Killer Eyes Almost Ready, but...

I'm wrapping up the revisions for the Killer of Killers sequel, Killer Eyes, and in that story some of the things that were left unresolved in Killer of Killers are resolved in Killer Eyes. But a couple other things that crop up in Killer Eyes are left unresolved. So that means that there will have to be another book in the series. I've talked about it before, tentatively giving the third book the title The Killers Guild, but only because I liked the concept of the Killers Guild, and I thought it also made a good title for a book.

I even almost changed the title of Killer Eyes to The Killers Guild, but ultimately I decided to retain the title Killer Eyes. And for the third book I have a good idea just what the story will be about. Yes, it will be the continuing adventures of Trent Smith, but it will also have to deal directly with those issues brought up in Killer Eyes that were left unresolved. Understand I did it on purpose. I fixed those problems I talked about, but in doing so it left a subplot that starts in Killer Eyes, but is not wrapped up. That's where the third story will go. Wrapping that up. And the third book should wrap up the Trent Smith saga.

But that's not final. Who knows? I may keep going. That's what series do, of course. Bottom line, there will be at least three. And then we'll see.

Writing New Books and Revising Old Ones

Authors, I'm sure, get new ideas for books pretty regularly, and when they do, they write novels. Sometimes long ones, sometimes not so long, and sometimes pretty short. I've not been someone who writes short stories. I may one day, but the novel length story seems to be what I do. And every once in a while I get a new idea. I may even dream of an idea. Like my football story, Second Chance.

But writing a novel length story isn't something that can be done at the drop of a hat. You have to plan it out, write the synopsis, maybe even an outline, and then write the whole thing out. But you are not close to being done. You have to revise it over and over and over again. Not to mention the editing process, and then you may have to rewrite several parts, or the whole thing.

I can't count how many times I rewrote Killer of Killers. But that was my first novel, so that's explainable. Even The Vase I rewrote a couple times, and I'm in the process of rewriting Killer Eyes right now, although it may be simply referred to as a strong revision.

I'm sure I'll need to rewrite John Dunn before it gets close to submission-ready, and when I finally write Second Chance I think I will finally be past the need for rewrites. After all I've learned a lot writing my first four books, so I think I'm good enough now that it won't be necessary. I've written over 2,000 words so far, and it reads very well. Of course, Killer Eyes reads very well, too, but that was after a couple rewrites. Killer of Killers and The Vase were the ones where all the learning took place. Particularly The Vase, because the editor over there pulled no punches when it came to what he expected in the writing for a novel, and I was eager to learn. But I applied all of that learning to the second edition of Killer of Killers, and I am still very pleased with how it turned out.

And of course I'm applying all of that to Killer Eyes, too. And I will apply it to the rewrite for John Dunn. And as I write Second Chance, that learning is being applied in the first rendition. That will make any revisions much easier, and I dare say, it will make revising a lot less necessary. I won't go so far as to say it will be right on the first draft, but it will most likely be the best first draft of any book I had written to date. So that bodes well for Second Chance. And every other book I write from now on. The future looks bright.

Killer Eyes--A lot of Swordplay

My debut novel, Killer of Killers features the world's greatest martial artist. If you've ever taken a martial arts class, it's likely that you learned to use more than just your bare hands. Yes, martial arts classes are self-defense classes that train you how to defend yourself without weapons. And that's as it should be. For Trent Smith, empty hands is his preferred method of fighting.

Martial arts classes, however, also teach you how to use the traditional weapons used in Asian fighting. And there's a lot of them. But one of the more popular weapons of that sort, at least in Japan, is the katana, also known as the Samurai sword. And the katana is still popular today. Mostly in movies, I suppose, since people don't go around carrying katanas much.

In Killer of Killers, not once does Trent Smith use a katana or any other weapon, In fact, he refers to guns and knives as "weapons of cowards." But when confronted by dozens of ninja like warriors, and all of them carrying katanas, your empty hands put you at a disadvantage. So Trent is forced to use a katana to defend himself against the sword carrying villains.

