words

New Years

Standard

Remember NaNoWriMo? As I said at the time, November is a terrible time for a novel sprint. The Christmas season, the (U.S.-based) holiday, it’s just too much.

But you know what would be a great month to start a 50K sprint? January.

No, I’m not going to try it myself (I can’t do it, I’ve never been able to sprint like that and I’m not at the point where I can push myself that far), but maybe you want to.

Which brings me to this: If you have finished a book (or will soon) you will probably want to have someone edit it for you. Well, at the end of 2011, my editor left Random House and hung out her own shingle. Betsy Mitchell was editor-in-chief at Random House, she founded Warner Aspect, she started Del Rey Manga, and she’s edited writers from Michael Chabon to Terry Brooks. She’s also a big reason why the Twenty Palaces books worked as well as they did.

Anyway, I put a permanent link in my sidebar a while ago pointing to her site, but I wanted to write a post, too. It’s a new year, and if you want to make your book as good as it can be, you should talk to her.

Oh, Christ, how many words did I just write that weren’t all about me me me? Let’s fix that: Here’s how I plan to celebrate New Years Eve: Have a quiet dinner at home alone, watch a movie, read a little, go to bed by ten. That’s after I’ve gotten up early and done my pages for the day.

Here’s how I plan to celebrate New Years Day: Write pages, do whatever.

Resolutions for the new year: None. I think resolutions are a bad idea, because everyone treats them as something you do for a couple of weeks and then break. Keeping a resolution is like a miracle. But making a sensible change to your own life? That’s not a big deal at all.

I also don’t have a lot of plans for 2012. I hope to finish A Blessing of Monsters by the end of February, and I have a project that I’ve agreed to sign on to pending further details (and which I can’t really talk about yet). Beyond that it’s all fluid. God, I hope I sell some more books, lemme tell you.

Typing this from the U Village B&N

Standard

For Seattle folks, the B&N in the University Village is closing tomorrow, and I’ve just gone through check out. (Most) Everything is half off, and there is still a shocking amount of good stuff available. Many shelves, naturally, are completely empty, but the SF/F section is still full of award winners and best sellers, as is the mystery and children’s sections.

The DVD section has a huge shelf of Criterion releases, lots of movies and TV shows (including lots of Dr. Who/Buffy/MST3K, and so on), and some Wii/DS games. Their “British TV” section is still pretty full.

I’ll be sorry to see it vanish, since it was where I bought the Adventures in Fantasy book I blogged about earlier this week, and this is the only store where I met a clerk who had already read and enjoyed my work. (That doesn’t happen every day, lemme tell you).

But there are deals to be had, and plenty of good books left. If you read pbooks, come down and check it out.

Ten Days

Standard

I’ve just put Lord of Reavers up for sale on B&N and Amazon. It’ll be a while before it’s cleared for sale there, but in the meantime you can still buy it directly from me.

Also, my wife and son are out of town for ten days to visit her family. I’m at home, and I’ve borrowed a number of DVDs from the library; they aren’t great movies, but they’re for grownups, and if you have an account on LiveJournal (they’re free), you can vote for which ones I’ll watch.

In the meantime, here’s my plan for the next week and a half:

1- To bed every night before midnight. Before 11 would be better but lets be realistic.

2- Vegetables every day.

3- Get back on the Livestrong calorie counting, which I set aside during the holiday.

4- A helluva lot of walking

5- Personal hygiene, apartment hygiene.

6- Set Freedom for six hours every night before bed.

7- 2500 words a day at least.

It will take focus, but this is going to be a productive holiday season.

A Special Project

Standard

Today is my son’s tenth birthday. He assures me that this means he’s no longer a child even though he’s still a kid. I’m not entirely convinced by his argument, but what the hell.

Anyway, he and I have been working on a special project for weeks. Actually, lets make that months. See, many of you reading this will have heard that we’re homeschooling my son, but you might not have heard that he hates to write.

Yeah, the writer’s son won’t put a paragraph on a page without an hour of griping and squalling. He won’t let his artist mom teach him to draw, either. Learning science, division, or world history from us? No problem. But when we try to teach him about the things we know best? Hell no. That’s practically an affront to his dignity.

Then I bought Adventures in Fantasy by John Gust:

Although I actually bought it from Barnes & Noble–the one in the University Village that’s going out of business. (Although maybe you’d rather see a link to Indiebound.) It’s a lesson plan designed to guide a young person through the process of writing a novel.

So far we’ve had lessons on punctuation, showing vs. telling, alliteration, POV, the hero’s journey, metaphor, simile, and a dozen other subjects, all handled in the fun prep work for a fantasy novel. He did written projects, did an oral presentation, (re-)learned vanishing point as he drew an early scene from the book (a drawing he’s very proud of, btw)–all in all, it sounds like a soft assignment, but he’s been doing a lot of work on this project.

