What's on the horizon

Mickey Spillane once said to the effect on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, "That you aint a writer unless you can write a book in two weeks.

Yeah; I ain't anywhere close to being a writer then. (and also for other reasons ;))

I'm making the attempt though, not for fame or fortune (that would nice) but to just do it. I like to write and I have some good stories bouncing in my head I believe. The next thing is to make it happen. Happen, that is, by writing them down and getting them out there. I am my own worst obstacle to making this happen. Like most writers I procrastinate. I plan on writing and I end up surfing the net or wasting time on some other meaningless thing.

I wish I could blame it on my day job my lack of productivity. I work 12 hour and fifteen minute shifts. I spend about another 2 and half hours getting ready and driving to and from work. So on those days I do very little other than eat and sleep. On days off I have all the time in the world to knock out many pages of stories.

It basically boils down to discipline. I need to make it happen.

So what's on the horizon for me and writing?

Again, I'm finishing up editing and revising A Princess of Kesselt. A follow up of my first book set upon Kesselt. It is about a young princess who escapes from her captors who have brought her and her younger cousin into the northern Dragon Mountains of Kesselt. There she meets a young ranger and Tor Gregg who help her track down her abductors to free her cousin. Along the way they gain more companions in this quest. The princess's abductors want her cousin for an evil rite to control dragons.

Next on the list is a partially completed third story of Kesselt, A King of Kesselt. This is about the crowning and reign of Thomas Kinkaid ruling over the Kesselt kingdom of Dormir. Yes there will be more dragons.

Then I want to shift gears in genre. I have a keen interest in the American Civil War. I have outlined and started writing a novel based on the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment. In the book I follow two friends who joined the regiment in May 1861 at Fort Snelling to the regiments return in the winter of 1864. I am looking forward to writing about Gettysburg.

I then want to continue on with the Civil War with a second book about a Minnesotan who serves in both the First Minnesota Artillery Battery and the Second Minnesota Artillery Battery. That book will include the major battles and campaigns of the western theater from Shiloh to the March to the Sea.

After that I want to switch gears yet again and write a book tentatively called Minnesota Wrecking Crew. This story started out as BS talk when I was in the Army back in the day. The story has evolved into a contemporary tale of veterans of Iraq taking on drug dealers and the mob.

I would then like to go back to fantasy/ sci-fi and write an epic space opera. Think Game of Thrones meets Star Wars meets Greek tragedies meets Roman history meets Prometheus meets the New Testament. Yeah, I'm still wrapping my head around the concept and outlining it. I can say, it starts with a powerful man drinking a cup of tea while watching a sunrise. And no prologues.

And that's the beginning of a list of story ideas that I would like to write. My problem in writing is that I think up story ideas, wasting colossal amounts of time, instead of just writing. I can think up a cool scene and write about it but that's all the further it goes.

I told myself this past winter that I need to make it happen. So I need to stop this blog and get to work on 'Princess'. Or I'll never be a writer like Mickey.

Regards,

ML Stidmon