In which I opine on two TV shows I haven’t seen

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Over on Tor.com, Shoshana Kessock compares the portrayal of women in Game of Thrones and Girls and comes down on the side of the genre show, despite its problems.

Me, I haven’t seen either show. I have read Martin’s novels and I listened to an interview with Lena Dunham on NPR. Maybe that limited exposure should disqualify me from commenting on the topic, but this is my blog and I can be wrong if I want to.

Anyway, while listening to Dunham on NPR, she specifically addressed the whole “Voice of my generation” bit, making it clear that the character was ridiculous even when she wasn’t stoned and that she hoped viewers would recognize it wasn’t to be taken seriously. In fact, she made it clear that she was making an effort to portray a character who was not admirable at all–she admitted that others involved in the show had to make her pull back on the amount of humiliation heaped on her.

And my first thought was “She’s writing to literary protocols.”

Years ago when I was studying everything I could find about writing, someone (I’ve forgotten who) said that genre characters always (or nearly always) operated at the best of their ability. Whether it’s Conan fighting a giant snake or a CPA who discovers that her daughter has been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang, the characters may not always have skills and competence in a particular situation, but they do the best with what they have. If they do make mistakes, it’s either like Peter Parker letting the crook escape (a lesson that needs to be learned/kick off the story) or it’s the cop who arrests the wrong person (a mistaken action based on a misunderstanding of the evidence at hand).

When a character persists in their error, the way Neo continues to resist the idea that he’s living in a computer simulation, the instinct is to become exasperated with them. The same is true for stories where the audience wants the protagonist to operate at their best but they don’t (or don’t appear to be) such as addiction stories.

But in stories aimed for a literary market (at least the ones I’ve read) the characters rarely operate at their best. They’re feckless, selfish, self-delusional, or flawed in all sorts of ways. They don’t get out when they should. They don’t address their problems in a way that would fix them. It’s like Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd: The movie starts out with him shot to death, and you see the long awful comedy of errors that led him to that fate.

Obviously, there’s overlap here; you can’t make large generalizations about groups of books (or readers) without begging exceptions or edge cases, but to me it looks like a clash of two conflicting artistic impulses.

Creativity Project, part 4

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It’s been a while since part 3. Sorry about that, if you care. Truthfully, I’m behind on my WIP and I’m having trouble prioritizing this. Quick recap: I’m using this article: Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking as a springboard to talk about my own creative processes.

7. Expect the experts to be negative.

This section of the article is more for office workers than it is for creative people. Wait, I take that back. It’s not an issue for me because I don’t really have someone telling me that I can’t do something before I do it.

For example, when I was planning my story for the Don’t Rest Your Head anthology, I told editor Chuck Wendig that I was planning to center the story around the death of a child. Chuck wasn’t happy with that at first, because it’s a touchy subject that turns people off (and too often he’s right). Still, I told him I thought I could make it work and he told me to go ahead.

Chuck was the expert in this situation, and rather than put his foot down, he said: I bet you can prove me wrong. In the end, he accepted the story pretty much as written.

This is what it’s like when an editor–especially a really really good one–is “negative” about creative choices. As I said down in comments, it really was ego-less arguing. She wanted me to save a couple of the Game of Cages characters for a future book, and she wanted me to cut The Sentence (for those who’ve read it, it’s the long murder scene that’s written as a 500+ word single run-on sentence). Cutting that violent scene could have given the book a more upbeat adventurous ending.

Of course, I didn’t cut that scene. I did change the book substantially to make The Sentence work–including saving one of the characters–but for me that scene was the whole point of the book, and I had to have it.

Now, only one reader has ever told me they disliked it. Several really loved it, but people who don’t like GoC rarely mention The Sentence. Was my editor wrong? I don’t think so. I’m betting that, with a more upbeat adventurous ending, it would have gotten better word of mouth. Maybe it would have sold better. Maybe the series would have survived.

I still wouldn’t go back and change it, though.

So, the most a writer like me has to worry about isn’t that my idea might get shot down, the way a bright-eyed ad exec with a crazy new concept might be. It’s that no one will want to buy it, and you can’t really tell that until it’s too late.

8. Trust your instincts.

I’m not going to respond to this part of the article, except to say that the only sensible response to “They laughed at the Wright Brothers!” is “They laughed at the Marx Brothers, too.” It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s okay to give up on writing.

Seriously, I honestly believe this. I’m not one of those people who tell people to never stop trying; who’s to say what’s the best use of your time? Not me. Maybe someone who stops writing would go to work in a soup kitchen with that free time. Maybe they would spend more time with their friends, or edit Wikipedia in a useful way, or do any number of genuinely helpful things.

Write if you want to and if you think you have a chance to find the success you’re hoping for. Just be aware that you may never get it (I may never get it) and even if you do it won’t make you happy.

However, I should point out that I’d already quit writing when I’d signed with my agent. I was not going to start a new novel; I planned to go back to school to get a graduate degree in hopes of finding a career. All my writing time was spent studying for a GRE. Then my query letters started getting positive responses.

So who am I to say that people shouldn’t be discouraged? Creativity doesn’t have anything to do with success. You can be extremely creative but never find an audience for a host of reasons: Maybe your creative ideas are too far outside the mainstream. Maybe you’re creative but don’t have the writing skills to put together a sensible paragraph. Maybe you have other uses for that time, or new priorities. Who knows?