And my son, being who he is, wouldn’t have done all those work sheets [1] without having me right beside him doing them at the same time. So yeah, A Blessing of Monsters has been planned in part through these grade school exercises. No, I will not post the drawings I had to do of all the characters. Hell, I don’t even like to talk about plots ahead of time.

Plus, I had to kick over the book’s recommended plot structure before I wrote it. For elementary school kids, the hero/sidekick/mentor format works just fine[2]–it’s excellent, actually–but for me I needed to really change things up.

But finally, after weeks and weeks, we got through all the exercises. Before he sat down to write the first page, we spent a few days watching the LOTR movies, then it was a go.

He’s a funny kid, and he loves funny books. I knew he would be working on a comedy, but I think he’s really nailing it (for his age group, of course). I’m also a little surprised by how rough some of his punctuation can be. He reads all the time, but apparently that doesn’t give him a model to follow.

His goal is a 100 words a day, and I expect him to do a few thousand words before he reaches the end of this novel. The biggest goad to get him to produce is to know that I’m going to do more words that day; he’s actually a bit of a tyrant. “Dad! Less Twitter, more writing.”

After he reaches the end, we’ll do an edit and–surprise surprise–I intend to offer him a penny a word for it and publish it here on my website.

It’s been fun and I think he’s learning a lot. Best investment I made last year.

[1] If you’re thinking of picking up the book, keep in mind that it’s full of worksheets that need to be copied/printed/filled out, and might not be appropriate for your Kindle.

[2] And would probably sell a million copies if I wrote it myself, but I’m not that commercially-minded.

Writing mentors and communities

Standard

Check out this link: Box Office Mojo’s Highest Grossing Screenwriters. Number one really isn’t a surprise, but it’s the guys in the second and third spot I want to talk about.

When learning to write, everyone takes their own path. Some people do it all on their own, some learn from family, some have a small group of friends they stick close to.

For more and more of us, online communities have been where we go. My first online space was the WritersBBS. This was probably 1996, and things were pretty primitive. Still, I met other struggling writers, real pros, and picked up a wealth of information.

But this was also the time that everyone was going nuts for screenplays. Everyone was writing them, and I was no different. I loved movies and TV (the latter was finally shaking off the terrible rep it had earned through the sixties and seventies) and the idea of writing for THE X-FILES or BUFFY thrilled me.

Of course I was living in Seattle, then, just as I am now. I planned to move to L.A. at some point, but my work wasn’t ready yet. Not yet.

Then I read an article in Writers Digest (DON’T JUDGE ME!) listing the best online writing sites, and I started checking them out. The one I stuck with was Wordplay.

Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio wrote (and write) as a team, and they ran the site as a team, too, although Terry always seemed to be most active. At the time I signed on they were professional screenwriters just coming off the release of ALADDIN–successful, but not the top-dollar writers they’d become. The site had columns and guest articles (I recommend all writers read them, even the ones on the film business which have nothing to do with the novel you’re writing). And it had message boards.

I was a clueless dope on those boards for much longer than I should have been. But I found advice there, and camaraderie, and even more importantly, I found debate.

See, at the time, the fiction-writing advice I was finding on the internet was maddeningly vague. “Don’t bore people.” “Do what you want, but make it interesting.” Now, many years later, I have realized that this is the only truly useful advice, but at the time it was not what I wanted to hear at all. I wanted technique. I wanted story arcs and show-don’t-tell and all that.

Now, of course, you can find that sort of writing advice all over the web, but at the time it I was deeply frustrated. But on the forums of Wordplay? We argued about the best ways to introduce characters, to set up and pay off, to write a flashback, etc etc.

Man, did we argue and argue and argue. I grew to despise a small number of people I “met” there, but many more became good friends that I keep in touch with to this day. Does it matter that all the techniques we debated eventually brought me full circle to the “Being interesting. That’s all that matters.” lesson once again, but this time in a way I could appreciate? Not really, no.

Anyway, during the summer of 2004 I realized I was increasingly unlikely to move to L.A. What’s more, I’d lost my love (obsession) with film and TV. I stopped watching everything I could. I stopped reading every review. That year, on my birthday, my wife kindly arranged for me to slip away for a few hours to see a movie.

But there was nothing I wanted to see. It was the height of the summer movie season, and all I wanted was to stay home and read my book (the second Lymond novel, if you’re curious).

So I rededicated myself to novels and stepped away from the boards (amazing how much free time I recaptured!). I wrote Child of Fire and, when it was time for ask for blurbs, I turned to Terry Rossio and he kindly consented.

