Surrey International Writers Conference: Day 1

I'm back from the first day of the SiWC! I should mention that I registered for the scumby-cheapskate deal, which includes all the conference and none of the meals. This actually has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, since the organizers do things to encourage networking at the meals, and I feel left out now. *pouts* As a result of me being a scumby-cheapskate, all you're going to hear about is the talks.

All agents, editors and writers mentioned herewith shall have their names altered by the in$erti0n 0f 0dd $ymb0l$, in order to prevent this entry showing up on a Google search of the person's name. I do this only because, despite not having anything particularly negative to say about anyone, I am going to just give my blunt opinions here. Too tired for tact tonight!


SiWc: Day 1

There's about 800 delegates and the mood is lively. The organizers and volunteers are perfect stars; they're all sweethearts and the conference seems faultlessly well-organized.

My "Blue Pencil Cafe" interview and agent pitch session are both scheduled for tomorrow. (Thank Viggo! I was so relieved they weren't today.) During the Blue Pencil Cafe, a published writer reviews the first three pages of your manuscript and comments on it. The agent pitch session is exactly what you think.

My Blue Pencil writer will be Pe+er M0rew00d, and my agent will be R@chel V@ter. Squeal! Both of these were my first choices, so I feel I've hit the jackpot. I'm also probably off the hook for doing a pitch; I've already got a query letter sitting in R@chel's slush pile, so I'll likely just chat with her about her agency, her tastes, the publishing industry, etc.; i.e. this will be my opportunity to network, rather than pitch.

~~~

There are only three presentation slots scheduled per day. My first one was with Jo@n J0hns0n, entitled "Writing the Unputdownable Novel". Jo@n was very entertaining, but I learned less from her than I would have liked. However, I did still learn a lot, and I consider it to be valuable information. She writes the kind of convoluted soap opera plots that make me laugh, but damn, she is good at making the pages explode with conflict. She seems to constantly be shoving her characters into situations where you can't see how they'll resolve the issue (e.g. woman 1 is in love with man 1, who is married to woman 2, who murdered woman 1's husband.)

Jo@n outlined eight things that can be used to keep the reader engaged (things that "hook") and suggested they be used heavily at the beginnings and ends of chapters. These things are:
1) Asking a question for which the reader wants to know the answer
2) Creating a crisis/threat/unsolvable problem
3) Anticipating a confrontation or clash between characters
4) Riveting action or compelling (unusual) behaviour
5) Anticipating what will happen when someone learns a secret (Jo@n says readers will happily plough through 400 pages just to see what happens when the hero finds out about the heroine's pregnancy.)
6) Setting up a contest, competition or bargain to be met
7) Forecasting a disaster that will occur unless...
8) Setting a deadline for a decision or some action (an ultimatum)

~~~

The second presentation (held after me and my fellow scumby-cheapskates ate our sandwiches in the hall) was with Bru(e H@le and entitled "Seven Secrets of Creating Suspense". It covered a lot of the same ground as Jo@n's talk, but contained a lot more useful information. It was also often hilarious; Bru(e is a very entertaining fellow.

His seven points are:
1) Character: Characters stick in the reader's mind longer than the intricacies of the plot do, so craft their personalities with care. Also, use your characters' personalities to increase the suspense level. One way to do this is to give the character a secret. Secrets have a way of worming their way out, and readers stick with the story to find out what is being hinted at.
(Also, when deciding what details of your character's personality to include in the book, choose those things that affect the narrative drive. Ask yourself:
- What will move this person?
- What will limit their action?
Those are the elements you must include. Everything else is gravy and may be omitted.)
2) Set the hook: Things that will catch and draw a reader in include:
- Humour
- Surprise
- Plunging midstream into the action
- Posing a question
- Foreshadowing
To hook someone, give them just enough information so that they have questions, but not enough information for them to get the answers.
A good writer should hook the reader again and again, particularly at chapter endings.
3) Up the "Uh-oh" factor: Add more danger, of any sort, provided that the danger is something the character cares about. (e.g. A shy person might be required to make a public speech. A ballerina might have her kneecaps whacked by crowbar.)
4) Thicken the plot: Complications (roadblocks) create suspense. So do unexpected twists where the plot goes off in a different direction (foreshadow these as necessary.)
5) Merrily misdirect: Jokes and twists in the plot both depend on misdirection. You create an expectation, and then, instead of fulfilling it, you turn it on its head.
6) Conceal and Reveal: Just give the audience enough information so they realize there is a secret, then reveal it slowly. The point is to build anticipation.
7) Take a Tip From Sinatra: Do It Your Way There is more than one way to accomplish suspense; do what works for you.

~~~

The third presentation I saw was "Agent Q & A", featuring Nephe!e Tempe$t, E!aine Spen(er (both from the Kn!ght Agency), Kri$tin Ne!$on and J@net R3id (from the F!neprint agency).

*******
Oh, yes; before I continue, I was given a solemn task to perform at this conference and I have.

Dwight? I swear on the head of my CD-Rom drive (not having a child to swear upon the head of) that J@net R3id is NOT J3nny B3nt. J3nny is blonde; J@net is brunette. J@net wears glasses; J3nny does not appear to. The facial shape is different, the body shape is different. Sorry, fella; I think you have to kill that particular conspiracy theory. Ms. R3id is very funny, however. For the record, she totally could be Miss Snark (as has been rumoured); she seems warm-hearted and passionate, and she offered to read sample pages at the agent pitch sessions so long as the writers bringing them understood she would be utterly ruthless in critiquing them.
*******

The agents covered a lot of topics and seemed to enjoy each other's company a great deal. I didn't learn a lot that I didn't already know, but I was amused. One thing they did cover that I found eye-opening was how to give a verbal pitch (such as everyone at the conference is being given the opportunity to deliver). Nephe!e noted that the greatest pitch in the world counts for nothing compared to the words on the page, and that at the end of the conference, she'll remember almost nothing about the books pitched to her. Thus, she suggested that if you're given 10 minutes to pitch to an agent, plan on pitching for 2 minutes. Spend the rest of the time asking good questions and developing a rapport with the agent. For her, the pitch tells her whether she would like working with you.

J@net suggested the three questions you should ask an agent to make sure they aren't a scammer or incompetent. The third one was the one I hadn't thought about.
1) What have you sold?
2) How long have you been in publishing and what did you do?
3) Where do you think my manuscript would sell?

If the answer to the third question is too vague, it tells you that the agent doesn't know what they're doing. If they say "Random House" instead of one of the sixty-odd imprints of Random House, head for the hills.

One other thing that struck me in this session is that Kri$tin Nel$on's fuzzy-wuzzy blog persona is a little misleading. I think she really is a truly nice woman, but she's also quite aggressive about her business. She was very open about the fact that, given she only sells about 10 books a year, she wants all those books to be six-figure deals. She won't take a book on just because she loves it; she described herself as "quite mercenary" in that regard.

She also noted her blog is not there for the benefit of writers; it's a business tool for her to promote her clients. She provides good advice to writers as the content, but the reason the blog exists is so she can post book covers and create buzz for her authors.

It's a perfectly reasonable rationale, but I was surprised nevertheless.

~~~

I am tired, yet buzzed, and I want to prepare more for my session with R@chel, so I'll wrap this up. There will be another update tomorrow! In the meanwhile, feel free to ask me to clarify anything here that didn't make sense (entirely likely, given how my brain feels), or to discuss the ideas of the presenters.

PS - Josephine? You're right; D0nald M@@ss is quite the cutie.

B-Day Books | And She Pitched Over In a Dead Faint

The majority of my immediate family blasted into town this weekend, which is why work, blog posts, coherent thinking and the laundry are only getting done now. I had a great time, but it's amazing how much loved ones can tucker you out when they set their mind to it.

As a birthday present, my brother left behind two large boxes of books he doesn't want anymore. He did this for me once before and it was one of the best birthday presents I ever got, so I'm delighted the backlog on his shelves has prompted him to do it again. Yay! Books! My nightstand shall be stacked to the rafters with urban fantasy for the next while.

In other news? I'm going to my first writing conference next weekend. Hurrah!

And as part of that conference, I'm going to be meeting with an agent to give a ten minute pitch session.

****WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO ALLOW THE BLOGGER A QUALITY MOMENT WITH HER HEART PALPITATIONS. SERVICE WILL RESUME SHORTLY.****

A pitch. I'm supposed to pitch my book. To an agent. Do I have a pitch ready? NoooOOOooo... Do I know how to create a pitch? NoooOOOooo... Hoh-my-goodness.

Where to begin? Probably the same place I began the synopsis: create a list of the turning points, then add only the important details.

Then practise saying it all without stuttering, which is non-trivial, but still the easy part.

Have any of you done pitches to agents/editors? If so, what advice would you give?

If not, what--if you were the audience for a pitch--would you find most engaging? What would you want to hear about, and what would grab your interest? Conversely, what would make you snooze?

A Boing-No | Muse Under the Microscope

Hurrah! My query letters have arrived in New York!

i.e. I've already gotten an email rejection.

But the reason given was quite acceptable: "not taking new authors in this genre at this time." Yay! My ego lives on to fight again another day! *curtseys gratefully to Speedy Agent*

Although--I do hope that, somewhere in New York, some intrepid person is rummaging the unused SASEs out of literary agents' recycle boxes and steaming the stamps off for resale.

Now: shortly after my last post, I had an idea for another post. A meatier one. An interesting one.

Danged if I can remember what that idea was; I've been trying to recall it all week. So, rather than that presumably-brilliant post, I'm just going to wing it for you, here and now. Brace yourself: you're about to be subjected to the first thing that falls out of my brain.

Inspiration! Yes, what a fabulous idea!

