Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
Patience is a Virtue--A PSA
So, Scalzi and Stross have recently commented on the heaps of shit George R. R. Martin has gotten for not producing his books with machinelike timing and I'm pretty much in perfect agreement with them. Martin talks about what's been happening here. I wasn't going to comment, but today, my friend Pat Rothfuss talked about his process and why he's not producing his next book with machinelike timing and makes some fabulous comments that really point up why cutting the people who are writing the books you love some slack is a good idea.
I don't have a lot to add here except to note that when a writer isn't producing stuff at the pace at which they are expected to, it's pretty much a sure thing that they're significantly less happy about it than their readers are. Asking a writer who is late why that's the case, or how their writing is going, or complaining about it to them is really really counterproductive.
I say this from the perspective of someone who writes insanely fast by many people's standards and who typically gets books in several months early. I'm a fast writer. I'm an early writer. And even so, questions about production can get under my skin when I fall behind my own ridiculously early scheduling. And that makes me unhappy, which slows me down even more in a really bad feedback loop. I can't imagine how much harder it is for those who write slower than I do or who are running genuinely late with a book.
If your favorite writer is running behind on a book that you really want to read and you want to help: Send them fan mail. Tell them how much you enjoy their work and appreciate the books that are already out. Pump their spirits up, make them want to work. Don't mention the project that's not done yet, it will only further depress and delay.
I don't have a lot to add here except to note that when a writer isn't producing stuff at the pace at which they are expected to, it's pretty much a sure thing that they're significantly less happy about it than their readers are. Asking a writer who is late why that's the case, or how their writing is going, or complaining about it to them is really really counterproductive.
I say this from the perspective of someone who writes insanely fast by many people's standards and who typically gets books in several months early. I'm a fast writer. I'm an early writer. And even so, questions about production can get under my skin when I fall behind my own ridiculously early scheduling. And that makes me unhappy, which slows me down even more in a really bad feedback loop. I can't imagine how much harder it is for those who write slower than I do or who are running genuinely late with a book.
If your favorite writer is running behind on a book that you really want to read and you want to help: Send them fan mail. Tell them how much you enjoy their work and appreciate the books that are already out. Pump their spirits up, make them want to work. Don't mention the project that's not done yet, it will only further depress and delay.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Spell Games
Speaking of SFNovelists, Tim Pratt had a book come out the same day as Cat and Anton. Spell Games is the fourth novel in his current series and the first chapter is available in free sample form here. His protagonist also twitters for those who are so inclined.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Draw
It looks like Lyda and I are calling the rest of the wordcount race off. Lyda's finished with her book but needs to add something like 25k in revision while I've got about 19k left but am not yet done. I wrote 46k words over the course of the race and Lyda wrote about 30k over the course of a bit over a month.
Final wordcount bar at time of draw:
# February 16, 2009
# Kelly McCullough, SPELLCRASH.
# words yesterday: 1,100
# words total: 70,100
# words to go: 19,900
# starting wordcount: 24,000
# starting word deficit: 66,000
# final target wordcount: 90,000
# Tate Hallaway, HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD.
# words yesterday: 0
# words total: 51,270
# words to go: 28,730
# starting wordcount: 24,400
# starting word deficit: 55,600
# final target wordcount: 80,000
Final wordcount bar at time of draw:
# February 16, 2009
# Kelly McCullough, SPELLCRASH.
# words yesterday: 1,100
# words total: 70,100
# words to go: 19,900
# starting wordcount: 24,000
# starting word deficit: 66,000
# final target wordcount: 90,000
# Tate Hallaway, HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD.
# words yesterday: 0
# words total: 51,270
# words to go: 28,730
# starting wordcount: 24,400
# starting word deficit: 55,600
# final target wordcount: 80,000
Deader Still
Anton Strout's Deader Still is out today. If it's anything like Dead to Me which I blurbed, it should be a fast fun read and a good choice for fans of the silly side of the WebMage series.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Palimpsest
The wonderful Catherynne Valente has a book out tomorrow. Here's the trailer:
Here's the short story that the book grew out of, Palimpsest
And a brief interview:
What was your inspiration for writing Palimpsest?
