words

I make it because I know I’ll have to destroy it

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Sundays aren’t the expansive, relaxing work days that Saturdays or Tuesdays are. I have a definite time when I have to be finished with my daily goal and back at home so my wife can go to work. It’s enough time to do what I need to do (considering my process) but I need to get up on time and really focus.

And today, I found myself thinking Why am I writing this scene? I’m just going to have to cut it in revisions.

It’s a scene where the protagonist wakes alone in a strange place. He thinks he’s been taken by enemies, but it’s really just his reckless asshole compatriots. He’s also been terribly injured, so he’s terrified and desperate. As I described everything he did, I kept thinking Nothing comes of this. It’s all setup and no payoff.

On the other hand, it’s what the character would do.

So I wrote it all out, thinking that maybe I was cheating on my daily goal, but knowing that it’s better to follow the character than try to lead them. And who knows? I may find a better payoff for it later.

Huh.

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Lee Child has a fiction excerpt on the NY Times editorial page. It’s pretty good, too. I read Child’s debut novel and found it interesting but curiously airless–everything that happens turns out to be related to the overall plot, and the coincidence that kicks off the story strains even my credulity. But this was fun. I may have to give him another try.

One thing I never read, though, is those LiveJournal posts that are just collections of Twitter posts. If I wanted to read tweets… well, the rest is obvious.

Normally I don’t mention posts I skim over, but the clutter is getting to be a bit much.

Books!

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Two recent books:

First, Joker by Brian Azzarello. This is the first version of Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker to appear in comics (that I know about, anyway–I only read trades). It’s a creepier, uglier Joker (just look at that cover), but I don’t know if it’s all that much scarier than previous versions. It recasts him as more of a gangster than comic book villain, but what should I expect from a crime writer? Aside from the bullshit setup, it’s solid work and interesting stuff (I found I couldn’t put it down), but when I reached the end I found myself vaguely dissatisfied.

Second, there are a lot of books out there about Winning A For-Real Fight, and many of them are filled with specific tactics and annoying macho puffery. Well, Rory Miller had been a martial arts student for many years before becoming a casino bouncer and then a prison guard. He had a “fight-a-day” job in which he tried to apply the lessons learned in the dojo to real-life violence.

The result of those lessons are here, in Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, which I read because of a recommendation by David Hines. Miller talks very clearly about the way violence takes place–the context of it, the execution, the mental state a person enters when they’re attacked, the mental state of the person doing the attacking. He also talks about the way certain martial arts training is pure fantasy and how dangerous it can be.

Even more interesting is one topic he touches on several times: self-imposed limits–people who believe they don’t have permission to behave rudely to alarming behavior. People who believe they could never win a fight. People who feel they must respond to a challenge to their authority. People who want to appease authority figures. People who think fighting will be like sparring.

As an author who writes about violence, the clear descriptions of the mental and emotional states reinforced and deepened my understanding of the processes of physical conflict. I’m also grateful for the way he talks about breaking through artificial limits, which I’m going to apply to my life globally. There are so many ways I box myself in because of what I believe about myself…

This isn’t the time for that discussion, though. It’s something to think about and you might find it useful, too.

Anyway, I’m not interested in martial arts training (I’ve tried it more than once and it’s not for me) and I thought this was a fascinating, thoughtful book. I didn’t agree with everything here, but this is rich, fertile soil.

Highly recommended. Thank you, David.

Books!

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Two recent books:

First, Joker by Brian Azzarello. This is the first version of Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker to appear in comics (that I know about, anyway–I only read trades). It’s a creepier, uglier Joker (just look at that cover), but I don’t know if it’s all that much scarier than previous versions. It recasts him as more of a gangster than comic book villain, but what should I expect from a crime writer? Aside from the bullshit setup, it’s solid work and interesting stuff (I found I couldn’t put it down), but when I reached the end I found myself vaguely dissatisfied.

Second, there are a lot of books out there about Winning A For-Real Fight, and many of them are filled with specific tactics and annoying macho puffery. Well, Rory Miller had been a martial arts student for many years before becoming a casino bouncer and then a prison guard. He had a “fight-a-day” job in which he tried to apply the lessons learned in the dojo to real-life violence.

The result of those lessons are here, in Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, which I read because of a recommendation by David Hines. Miller talks very clearly about the way violence takes place–the context of it, the execution, the mental state a person enters when they’re attacked, the mental state of the person doing the attacking. He also talks about the way certain martial arts training is pure fantasy and how dangerous it can be.

Even more interesting is one topic he touches on several times: self-imposed limits–people who believe they don’t have permission to behave rudely to alarming behavior. People who believe they could never win a fight. People who feel they must respond to a challenge to their authority. People who want to appease authority figures. People who think fighting will be like sparring.

As an author who writes about violence, the clear descriptions of the mental and emotional states reinforced and deepened my understanding of the processes of physical conflict. I’m also grateful for the way he talks about breaking through artificial limits, which I’m going to apply to my life globally. There are so many ways I box myself in because of what I believe about myself…

This isn’t the time for that discussion, though. It’s something to think about and you might find it useful, too.