I'm really curious about the science of inspiration. This study by Thrash and Elliot (2004) notes that little work has been done in the field. However, they note some interesting stuff in their paper. For example, they have this breakdown of the components of inspiration:

[I]nspiration has three core characteristics: (a) transcendence, (b) evocation, and (c) motivation (Thrash & Elliot, 2003). Transcendence refers to the fact that inspiration orients one toward something that is better or more important than one’s usual concerns; one sees better possibilities. Evocation refers to the fact that inspiration is evoked and unwilled; one does not feel directly responsible for becoming inspired. Finally, inspiration involves motivation to express or make manifest that which is newly apprehended; given the positive valence of this aim, inspiration is conceptualized as an appetitive motivational state.

So: Inspiration is a great idea coupled with the happy knowledge that you've just had a great idea. Inspiration feels like it came sleeting into your brain from nowhere, and you reallyreallyreally want to act on it or share it with others.

Boy, that all sounds familiar, doesn't it? I think writing your story down and trying to get it published counts as both acting on your inspiration and wanting to share it with others.

I'd love to learn the nitty gritty of what your brain is actually doing during an inspiration, but I suppose it's hard to capture such a moment on an MRI. For one thing, I hear the inside of an MRI machine is pretty dull--which brings me to something else the paper linked to above says:

[I]nspiration tends to occur on the same days as other positive experiences.

I have noticed I come up with more good ideas of my own when I am keeping myself well-stimulated with good art/books/movies/cool facts/groovy science, etc. When I'm being a hermit (which I do enjoy, unfortunately), I'm less creative. Other people's fine works inspire me to create my own. Happy experiences positively affect my writing/artwork.

Isn't it nice to hear you're not really wasting valuable writing time when you go out for a night on the town? You're just priming your creativity-pump!

Does Thrash and Elliot's description of inspiration ring true for you or do you disagree? What do you experience when you have an inspiration, and what do you do after you've had one? Does something need to trigger the inspiration or does it come from nowhere? Is there anything you can do to encourage inspiration in yourself? Please tell me your experience!

Defrosting | A Game!

The refrigerator technique refers to putting your newly finished manuscript away for a month (or longer) to "chill", so you can get enough distance from it to view its strengths and weaknesses objectively. This weekend, I pulled my manuscript out of the figurative fridge and re-read it.

No major problems. *phew*

This means my query letters will be headed out this week.

It also means it's time to start working in earnest on my next project. I have a few ideas, but they aren't a plot yet. Still, I can see my protagonist's face in my mind, and I think he's going to be an interesting character to get to know.

I really don't have much to say tonight that's of any depth (I'll try for a meatier post than this in the next few days), so I thought I would suggest some mischief for y'all to perpetrate in the comments.

Describe what the most interesting character you've ever created looks like (where "interesting" is a term you may define how you please). Please don't tell us about the character's personality, but feel free to try to imply what their personality is like through your physical description.

Then, read through other poster's descriptions of their character. Make up personality profiles for each of these and post those descriptions as a comment also. The character's "mommy" will likely be very amused to see how much you got correct.

I'll start things off by posting my own (current) favourite character's description in the comments. Have at 'er.

SiWC

If anyone is going to the Surrey International Writers' Conference in October, I am too. This will be my first conference! Squeal!

I feel tense, but in a good way.

"Conflict on every page" is a truism of writing. Tension is what makes a book gripping.

You do need tension between your characters to make the story compelling, but I think it's also nice to create tension between the story and the reader. One way to do this is to have a mystery--have the reader be aware there is something happening in the story they don't understand yet.

Another way is to make your characters who are in conflict also both be sympathetic to the reader. In other words, make your antagonists three-dimensional people who the reader can also empathize with. This way, the reader isn't totally sure they want the protagonist to win--or at least, they don't want the protagonist to win too completely--because the reader doesn't want the antagonist burned too badly. The book's climax then becomes an ironic victory, no matter who "wins", because at least one sympathetic character got hurt by it.

When I rewrote my novel, I had two characters who needed depth because they were a little too blandly evil. I started digging deeper and trying to add layers to their personalities. I finessed their motivations, trying to make them more human and understandable.

I'm really glad I did it. I think the story is much more potent now; the stakes are higher and the tension is more acute, both for the reader and for the protagonist.

How many layers of tension do you have in your current WIP? Are the characters in conflict with themselves? Each other? Their world?

Is there a mystery to create tension between the reader and the story? Do you use other methods to create tension between the reader and the story? (If you do, I would love to hear about them! Please leave a comment.)

Are your villains sympathetic, or do you prefer to keep the story's struggle cleanly between good and evil? (Some consider that a crucial trait of high fantasy; the bad guys are supposed to be pure bad so that pure good can triumph.)

Books! *drooooool...*

Squee!

After many weeks of gently ramping frustration over the library strike, I have broken down and bought myself some treats.

Five lovely, juicy treats. They are:

- The Wizard Lord by Lawrence Watt-Evans
(Never heard of the guy, but the writing snagged me.)
- Stardust by Neil Gaiman
('cos really, it's a shame I haven't read more Gaiman than I have.)
- Storm Front (Book 1 of the Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher
(ZOMG, I'm so excited about this one! I've never read this author before, but I pulled a few of these Dresden books off the shelf, read a paragraph or two, and every single one of them hooked me. I think I'm in for a real treat, here.)
- His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novak
(It gets down to business quickly, which I really like to see in a book. I can also probably pass this one along to my dad.)
- The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
(Because I swoon--swoon, I say--over Guy Gavriel Kay's writing.)

Wallet? Somewhat lighter.

Book-itch? About to be relieved. Hurray!

Icky Analogy Ahoy: Proceed at Own Risk

In a lovely case of synchronicity, the Smart Bitches Who Read Trashy Books have a post on the same topic I was puzzling over on the bus this morning: How much creative freedom should an author have? At what point should the editor have the right to say no? Herewith, my thoughts:

The public wants unique, brave and insightful books. We do not want pandering crap.

An author can only create a unique, brave and insightful book if they are given the freedom and authority to write whatever they wish.

However, the public also does not want self-serving drivel.

This is a bit of a subtle issue, but I've decided where I think the editor has to step in.

A writer can write exclusively for themselves; that's fine. However, if a writer wants to be published, then they have to be writing something other people will enjoy reading. Everything else stays in the box under the bed, nice and private.

The writer uses their own talent and instinct to create those wonderful, accessible books, so they have a right to both their ego and to bulldoggishness regarding their vision. However, the writer is still applying their skills to the problem of giving others what they want, and that's not a selfish endeavour.

It's like the difference between sex and masturbation. The former entails caring about the other person's pleasure also. The latter can be completely selfish.

I think the editor's job is to tell the author when they've stopped making love and started masturbating.

What do you think? Where, on the spectrum that has editor-eschewing egomaniacs on one end and spineless critique-group-junkies on the other, should the editor's experience trump the writer's artistic vision?

Write Haiku for Josh!

Only Josh took a shot at the writing game of my last post, and for that, I think he deserves a prize!

Since his answer was oddly haiku-like (see below, with liberties taken),

The wall cups your voice
in its palm and flings it back,
as an echo, to you

I've decided his prize shall be haiku! I provide three herewith, of varying degrees of artistic malodorousness, and I invite encourage dare all of you to write Josh a haiku and leave it in the comments! The rules are: it has to be a haiku (5-7-5 syllables) and it has to be about Josh. Even if you have no idea who the heck he is. :-)

I see that smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Want thoughts to ponder?
Just Vogt early, Vogt often;
always more to read!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you fancy some
jellied marrow, bile pudding,
ask Josh's big friend
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Cheshire wordsmith,
he appears just once a day
but leaves us his smile
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Showing Stars to the Blind

I've got a pretty exciting/scary project at work these days. I'm redesigning experiments for a first year college student who is taking an astronomy course. What makes this unusual is that the student is blind.

Your first thought might be, "Why would a blind student want to study astronomy, which is so visually oriented?"

Your second thought should be, "Because she wants to understand what's out there, same as the rest of us."

It's probably even more intriguing for her because she's never seen the stars. They aren't something she can go touch, so she has to hear about them; thus, taking an astronomy course makes perfect sense.

What ties this in to writing is that typing up her lab manuals has proved to be a nifty exercise. I'm a very visual person myself, and I tend to over-emphasize the visual when I write fiction. For this student, however, I've had to invert my writing style. I have to actively avoid describing visuals.

So, when I talk about outer space, I don't bother describing what we see. I try to create a spatial image in her mind - a three-dimensional sense of how the stars are distributed through space. I describe the spectrum of colours in terms of texture. The way a refractor telescope works can be described in terms of rain falling on a noodle bowl and then bouncing away rather than pooling.

My analogy muscles are getting a heck of a workout. I sure hope it actually makes sense to her. I'm a bit scared; I see the student for the first time this upcoming week.

May I challenge you to a writing game? In the comments, in three hundred words or less, describe something so that it would make sense to a blind person. Really try to get inside their experience. They "see" the world as a space; they think about a room in terms of the distances between objects. Sunlight is heat. Water is resistance to motion.

Go for it. :-)

Things Wot I Have Learned About Synopses:

Not that I'm finished or even that what I have is any good--and certainly not that I know how to do this well--but I had a bit of breakthrough today in my quest to write a Synopsis That Doth Not Suck.

La Process:
1) Go through the behemoth, 25-page, dry-as-dust synopsis I already wrote--the one that details everything. Write out a list of all the turning points †.
2) Chop out all the turning points that relate to the subplot.
3) Smooth the list of turning points together to create a coherent synopsis, adding plot points and explanations only where needed.

Ta-da! I now have something that at least isn't hideous and boring.

† A turning point, as defined in Robert McKee's excellent book on (screenplay) writing Story, is a point of no return in a scene. This is when something gets said or done that is irreversible.

For example, a couple having an argument is reversible. They can kiss, make up, and go back to the way they were before the fight. However, if one of them blurts out that they're having an affair, that's a turning point. The couple might still find their way to a happy ending, but the relationship will never be the same again. That statement created an irreversible change.

Turning points usually accompany one or more characters getting a shock or surprise. This is why even a dry list of turning points makes a decently readable synopsis.

Robert McKee actually suggested this technique as a way to create a pitch.

