"The trick is not to become a writer, it is to stay a writer. Day after day, year after year, book after book. And for that, you must keep working, even when it seems beyond you."
Harlan Ellison  (In a career spanning more than 40 years, he has won more awards for the 75 books he has written or edited, the more than 1700 stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns, the two dozen teleplays and a dozen motion pictures he has created, than any other living fantasist.) 
I wondered why I was not familiar with Harlan Ellison until I looked at his work. I have to say he uses more profanity and vulgarity than I can handle. But his quote is wonderfully right on target. If you really enjoy writing, then you also constantly try to improve your skills. Every book is a challenge. With every book, you raise your standard. And logically, every book is harder to write. It doesn't get easier; it gets harder. In addition to that, you have lost the glow of first love. The honeymoon is over. This is work. (Pardon the cliches. I wouldn't allow those in any book I wrote, but I'm going to trust you can handle two cliches so I can get this posted and get back to work.)
I admit, from time to time, I've fallen into the pit of "beyond you." Didn't Little Christian of Pilgrim's Progress fall into the slough of Despond? I have to give myself a lecture. "This is fun. Quit thinking about the miles of work ahead and stick to the moment. Because, talking dragons are fun. Yes, they are. You betcha!"
This Twilight Zone was written by Harlan Ellison.

I'm going to go have some fun now. You keep at it, too!

Changing Tense to enliven a scene

Finished 32: 56,894 word count

Writing Tip: My character walked up to a pond and rather than just say that the water wasn't really brown, but looked like it was, I chose to say that the character knew if he held the water in his hand it would be almost clear with some floaties. After I finished the chapter I re-read and discovered the character needed to move out of "he could have," "he would have," and "he knew that," into action. So he dipped his hand in the water, observed the exact color and noticed the floating debris. Must more "in the scene," and much more satisfying for me and, I hope, the reader. The reader is now sharing an action rather than a reflection.
By the way, I think the name of this book is not the Wandering Artist anymore, but Dragon Guard.

Woot! Passed 300 pages!

Finished chapter 32; 56,766 word count

Writing Tip: In this passage, I did something I usually avoid. I like telling straight out tales, and I stick to that in most cases. But this chapter is a turning poin,t and I picked up the challenge of creating image within image.
The country is being invaded, and ordinary men are going to be called into extraordinary circumstances. One young man realizes this, and he contemplates the serenity of the moment he is presently in, knowing that all that is about to change. He picks two things from nature, a dried leaf and a handful of dirt, and looks more deeply into what they are. He doesn't vocalize any great metaphor, but in his analysis of what these things are, the reader should be able to make deep comparisons.
Now, a lot of readers will zip through these two pages and not bother to make the connections. That's okay. But perhaps some English teacher, somewhere , sometime, will torture a class into really thinking about dead leaves and decomposing stuff that makes dirt. And maybe some philosophical reader will mull over these things without the threat of a C- if he doesn't come up with something profound.

Exciting Work Today!

Today we got the first preliminary sketches for the picture book, The Dragon and the Turtle. This book will come out in June of 2010. Our job was to give more suggestions to the artist, Vincent Nguyen, and trim more words out of the text. In picture books, tight is right. We'd already trimmed by quite a bit, so when Evangeline and I got that message, we kind of groaned. Evangeline Denmark is my daughter who has children of her own and is in that phase of her life where she is, out of necessity, an expert on picture books. She's paid attention and knows exactly which books she is going to have to read five times during a week of bedtime rituals. If you'd like to visit her blog it is Breathe In Breathe Out.

So we went through the picture book mock-up and commented on the pictures we loved and made a few suggestions. Then we took a pencil and drew straight lines through text. It wasn't really as hard as we expected. With the pictures in the background, much of the narrative plummeted on the importance scale. We had a ball, and we can't wait to share this project with you All.

Rewriting

Working on Ch 25; 44,511 word count

Writer's Tip: So often you hear that good writing is rewriting. I do it as I go. Some people plow through and do their rewrites either in great chunks or starting at the very beginning of a completed first draft.

Today, one, too long, horribly too long sentence needs work:

She held Rayn's limp form against her shoulder, stepped into the shallow water, and followed, her long skirt making each stride difficult.

She held Rayn’s limp form against her shoulder and stepped into the shallow water to follow. Her long skirt made each stride difficult.

Okay, that's better, but the reader isn't so immersed in the story that he is struggling with her.

She clutched Rayn’s limp form against her shoulder. She had to follow. Stepping into the shallow water, she kept her eye on Bealomondore's body. She had to reach him in time.

Her long skirt clung to her legs, constraining her stride, tripping her with every other step. Anger brought tears to her eyes. But the fury gave her the strength to forge on.

He needed help. She would get there.

Lost

Chapter 19; 33,702

Writer's Tip: Not lost like a the TV show, but a lost character. As I looked over the scene I wrote yesterday, I realized a very important minor dragon was on the first and second page, but disappeared on the third, fourth, and fifth. No, he is not gifted with invisibility. The other characters were busy, and I just forgot him. So I went back and placed him on each page. He fit into the action on each page, so it wasn't to arduous. It is not necessary for every character who is known to be in the scene to appear on every page. However, ignoring someone for three whole pages is rude. Not only you have forgotten his presence, but the reader has as well. When he suddenly appears again, it knocks the reader out of the story. And that is not good.