Wyrdsmiths

Vale Robert Asprin

2008-05-23T08:29:00.002-05:00

According to Scalzi we lost Asprin yesterday. Apparently, he died gently with a science fiction book in his hand. Which is as good a way to go as any, I suppose, but I'm still bummed.

A Very Different Interview: Ravirn at Cat and Muse (Updated)

2008-05-22T10:12:00.003-05:00

The extremely funny Jackie Kessler has a CodeSpell interview up over at Cat and Muse. For those of you who aren't familiar with Cat and Muse, it's done as a radio show script of Jackie's lead character for the Hell books, the succubus Jezebel, interviewing various other book characters. In this case, Ravirn from the WebMage books. They're pretty much as much fun as you can have as an author in an interview setting. Oh, and if you haven't yet, go buy Jackie's books they're great fun. Hell's Belles, The Road to Hell, and Hotter Than Hell.

Updated to add the link...doh.

Go Look--McCullough Interview

2008-05-22T07:25:00.001-05:00

Hey folks,

Penguin has an interview of me up over at their website.

Miss Snark...Drat

2008-05-21T17:01:00.003-05:00

So, the much missed Miss Snark stopped blogging a year and a day ago. There was a project to put up Snark Lights in tribute. It was supposed to happen all over the blogosphere yesterday, but yesterday was a very bad day and I missed it. I'm also failing totally to put the picture up because I have some weird blogger interaction that prevents me from uploading pictures about 97 percent of the time. But I do miss the Miss and wanted to make note of the shutting down of a most excellent blog.

People Are Going To Walking Be On My Poetry

2008-05-21T10:47:00.005-05:00

The city of St. Paul had a poetry contest, and I am one of the 20 winners. The prize is getting your poem installed on a city sidewalk for people to read. There is also going to be an anthology.

My fiction is always some kind of SF -- science fiction, fantasy, alternate history. But most of my poetry is realistic. Don't ask me why.

I did write a 65 page epic poem many years ago. It's set in the world of Spenser's Faerie Queene, though I was not crazy enough to use Spenser's stanza. That was fantasy. I've never figured out what to do with it. There is not much call for epic poems these days, even short epic poems.

I'm happy about the sidewalk poem. I like popular art forms, and there isn't much more popular -- or more urban -- than a sidewalk.

Interview: Kelly McCullough

2008-05-21T08:53:00.002-05:00

Kelly McCullough's first novel in the WebMage series, WebMage, was released by Ace in 2006 to considerable critical praise. A second, Cybermancy, followed in 2007. His newest release, CodeSpell, will be out May 27th. And a fourth book, MythOS, is slated for late May '09. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues including Weird Tales, Writers of the Future, and Tales of the Unanticipated. His illustrated collection, The Chronicles of the Wandering Star, is part of a National Science Foundation-funded middle school science curriculum, Interactions in Physical Science.

For more information and samples of some his short stories you can check out his website: http://www.kellymccullough.com/.

Why this book? What made you want to write this story?

That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. This is the third book of a series and certainly part of my motivation for writing it is that this is a fun world to play in and I like these characters enough to want to spend more time with them. Part of it is that I had what I thought was a fast fun plot that continued the story in a way that would be entertaining to write and to read. But probably the most important part of the equation for this book is that actions have consequences. The things that Ravirn did in books one and two have ongoing repercussions and I wanted to see how they played out and how Ravirn would have to grow to respond to them.

Which authors inspire you? Has that changed over time?

Different writers teach me different things at different times. Zelazney and Tim Powers are probably at the top of the list of writers who've affected my work most visibly, though Powers is less present in the WebMage stuff than he is in some of my other, darker work. Norton and McCaffrey and Tolkien are in my bones. Martha Wells is wonderful and so are Robin McKinley and Lois McMaster Bujold.

Why genre? Is there something special about science fiction or fantasy that draws you to write in the field?

I was pretty much raised to be a fantasy and science fiction writer, though that certainly wasn't the intent of the process. I'm a third generation fan of the genre and some of my earliest memories are of having the Lord of the Rings, Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and A Midsummer Night's Dream read to me. I learned very early to love story and genre and once I found out that I could maybe make a living by telling the sorts of stories that were told to me I was pretty much lost.