Query Critique?

If anyone wants to take (another) shot at critiquing my draft query letter, a new version is below: have at it!

You're not obliged, of course. I thank anyone who has a comment to make, good or bad, and I understand completely if you would rather not comment at all. If you would like me to critique something for you in return, just ask; I would be delighted to.

Also, feel free to post anonymously if you really want to rip it up. I welcome (and listen to) all constructive criticism, even that which leaves my ego sobbing in the corner and double-fisting chocolate bonbons. :-)

My concerns: I don't have much sense of place here. I also, to quote from the very wise Conduit's comment on the Crapometer, don't really fill in all the elements of the "(Protagonist's Desire vs Antagonist's Counter-Desire = Conflict) x Plot = Story" equation. The problem is, there are various antagonists throughout the book who have significant counter-desires, but you never actually get to meet the Big Bad Wolf. I promise it works, because the MC has conflicts with nearly every human she runs across, including her side-kick. The Big Bad Wolf, on the other hand, doesn't even have a personality, which is why it stays on the sidelines.

Anything you want to add to my list of problems? Or advice on how to address these? I have tried to deal with the concerns expressed on the Crapometer but am unsure how successful I've been.

Thanks again for any comments you care to make; I very much appreciate them!

---

Dear (Agent name),

Allied with enemies and navigating a tangle of her own lies, a dark-hearted princess hitches her worst impulses to her best ones and finds the heart and potency to battle a demon.

(Personalised paragraph)

Rage curled a fist inside Katirin's heart the day she was forced into a convent so her half-sister could ascend the throne. When a fellow disciple convinces Katirin the convent's priestesses are possessed by a soul-stealing demon that threatens their nation, Katirin aims her rage: she vows to act like the queen she'll never be by killing the demon and saving her people from its predations.

Lies and blackmail cement her family's ire and get her out of the convent. Outright treason destroys her last chance at the throne but deposits Katirin in an enemy nation where she can find useful allies.

The first is a prince as sexy as he is dangerous; Arkadiy wants Katirin to assassinate her family in payment for his help. His carnal relish is offered free. The second is the wizard Lethan, who intends to use the demon to attack his fellow wizards. When he learns Katirin wants to destroy his means to power, Lethan's mercurial temper will turn murderous.

As Katirin dismantles her conscience to save her nation, she learns that a queen always sacrifices something of herself for her people, and that a throne taken away can also be earned back.

DARK HEIR is a 94,000 word fantasy. The full manuscript is available upon request and I have enclosed an SASE for your reply. Thank you for your time and consideration; I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Me

The Afterbirth: Synopses and Query Letters

Ooh! That was fast.

Kudos to Elektra and her Crapometer! I emailed her my query letter (for Dark Heir) this morning and it's already up on the site for critiquing. Do feel free to pop by and thrash it within an inch of its sorry life. Inquiring minds want to know: does this suck?

And really, no matter how much it sucks, it couldn't possibly suck more than my synopsis currently does. *sigh*

Has anyone advice on how to write a good synopsis? I've scoured many a website, but I seem to find little except synopsis-writing-for-romance-writers, and this is not too applicable. I know a synopsis should:

1) outline the plot clearly,
2) capture a bit of the novel's "voice", and
3) not induce spontaneous power-napping.

Currently, my synopsis fails on points 2 and 3. Should I go for a juicy back-flap-flavoured tone? The query letter I linked to above was written that way.

I humbly grovel for the wise advice of my highly-talented readers. *grovel, grovel*

The Art of Sketching

When I was young, my brother started playing this new game with his friends, called Dungeons and Dragons. Bro was obsessed; he talked about the game all the time, and what he had to say was riveting to my prying little-sister ears. Dragons? Elves? Orcs and dungeons? Hoo-yeah! That sounded great! What kind of a board did this game have? What kind of pieces?

I was mad to try it, but y'know - being a little sister and all, I wasn't exactly welcome among a crowd of twelve-year-old lads. Regardless, when my brother finally hosted a D&D party at our house, I crept downstairs, desperate to see this game in action.

What I saw was a bunch of boys sitting around a card table with pieces of paper in front of them, talking to one another. Hey! Where were the dragons? Where were the stinkin' elves?

My mom explained that the game took place inside their imaginations. That was a new concept at the time; D&D was the first role-playing game to become that popular. I remained disappointed, but even at that age, I recognised that the game was probably waaaaaaay better when played in the imagination than it ever could have been with cardboard pictures or plastic figurines.

In a previous post, I discussed the power of "showing" rather than "telling" in writing. It boils down to you forcing your reader to actively imagine what's happening in your novel.

Just like in D&D, you couldn't possibly describe the scene any better than the reader could imagine it unassisted. Thus, your task as the writer is to sketch in just enough detail for the reader's imagination to get excited, jump in, and finish the job.

An interesting twist on this idea occurred to me today. Some of the most charismatic characters I've come across are the ones where I didn't have enough detail for my imagination to finish the job. I had enough hints for it to get started, but that was all.

The result was that my imagination scurried wildly, trying to sort that character out. I became hooked, obsessed. I was desperate to find out more.

That's a good state to get a reader into; it keeps the pages turning. The tension caused by having too many viable possibilities to decide which one is correct is quite delicious.

Obviously, the reader is going to want some satisfaction by the time the book ends, but you can leave that to the last page. You can also leave the reader with only a likely hunch, not a definitive understanding of the character. That will keep the reader tortured thinking about your character long after they close the book.

I think this technique works best with villains, who are a bit removed from your protagonist's world-view (and thus the reader's), but it could also be applied to an unreliable narrator .

What characters have you run across in books/movies/television/games that drove you wild with curiosity? Which ones had you pondering their mysteries long after the story ended?

And what sorts of hinted backstory got you fascinated in the first place? Repressed pain? Hidden gentleness? Unrequited love? Concealed malevolence?

Teh Endses, liek woah

asdfjkl;!!

I finished writing my novel today. Tra-la!

Well... Except for doing the final read, final edits, putting it away for a month, re-reading it, doing more edits, changing half the names to - well - less stupid names, re-reading for typos and consistency, doing more edits, writing query letters, writing synopses, researching literary agents...

Et cetera. You know; finished. :-)

I shall try to get a meatier post than this one up soon, but as you might imagine, I'm barely keeping myself from leaping around the room like a puppy right now.

Hmm. Time to buy a new printer cartridge.

Recommending Libraries

In the WHOO-HOO department, I'm now down to one-and-a-smidgeon chapters still to rewrite before I'm finished my novel and can stick it in the fridge for a month to chill. Simple excitement over the prospect of being done has sped the process considerably.

In the OH-POOH department, the library workers in my city remain on strike, and oh, how I miss my library. I support the workers and wish them well in their negotiations, but oh - how I miss my library. *sniffle*

Speaking of libraries, I once read the website of a writer who was very funny, but who had some curmudgeonly comments about library books.

Specifically, she grumbled about people who tell her how much they love her novels - and then mention they borrowed the books from the library or bought them second-hand. Grouch, grouch, says the author. Thanks for nothing; I get no money from that and hey, I'm poor and all. If you love my books so much, toss a royalty my way.

I can see the author's point, but I disagree with her assessment that a person who didn't buy the book new is not helping the writer earn a living.

Word of mouth sells a lot of books. If I hear someone rave about a novel, I seriously consider getting it. And if I do buy it, the author just made a royalty, regardless of whether the original person bought their book new or not. That's a sale the author probably would not have made otherwise.

Recommendations are worth money. Even as a would-be novelist, I'm a fan of the library. First, it allows me to scout for new authors without feeling ripped off if a book proves disappointing. When I do find a writer I like, I will start buying their books new. Second, when I love something, I tell others. That can directly translate into sales for the author. Third, the library allows people too poor to buy new books to be avid readers. Society benefits from that.

In short, I ♥ my library.

If I'm ever lucky enough to have someone tell me they loved my novel - which they got from the library or a second-hand shop - I'm going to grin and say thank you.

And then I'll tell them to please remember to repeat that to their friends and neighbours.

The Pole Vaulter of Writing.

I just woke from one of those fabulous weekend naps, the unexpected four-hour kind. I now sit here with the shards of a few dreams still tumbling through my bleary brain, looking out at the tail end of a spectacular day. I feel good, but a bit guilty; I wasted a beautiful afternoon.

Friday was a great writing day, and when I get to the end of those, I usually think, "MUST! KEEP! THE MOMENTUM! GOING!!! Must outline and scheme more! Must write more! Must be even more productive than this! Yes! Yes!"

Which never works. Yesterday, even my husband noticed how lumpish and slothful I was being (although he's a dear about phrasing it as, "You look like you're having a nice relaxing weekend.") And today? Well. That wonderful nap was the apex of the excitement, although I may go for a walk before the sun sets; it's a blitzkrieg of fun here.

I seem to be the pole vaulter of writing; I come trundling toward my goal, face grave, slowly building speed. Then, when I deem myself close enough, in a burst of flailing appendages (mainly fingers), I launch myself at the scene.

Immediately afterward, I lie on my back for a while, staring at the sky and feeling pleased with myself.

What's your metaphor? Think about how you write and fill in the blank in the following sentence:
"I am the _______________ of writing."

Then explain yourself. :-)

Delusions of Grand Finale

I've been rewriting my novel for about a year, and this weekend, I discovered I didn't know what to fix next. So, I embarked on a complete read-through to find out what sucked, and lo! Only four chapters out of twenty-four still suck. Go, me!

In fact, I'm really delighted with most of it. Yes, I'm too close to the work to be objective, but it's still a nice feeling when you're on the swell of the [I'm a talentless hack/I'm better than buttered toast, I am] wave.

One of the weirder things about writing this novel is that I've spent most of the process thinking I'm almost done. Literally, I've spent two years thinking I'd be finished in a month, maybe two.

Holy molybdenum, I'm glad I didn't have any real clue. I would have given up in despair.

