Shannon Ryan's Blog

You are being redirected

2010-07-27T07:09:00.001-07:00

I've moved my blog to my website at: http://shannonryan.net/blog/.

You should be redirected there.

Otherwise, you know the drill.

Sometimes, you just have to put it down.

2010-06-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

After a disappointing critique last Thursday, I decided to take a little break form my Solomon's Heist re-write. I feel like what I need to do more than anything to make it a better manuscript is to become a better writer, and that just takes time.

Still, I feel like this is the right thing to do. I am going to return to my book Fangs for Nothing, which I enjoy more, and should be much simpler to write. I may even have enough skill to write it this time.

To the Moon Alice

2010-06-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

Excuse me, while I kiss this guy.
--Jimi Hendrix

Today, I was perusing comments about Obama’s latest reductions to NASA. Like most geeks, I believe the future is in space. However, I don’t think space is going anywhere, and we have plenty of problems to solve down here before we go out and pollute the rest of the Universe—but that’s another story.

Someone in the comment section suggested that ending the drug war would find us more than enough money to go to the moon. Now that’s an idea I can really get behind.

We wouldn’t even need rockets.

We could just fly there.

Yesterday was a Good Day

2010-06-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read Ice Cube's a pimp
Drunk as hell but no throwing up
Half way home and my pager still blowing up
Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
I got to say it was a good day.

--Ice Cube, It Was a Good Day

Yesterday was one of those days that remind me why I write. I find Sunday is a good creativity day for me. My day job saps a great deal of my creativity, and by Sunday, I’ve gained a little back.

After some light editing in the morning, I went to Roasters coffee shop and worked on a re-write of Fangs For Nothing. The coffee was good and the words flowed smooth. My voice was strong and ideas flowed easily.

After drinking that excellent coffee, I came home and sat on the deck. It was 80 degrees in the shade, and I drank some fine wine and read Catherine Schaff-Stump’s new book Hulk Hercules, Professional Wrestler.

Around 6, I made myself some angel hair pasta and experimental sauce, which turned out quite nice, and enjoyed a classic episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I went back to Catherine’s book until it got too dark to read, and then I came in and watched a really good movie.

Futurism: GIGO and Instant Gratification

2010-06-01T07:25:00.001-07:00

This article is more a question than a hypothesis.

I recently attended in interesting talk about privacy, and one of the panelists worked for one of those massively multi-player computer game companies. He said something that sounded interesting at the time: Some of the most popular games on the internet, even free facebook games have mission-command-style data centers where people monitor users in real time and attempt to make the game a more interesting experience.

At first, I thought this was a fun idea, but then I got to thinking about the long term implications. Basically, they are using Skinner-esqe psychology to affect the way game players brains are wired.

There are families where two parents work 50+ hours a week, and now we have these super-conditioning computer games available with 24/7 instant gratification feedback. Thus it could be said those children are getting 24/7 supervision not from their parents, but from a for-profit corporation.

So just to speculate, is our culture headed for a perfect storm of child development disaster? Are we producing instant-gratification sociopaths?

The Prologue. A Love Story.

2010-05-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

A poll at Nathan Bransford's blog on the subject of prologues scared the hell out of me. I was a little shocked at the results, but I was dumbfounded by the comments.

The results show a slight bias against comments. I found slightly surprising but not so much. I know that many editors and agents now advise against the dreaded prologue.

What I found disturbing, shocking, perhaps loosing-my-faith-in-humanity-ing was the number of people who claimed they SKIPPED THE PROLOGUE and sallied forth blindly into Chapter One with no feel for the text contained there and no knowledge of what came before.

Maybe I'm just cheap, but to me skipping the prologue seems like paying for a five course meal and skipping the salad. The salad might be good. I'm not a salad lover, but I've had a good one from time to time. Of course, if I'd never tried them, I would never know that.

Plus, call me crazy, but if I pick up a book, I trust the author to know what they're doing. If they think I need a 20 page prologue, I read the sucker or I throw away the book. If they keep my interest for 20 pages, then they were worthy of my faith. If I don't keep my interest over the prologue, then why would I want to read the book?

I just don't get it, you've decided to give up a few hours of your life to a novel, and you can't give a half hour to the part of the book the author probably devoted the most time to, and through you needed to know. Without reading one word of text, you seriously think there's nothing important in there? Seriously, what did a prologue ever do to you?

I love a good prologue. I cherish a good prologue. I hold it close to me on cold winter nights. Does it let me down from time to time? Sure. But it is better to have prologued and lost than to never have prologued at all.

Not Blogging is good news

2010-05-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing here lately.

Not blogging means I working on my stories and novels.

Not blogging means I am reading.

Not blogging when I have nothing to say means not wasting the time of anyone who cares to read.

I'll return when I have something to say.

Unconventional

2010-05-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

As a borderline introvert*, nothing scares me more than having to go out and deal with people. So I thought going to a writing conference was just off the charts for me. Still, as I continued to read more and more on people’s paths to getting published, I would frequently be advised by those writers to seek out conferences and conventions.

Last fall, I found out that not only was there to be a Science Fiction convention only a mile from my home. Now, I’m a slacker, but not even I could pass up such an obvious opportunity (act of God?) I found myself talking face to face with accomplished writer and small press people. I also found myself surrounded by freaks of every description, and somehow it dawned on me that I had found a home.

Now, less than a year later, I have attended my second convention, and I think that I can truly say what is so important about attending these events. It recharged my batteries.

After struggling for so long with my muse, I was about done, gentle reader. My Irish stubbornness and Dutch courage had just about run its course, and I was wondering if it really was worth all the time. After all, I am an accomplished computer programmer and database designer, what do I need with writing books.

Then I got a chance to talk to a small press publisher who turned down my manuscript, and he told me I was nearly there. I spoke with Shirley Damsgaard who has seven books with Harper-Collins, and she told me she was in the same situation, but she didn’t give up until someone said yes. I got witness the hurricane of passion that is Janny Wurts, and I got to see Adam Whitlatch, an author who is making a go of it in this hard industry without the big agent or the book deal (yet.)

I realized I had more in common with these people than anyone else in the whole world. I am an author in the blood. I think like an author. I see the world as an author. And there is nothing I am more passionate about than my writing.

*I do enjoy interaction with other people, I just don’t like making introductions, and I find prolonged exposure to other people weirdly stressful.

Pants-Wetting Fear

2010-05-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

I always thought it was funny that the Brits considered Doctor Who to be a children's show. I mean, seriously, look at Louise Jameson, who played Leela in the late seventies. Sure, maybe she's not Diana Rigg hot, but then again, put her in a leather catsuit and I wouldn't kick her out of the Tardis for the occasional knife fight.

Diana Rigg

I seem to have lost my train of thought.

Oh, yeah, Cory Doctorow's young adult novel, Little Brother, scared the shit out of me.

Little Brother is about the excesses of government, in this case, a future United States government, still locked in the thrall of terrorist-induced fear.

Doctorow paints a picture so disturbing and yet so familiar, it left me looking over my shoulder and considering encrypting all me email.

I don't want to give away many spoilers, but I think the reality is that we must never fool ourselves into the "it can never happen here," mentality. In my short life, I have already experience one even which "changed the world forever*." It would be foolish not to worry about more.

*The world really didn't change, or course, the only thing that changed was, for once, Americans felt themselves in the crosshairs that people all around the world feel trained on them every day of their life.