Quit if you want. Live your life. That’s what I say. Maybe, someday, I’ll do that myself. But in the mean time, I intend to write the stories I want to write, the way I want to write them. Anything else would take the joy out of things.

For the next post I’ll talk about failure. Jeez, this just gets more cheerful all the time, doesn’t it?

Randomness for 4/30

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We’re game-heavy this time. Must be some sort of sign.

1) This sort of thing makes me miss gaming.

2) Father takes crazier, funnier pictures of his kids than I ever could of mine.

3) A water slide so dangerous it was shut down immediately.

4) Should I check email? A flowchart.

5) How to escape from zip tie “handcuffs”.

6) A fantastic D&D blog. I’ve added this one to my reading list. I especially liked “Items of Moderate Interest in the Ogre-King’s Hoard.”

7) What’s it going to take for the Don’t Read This Book anthology (which I am in) to turn a profit? A little publishing transparency from Fred Hicks.

Stupid shoes, pain, and stalling out (a weight loss post)

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Like a lot of overweight people, I wear running shoes. (Cut for triggery weight discussion) Continue reading

Trying to fix the store

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The tech support guy who has been who has been helping me tells me that my online store should be fixed. For the past few weeks, the store has processed payments but the response from PayPal that says “This person has paid. Let them download the story.” has not been getting through. That should be fixed now.

Is there anyone out there who would mind buying a story to make sure it works? “Lord of Reavers” is an original novelette for only a buck, and it’s never been published anywhere but online.

Okay! Not working at all, still. Thanks for trying, folks.

For the time being, when someone buys a story from the store, I’ll be emailing the file as soon as I can. Sorry for the problems.

Don’t Read This Book

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So! You can now pre-order the anthology Don’t Read This Book in softcover. If you do, you’ll get the electronic version immediately. As in, right now.

If all you want to buy is the ebook, you’ll have to wait for the release date. (Thems the rules, apparently.)

Find out more.

For those who haven’t been following along, the stories take place in the setting of the rpg Don’t Rest Your Head, about ordinary people who find themselves trapped in a world of literal nightmares, and risk losing their lives if they fall asleep.

It’s edited by Chuck Wendig, and here’s a list of contributors:

Stephen Blackmoore
Harry Connolly
Rich Dansky
Matt Forbeck
Laura Anne Gilman
Will Hindmarch
Mur Lafferty
Robin D. Laws
Ryan Macklin
C. E. Murphy
Josh Roby
Greg Stolze
Monica Valentinelli

They were nice enough to place my story at the very end; I guess they liked it. Me, I’m just pleased to be included with all those terrific writers.

I’ve been meaning to write a full post about my short fiction: what I’ve done, what I’m selling and where it’s available. Putting that together has been on the list of super-important things for months.

Anyway. Check it out. It’s a terrific book.

Second temporary return of This Week’s Hypothetical!

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A friend comes to you with a question. They know a science fiction/fantasy author who has just won a tidy sum in a lottery–enough that they can quit their day job and write full time in any place in the world. They won’t be rich, but they can be comfortable. However, this FOAF writer has no idea where they should settle; they turned to their friend for advice, and the friend is turning to you.

Now, because the writer is sorta paranoid about how dangerous a sudden influx of money can be, your friend has promised not to reveal anything personal about this author: Their age, ethnicity, political leanings, gender, nothing. They have a family. They speak English. They’re American. Also, they’re open to living anywhere, not just the U.S.A.

Knowing so little about the person, where do you think is the best place in the world for an sf/f writer to live (low-Earth orbit is too pricy, but little else would be)? What factors should they consider? Community? Research materials? Government benefits/no government benefits? Food and healthy lifestyles? Proximity to conventions/NYC? Or doesn’t it really matter?

What advice would you give?

(Quick note because I think I should: I’m not planning to move in the near future and if I were I wouldn’t gather information through a hypothetical post. This is really just a hypothetical.)

Tor and Forge drop DRM

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So, yeah, it’s a big deal. Tor/Forge aren’t the first publishers to sell their ebooks without DRM–Baen and Angry Robot have already been doing it for a while–but Tor/Forge is absolutely the biggest. Tor is part of Macmillan, one of the “Big Six” out of New York, and what’s more they’re privately-held. No shareholders to worry about.

If you’ve been reading Charlie Stross on the subject (and you should have been) you know that removing DRM is the best way to prevent online ebook sellers from establishing a stranglehold on the market. If readers can buy books from any store and read them on their preferred device, they will. What’s more, they won’t lose their entire libraries (or be forced to torrent them) once their personal devices become obsolete.

Anyway, Stross had an opportunity to write an essay to the CEO of Macmillan about the benefits of dropping DRM, and he’s posted it on his blog. I realize that there have been many voices within the Big Six publishers who have longed for an end to DRM, and there has been years of work moving the Overton Window on this subject.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if history remembered Stross as the decisive force for change, whatever he says in his post.

Going offline

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I’m going to turn my computer off for the rest of the evening. It’s World Book Night, supposedly, so no Twitter, Netflix, email, whatever. Just my family and their books.

See you on the far side.

Hey, Artists!

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Want to be an artist for the next edition of D&D? Take their art test.

This would be an opportunity to show some diversity in their characters, if that’s your thing.