Shadows and Stars – Page 3 – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

Update: YouTube Channel, November 2, 2019, Diegaro

I have added another playlist to aid in writing Shadows and Stars, During one part of the story, the protagonist, Daryn, and his guide/bodyguard, Sero, are trekking across the deep back country. Though trying to avoid people, as they proceed up a steep-walled canyon, they find a huge festival (think Walpurgisnacht) of believers in primitive religions occupies the far end, though they try to avoid it, a wrong turn takes them directly into its heart. The festival is called the Diegaro (the Gathering of the Great Gods).

So that I can whip up ideas on how to describe the Diegaro, I have started collecting the type of music that would be played there into a YouTube playlist entitled Diegaro. This consists of primitive, pagan chants, songs, and instruments but modernized. The songs are mostly strong and powerful (think The Hu), though I will probably also have some softer, meditative music in there as well (think Carlos Nakai). I will listen to these periodically and try to gain inspiration and ideas on how to describe the action at the Diegaro.

Give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Update: October 10, 2019 “Shadows and Stars” and “Nocturne…”

Taking a break from writing at Angel’s Peak Scenic Area, south of Bloomfield, NM, in 2018.

Because I got almost no sleep on Tuesday night, I was dragging all day and managed to get a few words written or deleted for Shadows and Stars.

I did manage to read through Nocturne… and to at least think about where I should place the newly discovered poems and how the two poems might change the entire collection’s feel.

There is another poem that I would like to include, but it contains one very vulgar word. I may just delete that line. The poem is still powerful, but maybe not as powerful with that line removed, which may be seen as the climax of the poem. Still, none of the other works in the collection contain an obscenity. I don’t want the collection to be known for this one obscenity, which might brand me as the pornographic poet. This one obscenity might also prevent people from buying the book, if they hear it’s in there. I am trying to make this work very poignant and sensitive, but this one word might offend and/or repel a lot of people. Using it in a collection like this jars the reader and wakes him/her up, which is good and adds a touch of irony to the poem’s and the collections’ composition. I probably won’t include it.

I have another I would love to include, but its graphic depiction of the narrator being seduced might also be seen as pornography, though it contains no obscenities. Alas, I will have to leave this one out, though I like the idea of the moment of shock that it brings to a sensitive narrative. I like to shock people on occasion, but using shock must be done with discretion or people become numb to it and it loses its effect over time.

Hopefully, I will make some progress tonight. Congestion is making it a little tricky to focus.

I don’t recall exactly, but I am at around 85,000 words for Shadows and Stars with my goal to be around 80,000-100,000. I think it will take another 10,000-15,000 words to wrap this up nicely. I will go over 100,000, if that is what it takes to tell the story.

I enjoy editing and toying with words to get my message across exactly as I picture it in my mind. Checking details to eliminate plot holes or inconsistencies is also a weird sort of fun. I can get lost in editing and time passes before I know it. It was in either “The Telltale Heart” or “The Black Cat” that Poe talks about the passing of so many hours “of the time that flies”. I love that expression.

Hasta luego.

Update: September 30, 2019 Shadows and Stars

Selfie with Lotus in background near Arkansas Post, September 4, 2019

Over the weekend I made some important progress with my novel in progress, Shadows and Stars. Although I have over 80,000 words, there were still some large holes where I could not come up with a good plan to fill them. On Sunday, the 29th, I went to Ameca Mexican Restaurant to have lunch and took my notebook/journal for Shadows and Stars with me as I usually do when I go out to eat or have coffee. After eating (a delicious pollo Chihuahua by the way), I started writing another synopsis of the plot, which is something I do when trying to generate ideas. I try to reduce the entire novel to one sentence, one “elevator pitch”, or what you could find on the back of a dust jacket. The ideas started flowing and I could not stop writing for a few hours. I finally wrote one additional (and important) chapter of about 1,000 words, which I typed into the novel tonight. But, the important take-away is that I finally came up with the entire plot. Now I will continue expanding on that and refining it, until I have the first draft completed, which I hope will be by Halloween. Then I will refine that until I have the novel as perfect as I can make it. Wish me luck.

Update: June 7, 2019, 5:02 p.m. Word Count for “Shadows and Stars…”

For my sci-fi novel, Shadows and Stars Lying Down, I am shooting for a word count of between 80,000 to 100,000. I currently have a little over 54,000 words. I am past the point of no return. I have to finish this.

When I research word count for a novel, short story, or novella, I find a lot of varying answers. The most recent general consensus seems to be that to be accepted as a first novel by most publishers these days, the word count should be around 80,000-100,000. That may vary considerably by publisher (I have seen one that accepts 50,000 words as a first novel and another as 40,000, a more traditional count).

Other figures I have found for other formats for fiction are:

6-300 for micro-fiction

Up to 1,000 for flash fiction

1,000-21,000 for a short story (sometimes longer)

Around 10,000 for a novelette (a debatable category)

Circa 20,000-50,000 for a novella

Of course, there are lots of subcategories and nuanced categories that one might find, particularly under the flash fiction category. There is even a Twitter novel/story of what can fit into a single tweet.

