Thank you for stopping by! This is your place for information about
JD Williams, writer of science fiction and fantasy.

UPCOMING PROJECTS

“Radical,” other-world nonstop action thriller (short science fiction novel).

“Wasteland,” spaceship adventure (novel format).

“Drive,” YA space adventure (short science fiction novel).

“Spurs,” paranormal romance action-thriller (short novel).

“East,” mystery space thriller (short science fiction-horror novel).

NEWS AND COMMENTS

Updated every Monday (usually)

May 14, 2012

Back Again, And Rambling Too

Okay, so I missed a Monday. I had no update last week — my first miss since I pledged to post something new every Monday. It probably won’t be the last time. It’s not like I didn’t have anything to say. I always have something to say (although had I posted, I probably would’ve just gushed on and on about The Avengers movie). Last week was one of those weeks. Important things came up.

Actually, the being too busy to write began before last week, and it reminded me of something. When I take a break from writing, I often come back creativity charged up.

Yes, more story ideas have popped into my head. My cannibalization project mentioned two weeks ago is progressing. It’s now looking like a series of stories. Concepts are also bouncing around that will probably become the first or second sequel to “Radical.” (And hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll have more news regarding that project.)

Speaking of “Radical,” once I have definitive word on its fate, I plan to make several posts that will relate to that story.

So my life seems to be straightening out once again. I’m getting back into the swing of writing. A forced break can be beneficial. Now, as long as I don’t have too many ideas bouncing around my head and can keep focused on just a few of them, things will be back to normal.

Well, as normal as anything can be for a writer.

April 30, 2012

The Art Of Cannibalization

Some people have to fight their urge to ask writers, “Where do you get your ideas?” This won’t be much of an answer, but I’ll share one place some of us get our newest ideas from:

Ourselves.

Yes, I’m talking the art of cannibalization. Last week, I got the inspiration for a new story. (Sorry, no insight on where that came from.) But I needed more for the plot. I realized I had jotted down a similar idea long ago. I dug through my computer notes and found the skeleton of a plot from years and years ago. I added a lot of those old plot elements to my new idea and am now almost done with a plot for a 20,000-word novella.

I make it a point to jot down ideas when they come to me. (Again, sorry, but no elaboration where those might be coming from.) Many of these ideas get a general plot, either as soon as I start writing down the idea, or much later when I’m looking for inspiration and uncover the idea again.

I know I won’t turn most of these ideas into stories for a variety of reasons. The two biggest are, not original enough as they are, and just too many total to ever get written.

But every once in a while, something I added to an ideas file long ago proves helpful in the present. Last week was just such an occasion.

I’d recommend to all writers that they keep handy a notepad or a computer file (one of my digital idea files is called “Notepad”!) and jot down every good idea that pops into their head. Someday it just might get used, and when you least expect it.

April 23, 2012

Politics In My Writing

I was at an extended family get-together recently when, while a group of us stood chatting, one of my cousins made a disparaging comment about a major politician I support. I immediately made my political position clear. Another cousin, who at first agreed to the initial comment, jumped in with a very nonpartisan statement displaying respect for anyone who accomplishes as much as the…

Well, I think he wanted to keep any political discussion civil, and at that point the whole political talk fizzled out instead.

“Can we have political discussions that are civil” could be a post from me another time. (It probably wouldn’t be a long post. The simple answers are “we should be able to” and “that’s what’s needed most now.”)

No, this post addresses the influence of my personal politics on the stories I currently write.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a concrete view of my politics in what’s out so far, and in the projects that will come out next.

My in-progress SF YA novel gets subtly political in the middle, and for those who catch on, my politics will then be crystal clear. There are also clues in other places in my writing, but most are just too subtle.

In time, readers will know where I stand on the issues ideologically. For now, it seemed a safer bet to be less controversial at this point in my writing career. I can’t afford to alienate readers yet by having them say to others, “Do I read any of J.D. Williams’ stuff? Are you serious? Do you know what his politics are?”