But now? I really am almost done. For sure. Liek woah. A month, maybe two. Just don't lay any bets on it.

How common is this delusion phenomenon among writers? Do the rest of you also spend large quantities of time thinking the end is in sight, or do you have a realistic time frame in mind and the doggedness to keep going even when you know there's a long way to go?

The Limit of Dreams

Bernita recently said (on Jaye's Blahg):

Underneath it all, hiding under other fears - of rejection, of promotion - is the devastating fear that one might have to accept that one might just not be good enough.

I found this a very potent statement. I always love it when someone can cut right to the heart of a discussion like that. Nicely done, Bernita.

Finding out, for a fact, that you aren't good enough is devastating. I got a spoonful of that realisation in grad school. I discovered that I could do it - I could keep up with everyone else - but only barely, and only by working much harder than they did. Eventually, I had to admit to myself I simply wasn't intelligent enough to be a research scientist.

Ouch. "Not intelligent enough" is nasty. That's biological. You can't do anything to fix it.

It wouldn't bother me a sliver to find out I'm not physically capable of being an Olympic speed skater, but I've always been proud of my mind. To hit the biological limit of my intelligence, and to see that what I had dreamed of was beyond me, was horrible.

So what happens if I find out I'm not good enough at writing to realise my dreams?

The short answer is it will be devastating again and then I'll get over it again. Maybe I'll try my hand at painting instead. Yes, I dream of success, but I enjoy writing regardless, and the point of anything I do is to build an amazing life that I'm proud of. I don't have to receive the validation of strangers to be proud of my talents and what I can do with them.

There's good reason to tell kids they can do anything they set their mind to. It isn't true, but it's far better that they try and hit the wall than to never try.

And the thick skin you develop by repeatedly hitting walls? Hey, that just prepares you for being a writer!

Multi-tasking

This was a great weekend. Not only did I polish off all of Harry Potter 7, but I also got a lot of writing done. Yes! Writing! On the day of the Potterapocalyse, no less!

There are benefits to having your spouse roll his eyes and leave you in a room by yourself for the whole weekend. I only needed fifteen hours to read the book; the rest of the time has been quite productive.

Which leads to the idea of multi-tasking.

I used to write Harry Potter fanfiction (*blush*), and it was a lot of fun. However, after I started my own novel, I had to stop writing fanfiction because I couldn't obsess properly about my own characters while I was also obsessing about someone else's. In my head, there appears to only be room for one universe at a time.

It astonishes me when someone says they are working on several stories simultaneously. I mean - how do you do that? I suppose it's easier if all the characters sprang from your own noggin, but still: one brain, one universe. Remove old cartridge before inserting new cartridge.

I think I'd find it very difficult to switch gears like that. Could those who do this, or have done it, tell me how it works for you? I'm really interested in how you manage it!

How to Know If You're a Ginormous Geek:

If:

a) the people sitting in front of you on the bus are talking (with enthusiasm) about gambling, and

b) the people sitting behind you on the bus are talking (with enthusiasm) about doing drugs, and

c) you are thinking (with enthusiasm) about how soon you're going to get your hands on the new Harry Potter book,

you just might be a ginormous geek.


(With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.)

Leet Homework Skillz and the Irony of Incorrect Foresight

A college instructor once mentioned to me that everything she learned in university she has used - even things she was sure would be irrelevant to her in the "real" world.

Life Lesson no. Seven-Bazillion-and-Two: You never can predict when a skill will come in handy.

While in university, I developed (like a disease, rather than intentionally) a mindset for doing homework.

My body position seemed to be important to getting in the right head-space: I couldn't work sitting on my bed; I had to be sitting at a desk or table. Once I got into the rhythm of problem-solving, however, I could forget myself and just sit there doing homework for ages. It was oddly pleasant and - when things were going well - enjoyable. (You know you're a geek when you enjoy doing your physics homework.)

I've found myself falling into this same rhythm when I brainstorm, plot or outline something for my novel (i.e. engage in "scheming"). I can "scheme" standing up, waiting for the bus, with my small notebook propped in my hand, but I scheme best when sitting at a desk or table. I can sit there for arbitrary periods of time working things out.

Part of my dedication to the idea of paying attention to your critique partners, even when you're sure they're off the mark, is that you might learn something new from them. You might see your work in a different way, or comprehend a different way to approach writing. Acquiring those new understandings is never wasted time - you'll use those skills someday, for something.

Last weekend, I said I knew where I wanted to go with the scene I was about to work on. And I did. That didn't help me actually get anywhere with it, however.

I spent this past week tapping my little hammer o' intellect on that big rough chunk o' idea and did not see a sculpted scene emerging. It was frustrating.

Today, I sat down at the table and finally got into problem-solving mode. After about four hours, I emerged with most of the scene planned out and a good chunk of the scene that comes after it ready to go also. I still have to figure out how the problem scene will begin, but I've made solid progress and am feeling smugly pleased with myself again. (When it comes to writing, I tend to oscillate between whiny melancholy and insufferable smugness. Pity my poor husband.)

Yo: leet homework skillz to the rescue, y'all!

What skills have you learned that you never would have expected to use, but did? When has something you dismissed surprised you by being relevant or useful at a later date?

Walkies? | Writing | HarryPotterHarryPotterEeeeEEeee!!

Plaques of cloud blaze against the silvered haze of the summer sky. The island is a blue ghost lurking in the humidity on the ocean. Close by, I can see the water glitter, but out near the point, the reflections smudge together so the whole sea looks white. Waves and the wakes of boats lay dashes of shadow into that brightness that remind me of diffraction patterns. A handful of sailboats scatter the bay, each tilting its own direction. The moss growing on a nearby rooftop has thrust up a thicket of yellow flowers and a grey puffball of a seagull chick is running through it. In the sun, the chick's mother shines white.

Yes, I'm having trouble blogging instead of staring out my window. Holy Molybdenum, what a fabulous day. I shall have to drag my husband off the couch to go walkies soon.

This past week has been both fruitful and frustrating in terms of writing. I had to work longer hours than usual so my Astronomy students could come in to take sunspot data, thus I had fewer blocks of time at home to write. However, I also had more opportunity to plot and outline scenes (my husband refers to this process as "scheming".) The result was I had plenty to write but couldn't write it until this weekend.

Thanks to the "scheming", I've half-finished a very long and intricate scene I had been dreading working out the logic of. I also know what I'll do for the rest of it, although more plotting will be required. Last night, I opened a later chapter to check a fact, realised that scene wasn't logically consistent with the scene I had been writing, fixed it, then went back to what I'd been working on. I'm pretty happy with everything I've produced, also.

When El Husbando lumbers blissfully out of bed at 10AM on the weekends, he must think I'm nuts to be so chipper and happy. After all, I've already been up three hours and he knows I'm as much a night owl as he is. I can't help it; when your writing is going well, you just feel so pleased with yourself and your life.

M'aide, M'aide; I'm hearing gentle snores wafting out of the couch. Going for that walk may prove more difficult than I'd originally envisioned.

In short, I've been quite productive the past few days. This is in spite of having new library books to dive into and the Harry Potter fanatic in me having suddenly come awake and started gibbering that we! must! re-read! all the old books before HP Armageddon hits on the 21st.

Dagnabbit; how many pages is that, anyway? Everything after book three was a house brick.

'Nuff about me; how is everyone else's writing going? Are you lucky enough to have sunny weather interfering with your concentration these days? :-)

Rambling through my long weekend

Yesterday was Canada Day, and in celebration (of the fact that I don't have to go to work today; whoo-hoo!), Zombie Monday is cancelled. I actually feel coherent. (And I have as much tea as I care to drink, which makes me happy.)

This blog post will start out about something dear to both Canadians and writers: being picky-assed about spelling. Where it shall end up, I do not know.

Canadians don't spell the way Americans do. We feel irrationally smug and superior about this, too - irrationally because we aren't spelling the way the British do, so it's not like we're correct and Americans aren't. Sure, we keep the extra "u" in colour, but we don't put the extra "o" in "foetus" and we willfully and flagrantly write "jail" instead of "gaol".

There is more than one correct way to spell and not a lot of merit to choosing one set of spellings over another. If you want to be unbiased about it, the British invented the language, therefore their conventions are correct.

But where did their conventions come from? A lot of standard English spellings are phonetic renditions of the way the language was spoken seven hundred years ago in England. The "k", "g" and "h" in "knight" really were pronounced (something like "k-nig-hh-t".) Thus, the standard spellings of today don't reflect the way the British speak anymore, so why hold them sacred? Only because it's convenient to have standardized spelling.

(It's a little like the fact that the Sun signs of western Astrology, i.e. Pisces, Virgo, etc., are based on the constellations the Sun used to pass through. Thanks to the precession of the Earth's axis, the Sun now passes through thirteen constellations. Is your birthday between November 30th and December 17th inclusive? Surprise! Your Sun sign is actually Ophiuchus.)

Also, spelling was standardized after the invention of typesetting, and the typesetters were originally paid by the letter. It benefited them to pad out words. I don't see much merit in being snobbish about a 700-years-dead guy's method of lining his pocket.

So what's my point? Hmm; what is my point? I know I had one. I saw it here a second ago... Oh, yes.

Feeling superior to someone based on their language skills could blind you the merits of their work. I think it was the frighteningly intelligent Feemus who noted that sneering at someone for writing an approximation of street slang is basically you congratulating yourself for speaking your own dialect. There is no superiority there; you're just being smug.

I got caught out by this once. I had a very nice fellow leave a critique for me on Critique Circle.

However.

Holy Jude Law, revered Saint of Sexy, this guy's English skills were atrocious. He didn't capitalise, he swapped or missed letters randomly, his punctuation was non-existent. I was inclined to ignore the critique based on that; how could someone who can't write English properly give a useful critique? Surely you need some level of competence yourself before you're capable of dissecting someone else's work thoughtfully?

I put that aside, because I believe in listening to critiquers. It's fine to decide someone is flakier than a box of bran, but you listen to what they're saying before you make that call. Arrogance is bad for a writing career; professionals should always be open to the idea that they could stand to improve.