Honest confession: While I was thrilled to get a blurb from Jim Butcher, I was also sad that it bumped Terry’s quote to the back cover. I learned a lot from him and I would have been proud to see his name next to mine.

Anyway, I don’t know what use this list will be to him–one of the many lessons we learned was the essential powerlessness of the screenwriter in Hollywood–but I hope it’s a sign that he’s earned himself some creative control.

Sales over the weekend

Standard

I sold more than 50 copies of Lord of Reavers over the weekend. Thank you to everyone who purchased and everyone who helped spread the word. If you missed the post, here’s the word on why I’m selling it from my website. Ho ho ho, right?

If you buy one and you don’t receive the download link within half an hour (check your spam trap), ping me. I’ll send you the file directly.

It’s Newtonmass week! All our shopping is done but not the wrapping. I still have cards to send out, but at least the tree and lights are up. Every year my wife and son plan to put the tree up early (like on the 5th or 6th) and I tell them we should decorate it on Christmas Eve. Every year I get voted down (and asked “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you?”) but my objections have become formality now. I like having the tree up early; just don’t tell my family.

My son is up and it’s time to start my day. I hope you guys are having a good week.

New story, email issues, party party partay!

Standard

My email is being cruel cruel to me, so don’t be surprised if it takes me a while to respond.

Also, I’m going to have a S&S story online very soon, hopefully today.

But first I have to go home and attend my son’s birthday party. It’s not his birthday, but it is his party. The little guy has everything planned out.

Also, I met my small goal today, even though it’s a big goal day. It’s weird; I used to thrive in a sleep-deprived trance. I’d come at my writing in a weird exhausted state when everything felt heavy, and that would help me silence my internal editor.

But over the last year I’ve been trying to get enough sleep as part of my plan to live past 50, so today, one of the first trance-days in months, I feel utterly useless. It’s weird.

Empathy, Stock Art, Eye glasses, Homeschool and Booze

Standard

Let’s start with Empathy. Everyone has been having a laugh at the Forbes writer who put together the “If I was a small black child” column. It was dumb, thoughtless, and actively harmful. Obvs.

But you can rely on Ta Nehisi Coates to talk about this stuff in the best possible way. One, Two. That second link contains links to a pair of Megan McArdle articles that are also invaluable. Excellent reading.

As for me, I was a total goof off in school–smart but continually bored and prone to do stupid stuff to impress my friends (like any teenage boy). There were whole years that went by when pretty much every day I did something that could have gotten me jail time.

And no, I didn’t want to work hard. I wanted to play rpgs, get high, smash stuff, throw a carpet over barbed wire so we could swim at the pool after it closed, etc, etc.

So it’s easy to say: “If I were a…” and then imagine the path you would take to success. It’s much harder to look back at your own self and realize what a lazy screw up you were, and admit that a more difficult environment would have defeated me.

Next is stock art, which is what I need right now. I have a sword and sorcery novelette almost completely ready to publish. All I need at this point is a decent(ish) stock image for the cover. Hard part? Finding something I think is decent.

Anyway, I plan to release this particular story only through my website. Why?

Let’s move on to “Eye glasses.” My son needs them. Not just one pair, either. He needs a reading pair and a non-reading pair. Add to that the sad fact that my landlord mailed me a little something–no, it wasn’t a Christmas card. It was a notice of rent increase.

Yay! Rent increase notice right before the holiday (but not so soon before that we could budget it into our spending.

It’s not a big increase and our rent is already very reasonable. It’s just hard timing and I hope enough people will want to buy this short story that we can cushion this blow. More about the story later.

Next: you know how public school teachers will sometimes show movies in class? Guess what! His homeschool family has found an excuse for the extended editions of LOTR! Starting tonight. More on that later, too.

Finally, booze. I just bought the smallest non-airplane-sized bottle of Jack Daniels I could get. Why? Well, I don’t drink like I used to (what with the kid-having and the belly-reducing and all) but I do love egg nog. LURRRVE egg nog. And it just doesn’t seem right without a little bourbon.

Plus, I couldn’t resist that cheap German spiced wine. I actually bought two bottles of it. You know the one I mean? You warm it on the stove and drink it until you’re loopy? I don’t care if it’s crap. I love it. And did I mention I only bought two bottles? That’s some self-control right there. (Tangentially related, the store only had two bottles left).

And that’s all for today. I was supposed to write 2500 words on A Blessing of Monsters today, but after all those revisions I only managed 1500. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.

Randomness for 12/13

Standard

1) Children’s drawings painted realistically.

