sequel to the first book. Hopefully, I can finish it before work starts on the sixth draft of the first book. I did two and a half chapters today, but they were mainly just edits from the first draft. I'm now to the tricky part where the plot makes a significant change from before.

Anyway, I'm excited about getting this first book published. The way I see it, there are three hurdles (to pull an analogy from my old track and field days) writers have to get over. The first is to actually write the novel. I don't know how many times I've talked to people who want to write a novel, yet haven't even written one yet. So, my advice to aspiring novelists, you have to sit down and hammer one out. It probably will be awful, but that's how you learn and grow.

The second hurdle I just made it over, and that is getting a publisher/agent. I was very blessed to only get about 6 or 7 rejection letters before I was accepted. For most writers, it is a lot more. Of course, I feel I had divine help.

Then, the third hurdle, is getting the book to sell. I'm not over that one yet. This is the one that makes me nervous. However, the acquisitions editor that accepted my book enjoyed it without even being a science fiction fan. But that was my hope, that it would appeal to a wider audience than just the sci-fi/fantasy crowd.

For more information about my book, you can visit www.berinstephens.com.

Big news!

The big news of the day is . . . someone wants to publish my novel! I'm excited. It's been a lot of work and I feel very grateful to have been blessed with this opportunity. Things are still in the early stages, of course, since I still need to sign the publishing agreement and do some more editing (cut 50 pages, arg!), but this is definitely a major step. I'll put more information up when I get it.

I've been meaning to mention a few other things here that I've been putting off. For one, my author website: berinstephens.com is up and running. I've also added info and content to my saxmyax.com site. There is now an events list, as well as some downloadable handouts that I use at clinics.

I was planning on putting another practice routine up, since I've been working on some classical music lately. I practice differently for classical than I do for jazz. I'll try to put it up when I get a chance, but I think I'm going to be busy the next few days getting my novel ready.