words

Randomness for 3/3

Standard

1) I wish someone could explain to me the causes of the great Balloons Monkey War. Added later: Ah! It was unprovoked Monkey aggression.

2) Five links about selling books.

3) The Venn Diagram of Monsters.

4) Now that Harriet the Spy is being updated as Harriet the blogger, Jezebel.com offers other classics of children’s lit that could be updated for modern times.

5) What Science TV is like. via nihilistic_kid

6) Math A Capella (the internet triples its total nerdiness with one video)

7) If Pitagora Suichi made a music video. Yeah, this one is seriously cool, possibly the coolest thing I’ve linked to in a long time. Don’t skip it.

Ten writing rules not published in the Guardian

Standard

A couple of days ago, I linked to the Ten Rules for Writers in the Books section of the Guardian. They’re fun to read, completely contradictory, and simultaneously wonderful and irrelevant. (Wanna make a sour face over them? Head over to the Globe and Mail.)

But why should those writers have all the fun (just because they’re all incredibly successful)? I can write a contradictory list of rules for writers, and so can you. So, I’m going to whip up ten useful and useless “rules” that work for me (except when they don’t) and I recommend everyone do the same.

(It’s a meme!)

By the way, I’m using second person in these rules, but the “you” I’m addressing is the confused-looking guy in the mirror, not any of my readers.

1- You can’t “find” time to write; you can only steal it. In short, you have to give something up. If you find you can’t give anything up to make time for your book, good for you! Your life is too awesome to be wasted writing books.

2- People are more interesting than monsters. Sometimes the person is monster-shaped and sometimes the monster is person-shaped, but the rule holds.

3- No rituals. Try to avoid having any habits you associate closely with writing. If conditions change and you have to drop the habit–even if it’s something as innocuous as “play quiet music”–you may find it hard to put words on the page.

4- Blame yourself. If you get a rejection, always assume it’s because of something in your writing, even if it’s not objectively true. The person who takes the blame is the person who has authority and responsibility, and when it comes to writing, that should be the writer. Blaming others gives away your power.

5- Don’t cheat the concept. If the reader is thinking “Oh my God, is he going to go there?” The answer should be “Yes! He went there!” Don’t shy away from uncomfortable implications of your concept.

6- Cheat the concept sometimes. Don’t be an asshole about rule 5. If “going there” means being lurid, tedious, cliche, or repulsive, figure out a better way.

7- Text is very linear and artificial. Use that to your advantage.

8- Never put the word “into” immediately after the word “and” except in the dialog of an annoying character.

9- Talent is accuracy. In writing, talent is accurately predicting what effect a particular string of words is likely to have on a reader. The more rare the string of words, or the more rare and powerful the effect, the more talent the writer will be thought to have. And yeah, by my definition, it’s the reader who determines whether a writer has talent, and the thing people call talent can be learned. (Isn’t that good news?)

10- If you feel mildly bored with a scene you’re writing, stop working and go do something you hate as punishment. The only real “rule” in writing is Be interesting. All the rest are tools to be used or discarded as needed. (Tools, not rules!)

So, write and post your own ten rules. Why not? They don’t have to be useful to anyone except you.

I think parents around the world would find this word useful.

Standard

Per this thread on Making Light, I proposed a definition for the word “darf”. I re-post it here to secure my place in the glorious history of the English language.

“Darf” v. to claim to be engaged in and winning a non-existent fight or contest against a more powerful opponent. Usage: “That’s when I discovered my son had been darfing me in a potato chip-eating race.”

Yes, I’m aware that there are a couple of “definitions” (picture air quotes here) at urb*nd*ct**n*ry.c*m, but the misogyny and trollish excess on that site makes me sick. Therefore, I pretend it doesn’t exist.

As a side note: anyone reading this who works for Random House… warning! Click that first link above!

As an other-side note: I’m still mildly sick, but I’m at work today. What the hell; I might as well be miserable here as at home.

Superheroes and their costumes (longish)

Standard

Is this really a good idea?

Spider-man

No, I don’t mean swinging high above the city from a thin strand that was liquid seconds before, and that you made yourself with a basement chemistry set. I mean the suit. Should Spider-man be wearing a suit with webs and spiders on it?