Redaction Exercise

2010-05-03T18:58:00.001-07:00

A question I get quite often from my fellow prospective writers is "How much is too much?"

How much description is too much?
How much dialog is too much?
How much introspection is too much?

These are hard questions to answer, because everyone's idea of the ideal pacing is different. So, to overcome the problem of the moving target, I came up with what I call a "redaction exercise."

Redaction is those thick black lines the government puts on FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) papers to get rid of all the juicy bits. They look like this:

It's pretty easy to tell which are the juicy bits on that page, and just how much juicy bit there is.

So, here's what you do. Find the text from a book you really like, just a page or two from a section similar to the one your working on (first page, middle, climax...) and redact it. For the following example, I will be redacting a section of introspection from Chris Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends.

Coit Tower jutted out of Telegraph Hill like a giant phallus. Impressive as it was, all lit up and overlooking the City, it made Tommy feel nervous, inferior, and pressured to perform. She had as much as admitted that she was going to take him to bed -- had even offered to solve the problem of the Wongs. She was a dream come true. It scared the hell out of him.

She took his hand and looked out over the City. "It's pretty, isn't it. We're lucky it's a clear night."

"Your hand is freezing," he said. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. God, I'm smooth, he thought, a complete stud. I'm making a move on an older woman -- an older woman with money. Now what? My arm is lying on her shoulder like a dead fish. I'm a geek. If I could just turn my mind off until it's all over. Just get shit-faced and do it. No, not that. Not again.

And it's just that easy. At a glance, we get an idea of exactly how much introspection Moore has put into his piece. Of course, the reader at home will want to do a bigger sample. I used a short chapter for my redaction exercise.

Futurism: The Information Age Means Irrelevant Borders

2010-04-25T08:11:00.001-07:00

As Science Fiction writers, we have to think about the future. While this is not at all a complete or even well-organized collections of ideas, it's just meant to be a starting point for thinking about the upcoming stage in societal development.

Here are two military men whose names may never be forgotten, not for their military legacy, but because everybody loves fried chicken. They are of course General Tso and Colonel Sanders.

Outside of a small region of China, no one really remembers the nineteenth century accomplishments of General Tso. And while Colonel Sanders did serve in the military, his title of Colonel is a non-military title bestowed on him by the Governor of Kentucky.

But why am I prattling on about fried chicken? I don't really remember because I came here to talk about Al Qaeda.

As you may know, this man is not loved for his fried chicken, although, like the Colonel, his photo immediately conjures images and emotions. He also is a military man, hated by most of the world and loved by the men who server under him. Unlike General Tso and Colonel Sanders, his military does not serve a country, it serves an idea.

This is where people might disagree with me, and claim that al Qaeda is merely the fundamentalist branch of Islam, but I would argue that it is the idea that Muslim culture can only through Sharia law that actually defines the movement. While they may get their impetus from God, their actual philosophy is based in this idea.

Al Qaeda is an information age organization. It has an army, it has a hierarchy, but it has no border.

However, no organization has learned to exist without borders as well as the corporation. Let's look at how the corporation solves problems.

Problem One:

Angry townspeople protest your factory poisoning their river.

Solution:

Move factory to a country where people are so poor they want to die.

Problem Two:

Corporate taxes are too high.

Solution:

Move headquarters to a fictional island.

Problem Three:

Child labor laws restrict our profit margin.

Solution:

Hire a subcontractor to do the work, don't ask questions.

Problem Four:

US law forbids you from selling Pentagon funded rocket technology to North Korea.

Solution:

Set up a dummy corporation, sell them the technology, and have them sell it to Kim J.

Has the American consumer followed the corporations, circumventing that whey they see as unfair by crossing borders? Here are just a few examples of how people are beginning to work around borders. These are just a few examples.

There are websites devoted to helping people find hardware and software to play DVDs without the proper region code.
People buy music from countries without strong copyright laws.
Recently a student was banned from buying iPads. He was buying them from Apple and selling them in Europe ahead of Apple's European launch.

Are New KFC "Food" Items Based On a Dare?

2010-04-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

The pictures above are both examples of KFC menu items. The first is the Famous Bowl. The second is the Double Down.

First, a little background:

The Famous Bowl is a plastic bowl layered with mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, popcorn chicken, and cheese.

The Double Down is a bacon and cheese sandwich with no bread. Two pieces of chicken are used instead of bread. Basically, it can be summed up as: 2 chicken + 2 cheese + 2 bacon = Double Down.

In 2006, when the Famous Bowl was introduced, I decided discretion was the better part of valor. I set aside my Russian-roulette-like compunction for disgusting food and I steered clear of the KFC, lest I find someone else eating one on a dare, which would, of course, induce vomiting.

Earlier this year, however, KFC announced the Double Down, and again I heard the call to gastronomic adventure. While naturally repulsed, my ego got involved. "I can handle this," I thought. "I've done low carb dieting. This should be a piece of cake."

I went to lunch with my coworker, Mark, and we--as the bards Run D,M, and C said--proceeded to eat it because we were in the mood. Just as the bards predicted, I am currently Illin.

Eating the sandwich itself was not that bad. I opted for the grilled version, and it came extra hot. I remember thinking how the bun actually protects the fingers from the heat, and next time I would have to use a knife and fork. "Next time"--oh how naive I was.

Finishing our "sandwiches," and with the decore of KFC having little to offer us, we went back to work. We bragged to coworkers about how we had cheated death. Then I sat down for a long afternoon's work.

A half hour later, I was feeling off. I was sweating profusely, and I couldn't seem to get the grease out of my throat. I considered going home, but after bragging of my comestible victory, I couldn't just go home defeated. I put my feet up, turned on the fan and did some light-duty work. After maybe and hour the sweats and dizziness subsided, and I felt alright until the end of the day.

At the end of the day, I went home, thinking the Double Down might have given me a little trouble, but on the whole, it was a healthy journey on the road less travelled.

An hour after I got home, the cramps started. I then had excretory urgency beyond the norm, which came and went over the next few hours.

Finally as I splashed cold water on my face from the bathroom basin, I noticed my beard had grown considerably during my time on the throne. I reached up to tug on the scruff, and realized the hair on the back of my hands had grown as well--to a length of about three inches.

I felt a sharp pain in my mouth, followed by another and another. My fillings and caps fell away, leaving perfect, white teeth where they once had patched my old, broken chompers.

I touched my new, long canines, and pulled back a punctured hairy finger. I raised my face to the newly risen moon and howled.

So, maybe I won't be trying it again.

Interesting

2010-04-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

A hat tip to io9 for finding this terrific video explaining why Harry Potter will turn all our children into Satan worshiping Nazis.

I look forward to the day when I am so popular I am accused of worshiping the devil.

Well Played Mr. Wonka

2010-04-08T20:17:00.001-07:00

Well Played.

A Few Words Different

2010-04-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

Non-Contact IR Infrared Digital Thermometer Laser Point you will also gain a good service.

I'm updating this post because I had a few more thoughts on the subject.

Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson did this great movie back in the nineties called The Long Kiss Goodnight. There is a line in that movie which is something along the lines of "He's got a pin in his hip--car accident." I misheard this as, "He's got a penis like a car accident.

To this day, I have trouble imagining that metaphor. How could a penis be like a car accident? Would it just be horribly abnormal, or would it somehow look like a pile of twisted metal? Upon seeing it, would first responders start looking for survivors? Would they break out the jaws of life and try to free the victims?