What do you find most interesting about Ravirn? Why write about this protagonist?

What I love about Ravirn is his combination of idealism and cynicism. He expects the worst of a situation but won't let that stop him from working toward a solution, even when he knows the attempt is probably doomed. That and his sense of humor. I come from a family where humor, particularly black humor and sarcasm, are fundamental coping mechanisms. Sometimes life hands you a situation where you have to laugh or cry, and given any choice in the matter I'll always pick laughter. It may not solve the problem, but it sure lightens the load.

You're a writer. What else are you? What are your interests? Hobbies?

Husband and cat-wrangler are probably at the top of the list for other self-identifiers. My wife and I are coming up on twenty fantastic years together and over that time two cats became three cats, became four cats, became five. I love to read and play video-games. I've got a Gaiman, a Pierce and a Blaylock on the active books pile and I just finished playing Portal and Drake's Fortune. I also like hiking and biking, and since it's spring, I'm at the front end of the annual garden madness.

Did you have to do any special research for this book? What did you need to know in order to write it that you didn't know before? Do you have some special preparation you do for your writing?

I didn't have to do a lot of new research for this book. After finishing two novels set in the Greek gods plus computers reality of the WebMage I have a pretty good grounding in this world, and I really only needed to touch up my memory of a couple of the myths involved in this specific story. On a more general note, I read non-fiction voraciously. I just finished a great book on plants in traditional Hawaiian culture as part of a Hawaiian history and mythology kick. I read several science and technology magazines on an ongoing basis and I'm looking around for some good references on the Canadian Maritime provinces in general and on Halifax in particular.

I see a lot of computer and programming stuff in the WebMage series. Is that something that really interests you? Or is it more driven by the needs of the story?

Mostly it's the needs of the story. I love my laptop and the web and I tend to be a technology early adopter if I can afford it, but I'm not really much for programming or hacking. While I have been immersed in computer culture from a very early age since my mother became a bug-checker when I was about ten and has been working as an analyst and programmer ever since and because I've got a lot of close friends in IT, it's not something I'm much involved in outside of writing the books.

Ravirn displays a lot of physicality, constantly getting himself into life-threatening situations and back out of them in ways that involve all sorts of death defying action. I'm guessing that's not something you the writer have an enormous amount of experience with. How do you make that convincing? Do Ravirn's solutions reflect the sort of things you might do in a similar situation?

I'm much more of a thinker than Ravirn, especially as I've gotten older, but I've got to admit to a certain amount of speaking from experience when I have him do something big and physical and stupid like climbing a building and then jumping off. It's not the sort of thing I'd do now, but when I was in my late teens and early twenties I was something of an adrenaline junkie. I was into martial arts and mountain climbing and all sorts of things that are moderately safe when done responsibly and less so when done the way I did some of them. From fifteen to twenty-two I averaged two trips to the emergency room a year, and as I've gotten older that's led to things like a couple of knee surgeries and other corrective measures.

What are you writing now?

A couple of things. I just sent off book proposals for a fifth WebMage and for two books that I would like to write as a successor series to the WebMage/Ravirn books. I've also got a YA I want to work on–the second in a series that my agent is shopping around now–because I'm in love with the story and the world. That's the main front burner stuff. But I've got five complete novels and nine proposals out with various editors and any of those could get moved up the list if they sell. I'm pretty busy at the moment, and I love it that way. There's really nothing I'd rather be doing with my life than what I'm doing right now.

How did you become a writer? Is this what you saw yourself growing up to be? Or did it take you be surprise?

Short answer: I quit theater. Longer version. I set out at the age of eleven to be an actor and was well on my way when I met the woman I would eventually marry. At that point, I realized how incompatible theater was with having a long term relationship and I went looking for something else to do. On something very like a whim I wrote my first novel and fell head over heals in love with writing. Now I can't imagine myself doing anything else.

Do you have a writing routine? Talk process for a moment, how do the words get on the page?