A couple of years ago, Ekaterina Sedia was putting together this anthology called* Paper Cities*. It was an anthology of urban fantasy, not exactly the kind that has a woman in leather pants on the cover, or exactly the kind Charles DeLint might write, but decadent, bizarre urban landscapes. She asked me to make her a city. I was a bit burned out on making up fantasy cities, as there are a number of them in my last novel, *In the Cities of Coin and Spice*. So I started taking apart the idea of a city in my head, what a city is, what it contains. And ultimately, all a city is is people. So I began to plan a city that lived as a virus, a memetic virus and a physical one, that would manifest as a mark on human skin, something that looked like a streetmap. From there it was a short jump to the idea that such a virus could be sexually transmitted--cities are also complex networks of connections between people, and to turn that around, to have a city created by complex connections rather than creating them, was fascinating to me. Hence, Palimpsest was born.
Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?
Growing up I loved fairy tales and folktales of all kinds. My mother bought me endless collections, and read to me from really weirdly diverse sources: Plato, Beckett, Apollinaire--and me not 10 years old. This is why I am the way I am, in a nutshell. I still love folktales and seek them out--these days I love John Crowley, Maurren McHugh, Christopher Barzak, Theodora Goss, Jeff Vandermeer, Milorad Pavic, Borges...I'm trying to read more translated work from outside US/UK/Canada/Australia.
What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?
I am a lapsed classicist, so it took me a long time to even understand the idea of realist literature. To me, writing about vengeful gods, oracles, magic, half-human monsters and fell machines was just what you wrote about, if you wrote at all. To the ancient Greeks, that was just plain old literature. So fantasy and science fiction are just natural to me--that's what literature is. The rest is a poor simulacra of real life, and that just doesn't hold the power of creating a world from whole cloth, pinning it to our own, and showing where the two become interchangeable. I love the color and beauty of fantasy, the possibility of doing *anything*. To me, it's not a genre. Everything else is just a subset.
What (besides writing) do you do for fun?
I've recently learned to knit and become quite passionate about it--it's a kind of zen activity for me, it calms the mind and makes room for writing. I also cook all manner of mad things, blow glass, and make jewelry. I live on an island in Maine and we have a small sailboat called Persephone--so I sail, fish, and snorkel. I'm also a big gamer, both console and tabletop.
What sort of research did you do to write this book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?
Palimpsest was far less research-intensive than The Orphan's Tales, but I spent a lot of time in New York--I'm not a city girl, so I wanted to feel what that kind of urban world was like. I also researched urban planning and political psychology quite a bit, trying to create a city that felt real, even as it was magical and surreal.
What are you writing now?
I'm working on a retelling of a Russian folktale set in the Stalinist era
called *Deathless* and an epic fantasy trilogy concerning the kingdom of
Prester John from medieval myth.
What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?
I usually walk down to the cafe near the ferry dock--I live on a small island of about 800 people and we only have one cafe--at around 8 or 9 am and write until they close at 2. then I'll come home and work on admin things, returning emails, interviews, and such, and any other freelance projects that I have on my plate. I find writing for 5 hours straight every day lets me get a lot done with a good amount of daylight left to me.
What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?
Language is probably the thing that comes most naturally--I love rich, decadent language and my brain wants to make words like that all the time. It takes concentration and discipline to do otherwise. The hardest thing for me is keeping a linear plot going. I'm working on getting better at that--I do with every book, I think. But I always want to mess with traditional plot structures and take them apart, like a kid taking apart a remote to see how it works. I don't always know how to put it back together again, but damned if I don't end up with a sweet pile of melted electronics.
This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?
My series The Orphan's Tales, novels of interconnected fairy tales, won the Tiptree Award and the Mythopoeic Award. I've also written three other novels: The Labyrinth, The Book of Dreams, and The Grass-Cutting Sword, as well as five collections of poetry. The newest of those is A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects.
Buy Palimpsest
Here's the short story that the book grew out of, Palimpsest
And a brief interview:
What was your inspiration for writing Palimpsest?
A couple of years ago, Ekaterina Sedia was putting together this anthology called* Paper Cities*. It was an anthology of urban fantasy, not exactly the kind that has a woman in leather pants on the cover, or exactly the kind Charles DeLint might write, but decadent, bizarre urban landscapes. She asked me to make her a city. I was a bit burned out on making up fantasy cities, as there are a number of them in my last novel, *In the Cities of Coin and Spice*. So I started taking apart the idea of a city in my head, what a city is, what it contains. And ultimately, all a city is is people. So I began to plan a city that lived as a virus, a memetic virus and a physical one, that would manifest as a mark on human skin, something that looked like a streetmap. From there it was a short jump to the idea that such a virus could be sexually transmitted--cities are also complex networks of connections between people, and to turn that around, to have a city created by complex connections rather than creating them, was fascinating to me. Hence, Palimpsest was born.
Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?
Growing up I loved fairy tales and folktales of all kinds. My mother bought me endless collections, and read to me from really weirdly diverse sources: Plato, Beckett, Apollinaire--and me not 10 years old. This is why I am the way I am, in a nutshell. I still love folktales and seek them out--these days I love John Crowley, Maurren McHugh, Christopher Barzak, Theodora Goss, Jeff Vandermeer, Milorad Pavic, Borges...I'm trying to read more translated work from outside US/UK/Canada/Australia.
What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?
I am a lapsed classicist, so it took me a long time to even understand the idea of realist literature. To me, writing about vengeful gods, oracles, magic, half-human monsters and fell machines was just what you wrote about, if you wrote at all. To the ancient Greeks, that was just plain old literature. So fantasy and science fiction are just natural to me--that's what literature is. The rest is a poor simulacra of real life, and that just doesn't hold the power of creating a world from whole cloth, pinning it to our own, and showing where the two become interchangeable. I love the color and beauty of fantasy, the possibility of doing *anything*. To me, it's not a genre. Everything else is just a subset.
What (besides writing) do you do for fun?
I've recently learned to knit and become quite passionate about it--it's a kind of zen activity for me, it calms the mind and makes room for writing. I also cook all manner of mad things, blow glass, and make jewelry. I live on an island in Maine and we have a small sailboat called Persephone--so I sail, fish, and snorkel. I'm also a big gamer, both console and tabletop.
What sort of research did you do to write this book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?
Palimpsest was far less research-intensive than The Orphan's Tales, but I spent a lot of time in New York--I'm not a city girl, so I wanted to feel what that kind of urban world was like. I also researched urban planning and political psychology quite a bit, trying to create a city that felt real, even as it was magical and surreal.
What are you writing now?
I'm working on a retelling of a Russian folktale set in the Stalinist era
called *Deathless* and an epic fantasy trilogy concerning the kingdom of
Prester John from medieval myth.
What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?
I usually walk down to the cafe near the ferry dock--I live on a small island of about 800 people and we only have one cafe--at around 8 or 9 am and write until they close at 2. then I'll come home and work on admin things, returning emails, interviews, and such, and any other freelance projects that I have on my plate. I find writing for 5 hours straight every day lets me get a lot done with a good amount of daylight left to me.
What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?
Language is probably the thing that comes most naturally--I love rich, decadent language and my brain wants to make words like that all the time. It takes concentration and discipline to do otherwise. The hardest thing for me is keeping a linear plot going. I'm working on getting better at that--I do with every book, I think. But I always want to mess with traditional plot structures and take them apart, like a kid taking apart a remote to see how it works. I don't always know how to put it back together again, but damned if I don't end up with a sweet pile of melted electronics.
This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?
My series The Orphan's Tales, novels of interconnected fairy tales, won the Tiptree Award and the Mythopoeic Award. I've also written three other novels: The Labyrinth, The Book of Dreams, and The Grass-Cutting Sword, as well as five collections of poetry. The newest of those is A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects.
Buy Palimpsest
Monday, February 23, 2009
Feels Weird to Have Done Nothing (WIP question)
First, I got knocked out by the cold from heck and didn't write. Then, I wrote a final scene in the novel and, even though I know I have a lot of revision work to do (about 20,000 words of it), I kind of took a break and didn't write for another several days.
It's time to get back on track now, and I feel like, I dunno, like I no longer know HOW to write.
So that's my job for today: get back in the swing of writing and start revision on the novel. Oh, and I have to go to the grocery store for milk, to the post office to send off some books, and to TOYS R US to return a Christmas gift that never worked quite right.
How about you? What are your plans for the day -- either writing-related or not?
It's time to get back on track now, and I feel like, I dunno, like I no longer know HOW to write.
So that's my job for today: get back in the swing of writing and start revision on the novel. Oh, and I have to go to the grocery store for milk, to the post office to send off some books, and to TOYS R US to return a Christmas gift that never worked quite right.
How about you? What are your plans for the day -- either writing-related or not?
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday Cat Blogging
Ambition is my middle...zzzzzzzz
Fat cat is not amused
Oh sun from whom all good things come, I worship thee
Here I come to save the day!