And as I continue to revise Killer Eyes, which I was doing a lot over the weekend, I see Trent using a katana quite a bit in that story. Which is a stark contrast to the first story, where he never used a sword or any other kind of weapon at all. I deliberately refrain from calling the swords katanas, however. And that's because the horde of swordsmen using them are not Japanese. They are the Chinese equivalent. My research has divulged the Chinese equivalent to Ninjas are the Ci Ke. In Chinese, that simply means assassins. (That's essentially what ninjas are, so it makes sense.)

But there's a lot more to the story than a bunch of ninja-like warriors out to get Trent Smith. There's that pesky wonder drug that centered the first story, there's the titanic bodyguards who protect the reclusive billionaire who funded its invention, and there's that slippery antagonist Karl Manoukian again. Yep, it's a fast paced thrill ride that picks up right where Killer of Killers left off. Killer Eyes will be published soon. I'll keep you advised.

One Author, Different Genres

Some authors will only write in one genre. Romance authors, from what I've seen, fit that description. They only write romance stories. You know, those novels that feature a naked or shirtless man on the cover, targeting a large female readership. And why not? Women, I hear, make up the majority of book readers and purchasers. So romance authors are cashing in on that fact. And they stick to it.

I know it can be true for other authors and different genres, also. Like detective stories. An author of crime/detective stories may also stick to that genre. Horror authors, too. They only write horror stories. Sci-Fi, too. A sci-fi author will be known as a sci-fi author, and a lot of them come to mind. Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Ray Bradbury, as well as H. G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and countless others. That list, like the one for Romance authors is a long one, actually.

But I find myself not being glued to a single genre. Killer of Killers and its sequel Killer Eyes are martial arts thrillers. The Vase is more political suspense with a touch of the paranormal. John Dunn is Historical Fiction. My current WIP is a sports story, possibly YA. I have another MG story on the backburner, that might also qualify as Fantasy, and I began my writing career with Sci-Fi.  I might even get back to that Sci-Fi story that I had worked on in my younger years.

So right there, I've dabbled in how many different genres? Six! And you know what? I'm glad for that. There's probably pros and cons for staying in one genre and pros and cons for being more diverse. If you stay in one genre with all of your books, I think you make yourself into what people call a brand. When the name Asimov or Bradbury are mentioned, you immediately think Sci-Fi. That is a brand. And that will establish the author as an expert in that genre.

But if an author, like me, for instance writes in six different genres, I don't think that will make me into a brand. That's not a bad thing, imo. Because I like to be diverse. And it keeps me interested. If I wrote only one genre, then I believe I'm restricting myself, and I'm more diverse than that. Will it limit my ability to be considered an expert in any single genre? Probably. But that's not my goal. My goal is to write interesting and exciting stories, stories that are entertaining, and maybe even have a message. I want to write stories that can make a difference. How can a story do that? If a reader can learn something from your story, that's how. At least, I think so. And that's why I write. And it's fun, too. At least it is for me.

New Novel Started, but Killer Eyes Still Being Revised

I've already started writing Second Chance, my new novel about a football player who lost his opportunity to play his senior  year in high school, but received a fluke second chance when he was 28. My outline/synopsis reads pretty well, so I thought I'd go ahead and begin writing the first chapter just to see how it turned out. So far so good.

As for Killer Eyes, the book I'm really excited about, it's improving by leaps and bounds. I never thought I'd like a book as much as the first one, Killer of Killers, but Killer Eyes is turning out better than I hoped. For a while, as I've posted here, I was worried about a couple snags in the story line. But those snags have been ironed out, and now that it's fixed, Killer Eyes is turning out great.

There's a lot of action, probably about as much action as in Killer of Killers, and there's a theme, even, which also was present in KOK. But it's not the same thing all over again. It's vastly different in many ways. For one thing, in KOK, the main character, martial arts master Trent Smith never once used any kind of a weapon other than his own bare hands. They call it empty hands. And his opinion of guns and knives? Well, I'll quote him: "Guns and knives...weapons of cowards."

But that's not to say that Trent Smith isn't a master with many types of weapons besides his empty hands. Being a Judan, he's an expert in many of the traditional weapons of the Japanese martial arts, and there's a lot of them. And due to the circumstances in Killer Eyes, Trent is forced to use at least one of them. The katana. That's the famous Samurai sword. You see, Trent is attacked by a lot of 'ninja-like' villains, all wielding katanas and when you're facing twenty plus 'ninjas' with katanas, it's best to have a katana, too. And Trent is an expert with a katana. (He trained for over twenty years at the world's greatest martial arts academy in Tokyo.)