I gave his comments serious thought and found they were good ones. I wrote the fellow an email thanking him and noting which points I had found most useful. He wrote back to thank me in return and asked if I'd be willing to critique his story.

The language skills displayed in his email were every bit as horrific as those in his critique. I cringed, but I agreed to have a look at his work.

The story was very good. The mechanics were also fine; he had a tendency to swap letters still, but everything else was perfect.

It turns out the fellow is dyslexic. He's bright and talented, but he's got a brain-wiring issue that makes words squirm for him. He's dedicated to his writing, and puts effort into making it mechanically correct, but he doesn't do the same for casual correspondences because that's too much effort.

I really feel a turd for having judged him based on an email. My brother is also slightly dyslexic, so I should know better. My [brother/childhood tormentor/favourite person to snitch books from] is also extremely intelligent and capable, but yeah; his emails are also an orca-sized case of ouch every single time. I should have known better.

Wow; this is a long post. Oh, well. It's a long weekend. :-)

So is it fair to judge someone on their language skills? It depends on which arena you're standing in, and which lions are licking their chops as they pad toward you. Writers tend to whinge when literary agents and editors rail about some little thing they hate. To the writers, it seems arbitrary (like the rules of spelling) and unfair.

There is an element of truth to that, but the fact is if you want to get published, you're supposed to be better than just about everyone on the planet at writing. You need to be able to function at that level. Yes, it's hard, but the only reason it feels unfair is because, to varying degrees, we interact with our fellow writers by being reasonable. We praise our critique partners for their strengths as well as bruising them for their weaknesses. We make allowances for different dialects and styles of writing. We exercise tact. We remember that everyone starts out sucky, but that it's a curable affliction.

The professionals in the publishing industry don't have to do that. As soon as you leave the small and human environment of your critique group, the world is suddenly full of knives and icy wind. The change is a shock, but it's not unfair. You're trying to be one of the best, remember? No whining when someone says you aren't there yet; say thank you for the heads-up and keep working at it.

And speaking of working (and tying back to the issue of smugness) did I mention I don't have to go to work today?

Neener, neener! *cackles evilly*

Holy Crap. Too Much Jalapeno.

My eyeballs are sweating.

For anyone who's interested, this is a fabulous dip:

Nouli's Dip
200 g tofu
400 g sharp feta (I prefer Bulgarian feta)
2 or 3 jalapeno peppers (three gives a very nice flavour, but is pretty damned fiery)
1 tsp. salt

Throw everything in the blender and puree until smooth. Serve with raw vegetables, chips or crackers. Makes 2 cups of dip.

Yoghurt may be substituted for tofu and dill or baked garlic may be added according to tastes.

Note: This is an innocent-looking green dip. If you're taking it to a party, you might want to warn people...

Scale

Every eleven years, there is a peak in the number of sunspots observed on the Sun. No one knows why.

Currently, we're in a trough. For the past week, there have been NO visible sunspots. This is a problem if one's astronomy students are supposed to be measuring the rotation rate of the Sun via the motion of sunspots; oh my, yes. Thankfully, a lovely zit on the face of Sol rotated into view yesterday. Hurrah!

If you focus the Sun's image onto a piece of paper, such that the image of the Sun is magnified to about 10 cm across (4 inches), this sunspot looks the size of a pinhead.

This sunspot is actually slightly bigger than planet Earth.

Which brings me to the idea of scale. My first draft of my novel didn't hold together as a book. The scenes were fine, but the overall plot wasn't.

I've read books that had this flaw also. One in particular was - if judged scene by scene - freakishly brilliant. The world was vivid and exotic, the author rocked at the "show, don't tell" principle, and everything flowed beautifully.

For most of the book, the plot was great too, but in the last third, it became insane. The individual scenes were still wonderful, but they added up to something distressingly bad.

I've also read books that had the opposite problem (particularly in science fiction); the plot was good, but individual scenes weren't. Maybe the characters were cardboard or the dialogue flat, but the details of execution all seemed carelessly spackled onto an otherwise solid idea.

Which problem do you tend to have? Are your scenes little gems, but you struggle to make the plot logical? Or do you crank out solid stories that are marred by how desperately rough everything is in the first draft?

In other words, are your sunspots well-formed - or artfully arranged? What do you have to do to make them both?

Take me back, Sweetheart! I've changed my ways!

I'm finding blogging every day challenging and I'm afraid I will have to give that regularity up.

I have learned surprising things from the experience of daily blogging, however. I've learned I can come up with a good idea (with effort) by forcing myself to it. I've learned I'm too persnickety about making sure I say exactly what I meant to say and that every character, every comma is typed correctly. (Even short blog posts took me about an hour to write; even this one is starting to stretch itself out.)

I also learned I could sit down on evenings when I felt tired and out of ideas and write something. Something I felt pleased with.

Which means I should sit down, even on evenings when I feel tired and out of ideas, and write my freakin' novel instead of my steenk-ing blog. No more whining about how I'm a slow writer, either. Apparently, I'm just making excuses.

I shall attempt to blog once or twice weekly from here on in. Adieu for now, my pretties; my literary sweetheart awaits me tonight.

Freecycling Ideas

I just joined Freecycle. This is a program where, if you have something that is perfectly useful but which you don't want anymore, you can offer the item on your city's Freecycle newsgroup. If someone wants it, that person will arrange to come get it from you. The only stipulations are that the item be legal and that it be offered for free. (I'm getting rid of an aquarium.)

This got me thinking about copyright, idea-poaching and genre.

Ideas are free. If you tell me your great idea for a novel, and I then steal that idea and write the novel myself, I get all the money because the work of art is mine. The idea was yours, but lick it up: ideas have no intrinsic worth. It's what you do with them that matters. The art is mine, therefore the money is mine.

Nobody likes an idea-thief, of course. However, we all borrow ideas from one another. It may be part of why humans are such successful beasties.

I've noticed that if, when I'm demonstrating equipment to my students, I do some simple thing that makes the experiment run more smoothly, all my students will emulate that technique. If I don't do that thing, virtually none of my students will think the method up on their own. I'm not telling them to do it - they just recognise it's a good idea when they see it.

Good ideas are hard to come up with; this is why ground-breakers are so revered. Recognising a good idea, however, seems to be something humans are uniformly clever at.

Which leads to genre. Someone thought up the monster called a vampire, but no one considers themself an idea-poacher for writing stories about vampires. At worst, we recognise we're using a stock character. We also note, however, that vampires are a good idea, and popular. It would be difficult to come up with a new monster that would resonate with our audience quite so well.

And I'm sorry, but it's bedtime and I don't think this post is going to wind itself up in a coherent fashion. I've been trying to find my point for several fruitless minutes now. The questions I'll end with are:

How hard do you try to be creative? How often do you use stock characters and stay within the boundaries of genre? How often to you try to build something completely new? Do you try to have the best of both worlds by taking a genre and turning its conventions on their head? What's your diabolical plot when it comes to world-building for a novel?

Know Thy Character's Default Emotion

My cousin once used the term "default emotion" to describe how people react under pressure.

Stress someone a bit and their default emotion starts to show. Perhaps they become aggravated. Perhaps morose. Perhaps fretful. Perhaps they become inhumanly efficient and focused.

Characters in art also reveal their true selves under stress. You will know the hero's fine character by how he conducts himself in a bad situation, and you will know the villain to be a jerk by the same.

A plot is all about stressing your protagonist. You give them a problem, let the problem snowball out of control, and then document all the sad, desperate flailing your main character does as they leap from one attempted solution to another.

Your protagonist's qualities should be revealed by their flailing. If they're intelligent, they should come up with clever solutions, if they're courageous, they should do something brave, etc. The resolution of the story's plot should be something only the protagonist - with all their personality quirks - was equipped to bring about.

Which gives rise to an interesting dilemma - do you come up with the character first, and let their personality dictate what the story's resolution has to be, or do you come up with the climactic scene first, and let it dictate what sort of person your protagonist must be?

Which method do you prefer to use, and why?

Zombie Monday

In honour of zombie Monday (when I am a zombie; this has nothing to do with the zombie apocalypse that happened last week), I present fluff.

Fluff takes little brain power on my part and is thus perfect for zombie Monday. Here is something that amuses me every single time I watch it. Turn off your brain and enjoy.

You Are a Pirate!

Backstory as Ammo

I was sick yesterday, so I'm blogging today, now that I feel human and am dependably spending longer than an hour at a time conscious.

One of more interesting points in Story by Robert McKee is how to handle backstory.

Inserting backstory is always tricky. A big dump of it bores the reader. It also shows a lack of effort on the part of the writer.

I still struggle with this. I prefer to insert backstory bit by bit. Important things get mentioned in dialogue and I trust the reader to put the big picture together themselves. The problem then becomes crowbarring everything I need in without the conversations beginning to sound like "As you know, Bob, ..."

McKee stresses throughout his book that a story is created by consistently opening a gap between the result the character expects to get from their actions and what they actually get. (The audience should be surprised by these gaps also.)

Mr. McKee then says the best way to insert backstory is to use it as ammunition. Let it take the form of a revelation - Character One says something, expecting a certain response from Character Two, and instead Character Two drops a verbal bomb on Character One.

The example Mr. McKee uses is when Luke Skywalker accuses Darth Vader of killing his father and Vader replies, "Luke, I am your father."

Ka-boom. Now the audience's minds go racing back through everything in the films prior, putting together the backstory and feeling shocked and elated by the sudden surprise. It's a very satisfying moment for a film-goer.

This strikes me as a really neat technique, and it's one I've never used before. I wonder if it would be sufficient for the world-building needs of the average science fiction or fantasy writer, however.

I'd love to start a discussion of this in the comments. What do you think of this method of handling backstory? Do you think it's practical? Do you use it?

Ego v. Crushed Ego

Thanks to everyone worldwide who helped with the zombie smackdown. There's always more students to be found, so no worries about my job security, either.