That was some really good nip, Dude
Fat cat is not amused
Oh sun from whom all good things come, I worship thee
Here I come to save the day!
That was some really good nip, Dude
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday Morning WIP Open Thread
Howdy all,
How goes it? I'm working on the closing third of SpellCrash and hoping to have it finished no later then the end of the first week of March. I'd like to have it done in February, but I'm thinking that 8 1/2 working days is not going to net me 27,000 new words no matter how much I want it to. Turned my proofs in for MythOS last night, so that off my plate. I desperately need to update my website with sample chapters, new bibliography, free short stories, and an updated recommended fiction list. I've also got a novel crit to finish and one huge short story crit to do. I expect some of that to get done this weekend, but mostly not before as I've just had three of my remaining four evenings this week scheduled out from under me. And, of course, some of it's going to get punted to after the finish of the book. What about y'all? What are you working on? Oh, and as per usual, feel free to toss writing questions into the ring here, and I or someone else will take a swing at them.
How goes it? I'm working on the closing third of SpellCrash and hoping to have it finished no later then the end of the first week of March. I'd like to have it done in February, but I'm thinking that 8 1/2 working days is not going to net me 27,000 new words no matter how much I want it to. Turned my proofs in for MythOS last night, so that off my plate. I desperately need to update my website with sample chapters, new bibliography, free short stories, and an updated recommended fiction list. I've also got a novel crit to finish and one huge short story crit to do. I expect some of that to get done this weekend, but mostly not before as I've just had three of my remaining four evenings this week scheduled out from under me. And, of course, some of it's going to get punted to after the finish of the book. What about y'all? What are you working on? Oh, and as per usual, feel free to toss writing questions into the ring here, and I or someone else will take a swing at them.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Blogging Elsewhere
Today I've managed to blog about writing and being sick over at Soemthing Wicked: Devilish Details. To which I can only add, I haven't been able to write for almost a week and I do believe Kelly is kicking my butt.
If anyone tuned into AM 950 on Saturday to listen, you may not have realized it, but my fever broke while on the radio. I think I'm lucky I made sense at all (and I managed NOT to say any of the seven words not allowed on radio! Go me!)
If anyone tuned into AM 950 on Saturday to listen, you may not have realized it, but my fever broke while on the radio. I think I'm lucky I made sense at all (and I managed NOT to say any of the seven words not allowed on radio! Go me!)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
The Tumbrel Song
Don't spoil your pretty little shoes
The gutter's deep and red
Climb up climb up and ride with me
the tumbrel driver said
—Marat/Sade
The gutter's deep and red
Climb up climb up and ride with me
the tumbrel driver said
—Marat/Sade
Friday, February 13, 2009
Friday Cat Blogging
It's...alive?
Damned paparazzi!
Identical cousins?
Is this really all there is to life?
Damned paparazzi!
Identical cousins?
Is this really all there is to life?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
When a Novel Falls Short
I realized yesterday as I was doing some revisions for HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD that I'm really only a couple of scenes away from the structural end of the novel. Even if those scenes somehow turn out to be several pages each, I'm going to fall WAY short of the proposed word count for this novel (like by 20,000 words.)
For once in my life, I've decided not to worry about it too much. My thought is that I've been writing this novel so fast that there are bound to be places that need fleshing out once I've let readers take a look at it. Usually, by this time, Wyrdsmiths has been following along making suggestions that add depth and whatnot, and I've been completely bereft of their input.
It's still a very eerie feeling, though, being this close to "THE END" and knowing that the book is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too short.
For once in my life, I've decided not to worry about it too much. My thought is that I've been writing this novel so fast that there are bound to be places that need fleshing out once I've let readers take a look at it. Usually, by this time, Wyrdsmiths has been following along making suggestions that add depth and whatnot, and I've been completely bereft of their input.
It's still a very eerie feeling, though, being this close to "THE END" and knowing that the book is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too short.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Discipline Kicks Motivation's Ass Every Time.
Kelly's blogging at SFNovelists today: Waiting for Inspiration: A Writer’s Morality Play
Monday, February 09, 2009
Spatial Sense (Updated)
Something I've read recently has me thinking about a writer's sense of space. The scenes in the piece range from OMFG perfect! to Why is this writer who is so good at this really difficult stuff over there having such trouble with this simple stuff over here?"
updated for clarity
I now have a working hypothesis. An as yet incompletely developed sense of narrative space. I'm going to throw down a principal here and I'm not sure if it's going to generate argument, because I don't think I've ever talked about it with other writers outside the context of writing combat. Which is a serious weirdness, when I think about how much time I've spent talking writing over the past 15 years.