2) Sketchy bunnies. To each and every screaming child in those pictures I say: Kid, I am on your side.

3) The Ten Most-Watched YouTube Videos Of All Time. I’ve seen exactly one of them (the one about Charlie).

4) Rules of 50 Magical Systems In Convenient Chart Form

5) Robot Monsters With Breasts! Screenwriter and low budget film aficionado Bill Martell on two of the weirdest movies he’s ever seen.

6) 13 Punctuation marks you didn’t know existed. Actually, you know some of these, but probably not all.

7) One does not simply walk into Mordor.

Melody in Elf Minor – Fantasy and Tone

Standard

James Nicoll posted this: More Words, Deeper Hole – In which I disagree with a luminary of SF to address a blog post by John Scalzi here: The Flying Snowman – Whatever.

For folks who don’t want to click, Scalzi is pointing out that people who object to some unrealistic things in a movie (like the way the lava in Mt. Doom swallows up Gollum) will blithely accept giant spiders and monster warriors birthed from the mud, and he says: Really, people? Nicoll doesn’t like to see the blame for a willing suspension of disbelief placed on the reader.

This is a conversation I’ve seen going around and around. Someone objects that the airplanes in KILL BILL have special sheaths for passengers katanas, and someone else points out off those talking animal movies. Someone gripes about CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON that “If anything is possible, nothing is interesting,” and someone else points out that there are “rules” to the fantasy elements which the story has to keep to.

And… Sure. Those world-building rules are important. Establishing the differences between our world and the world of the narrative is vital to letting people follow the narrative. It also helps avoid the “Why don’t they just cast a spell?” response in which the audience, knowing magic can do more, assume it can do anything.

But this is a pretty mechanical way of looking at it, and it assumes that “unrealistic” elements in a story (ones not covered by the established world-building) are errors. I think that’s wrong, and that it’s part of the fetishization of sf/f world-building.

Let me be clear: I’m not against coherent world-building. Of course it’s important, and of course it’s a necessary part of making a narrative work. But I think that tone is even more important.

Take that ending scene in RETURN OF THE KING: Should the lava have been more realistic? Should the ending have shown Gollum hitting the molten rock, breaking bones and bursting into flame?

Oh hell no. Considering everything that happened to that character, the tragedies, torture, misunderstandings, and burning junkie obsession he suffered, the sight of him screaming as he burned, limbs trembling as he tried to move his broken body, would have been completely tone deaf. It would have been too much.

Part of the problem is that the filmmakers were adapting a book. With as many liberties as they took with the narrative (cue bitter laughter from Tolkien purists) I’m sure they knew they couldn’t change that ending. Gollum had to take that fall.

But the filmmakers couldn’t rely on careful text to control the tone. They need to used sound and image to tell the story, and the effect there is very different.

Take Dany’s wedding in GAME OF THRONES. In the book you can describe an orgy in a few sentences or two in the narrative. On video, you have to hire actors, light them, put them in wardrobe, then point the camera at them while they hump away.

The effect is very different, and those issues of tone have to be managed. The movie MISERY (which I read about but haven’t seen) changed the scene where the fan cripples the writer because the filmmakers knew that chopping off his feet with an axe would be too much. That scene would be too intense and they would lose the audience.

For myself, one of the first revisions I made to Game of Cages was to change the sapphire dog so that it could not “eat veal.” In the first draft, the children of the town were fair game for the monster, and the crowd in the food bank scene included some very young characters.

My agent (a former editor herself) told me it was too much. I tried to explain that predators in nature didn’t have any qualms about feeding on very young prey, so it would be cheating to impose that rule on the predators in my book. She explained (paraphrased) that it was better to cheat the rules than to lose your audience.

And I knew she was right, so I revised the book so that pre-pubescent brains were ripe enough for it to feed on.

In a perfect world, tone and world-building would be reconciled. If anyone can find a way to get to a perfect world let me know so I can save up for a set of one-way tickets. In our world, issues with deadlines, adaptations, collaboration, and sometimes a lack of imagination/skill can lead to scenes that don’t work in some way.

The question becomes: when they seem irreconcilable, do you stay faithful to the world building? Or do you choose the right tone?

That’s something each creator has to choose on their own, but it’s telling that the most popular entertainments go for tone almost all the time.

As for that snowman, I haven’t read the book in question, but I wonder how much of the reader’s dissatisfaction with the flying scene was tonal. Not that the talking, heat-resistant snowman shouldn’t have the power of flight, but that snowmen are tragic; when their time with the child is over, they don’t fly away like angels soaring up to heaven. They die like earthly beings. They’re tragic. That’s my guess, anyway.

That’s why Gollum’s final scene is the correct one, even if the physics are wrong.