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The Authors Corner
Archives April 2011 - March 2013
Blog posts recovered from the authors website on the Archimedes server.
NOTE: Blog Posts appear with the latest entry at the top.
2013-04-20 Update: An unposted comment. I just discovered today my host ISP, Archimedes closed suddenly. Until I find a new host for my updates and notify my website followers, it looks like there will be no further updates.
Note added 2013-05-27: Rather than making a new posted entry about this, here is what I've learned. My host is closed permanently, and the only person I could contact who knew anything at all said the equipment is gone from the building. I will not be able to retrieve anything from them, not even my off-site backups I stored there. I may look into starting a blog, or I may just post occasional updates to Dutch Rhudy's Roaring Falls website.
Note added 2013-06-04: I started a new area named "The Authors Corner" on the Roaring Falls website, and will try to let everyone know where the new website is located.
2013-03-16 Update: Received the edited copies for my short stories, sent in one other short story and resubmitted my Roaring Falls work to the editor. Also hired a book cover artist for the first short story. I learned a little bit about book covers from her, but I could have done a better job. I played around with the cover a little bit, not wanting to change much, just improve what was already done. I removed the box of malted milk balls out of the top of the boot and filled it with loose milk balls instead. It helped, but the cover is not very catchy. I will start working on covers for the other short stories, and run them by a few younger folks to see which they like best.
The three short stories currently in rewrite are: Boot & Milk Balls, Lady Buff & Yardstick, the Three-footed Kitten, both non-fiction; and The Elusive Smoking Gun, fiction. The new short story I'm working on is The Vanishing Corn Mystery, also fiction.
2013-01-05 Update: The 2011 updates are now archived to make room for the 2013 updates. The Roaring Falls series is moving along a bit faster. I am working with a new developmental editor who made several changes in the way the story will be presented. While I do another rewrite to insert the new presentation, he is working on my three short stories. He suggested I write at least one more short story after I finish the Roaring Falls rewrite. Once they get back from editing, I'm sure each will need another rewrite. I am also continuing on the rough drafts further along in the Roaring Falls Series.
2012-10-13 Update: Thanks for all your e-mails and comments. Those of you who returned to the Roaring Falls website since yesterday found dozen of pages removed. Sorry about that, but nearly every e-mail I received stated I had way to many spoilers, and they should be taken down. I also discussed this with a former publisher, and she agreed. Most of what was taken down, will be put up later after each book publishes. In the meantime I will add more information without spoilers as I have time to put them together.
2012-08-03 Update: The Roaring Falls Series by Dutch Rhudy website went live today. It looks great and contains many pages. There are nine indexed pages, counting the main page, and dozens of pages showing character sketches, attractions, and sites around Roaring Falls.
The URL is http://home.comcast.net/~dutch-rhudy/index.html, come on by and take a gander, my e-mail address is on the bottom of the landing page. I would like to know what you think about the website or the series. Now I can get back to my work in progress, else it will never see the light of day.
2012-07-14 Update: We had a great fourth, and as usual I spent more than I should on fireworks. I have not returned to KWG meetings, I'm too embarrassed to do so, after sending in rough drafts as contest entries. Our little critique group is dwindling in size, and we lost our great developmental editor as well. The host is on a family vacation, so suspended meetings until September. The main thing we accomplished in our small group meetings, as it relates to my work in progress, is the title for the entire series. I've also decided to present it under my pen name.
There are so many things I have decided to finalize and etch in stone, I don't know where to start. I guess my pen name should come first. I've toyed with many possibilities, but in the end, the simplest worked out the best. I used my mothers nickname Dutch for my first name, and my mother-in-laws nickname Rhudy for my surname. We chose the name of my fictitious town as the name of the series, Roaring Falls, and named all of the counties in the state.
I have also worked very hard on the new website, and loaded it down with information about my series. I chose XHTML/CSS STRICT and each page has passed the W3C standards, something I'm very proud of. I'm only waiting for a few legal technicalities before going live.
2012-05-19 Update: Should I admit in public I've made a terrible mistake? The worse part is, I didn't catch it until after the contest deadline passed. I can only blame myself for using such long file names I didn't see the last few words before printing out my submissions. I had the large white envelopes all ready to go, the cover letters printed on nice stationery. I ran to the store and bought 24 pound white paper, rather than the 20 pound I use for everything else. Opened my file and printed the contest entries, only glancing at the pages to make sure they printed properly, then sent in the submissions.
