Kenn Ghannon: Blog

Against my muses very vocal objections, I've put the story she's whispering in my ear aside and sat down to battle with 'Runesward, Tome 2' once again.

It's been a few months since I've lived in that world. To refresh my memory - and make sure I don't write things which contradict things I wrote earlier - I've taken to re-reading what I've already written in Tome 2.

... and I've fallen in love with it all over again ...

I'm only five chapters into the thirteen or fourteen I've wrote, but I can almost feel the care I had in putting down the chapters. I was careful and descriptive, letting myself look and feel as the characters did and writing it from a 3rd party perspective but seeing everything as they saw it. Experiencing everything as they experienced it.

And, as time went one, it was something I lost. Things became less descriptive because at some point I stopped living in the world and just started trying to get to the end. The story suffered for it.

That can't happen. I can't let it happen.

Luckily, I don't really need to re-write anything (except maybe the last one or two chapters which are very choppy) - just breathe deeply of the story and re-word some things. Let the characters tell me what they see and feel and record it in words. Not really simple - but it's what is needed.

My muse has been incorrigible lately. I've 'Fairly CAPable' in edit. I've it's sequel (tentatively entitled 'InCAPable') which needs to be written. I have Runesward Tome 2 sitting in a folder forlornly waiting to be finished (I'm 14-15 chapters in but I need to do some re-writes to some of the chapters; the 14-15 chapters are maybe only the halfway mark of the story!). I've got 'Ring of Command' bubbling in the back of my head, needing to be re-written and/or finished. So why, oh why, does my muse put yet ANOTHER story into my brain? How the hell am I supposed to find time to write yet another story?

This one is pretty good, too, and based in the very near future (a year or two out). I won't give away many details but it's a 1st person POV about a 14-year-old dealing with traumatic loss and change. My muse keeps throwing different parts of it at me, in no particular chronological order ... and I keep dutifully writing down the plans, ideas and so on and try to fit them into some kind of timeline. It's frustrating.

The ending for Calix's third story is already planned out. I know just how it's going to end. I know a bunch of the things I'm planning in the middle and I've even written a few pages of the first chapter for it (necessary - so I have a good starting point when I sit down in earnest to write the tale).

Anyway, we're still working on 'Fairly CAPable' and I think we're only two, maybe three weeks out from the start of posting. I really need to start posting sometime in June because I have a number of vacations planned this summer and I need to get things settled before those come up. I'll keep everyone informed as things gel.

Take care,
Kenn Ghannon

No, I'm not talking about an androgynous alien getting their sexual release. 'Fairly CAPable' is coming. Thanks to social distancing, shelter-in-place and general Real Life issues, my hardworking editing team (of one) is moving through the story - and then I'm more slowly moving through his edits after him (sorry, Real Life™ - it isn't just for breakfast anymore).

The plan is to start posting as soon as we are collectively through editing 1/2 the story (when we finish editing Chapter 17 - the story is 33 chapters long plus a prologue). We are currently finished with Chapter 12, so I'm thinking two or three more weeks (give or take). My posting schedule plan, at this point in time, is to post on Tuesdays and Saturdays - two chapters a week - until complete.

!!WARNING!! The chapters are LARGELY UNEVEN. This means some chapters are very short (maybe as little as 4 Microsoft Word pages) while others are inordinately long (as in, maybe 20+ Microsoft Word pages). No matter how long or how short, I will be posting TWO chapters per week, ONE each on Tuesday and ONE each on Saturday (if those are the days I eventually decide upon). I will not be posting an extra chapter during the week if one is too short. I will not be posting only one chapter during the week if the chapter is very long. You have been warned.

I does not writ Enngglishes goodly.

As a matter of fact, it is amazing what I write is understood at all. I mix tenses with glee, write sentences that are too long, too short, are occasionally missing subjects and verbs and sometimes even start in one place and finish in another.

You'd think English would be my second language. Sadly, you'd be wrong. I just butcher the English language for butchering's sake.

As you can imagine, what I write needs to be heavily edited to make it legible. My editor frequently makes comments like 'I wasn't sure what you meant here, but this sounds good'. To which I ardently reply 'Um. Yeah. We'll go with that.' Other fun comments are 'What language did you write this in?', 'have you heard of this new thing called commas?', 'you need to separate your words into coherent ideas instead of one 16-chapter long sentence', and my all-time favorite 'if you do this one more fucking time, I'm quitting'.

Needless to say, he hasn't. Yet. I do worry, though.

TL;DR version (and I put it down here for a reason - I wanted you to have to read through all that <queue evil laugh>) - 'Fairly CAPable' is being edited but is functionally complete (read: all the words are there, someone just has to put them into sentences, paragraphs and chapters to make it legible). After all, it takes a particular skill set to turn 'bebe, toto, question notisor the that' into 'to be, or not to be, that is the question'.

Where have I been? Where have I BEEN?

Holed up with my wife, working from home as has much of the rest of the country. With my all my children holed up with us.

I have four children. I have four bedrooms. My children don't like to share bedrooms.

I do, however, have an upstairs bonus room which I use as my office (so, technically, I have five bedrooms but...) So, my daughter has been sleeping on a queen-sized blow up mattress in my office.

My computer is in my office. Is the picture becoming a little more clear now?

A co-author has been doing yeoman's work editing 'Pretty CAPable' - but he has his own family to think about (and, honestly, I've not been as responsive as I could have/should have been). So, I'm not even positive what chapter he managed to finish editing before I had to 'lay low'.

[Because I find nothing as embarrassing as having my English Teacher daughter asking me what I'm typing. It's not like I can say 'erotica' - she kind of knows what that is now...]

So, it may be a bit before 'Pretty CAPable' comes to computer screens near you.

Stupid Wuhan Flu...