Down the line, maybe I’ll be able to afford turning off some readers. Better yet, hopefully they’ll keep reading, not notice the politics and become enlightened.

April 16, 2012

My TimeStream Pledge

After writing a novel like TimeStream, two interesting dilemmas present themselves.

The first has to do with writing any possible sequel. Almost the entire point of the book is based on one epic story twist, even if that twist comes less than halfway into the story. That twist cannot be repeated in subsequent books, sequels or prequels or anything. Once it’s revealed in the first book, something like that cannot be “revealed” again.

Well, there is one way it could be “revealed” for a second time, and it’s really a cool notion. Here’s how:

I don’t put the word “TimeStream” in the title of a sequel. In other words, there’d be no indication that a new novel was in fact a sequel to TimeStream.

This is the only way I could possibly reuse the timestream revelation in another story. Publish something, get readers to invest in the characters, the conflict and the scenario, and then wham, guess what? Hey, it turns out this story was also set in a timestream!

Of course, readers might not like such an unexpected twist.

So all of this brings me to the second dilemma.

How can readers know any subsequent book from me isn’t a secret sequel to TimeStream? How can anything I ever write next not be suspected by the reader that somewhere near the final chapters, it will be revealed that everything the reader has read so far turns out to be a timestream?

I guess you’ll have to trust me. Oh wait, that might not be firm enough. Okay. So…

I hereby pledge not to write a secret sequel to TimeStream for the foreseeable future. New novels from me will not end with everything revealed to have taken place in a timestream as defined in the original book.

So there you go. No need to worry, dear reader.

So, if I ever change my mind, you’ll know when I post, “Remember that TimeStream pledge I made? Well…”

April 9, 2012

Tales Of The Marketable Title

Titling novels is always a challenge, made more complicated these days because there are just so darn many books out there already, and authors have had the audacity to give them all titles. So a lot of ideas have been used up.

I originally used the guidelines “make it intriguing” and “make it short.” I eventually subscribed to the notion “don’t make it unnecessarily esoteric.” The hardest guideline though would be “make it unique.” My two published ebooks miss on that mark, and so will the novel I’ve just wrapped up edits on.

I suppose another guideline now would be, “Is the domain name available?” Yeah, TimeStream and Remote Eyes miss on that too.

Writers can spend a lot of time on Google and Amazon.com, seeing how used is the title we want to employ.

Sometimes, a novel wants to be a certain title. Once I get that certain title stuck in my mind, it’s hard to change it (like TimeStream and Remote Eyes). I want to go with the actual title for “Radical” regardless how much it’s been used already. (Yes, I’m referring to my projects by their codenames.)

And “Wasteland” has had its title for so long, it’s hard to think of it as anything else but what it’s been called for years, even though it violates my not-too-esoteric rule.

The real title of “Drive” is the most unique of any novel I’ve done so far. It meets all five of my criteria — intriguing, short, not too esoteric, unique and even the URL is available.

My first efforts to assign a title to the paranormal romance-thriller netted nothing but titles that had been used already. I finally came up with something that meets four of the five criteria. (It might be a bit esoteric, but for a novel dealing with the supernatural, I’m rationalizing this could be a plus.)

The real title for “East” might be too short and too esoteric and doesn’t give enough sense of what the book is about, plus it could conjure images of something totally unrelated to the underlying science fiction concept that is, well, comical. But the title describes the main characters and in a nutshell sets them apart in just a half dozen letters. It certainly qualifies as “short.” I’ll eventually know if a publisher likes the title.

To me, the best titles for anything — books, TV shows, movies — are Star Trek, Star Wars and Stargate. So of course my first inclination is always, “How can I work ‘star’ into the title of my next book?”

Someday, I will.

April 1, 2012

I Know My Readers

(Note: I decided to put up this week’s post a day early. No particular reason. Honest.)

I see what’s going on. I have eyes, and I’ve been keeping them on my site counter.

