Apparently this house, this damn mysterious house atop its hill, keeps acquiring names. It's newest is the House of Flowers. The Baskerville Brigade has finally entered the house. It took Tristan, Eril, and Miranda all pestering and pushing each other, but eventually they made it inside. Is anyone surprised that they don't find what they expected?

Surprises come in small sizes.
And then. . .
And then they can come in much more sinister sizes.

Keep your audience on their toes. Whether you're giving a cave tour or writing a novel, keep them itching for what's next.

The years keep moving right along. I scatter my writing between summer existence and winter existence. I'm winding down at my winter warehouse job, which means writing becomes elevated. I'm going to push my most recent middle grade novel hard. I don't plan, plan to be the key word, to write anything new until I sell this lollipop. It can be sold. It must be sold. It will be sold. Or so I will try. Current title is leaning towards: "The House of a Thousand Flies". Thoughts? Perhaps you all will see this from the beginning soon...

It's November, and I am not doing NaNoWriMo this year. It feels a little strange, but I think I'll get used to it. For the past four years, I've attempted this challenge, made it once, came close, more or less, another time. Realistically, this is just not a good year for me to be taking on this crazy challenge. Between work and other projects that simply must get done, social obligations and the rest, I keep telling myself that I am being realistic. I can always try this during a more sane month of the year.

Last night I finished the rewrite of Chapter Three, "The Falling Star". Next up, "Gods And Men", Chapter Four.

I hope, with this rate of work, to have the rewrite done by the end of November. The novel consists of a Preface, Introduction, and 53 chapters comprising about 227.000 words. So far, I have rewritten the Preface, Inroduction and first three chapters, comprising about 17,000 words. Obviously a lot of work remains to be done: fifty chapters and about 210,000 words.

Fortunately, rewriting is something I enjoy.

Robert A. Wells

For anyone interested, this is a daybook of the writing of a novel.

"World of the Scarlet Sun: Nomads of the Gods"

I may update it from time to time, daily/weekly whenever it moves me to do so.

The first two chapters, with the introduction and preface, are rewritten. I am rewriting my collaborators rough first draft. After I am finished with the first pass, it will be proofread and polished by the two of us working together.

You're welcome to take a look at the story to this point, see the attachments.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Brunnhilde's Delight, a very, very small squeeze within Wind Cave, South Dakota

The first picture is my friend Tom in Brunnhilde's Delight. Note the helmet (and his head) for scale... No one had returned through this passage since 1974, and for good reason; this area of the cave is for the SSS only, "The Skinny Speleological Society". One must compress your body to fit through this 6 to 7 inch passageway. Brunnhilde herself would never have fit through this nastiness.

OK, I'm nuts. I'm crazy as a loon. I'm a fool.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo again this year.

I figured that it would help spur me to finishing up some writing projects. The hand of Fate twists strangely. I was set up to finish the novel (working title: Wasted Journeys, a space opera) that I haven't been able to complete for the past two years... only 4 chapters so far, but I have lots of notes, chapter details, etc. to make the writing go fast. But that's not what I decided to do.

It's been nearly five months since I've been active around here. That's what happens when you spend too much time underground. I should add up how many hours I spent in Wind Cave this summer. I mapped around 2500 feet of new cave. Wind Cave is currently 125 miles long and the fourth longest cave in the world.

I attended my second National Writers Workshop this past weekend. Once again, it was well worth the $105. One downside was that because it moved from East Hartford to Hartford, Connecticut, parking was not free. One upside related to the move to downtown Hartford was many more restaurants within walking distance of the hotel.

Overall, I thought the content was a bit better this year. Yes, there were a couple of presentations that I felt needing polishing/more content, but what conference has 100% uber-polished speakers? I also like the fact that while this is a conference that is advertised as being 50% journalism content and 50% writing content, this year, the balance did seem to be close to the mark. Backed by the Hartford Courant newspaper and the Poynter Instute, attended by journalists up and down the east coast, it's no wonder that the event caters heavily to what they like to call 'public journalism'.