Anyway, with the wrinkles ironed out, all that's necessary now is to keep polishing the prose, and make sure that the typos are fixed. Every once in a while I find a typo, and it only goes to show that no matter how many times you read through a manuscript, you'll keep finding those pesky things. So you fix it and you do it again. And all the while you make the writing better. Which is how you make your writing great. Constant improvement results in a well written story. And what author wouldn't want that?

Finally a Good Comic Book Movie

I used to collect comics. When I was 12. But I still have pretty much every comic I bought in those days. My favorite comic was The X-Men. And that was my favorite comic before it became the number one comic of all comics.

Sure, I liked Spider-man, the FF, and many more. You can say I was a Marvel Comics fan, not DC. I never really got into Superman, Bat Man or the DC universe. It was Marvel all the way. And the X-Men was my favorite.

So you can imagine I was glad to see it made into a movie. And the first movie was okay. But that's all it was. Just okay. Mostly they got the casting wrong. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was a great choice, but that's just about the only one who was a great choice. Patrick Stewart as Professor X was just okay, and the rest, totally wrong. I don't need to get into the why and what-could-have-been, because even though the second X-Men movie was a better movie than the first one, the third X-Men movie totally sucked. In every aspect, too, not just casting.

Again, I won't get into the why and what-could-have- been. I will say the fourth X-Men movie--X-Men First Class--was the worst of all. I mean it was as if the people who made that movie never read any of the comics, and knew absolutely nothing about the X-Men. It was a franchise that at this point was getting worse with every successive movie.

Yeah, the two Wolverine solo movies were good. Or at least good enough, imo. But the third and fourth X-Men movies were so bad, it would have been better if they never got made. That's how bad they were.

Which brings me to the fifth one. The one that just came out. X-Men-Days of Future Past. It was good. Surprisingly good. They used a story from the comics, (albeit liberally changed) but the story still worked. And the casting for a lot of the new characters they introduced was passable. Bishop's role in that story was minimal. He had a greater role in the comics. But understandably, they focused on Wolverine, since Hugh Jackman's enormous success in the role has made the character so popular.

But a pet peeve of mine is the usual bad writing. Mostly that happened in those two latter films, but in the latest one, the writing was a strong point. FINALLY. A very strong screenplay and it was pure joy watching it for the first time. I'm sure I'll see it again, and why not? The X-Men had always been my favorite superhero type comic book, and to see it well made was reassuring.

Can't wait to see how they top that. But now, I'm not so pessimistic. I think they will.

A Good Police Partner Movie

Every once in a while there's a real good police partner story that's worth watching. I remember Busting way back in the seventies which partnered Robert Blake and Elliot Gould. It was a good story, which I still remember. More recently, I thought Jason Statham and Jet Li worked well together, in the movie War. And there's been plenty others to be sure. I never got into the TV versions of police partner stories though. I never watched Starsky and Hutch, or Chips, or Miami Vice.

But I just happened to find another police partner movie on one of those Cable channels while channel surfing, and I recorded it on the DVR to watch one day, which I did. And I thought it was a very well written story. What attracted me to it at first was Chow Yun-Fat, the Chinese actor who's been in quiet a lot of films. I've liked all the movies he's been in, and so I thought I'd check it out. Mark Wahlberg was the other actor in the film, and I've liked most of his movies, too.

It's called The Corruptor, made in 1999, and it turned out to be well written, well produced, and of course, well acted. Like Robert Blake and Elliot Gould in Busting, and like Jason Statham and Jet Li in War, the two actors, Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg worked well together as police partners, and the story was well conceived. It played out with a couple of twists that took even me by surprise. There might have been a part that I disagreed with, but it didn't ruin the story, and it might have even made it more intense. What it did was justified the ending, which I can't divulge, because that would be a spoiler.

If you haven't seen The Corruptor with Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg, check it out. Especially if you like police partner stories. It's a good one.