Author: Dallas Taylor

Dallas Taylor is the grandson of a rum-runner, a valedictorian, a handyman, and a good Catholic girl. He lives and writes in Port Angeles, WA, and builds things for a living in his spare time.

Victorius Revolution Update

So, I know I’ve been pretty bad about getting new story segments up this past week or so.  My apologies to those who’re reading it as I write and wondering what happened; I got caught up in a side project (that I can’t talk about; and yes, it’s totally awesomely cool (but enough about that)).  But that’s all over now, and, aside from my regularly-scheduled life, and getting ready for Burning Man, and a couple of other things, I’m now back in the saddle, writing-wise, and will be posting new content regularly very soon.  I even wrote a few hundred words today, but I didn’t want to put them up because I haven’t finished the section and I want it to be a surprise what happens.  Hopefully tomorrow or the next day.

I really am going to start concentrating on this.  I promise. Continue reading “Victorius Revolution Update” →

Moving Right Along (Updated)

Despite the continuing challenges to my schedule-making skillz, I have managed to make some progress on the Victorius Revolution, though not, of course, as much as I would have liked.  On the plus side, I think I’ve got a fair bit of time I can devote to it in the coming days, so that’s good.

In terms of the story itself, I’ve got parts one and two loosely plotted out (one on actual paper, one in electronic notes; I keep intending to centralize, but when I actually have time to work on the story I’m usually pretty keen on just kicking out prose).  It helps me to know where I’m going when I’m writing, otherwise my fiction turns into a game of existential Grand Theft Auto, and my characters just wander around wondering to themselves what they’re doing. Continue reading “Moving Right Along (Updated)” →

Write-a-thon Project Update

Hey all.  Just a quick note for those following my current writing project (if you aren’t, and would like to, go here, and donate $10 or more).  I know it’s been a little while since I uploaded any new installments.  Life’s been extra engaging this summer, in most of the right ways, but proper scheduling has nonetheless proven difficult.

Long story short (ha ha), I did a bit of work on it on Friday, even wrote a few hundred words, mostly scene-setting and description, then ran into a bit of a wall, since I found myself in the same place as my protagonist, standing there ready to begin the next chapter, but with no real idea what I was doing or where I was trying to go, at least not right away.  So I’ve had to step back from actual word-production and figure out what’s next. Continue reading “Write-a-thon Project Update” →

Another Thousand Words

Added to the draft and the changes uploaded.  Things are taking a bit of a Kafkaesque turn, but I’m pleased with the result.  Our hero is in for some hard times, and only the greatest of injustices will serve for a cause, even if it is a banal, believeable injustice.  Those who’ve paid for the –ahem– privilege of following the proceedings may not find your curiosities satisfied just yet, but perhaps there will be some amusement to be had in the confounding.  It was certainly fun to write.

Draft is still in the 3-4K word stage.  I’d hoped to be farther along, but so far this summer has blessed me with an overabundance of places to be and things to get up to, and while I’m grateful for the density of life-experience, I’m finding it an interesting challenge to integrate it all into an effective life strategy.

It is interesting, from a storytelling perspective, to be working as discontinuously as I have been.  The last major project I did involved working 4-12 hours a day six days a week and making that my main focus.  This time around, I just don’t have that luxury, but I have found that because I have more time between sessions I’m having an easier time figuring out the shape of the story, or at least the part of it I’m working on (which is the part I’d thought about least before starting; it’s the end of this story that matters for the other one).  I think that it’s because my mysterious writerly hinterbrain (what Kate Wilhelm calls her Silent Partner and her late husband Damon Knight called Fred) has more processing time, and so can come to better or more fully-realized conclusions about this thing we’re trying to do together.

It’s just a hypothesis, mind you.  It could be that I’m just finally coming into my genius, and from here on out will know exactly what I’m doing when I sit down in front of a keyboard.

Yeah.  Probably the first thing.  Or luck.