Visitors a few weeks ago dropped to almost nonexistent. At first, I couldn’t figure out why. It couldn’t be that day’s post. People would have to actually visit the site to decide they hated that post. Was it the previous week’s post? Did I bore everyone away? No, that post wasn’t so bad. Then it hit me. The drop-off coincided with college basketball tournaments, the forerunners to the NCAA championship.

March Madness.

My visitors for one week disappeared almost entirely because of college basketball. Really? Okay. Never to be one who’s deaf to his readers’ wishes, I’ve decided to alter my upcoming projects list (yes, again) to accommodate the tastes of those who apparently are reading my books and frequenting my site.

New books in the works now are as follows:

TimeStream II: Time Out. In this sequel to my novel TimeStream, Nick and Karenna travel to a new timestream where the Ascendants are placing wages on a classic NCAA basketball tournament, jeopardizing the integrity of their world-spanning experiments.

Remote Eyes II: Remote Bracketology. Thelo Dixon, now an accomplished technical engineer for the mega-corporation Vrax, helps launch the Remote Eyes technology to the whole world, and billions everywhere can live March Madness through the eyes of the college athletes themselves. No real conflict or bad guys in this story, just March Madness!

Eternal Overtime. In this paranormal romance, a college basketball team composed of vampires qualifies for the NCAA tournament. But so does a team of werewolves. Will they meet in the Final Four, or will they both be placed in the same regional in New York, Chicago, Houston or Transylvania?

Seeds Of Hoop. Spaceships, distant worlds, unknowable aliens and the NCAA college basketball tournament. Need I say more?

By the way, happy first of April to everyone, and thanks for reading.

March 26, 2012

The Business Of Creativity

There’s art (in this case, writing), and then there’s business. Often the two do not mesh. You’ll make a living sooner if your audience finds your art, rather than your art goes looking for an audience.

It’s all well and good to follow one’s muse and write whatever inspiration gives. Problems arise when what we write doesn’t appeal to a wide enough audience.

Paranormal romance has done quite well for itself. Titles along this genre are still flooding the market, especially with vampires, and as much as many critics and editors talk about moving beyond the point of saturation, readers are still snapping up these books, hence more are published.

I’ve wanted to write a paranormal romance for quite a while. The problem was, I didn’t have an idea I was happy with. (Well, I had one idea, and I’ll probably write it sooner than later, but it’s more the standard paranormal romance concept but with a rather unique setting.) Now I have the idea. And not just any idea. Something big and involved and convoluted enough to justify at least a trilogy, and probably more.

In the interest of working on something that falls into a very popular market, I’ve decided to make the paranormal romance-thriller my next project. I had planned on something with some horror and another something with some romance to be my next projects anyway. So really, I’m just exchanging sort of equal concepts, right? (Anybody with me on this one? Anyone?)

I’m nearly done with “Drive,” my YA science fiction adventure. “Spurs” is next. That paranormal romance-thriller just kept calling to me.

It’s funny being a writer when one’s own project seems to take on a life of its own. Or in this case, an undead life of its own. It is paranormal, after all.

March 19, 2012

Codenames

Writers are weird. That’s not even a post-worthy topic. It’s a given. The only variant is weird to what degree. Case in point…

I used to give my upcoming novels codenames derived from the title’s initials.

My favorite of these was “Greenlight,” the codename assigned to my unpublished third manuscript. That codename was achieved as follows: The book’s real title had the initials GO. What means “go”? A green light! The codename “Greenlight” was short and direct and intriguing. Of course, nowhere in the story does any green light play any kind of role, but that’s not the point.

A title for a never-completed manuscript had the initials FE, so that book’s codename was “Iron,” since Fe is the chemical symbol for iron. Then I altered the title and its initials became FD. So much for “Iron.”

The benefit of a codename was it allowed me to discuss new books without giving away a potentially good title. I miss codenaming my projects.