I write between two and eight hours a day five days a week. On a typical day I get up around eight in the morning, stagger downstairs and collect a unit of caffeine–could be soda, could be tea, it doesn't really matter since it's a delivery system. Then I hop on the treadmill and websurf and read email and the like for an hour or so. At that point I'm mostly awake and I do things like respond to the email or other writing and life maintenance tasks. That can take anything between twenty minutes and two hours. Then I write. Less than a thousand words is a bad day. More than two thousand is a good one. Oh, and, I use a laptop so that I can work where the whim takes me.

Office? Closet? Corner of the living room? Do you have a set place to write? A favorite? How does the environment you write in affect your production? Your process?

In summer I write in a second floor screen porch. It has a gorgeous view over the park that abuts our backyard, and that sort of near outdoor setting is my preferred setting for writing–I'm hoping to have a more permanent solar built to replace the porch soon. Until then, my winter office is our upstairs sitting room which gets southern light and is a pretty comfortable substitute for my screen porch.

Is there anything you especially like to work on in a book? Anything you hate?

I love world-building and plot-twisting. Figuring out how a system of magic might work and then figuring out ways to game that system fascinates me. And yes, I was a rules lawyer back in my role-playing days, why do you ask? Likewise building a plot and then coming up with ways to add twists or bits of misdirection is a joy for me. I don't really have any hates. There are things that I used to find more difficult, character chief among them, but I'm getting a steadily better handle on the whole process and I just love writing. I even love rewriting, both the sentence level stuff and the bigger more complex story edits.

This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there.

Well, primarily it's the WebMage stuff. WebMage, Cybermancy, and now CodeSpell with MythOS finished and forthcoming and a proposal in for SpellCrash after that. On the novels front, as I mentioned above, I've got five more books and nine proposals out, so that could change at any moment. I've also had a number of short stories published, including an illustrated collection as part of a big middle school physical science curriculum that's been adopted by several states. But that doesn't make an enormous amount of sense outside the classroom setting it was written for.

Do you see fiction as having a purpose? Generally? How about your own work?

Transcendence. I think that human beings need story. We need myths and legends and tales that lift us out of ourselves and that fiction supplies that need. That's another reason I do most of my work in fantasy-if I'm going to be a mythmaker for a living I might as well write the truly mythic.

Early Reviews:

CodeSpell has been getting great reviews. Publishers Weekly called CodeSpell the "taut third book in the Ravirn series" and said, "A hint of cyberpunk, a dollop of Greek mythology and a sprinkle of techno-magic bake up into an airy genre mashup. Lots of fast-paced action and romantic angst up the ante as Ravirn faces down his formidable foes." From Romantic Times four star review: "This third book featuring hacker extraordinaire Ravirn is every bit of a fast-paced, energetic, page-turner as its predecessors. Ravirn continues to be a fascinating protagonist, and the chaotic twists of the plot carry the reader through to the end.

Sales info:

Amazon:
CodeSpell
Cybermancy
WebMage

Barnes & Noble:
CodeSpell
Cybermancy
WebMage

Dreamhaven (signed copies): http://dreamhavenbooks.com/mccullough.php

CodeSpell, One Week Warning

2008-05-20T07:56:00.002-05:00

Hey folks,

So it turns out my next book, CodeSpell is out in a week. If you feel so inclined, that link will allow you to order a copy that will also kick money my way via Amazon.

CodeSpell has gotten a couple of very nice early reviews. Publishers Weekly called CodeSpell the "taut third book in the Ravirn series" and said, "A hint of cyberpunk, a dollop of Greek mythology and a sprinkle of techno-magic bake up into an airy genre mashup. Lots of fast-paced action and romantic angst up the ante as Ravirn faces down his formidable foes." From Romantic Times* four star review: "This third book featuring hacker extraordinaire Ravirn is every bit of a fast-paced, energetic, page-turner as its predecessors. Ravirn continues to be a fascinating protagonist, and the chaotic twists of the plot carry the reader through to the end.

Also, there is rumor of a hardcover reissue of WebMage for the library trade. I haven't been able to verify that its real yet, but if y'all feel the desire to improve the odds and are so inclined you could sign up to be notified in the event that actually does become a real book.

---------------------------------
*No link due to lack of a free online version.

Uplift, Assail the Skies!

2008-05-19T16:08:00.003-05:00

This just in: Man flies with rocket powered wings.