No Longer Racing through the best days

2010-04-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

You could be taking it easy on yourself
You should be making it easy on yourself
Cause you and I know,
It's all over the front page, you give me road rage,
Racing through the best days
--Catatonia, Road Rage

I am guilty of not enjoying my lot in life. I get upset at how slowly things move. I allow myself to be pissed off than I am not yet a New York Times Bestselling Number One Author. Considering the wonderful life I have, this is poor form. Lately, I've been trying to enjoy the days as they come, and in this spirit, I've found happiness in editing.

Oh, yes, editing, the ultimate evil, the dread from which thou mayn't never return, the thing that stops writers from being "artists," the "toil and trouble" of the need to write. What I am often surprised to find that those published bestselling authors often lament their time contraints and inability to re-write and savor their manuscripts the way they used to.

One might argue that both the published and the prospective authors are suffering from the "grass is greener" effect, as many of those published authors admit to being driven to the edge--or beyond--of insanity whilst waiting to break through. Still I say who is wiser, the person who can't always get what they want, or the one who can't be with the one and loves the one he's with.

Crap. I'm getting bogged down with song references.

Oh yeah, back to the happiness in editing bit. I'm reworking Chapter Five of Solomon's Heist, a book which might be described as a parody of Ocean's Eleven if I had not first seen Ocean's Eleven years after I wrote the first draft--also there are no Chinese acrobats. I've re-written Chapter Five about ten times, but in all those times, I never felt like I had gotten it right. So now, I am going through the chapter line by line, sometimes only writing a few hundred words a day, but really taking my time to squeeze every drop of goodness from it's lemony rind.

That lemon metaphor was going nowhere, so I leave you with this quote from President Obama's attempt to paraphrase the Tao Te Ching.

Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? You planted some seeds, and they came out the next day, and they looked, and nothing’s happened! There’s no crop! We’re going to starve! Oh, no! It’s a disaster.
--Obama

Nurture Insanity

2010-03-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

I done touched on everything, but little boys
That's not a stab at Michael
That's just a metaphor, I'm just psycho
I go a little bit crazy sometimes
I get a little bit out of control with my rhymes
--Eminem, Just Lose It.

Many people do not care for the music of Marshal Mathers III, but for me, Eminem, as he monikers himself, is my kind of crazy. He is offensive to the point of being a nuisance to the common good. If I had an army of Eminems, I could take over the world, or at lease cover Dubuque in bodily fluids. He is the nuisance against which I judge my nonsense.

I am not, not have I ever been a sensible person. I say inappropriate things. I dance jigs behind people's backs. I make claims about atrocities committed by the Dave Mathews Band. I threaten to hug semi-prominent authors.

Sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time learning to write conventionally. Am I compromising my awesome insanity for the future hope of saleability? What's the purpose of writing well if you have nothing to say?

As human beings, we tend to settle. We work our way to the lowest groove, worrying about cars and mortgages and what is going to be made for dinner. Beaten by the ignominy of daily life we lower our heads, narrowing our vision, disavowing responsibility towards our higher potential. This disenfranchisement of the soul is no good way to live.

Henceforth, I pledge myself towards nurturing my gift. No more compromises. No boats will be left un-rocked. No hornets nests undisturbed. Common sense will be given no quarter. And gentlemen in England now a-bed will fight on the beaches holding their manhoods, and not liking what they see here shall get the funk out with us upon Saint Crispins day.

Writer. Author. Novelist

2010-03-23T13:16:00.000-07:00

WHEN I STARTED THIS BLOG, I very arrogantly chose the URL http://authorshannonryan.blogspot.com. I did this for one important reason: http://shannonryan.blogspot.com is taken by this guy.

In my haste, I apparently failed to realized that terms like author and novelist are reserved for people who actually sell books, and not people who merely hope to someday sell any of the several novels they have written. The concept is spelled out well in this post by Justine Larbalestier.

Maybe I will feel differently about it someday, but right now, I think writing is too difficult and the club of people who actually do it is to small to get hung up on a bunch of labels. Besides, I intend any appearance that I am selling my work will be true soon enough.

A Winning Formula

2010-03-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

KRYPTONITE . . .  AN INTENSE HEAT FUSION OF:

PLUTONIUM  . . .  15.08%
TANTALUM   . . .  18.0%
XENON      . . .  27.71%
PROMETHIUM . . .  24.02%
DIALUM     . . .  10.62%
MERCURY    . . .  4.08%
UNKNOWN    . . .  0.57%

--Superman III

Wannabe writers, like me, spend a great deal of time looking for magic formulas. And people who sell books on writing oblige them.

Don't get me wrong. Many of the books on writer are fantastic and they can teach you a great deal. Dwight Swain's Motivation-Reaction Unit is a good example of this. Sadly, you can still be away of the need for characterization, tension, the MRU, and the hero's journey and write a technically sound and throughly boring piece.

After all the study, there is still an unknown element in what makes a good story. Unlike Gus Gorman in Superman III, we can't just substitute tar...

Or can we...

Sorry, I was just on an odd tangent.

I think when it comes down to it, there are just some things that can't be explained easily. There may be some formula for producing that perfect piece, but it is probably much too complicated to easily state in a blog entry, magazine article, or book. All we can do is keep practicing.

Of Men and Muggles

2010-03-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one can't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!'

In our critique group last week, we got to talking about astrology and palm reading. The consensus was pretty much against it, but as someone who has spent literally tens of dollars on it, I had a different opinion. I felt a little guilty holding back my opinions, but I don't think I can explain why I believe in palm readers without explaining my theories on how humans interpret the world.

I used to be so rationally minded. I used to believe in only one objective reality where everything could be mathematically and scientifically proven. Then, one summer at band camp, I picked up a book called "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I can quite firmly say that this book changed my life.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is about sex, drugs, and magic. It tells a story about secret societies controlling the world in the drug hallucinated maner of seventies fiction, but that's not important right now. What is important is the book turned me on to the works of Robert Anton Wilson.

Wilson was an editor for Playboy Magazine, a metaphysician, and a conspiracy theory buff. He popularized the term "Reality Tunnel," originally coined by Timothy Leary, who despite his later counterculture persona, started as a serious psychologist.

Every kind of ignorance in the world all results from not realizing that our perceptions are gambles. We believe what we see and then we believe our interpretation of it, we don't even know we are making an interpretation most of the time. We think this is reality.
— Robert Anton Wilson

Leary believed that these reality tunnels were filters through which we saw our reality, meaning that there could be not "truth" other than a consensus of like-minded interpretations. Not to say that there is no one objective reality, but Leary believed humans were so far divorced from this reality, through not only their numerous filters but through their inability to see this reality without filters, that any possible objective reality would be unrecognizable.

To me, the reality tunnel is an easily observable phenomena. Just read any message board where evangelical Christians are arguing with secular humanists. Each group has no good argument than can sway the other because each group lives such a different reality tunnel, or to use the old maxim, "They just can't see eye to eye."

So Leary, armed with his hypothesis, decided to work out a scientific method to prove it by curing people of unwanted conditions by altering their reality tunnel filters. He did this by using neuro-linguistic programming, hypnosis, biofeedback, and finally via the invention of the chemical for which he is famous.

