I’ve been on a roll with the writing this last week.  So far in January I’ve written 30,000 words of the new Mr. Nightcrawler, and it’s coming along pretty darn good.

I’m a super fast writer, but terrible editor. I crank out words at an alarming rate, filled with nonstop typos, misspellings, and general mangling of the English language. I have this weird, almost idiot-savant thing going on. I’ll get on a roll, and then when I look up, it is five hours later, three o’clock in the morning, and the last hour I was writing utterly incoherant crap involving zombie walrus attacks and magic beenie babies, that is just going to get thrown out when I look at it again with a brain that isn’t fogged up.

There have been a few times where I’ve picked an argument on the internet, and the other guy felt somehow vindicated because I had written so much. Like the volume somehow proved that I cared too much or something. Beats me. I just don’t think most folks realize how fast I crank stuff out. The last time I took a timed typing test, I was at 85 words per minute. And when I get on a tear, I’m just pounding away, and I barely slow down to wipe the slobber off the screen.

This is the first novel I’ve written with a partner. Our styles are radically different. Mike will work a scene over and over and over, looking for perfection, trying to get everything just right. He’s a master of dialog. A day later he’s written a 1,000 word scene that is just beautiful, capturing all the emotions, and really telling the character’s story. Meanwhile, I’ve written 5,000 words of utter nonsense, and I’ll have to go back and spend five days trying to figure out where to put all the commas and how to correctly spell. (I’m still #1 on Google for the mispelling of Sweadish!) So I guess it all works out.

I’ve got another story idea that’s developing now. It is kind of sci-fi, and I’ve not done a real sci-fi story other than my screenplay (which I’m still waiting to hear if they want it or not). So now I’ve got another thing to write.  But it goes finish Mr. Nightcrawer #1, re-edit MHI 2, write the Africa book, write MHI 3, re-edit Mr. Nightcrawler #2, before I can even think about another one.

I heard an interview with Orson Scott Card once, where he said that he usually wrote a book in about 3-5 weeks of actual writing, but that was after years of having the idea. At the time, 3-5 weeks sounded insane, but then again, I was working like a madman, and writing really late at night, having exchanged sleep for Vanilla Coke. This being a semi-unemployed writer guy does have some perks. Not only do I get more time to write, but my kids actually like… recognize me and stuff.

I swear, when MHI:2 actually hits shelves, I’m going to write the dedication to the caffeine of 1,000 Vanilla Cokes.

I also taught 2 CCW classes this week. That was nice, because A. I need the money. B.It is always good to teach. I love teaching CCW, and I look forward to it warming up so I can teach some pistol again.

I’m still a long way from having the Baen version of MHI released. When it first went up for preorder on Amazon, a bunch of you ordered copies, and we shot way way way up the charts for a few days. It has tapered off now. And now we wait… and wait… and wait… Man that sucks.  Right now we’re floating in some nebulous super high number, which I guess means they might sell a preorder copy now and then. I’m just dying to see how good it does when there are actual books to ship. On that note, if you haven’t ordered yours yet, http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Hunter-International-Larry-Correia/dp/1439132852/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231696024&sr=8-1

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/bdtv/Player.php?id=2527

Okay, so you’ve got a zombie movie, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Ron “The Man” Perlman, and Henry Rollins as a friggin’ priest? That has classic written all over it. Ron Perlman is the high mackdaddy of all monster movies. Anything with Ron Perlman in it is already cool. Add Henry Rollins, and I’m down with this one.

I’ve been out of  the store since right before Christmas. I’m now officially an unemployed writer guy.

I’ve been working on the novelization of Mr. Nightcrawler. It has been coming along really well. I can honestly say that this is as good or better than anything I’ve ever written. My co-writer, Mike, has about six months before he has to ship off to EOD school, so we’re on a tight schedule, but we will make it. I’ll be farming this out to publishers about the same time MHI hits the shelves, so hopefully getting a thriller published will prove easier than the epic adventure getting MHI published was. 

Other than writing all day, I’ve been playing videogames. My family got me Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 for Christmas.  

Gears is just like the first one with some extra stuff added. The multiplayer is awesome, and Horde is amazingly fun. My only complaints about Gears 2 is the writing. Sometimes it is painful, but I’m just being whiny. The action is awesome, just sometimes I would like a little better dialog than the high-school football team stuff that we get from Delta Squad.

That, and as I play this game, I’ve got to ask, why the hell did humanity land on this awful planet? Did we run out of gas? Let’s see, you’ve got sky piranhas, giant super fish, killer dinosaurs, mega-worms, giant spiders, the locust horde, razor hail, and now the glowing oil stuff makes mutant zombies. Hell, that sounds like where I’d want to settle down. As I was playing through on co-op, I kept saying, “Man, this planet totally sucks!”  Sera makes Dune seem like a pleasant vacation spot.

