Writing is Work

This is a comment on a post by the facebook colleague. He spent 40 years working in a bank and writing in his free time. Now, he is free of the bank and able to write full time. People ask him what he's doing. He says writing, and they don't take him seriously. Their response is, "That's nice. Do you think you'd be able to walk my dog, or trim my garden, since you aren't working?"

I don't get that kind of condescension much anymore, because I have not stayed in contract with people who don't understand I'm a writer. But I know this conversation well. I think it comes from several places. People think of work entirely in terms of money, rather than personal satisfaction or social value. If it doesn't pay a living wage, it isn't work. And people have no idea -- none at all -- how writing is done and how publishing works. I tell people I'm a writer and they ask, "Have you published anything?" They think of writing as either (a) Stephen King or (b) a hobby. Since I am obviously not Stephen King, writing must be a hobby for me. No, it is not a hobby. I have organized my entire life around being able to write, even though I've not been able to make a living at it and so have had day jobs -- many day jobs; I get bored and quit. Now I old enough to collect Social Security, and I'm writing full time. It feels good. It's hard work, and it's real work.

A Good Day

Today my Facebook feed exploded over the joyous news that the Minnesota Senate passed the Marriage Equality for All (or whatever the bill was officially called).  There was so much excitement that I nearly missed that a friend of mine posted a link to this:  http://firstronin47.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-four-books-by-lyda-morehouse.html#!/2013/05/review-four-books-by-lyda-morehouse.html A wonderful review of all for of the Penguin published AngeLINK books.

So, yeah, good day for me.

*faints*

Trust Your Instincts, Murphy

(cross-posted from Mental Chaff) 

Tonight was a meeting of the Wyrdsmiths, and after we were done critiquing, celebrating the passage of the Minnesota House bill legalizing marriage equality, and before we'd gotten to naming Sled Dog Squee or going into the finer points of pelvic comb overs, we discussed our upcoming CONvergence schedules.

Now, if you'll remember, last week I posted my panels for CONvergence, and made this note about the panels:

"Every time I go check their programming portal, I find out I'm on another panel. It was one, then a few days later, two, then three. Now? I'm actually afraid to go back and check again, because as this point I'm on four panels, which is fine...."

It was in this vein, and referencing this piece I'd written above, that I suggested perhaps we could look up everyone else's schedule, but leave mine alone. After all, while I'm not particularly superstitious, I do recognize the difference between seeing a bull in a paddock and climbing into the Minotaur's Labyrinth.

But the Wyrdsmiths insisted that they wanted to see what panels I was on, and I capitulated.

BAD. MOVE.

Because now I have looked up my CONvergence schedule on five separate occasions, and so far, the data describing the correlation of the total number of panels on my schedule to the number of separate times that schedule has been looked up in advance remains inextricably linked. One to one.

I am now on five panels.*

I think I may contact programming to decline one of the panels, now that I'm well and safely above three. One of the panels I'm on, I don't know or care that much about. That's really neither here nor anywhere, though. The point is this: if you suspect something may be the case, despite the stirring efforts of your logical brain to suggest that it's mere superstition on your part, don't be so fast to discount it.

Quantum mechanics suggests that the mere act of observation changes the system being observed.

I must never look at the CONvergence programming portal again.

___

*Accordingly, my schedule listing on the previous post has been updated with my new panel.

Writers' Nightmares

I think writers probably have different nightmares than some other professions.  I know that when I used to act on the stage, I had the classic one in which I'd been an understudy to a major role and all of a sudden I have to perform and I know NONE OF THE LINES.

That dream has mostly faded.  Now-a-days, I have a reoccurring dream/nightmare where I'm arriving at a science fiction convention bright and early on a Saturday morning, I make my leisurely way to registration and... discover I've missed half of the panels I was supposed to be on.

After last night, I suspect I'm going to have a brand new writing-related nightmare: missing a reading.