Anyway, I’m not interested in martial arts training (I’ve tried it more than once and it’s not for me) and I thought this was a fascinating, thoughtful book. I didn’t agree with everything here, but this is rich, fertile soil.

Highly recommended. Thank you, David.

In happier news:

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NY Times columnist and Pulitzer-winning economist Paul Krugman praises Charles Stross’s novels.

I hope this brings him a couple thousand new readers.

Talk about terrible titles…

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David Hines recently recommended a book called Meditations on Violence: a Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, and of course I snapped it up.

I’ve barely started it, but one of the early points the author makes is that too many people are willing to discount their own personal experience because it does not jibe with what a self-appointed expert tells them. One of the author’s fellow prison guards, a man who had a great deal of practical experience in fighting, did exactly this during a class of martial arts techniques.

My first reaction was: People don’t really do this, do th– And then I thought about Absolute Write.

The AW forums have see a regular traffic of newbie writers asking permission to do the most basic things. “Can I have an protagonist do unlikable things?” “Can I have an unhappy ending?” “Can I write this book in third-person present tense?” “Can I write a love story where the couple breaks up at the end?”

Frankly, that stuff drove me crazy. I wanted to say “Pick up a book! Read it! Does it work? Can you make it work? Why are you asking permission?”

And it would turn out that some person on some message board somewhere said books need happy endings, or maybe an agent wrote a blog post expressing their personal dislike of present tense. And none of that should dictate what a person can or should do.

Of course, the hard part in all of this is examining my own assumptions.

As an aside: today is the first day all week that I hit my daily word count goal. Yeesh. Tomorrow will be better, I hope.

“a holocaust of prose”

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seen via Justine Larbalestier:

The Worst Review Ever, a blog where writers, actors, musicians, etc, can submit the worst review they’ve ever received. Personally, I think some of these are extraordinarily cruel (Hello, “a candy-coated turd”), but I’ve been known to hate on a book or two in my time.

I do disagree with Justine Larbalestier when she says its “awesome” that people react so intensely to her books. When I have a powerful negative response to a book, it’s not because of its engaging qualities, any more than Charles Manson should feel warm and snuggly inside because he’s evoked strong feelings from me.

Hey, authors, have anything you want to send?

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day

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This year, I’m posting a screenplay.

Five years ago, a friend and I decided to make our own ultra-low budget horror movie. Our plan was that we’d make a solid story and people would overlook whatever shortcomings our budget brought us.

It’s called The Dead Feed (pdf file – html file — the pdf is easier to read, but I know some people hate that format) and it’s not a standard hungry zombie movie.

And! As I give away my writing for free, I also link to a roundtable of sf/f book reviewers on the recent changes to newspaper book reviews and book review sections. Check it out.

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Today, I pored over Everyone Loves Blue Dog, and accomplished nothing. Also, the book my wife gave me to read couldn’t be renewed. I had to strip out all her bookmarks and slip it into the conveyor belt at the library.

As for the LiveJournal feed for Nathan Bransford’s blog, it turns out that Mr. Bransford himself ask that it be suspended. I have no idea why; LJ syndication is just another kind of RSS, but whatever. No more “This Week in Publishing” I guess.

At work, I discovered that the intranet policy book pages I’d spent a good part of last week working on were completely useless now. The manager copy and pasted them into .mht files elsewhere on the network, breaking all the links. There were good reasons to move them to another part of the network–our system is criminally slow–but damn.

Finally, do you know what my company and I both pay, per month, for the basic health insurance my wife, son and I have? Not just what I contribute, but everything?

Over $1,600. Per month.

We need reform in this country, and we need it now.

Links! The Top 16 Worst Movie Quotes to Utter During Sex. Is it wrong of me to laugh so hard at this?

Next, another amazing animation, this one done with stop-motion. Sorta. Check it out.

Finally, tweenbots, a video art project via Jay Lake. His link described it as teh cute, but I think that misses the point. The really, really cool thing about this is that the robot is a cute, nearly helpless little thing that relies on complete strangers to help it get where it needs to go. Even if you can’t watch the video at that page, the write up is fascinating.

It seems that a lot of my posts lately have been straight link farms. I feel boring. Is there something I should post about? Something I said I would talk about but haven’t? Let me know.

It’s that time of year again (5 links)

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The stellar bluejays and hummingbirds are back. To celebrate, here are some links.

A pretty cool book trailer for A Madness of Angels. Check it out.

Writers get so much respect: here’s a job opening for a screenwriter/office assistant. Because what you really want for your films is a writer who can answer phones in a professional manner.

How professional athletes lose all their money. I’m so going to use this in my current book.

Amazon rank. Hey, folks. If you’re looking for a good alternative to Amazon.com, consider Indiebound.org. They’re an online ordering system for a network of independent bookstores. When you order a book from them, the sale goes to an independent near you. And it’s not just books, either.

Finally, the Kinda Sutra. A short, partially-animated film about the screwed-up ways people are taught about sex. I think it’s SFW, but you might have different situation.