JC Bybee

Another NaNoWriMo has come and gone.  I didn't hit the goal of 50k words.  I'm not too bummed out about it though.  I finished Hero Unit 3: Fallout, which I've been struggling with for months.  I made progress on a story that I started as whim.  I didn't think it would ever amount to much, but now I'm starting to hit my stride with it, and I like where it's going.  For me, that means my efforts over the last month were successful. The next question is always, where do I go from here?  Well, for starters I have a read through to do on Hero Unit before I send it to my editor (yes I have an editor now).  Of course, I want to continue with my new book, though it requires quite a bit more research than anything else I've written.  The biggest challenge is to keep the momentum I gained during November. Every year I put for the effort to participate, either officially or not, I struggle to maintain that momentum, the drive to finish books.  There are a number o

Well, here it is again, National Novel Writer’s Month.   For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is kind of how I got my start as an indie author.   Five years ago, I decided I was going to “officially” participate.   I registered on their website, I did daily word counts, all to try and see if I could actually do it.   The results of that effort led me to start Hero Unit as a series. Since then I’ve never participated to quite that level, for various reasons, both good and bad.   I think perhaps if I’d dedicated myself better, I would be farther along on some of my works in progress.   Small regrets aside, I’ll never forget what it was like to dedicate so much of my time to writing.   It rarely happens anymore with being a stay at home dad.   This year I made the decision to participate once again.   Now because I don’t work on Sundays for religious reasons, and my wife’s birthday is this month, that leaves me 25 days.   The math is pretty simple, 50k words divided by 25 days.  

Yesterday I made a post on Instagram about Mental Illness.  I explained that I have depression, and that there are days were it gets the better of me.  This post is a follow up to that. I want to make something clear, I am doing okay.  Please don't see this as a cry for help.  This is just me, doing my best to deal with my depression.  It is also my attempt to help others who might be in the same place. Here's a little background on me.  My depression cropped up when I was about seventeen.  Unfortunately I didn't get the help I needed, not because I was ashamed, or because people didn't believe me, or any of the terrible reasons others go undiagnosed.  I didn't know what was happening to me was wrong, neither did my parents, and if other adults in my life did, they didn't bother telling me. That's how I finished high school, suffering and not knowing it.  Luckily, when I was nineteen I served a mission for my church and the symptoms all culminated in m

So recently I've been working on a new project.  Some of my readers will not be overly thrilled with me starting yet another thing, but it's what I have to do at times to keep the ideas flowing. Anyway, new project.  As some readers might know, I'm a big fan of gaming.  When I say gaming, I mean both varieties, tabletop, and video.  My new project is a tabletop game world. Now for those that aren't sure what I'm talking about, let me explain. There are various rule sets for tabletop games out there.  One of the more famous being Dungeons and Dragons (D&D).  There are others, such as the Pathfinder Role Playing game, Savage Worlds, Champions, the Dresden Files, and many more.  With most of these games, you get a set of rules that determine how you play the game.  In general, you have a Dungeon Master or DM, sometimes they are referred to as a Game Master or GM.  They are responsible for telling the story, giving the other players an idea of what is going on. 

Have all the stories been told?   If you are a cynic, then yes.   No one is saying anything new, all writers are just repeating a handful of narratives with a new paint job.   To a point I agree.   Generally speaking, new plots are hard to come by.   And I’m okay with that.   Here’s the deal, we all are influenced by what we read.   That’s all there is to it.   I’ve talked about this before, but it’s true.   Most writers try to keep reading, even while they are creating.   It helps, believe me. Where I diverge from the cynical side of the observation is this idea that there is nothing new, or nothing original.   Just because we are reading the same basic narrative doesn’t mean it can’t be done in a new, or exciting way.   Who the characters are, their flaws, their loves, their struggles these are the aspects that make a book/story worth reading. Even if the idea is still as basic as stop the bad guy before he destroys the world, the details of the world, the people,

This post is all about the physical problems that characters have that make them interesting.   As I’ve mentioned previously, conflict is what drives a story, and there are times when the conflict can arise directly from the character.   Ace’s PTSD, for example.    Ace was unique, because she’s an Exceptional.   They can’t have physical health problems, so I had to go down the mental health route.   This is the option I prefer to use for my characters when it is appropriate.   The reason is simple, I’ve had to deal with depression since I was about seventeen.   It went undiagnosed until I was almost twenty.   I was lucky to have people who recognized the symptoms and were able to get me the help I needed. This experience has influenced my writing as I’ve developed my various characters and plots.   When I first started writing, most of my main characters didn’t have flaws.   I thought they did, but I was just deceiving myself.   I created these perfect characters, in part,

I didn't have anything particular to add this week, so here's an update on my various projects: Hero Unit 3:  Fallout - plugging away.  My word count is around fifteen thousand now, and I'm hoping to have it land somewhere between sixty and seventy thousand. The Merit System - Still working on the Hero Unit side of the rules, the fantasy side is doing well, almost ready for another play test Dusk and Might - coming along, nothing major to report Dragon Knights:  Rise - started a major revision/rewrite a few weeks ago, it's finally getting some traction, so forward progress Bard's Beginning - also receiving a major rewrite, still haven't gained any forward momentum though, the ideas are there, but the story isn't coming together as well as I would like Fey World (working title) - haven't touched it in a while, one of those stories that has good ideas, but I'm still trying to find the plot... That's all for my major projects.  I'v

When it comes to the end of a series I’m always of two minds.   There is my reader mind that is happy and sad at the same time.   Happy, because the story is wrapping up, and the characters are usually ending up in some form of happily ever after.   I’m sad, because for however long I’ve been a part of these character’s lives, I don’t really want that to end.   Then there is the writer side of things.   I ask, will this plot be satisfactorily resolved?   Does this feel like an appropriate ending?   I analyze the heck out of the thing.   This occasionally ruins the end of a book, but that’s the price I pay. The reason I’m addressing this point is simple; people have asked me if Hero Unit will have an end.   I’m not really sure.   If I was to follow the trend of a lot of the crime novels out there, a series doesn’t really end, at least not for ten or fifteen books.   It’s not like crimes stop happening.   Evil will still exist, so Ace will always have something to do.   The qu