Now that I’m listing vague descriptions of upcoming novels, I’d like to resurrect this practice. One of the novels (the spaceship adventure) is actually a rewrite of an old manuscript, and it already had its codename — “Wasteland.” Again, like “Greenlight,” “Wasteland” is based on the real title’s initials (TV, of course, although really the title’s initials are TTV where the first T stands for “the”).

Now I need codenames for my next projects. Besides being clever and intriguing, they need to be short. The whole idea is to reference upcoming projects quickly.

My recently completed manuscript has a one-word title as it is, and that title starts with an R. It’s a title that’s been used several times for other books already published, and I don’t want to let on I’m using the same title for my novel. Falling back on chemistry, I’m going to use the codename “Radical.”

The title of my in-progress YA novel has the initials DR, and although I’d love to codename this one “Dead Reckoning,” that’s too long. “Drive” works much better.

Then there are my next two novels to be written. I’m not sure on the order, but next is either my SF-horror novel (“East”) or, more likely, that new paranormal romance-thriller (“Spurs”).

Hopefully more to come from me soon about “Radical,” “Wasteland,” “Drive,” “East” and “Spurs.”

March 12, 2012

My First Novel Was My Fourth

Funny thing about writing. We don’t always sell our first manuscript. Or our second. Or our third. Even more funny (or more like weird), after we write our seventh or eighth manuscript, then we sell our third or fourth manuscript.

TimeStream is my first published novel, but it was my fourth manuscript. Remote Eyes, my second novel to be published, was my sixth manuscript. I am currently at work writing my ninth manuscript and wrapping up edits on the eighth. After that, I need to decide which project will be my tenth manuscript — my SF-horror novel or my recently conceived paranormal romance action-thriller.

Currently making the rounds is my recently rewritten fifth manuscript. At some point, hopefully before the year is out, I want to complete a rewrite of my seventh manuscript.

(For those of you keeping track, this leaves out manuscripts one, two and three. More about those another day.)

In what order will any of these see the light of day — in other words, be published? Who knows? That’ll be a post for another time.

March 5, 2012

Creative Percolation

My creative process is something like this: get inspiration for a new story, anything from the kernel of a notion to a full-fledged idea; reach the point where I think I have typed up enough notes to begin plotting out the entire novel; make a chapter by chapter breakdown; and finally arrive at the conclusion that this puppy is ready to be turned into a manuscript.

Then I let it sit. For weeks or even months, if not longer.

This occurs both from necessity and choice. I tend to come up with ideas for novels and build them up while I’m writing something else. I’m usually two or three outlines ahead of myself. (Actually, I have nearly a dozen novels outlined right now, and several, for various reasons, are not going to be written anytime soon. Hmmm, sounds like a post for another time…)

So I come up with a new plot and let it sit while I finish writing my current novel. This gets my mind away from the new idea, allowing me to look at it in a fresh light weeks or months down the line. It’s at this point either I decide I like what I have so far or, more likely, I realize the plot still needs work because once the exhilarating haze of the initial inspiration has cleared, I see my idea ain’t as brilliant as I had first thought.

Now the plot either sits and awaits more inspiration, or I dissect and analyze what I have so far, and remedy what needs remedying.

The gap between initial inspiration and fresh look is my percolation phase. Like I said, it’s both choice and necessity. So far, I like the way things are working for me.

Now if only that darn new plot for a paranormal romance I just recently came up with wasn’t screaming at me to write it without letting it percolate for at least a short while.

February 27, 2012

The Joy Of Inspiration

I love almost all aspects of writing, but certain ones I love more. Okay, editing may be my least favorite part, but it’s enjoyable in its own way. And completing a project and writing that last line and knowing the story is done, that’ll always be special. But there’s another aspect of writing that thrills me.

I love getting the inspiration for a new idea, followed by the mad rush of jotting down a few to a ton of notes that are the beginning of fleshing out the concept, the background, the characters and the plot.

I look at it as getting one of two types of story inspiration — something totally random and out of the blue that I wasn’t consciously looking for (as far as I could tell anyway), and ideas for stories that I did want.