Therefore, if I meet with a room full of people who say they can see fairies, who am I to argue. Their filters allow fairies. Mine do not. If I have my palm read by someone who claims a party line to my spirit guides, who am I to argue. Just because I am unable to perceive something is no indication that it is not real--I'm pretty oblivious to things around me most of the time anyway.

Given this theoretical model of my perception of the universe which I can not disprove and seems to be the best explanation I have heard so far, I have to be open minded to the "six impossible things before breakfast."

Being a creature of--as far as I know--free will, I have made a choice to believe in the fantastic and to see the world with wonder instead of cynicism. It's much better than being cynical and grumpy all the time.

There's a story in here somewhere.

2010-03-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

Florida Highway Patrol troopers say a two-vehicle crash Tuesday at Mile Marker 21 on Cudjoe Key was caused by a 37-year-old woman driver who was shaving her bikini area while her ex-husband took the wheel from the passenger seat.
"She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit," Trooper Gary Dunick said. "If I wasn't there, I wouldn't have believed it. About 10 years ago I stopped a guy in the exact same spot ... who had three or four syringes sticking out of his arm. It was just surreal and I thought, 'Nothing will ever beat this.' Well, this takes it."

http://consumerist.com/2010/03/advice-do-not-save-your-privates-while-driving.html

The Definition of Insanity

2010-03-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

I'VE HEARD THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY IS TO CONTINUE DOING THE SAME THING AND EXPECT DIFFERENT RESULTS.

Recently, Cath wrote about ideas she keeps returning to as an author. She claims to have blatantly stole this idea, and now I am stealing it from her. She also did it in the form of an ordered list, which I found quite readable.

1. The Beta Male. I am a beta male, I know things about Dungeons and Dragons and Video Games. Therefore I like a good beta male hero.

Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might send him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below.
--Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job

2. Comedy. You can't have a beta male without comedy.

"You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."

"Why, what did she tell you?"

"I don't know, I didn't listen."
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy

3. The Supernatural. I like Urban Fantasy--vampires in Omaha, satyrs in Iowa City, devils in Des Moines.

Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff; she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.
–Gail Carriger, Soulless

4. Space Pirates. I know, everyone writes about space pirates, but seriously, as long as there are isolated shipping routes, there will be pirates, smugglers, and all sorts of scruffy nerfherders.

Who's scruffy-looking?
--Han Solo, The Empire Strikes Back

5. Getting knocked unconscious. A staple of the Noir detective story as well as slap-stick comedy. I overused this shtick so many times in my first few novels, I divorced myself from the concept.

She got quite a bump on the head -- we kinda thought there for a minute she was going to leave us.
--Uncle Henry, The Wizard of Oz

There is no I in literacy

2010-02-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

Before I start my post, I'm going to paraphrase an anecdote and relate it to the Winter Olympics.

There was once a figure skater complaining to his coach.

"Coach," he said. "I'm tired of that stupid Ivanovich. He shows up to every international event and he always scores higher than me. Why can't the judges see that he sucks?"

The coach thought for a moment and said, "Well, he always scores higher than you, so I guess if he sucks, you sub-suck."

I promise that anecdote will come in handy later on.

I WAS RAMBLING ABOUT SALAD DRESSING THE OTHER DAY, and it got me thinking about the responsibilities of the writer and the responsibilities of the reader.

Okay, I just used the phrase "responsibilities of the reader" in a non-ironic way. Let me explain. Say if you went to a movie with a friend, and right as the first dramatic moment was about to happen. The friend comes back twenty minutes later, watches for a little while, and then goes to the lobby to play pinball, missing the climax. On your way out of the movie, your friend says, "That movie really sucked. Nothing happened."

For a reader to enjoy a book, their brain has to decrypt what the author encrypts. The author must assume a certain amount of literacy and attention span, but beyond that, they must learn how to stir the imagination of the reader.

To me, the original sin of writing is the assumption of over-competence in the reader. Many times in critiques, someone will say something along the lines, "I don't understand why he didn't just shoot her," and the author will say, "because he used his last bullet at the beginning of chapter three." Whether this statement is made at the end of chapter three or the end of chapter ten, it still assumes the reader--who is busy living her life--can remember that small detail from something they read a week or a month ago. That's why we need those snappy internal monologes:

Instinctively, I reached for my Colt automatic, but then I remembered using my last shot on the rabbi with the septic nose and I had not been able to reload because of the ammunition shortage caused by the Paraguayan civil war.

The bottom line is readers aren't perfect. They want something entertaining, fresh, and new, but something they can read while they are trying to remember when to pick up the kids at daycare and get five loads of laundry in before starting dinner.

What genius could figure out something like this?

Well, Dan Brown doesn't seem to have any trouble with it. J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer seem to make a good go at it.

This is usually where I get the "but they suck" argument. Well, they have millions of people going nuts to read their books. So unless an author been on the NYT bestseller list, they probably don't have a whole lot of room to talk--remember the anecdote at the top of the post?

Envy

2010-02-24T07:06:00.001-08:00

Generally, I consider myself a creative person, but every once in awhile I see something so well done, that I start to doubt that. This is one of those things:

On the other hand, I probably would not have left my camera unattended long enough to film those scenes. And I don't think anyone wants to see me do that dance.

Excitement!

2010-02-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

Ain't It Cool News reports the DOC SAVAGE movie is moving forward. Not only that, but this movie will be written by Shane Black, the guy who wrote Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and excellent movie.

I have a proposition for you

2010-02-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

I am slowly beginning to believe that more detail in stories, and more hand-holding makes creative narrative move faster not slower.

Ideally, the reader sees clearly what an author writes and adds his own details. To make this relationship work, the customer must always be right--the author cannot re-write a book to match the details as the reader reads them.

Consider this statement:

I should be allowed to practice home dentistry; French dressing is awesome.

I see statements like this quite often on Internet forums. The author of a post starts with one proposition and ends on another without any context. These statements seem completely disconnected, yet they connect somehow in the author's mind.

Perhaps they were thinking something like this:

The French not only gifted us the beautiful lady liberty, but entered the American Revolution, balancing the overwhelming power of the British Navy and giving us our freedom. By limiting personal liberty and insisting on licensed dentistry, we belittle the heritage of the country that gave us French Dressing*, and I'll have not part of it.

Okay, it's still not a well-considered thesis, but at least a tenuous connection exists.

Now imagine a reader struggling with a novel. She's just started to "see" the events unfolding in her mind. She has developed just a bit of empathy for the characters and then she reads "I should be allowed to practice home dentistry; French dressing is awesome." Does she set down the book? Does she set down the book in the trash?

This may be an extreme case involving copious amounts of dressing, but when we read, we don't give 100% of our attention to the situation. We are affected by both our environment and our imagination. Unless the author guides the internal eye of the reader properly, we end up with a continuity break. The sexy brunette heroine becomes a rugged dishwater blond. The bass boat becomes a cabin cruiser. The pistol becomes an elephant rifle.

The reader is pulled from his moment of enjoyment and forced to do mental aerobics, reconciling his vision with the author. The act of being pulled out of the warm place that is the shared creativity of the writer and reader is painful for the reader, who will with every continuity break consider quitting the story.

At least, that's my take.

* French Dressing - not really French

I Wonder

2010-02-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

SOMETHING TELLS ME THIS GUY HAS TAKEN A SWING AT WRITING.

