Novelista

Handwritten manuscripts of seven novels I’m excited to announce that a first draft is almost complete. And, it’s all because I returned to handwriting my manuscript. There was a point where I couldn’t hold a pen. The doctor confirmed my suspicion: Carpal Tunnel.  I started writing seriously (as in, hey, I’m going to write a book) in roughly 2005. I wrote with pencil on lined paper. That’s what I had at the time. Then, I transitioned to pen and blank computer paper because ink is easier to see than graphite.  At first, I wrote rather large with decent spacing between each line. Then, my writing got smaller. Words crowded the page. Pens sacrificed their ink quickly. I started using whatever pen I had in arm’s reach. Sometimes, those pens were cheap stick pens. They cramped my hand.  Until late 2016, I wrote prolifically. Novels, short stories, flash fiction, articles for others. With the exception of these blog posts, all those were handwritten first.  Al...

To be cliché, I’ve been writing up a storm—even during a storm.  Pages of edge to edge ink have been stacking quickly atop my manuscript pile.  My pen only paused to do some research and take a few notes.   Whispers  (The World In-between, book 4) is coming along well.  These last few scenes I’ve been writing are so much fun. I typically write Whispers , as well as others, far from the distraction of my computer.  When I’m sitting in front of the keyboard, I type.  Supposedly, typing the piles of pages that form my manuscripts.  However, I recently opened a new file.  And, I began to type something different. I couldn’t help myself.  The idea just came to me.  It’s going to be a science fiction short story for the anthology Across the Kármán Line .  I wasn’t going to write a story for it.  I told myself I didn’t have the time.  I have other books to finish. But, here I am.  Writing a story I was...

In a previous post , I talked about using Dragon text to speech software.  After using it, I have to update my recommendation. I used the software to transcribe the second half of Secrets of the Sages.  At first, I thought it was great.  Then, it wasn’t so great.  Let me explain. Secrets is epic fantasy, which means we authors tend to use strange names.  I taught Dragon names like Baldur, Colvin, Goscislaw, Alvar, and Hatcher.  Half the time, it would not type those names when I said them.  I found that frustrating.  There was no explanation for why Dragon stopped transcribing.  I resigned myself to typing the ancient tongue and ancient Fairy languages. In general, it messed up a lot.  I would have to talk it into corrections.  Those didn’t go so smoothly either.  The command, “Go to End,” became “Good and.”  I always had to say, “Cap Hope” when I wrote about Berty’s niece, Hope.  But that was because I u...

Regular readers of this blog know that I hand write all my manuscripts before I type them. Typing, for me, is my first edit. Novels have a lot of words that need to be typed. So far, I have published just over a quarter of a million words. After typing the first 30,000 words of Secrets of the Sages, I decided to give up typing novels to try something new. For about the past week, I have been using speech recognition software. I got Dragon Naturally Speaking 12. The regular retails for $99 while the premium version is $199. My consensus, thus far, is good. I use it with my own headset. Not a pricey bit of plastic, but it does exactly what I need it to do. Since my vintage version of Word has gone wonky, I am now using Open Office. After going through the tutorial and reading an excerpt of a novel by Lewis Carroll, I began to dictate my hand-written manuscript. My book was already started in manuscript format—double spaced and first line indent at a half inch. ...