Kenn Ghannon: Blog

I honestly did try to change the 'Worded' titles for numeric titles (moving from 'One' to 'Chapter 01', 'Two' to 'Chapter 02' and so on). However, it looks like - since I started this story with worded titles - they're going to continue. I hope I'm not causing issues with whoever is reviewing the posts...

I'm still stuck on Chapter 23 - but it's because I didn't even try to write yesterday. Problems with my diet (cravings...oi). I ended up just sitting and re-reading Jay Cantrell's 'Unending Night' - a true masterpiece. I'm following it with the sequel - but the name eludes me.

Reading is another escape of mine. I love to read. I actually like it more than television or movies (but please don't tell anyone). As a matter of fact, reading often leads to writing - for some reason, when I read I tend to get ideas for new stories even when I'm reading things which are more 'mainstream'.

I'm re-thinking moving on after finishing up 'Runesward: Hasp'; there is just so much more story to tell and it's grabbed me in a very weird way. I'm stuck, though. On the one hand, I'll get tired of the story eventually and move on before part 2 is completed. I know me. On the other, I've several other stories I want to finish and share. On the other hand, I sometimes have a problem getting back into the characters when leaving them for a significant period of time. That's three hands - far too many.

I apologize for this rambling, self-serving, pointless blog. It's what happens when you give me a forum to purge thoughts from my head. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

A reader pointed out my use of 'Word' chapter headers ("One", "Two", etc.) was causing issues with downloading the story. I want to sincerely apologize; I never meant for it to be a problem and I've changed it accordingly.

The reason I prefer to use worded chapter headers is because, to be honest, I don't really believe I should call any of my stories 'books' and I don't really think I should call the parts of any of these stories as 'chapters'. Using those terms implies, at least to me, I am an 'author'. I'm not. I'm a storyteller. An author is someone who is good enough to make a living telling stories (whether they actually do it or not). A storyteller is someone who tries - and tries hard - to spin a compelling yarn.

There are a few people on SOL I consider 'authors' because I think they are good enough to actually sell their work (and some of them do, I think). These are the likes of Jay Cantrell, G. Younger and so on. I'm certainly not there yet, though I aspire to such lofty goals some day.

Finally, I've received some e-mails which have been critical of some or all of Runesward. As always, THANK YOU. Criticism hurts but is necessary to be a better storyteller (if not author). Some of the criticisms, I absolutely agree with - and I'd change things, if I could figure out a better way of presenting them; hopefully, I can find a way to avoid my pitfalls in future works.

The thing is - every e-mail I receive (even those that tell me my work is shit) are RIGHT. It's a perspective thing - this is how they see my story/stories so, to them, it is absolutely accurate. It's like the old axiom 'the customer is always right' - the customer IS always right because what they say to you is what they see and feel, no matter if you see things or feel things differently. Its only through the feedback or conversation that we can become better.

I can be a bit of an attention whore. When I post stories, I like receiving the feedback (good and bad, actually). I often peek here every few hours (if not more often) to see if I have any mail or anyone has commented on the story. It's a failing and one I'm not proud of.

So, this weekend was a bit of an experiment. In the past, I've always preferred to post on a weekly basis; this is my first time trying it on a (more-or-less) daily schedule. I grew a bit addicted to it - but I decided to try breaking a bit this weekend.

I liked it. So, for now, I'm going to continue posting daily (with caveats - I might have to take a break now and again) on weekdays and breaking on weekends. I hope this isn't inconvenient for anyone.

...from my point of view.

Yesterday was the first day in about three weeks where I didn't write a single word. I had intended to - but my 'honey, do' list had become a bit long and my wife (rightfully) gets a bit perturbed when she has to ask me to do something multiple times.

It came at a good time, though. I'd literally pasted our hero into a corner in Chapter 23 and I had to step back and figure out how I'm going to get him out - he has to be in the open for the next part of the story and getting him there had me perplexed. I think I've solved it so I'll probably write a bit in there this afternoon. It's also become uncommonly long, so I'm probably going to have to split it into two chapters - with, I think, another two or three chapters after it. It should be enough to get this finished posting by the end of January or early February.

Crowd-source editing seems to be working okay; I'm getting some feedback from readers who are catching many (most? all?) of my myriad mistakes. I seem to have a problem with homonyms and 'lay' vs. 'lie' which has me heading back to the internet to re-read the rules...

Anyway, for those of you following 'Runesward', there will be no posts this weekend. Chapter 4 is queued up and awaiting approval and I'll post chapter 5 on Monday.

Thank you for your time and understanding,
KG

For whatever reason - native wishy-washiness or ADHD - I go hot and cold when writing. One of my New Year Resolutions is to stay dedicated to it; to force myself to write. It's what I've been doing for the past few weeks and I mostly finished Runesward thanks to it.

To that end, I'm going to try to list out my plans - subject to change - for the rest of this year in terms of story productivity I hope to achieve.

After part 1 of Runesward, I hope to complete 'Fairly CAPable', the follow-up to 'Pretty CAPable'. Once I complete 'Fairly CAPable', I'm going to go back and re-visit 'Ring of Command'. I still have my notes about future plot points (which included a sequel I'm not sure I still care enough about to write) and I think it's only fair I finish that off. Once I get there, I'll likely head to part 2 of Runesward, which I was planning to make a trilogy but I won't promise it. There's also the normal, inherent caveats about real life taking precedence and a few other commitments which have to come first (I try to be a man of my word).

As I said, I've been forcing myself to write the past three weeks, even when I didn't want to. It's generated a lot of trash - but much/most of it actually cleaned up pretty nicely and fit the Runesward story well. I did have a few problems with plot points - but the 'trash' actually took me in a new direction in some ways and cleaned up inconsistencies with the plot in others.