Hey, you’re thinking, it’s a theme. I get that. I get the theme, but as soon as you see a superpowered guy with a spiderweb on his clothes, don’t you immediately think “I’ll bet he has spider powers, like climbing walls and shooting webs.” The strength might be a surprise but come on, he’s wearing a costume. Better to assume he can throw a Prius at you until you prove he can’t.

And what about this guy:

Puma

Maybe if he shaved his mutton chops (and his shoulders) you might think “What’s this guy call himself, the Clydesdale?” But no, not with those bare feet and unclipped nails.

Next, imagine her:

Firestorm

And him:

Blizzard

Just before they started using their powers. If you saw people in those costumes committing a bank robbery on Action News, what would you bring with you as you raced to the scene of the big fight? That’s right–a fire extinguisher for the first one and a flame thrower for the second.

Even worse, their names are Firestorm and Blizzard.

This is what we call Giving Too Much Away. When I get superpowers and start fighting crime, I’m going to get a black and white striped suit, with a mane down the back. People will see me and think “Zebra? I’ll bet he’s pretty fast and can kick hard.” Which is just when I’d breathe fire on their asses.

In fact, I’d have a bunch of different suits to wear, and some of them would be identical to what the other heroes in the city wear. High-tech jewel thieves wouldn’t know if they were facing Meson Ray, Knifey the Stabber, or Captain Breath… until it was too late!

Seriously. Let’s try to use our heads here.

Why am I thinking about this? Because of one of the toughest edits to Man Bites World. The POV is, again, tight on Ray, and he doesn’t have a lot of people explaining things to him. He certainly knows more than he did in book one, all hard-earned info, lemme tell you, but not everything.

And my agent (who is my only beta-reader, remember) gave me a note saying that I needed to define the main antagonist’s abilities. Is he incredibly powerful like the guy from book 2? More? Less? What can he do?

Of course she’s right. I need to establish the boundaries and set the context here. Except, this guy, who does not have a friend in the world, has no one to tell about his abilities. What’s more, he has no reason to talk about them. He has several conversations with Ray in the course of the book, and he knows Ray is thinking about killing him, so why would he want to show his hand?

Antagonist: Me? Oh, I can generate large pulses of electrical energy and discharge them through my hands or teeth.
Ray: (writes in notebook: “buy rubber galoshes”)

So the only way to reveal what the guy can do is to show it happening, and by then shit is already going down.

This is the most difficult note she gave me, and I’m not sure I solved it completely. The change I made was this:

Ray: Why would you even do that to yourself?
Antagonist: Trying to find out more about my powers, eh? Hah! Forget it! (snaps fingers in Ray’s face)
Ray: (rolls eyes)

Okay, the revisions weren’t literally like this, but that’s the gist. Will it work? Hell yeah! I kinda love it. Will it work for anyone else? Well, that’s sorta the question. I’ll explain things to my ever-wise agent and see what she says. But sometimes you have to respond to a note like “What was in the box?!?! You never said!” by scrolling down to the last line of the document and writing “And we never did find out what was in that box. THE END”.

Randomness for 2/24

Standard

1) A Book by its Gorey Cover. And Part 2.

2) That Old Spice “I’m on a horse” commercial–and an interview with the guys who made it. CGI or no? via madrobins

3) The Brad Pitt Guy, part 4.

4) “It’s like MOBY DICK, right, but with a white dragon!“ I’d better get started on my ROBO-MEO AND POD-PERSON JULIET story, quick!

5) A restaurant dessert like no other. I don’t even know what most of this is, but I want it.

6) Twilight invades every aspect of our culture.

7) The Brad Pitt Guy, Part Last. With bonus note-arguing.

Randomness for 2/22

Standard

1) Part two of the screenwriter stalker story! with bonus Brad Pitt at a urinal. And here’s Part 3. (Here’s part 1, in case you missed it.)

2) More OKCupid data crunching: this time about “older” women.