Spatial Sense:
By the end of any scene, no matter how complex, the writer must know exactly what the space of the scene looks like from the POV character's perspective and where everyone is in that space and all of their movements during the scene.
Because, if the writer doesn't know they're not going to be able to show the reader and the chances are very good that the reader will get lost. Or worse, the writer will get lost. You don't have to know it all going into the scene. You can be surprised: Oh, I didn't realize there was a window there. You can not know things the POV character doesn't know: How did Johnny end up over there with a broken neck, if they're not critical to the reader's understanding of the story and the POV character never does find out how Johnny broke his fool neck. But if it matters at all to the story, you need to know it.
There are a lot of ways to do this:
1) Simple substitution like this is a duplicate of Granny Helen's parlor in terms of shape and furniture placement. That way you know that when Hero Protagonist punches aunt Hilda in the nose, she's going to fall and break that little chintzy end table you always hated. This also works on a larger scale like the manor house is identical to that place we took so many pictures of in Perthshire, only it's on the Royal mile in the imaginart town of "Bipnreoip" which is by pure coincidence an exact replica of Edinburgh with all the names changed. Or for battles, such that every major troop movement mimics the patterns of the battle of Waterloo.
2) Making up and keeping all of the pieces straight in your head. This is mostly what I do. By sheer happenstance one of the most valuable courses of my entire college career was stage combat, in which I spent a great deal of time learning multi-combatant combat choreography. If I'd stayed in theater it would have been useful. As a writer, it's been absolutely priceless.
Why? Because it taught me how to keep very close track of the movements of multiple people through a very complex series of movements in a defined space. In combat choreography you have to know not just what everyone is doing but also how it looks from multiple angles, so that you can make punches that never connect with their target look absolutely devastating from the audience's POV. Since we learned combat for proscenium arch, thrust, round, and street theater, this meant a lot of thinking about sight-lines and three-dimensional space. We even had to learn to create our own system of notation for tracking fights so that we could reliably recreate the scene later. Fantastically useful for a writer, though I no longer actually use the notation.
3) Simulation creating a scale model of the scene and moving figures through it physically or electronically. This can be as simple as drawing an appropriately shaped outline on a piece of paper, sketching in the rough position of the furniture, and then moving Monopoly tokens around so that you know where people are. It can be more elaborate lead miniatures in a three dimensional model, or articulated dolls of some sort that can be posed. You could even do the whole thing with wire frame figures on a computer.
How doesn't matter. What does matter is that you the writer understand what happens in the space you create for the scene before the reader sees it. If you don't know, how will you ever convince them?
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
updated for clarity
I now have a working hypothesis. An as yet incompletely developed sense of narrative space. I'm going to throw down a principal here and I'm not sure if it's going to generate argument, because I don't think I've ever talked about it with other writers outside the context of writing combat. Which is a serious weirdness, when I think about how much time I've spent talking writing over the past 15 years.
Spatial Sense:
By the end of any scene, no matter how complex, the writer must know exactly what the space of the scene looks like from the POV character's perspective and where everyone is in that space and all of their movements during the scene.
Because, if the writer doesn't know they're not going to be able to show the reader and the chances are very good that the reader will get lost. Or worse, the writer will get lost. You don't have to know it all going into the scene. You can be surprised: Oh, I didn't realize there was a window there. You can not know things the POV character doesn't know: How did Johnny end up over there with a broken neck, if they're not critical to the reader's understanding of the story and the POV character never does find out how Johnny broke his fool neck. But if it matters at all to the story, you need to know it.
There are a lot of ways to do this:
1) Simple substitution like this is a duplicate of Granny Helen's parlor in terms of shape and furniture placement. That way you know that when Hero Protagonist punches aunt Hilda in the nose, she's going to fall and break that little chintzy end table you always hated. This also works on a larger scale like the manor house is identical to that place we took so many pictures of in Perthshire, only it's on the Royal mile in the imaginart town of "Bipnreoip" which is by pure coincidence an exact replica of Edinburgh with all the names changed. Or for battles, such that every major troop movement mimics the patterns of the battle of Waterloo.