I mentioned on Monday I'd found a clutch of bum chapters in my novel. Today on the bus - despite my tendency toward motion sickness - I scribbled down quite a lot of good ideas for dealing with them. I'm quite pleased, not that I was distressed before.

That lack of hysteria is notable. I do still oscillate between thinking my writing is brilliant and thinking it's a big reeking pile of poo, but the euphoria and despair are both better-tempered now. I have faith in my ability to think through problems and awareness that nothing I write will ever be perfect.

I think all writers go through these cycles. When you get done writing a novel, you think it's gold. And you're quite wrong. (Although hopefully not completely wrong.)

The egotism that accompanies this euphoria gets in the way of improving that piece of writing. It can also lead to unfortunate moments of Being An Ass; for example, you may request people read your work, smug in your expectation of praise, only to end up in a snit when you get constructive criticism instead.

Once you recognise your work's imperfections, you can start improving it. However, at that point, you're also so depressed about your lack of talent and immense capacity for self-delusion that you question the wisdom of bothering.

It's a weird tightrope to walk. On one leg of the chicken, you can't write a hundred thousand words without believing you (and your writing) are awesome, but on the other, you can't make the writing awesome until you notice all the myriad ways it isn't.

I have gotten mellower about my writerly equivalent of a menstrual cycle, and it is simply experience that gave me that mellowness.

How do you handle your ups and downs? What do you do when self-doubt sets in, and how do you keep yourself from querying your work the millisecond you finish it?

My Students Are a Bunch of Zombies

Oh-kay.

I teach in the summer. Of course my students are occasionally brain-dead and unmotivated. Sure, they're sometimes even a little hostile to me. All the same, I've never had a day like today before.

I always start my labs on time, so I was already talking when the majority of the class begins to shamble in at 2 o'clock. It's not my problem if another instructor keeps them late, so I just waved everyone to the front (spectrometers are best demonstrated when the students can see which bit I'm pointing at) and kept talking.

No one was hurrying, let me tell you. I started talking about how to calculate the angle of one's spectral lines correctly, an exercise that requires hand gestures.

And someone tried to bite my finger off.

He didn't get me, or I wouldn't be typing this right now. I jerked away from the kid (I think his name was Toby) and that's all that saved me from the one who was going for my neck.

Now I understand. Now I see why I hadn't been able to get into the prep room earlier - Bob, the technician, had barricaded the door and is probably still in there, safe and sound. Trust an engineer to know precisely how deal with the zombie apocalypse.

I managed to shove Toby into, um...her last name is Sandhu, but I can't remember her first name - and then I grabbed the overhead projector and brained both of them.

I feel bad for my timely students - they had their backs turned and thus, rather rapidly, became untimely. That kept most of the horde off me, however, although I couldn't make it past them to get to the exit.

Thank goodness I work in a physics lab. We warn the students about the high voltages in the discharge tubes and I already had one plugged in for the demonstration. I snatched it up and as zombie fingers reached toward me, they met the business end of the socket. Although this didn't kill the shamblers, it made them temporarily uncoordinated and also set a few on fire. Apparently even zombies find that distracting.

I also had the class set of ten digital calipers. If you've never seen a pair of calipers before, they resemble a slide rule with a set of metal jaws on one end. If wielded like a hammer, they do a lot of damage. I soon had about eight blind zombies. Blind zombies are very ineffective zombies.

That left five effective zombies and these, unfortunately, had realised I was a problem that needed to be dealt with prior to feasting on the flesh of their dead classmates.

However, I was unstoppable. You think I've never considered how to kill my students before? Please; I've been teaching for ten years already. I was in my element.

I danced by the shamblers, hopped up on the side counter and - Bob is going to kill me for this, because he only just installed the new monitors yesterday - I started flinging computers and cathode ray tubes around.

I'm now locked in the physics lab with a lot of zombie corpses, and no, there isn't any food in here, but there is clean water, electricity, and lots and lots of geektastic school property just begging to be inventively turned into weapons.

Really, I haven't had this much fun in years. You all knew physicists were a little bit crazy, didn't you? This is great. I've already rewired the van der Graff generator.

A Writer Gets Veryveryvery Subversive

While doing my daily round of blogger-jogging, I came across a short lament about The State of Things - or perhaps the lament was actually about The Lowering of Standards. Personally, I thought it sounded like a variation on The Problem With Kids Today.

The woe-and-gnashing-of-teeth was over the idea that - thanks to the internet, video games, television, etc. - society as a whole has a poor attention span and vocabulary. The implication is that we've been dumbed down relative to some golden yesteryear.

I think this is a case of applying outdated (if only by a few decades) standards to a new world. Humans are humans; we have not been dumbed down. We're just smart about different things today.

Given the popularity of blogs, chat forums and interactive gaming, the current generation is more inclined to communicate via the written word than their parents were, and probably even more than their grandparents were, given that email and text-messaging are so much faster than posting a letter.

Does this generation (of which, by the way, I am far too cranky and unsupple to be considered a member anymore) communicate at a lower level than previous generations? Definitely. But they do more of it, so what's so surprising about that? Their focus is on accurate communication and the subtle art of virtual socialising, rather than strong vocabulary and the ability to write a grammatical sentence.

Although I cringe to see grown men and women who never capitalise anything (Don, from work, I am lookin' at you), I don't think this is a sign that society is crumbling about our ears. It isn't fair to criticise the young for doing what makes sense in today's world. Face it: for email and internet chatting, emoticons are as important as punctuation.

Sure, we're losing something - liek lettrs n stuff, ppl - but this is because the world has gained something else. Every day, ordinary people build tight-knit and personal communities that span the entire planet. How beautiful! The ease and speed of informal communication is what made this possible.

I love words, and I want society to be properly literate, but for a lot of very intelligent and productive people, taking the time to learn to write perfect English is impractical and unnecessary.

If what I just said left you sputtering, consider this:

There is an algorithm for working out a square root by hand, on paper. Do you know how to do it?

No? So why aren't you willing to spend half an hour to learn this very basic math skill?

Perhaps because - for you - it's impractical and unnecessary?

Zombie Monday

I can see Mondays are going to be an unsafe bet for me blogging about anything worthwhile. I get home late and lack of food/energy tends to lead to a lack of ideas/interest.

Vaguely writing-related news? I've discovered a small clutch of chapters in my novel that need to be reworked extensively. Le woe. However, I at least know what I need to do, if not exactly how I will accomplish it. The problem seems tractable.

'Though not tonight. *ZZZzzz...*

Marketing

In what follows, I really don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I'm just saying what sounds plausible to me, but my style is to speak as if I'm stating facts. I'm not. These are my opinions and I'm no expert. Feel free to agree, disagree, or point and laugh! As always, I'd be delighted to hear your thoughts, even contrary ones. :-)

Marketing. I've read a lot of literary agents' blogs, and some really stress the importance of marketing your novel.

Do book signings! Hand out book plates! Speak at conferences! Network! Brand yourself! Get hustling; don't you want a writing career?

I don't believe this is as important as they think. I'll explain why in a moment.

First, let me say I think the publishing industry is delightful. Hype does not create a bestselling novel and advertising does not create a bestselling novel. Only merit creates a bestselling novel. What turns a mild-mannered work of fiction into a roaring beast of ka-ching-ka-ching! is word-of-mouth endorsements. People wander into bookstores and browse for whatever looks good. If they buy and read something fantastic, and love it enough to start telling others, those others will actively seek the book.

All marketing can do is inspire curiosity in the initial "I'll take a chance on it" buyers. If they remember the writer's name or the cover art from somewhere, then they might pick the novel off the shelf where otherwise they would have walked by.

Marketing won't convince them to take the book home, however. It will only convince them to take a look at it. They'll buy the novel only if they decide - there in the bookstore - that it looks enjoyable or worthy.

Marketing also won't convince them to talk about the book with anyone. That's a spontaneous phenomenon brought on by the quality of the novel itself (which is why such endorsements carry weight.)

So marketing your book can only make people give your novel a chance; it can't generate appreciable sales. Only the quality of the novel can do that.

And if you don't market at all, but have a great book? As long as it's in the bookstores, it will probably do fine. Dark horse bestsellers happen every year.

In other words, don't stress about marketing; that's putting the cart before the horse. To quote my hero, just write well.

Well? Am I a blithe fool? An idjit who makes a decent point? Let me know your opinion!

Mary Sue: The Writer's Sweetheart

Definition: A "Mary Sue" character is an impossibly good, cool or powerful character in a work of fiction. Often, she is an authorial self-insertion character or wish-fulfilling fantasy. A "Gary Stu" is the male equivalent of a Mary Sue.

(For your entertainment, subject your protagonist to the Mary Sue Litmus Test!)

I think Mary Sues (I use that term in a gender-neutral way) are a stage all writers go through. We start by creating self-insertion characters - reflections of ourselves - and eventually learn to create very warped and unrecognisable reflections.

The main character of my novel-under-construction started out as a Mary Sue (aeons ago). After I realised she was, the fix was simple - she became two characters. My protagonist now has a side-kick, and both women are more realistic for being less powerful. (They're also more interesting, because bifurcation didn't agree with them - they don't get along. Yay! More conflict!)

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm reading Story by Robert McKee (which is now overdue at the library... Oops...) Chapter 14 has the following: "A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them."

In other words, your hero is defined by your villain. The way to make your protagonist more compelling is to make your villain a better foil for him.

Writers of Mary Sues get this backward. They try to make the character compelling by giving the Sue attributes like superpowers, exceptional beauty, and the obsessive interest of everyone the Sue encounters. Even worse, they often make the villain weaker, or more evil than believable, in order to give the Sue opportunity to shine.

The problem with Sue is that she's just too powerful. If she's obviously never going to lose, the story has no tension because it has no stakes.

In Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass says your main character should have "stature". He then describes attributes that lend stature to a character, and some of these could be called attributes of the dreaded Sue.