Westley Strellis waltzed into a Walmart just outside of Atlanta yesterday, where he proceeded to lift a bat from the sporting goods section and then demolish the screens of 29 televisions in the electronics department.*

As I mentioned in the last post, the writing market is changing. As an extension of that, the ability to watch 1080P movies 24/7 in the privacy of our own homes has got to be a chief cause.

So there is the freely available, downloadable electronic book on one hand, and the 1080 movie on the other. As a wannabe author, I should freak out, right?

Not just yet Pat Sajack.

The freak out about electronic books reminds me of another technology which was going to end the movie industry--the home video recorder.

Just to put this in perspective, let's have a little history lesson:

Universal Studios, the Walt Disney Company, and other industry members sued Sony and its distributors in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 1976, alleging that because Sony was manufacturing a device that could potentially be used for copyright infringement.**

Despite Hollywood's resistance, the home video sales and rentals because a larger market for its movies than theater owners ever had been, resulting in this recent news item:

In a move that begins to redraw the way movies are distributed, the Walt Disney Co. plans to release the film "Alice In Wonderland" on DVD only three months after it opens in theaters March 5.

The decision signals a big shift in strategy for Disney, which until now has resisted tampering with the traditional four-month period between a movie's theatrical release and its availability in the home.***

So maybe it's not time to freak out just yet. Despite the VCR, the DVD-Recordable, and downloadable movies, studios continue to prosper. Perhaps publishers will survive and even prosper in the age of the electronic book.

* Engadget
** Source: Wikipedia
*** Los Angeles Times

The Book of the Future

2010-02-08T13:54:00.001-08:00

A POST ON CATHERINE'S SITE GOT ME TO THINKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING. There seems to be no question in everyone's mind that it will be much different than it looks today, but how different?

Consider this: For $18.00 a month, I belong to a movie subscription service which can find my just about everything I can think of. There are a few book services like this, starting with your local library and ending with online rental services, but even the most ambitious library can only hope to satisfy part of a voracious reader's needs.

To me, it seems like the real future of books is in accessibility--a real-time books on demand system. You will either be able to make a small payment for the non-advertisement based version, get the ad-based for free, or order a premium copy at a rate similar to modern books. I picture it being something like this:

The question still remains: will the current editorial process that makes sure "quality" books get advertised to the public now via the big publishing houses be relevant? Maybe. More likely, I believe a hundred or so super-reviewers who read dozens of books per year (and are probably authors themselves) make authors popular via a social network of followers who appreciate their taste.

Doggedness

2010-01-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

I AM A STUBBORN PERSON. Once I make up my mind to do something, I generally don't quit--and God help anyone or anything that gets in my way.

Up until November 30, 2006, I had been a consumer of media. I watched TV Land and anime every night. I played video games and read books when I had neither of those to watch. I had been blogging for a few years, and I spent a half hour to an hour a day working on that. I felt empty and unfulfilled, like I wasn't doing anything useful with my life.

Then, I finished my first novel.

I thought I had created a book which could compete with anything on the shelves. I printed copies for friends. I gave it to anyone who would read it. And for the most part, people enjoyed it. I even sent one of my drafts to a literary agent, one to an old writing professor, and one to a friend of a friend who is a professional ghost writer and editor.

* CRICKETS *

It turned out that this whole writing business is quite a bit harder than I ever imagined. Now, this is ok--because I am stubborn and I am a fighter. But even with that, I can be amazed at the toll it can take on a person.

During the last four years, I have met many aspiring authors, some who have given up and some who are making a go of it. Despite their various levels of success, they invariably ask themselves if they are nuts, if they are doing something wrong. Even authors who have a half dozen books in the store and enough royalties to live on seem to question their choices from time to time.

And in case you haven't been following literary news, everyone's laying off and going broke, new hardcover prices have fallen to an all time low, and less people are reading books.

Are there some days I want to give up? Yes. Are there some days I'd rather take a nap than moderate another writing group? Yes. Am I ever going to quit? Hell no. Best selling author Chuck Norris never gave up, so why should I?

Basically, it comes down to this: even if I wanted to stop writing, I couldn't. I might be able to put the pen down, but then I'd have to try music, or art, or photography. And being that I'm colorblind and soft on music theory, I think I'm going to have to stick with it.

Sometimes, I think the writing will drive me insane, but when I try to see myself not doing it, I realized is the real insanity lies in the belief that I can exist without it. That my need to create will stop if I stop creating.

Do you hear the words coming out of my mouth?

2010-01-23T18:56:00.001-08:00

TAKING A CRITIQUE CAN BE DIFFICULT. In my critique on Thursday, one of the reviewers took notice of a section which I thought quite logical. In the scene, a medical doctor with a rage problem knocks out a policeman and bends down to check his pulse.

Rhakhi crouched down, calmly checking the policeman’s pulse. He would live, and when he woke up, Rakhi would be facing assault charges. Today had been a bad day. Even if he didn’t end up in prison, his experiments were ended, and he had no house and no car.

It was the reviewer's opinion that you can't kill someone just by punching them, so a medical doctor would have known not to bother with the pulse.

I could have argued the point with him, but instead, I thought about what my argument would be, and instead of confronting him, I put it in the story.

Rhakhi crouched down, calmly checking the policeman over. The man’s jaw was broken. He had some scrapes and contusions, but his pulse and respiration seemed strong—it was a rarity, but sometimes a shock to the medulla oblongata—like hitting your head after falling off the hood of a car—could short circuit the sympathetic autonomic processes.

He decided the policeman would live, but when he woke up, someone would have to wire his jaw shut, and Rakhi would be facing assault charges. Today had been a bad day. Even if he didn’t end up in prison, his experiments were ended, and he had lost his house and car

Now the question becomes, is there too much there or not. Right now I'm leaning towards not, but I may change my mind somewhere down the road. Then again, I might cut the whole section.

The Colorado Kid

2010-01-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

STEPHEN KING IS GOOD PEOPLE IN MY BOOK. I don't read much of his stuff because I'm not as into horror and gross as he is, but I give the man props--this cat can write. The way I see it, there are three core strengths to King's writing.

The first thing King does is make you care about the characters. Now this is something all successful writers must do, but King seems to have a flair for it. When I read a King novel, I feel like the characters are people I grew up with.

The next King does exceedingly well is put you in the world. King uses very little--almost mundane--detail to put you in the scene, reminding you the morning air is cool or what it feels like to look out over the ocean, reminding you of all the little things the characters need to do rather than deal with the events of the story. he hammers these things home with well-place repetition.

The third thing King does well (and this is my favorite thing) is use the English language. Few people can write with the deftness of King. The words of unskilled writer wander randomly. The words of the slightly more skilled author march in rows like soldiers. But King does something more. King's words dance with intensity.

But setting aside the Stephen King fanboyism, let's talk a little about The Colorado Kid. The novel is part of the excellant Hard Case imprint, which I have mentioned here before, but quite unlike Max Allen Collins' Quarry books.

The novel is the story of an unsolved mystery and about how two newspapermen tried to solve that mystery--or at least twist it into something which would be factual and an interesting story. It ends up not being a story about a crime, but a story about how a newspaper story must wrap such an event into an interesting narrative in order to sell papers. I found it quite educational--those people looking for a hard-boiled detective story may not.

Stop! Hammer Time

2010-01-12T18:07:00.000-08:00

LAST NIGHT, I WATCHED MY FIRST HAMMER FILM. Or at the very least, I watched the first Hammer film which I knew was a hammer film. I watched it as part of my Mindbridge film group.