So, yeah, I was sitting on my comfy chair doing a whole lot of nothing when the phone rings. Shawn answers it. I hear, "This is she. ... Oh my god!" I sit up, because I think, "Oh, crap, who died?!" Shawn's eyes are wide and she looks at me, "Lyda! You were supposed to be at a reading at Dreamhaven!" I run to the phone, and, sure enough, it's Eric Heideman who coordinates the Speculations Reading series wondering where the heck I am. I look at the time: it's 6:35 pm (the reading started at 6:30) and, after a thousand apologies and several "how the hell did I forget?"s,  I say, "On my way!" At least he tells me, I'm not the only one who forgot--at the present time the only people in the store were Greg (Dreamhaven's owner) and himself.

Knowing there wasn't even a small crowd waiting meant to didn't kill anyone as I sped across town.

  Luckily, Dreamhaven, though it's in another city (Minneapolis), is no more than fifteen minutes away. I made it in 20, because (of course) not only did I hit every single traffic light, but the light rail train crossed at 38th and I had to wait.

On my panicked drive I called fellow Wyrdsmith, Naomi Kritzer because I really needed to share my horror with someone who would understand. Luckily, Naomi thought it was hilarious (just what I needed, honestly,) and I was able to tell her that what I wished was for that moment in "Practical Magic" where Sandra Bullock's character is able to "activate the phone tree!" People seem to be able to organize flash mobs on a moment's notice, but could I get anyone to show up at Dreamhaven for me?

Nope.

In the end it was me, Eric, and one actual audience member. I really tried to wheedle my way out of reading anything, but Eric insisted I read SOMETHING. He'd found a copy of a Tales of the UnAnticipated that I had a short story in, so I ended up reading the entire "Van Buylen Effect" (my time-travel couch story.) Since I was mostly reading for myself, I spent the time thinking, "Huh, that was a pretty good story." I don't write a lot of short stories because I tend to find them difficult--condensing a whole beginning, middle and end and all the other things you need like an emotional arc and all that into 10,000 words or less is a very daunting prospect for me. So, I was surprised I'd managed to pull it off pretty well. This story was recently rejected for a time-travel anthology (the editors were specifically looking for reprints). I'd been feeling like maybe it wasn't as strong a story as I remembered, but now I think, well, actually it was all right.

Anyway, afterwards, the three of us went out for drinks at Merlin's Rest. It was quiz night at the pub, so we entertained ourselves by trying to answer the questions, even though we weren't playing along. I hadn't been in Merlin's Rest before really, and I tasted a bit of the fish and chips Eric ordered. I have to say, I'll be back there. Shawn and I have been looking for a decent fish and chips place since Molly Quinn's closed.

The night ended up being salvaged but OH MY GOD WHAT A NIGHTMARE.

At least I didn't show up naked.

A Happy Ending/Last Thoughts

The young man from Seoul, South Korea who started this whole conversation about world-building with his database in need of a critique, wrote to me the other day.  He gave writing a short piece about his world a try and asked if I'd be willing to look at that.

I did.

It wasn't half-bad, either.  In fact it was quite good.  There was drama, a bit of humor, a sympathetic character, and an out of control spacesuit. One thing was very clear to me, and I told him so in my response: the work he'd put into building the background of his universe came through. 

It amazes me, actually, how sometimes you can just tell.  There's nothing specific about what a person has written that you can necessarily point to, but somehow you get a sense the universe extends beyond the here and now of the moment.  You just know, if you turned a corner, there would be more there--that you wouldn't have that Twilight Zone experience of discovering a stage set (did anyone else see that episode?  It was creepy/cool.)

In someways, that to me is better world-building than anything else.  We struggle as writers to have our prose be invisible, for our hand to disappear.  I think the world-building version of that (at least for me) is for a subconscious sense left in the reader's mind as she or his is reading that this is a fully-realized world, and that they should feel free to open all the drawers and look under the beds--because it's all there, whether or not we open those doors or lift those bedsheets to check...

A Response to Lyda

I'll note that I didn't say I read only for world building, but I do read first for world building much of the time. That's what I love about Tolkien. I read the Thomas Covenant books for world, though I wouldn't read them again, because I hated the characters. The Ringworld books I read and reread primarily for world.

