7 December 1941 - Pearl Harbor

On a Sunday much like today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese had completely incorrectly assessed the likely American reaction, fully expecting us to roll over and come to the table to negotiate a peace. Instead, witnessing an enraged American public, President Roosevelt and members of Congress declared war on Japan the very next day, hurtling the country into World War II. 

Here's a web site with all kinds of information:

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-1.htm

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Thanks for stopping by today.

Thank you to all Veterans!

Please join me in thanking our veterans for their service and sacrifices.

Go Kansas City Royals!

I took a 1/2 day vacation day to come home and watch the Royals game. World Series, here we come!

The third Sgt. Dunn novel's first draft is done!

Yay! I finished the first draft of Brutal Enemy.

I wrote twelve pages this weekend to finish the book. Now the fun begins: the editing and expanding the details here and there.

I can't predict a publish date, but know that I am working every single day to make the book the best it can possibly be for you.

I expect to have it in the hands of my trusted FIRST READERS in about a week. I will continue editing while they are reading it for things like story continuity, pacing, and, of course, every writer's bane of existence, grammatical errors and typos, most often words that are left out, like 'the.' At least no one has to try to decipher my even worse handwriting. 


Thanks for stopping by.

Ronn

Started work on the 4th Sgt. Dunn novel . . .

 . . . even though I'm still writing on the third one! How can you do that? you ask.

As you can see from the little progress bar in the upper right I'm nearly 70% done with the first draft. So why start now on the next one? The truth is I'm always thinking about the next one when I'm in the midst writing one.

I'm writing a series with main characters whose lives we are watching at different points along a known timeline, specifically World War II. What I do as a writer is zero in on this group of ordinary men from America and England who would have been teachers, farmers, fishermen . . . if not for the war. The thing is, they do extraordinary things, which is what makes the stories. 

I have to take a look at all the events occurring around these men in the world of war torn Europe in 1944. Weaving their story lines with real events helps make them become people, not just characters in the books.

So, today I came up with about five or six plot points, or events, that need to occur. It's just a start, but I'm already excited by it.

Now it's time to get back to writing the third book, Brutal Enemy. By the way, I no longer title my books until I have written a good portion of them. I learned not to do that from my first one, which, if I recall correctly, went through three titles before Operation Devil's Fire. Now, I just title them sd# for Sgt. Dunn book number. Say hello to sd4.

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The joy of plot changes! Making your book better.

Seriously, I do mean joy. The past few days, I've been working on the second half of my newest book. In the midst of writing some pretty action-filled chapters, I discovered a better way for my main character, Sgt. Dunn, to resolve one of the more important events in the book. 

Without giving anything away, I suddenly realized he could "overcome" an impossible hurdle by doing something quite brazen, even for an action war story. As soon as I accepted this idea, which quite frankly came out of nowhere, everything else fell together rather quickly and I'm very happy with the results. Now that the plot has been revised, it's just a matter of writing the story, of following the little movie that plays in my head.

Writer's advice

Whether this is your first work or you've been at this awhile, always look for ways to make your story better. Examine what your character(s) is/are doing and how you can make things worse. Don't discard ideas that seem impossible to overcome. Figure out a way for your character to do that and you (and your readers) will root for him/her.

Writing the end before you get to the end . . .

Starting yesterday evening and then continuing into today, I wrote the ending of the book I'm working on before I actually got to the end. The book, Brutal Enemy, takes place in Italy during August 1944 and takes both Sergeants Dunn and Saunders there. Of course I'm not going to give anything away, so don't worry, no spoiler alert.

As you might know (previous posts) I completely plot my books. My first two books, Operation Devil's Fire and Behind German Lines had 64 and 67 chapters, respectively. The new one is at 67 right now.

As you can see from my little progress bar on the upper right of my blog, I'm at 56% done (as of today). So why write the ending? Think about how movies are often made: scenes taking place at the same location are filmed together. This is simply to cut down on production costs. Many times, the first scene might be filmed last and the last one, first. For me, it's because sometimes I'm not ready to write whichever chapter is "next" in line, but I am ready for a different one. Just because I create the entire plot, doesn't mean I'm forced to write the book in the order it will be appear to the reader.

So I had fun writing this piece of the book. It was an opportunity to wrap up things for some new characters.

Writer's advice

If you plot, but feel stuck or not ready for a chapter, skip around. Something else I've done is write an entire story arc for one character (or set of characters, in my case) in order, even though they are separated by chapters for other characters. Works very well with complex stories.

Thanks for stopping by.