Where’s my %$?@* book?
Been over a year since el Deano sent out an update to Mine readers. In that past update to Mine followers, I mentioned that the story remains a viable property. I still believe that’s the case. Many times I’ve felt like bagging the whole deal, but for me personally, it’s not an option, although I’ve been consciously negligent in addressing its needed revisions. That’s the bad news. (The bi-polarity of my situation did cause me to change the name of the story to Me vs. Myself, but only in the Scrivener folder/document naming.)
The good news is that a true and dear friend of mine took the time to read and exhaustively detail the issues he identified in the story.
“I edit the way Ghengis Khan took summer vacations,” he said. And then more to the point, “As we have discussed before, the writing itself is magnificent, the stuff of English major wet dreams. I’m horribly envious. The pacing, on the other hand, is a problem. It takes forever, plus a couple millennia, for anything to actually happen.”
Good and bad news, right? I’m both joyous and frightened to open the PDF he sent over. But, Fear + Breath = Excitement, so breathing deeply, once more into the breach I go.
You’ll get your %$?@* book when it’s done!
Inkshares Update: January 7th, 2021
It’s been eight months since my last update and I keep clicking my heels together and still flying monkeys rain down upon us spewing their virulent exhortations. Anyway, without rehashing the obvious that we’re all living, I did want to bring to your attention that Dean Fearce hasn’t given up. MINE is at this point in time still a viable work in progress and I thank you one and all for your patience and support. If something truly remarkable changes in the manuscript’s status, you will be the first to know. But do know this: I’ve produced another one-hundred thousand words in a single document and they are far better with more amazing characteristics than any previous thousands upon thousands of words I’ve strung together, creating multitudinous documents before they went to their final resting place at the bottom of a litter box. Requiesce in pace. But, that’s just my opinion so we shall wait upon the prophecy as foretold by the man behind the curtain to reveal the true nature of such a thing. You see, writing is easy. Creating delightful characters is harder. Stringing chapters together with continuity and a plot line that serves those characters with an arc that truly delivers them somewhere over the rainbow is harder still. I won’t even bring up those wicked witch revisions. And yes I do go on. It amuses me. I do so hope it amuses you but I still have my day job in any event. Hope you are safe and healthy and I love you all. Now go follow those writers in the 2020 All-Genre Manuscript Contest. Oh-Ee-Yah! Ee-Oh-Ah!
Inkshares editors have indicated a need to be more consistent with descriptive language throughout my story. I wrote this today and it makes me feel good so I wanted to share it with a little bit of chest pounding because whether it’s good or bad isn’t as important as that feeling that reminds me of why I enjoy writing. This paragraph occurs in a chapter after the inciting incident in MINE but before the 1st act turn. Plot points are important.
“Is it something I said?” He looks at me with implacable eyes and I feel judgment. Resentment. Not by him. Some other little fiend judges me this day. I shrink into myself while the light spool draws tighter toward gray grayer grayest with rain and more rain draining the world to a dark nothing the way mixing too many colors becomes an oozing brackish mud absorbing everything. Like Mount Vesuvius erupting its smothering volcanic ash leaving a hollow where once, for a mere moment, we occupied a space. Or maybe it’s seasonal affective disorder. “The court order hasn’t been lifted, has it?”
Here’s a link to follow MINE. I always try to follow back. https://www.inkshares.com/books/murder-happens
Happy Giving Thanks Day!
Dean Fearce is grateful and appreciative for many things not the least of which are you, my friends, family and supporters, who have gotten behind this project and have waited patiently for its fruition. Being Thanksgiving, it felt appropriate to provide an update on the status of the book:
https://www.inkshares.com/books/murder-happens
The latest manuscript was submitted to Inkshares this past summer. It went through a read by the editor. It came back with interesting comments and observations. The bottom line was that the plot was not working. Recommendations on books to read were made. Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice was one. I tried to read it but failed. Tried to watch the film and failed.
Moving on, I found a tattered copy of Gardner’s The Art of Fiction online. It’s on my bedside table held together with a rubber band. It was entertaining and informative with a side of anxious guilt that I hadn’t gotten a degree in literature and therefore knew not the high-browed references he made. But as I said it was informative. And entertaining. That was unexpected.
Read a few other books in that time that weren’t recommended by the editor. Breathless by Shane Lindemoen was good. It’s recommended reading. I originally backed the project on Inkshares but Shane chose to publish it elsewhere. He’s now started an independent publishing concern, which is intriguing.
Check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Breathless-Shane-Lindemoen/dp/1949472620/
Bunches of authors like Mike Welch and Susan Hamilton, both met on Inkshares, are publishing themed short-stories. If you haven’t seen the Writing Bloc anthologies, you can find them on Facebook. The editor accepts submissions for projects well in advance of publication.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/383485668831888/
In regards to MINE, I took a break to absorb the feedback (it’s never easy to accept helpful criticism, but it’s always advisable) and do additional reading and watching to figure out how to plot the novel. I love good stories, so it’s not like work. Good news is I’ve arrived at a solution. Next steps are to read the manuscript through, then begin the re-write starting December 1st. Hopefully you will hear from me again next year with a loud and resounding cheer, something like Eureka!
Hugs and kisses,
Dean Fearce
Thanksgiving Day, 2019
Hello Again All My Lovelies!
I had promised to send the revised manuscript to Adam end of June. It’s a couple weeks past my deadline, but this weekend I’m working through the draft with a final polish before submitting to the publisher. It’s been almost two years since that 2017 Horror Contest Halloween photo-finish with Mike Welch. There have been major edits, revisions, darlings murdered and rewrites to the novel. But what really happened, from my perspective, is a personal transformation as my editor urged me to dig deeper, write better and bring nuance to every aspect of the story. I am not that same writer from 2017. It’s hard to articulate what exactly I am now, but I believe that journey is captured in my story: MINE. Hopefully this draft will pass muster with the Inkshares team and you all will get a glimpse into this shadowy realm of becoming… 