I experienced the latter just last week.

For almost two years, I’ve wanted to come up with a paranormal romance idea, but I couldn’t think up any concept that felt like it would be my own and not be too derivative of other stories already out there. And let’s face it, there are a lot of paranormal romances out there that cover a lot of different bases.

So an idea hit me, and son of a gun, I liked it.

Maybe it’s because I’m halfway through my YA science fiction novel and next up is an SF horror novel, and that got my subconscious ready to conceive a paranormal romance. Or maybe it’s watching the TV show Lost Girl. I don’t know. But a paranormal romance idea has come to me, and I’m excited.

Now, there’s a fine line between inspiration for a story idea and inspiration to write. Sometimes the two are so close, they’re indistinguishable. The plot for my paranormal romance is not only coalescing in my mind, it’s screaming it wants to be written. And the sooner, the better. We’ll see.

February 21, 2012

Holidays And Writing

There are no holidays for writers, so to speak. I’m not talking about just Christmas and New Year’s. The calendar has plenty of other holidays on it. Writers never know when inspiration is going to hit, and it’s always best to jot down something when our muse speaks to us.

Writers can plan to write on a holiday, but how often does that work out? The family is around, there are places to go, people to see, and hey let’s go see that movie we wanted to see before it stops showing.

I normally plan to get some writing done when others have a day off. Writing is part of my routine. But the funny thing is, I’ve found it’s easier to keep a routine when it’s a routine day.

February 13, 2012

Outlining The Plot

There are several major things I love about writing on a computer versus the ancient way of using a typewriter or pen/pencil and paper. One of the biggest is the ease of making changes and not having to waste reams of paper doing it.

The other is the word processing application, and specifically, the outline feature.

All my novels are plotted out in a sort of outline form.

Many, many years ago, I used the index card method to plot my novels — write significant story points on a card, insert more cards into the sequence for elaboration as needed, keep working on the order of the cards until the plot worked. I still remember spreading index cards around a table or, when the plot was nearly done and entailed hundreds of cards, across the floor. One stack for the main characters’ story arcs, another stack for key events, another stack for background, and so on, then slowly combining them into one eventual stack. The plot of the book. I couldn’t imagine the method getting any bet, but it did.

Using an application’s outline mode allows me to look at the plot to a novel at whatever level I need — at just the major events (by collapsing most of the levels), or at the finest details.

The thing is, I really look forward to outlining a new novel. When inspiration hits me, I often have so many ideas rushing through my head, jotting down brief notes is the best I can do to keep up.

And best of all, when I come back to an incomplete plot weeks or months later, sorting through the stuff I’ve typed up already can often reignite the creative process, especially if it’s still screaming to be put into a coherent order.

February 6, 2012

What’s In A Name

I’d like to offer a blanket Thank You to all those wonderful people who put together webpages that have some sort of name generator on them. Fantasy or realistic, they’re proving more and more valuable to me.

I never thought I’d get to this point, but naming my characters (and planets and stars and lands and countries) often threatens to stop me in my tracks. In my current work-in-progress, my notes still refer to “MC4.” That’s “Main Character 4.” I’m a quarter of the way into the book, and she has yet to be officially named. She’s already appeared but was referred to only by a title, which is key to the plot because when someone new comes in during act 2, two of the main characters wonder, “Have we met her previously?”

I wasn’t going to let a simple matter of not having what I felt was the right name for this character stop me from writing the novel. Although “MC4” works fine in my outline, it’s going to look silly typing, “They recognized her from earlier. She was MC4.”

Now, for my next novel, I came up with a unique way (for me) to name my main characters. The thing is, will I really want to give away where I got their names anytime before the book is published? Sounds like a post for another time!

For now, thank you to those name generators!

January 30, 2012

Extra Eyes

I just finished editing one of my novels. This was the fine-tooth-comb editing stage — finding repetitive words, weak sentence structure and the dreaded typos. I’m not amazed I make typos. I’m amazed how some of them can go unnoticed for so many read-throughs.