Hammer Film Productions was a British movie studio which produced some of the craziest "horror" film imaginable. Their peak production went from the mid-fifties to the seventies. The Vampire Lovers was one of their 1970s productions.

I have to say, I was surprised at the quality of the film. The sets were marvelous and the special effects, while crude, did not detract from the story. Having seen Doctor Who from the seventies, I think they did a fine job.

There was a good amount of gratuitous nudity*, much more than you get in today's films where ultra-violence can still secure the profitable PG-13 rating. Instead of the where-it-adds-artistically-to-the-story axiom, they seemed to be following a "whenever we can get away with it" plan. At one point I dozed off for a moment and when I opened my eyes, there were two topless women cuddling on the screen.

No big lover of horror films, if I had to choose between The Vampire Lovers and a modern horror film like Saw or Drag Me to Hell I think I would go with the Hammer film.

*If you happen to enjoy gratuitous nudity, I highly recommend the unrated version of Sex Drive.

A New Guilty Pleasure

2010-01-06T19:51:00.000-08:00

I LIKE PULP FICTION. This preference causes me no shame. I am not a high minded lover of literature. I can't make it through a James Joyce novel--not for lack of trying either. My John Irving novels sit on the shelf unopened. And the thought of reading something like Jane Eyre makes me want to cry. Give me a story light on substance and heavy on panache. I want epic space battles, gunslingers, and hard boiled detectives slugging it out in alleyway. I'll take Dr. Clark Savage Jr. over Dr. Yuri Zhivago any day.

Don't get me wrong, if I feel ennobled or educated when I'm through, I'm not going to feel tricked or upset. Quite the contrary. But if your high concept doesn't leave me awed by the end of the first few chapters, that book's never going to get finished, no matter how good the ideas might be.

I imagine this is why I took so quickly to Max Allen Collins' writing. Originally, I had just picked up a couple of his books because I wanted to do my part supporting a local author. Yet somehow, he was able to hook me an keep me wanting more. I especially love his Quarry series. In these novels Quarry in the name of the protagonist, a man who kills for money without remorse, but is likable in a don't-want-to-meet-in-a-dark-alley sort of way.

While reading the Quarry novels, however, the thing that blew me away even more than Collins's splendid words was the packaging. I have alway had a fascination with smutty detective stories, containing more gratuitous gratuitousness per chapter than is strictly healthy.

The imprint Collins is publishing these stories under is Hard Case Crime. Their mission is to "bring you the best in hardboiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces to new novels by today’s most powerful writers, featuring stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style." Now that's something I can get behind.

But here's where the guilty pleasure part comes in. I found out that if I wait for them, I get get these little books in the bargain bin at the dollar store down the street. Since I finished the Quarry novels, I have picked up these two gems. You may notice the name of one of the authors.

These slim volumes give me hope for the future. Hope that there will always be a place for gratuitous sex and violence. Hope that someday I will write a hard boiled detective story and get a sexy woman in a state of undress on the cover. And hope that men like Doctor Clarke Savage Jr. will continue to walk like giants, fighting against the way of "literature" from his suite on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building.

Verbosity

2009-12-31T07:40:00.000-08:00

The common thought on revision is that you should end up with less when you are done. This might be true if you have too much, but what if you don't have nearly enough?

One of my many great weaknesses in a writer is my inability to get out all the relative details, especially when it comes to inner monologue. In November, I participated in Nanowrimo, and I foudn myself going into much more detail about the characters inner turmoil. They few people who read the piece ate up this part of the writing. They ate it up with a spoon.

Given the positive reactions I have gotten from my critique group, I have decided to re-visit the first chapter of the Science Fiction piece I have been working on and try to dredge out every little grain of inner monologue from my characters. Here is a (rough) sample.

Version One:

Captain Jensik looked at the ship on his display screen, a fat yacht named Lucky Tramp. He would have preferred a freighter, but three days ago he had passed up on a merchant freighter defended by two Langdoc destroyers, and since then, this particular shipping lane had been empty as far as his sensors could determine. The luxury items on the yacht would make a good haul, but taking the ship wouldn’t cheer up his bored crew or make for good teev.

Jensik flipped the “All Hands” button on his chair and announced, “This is the captain speaking. Prepare to engage with grapplers only. All hands to battle stations.”

He waited until they had closed within a few kilometers of the slow luxury craft and put on his large tri-cornered hat. “Mr. Card, could you activate the RTF system.”

“Aye Captain.” Card flipped switches on the comms panel, and the “On Air” light came on, indicating the Real Time Filming System was filming.

Version Two:

A soft chime from the tactical console brought Captain Jensik back from the brink of sleep, telling anyone within earshot that an unidentified object had floated into range of one of his remote sensor platforms, which then signaled his ship, the Jolly Roger. He glanced around wondering if anyone on the bridge had heard him snoring.

Not that they would blame him. Late into the ship’s night shift, he was going on the tenth hour of a twelve-hour watch in which nothing had happened. The elongated shift was courtesy of his second officer, who believed in fraternizing with the lower ranks and was suffering from a bad case of dysentery after joining the below-decks crew for a meal. Jensik wrinkled his nose at the thought of eating anywhere near those stinking animals.

He wondered again if he should talk to his father about returning to the military. After all, everyone knew they were gearing up for war with Landock, and his father did still have some pull with the service. At least in the proper military you could order someone to practice basic hygiene. Jensik had risen to the rank of commander before resigning his commission and given his—admittedly esoteric—command experience aboard the Jolly Roger, he might even be able to return to the navy as a junior captain. Even as he thought it, though, he knew he wouldn’t go through with it. Deep down, Jensik knew he was a coward, and his father knew it too. Admiral Bertram Jensik had seen the fear in his son’s eyes the day Jensik resigned his commission—Jensik could tell from the disappointment on his face.

“We’ve got something, sir,” Andrew Card said, studying the readings from the remote sensor platform. Card was a good man, intelligent, educated, and in possession of the gung-ho attitude that the navy cherished. Jensik wouldn’t be surprised at all if he were awarded a commission once the navy loosened its requirement about criminal histories, which always happened during a prolonged war. He wondered if maybe he shouldn’t talk to his father about Card. Even outside of wartime deals could be made, for the right people, special talents could be considered, records could be expunged.

Card spun his chair to face Jensik. “This looks pretty good, skipper. From what I can tell, it’s a luxury yacht out of Garnacia, no escorts, and no visible armament.”

“All right. Sounds perfect. Let’s do a pre-show.” Jensik pushed the “All Hands” button, alerting the crew to start preparing for battle. Then he reached over and, with barely any internal wince, picked up a tri-cornered hat, placing in on his head. And indicator above their ship’s main view screen lit up the word “Recording.”

Card counted them down. “Three. Two. One. Action.”

More or less all the same things happen in these two excerpts. Version One was done before my Nano experience and weighs in at 163 words. Version Two, done after Nano, has bloated to a hefty 462 words.

The first version establishes the other ship and shows the reader some kind of recording is about to happen, and the second does as well, but the second also does some other important things missing from the first.

The new version might ignore the current plight of their piracy business, but it shows that Jensik is a man who already lives in a state of conflict. He hates his job and the bulk of his crewmates. He is tired. He has a famous father. He used to be an officer in a navy and quit due to feelings of inadequacy.