I don't think these two books are giving conflicting advice; I think it's a matter of balance. Your protagonist can be a goddess, provided the antagonist is her equal (both in power and depth of personality.)

*cues the violins* Do you remember the first Sue you ever wrote? What was she like? Sexy? Powerful? Charismatic? Ridiculous? Was it true love, or did you manage to get over her?

*kills the violins* More importantly, what was your Sue's villain like?

What's in a name? Genus and phylum, if you're lucky.

Fantasy authors are particularly horrifying about naming their characters. Either you get Slewethellinythlinne the elf, or Slud Brainbiter the barbarian, or Kn'rth'n Qu'rf'thnx the...whatever. Likely as not, the author also wants you to believe these three people grew up together in the same isolated 62-person village, and none of them has ever acquired a knick-name. Not even Slewethellinythlinne.

If a character's name is too complex, my brain doesn't process it. I have read entire books with my noggin identifying the protagonist as Tre-*mumblemumble*, because the hero's name is too hard to decipher. And the author probably worked really hard to come up with such a cool name, too.

If a character's name is too weird, my brain has trouble remembering it's a name, and that means I have trouble attaching the name to its character. In The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling, the first character you meet is the wizard Iya. However, every time Iya showed up, I had to pause and puzzle out who she was again. I knew the character's identity - I just couldn't remember her damned name. My brain refused to attach it to her.

I love George R. R. Martin's approach in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. He uses names that are misspelled or simplified versions of names that are familiar, like Jaime, Eddard or Cersei. He also uses simple names that are easy for your brain to latch onto and which sound like names, such as Bran, Davos or Tommen.

The name needs to be pronounceable, and it needs to be easily identified as a name.

Now. Whenever I have need to name a character, I usually end up rubber-necking my apartment in distress, hoping my eyeballs will latch onto something I can use. I have only once named a character "Orchid", but you see the danger here.

I've learned to just give the blighters a name and get on with the writing. By the time I'm done my final draft, I'll have come up with something better.

If you're a writer, how do you come up with character names? Do you pull a nice collection of sounds out of the air? Use family/friends/coworker's names? Try to describe the person's character with their name? Or do you try to give them a "cool" name (such as our teenaged-selves coveted, like "Raven" or "Steel")?

Ban the Love Song!

About half of all novels sold are romance novels. Half.

Le whoa. Romance kicks buttock.

However, romance novels get no respect. Movies, popular songs and literature of almost any genre feature love and sex ubiquitously, and yet the one type of novel that focuses solely on love and sex is vilified.

I assume this is because half of all novels sold are romances - anytime you've got that kind of demand for product, a lot of garbage is going to wind up on the market. That tends to give everyone in the field a bad reputation.

I don't like romance novels, but that's not a reason for me to sneer at them. I also don't like horror novels. It's just a matter of taste.

Verily, I am at peace with the romance novel.

Verily, what really annoys me is all the stuff that isn't billed as romance, yet which is packed with gratuitous love and sex.

Every movie has to have a love interest; every song has to feature the word "baby". The vast majority of people I deal with in life will never wind up in my bed, so why does romance have to be inserted into all my art? Why does sex have to sell so well?

Yeah, yeah; because of that biological imperative stuff. I know.

I'm not actually allergic to love stories at all; it's just there's too many of them around. I want to read/hear/watch art that deals with all the other amazing stuff human beings do, also. Love and sex have their place, but holy Hugo Weaving - ban the love song! I want to find out what else the lyricists have to talk about!

Do you adore romance? Erotica? Or do you disdain them? Either way, can you explain your love or hate?

And what do you wish there was more of in literature? What are you glad there's plenty of? What's your guilty pleasure?

A "thank you" echoes forth from the goblin mines

First of all, thanks to all who popped by my blog on the weekend and commented; that was a lot of fun! Thanks also to Elektra for linking to my last post via The Crapometer.

Today is blog-lite, simply because I've had the kind of day that inclines a person to whine. I haven't the energy to be anything but crabby right now.

Food is forthcoming; I'm sure all will be well again shortly. In the meanwhile, crabby goblin-smooches to you all.

Handbook for How to "Show" Rather Than "Tell" in Writing

This post ploinked into existence thanks to my attempts to give a critique on Elektra's Crapometer (a site whose (other) critters consistently hand out some of the most intelligent and helpful critiques I've seen anywhere on the internet.)

And let's face it: my love of yabbering as if I know what I'm talking about played a role too.

I hope this is helpful to you. Feel free to leave constructive criticism on the ideas discussed.


Goal 1: Notice how many times you use the "SUBJECT was SOMETHING" construction.

Examples of "SUBJECT was SOMETHING" construction:
"He was wet."
"Things weren't going as planned."
"The cat was half-starved."

The "SUBJECT was SOMETHING" construction is the most common method of "telling". You, the author, are stating a fact, and the reader's imagination doesn't need to engage for them to understand you. That means you've failed to draw the reader into your story.

For the reader, telling is dull. Telling will never make them care about what's happening in the story. I'll explain why in a moment.

However, telling saves a lot time. You can get your detective out of the house and over to the crime scene in a single sentence. If you showed that sequence of events, by painting his actions vividly in words, then it might take several paragraphs to accomplish the same thing.

Be aware of when you're telling, and do it sparingly. It's far better to use a paragraph where a sentence would suffice, rather than lose the reader's interest entirely because the story is dull. Telling is a useful writing tool, but don't use it as a crutch.

Goal 2: Strive to make the reader's imagination engage.

You want the reader's imagination engaged. As soon as it is, you've succeeded in pulling the reader in - the story comes to life inside their head and your writing has thus risen above simply being words that are comprehended.

To engage the imagination, paint the scene vividly with your words. You want the reader to see images, hear sounds, smell smells, and feel sensations. You want them to empathise deeply with the POV character because their mind is so tightly coupled to what the character is experiencing. This is called "showing".

The way to do this is to precisely and accurately describe sensations that the POV character experiences (including those due to emotion), rather than merely stating what is true for the character.

Example 1:
Telling: "He could smell Marcia's cloying perfume.
Showing: "Marcia's perfume crawled up his nose and clung to the back of his throat."

In the first case, the word "cloying" is an accurate term, but it's also the writer telling the reader what the perfume is like. It's far more powerful if you describe the sensation of breathing perfume so perfectly that the reader decides for themself, based on the description, that the perfume is cloying.

In the second case, the focus is on the sensation. The writer lets the description do the work of letting the reader know what the perfume is like.

One caveat: it's important that the description used gives the reader a sense of familiarity - they should be (unconsciously) thinking, "Yes, breathing in perfume feels exactly like that."

If your words describe a sensation that isn't familiar to the reader (e.g. "Marcia's perfume made the cavities of his nose try to expand"), the logic centres of the reader's brain become engaged. The reader thinks, quite consciously, "What does that mean?"

And that's a problem. We tend to use only one part of our brains at a time. When a burst of problem-solving occurs in a reader's brain, their imagination disengages to make way for that logic. This means that if your reader has to stop and puzzle something out, the story just died for them. They have been "kicked out" of the narrative - or more accurately, the story has been kicked out of the reader's imagination by their need to temporarily think a different way.

Goal 3: Work hard to avoid phrases that are commonly used, as the reader's mind is trained by familiarity to gloss over them.

Example 2:
Telling: "The sunlight reflected off the river and dazzled her."
Showing: "Sunlight smashed against the river's surface and its shrapnel lanced into her eyes."

Slightly purple, that second one. Sorry.

The verb "smashed" is a more unusual choice for talking about sunlight on water than "reflected" is. "[L]anced" is also more unusual than "dazzled".

The brain tends to slide past words that are used in a very typical way, because no imagination is required to understand what the writer meant. Unusual turns of phrase are more likely to make the imagination engage, simply because the brain has to work a bit harder to "see" the image. It's okay if the imagination goes into puzzle-solving mode, as long as the logical mind does not.

Obviously you can go too far with being unusual; your meaning has to be perfectly clear. You can say anything, provided it succeeds in making the reader imagine what you mean, rather than think about what you mean.

So What's Wrong With "Telling", Anyway?

The simple answer is that when we human beings are logical, there's no emotion attached to that process. And what makes a novel seem great to most people? The novel's ability to make us laugh, cry, and prickle with horror. The novel's ability to make us feel.

We want that emotional roller-coaster - an intellectually stimulating article can enliven us, but it has to be utterly brilliant (or obviously flawed) to get a stronger emotional response than that. We demand that novels grab us by the heart; it's what makes fiction potent.

When you "show", you engage the reader's imagination, which forces them into empathy - into feeling what the POV character feels.

When you "tell", you only communicate information to your reader. It's fast, but leaves the reader only passively involved in the story.

To make the reader believe your writing has power, you must make them feel something. That is the only reason why showing is preferable to telling.

Every fifth word, I swear.

On the bus ride home, I got thinking about "filler" words. These are words we say in conversation to let the other person know we are processing a thought but will return to full verbal flow momentarily. In English, the classic filler word is "um". You say "um" when you need a moment to assemble the rest of your sentence.

The reason this sprang to mind is because the bus I took home also carried a loud-voiced guy whose most-used filler word was "fucking". As in "Yeah, and nearly the first fucking day the fucking place was open? Some fucking guy loses his whole fucking finger."

Mmm. Classy.

I work with eighteen-year-olds. The f-word does not bother me. It really has become just an innocuous (to the person using it) filler word. The only reason this guy's use bothered me was because (1) he was loud enough I couldn't ignore him, (2) I was hungry/tired/too hot/cranky, and (3) bloody hell, buddy, you say it every fifth word. Learn to say "um", would you?

Broadcasters train themselves not to use filler words.

Writers likewise train themselves to prune their prose. To quote the perfect advice of William Strunk Jr. in The Elements of Style, "Omit needless words."

I've gotten decent at not using "that" when it isn't necessary, and I omit things that are implied - "Annoyed, she got off the first bus and caught the next one." Sometimes, that terseness makes a sentence hard to read, and I stick the filler back in. Content above style; clarity above elegance.