For real. Too damn cool to believe

Monday Quote

2008-05-19T09:19:00.002-05:00

I was reading a book about critique groups last night in the tub called "The Writing Group Book: Creating and Sustaining a Successful Writing Group" and I came across this totally unrelated quote by Albert Camus:

"Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators."

John Barnes

2008-05-17T10:02:00.004-05:00

I think Kelly and Lyda have perfect tones for blog writing, and my tone is the least good among the Wyrdsmiths. What one wants is a relaxed, conversational tone. This is a conversation, after all.

But I don't think I'm likely to change. J'y suis. J'y reste. I yam what I yam.

Be that as it may...

I am doing a panel at Wiscon about an essay that John Barnes wrote, arguing that genres have a 70 year life span, and science fiction is now dead, though still interesting as the corpse decays. Look at those lovely bacteria and fungi!

I think what Barnes means by SF is American pulp SF and what evolved out of it in the 60s through the 90s.

He's leaving out a lot of what I'd call SF, and I'm making a list for use at Wiscon.

But let's not get into that discussion here.

Instead, my question is: are we dead?

Has the field used up its ideas? Is sense of wonder gone?

Not All Writers Are Neurotic...At Least Not In The Same Ways

2008-05-17T08:13:00.003-05:00

I was at a library author appearance recently (Catherine Friend--funny funny writer, go buy her book Hit by a Farm). She said that when she was younger she'd never really been interested in being a writer. Further she said that this was at least in part due to having read about writers and determining that (at least according to their bios) they were pretty much all insecure neurotic drunks. She then gave the punchline--she was here to tell us it simply wasn't true and she was living proof...she didn't drink. Then she went on to detail her insecurities and neuroses. It was funny and it did a great job of selling her most recent work--a humorous memoir.

On that level the joke and the related anecdotes worked great. On another level they grated on my nerves a bit. I won't argue with the neurotic bit, I don't think I've ever met a writer who wasn't a bit neurotic in some way, but then I don't know that I've ever met any human who wasn't a bit neurotic in some way.

It was the insecurity thing. There is a school of thought, much reinforced by writer blogs, that suggests that all writers moan about how their work is crap much of the time...except for those writers who are egotistical monsters. Now, it is certainly true that some writers are insecure wrecks and some writers are certainly egotists, but there's a lot of ground in between. And really, I suspect that most writers spend most of our time in that middle ground. If we didn't believe we were doing pretty good work most of the time we'd never send it out. I certainly believe that I mostly do pretty good work most of the time.

I'm sure there are people who will argue with me on this, and that's fine. There are 1,001 ways to write a novel and every one of them is right, and if being an insecure wreck is your method and it works for you, I'm not going to try to say it shouldn't or make you stop. I just want to provide a counter-example. It is perfectly fine to by happy writing most of the time and be happy with what you have written...as long as it doesn't prevent you from seeing flaws and correcting them.

So, consider this official permission to enjoy yourself and give yourself the occasional pat on the back from a real live professional author (yes, that is tongue firmly in cheek, but it's also sincere). If every time you write you enjoy it, and every time you reread your work you go "Hey that mostly works," and sometimes you even say things like "I rock!" Or, "I'm a genius!" It's all fine. Just don't let it stop you from improving. It's perfectly acceptable to be a happy and secure writer. You can even do that and sell books.

This message brought to you by the Kelly McCullough People Like Me, They Really Like Me, school of writing.

Dreamhaven

2008-05-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

On another topic entirely, does anyone know what is happening to Dreamhaven? I just heard that Greg has sold his building. I know he was thinking about doing that, because he got tired of the road construction on Lake Street. Hard to run a business, when your customers can't get to you. Then I heard he might not sell. Now the deal is apparently done.

ETA: Check Comments thread for update on Dreamhaven's actual plans. --Sean M. Murphy

Author Interview–Jeri Smith Ready

2008-05-15T12:02:00.003-05:00

Jeri Smith-Ready has been writing fiction since the night she had her first double espresso. She holds a master’s degree in environmental policy and lives in Maryland with her husband, cat, and the world’s goofiest greyhound. Jeri fosters shelter dogs with Tails of Hope Sanctuary. As of this writing, she has hosted twenty dogs at her home, all of whom have found loving adopters.