2) Making up and keeping all of the pieces straight in your head. This is mostly what I do. By sheer happenstance one of the most valuable courses of my entire college career was stage combat, in which I spent a great deal of time learning multi-combatant combat choreography. If I'd stayed in theater it would have been useful. As a writer, it's been absolutely priceless.
Why? Because it taught me how to keep very close track of the movements of multiple people through a very complex series of movements in a defined space. In combat choreography you have to know not just what everyone is doing but also how it looks from multiple angles, so that you can make punches that never connect with their target look absolutely devastating from the audience's POV. Since we learned combat for proscenium arch, thrust, round, and street theater, this meant a lot of thinking about sight-lines and three-dimensional space. We even had to learn to create our own system of notation for tracking fights so that we could reliably recreate the scene later. Fantastically useful for a writer, though I no longer actually use the notation.
3) Simulation creating a scale model of the scene and moving figures through it physically or electronically. This can be as simple as drawing an appropriately shaped outline on a piece of paper, sketching in the rough position of the furniture, and then moving Monopoly tokens around so that you know where people are. It can be more elaborate lead miniatures in a three dimensional model, or articulated dolls of some sort that can be posed. You could even do the whole thing with wire frame figures on a computer.
How doesn't matter. What does matter is that you the writer understand what happens in the space you create for the scene before the reader sees it. If you don't know, how will you ever convince them?
Thoughts? Comments? Questions?
Saturday, February 07, 2009
New Agent Enters the Biz (updated)
For those of you looking for an agent, this is someone I would consider very seriously. Go look.
Update: In comments Dave asks what my criteria for this recommendation are and I've responded there. Of possible interest to those interested in my whys and wherefores.
Update: In comments Dave asks what my criteria for this recommendation are and I've responded there. Of possible interest to those interested in my whys and wherefores.
Getting Started
So, in the open thread Love Pickles asked: How would you advise an amateur writer who mainly writes poetry and journals, and while proud of it, it'd be nice to venture into new territory. I thoroughly love writing, but dialog and the process of character development is a little intimidating to me. I think it'd be a cool challenge to push myself further with writing, and am absolutely fine if it never goes anywhere.
Which is a fascinating question. I know how I started, which was pretty much, hey I have this shiny new computer, what can I do with it? I know, I'll write a book. Then I leapt. But that's not a terribly helpful prescription for anyone else. Sean had one good suggestion down at the end of that thread. After thinking about it in more depth I can think of a number of others. I'll put one out there now.
I tend to start with an idea for a place or piece of magic. If you're not writing f&sf, that latter's not as useful, but stick with me for a little bit. On that front, think of something you'd really like to know more about. It can be something you already enjoy, or something you've always wanted to do or see but never got around to. The key is that it's something you'd really like to spend some time with.
Go, take a look at your thing. Think about something that might happen there. It can be as simple as the meal you'd like to cook in the really great kitchen you don't own with the ingredients you can't afford. Build a scenario for whatever the idea is that runs from start to finish. If there's only one person, add another so the two can talk about what's happening. Spend some time building a little opening dialogue for the scene. Make sure to give yourself enough to really get a feel for the beginning of this cool thing that's happening. Write it all down.
Got it? Good. Now imagine something going wrong. If you want a small domestic kind of story it can be a minor problem. The pilot light in the kitchen scene won't start. If you're writing epic fantasy, maybe this is the time for you to discover that the real gas source for the stove is a not very happy baby dragon whose really unhappy mom is about to arrive to set things right. The exact problem doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a problem you can work with.
How does the problem change the scene? What do your characters do and say? Are they calm? Do they unravel under stress? Spend some time thinking about it. Go ahead and start writing, but don't finish it yet.
Why? Because they're going to fail in that first attempt and you need to figure out how, and how they're going to overcome the failure. Now, that may lead to another failure, or the solution of the overarching problem, or to something that solves a different problem entirely, perhaps one that's been exposed by the way they deal with failure. Again, the specifics don't matter. What matters is the way the characters are transformed or fail to be transformed by their interaction with the problem.
Figure that out, write it down, type "the end," and you've got a story. Or, if it doesn't end, if the problem builds into another and you want to keep following it, maybe you've got the opening chapter of a novel. Whatever you've got, hopefully you had fun getting there and will want to try another go.
Another approach for a poet might be to take something that you've already written that has a core story that interests you and expand it out into a short story.