Nigel Tranter's historicals have cookie cutter characters and plots, but I read them for the deep research on historical Scotland. It's Rome that draws me back to Colleen McCullough's First Man in Rome series again and again, though the characters are good too. I won't read Frankowski ever again because his writing is misogynistic, and his plots are meh, but I read the Crosstime Engineer series more than once because the non-misogynistic parts of the world building is fantastic.

Andre Norton's work I remember mostly in terms of world, though a few of her characters have stuck with me. I could go on if I went down and actually looked at my shelves instead of just going off the top of my head, but that's seems a fair sample. And that's without talking about short stories, where I'm even more likely as a reader to let story and character slide if the world is cool enough.

Oh, and honestly, I think the weakest part of the Harry Potter books (which I do love) is the world building. There's a lot of wow, but very little internal consistency, and tons of contradictions that blow giant holes in her plots. I read those mostly for character—as I mentioned in my original comment I don't read only for world.

More on World-Building (or Starting an Internet Fight)

In the comments of my world-building post yesterday, Kelly thought I was being unfair with my generalized statement that ‘no one reads for world-building.’  I’ve been thinking about this, and, of course, if Kelly says he does this then, obviously, I’m wrong. 

But, since he pointed it out, I've been trying to imagine a story where this might be true for me, and I keep failing.  I can’t picture a novel I’ve read where I thought, “Wow, these character suck, the plot is inane, but, damn!  I’m going to keep reading because this house they live in is BRILLIANT.”

Yet, even as that came out of my mouth, I thought, “Well, maybe I did that when I read the Thieves’ World books, way back when.”  The idea behind the Thieves’ World was that it was, in point of fact, a cool underground to a high fantasy world and that a bunch of authors agreed to write in it.  But, even as I considered that example, I wondered if the world-building was the real appeal or what the people did in it (ie, the plot.)  I actually can’t say definitively.  I can say that the only things I remember about the anthologies after all these years is that the place they all lived was “The Sanctuary” and that I loved the characters of Shadowspawn and Tempest.

That bit of information makes me think that, ultimately, the world-building failed to impress.  If I’m left with characters after all this time, I must have been reading it on some level for the characters—or, if I was reading for world, it didn’t stick.  Decades later I remember almost no other details about the world besides the obvious (its name and the fact that the main population were thieves and underworld figures.)

I suspect that some people will tell me that the Harry Potter universe fits into the “world-building trumps character and plot,” but I suspect people who might say that bounced off the book and are angry because they’re successful when they don’t seem to be, according to many, terribly well written.  I actually agree that there are moments when JK Rowling’s words repetitive and cliché, but I think that what drew me in was perhaps EQUAL parts character, plot and world-building.  I mean, I do spend a lot of time thinking about where I’d be sorted, which is clearly a product of world-building success. But, would the books have been successful if the rest failed?  I’m not sure.  I mean, some people clearly think it did. 

But would I read a book that only hit world-building? 

Well, maybe Kelly’s point is that maybe I wouldn’t, but he would.  I guess I’m curious, then, if you would read a book that only worked on the world-building front?  If the characters and the world were meh-to-irritating, would you keep going if you felt the world was sufficiently interesting? And, can you name a title of a book where you did that?

Reading is Hard, Barbie

I had an epiphany yesterday. Not as exciting as it may sound. I'm actually fairly prone to epiphanies, and when I articulate it, you'll probably be all, "whatever. *I* knew _that_." This is why I'm prone to epiphanies, and why no one should alert the national media when I announce I've had one. Things that are obvious to other people will suddenly hit me like a sack of bricks. Just ask my dad about Montreal. (We both felt stupid about that one!)

At any rate, here is it: writing is hard.

See, I said you'd be disappointed.

But, specifically, the thing I learned yesterday regarding the hardness of writing is that it's hard for both the writer AND THE READER.

