Betas, Background and Blood Bowl

Beta:  I went back to the drawing board with the “final draft” of my first completed novel.  After some in-depth research for future books, things weren’t quite complete, a few secondary plot points and arcs required to drive the story in further books and reinforce the plot of Days of Reckoning.  A few additional characters and their influence on both the main characters, Soki and Tagaretsu, were in dire need of inclusion.  To keep the word count under control, I went back and started trimming things even tighter; some of the cuts were relatively painless, others downright gutt-wrenching.  The overall effect is one that I am very happy with, which is all in preparations to get this out to some Beta readers, which in and of itself is both motivating and scaring the crap out of me….

Background:  One of the side-projects I’ve been working on is a series of short stories.  The first I’ve completed is actually the background story that explains what happened to Tagaretsu.  I always thought it an important story, one of epic impact on him as a character.  Much of the motivations that drive him in Days of Reckoning can be traced back to the specific events detailed herein.  I’ll be submitting this short-story to a number of competitions in the hope this will help launch the Ochra series.

Blood Bowl:  Huh?  Yeah, this is nothing relative to the writing genre, at least not directly.  Blood Bowl is a Games Workshop product, where models are used to represent players on teams that play something akin to UFC-meets-rugby.  Set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting, there are 21 different teams with individual strengths and weaknesses.  Not content to just collect and paint models, I’ve actually plot-pointed a series of short stories that could be extended into a novel.  It’s a fun diversion from the slogging of Beta-prep and editing the final version of my short stories for submission.  With the release of the video game and the recent Super Bowl, it’s a timely outlet.  It is a total piece of procrastination, yet something that keeps me from going absolutely insane and bug-eyed from staring at the screen too long.