Fallout 3 is simply amazing. If you’ve played Oblivion, it is very similiar only with a Mad Max vibe. It sucks you in. As I play it, my family actually sits around and watches as the story unfolds, because it is like taking part in a movie.  What an epic game.

After video games, there’s always bad movies. I’ve been watching a bunch of my typical B movie fare. Last night was Danish vampires in Nattens Engel. Which is Angel of Night in English. Holy crap, this movie was bad. But every once in awhile it was so bad it had moments of awsome.  The story didn’t make a lick of sense, and you literally despise every character in it, but their badness made it somehow entertaining. Yay Denmark! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138647/

But the vacation can’t last forever. I’ve applied for a couple of accounting jobs.  Working 40 hours a week like a normal person is still kind of a vacation.

2008 was an interesting, fun, and in some ways, idiotic year. So let’s recap.

WORLD NEWS

As usual, most of the world sucked and was run by morons. In 2008, Angry Muslim Terrorists blew stuff up, and we blew up Angry Muslim Terrorists, while people who should know better whined about violence and George Bush. Having finally killed enough Angry Muslim Terrorists, the war in Iraq was pretty much won, but you probably didn’t see that on the news. I caught a few minutes about that in between coverage about how awesome Obama was.  

Then some dude threw his shoes at the President. Apparently throwing shoes is some sort of really big insult in backwards nations that enjoy a high percentage of man/goat relationships. I was disappointed that the Secret Service didn’t immediately chainsaw bayonet the guy into lunchmeat.

China held the Olympics. Despite China’s clear wins in games like Dissident Executing, America still kicked ass, led by weredolphin Michael Phelp’s fifty-seven gold medals.

In European news, Russia was so terribly offended by the new Indiana Jones movie, that dared to portray them as bad guys, that they promptly retaliated by steamrolling Georgia into rubble. Europe, being run by a bunch of socialist wimps, was too busy having giant parties celebrating the upcoming election of Barack Obama as Rock Super Star of the EU to actually do anything. Besides, Europe doesn’t actually have militaries anymore, since those cost money that could otherwise be spent on programs to provide free cocaine to hookers in Amsterdam.

In other world news, the world economic system, which was entirely based on giving home loans to hookers in Amsterdam, also collapsed.

US NEWS

In a historic election, proving how unbigoted we are, and how we’ve put America’s shameful history of racism behind us, we elected the first communist as president. This historic achievement occurred during the Great Presidential Crusade of 2006-2008, when the entire US news industry became the Office of Democratic Truth and Enlightenment. Under such auspicious reporting during the primaries we were able to choose between a communist and Satan’s concubine on the Democrat side, and on the Republican side we got to choose between several democrats and a Reptoid from the Hollow Earth, i.e. America’s Mayor. When all was said and done, the democrats went with the communist and we ran a sock puppet.

We are so boned.

A sad aftereffect of the Great Presidential Crusade by the Office of Democratic Truth and Enlightenment was that they managed to destroy the US economy.  Now I know you’re saying, wait a minute, Correia, “That’s going too far. The economy was destroyed by lending money to idiots (as was mandated by congressional democrats) who couldn’t pay it off and then loaning more idiots money on those loans while we were paying oil sheiks $5 a gallon because we’re too stupid to tap our own resources.”

And I would have to agree with you except for one thing. The economy runs on good feelings. No, seriously. If people feel upbeat, they continue to invest and spend. If people are freaked out, they hunker down. When everybody hunkers down and quits spending money, then people start to lose their jobs. With Iraq wrapped up, the media needed something to bitch about to get their guy elected, so they picked the economy. 24/7 we got to hear about how we were suddenly in the Great Depression. They just pushed and pushed and pushed, even when the vast majority of people were doing just fine.

So then it all spiraled out of their control, and now we’re hosed. True, we’re not even doing as bad as we were doing in the early 1980s, but that doesn’t matter. This kind of thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The economy is based on good feelings, (it sure as heck isn’t based on anything that makes sense) and the good feelings were destroyed out of political expediency and propaganda. Thanks a lot, idiots.

LOCAL NEWS

In 2008 I released a little Print-On-Demand book that managed to turn into a hit. Baen Books purchased the rights to Monster Hunter International, and now I’m eagerly awaiting the Summer 2009 release.

I quit my job and sold my shares to my partners. I spent the last few years working like crazy to turn FBMG into a great business. I’m really proud of what I did there, but working as many hours as I was, made it so that I had no time to write, and besides that, I was turning into that dad. You know, the one that never ever sees or does anything with his kids, and after years of working 80 hours a week, he comes home and finds them all grown up. Yeah, I was turning into that guy, and I really didn’t want to do that.

So now I’m a semi-unemployed writer guy. If anybody needs an accountant/manager, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you my resume. I’ve actually got a pretty darn good skill set.

As much as I loved running my own business, I really look forward to working 40 hours a week like a normal person, but in the meantime, I’m going to be blissfully unemployed and enjoy the vacation. I’ve got a little savings in the bank and a bunch of books to write. 

Happy New Year!