I should say that I'm talking about original fiction here, and that by comparing fan fiction critique to to original fiction critique is how I learned this startling fact. At a fan fiction writing party I went to last Friday, I was hanging out with my fan fiction writing friends and the conversation turned to original fiction. Both myself and one of the other women there are trying to write original fiction for sale (she's sold some coloring books, I've, of course, sold novels and am trying to break back into that gig.) Anyway, we agreed that what was missing from original fiction writing was the cheer leading. She agreed to cheer lead my original fiction projects and I would do the same for her. So encouraged, I posted the very rough beginning of my Deep Space Lawyer up on Google Docs for her.

If my novel start had been a piece of my fanfic, I have no doubt I would have gotten the "whoosh" of excitement as she ran off to read it.

Instead, I got crickets.

In fact, I gave up waiting for critique from her and revised it based on some things that Wyrdsmiths said about an unrelated novel start, the one that takes place on Mars (because I decided that maybe their thoughts applied to this one as well.)

Perhaps I should be annoyed or disappointed by this reaction, but instead I asked myself, why I am I so much more excited to read the latest from my friend's amazing alternate universe Bleach epic, and yet I have to drag my feet through reading a submission from Wyrdsmiths? (A phenomenon so common we all jokingly refer to having "read our homework on the bus" sometimes, because, despite having these manuscripts often for TWO WHOLE WEEKS in advance, we _all_ have times when wait until the very last moment to sit down and read them and then real life conspires to make it impossible to read before the group meeting. So, often  I'll arrive at the coffee shop early and discover everyone is quickly reading the last of the handouts and I usually say 'hi' and quickly join them for the same reasons....)

I think this happens partly because, ultimately, original fiction is work for the READER, too. Particularly for critique, but perhaps all the time. I was also having a lovely email chat with Kyell Gold, my fellow GoH from Gaylaxicon, last night and we were talking about the sense a lot of science fiction fans (and pros) have of being woefully under-read in our field. This feeling sometimes causes us to sit down with a particular IMPORTANT author's work and plow through the MEANINGFUL NOVEL, like it's the biggest chore on the f*cking planet.

To be fair to Kyell, he didn't actually suggest that the book he'd read was a chore, but the discussion in general made me remember the times *I'd* done that and felt that way.

Fanfiction gets a different response, I think, because the reader knows s/he's already invested in the story and the characters. I like Renji so much, I'll pretty much try ANY story where he's a character. But I also tend to be picky. I'll try, but I'm very likely to bounce off, so when I finally meet a writer whose writing I actually like, and perhaps even ADMIRE, it's NOT a chore to read their beta-drafts, it's a F*CKING PLEASURE.

I've been known to have the same experience with original fiction, of course. There are authors whose work I'm so in love with that I rush off to buy/borrow their latest INSTANTLY and, if they were to ask, I would drop EVERYTHING to be their beta/critique reader. But, when a friend, even a friend whose work you know you like, asks you to read their original fiction (especially if it's NOT a continuation of a favorite story with characters you're familiar with) it's a lot harder to get motivated to dig in. Perhaps, too, because original fiction has to be read in a different way and -SOMETIMES- the critique is more intense, more in-depth.... or at least it's a different kind of critique in that there are different expectations for original fiction than there are of fanfiction.

So, my contention is that writing is hard for the reader, too.

I think this is why it's important for me to have a group like Wyrdsmiths, who are basically beholden to read my original fiction and try to help me fix it (because I have promised to do the same for them). I wonder, too, if this is an especially painful problem for people trying to make the switch to writing original fiction after growing up/being immersed in the fanfic community? I think it could be potentially very disheartening to get crickets if you're expecting whooshes. It would probably be very tempting to imagine that the crickets come from the fact that 'my writing is NO GOOD!' thoughts, rather than what is probably the truth--that reading original fiction is a chore, no matter how good the writing and the story.

Thoughts?

Databases and Worlds

A friend of mine teaches creative writing in an English immersion school in Seoul, South Korea.  Every once and a while, she asks me to Skype into her class and discuss various writing-related topics.  I have become, in many ways, their writer-in-virtual-residence.

I'm not sure how important that part is to the story, but I've been corresponding with one of her students about world-building.  He wanted to share his database with me.  I wrote back and said, "Uh, I have no skill to judge a database.  How about sending some writing?"  To which, he replied that he has no intention of writing anything until his world is fully-formed, so perhaps I could help him figure out how to organize it?