All-in-all, I think the second version is much stronger despite being an amazing three times (3X) the length. Now I jsut have to find the time to re-write the whole thing.

I Wish I Was a Wit

2009-12-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

The Parasol Protectorate Series books are comedies of manners set in Victorian London: full of vampires, dirigibles, and tea. They are either Jane Austen doing urban fantasy, or PG Wodehouse doing steampunk. Soulless, Book the First, came out in October of 2009 to much rejoicing.
--GailCarriger.com

Every once in a while a book comes along which is so well written, it puts me in tears with its artistry. Those tears come emanate from many regions of the heart. There is the joy at finding such a wonderfully told story, there is the disappointment of knowing that in a few hundred pages, that story will come to an end, leaving a lingering flavor which will discourage the start of another read lest it be lost, and there is, for me, the disappointment in myself that I have (thus far) failed to create something so lovely.

Soulless by Gail Carriger is one of these books. I am only a third of the way through the book, and I am spellbound by the way Carriger conveys volumes of meaning in a twist of phrase, or the seeming ease with which she creates a believable alternate Victorian era where vampires and werewolves frequent society balls.

Humor is Not Funny III

2009-12-23T10:32:00.001-08:00

A lot of people say that Frank Sinatra's a bad guy. But the other night, he saved my life. Five guys were beating me right outside the Sands Hotel. Sinatra came along and said, "Okay, boys. He's had enough."
--Shecky Greene (attrib.)

I wanted to follow up on my posts from the other day.

Yesterday, I finished The Mermaid's Madness, by Jim C. Hines. If you remember from my previous post, I was not all that fond of the first book in the princess series, The Stepsister Scheme. Honestly, I felt really bad about this because I met Jim C. Hines not all that long ago and I wanted to be a fan of his writing. I am very happy to report that I loved TMM.

As I discussed in my previous post, expectation plays a big part in enjoyment. I knew what to expect from TMM and because my expectations were different, I think I enjoyed it a lot more. In addition, by the time I got into The Mermaid's Madness, I had a better grasp on the world and the characters, making it a better "You just had to be there" effect.

Still, I contend Hines's series is more a fantasy ass-kicking book with jokes than a fantasy joke book with ass-kicking, but either way The Mermaid's Madness is a wild ride and well worth my time. But then again, what do I know. I'm just the guy reading the book.

Humor is not Funny II

2009-12-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

"You're funny, Les."
"Funny - peculiar? ... or funny ha-ha?"
"Funny."
--WKRP in Cincinnati

Immediately after reading The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines, I read Quarry in the Middle by Max Allan Collins. While TSS is a novel by a humor writer, and Quarry is written by a hard-boiled mystery writer, I found myself laughing out loud (or LOL for the kids) more at QITM than at TSS. After pondering this, I decided the biggest difference had to do with expectation.

When I read Jim C. Hines, I expect Humor. If Jim makes a bad pun in the middle of the scene, it flows easily; I am getting what I expect. Don't get me wrong. Jim is a very skilled author, and several times in TSS, he does things that are quite clever and funny, things I admire him for creating, but Jim lulls me into his absurdity, suspending my disbelief so far that glowing pixie piss covering the ground under a pissoir/balcony built for drunken pixies seems perfectly logical.

When Quarry does something so horrible part of my mind is wishing I didn't just see the scene so vividly, and then Quarry makes a bad pun, my laugh becomes a release of tension. My reaction has everything to do with my surprise at the juxtaposition and my need for that release.

Perhaps that feeling of release is the appeal of comedians like Gilbert Gottfried and Woody Allen. Their delivery seems poor, starting and stopping in fits and starts until the mere presence of the punchline seems an accomplishment, not only of performer but of the audience as well.

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.
--Woody Allen

Humor is not funny.

2009-12-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

Recycle everything, including jokes. –Al Gore.

I just finished reading The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines. This was my first time reading Hines, and I did enjoy the book, but I was expecting the comedy to be a little more overt.

TSS is the tale of three fairytale princesses, ready to kick ass and take names. Sleeping Beauty is a weapons expert. Snow White controls the magic of mirrors, and Cinderella is able to speak to animals through her mind, like Aquaman. Usually I don’t like fantasy because no one goes to the bathroom or smells funny, but this was a little better in that regard. Hines even goes into just how gross long distance horse rides can be.

While Hines is a comedic writer, TSS is something different, more akin to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the Artemis Fowl Series than The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The story is a sound, straightforward adventure, which would probably stand as some pretty good fantasy without the bizarre premise and occasional joke. The action is kick-butt, the gore is gory, and the magic is magicy.

Anyway, Hines got me thinking about the whole humor thing. Humor is a subjective animal. Different people like different things. For example, Hines would never ever consider using a rape joke. But if you watch “The Aristocrats,” you will here about fifty of them done by many of today’s famous comedians.

Personally, I find keeping the edge on my humor to be hard work, when I’m trying to be earnest and account for all those things we are supposed to do to prove we are good writers—eschewing adverbs, not ending dialog with “he ejaculated,” and flossing at least once per day.

Perhaps part of the reason I find the jokes such hard work is that I’m not a good enough recycler. Just because I’ve told a joke in X story or even X chapter doesn’t mean I can’t tell it again. People like to use that tired old phrase: “Maybe the purpose of your life is just to serve as a warning to others.” Well maybe whole purpose of a character can be to provide a running gag.

Then again, maybe I need to let down my filters and become less respectable. Reaching the middle of my thirties, I find I have gained this new skill of being able to go a whole day without pissing anyone off or getting slapped by women. I’ve tried it on for a while, and it’s okay, but maybe it’s time to put it back on the shelf until I really need it—like if I have some kind of face surgery, and I can’t be slapped.

The thing that sucks the most about analyzing humor ‘till the cow come home is that nothing seems as funny because you start dissecting everything you laugh at, trying to figure out if you can make something as good, and wondering where all those fucking cows came from.

A Brief Overview of Online Publishing and Promotion Methods

2009-12-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

For my Noble Pen minions. This is my very brief overview published via scribed (free) and embedded in my (free) blogger blog.

Online Publishing and Promotion Overview

Aye aye, Captain Hook.

2009-12-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

The hook, is sometimes described as the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page, of the first chapter of a novel. Most authorities start small, with the sentence. However, I have seen even those who define the hook as the first sentence use the first two in practice.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Black Hats by Patrick Culhane (Max Allan Collin.) The book is a fictional account of Wyatt Earp meeting Al Capone. It starts out with a Wyatt Earpified version of "It was a dark and stormy night," that made me chuckle.

The night those bastards shot Virgil, it was storming like this.

This got me thinking about other books I liked, and what their first lines must be.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

THE TICKING OF THE CONFERENCE room's antique clock was deafening as the Hereditary President of the People's Republic of Haven stared at his military cabinet.
--David Weber, On Baslisk Station

A long finger of early spring sunshine poked down between the flatblocks and reached through the dusty panes of the Flying Swan's saloon bar window, glistening off a pint beer glass and into the eye of Neville, the part-time barman.
--Robert Rankin, The Antipope

Of course, you can't talk about hooks without mentioning the Godfather of Hooks:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
--George Orwell, 1984

These lines all have something in common. They paint a scene, and they make you ask "why?"
Why is Wyatt standing in a storm? If this yellow sun is unregarded, why are we focusing on it? Why does Neville have a glass eye? And Why has the world changed so much the clocks strike thirteen?

