John Darkscar: Blog

At the risk of piling on, I want to add my $0.02. Most of you probably already know that Wes Boyd passed away. I've enjoyed all of Wes's writings. He knew how to create a Universe and how to create believable characters, and have them act in believable ways.

I learned a lot about the craft of writing by reading Wes's work and watching the stories develop and intertwine. If I live to be 250, I won't even approach his ability and incredible productivity.

Prayers and condolences to his family and friends, and Godspeed to him. He will be greatly missed.

I guess it's time for one of my sporadic updates for my loyal, but abused, readers.

I have several chapters nearly ready to post to update "Whitewater" I'm not quite to the point I want to be in the story to post an update. The story seems to have become longer than I anticipated, but I think that I can see the end of it now. That said, there's a lot of writing yet to be done.

"Blackmail" also has a couple of chapters almost ready to go. I want to put a bit more polish on them, but expect something (probably fairly short) soon.

"God's Forge" is coming along slowly. I'm coming around to the notion of posting this one in serial, too. As with all my longer tales, it's taking far longer to say what I want to say than I expected.

For anyone that cares, I have a few ideas kicking around for more "Powder City" tales. One involves the founding of the town during WWI, hinging around murder and espionage. Another goes way back to the Revolutionary War era and involves Indian attacks on settlers in the trans-Allegheny regions around 1777.

Finally, the most nebulous one is a sci-fi story set around 75 years in the future in the early years of interstellar travel. I don't expect it to be "canon" for the series, more like a possible future, in a nearby parallel universe. We'll see if this one makes it out of the concept stage. I've always wanted to try my hand at space opera. ;-)

Anyhow, that's the current state of affairs. Real life continues to keep me busier than I'd like, but one makes hay whilst the sun shines.

I wish all my readers a great and safe summer. Carpe Diem!

I was letting my mind wander the other day (somewhat chancy, but it's always come back, so far), when an idea popped into it. In the Chronicles of Narnia, Book one (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the kids enter Narnia via a wardrobe. What if, on their way back, they didn't end up back at their starting point, they ended up somewhere else (anywhere else, potentially).

My initial thought was a slightly different parallel universe, where the Nazis had invaded England and were occupying portions of it while other parts were still being contested. I'm sure others could come up with other interesting variations.

Anyhow, I just thought I'd toss it out there, before I forget it.

I'd appreciate any feedback you might care to give. I doubt if I'll take this idea up anytime soon (and it may have been done to death already by others), so feel free to take it up and run with it.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

(Oh, and take a minute to hug your Mom, on this Mother's Day weekend, and let her know you love her. Sadly, she won't be around forever.

J.D.

Hello to my loyal (God-only-knows-why) readers. I've finally submitted some new chapters of "Blackmail". I hope you enjoy them.

There are some new chapters for "Whitewater" in the works as well, but I'm not quite where I want to be in the story yet. I'd like to say that you'll see them soon, but I can't. Real life continues to consume my time.

Lastly, "God's Forge" is progressing. I had considered posting what I have so far, but I've decided to hang on a while longer to move the story to a place I'm happy with. This one promises to be a long story as well.

I wish you all a safe, happy and prosperous New Year. Thank you for reading my scribblings.

Here's a bit of an addendum to yesterday's post.

I've received two rather thoughtful comments (which I will reply to directly when I have a bit more time).

Without being too specific, these are the sorts of comments I enjoy.

They were polite, one was positive, and the other was more explanatory about the correspondent's reaction to certain errors.

Now, his reactions aren't mine, but I can at least understand where he's coming from.

I try to get this sort of thing out of my writing, and I think I'm reasonably successful at it, but due to the sporadic nature of my writing, I don't use an editor.

I do proofread (and reread for clunky writing ) before I post, but in the nature of things I'm not likely to catch all my errors.

I hope that my errors don't bother those who are kind (or bored ;-) ) enough to read my stuff too badly.

Thanks for writing.

In other news, there are chapters of "Blackmail" and "Whitewater" completed and nearly ready for posting I want to do a bit more rounding out on both of them, plus a final polish.