Jeri’s latest release is WICKED GAME (May 13, 2008, Pocket Books), an urban fantasy about a cadre of vampire DJs and the con artist trying to save their ‘lives.’

1) What was your inspiration for writing WICKED GAME?

A song, of course. Not the song “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak—that came much later. Almost three years ago to the day, I was driving down the road flipping the dial and came to a classic rock station playing “Bad Company” by the band of the same name. I thought, Hmm, “Bad Company” would be a perfect title for a paranormal book with a shady main character.

By the time I reached my destination, I had a fully formed idea for vampire DJs who were psychologically and culturally ‘stuck’ in the era in which they were turned. I also knew the heroine would be “bad” in some way. (The punch line is that even though it all began with “Bad Company,” the publisher ultimately asked me to change the title.)

2) Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

I tend to read widely rather than deeply and rarely follow series for more than a book or two, regardless of how much I enjoy them. I’m the opposite of an addictive personality. I’m pretty sure I’d be the world’s first casual crack smoker.

I was completely different as a kid, of course. I read EVERYTHING, especially books by Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, and Jim Kjelgaard, who each wrote continuing series about animals (and not talking animals, either—usually just plain old horses and dogs). I also loved the Trixie Belden mysteries. Trixie was like Nancy Drew, but with an actual personality.

My all-time favorite book was DOGSBODY by Diana Wynne Jones. It combined my love of animals with my passions for astronomy and mythology. Because of that book, Sirius became my favorite star (not to mention my eventual choice in satellite radio).

My current favorite authors tend to write stand-alone novels or loosely connected series: Neil Gaiman, PC Cast, Charles de Lint, Christopher Moore, James Morrow, Caprice Crane, and John Irving, to name a few. They also tend to be funny.

3) What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?

To me, speculative fiction at its core is about what it means to be human. Often it does this by juxtaposing humans with other races or species (like elves or vampires or aliens), or by putting ordinary people in extraordinary settings. I also like the genre’s tendency to push the boundaries of humanity itself.

4) Why did you decide to make Ciara a con artist?

From the beginning I knew that the main character would have a shady past. Her current job is in sales and marketing (S&M, as she calls it), which is really just a legal form of con artistry. It sounds like a cheap joke, but the two pursuits both require an understanding of human nature and how to manipulate people’s emotions to make them cheerfully act against their own best interests.

Ciara tries to save the radio station from corporate takeover by branding it as “WVMP: The Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” essentially hiding the vampires’ nature in plain sight. She disguises the truth as a marketing gimmick. I loved playing with notions of truth and lies, and I loved watching Ciara’s moral acrobatics in justifying her actions. Con artists are sociopaths with little notion of right and wrong; however, Ciara’s parents gave her a religious upbringing, which she’s rejected, but only on the intellectual level. She still feels guilt.

5) What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

I’m an avid pro football fan. It’s the only thing in my life that has nothing whatsoever to do with writing, and I guard my time with it like a starving dog with a bone. I also follow politics, but that’s not fun—more like a form of sado-masochistic torture.

6) What sort of research did you do to write WICKED GAME?

For the musical aspects, the research came by osmosis over the course of months and years. I’d think of a band and then run to Allmusic.com (and more recently
Pandora.com) to learn all about them. Then I’d surf the links to understand the connections among that band and its forerunners and followers.

And of course I read books. One of my favorites was THE ROCK SNOB’S DICTIONARY by David Kamp and Steven Daly. Entertaining, informative, and an incisive look inside the mind of the cooler-than-thou rock snob.

To learn about radio stations, I interviewed DJs and had them ‘vet’ the manuscript when it was in near-final form, to make sure I didn’t have any major mistakes. A highlight of my life was getting a cover quote from Weasel, who used to DJ at the legendary Washington, DC, alternative station WHFS. He said that, disturbingly, he could relate very well to my characters.

7) Shane McAllister (the 90s grunge DJ vamp) loves Nirvana. Is that your favorite band, too?

Yep, though I was only a casual fan during the band’s actual existence. I was sad but not devastated when Kurt Cobain died in 1995. However, as the years go by and I’ve learned to appreciate the band’s incredible talent, I grieve his loss more intensely.