You'll probably find that writing the story is less work than writing the poem was. For me a good poem takes a week's work and might run 200 words. A short story will probably take the same week and come in around 5,000 words. Or I can write 10,000-12,000 words on a novel in the same time.
Which is a fascinating question. I know how I started, which was pretty much, hey I have this shiny new computer, what can I do with it? I know, I'll write a book. Then I leapt. But that's not a terribly helpful prescription for anyone else. Sean had one good suggestion down at the end of that thread. After thinking about it in more depth I can think of a number of others. I'll put one out there now.
I tend to start with an idea for a place or piece of magic. If you're not writing f&sf, that latter's not as useful, but stick with me for a little bit. On that front, think of something you'd really like to know more about. It can be something you already enjoy, or something you've always wanted to do or see but never got around to. The key is that it's something you'd really like to spend some time with.
Go, take a look at your thing. Think about something that might happen there. It can be as simple as the meal you'd like to cook in the really great kitchen you don't own with the ingredients you can't afford. Build a scenario for whatever the idea is that runs from start to finish. If there's only one person, add another so the two can talk about what's happening. Spend some time building a little opening dialogue for the scene. Make sure to give yourself enough to really get a feel for the beginning of this cool thing that's happening. Write it all down.
Got it? Good. Now imagine something going wrong. If you want a small domestic kind of story it can be a minor problem. The pilot light in the kitchen scene won't start. If you're writing epic fantasy, maybe this is the time for you to discover that the real gas source for the stove is a not very happy baby dragon whose really unhappy mom is about to arrive to set things right. The exact problem doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a problem you can work with.
How does the problem change the scene? What do your characters do and say? Are they calm? Do they unravel under stress? Spend some time thinking about it. Go ahead and start writing, but don't finish it yet.
Why? Because they're going to fail in that first attempt and you need to figure out how, and how they're going to overcome the failure. Now, that may lead to another failure, or the solution of the overarching problem, or to something that solves a different problem entirely, perhaps one that's been exposed by the way they deal with failure. Again, the specifics don't matter. What matters is the way the characters are transformed or fail to be transformed by their interaction with the problem.
Figure that out, write it down, type "the end," and you've got a story. Or, if it doesn't end, if the problem builds into another and you want to keep following it, maybe you've got the opening chapter of a novel. Whatever you've got, hopefully you had fun getting there and will want to try another go.
Another approach for a poet might be to take something that you've already written that has a core story that interests you and expand it out into a short story.
You'll probably find that writing the story is less work than writing the poem was. For me a good poem takes a week's work and might run 200 words. A short story will probably take the same week and come in around 5,000 words. Or I can write 10,000-12,000 words on a novel in the same time.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Friday Cat Blogging--Two of these things are not like the others...
Not A Cat, (but very nearly as cute)
Isabelle "Helps" Me Work
Still Life With Fruit
My Fleece, Mine, Mine, Mine!
I Can Has Summer? (Please, please, Please!)
Simple Grace And Feline Elegance
Also Not A Cat (But hey I was skimming through pics and this one is cool)
Isabelle "Helps" Me Work
Still Life With Fruit
My Fleece, Mine, Mine, Mine!
I Can Has Summer? (Please, please, Please!)
Simple Grace And Feline Elegance
Also Not A Cat (But hey I was skimming through pics and this one is cool)
Dancing By Myself
So, I've noticed something over the past few years. The differential in difficulty between editing my own stuff and editing other people's has shifted radically.
It used to be that I found it much easier to look objectively at someone else's words and make useful suggestions than to see the holes in my own sentences and stories. Now, I find the reverse is true. Not because editing other people has gotten harder—if anything it's simpler now—but because editing myself has gotten much easier. There are two reasons for that.
The first is that I've gotten more objective about my work, more able to see the flaws, particularly at the sentence and paragraph level. I suspect that's partially because my eye has gotten better, but mostly because I suck less in general and so the rough patches stand out more.
The second reason is that I can be utterly merciless with myself. I don't have to make suggestions, or gently bring issues to the attention of the writer. I can just fix the damn things and move on without spending time on polite. I can scrap hundreds of words at a go without feeling the least bit like I've killed somebody's brain child.
The funny thing about the realization is that it happened when I was editing two pieces of professional-quality writing.
What about you? Is it easier to fix your own literary children or to say necessary things about those belonging to others?