For what it’s worth, I did a quick search of Duotrope, which I use for submitting short stories. In general, Duotrope considers 40,000+ words to be a novel. Granted that this is very small slice of novel publishers, but I found out the following, which may give an indication of generally accepted lengths for a novel (there are a whole lot of possible caveats here). I won’t list the publishing company names. Note the range of differences. Note also that some of these companies overlap the different pay rates. For example, a company might pay pro rates and semi-pro rates (though I tried to separate those here). In any case, this gives an idea of the range of opinions of the length a novel should be.

I have surpassed the 40,000+ point with my novel, but to tell the story as I think it should be, I will need at least 80,000 words anyway.

For a market paying Duotrope’s “pro rates” for a novel on any topic there were six matches. Here are the lengths considered novels:

40,000-45,000

40,000-75,000

40,000-80,000

80,000+ (two companies)

100,000-130,000

For a market paying Duotrope’s “semi-pro rates” for a novel on any topic there were six matches. Here are the lengths considered novels:

40,000+ (four companies)

60,000+

80,000+

For a market paying Duotrope’s “token rates” for a novel on any topic there were six matches. Here are the lengths considered novels:

40,000+ (four companies)

40,000-90,000

80,000+

Let me know you opinion of these lengths and nuanced categories/formats you find interesting.

Update: June 6, 2019, 4:08 a.m.

Occasionally, I have issues with sleeping. Tonight is one of those nights.

I typed some notes I made recently into Shadows and Stars... earlier this evening, watched a little TV, and then tried to get to sleep around 2:00 with no success. So I played a video game until just now and I will try to sleep.

Shadows and Stars… is gradually taking shape. I had a couple of ideas for it while watching TV earlier. Some ideas about society and life as a whole seem to be taking shape as the novel progresses. I suppose it’s because I am thinking along different lines, because Shadows and Stars… involves an alien world (not like the “grays” though; more like Earth people with a few differences) and I have to think about what an alien society would be like. I want to make it different enough to be intriguing, but yet similar enough that readers can easily see the comparisons and contrasts with our world. The aliens also have to have an alien perspective on the universe and on life in general, so I am trying to develop some radical breaks with the way our society views things. I am starting to come to some realizations about our own world, things that we take for granted, but which might seem bizarre to an alien. As part of this approach, I am developing characters with radically different thinking and viewpoints than we have or admit to having on Earth. As an example, one of the alien characters is a reclusive monk named Sato, who lives alone in the deep forest. When two of the main characters come across his cabin in the forest, the main character, the protagonist, Daryn, notices several parchment scrolls of Sato’s meditations lying around. Sato allows Daryn to read part of one. Following are Sato’s observations. I may add more later. Note that Sato calls himself “mad”. He uses this sarcastically and ironically, because it is what the supposedly civilized people of his world call him, because he doesn’t fit in to their society. In reality, he is very astute, but no one recognizes this.

I came up with these in a variety of ways. Some are my own observations and conclusions. Some are derivative of philosophical principles, quotes, or statements or other stuff (for lack of a better term). I tried to make them mystical sounding and somewhat confusing, like something you would expect an alien recluse/philosopher to say when he is penning his thoughts in his primitive, remote cabin in the woods in the dark of night. Remember: I tried to write these from an alien perspective and these are only a few of his “musings”.

Let me know what you think.

The Musings of Sato the Mad

Lies are truths wrapped in shadows; truths are lies drenched in sunlight.
The beast that eats me is evil, but I am evil to the beast I eat.
A man believes not what he needs to believe, but what he desires to be true.
More gods dance in the night than roam in the daylight.
As with man, there are fewer gods on mountaintops than in valleys.
Just as corpses are nectar to maggots, so are lies to despots.
All hearts are red.
Does a lizard need to remember yesterday?
The gods I trust loiter beyond the trees pelting me with flies and hornets.
Perhaps there was a day when the sun did not rise, but I do not remember it.
Spirits of the dead and candleflames of the past loiter with the gods beyond the trees.
Mud gives us something from which to raise ourselves.
The spiritual man is a warrior, and, in the city, like a warrior, he is too engaged in battling his enemies to engage in thought.
Unlike man, insects do not kill those of their own species for pleasure.
Healthy animals kill only out of need.
To a dying man, diamonds are only pretty stones.
Some insects live twenty years underground as grubworms, before emerging into the daylight as flies only to live just long enough to spawn then die. Men think of this as the mature stage in the life of the fly, but to the fly is it not death? His life has been underground. Perhaps a man’s life is only the death stage of his existence and his actual life, much longer, sadly forgotten, was before birth. Many would like to believe this is the grub stage of our existence and we will be flies in the next.
If I am reborn into another life, will that life be in the future? Could it be in the past? Could I be my own ancestor? If I am reborn into the future, I could be my own descendant. Could I be reborn as someone in the present on the other side of this world whom I will never meet? Perhaps I have already been reborn as someone I met yesterday or whom I will meet tomorrow. Perhaps I will be reborn as a brother sperm who never made it to my mother’s egg.
Wicked, wicked Sato, whose thoughts flow like a raging river through the kingdoms of past, present, and future to swirl through the ocean’s depths to envelop the monsters of the soul!
To rule nations, ply the leaders’ minds with the wine of lies they desire.