Card Kingdom. It’s a new board/card game store in Ballard, and I didn’t even realize they were opening. It’s big, with lots of space, and not only do they have Pokemon tournament events that my son can take part in, they have an attached coffee shop where I can do some writing while he turns his toxicroak loose (or whatever).
Cool place, which a big family game section. I foresee many trips in my future.
Tim O’Brien’s “How To Tell A True War Story.”
Fucking wow.
You heard that right. Draft zero of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark is finished at 77K words and 43 chapters. Longest chapter: “An Unwelcome Party Guest Catches A Glimpse of Himself” (aka chapter 1) at 2,851 words. Shortest chapter: “Another Little Drive” (almost the end of the book) at 754 words. I suspect that first chapter will be substantially trimmed, leaving “The Recrimination Game” as the longest.
You know, I struggled with this book the way I struggle with all of them, but I had fun with it, too. In fact, when I was outlining it I had a serious crisis of confidence. Life is short: was this one of the books I wanted to have as my life’s work? Really?
Thank Pikachu I got over that. This book turned out to be a lot of fun.
So! I have to give it another read-through before I send it to my agent. I have a judo throw to add to one scene, and I stupidly gave two characters very similar names, then switched them mid-way through. Plus, there are the inevitable word echoes, under-researched locations, and screwed up sentences.
Still. DONE! I’ll be picking up a 22oz of Arrogant Bastard Ale on my way home tonight and I’ll celebrate happily.
Me? Writing about how to write??
I know, not my usual beat, but I think I’d like to highlight a few things:
For today, I want to talk about how we study writing. First, check out this post on passing exposition through character voice by Kelley Eskridge. Go and read it. It’s wonderful writing whether you need the lesson or not.
Second, look at this post by David Hines regarding character identification. In it, he breaks down several sections of A Song of Ice And Fire to examine where GRRM succeeds and fails, partly reinventing the Eight Deadly Words Test at the same time.
I offer these two links from two very different writers not only as worthy lessons in themselves, but as a model for learning to write. There are an awful lot of people happy to talk about the art and craft of writing in purely theoretical terms: how to build tension, how to write dialog, how to endure the midbook slump. I once read a writing advice book that listed the six ways a writer could introduce and establish a sympathetic protagonist.
Here’s a probably apocryphal story: An aspiring thriller writer wanted to be a bestseller, and he heard that Robin Cook, who wrote Coma, studied the thriller market first by reading 100 successful books in the genre. The aspiring thriller, hearing this, decided he would just read Cook’s novel, since all the lessons would be distilled in there.
There’s a lot of pre-digested literary theory out there, but I think the best way to learn is to find work like your own that you also admire and study it closely. Retype a chapter so you aren’t tempted to skim. Reread several times. Look for text where you think things are being done badly. Most important of all, develop your own theory rather than receive them second-hand.
Theoretical conversations can be interesting and fun, but speaking from personal experience, I say study texts.
If you could Gumby yourself into any book you currently own and live inside that setting among the major characters, which would you choose?
Hey, did I mention that Circle of Enemies earned me another starred review from Publishers Weekly? I did? In my birthday gift report post? Oops. Sorry.
Well how about this, then? The Science Fiction Book Club’s omnibus edition of all three books has a page on line, and I think the cover is pretty cool. I look forward to receiving my copy, so I can see it a little bigger.
In other news, I have some pretty cool things coming up in two weeks or so, including an auction of an ARC of Circle of Enemies. The auction will benefit charity, of course, and I’m wondering what’s the best way to do this: Should I put it on ebay (do people still use ebay?) and turn over the money after I collect it? Should I have people donate, like, ten bucks and forward the receipts to me so they’re entered into a raffle?
I’ve never done this before, so I’m grateful for any advice you can offer.
Today for you is not today for me, since I’m writing this well in advance of July 5, but this post is going live this morning because today is Book Day for Charles Stross’s Rule 34 (ignore that cover art). You know what’s awesome about being a novelist? Getting books way before everyone else does.
Rule 34 is a sequel to Halting State, a near-future crime novel about an investigation into a bank robbery that takes place inside an MMORPG that spills over into the real world in a big, ugly way. That was a good book. Rule 34 is a better one.
Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh is the only major returning character from the first book and, as a result of the investigation in the first book, she has been assigned to an internet watch squad, monitoring people to see if the pron they’re checking out is legal. When one of her old collars turns up dead in his home under suspicious (and extremely odd) circumstances, she gets drawn into another deeply strange mystery.
But what makes this book really work for me is the character of Anwar. He’s so funny and real, he honestly blew me away. The other characters, including the wary, self-aware detective and the American who isn’t… er… neurotypical, are terrific, but the book really comes alive when he’s the POV. I wish I had written him.
Highly Recommended.
I hope so!
Added later: It doesn’t seem to be working. I added a WordPress plugin called “WordTwit” to automatically post a notification of a new blog entry on Twitter. Unfortunately, it’s been market “Pending” for the entire 20 minutes since I posted. Fail.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a Twitter-posting WordPress plugin that works?
Today I declare my independence from the rules over the use of “whom” and also leg pain. How about you?