---------------------------------------------
P.S. The other posts are still coming. This one just fell out of my head after 9,000 words of close-editing today.
It used to be that I found it much easier to look objectively at someone else's words and make useful suggestions than to see the holes in my own sentences and stories. Now, I find the reverse is true. Not because editing other people has gotten harder—if anything it's simpler now—but because editing myself has gotten much easier. There are two reasons for that.
The first is that I've gotten more objective about my work, more able to see the flaws, particularly at the sentence and paragraph level. I suspect that's partially because my eye has gotten better, but mostly because I suck less in general and so the rough patches stand out more.
The second reason is that I can be utterly merciless with myself. I don't have to make suggestions, or gently bring issues to the attention of the writer. I can just fix the damn things and move on without spending time on polite. I can scrap hundreds of words at a go without feeling the least bit like I've killed somebody's brain child.
The funny thing about the realization is that it happened when I was editing two pieces of professional-quality writing.
What about you? Is it easier to fix your own literary children or to say necessary things about those belonging to others?
---------------------------------------------
P.S. The other posts are still coming. This one just fell out of my head after 9,000 words of close-editing today.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Posts coming
So, I've got three posts half drafted at the moment, and I promise to get them out there soon. The first is on Getting Started, or how to move into the world of fiction writing. The second is something I'm calling Discipline Kicks Motivation's Ass, which is all about how to keep moving forward with your work. The third is a post on pacing that builds out of something in Diana Pharaoh Francis's post on the same subject over at SFNovelists. I'd have it all up sooner, but holding onto discipline with SpellCrash is currently kicking my ass. The work's getting done, but it's not leaving much juice for anything else.
Darth Vader Birthday Wishes
My partner found this yesterday on the WrongModo blog at Gizmodo, and it was just SO wrong I had to pass it on here (full Gizmodo article and usual funny commentary here: http://i.gizmodo.com/5145139/darth-vader-gets-pregnant-has-a-girl-and-a-cake.
Look, Ma, I'm on the Radio
..or will be.
This is subject to change, but yesterday I agreed to be on Radio Cafe with Cathy Hauser on Saturday, February 14, 2009 (yes, Valentine's Day) from 3:00 - 4:00 pm CST on KTNF / AM 950 (that's "Voice of Minnesota," Air America.) If you're out of town and still want to listen in, please go to www.am950ktnf.com. Also, if you wish to harass... er, support me, feel free to call into the studio line at (952) 946-6205. I'm sure Cathy will also announce a 1-800 number if they have one.
This is subject to change, but yesterday I agreed to be on Radio Cafe with Cathy Hauser on Saturday, February 14, 2009 (yes, Valentine's Day) from 3:00 - 4:00 pm CST on KTNF / AM 950 (that's "Voice of Minnesota," Air America.) If you're out of town and still want to listen in, please go to www.am950ktnf.com. Also, if you wish to harass... er, support me, feel free to call into the studio line at (952) 946-6205. I'm sure Cathy will also announce a 1-800 number if they have one.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
I Can See Clearly Now...
Gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day!
***cking hallelujah! Finally crashed through the final "what happens next?" wall and can see my way to the end of the book in detail. I should finally be able to start picking up speed now. It happened much later in the process this time.
Update: I love knowing where things are going. Knocked off a 1,000 words in about forty minutes earlier and it didn't even feel like work.
***cking hallelujah! Finally crashed through the final "what happens next?" wall and can see my way to the end of the book in detail. I should finally be able to start picking up speed now. It happened much later in the process this time.
Update: I love knowing where things are going. Knocked off a 1,000 words in about forty minutes earlier and it didn't even feel like work.
Monday Morning Open Thread (WIP and otherwise)
Hey all,
On the treadmill, literally and figuratively at the moment trying to get SpellCrash done by the end of _this_ month, oy. Page proofs for MythOS are on their way and that's going to cost me a couple of days. What about y'all? Anything interesting on your project plates? Writing or otherwise. Oh and if anyone has a writing craft question you'd like any of us to take a swing, this is the place to post it.
On the treadmill, literally and figuratively at the moment trying to get SpellCrash done by the end of _this_ month, oy. Page proofs for MythOS are on their way and that's going to cost me a couple of days. What about y'all? Anything interesting on your project plates? Writing or otherwise. Oh and if anyone has a writing craft question you'd like any of us to take a swing, this is the place to post it.
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