I suppose the creation of Shane is my small way of honoring Cobain’s life and work and the impact it’s had (and continues to have) on my psyche. I feel a spiritual kinship with them both and wonder if but for the grace of good fortune I’d be in as bad a shape as they were in their lives.

8) What are you writing now?

I’m working on the second draft of WICKED GAME’s sequel, BAD TO THE BONE (May 2009). That’s due to my editor in a few days, which explains the bags under my eyes. And probably the hallucinations.

9) What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

After three years of writing full-time, I’ve ceased to feel guilty for not writing first thing in the morning. My brain just isn’t wit-enabled before 10 or 11 am.

10) What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?

Dialogue is by far the easiest. Maybe it’s my theatre background, but my first drafts tend to consist of characters arguing in living rooms and coffee shops. I keep forgetting that novels have infinite budgets for location shoots.

First drafts are the hardest by far. It feels like sculpting air. Once I have a rough draft down, no matter how crap-adelic, I can work to make it better. But that initial creation of the story is torment.

11) This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?

I also have an epic fantasy series, the Aspect of Crow trilogy, which takes place in a world where everyone has magic bestowed by their Guardian Spirit animal. The first one, EYES OF CROW (Luna Books, 2006), won the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award for Best Fantasy Novel. The second, VOICE OF CROW, came out last October (a favorite of mine because it was the Book That Almost Killed Me), and the trilogy will conclude this November with THE REAWAKENED.

I also have an older urban fantasy (REQUIEM FOR THE DEVIL, Grand Central Publishing, 2001). It takes place in modern day Washington, DC, and Lucifer masquerades as a political consultant. For the first time in his ten-billion-year existence, he falls in love. It changes everything.

12) What is the purpose of fantasy/science fiction, if any?

See answer to #3. I can’t be that earnest twice in one interview.

More about WICKED GAME

Visit the DJs and listen to a sample of their shows

Jeri on MySpace

Ciara on MySpace
Order links:

Mysterious Galaxy
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

I'm Going to Continue on This Topic a Bit Longer

2008-05-14T09:49:00.009-05:00

I thought of another story which seems to me to be a classic neat idea tale: "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov. It's about an alien planet where night falls only rarely, due to a lot of suns. When night does fall, and people see the stars, they burn everything they can find out of terror -- and their civilization collapses.

The last time I reread it, I noticed it is not well written. But it will stay with me till my memory fails.

Asimov was not an especially good writer, but I remember the Foundation stories and the robot stories. Is there anyone reading this blog who cannot recite the three laws of robotics? How about psychohistory? Do we all remember how it works?

This kind of story is core to SF, as are ideas. I suspect ideas are not as important to fantasy, though there's a lot of fantasy written by science fiction writers that turns on ideas.

For example, a very simple story by Avram Davidson, about what happens when the U.S. government breaks a treaty with an Indian tribe, which is supposed to last -- per language in the treaty -- "as long as the sun shines and grass grows."

Davidson was a fine writer, but the story is mostly about its idea.

Implicit in Justine's remark (I think) is the idea that SF is about character and plot and style and mood.

Nope.

I'm not sure any kind of fiction is ultimately about character, plot, style and mood.

Jane Austen's novels are beautifully written and plotted and full of wonderful characters, but what they are about is the English upper classes' blood-chilling focus on money, in spite of all their talk about morality and sentiment.

And they are also about the fact that women in the upper and middle classes have to focus on money, because they have no reasonable way to make a living. If they don't marry well, they will be poor.

These are ideas.

I suspect that any fiction which does not have an interesting idea at its core is not worth reading, except as entertainment. Not that entertainment is bad.

I don't think there are any ideas in P.G. Wodehouse, though I keep looking for one. His writing really is about his amazing skill as a writer.

And one could argue that producing concept free art is itself a kind of idea about art. "Look," Wodehouse says. "Art need not be about anything except a dazzling performance. It can be utterly pointless and still be thoroughly satisfying."

Finally, a personal note. I grew up around avant garde artists, and their art really was about ideas. Although I write popular fiction, my basic values are the ones I learned as a kid. Art should do something new. It should ask questions and push limits.

My apologies to Kelly and the rest for hammering this into the ground.

