Past the halfway point!

OMG! Has it been that long already without an update?

Sadly, yes it has been that long.

There is not much to report on terms of the job hunt, I might a have a couple of viable offers coming my way so I have my fingers crossed. I am still sending resumes and talking and emailing to any headhunter registered in Mexico City. I am less anxious to be honest, and I am starting to enjoy the time I have been given to spend with my kids and with my wife.

On the novel front, progress has been steady. I am now way beyond the halfway point. I am now sitting on 90k words, so now only 60k words are left. I am really enjoying this part of the writing experience, seeing the story advance, seeing my characters evolve before my eyes is a feeling that I cannot describe.

On the last post, I wrote about going the Independent route in terms of publishing, and I still feel strongly that my novel will be published that way. Traditional publishing might not be dead yet, but I am willing to take my chances with my story using the social platform I have been carefully building for the past year.

However, I am starting to think that I will need an editor. And those don't come cheap. In addition, some small publishing groups will help you convert your document into an e-book, and give a professional cover art as well as some sort of marketing for your book, for a small percentage. The conundrum is wisely choosing what I want to do with my book once it is finished. I know I am going to have to edit it myself in order for the second draft to be ready, rewriting what needs to be changed, etc. But I feel that I will need an expert's take on the book before committing to any publishing ideas. Editing means I am going to have to invest some serious money on the book, about 1500 dollars. This is a good problem to have, because it means that I am one step closer of finishing the novel!

I have been reading a lot, going this way and that...flip flopping between Fantasy and Sci-Fi and some Anne Rice.

I finally read the Wolf Gift by Anne Rice, her return to the supernatural world. I am one of her biggest fans, but I have to admit that the last Vampire Chronicles books were not my cup of tea, to say the least. I don't want spoil the Chronicles to anyone who have not read them, but the last two books were a big disappointment to me. This book is...strange. Not in theme but in structure. The main character did not feel real to me, the circumstances surrounding the story were not there for me either. The story was engaging once I got past my dislike of the protagonist. Again, I won't spoil the book and give away the whole plot. But in my opinion, Ann Rice followed the same pattern from her last Chronicles books and from her Seraphim series, which is to ramble around the story.

I also read Empire, an Orson Scott Card novel. I love his books, the Ender series, Pastwatch, I even read his horror book. This one though, is very different. It is fast paced, it is complicated, it is a notch above anything I have read from him in terms of vocabulary and difficulty. It is a very good interpretation of what might happen in the U.S. or in any country in the world where the views between the left and right are so radically different and noxious. A good back drop to my country's own electoral disputes. A good read overall.

And I also read I, Robot. I love this book. The way Asimov intertwines his stories, the way he portrays his characters, the hard and critical view of how things turned out by Dr. Susan Calvin just transports me into the future Asimov envisioned.

I am halfway through Robert Jordan's New Spring, the prequel to the Wheel of time of series. I am preparing for the marathon of re-reading the WOT series again before the last book launches, and I am also still reading The Second Generation, The Hero of Ages and have just started Warbreaker.

Hope you all have a great week end, hopefully I will see you next week!

Back!

After a long hiatus, I am back doing what I love to do: write.

I have been immersed in my writing, in my work and also, doing some translations, that have kept me away from the blog, and I do miss it.

So let's get down to it shall we?

Again, I am going to make some changes. Anything related to the game, SWTOR, will now be addressed in a different blog. The game has been much more that I expected, and we are near, as a guild, of beginning to experience end game content.

Books I am reading, or have read, will be reviewed in yet another blog (I love this!)

In this blog, I will only talk about my writing.

This week's topic is literary influences.

When I began the wonderful journey of reading a book, I was immersed into wonderful worlds, created by authors like Tolkien, Stoker, Christie, Orwell, Poe and Hemingway. (My school's English Lit class was, and still is, one of the best in the country, if not the best). I fell in love with fantasy, but with literature in general, and began to devour books. One of the first series I remember fondly, and that I have read multiple times since, is Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. His work would get me interested in Sci-Fi and later into authors like Orson Scott Card.

However, nudged in between fantasy and sci-fi, the late father of one of my best friends introduced ne to the world written by Anne Rice.

I don't think there is an author that has had more influence on me than Rice, not only in terms of style, bur more importantly, in terms of ambience. Through her pen I was able to walk through the streets of Rome, Athens, Paris and her beloved New Orleans. I was able to live through the eyes of her fantastic characters (I mean, Lestat is THE vampire) and her fantastic stories. She was the first author I dissected, that I bothered to take notes from her books, that I tried to learn how she constructed her sentences. She was the first author that urged me, through her writing, to become an author.

My literary life has been influenced by many authors since, heck, we all are. I have my own style now, I have my own cadence and quirks, and crutches and such...but I have been influenced by many other authors.

Patricia Highsmith and her anti-hero, Thomas Ripley. How she makes us root for the bad guy is still a mystery to me, but her books are filled with tension and intrigue that one can only take so much.

Robert Jordan, to me, redefined the fantasy genre (and I am a BIG Tolkien fan, and Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms reader :D) He simply elevated the benchmark of what fantasy literature was about, mixing a superb, complex an endearing story, giving us richly detailed characters, and cities, and customs, and wardrobe, and architecture, and turning it into a wonderful whole.

What are your influences?

See you all next week.