What also gets me are the typos I notice when I’m looking for some other kind of problem. It’s almost as if the typo is invisible when I want to find it, but it’s right there when I’m looking for something else. I think there’s some kind of left brain-right brain thing going on here, and if I can figure out what it is, I’ll patent it and bottle it and start selling it as soon as I can put it into production.

That’s why I always recommend authors have others read over their work. It doesn’t have to be a lot of people, but a few trusted beta readers are a great benefit. We can get so close to our own words that we end up not being able to see the forest for the typos.

January 23, 2012

Look Up To The Right

Above and on the right is a text box that contains my “Upcoming Projects” info. This is where I’ll list new projects in as much detail as I can at the time. Until contracts are signed (and sometimes, not even then), I’m not going to list titles. But I will give enough hints or clues or abbreviations or something so that, as the months go by, I can talk about the projects in one way or another to whet the appetite.

For now, my next project is a short science fiction adventure novel, set on a world undergoing terraforming. That’s only the slightest taste of what it’s about. As publication gets closer, I’ll drop more hints, teasers and background for the book. In the meantime, “short science fiction adventure novel” is all I’m going to say about it. More to come on it, guaranteed.

January 16, 2012

@JDWilliamsSciFi

Yeah, it had to happen. I’ve joined Twitter. And wow, are there a lot of JD Williamses out there already, tweeting away.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with Twitter yet. Probably post updates about progress on my writing or breaking news about new novels.

While I hope my website posts will give readers a glimpse into the production of my writing, I don’t intend to use Twitter to waste followers’ time with the ultra-mundane. (“Yes, pizza again tonight. Don’t you love it?”)

On the other hand, anything deemed too trivial for the website may indeed find its way to Twitter. (“Keeping up with my intended pace on new novel. Another week, another 5,000 words.”)

But I don’t plan to spend much time composing tweets. If nothing worthwhile comes to me, then nothing gets tweeted, unlike the website, which I plan to update every week.

Although after this website post, it looks like I have my next two tweets already. (Yes, had pizza yet again recently. I love me my pizza!)

January 15, 2012

Mondays It Is

I had my second website update for 2012 all ready to go. It was a post describing how updates henceforth would always appear on Tuesdays, and I went on to explain, in excruciating detail, how I arrived on Tuesdays as the day of the week for updates.

Then I changed my mind, before I could even post Tuesdays were the day.

So now it’s Mondays for updates.

Why? Why not. We all need something to make Mondays special, right? Mondays are already special, but not extra cheese on the pizza special. More like Marge Simpson saying her Bart is special. So Mondays it is.

Will I update and/or post on other days? Yes, if needed. If something big is about to happen, I’ll let everyone know as soon as possible.

Otherwise, for the rest of eternity, I update on Mondays.

Until I change my mind. Again.

January 10, 2012

Change Is Good… Right?

I’ve decided to make some changes to my website. Some will be small. Some will be big. Some may never evolve beyond just the hypothetical.

For the new year, I plan to talk about my upcoming projects more. It’s been a while since TimeStream and Remote Eyes were published, and there’s an ongoing gap until my next new novels appear. Thanks to the weirdness that is Publishing and Scheduling, it may appear I’m more prolific than I really am for a while. It’s possible that by the end of the year, I’ll have six novels somewhere between final edits and sitting on a publisher’s schedule.

The biggest change will be philosophical. I’m going to try to post at least one new update every week. Not that I don’t always have something on my mind, but every-week updates may have to be trivial at times and short because I’m too busy with my actual writing, but the plan is, each week something new somewhere on this site will go up, and the home page will be the place it either happens or is announced.

“Saying” and “doing” are two different things. If I put it in writing, that may force me to do more than just say I’ll update my site every week. It may be the motivation to keep me doing it every week

So look for new stuff on this site every week. I like the idea of updates appearing on a set day each week. Now to decide which day…