Continuing the Preceding Post

2008-05-13T14:43:00.006-05:00

This is more about ideas. Maybe it tells you something silly about me, but I am very proud of places where I did something that strikes me as a bit new. I once ended a story with five morals -- five good and useful morals -- because you are not supposed to have morals at the end of a SF story.

When I started sending out stories, editors kept telling me that they didn't see the point of the stories. What were they about? So my second novel ends with my characters spending fifty pages discussing the meaning of their adventure. It's been years since I read the novel, so I can't remember their conclusion.

The discussion struck me as neat and funny. It meant readers -- especially editors --had the explanation they wanted, and I was not in any way responsible for the explanation, since it came from my characters.

I had given readers the meaning requested, but since this meaning came from chracters within the novel, it was a meaning in the novel and not the meaning of the novel, the author's meaning.

No one has ever complained about the ending of the novel or told me that they couldn't figure out what the novel was about.

When I do things like this, it seems to me I'm dealing with ideas, not character or plot or mood. Can you end a story with a moral and still have it work? Well, yes, but why have only one moral? Can you end a story with a long explanation and not have the readers turn against you? Yes, I think so, though I can't remember any reviews of that novel. I am pretty sure I did not get any angry letters.

Yet Again Ideas

2008-05-13T14:11:00.006-05:00

I keep feeling, without having much evidence, that ideas are not easy. I wrote a story titled "Big Red Mama in Time and Morris, Minnesota," which was a time travel story. These are hard to write, because time travel is supposed to be impossible; and I felt -- if the story didn't have something new to say about time and time travel, it was going to be about nothing. I struggled with the story for months and years, collecting copies of Science News and New Scientist with articles about time travel and odd quantum effects. The problem with time travel is mostly one of causality. Physics says that effects cannot precede causes; or maybe it doesn't say this. There are theoretical physicists who think time travel is possible.

Anyway, in the end I did some hand waving. But the story actually does say something about time and history, though nothing based on physics theory.

Sometimes the ideas are less difficult than the working out of the ideas.

The idea that is the basis of my hwarhath stories is simple: what if there was a society where homosexuality was normal and heterosexuality was perverted? I think had to figure out in detail how this kind of society might come to be and what it would be like. In the end, I wrote two novels and ten + stories about the hwarhath and their society, mostly to explore the consequences of my original "what if."

Plot ideas come fairly easily for me. I never worry about my ability to work my way out of plot problem.

But saying something new and original is not easy; and I'm not claiming that I always manage to do this. But I do abandon stories, if they are becoming familiar -- hey, I've already said this, and I don't have to say it again; and I do stop and rethink stories, if I feel they are becoming ordinary or inevitable.

More on Ideas

2008-05-13T09:23:00.002-05:00

I started this off as a response to Eleanor's post, but it metastasized, so I'm moving it up front.

My take on ideas as the easy part is that producing the basic idea isn't all that much work by comparison to the other parts of writing a book. It can take no more than a few minutes and sometimes happens as a subconscious process.

Doing the research, blocking out what to do with the idea, and writing and polishing the book can take anywhere from months to years of hard work. That's certainly been the case for me. The core of even the best of my story ideas have happened in a flash or the length of a dream. Crafting that idea into an actual story is what takes real time and major effort.

I'm a relatively fast writer--I've written a 5,000 word story that sold in single day and a novel that went on to be published in under six months. In that same six months I came up with dozens of new story ideas. Most of them were discarded, but a few went into the ideas file, a few got plotted out for possible later use, and one even became the next novel. I've had hundreds of novel ideas that I think are really cool and thousands that I've thought would make a decent book. I've only written a dozen because the writing is where the work and the effort go.

Is the production of the initial idea easy in absolute terms? I suppose that depends on the writer. In my case, I can't not produce story ideas in job lots.

Is it easy by comparison to taking the core of the idea and doing the research and reshaping needed to make it into something you could hang a book on? That's certainly been my experience. Is it really easy compared to the actual months long day-in-day-out effort of writing and polishing the actual novel? Again, that been my experience.

More than that, idea generation is pure unadulterated joy, especially if you can get someone else to do the fiddly bits. One of the most entertaining things we do as writers group* is sit around and brainstorm solutions to story problems. I always find that to be an electric experience. Dozens of ideas get thrown out in a matter of minutes, batted around, added to, twisted, knocked down, thrown out--it's like eight-way tennis with ten balls, some of which have really strange properties. And, if it's not my story we're talking about, I don't even have to make the implementation work.