Like all the "rules" of writing, omitting needless words isn't a rule at all - it's a form of training that breaks you of bad habits. You're better off aware; the rules teach you to see your writing, and to thus see its weaknesses. Once aware, you can fix the problems.

What "rule" of writing has helped you most in becoming a better writer? Why did it help so much in your particular case and what were you doing before?

Seagull Segues Into Screed

*stares out window* Seagulls have a lot of sex at this time of year, you know?

Why, yes, I am having trouble figuring out what to say now that I'm trying to blog every day. However did you guess, gentle reader?

Since this is supposed to be a writing journal, I should talk about writing, except that - heh - this blog is it. I haven't worked on my novel in about a week. Mais oui; je suis le suq.

So I'll write about not writing.

I've heard many published authors insist on the importance of writing every day, and I think that's good advice. Given that I've committed to blogging every day, you'd think that would be easy for me.

It isn't. It's totally okay to blog about fluff (bear witness, y'all), but I insist on my serious writing being solid and well-crafted.

"[S]olid and well-crafted" takes me some time to create. I write slowly and can go a week or two without writing anything, because I do a lot of brainstorming before I tap out a scene. Organic writers let the words flow and see what comes out, but that doesn't work for me - I end up staring at the screen in frustration. More importantly, the exercise of writing ceases to be fun when I attempt to write organically. I need to have an outline - at least in my head.

For me, the magic starts bubbling out of the ether when I'm plotting, trouble-shooting and brainstorming a scene. Little bits of dialogue start floating out of my noggin, and then I know the scene is about to come alive. As soon as it does, I can then sit down and thrash the scene out, and I'll not only be pleased with the result when I'm finished, I'll also have an absolute blast while I'm writing.

Different writers write in different ways. I should try to write every day; I consider it an excellent habit. (It's too easy to find reasons not to write today if you give yourself permission to not write some days.) However, I don't think I'm deluding myself by failing to feel guilty about not having this good habit - I believe it's the quality of the work that matters, not the speed at which it is produced.

If you're a writer, what are your writing habits? What works best for you and why?

Snort Story

In the comments of my last post, Travis Erwin pointed out the obvious: nobody likes a deadbeat. You have to blog relatively often if you want people to keep coming back.

So, I'm going to make an effort to blog every day. This will likely make my posts shorter (Hey! I heard that sigh of relief) but might also increase the incidence of random brain-fluff being inflicted upon the masses (who consist of, what, like two people? Ha! I shall call your pain "collateral damage" and thereby make it invisible.)

Welcome to that light-headed feeling you get from too much OxyJen! Have a good snort.

---

I'm reading a great resource on writing - Story by Robert McKee. It's actually for screenwriters, but it dissects the process of writing an engaging story so precisely that it's invaluable. I've never read any other reference that concerned itself so completely with the mechanics of what makes a story work. To a large extent, he's explaining the psychology that makes human beings want to know what happens next, i.e. what keeps them reading/watching/mentally engaged in the story.

I'm finding this book a bit of a tough read (but soooooo worth it), in that it's extremely technical. It's one of those books you read with a notebook handy for scribbling the important points into. You're essentially taking lessons from the prof and desperately deciphering what he says (in technical terms) into words and concepts that make sense in your own head.

I'm only a third of the way through, but I would totally recommend this to other (fiction) writers. Check your library for a copy.

Have you got a great reference book on writing you'd like to recommend? I'd love to hear about it! What did you find so potent and useful about it?

Sheesh; I was never this concerned with popularity in High School.

This blog is intended to be my official "writer's blog", and I'm still flailing around a bit, trying to figure out what it should be.

It needs to be well-written, and I'm making an effort to do that. It needs to focus on my writing, and bingo, bango, bongo, I'm also doing that.

It needs to be entertaining, but when I post about whatever brain-fluff happens to be accreting on the inside of my skull, I'm not necessarily accomplishing that. What makes a subject a riveting bunch of wiffle to me does not necessarily make it gripping for anyone else to read. Content is something I need to work on.

Someone in my daily roster of blog/LJ reading recently posted a list of useful publishing tips (can't find the link now, mind you) and one of them was that your website should have something on it that will keep people coming back.

I already know what I'd like to do in this regard is provide critiques on other people's writing samples, because holy Hugo Weaving, I love being opinionated. I also think I'm pretty decent at picking things apart in meaningful way and saying what works and what doesn't. (Feel free to decide for yourself: I comment on Evil Editor's blog as "Whitemouse" and on Elektra's Crapometer as "Goblin".)

However, until I'm published - who really cares about my opinion? I'm better off sticking to EE and Elektra's sites for now.

Next, I have to make my blog non-invisible. Currently my fan base (Hi Claud!) is very small. The way to fix that is to get visible myself - start posting on the blogs I've been frequenting, but do so under this name. If I connect my blog to my previous pseudonyms, then some people will pop by simply because they're curious. If they find something of interest here, they'll comment. If not, oh well; that's my fault.

The next tactic is getting whoever swings by interested in having discussion in my comments section. One thing I've noticed works well for this is not just to have posts that interest people, but also to ask those people their opinions. Y'know - make it about them instead of me. (Oh, look; my ego is having a temper tantrum. Isn't it cute? Poor li'l wounded ego. *kicks ego*)

The ever-effervescent Claud recently steered me toward Jaye's Blog, and I think Jaye does this very well. Most of (his? her?) posts end on a question: What do you think? Has this happened to you? What's your story? People jump right in to answer.

Likewise, literary agent Nathan Bransford has a weekly "You tell me" feature, where he starts a discussion and then encourages interested parties to rampage around his comments section. It's usually quite popular.

And lastlastlast!! Um. I probably should try to write shorter posts. Heh.

The internet dismissal "tl;dr" ("too long; didn't read") contains a hard truth - people read this stuff to fill in the little corners of their day; they aren't willing to spend twenty minutes perusing a blog post unless it's really of interest to them, personally.

So...let me finish off by starting a good habit. How do you promote your blog and do you think about how to generate more traffic? Do you think it's important to do so, or do you find self-pimping distasteful? Please comment; I'd love to learn what you've found to be true!

Farewell, Miss Snark

For the past two years, Miss Snark has been the best not-so-friendly friend a young writer could wish for - she provided avalanches of information on the publishing industry in her ruthlessly witty and entertaining blog. I've learned so much there that I have every intention of thanking her in the acknowledgments of my first published book.

And after two years, the incomparable Miss Snark is calling it quits. I'm so dismayed to hear this; I've been reading and loving her blog almost since the beginning. There is no one who could take her place.

I [heart] Miss Snark, I thank her, and I'm going to miss her very much.

Honesty v. Kindness

On this BookEnds, LLC's blog post, Jessica Faust discusses professional jealousy among writers. Of course she dislikes it; who wouldn't? I prefer people who are supportive of one another also.

I've certainly felt such jealousy, and dealt with it in a hopefully-mature way (by keeping my green-eyed sniveling to myself), but her comments gave me an uncomfortable realisation: some comments you make (say, on a blog) that are appropriate to make if you're a reader are not appropriate to make if you're a professional writer.

What I mean is, I have a reading list post at the bottom of this blog. I update it when I finish (or don't finish) a book. I also give a short review of that book.

As a reader, I believe I have the right to say whatever I please about these books. I can slam an author if I want to. Anyone who presents their work to the public should be willing to accept a public criticism.

As a writer, however, that sort of thing looks like sour grapes. There's also the possibility I might tick off someone who otherwise would have become a valuable contact in the industry someday.

So, in the interests of my would-be future career, I've toned down my reviews a bit.

But it felt really cowardly and dishonourable to do so.

I'm a scientist too, after all. I believe in reporting the truth accurately and unflinchingly. Science would be meaningless without that sort of integrity. Toning down even an opinion - if I have good reasons for thinking the way I do - seems dishonest.

I've always had a bit of a war going on within myself between the desire for honesty and the desire for kindness: clarity versus tact. I believe in being kind to my fellow human being but I also believe in speaking truth. You sometimes can't do both; you can either wound someone or lie a little.

Am I being schemingly self-serving by toning down my reviews? Yes. Am I also being a more gracious member of the writing community (that I'm not actually a part of yet)? Yes.

Well, boogers and bogey-men; there's no way to both be honest and refrain from sticking your foot in your mouth! I will have to console myself with the fact that the reviews are still honest - they're just more polite. They also still note what I don't like about the books - they just highlight what I do like.

"Nice" has its merits too. I can swallow that.

Mental Daisies

I got my face half-licked off by a teeny-tiny, nearly-vibrating dog today. It was great.

On Sunday, some friends blasted into town and absconded with me. That was also great. I climbed a blooming cherry tree, walked on snow, and saw waterfalls, sunlit ocean, and white-capped mountains, all on the same day.

Those little, perfect moments happen regularly in an average life, but you tend to forget them. That, more than anything, argues in favour of keeping a journal of some sort. It gives the brain cells a fighting chance to dredge up a reminiscence sometime in the future.

Which is crucial for me, given that my brain cells spend most of their time tra-la-la-ing through a daisy-scape of their own devising. Rambles and rails and puppy dog tales, that's what little blogs are made of, and if the blog doubles as a brain-crutch journal, all the better for we wee scatterbrains.

Sorta Writing News:
I have three scenes left to rewrite in my novel, and then I'm done! Tra-la-la! *tosses mental daisies*

Backpedal, backpedal; what I mean is, my current (and major) round of revisions will be completed. After that, I'll have to go through the book one last time and buff and polish. I know there'll be a bit of that; in checking a plot point on the weekend, I spotted a scene that needs to be sleeked down. Thankfully, it's only sleeking that is needed, not an overhaul.

And then: finished! On to the querying!

Which means on to the query letter writing. *sigh*

That task almost makes me glad work is cutting into my writing time so much this month. No writing? V. bad. No need to think about query letters yet? V. v. good! *throws mental daisies*