A couple of weeks later, I opened the folder to make a copy of the entries to format for e-book. It was not until I began formatting that I realized I was not working on the final copy. How can this be, and where are my final copies? My own fault, I renamed the final copy files for the contest with only the book title. I left off my usual date and time stamp, which caused them to appear out of order in my list.
2012-03-10 Update: Another update so soon. This post is because our Knoxville Writers' Guild is holding a short story writing contest. Our little group has suspended our meetings until the contest deadline, as all are entering. I could use a change of pace myself. Four years of working for a publisher by day, and my own same work in progress at night, it will be nice to write something else for a month. I think I will do a non-fiction and a fiction entry. I have story about a Franciscan Monk I've been promising to do for years, and never got around to it. I have several storyline concepts to draw from in my folders. Which to pick is the question.
2012-02-25 Update: I've been a busy little beaver. Most of my work since the last update involved doing a total rewrite of my reference use history book, and drawing my finished maps using a computer graphics program. An artiste I'm not, but they are looking pretty good. No room on this server to put them, so I'm considering building a new web site just for my series, where I will have plenty of room for everything. As if I don't already have enough to do and keep track of, I'm studying XHTML/CSS to build a website, by hand, from scratch.
My world building for the beginning of the series is finalized. The finished maps include my fictitious state, it's boundaries, and the boundaries of each county in the state. Within my focus or primary county for my story, I have completed two interesting maps. The first depicts the route taken by the 1807 exploration team on their first expedition to chart the west through Indian territory. The second is an Atlas made of the county in 1848. From here I zoom in on the town itself and made three maps. The first shows the plats the initial groups of settlers claimed in 1851. The second shows the next group of settlers in 1852, and the third shows the railroad right of way as it developed between 1854-1857.
This may not sound like much, but there was a lot of details that were ironed out before the maps could be finalized. The location of the mountain, waterfalls, plateau, mountain peaks on the plateau, streams, rivers, and lake. As I wrote the backgrounder for the overarching plot and timeline, everything had to fall perfectly in place. Then when I was writing the rough draft for the story, other features were added not previously shown in my outlines. You can look forward to seeing these maps when I get the new website up and running.
2011-12-10 Update: Before I run out of year without giving an update, I've been playing instead of writing. Well not exactly, I've been working on the maps for the first part of my series to get them finalized. What I'm calling the first book in my series is actually about three books long in its rough draft form. In our small group meetings we discuss where possible break points might work best, so we can pull open ends together, and not leave any cliffhangers. Although I'm writing a series, it is not a serial where one must purchase the next book in the serial to find out what happened. Readers hate authors who do that big time.
NOTE: Shortly after the new year begins, I will be deleting 2009 from the archives to make room for 2012 in this section.
2011-09-24 Update: Writing the first book in the historical part of the series has kept me quite busy. A few minor changes were made to the towns history book I use as a reference. This is what we've been going through at our small groups meeting. We lost one member who lives too far away to drive in for both the KWG meeting and to join our little group. But we did pick up three more members after our first small group meeting. We did not become affiliated with KWG yet, although all of us are KWG members. I don't have any details to give as everything I am working on is mostly routine and mundane. Maintaining scene and character sketches as I write, and adding to my hand-drawn maps or creating new ones a few years down the timeline.
2011-05-12 Update: It appears the fiction group I wanted to join was filled. After the meeting, I teamed up with four other members who desire to start another small fiction group. Each of the four presented their current work in progress. It was getting late so I thought I would have to wait a month to share what I am working on. I gave each a large envelope with my outlines, maps, and the backgrounder for the overarching outline. One fellow invited us over to his house, because they all wanted to hear about my work, and also talk about forming a group before the next meeting.
I'm mentioning it because we worked on the first chapter of my towns history, not from the rough draft, but from the outlines I brought. We also discussed the different ways in presenting the first novel. So this is what I will be working on until we meet again.
2011-04-14 Update: I joined the Knoxville Writers' Guild this evening. Talked with several members about the major series I am working on, and many inquired about my day writing job. After the meeting during the social, I spoke with a small group about the many steps a submission to my particular publisher must undergo.
My goal in these updates is not to talk about groups or organizations activities, unless they are directly related to my writing. Due to space constraints on my ISP's server, as I archive the 2009 updates, all previous updates will be deleted. I will keep the previous year 2010 here and move it to the archives when 2012 begins.