3) Remember the American version of Godzilla from 1998? Well, an early draft of the script was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the guys who wrote PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, SHREK, MASK OF ZORRO and ALADDIN, among others. Although their script was very different from the version that was filmed and released, some elements were kept and they ended up with credit. Sometime in the last 12 years, they posted their final draft online so people could compare the work they did with the finished movie. Well, someone has taken it upon themselves to turn that script into a webcomic. It’s not finished, but it is pretty cool.

4) Hot dog salad dressing??? 20 Unholy Recipes, Dishes So Awful We Had To Make Them. via Jay Lake

5) An insider’s guide to writing for Mills & Boon. Interesting stuff.

6) That “Ten Rules For Writing” article in the Guardian Part one, Part two. Those are fun to read, even the ones I disagree with.

7) Bertie Wooster as Bruce Wayne.

Dang-it

Standard

I was about to post a link to a one-star review in honor of John Scalzi’s latest post on the subject, but I see I already have, way back in November. Ah, hell.

So instead, I’ll post this: The book I’m reading is The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. It’s an interesting book–excellent in a lot of ways, and mildly disappointing in others. I get the impression it’s made for readers with buttons in different places than I have.

But that’ll have to wait until after I finish reading it. What I wanted to mention was a scene about two-thirds in where Protagonist’s Best Friend is talking to Screwed-Up Protagonist about his screwed-upness. SUP has a Mysterious Terrible Event in his past that has him acting like a contemptuous jerk throughout the book, and PBF takes the brunt of it. Eventually, PBF says this:

I read these books on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they described you pretty smack-on.

And I was immediately thrown out of the story. My brain went straight to “Author did research. Research in book” and suddenly it was like I was smelling plastic flowers.

Which isn’t fair to the author, because the scene is completely earned and totally in character, but who ever said reading is fair? It was a clunker moment, and it hurt. I’ll want to write more about this book later.

Let me wrap up with this: After I wrote my “Review-down” post on Saturday night, I started feeling pretty rotten. Wisely, I announced this to my family and went to bed at 10. By 4 am, I was up again, thanks to muscle aches and a sore throat. I gargled with Listerine, took some Tylenol and played Meebling until the drugs kicked in (no link to Meebling, because your life is made of time, and both are so very precious). Then it was back to bed until–no kidding–ten am when my wife dragged me out of bed. Sleep! How good to see you again!

I still feel sorta awful, and I’m going to see if my good buddy Bed Rest can do anything about that.

Nebula Awards

Standard

The Nebula Award nominees are here.

Randomness for 2/11

Standard

1) Jessa Crispin, editor and founder of Bookslut.com, writes a largely critical article about Jeff VanderMeer’s Booklife. As a response, VanderMeer interviews her on his blog. Now THAT is a smart response to a negative writeup.

2) Peter Osnos on Macmillan vs. Amazon.com.

3) An important chart for urban fantasists.

4) Weird stalker calls, and how to end a story on a dramatic note.

5) Jimmy Dean’s iPhone accessories.

6) Polls show that 70% of Americans support allowing “gay men and lesbians” to serve in the military, but only 59% support allowing “homosexuals” to serve. Rational actors? I don’t think so.

7) Anne Rice to release a “Vook.” FYI Perez Hilton loved it.

Well don’t I feel all special

Standard

Now that I’ve joined SFWA, I can follow the Nebula Awards nominations, tracking them as they pile up. It’s like a horse race, but the people involved move very slowly.

In case anyone asks, I’m not on there, of course, and I didn’t expect to be. I’m also not asking people to nominate my book or whatever. I’m not writing the sort of work that wins awards, and I won’t be any time soon. It’s not a concern. In fact, I posted my joke bio on the Campbell Award page. I won’t win and I don’t care.

One thing I *do* care about is that I haven’t nominated anyone yet. I’ve only read one new sf/f novel this year–I’ve bought a bunch, but only read one. It’s already near the front of the pack, but maybe my nom would do it some good.

But is that fair? My sample size is one–shouldn’t I keep out of the whole mess? There may be ten or twelve novels that deserve the award more, but how would I know? I’m still reading mystery novels from the sixties and Planet Hulk.

So, should a person nominate books for an award if they’re not well read in the field?