So yes, I think idea generation is easy for a certain value of easy.

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*at least for me.

Ideas

2008-05-12T10:24:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure ideas are the easy part. There's a whole tradition in SF of neat idea stories, where the writing is competent at best, and the characters don't really matter, but the ideas are wonderful. Think of the best Heinlein: "All Your Zombies" and "The House That Jack Built."

These are the stories that C.S. Lewis talks about, when he talks about myth. What matters is not style or character or mood or whatever, it's the story itself. These stories retain power when you simply describe the plot.

I don't remember much about Fire on the Deep, the Vernor Vinge novel, except that the basic laws of physics varied by where you were in space, so fast interstellar travel was possible in some regions, but not others; and the entire galaxy had an Internet, so as the novel's action line developed, there was constant interstellar commentary on what was happening. Two nifty ideas. The plot is gone from my mind; I don't remember the characters; but I remember the ideas.

I need a reason to write a story, and a lot of times the reason is an idea, or several ideas. I don't usually finish or keep a story that doesn't have a point, which is also usually an idea.

I realize as I write this that I don't really know what Justine means by idea.

The Sweetest Words...

2008-05-12T09:07:00.002-05:00

The Sweetest Words in the English language: THE END.

I wrote them last night on the first draft of Dead If I Do (which is due at the publisher at the end of this month.) Now it's off to my beta readers, who will no doubt give me lots of suggestions for improvement, which I will follow. Then my partner reads it last, and I make final changes and usually copy edits.

So, it a way it's not an ending, but the beginning...

Head Full of Goo

2008-05-09T13:12:00.003-05:00

This is my official apology to all allergy sufferers for any lack of sympathy I might ever have shown on that front. Never before in my life have I been in the position of hoping that I was coming down with a cold. Unfortunately, at the moment I don't think that I am. I think instead that I have developed some sort of pollen allergy after 40 blissful years of not being significantly allergic to anything. My head feels like it's packed with cotton, I can't stop making typos, my left eye keeps tearing up, and my nose is doing an amazing impression of a faucet with a bad washer. Since it's all naso-sinal (or however that should be expressed) even the eye thing and there are zero secondary symptoms I'm afraid that I must assume the worst. Bleah. Bleah! BLEAH!

Calling all WisCon authors

2008-05-09T08:33:00.002-05:00

Attending Wiscon this year? Have books in print? Let Elizabeth at Dreamhaven know...yesterday would be best.

Doing a panel at Wiscon and have books you're planning to recommend? Likewise

Email address to use for both these things is:

wiscon (at) dreamhavenbooks.com

Any assistance in passing the word along is greatly appreciated.

Elizabeth needs to order books NOW (actually, last week would have been better) and she doesn't know who's going to be there.

Brasstrolabes, anyone?

2008-05-08T15:18:00.002-05:00

The New York Times, no less.

Steampunk has definitely arrived.

And they didn't mention Jay Lake. Odd.

Smart Things--Genre Feuds

2008-05-08T10:00:00.003-05:00

So, PNH at Making Light had a link to Charles Stross's tongue in cheek manifesto on the The New Eclectics, which is in and of itself a smart piece of work critiquing the whole manifesto thing and carrying a lot of water in very light bucket. In turn, the Stross piece seems to have been generated by a comment thread on Elizabeth Bear's lj which came out of a very brief post and link to an incredibly smart piece by Richard Morgan on the wasted energy involved in F&SF genre feuds.

All very fun and very smart and part of why I try not to get involved in comparisons of the relative merits of genres and sub-genres. I do do it occasionally, but I invariably regret it.

Smart Thing--Ideas=Cheap and Plentiful

2008-05-08T09:12:00.002-05:00

Justine Larbalestier is saying smart things about ideas being the easy part

Re-Direct: More on SF Publishing Woes

2008-05-08T08:23:00.002-05:00

Though not directly addressing the issue of why fantasy outsells science fiction, John Scalzi has an interesting take on adult SF vs. YA: Who Lost Scott Westerfeld?