I felt like Tard the Grumpy cat, when I wrote back, "Nope."

I tried to explain to this young writer, in the gentlest manner possible, the no one reads novels or short stories for the worlds.  We read for character, and, sometimes, plot.  Your world can be rich and as deep as the deepest ocean, but no one will visit it, if it's not populated with interesting people doing exciting things.

That's what story is about.

I asked him to try, instead, to consider a character who would best show off the most exciting features of the world he's created.  One, perhaps, who straddles two cultures or who is on the cusp of discovering some great mystery about how the universe is created. 

But, then I reminded myself (and him) that each writer is different.  For me, the best results happened when I jumped in with both feet with a character and started by figuring out what world-building details I needed, as my character encountered them  or as the plot required them. But, maybe, I told him, he needed to wade in slower to the story, and build his world around himself like water-wings or a life preserver.  It's all good.  Get into the writing water however you need to.  There's no one perfect way.

And, I said, organize your database how it works for you.  I suggested if he needed a model of questions he could ask myself, there was always Pat Wrede's questionnaire: http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/

I also offered that he consider finding a role-playing game manual and seeing if how that's organized will help him. 

I did, however, leave him with this thought:  do you think it matters to the legions of Star Wars fans that there are planets in that universe that are complete impossibilities?  Or, do you think what people love about Star Wars is the classic triumph of good vs. evil?

New in E-Bookstores Everywehere

Hot off the e-book presses, electrons still smokin' hot, (and, in time for all your May the Fourth science fictional needs):  http://www.wizardstowerbooks.com/products/fallen-host-lyda-morehouse

Fallen Host is the second book in my AngeLINK series.  It was the very first to go out of print.  In fact, I got the notice that it was remaindered just as I learned that it had made the preliminary Nebula ballot.  Consequentially, the available print books were snapped up quickly and bookstores were unable to reorder it.  I was able to buy a number of books from my publisher at discount rates, but, unless you knew that I was selling them through Uncle Hugo's, they were difficult to find.  I once saw a used copy of this book going for $45 on Amazon.com.

So, now you can buy it early and often, and I encourage you do to just that!

This novel has some of my favorite Dragon and Page moments in it. It was also interesting to reread now that I know a lot more about Japanese culture, as a significant portion of the book takes place in Tokyo.

Self-Publishing

Another post from facebook. It's really too long for facebook.

I just read another Salon essay by a frustrated literary writer, who has self-published his fourth novel as an e-book and can't get any reviews. His previous three novels came out on paper from New York houses. He seems to have no idea what he's doing, and I guess my question is, how do you find out if you are a literary writer? An SF writer can gather information about publishing and promotion at cons, the SFWA bulletin, the SFWA site (I assume), online discussion groups, blogs... I think the same is true of romance and mystery writers. Does anything comparable exist for literary writers? The only thing I could think of is writing workshops. There are a zillion literary writing workshops, or were the last time I checked.

I was amazed by how hurt and clueless he was. He published three novels and was dropped. Well, this is painful, but it happens to many writers. He and his agent decided that he should self-publish his next novel as an e-book. As far as I can tell, he did not consider changing his name (if the problem was prior sales) or going to an independent publisher. Neither he nor the agent appeared to know anything about e-publishing.

My two writing groups have self-published print-on-paper collections. It's not that expensive. We did it more for fun than anything else and have not made a serious effort at marketing. But you end with a concrete object, which local bookstores can carry. There is always a display of local authors, even at Barnes and Noble. There is a chance of getting a review at the local paper, if you have a tangible book. There are awards given by associations of independent publishers, and your book might win. (Remember that you have become an independent publisher by putting out your book.) Awards are always nice, even small ones. And you have something you can put on your shelf. You may have many copies to put on your shelf.

I guess what I'm saying is -- the two obvious ways to promote are through a genre community, if your work is genre, or through a regional community. Authors have to live somewhere. If you are an unsuccessful novelist in New York, you might consider moving to a place that has fewer writers.

And I have not a clue how to promote an e-book, if you are an author without a following.