This is pretty much all I have to say on the subject. There's no magic or equation you can plug in and have an awesome hook. All you have on your side is the awareness that you have to draw the reader in and your own meager skills.

So if anyone happens to be reading this blog, leave your favorite hooks in the comments.

The Hater's Ball

2009-12-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

If you read the rants of crazy people on the Internet and literary reviewers, you would think that no one would ever buy Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown. You would think they would stay at home with the covers pulled over their heads ashamed at the fecaliterature they had visited upon the earth. A teacher once told Stephen King that he should be ashamed that he used his talent to write such horrible stories. There are even people who not only admit to writing romance, but they go to book signings and join the RWA just like they know how to write.

And yet, all these woefully inadequate writers have agents, publishers, and followers.

I kind of got off on this rant after reading this "humor" piece, which comes off more as sour grapes to me--but that's just my opinion.

Here's the truth, and this may come as a shock to some people. Different people like different things. Just like some people believe in a mechanical universe based on Newtonian physics and some people believe in deities, angels and fairies*, some people read to be informed of the newest innovations in science, but some people read to feel their adrenaline pump or their heart swell. And contrary to what some people think, hating on a book does not denote intelligence.

Read what you want.

*In full discosure, I believe in fairies.

On Reading

2009-12-01T12:30:00.001-08:00

On Genreality, Joe Nassise has posted an article on the importance of writers to keep reading. This is rather timely for me as I have vowed to make my December about reading.

My one regret about Nanowrimo, and writing in general is how little reading I get done. I did struggle my way through the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, in my trickle of spare time during Nano. While Kavalier and Clay is a long book full of complicated textures which must be savored like a fine wine, I annoyed myself being stuck on a single book for so long.

Authors write because they love books (ok some do it for the money--misguided fools.) Growing up, I read obsessively. Cruising the Junior High library in Elementary School. Reading adult novels (both in intended audience and content) from town libraries and buying stacks of books from B Dalton and Waldenbooks stores with every cent I could beg, borrow, steal, or occasionally even earn.

I have heard the argument that by reading material too close to your stories, you will taint yourself, subconsciously plagiarizing those authors you hold most dear. However, I have always thought the best way to learn how to write well in your area was to read books of the type you want to write, and subconsciously absorb the skills. Stephen King mentions this in On Writing as does Dwight Swain in Techniques of the Selling Writer. Just don't hedge your bets on being the next J.K. Rowling, read widely in your genre or even outside of it.

So far, this is my list of books to read: Black Hats, by Patrick Culhane; Quarry in the Middle and The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins; and The Stepsister Scheme and The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines.

A Micro Post for a Nano Victory

2009-12-01T12:26:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised to hear I finished Nanowrimo. I did take it down to the wire, finishing on noon of the thirtieth, but I did start late.

A week of toil

2009-11-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

The 1/2 to 3/4th point in any story seems to be the part that kills most writers. Lynne Viehl wrote a nice piece on the phenomena here. Subsequently, I have not been writing on the blog much, not that anyone reads it anyway.

Today I hit 40,000 words on the Nanowrimo piece, which means I should easily be able to kick out the last 10,000 words in the next 7 days, but I am not yet feeling that calm contentment which means I know what happens on the 10,000 words.

Honestly, I think I have a pretty good story, maybe even one someone might want to read after a little bit of work. I have considered putting it up for critique (after a rework.)

One of the things that kind of stunned me is one of the subliminal stimuli I must have picked up at some point. Originally I was planning on having alternate-reality Nazis, but then I decided to use alternate-reality communists in a cold-war's-not-over-and-the-commies-won scenario. I then thought it would be great to have the symbol of the Russian occupiers of America be a United States flag with a hammer and sickle in the blue field instead of stars.

Later I found saw that very same symbol in the Des Moines Register. It turns out some Obama-is -a-Commie blogger is using that exact flag for his blog.

Odd what we pick up without even realizing it.

Writing With a Posse

2009-11-14T08:03:00.000-08:00

This post is going to be a bit of a love letter to my writing group.

After being in a writers group for years and pretty much offering all my stuff to them in "real time," I'm starting to find Nanowrimo a little difficult this year. I find it interesting how much I've become dependent on the group to be my subconscious.

Many times I have brought things into the group without having great ideas about where it might be headed, and Ciuin says something like "I know where this is going." So I ask, "where do you think it's going?" While her answer might not be what I ultimately choose, I find part of my inspiration from her efforts.

Similarly, when those writers who follow the Hero's Journey to the letter start questioning my sanity, I know I am on to something, as I have made my piece just traditional enough to draw their attention, but just different enough.

My favorite part of a critique is when one person wants to argue that I have wandered too far inot the realms of poor taste, while another things I have not traveled far enough. I feel like Goldilocks, finding the perfect bowl of porridge, before being heinously torn apart by bears.*

Bill always tells me when my stories don't pay enough attention to the laws of physics, and then I can decide if they come close enough to following the laws of suspense of disbelief.

And George, the haggard old longshoreman who staggers into the group smelling of cigarette smoke... Then again I could never quite get a read on George.

*Isnt' that how the story ends? Seriously, she's a little girl, and they're bears--hungry porridge deprived bears.

Nanowrimo Report

2009-11-12T21:38:00.000-08:00

I got my start as a "serious" writer by doing a thing called National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo for short. Here's the idea. You write 50,000 words in 30 days, and after a month of pure hell, you have now written that book.

After vacillating quite a bit on whether I was going to do Nanowrimo this year, I have written several book which, though unsold, stand as my "I have written a book" accomplishment. A couple of these books do not embarrass me.

Finally, I decided to do Nanowrimo because I have learned so much over the past few years, I felt like I needed to let my imagination go wild for awhile.

After one week of Nanowrimo--I started late--I am at 18000 words. I started 5000 words behind the daily goal, and I have decreased the deficit to 1767 words--only a day behind! I started out with a con man and a drug dealer and now my con man and a sassy reporter are fighting deminazis in an alternate dimension.

Not from Captain Hastings' Personal Narrative

2009-11-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

I'm going to tell you something you may find frightening. Point of View is not fixed. In the same way that camera angles change during a television show, the Point of View of your story can shift just as easily--well, it's easy providing you as the author are aware that it is happening and are careful to make sure the reader knows what is happening.

In 1936, Agatha Christie started chapters in The ABC Murders with the legend "Not from Captain Hastings' Personal Narrative" to tell the reader that the camera was no longer from the view of Captain Hastings. I'm guessing she did this because the reader of 1936 was not used to the fast paced switch-off of today's media. When Christie used the technique, she also switched from first to third person--thinking simple detour signs were not enough, she put large Road Closed signs in the path of the reader.

In the twenty-first century, we can be a little more subtle about our transitions, and by doing so, we can use them for great effect. I give for example an excerpt from a writer in my critique group. The first paragraph of her epilogue starts at a very high level, pushing out towards the Omniscient and Objective.

The moment of death is brief and sudden, and so infinitesimal it is beyond measure. It is less than a heartbeat, smaller than a breath of air, yet in that moment, the mind is alert, aware of every sound, sight, and emotion...

Her second paragraph continues from a limited subjective view:

As the bullet took his life, the whiteness flooded over his eyes and body, then softened slightly as the edges of his vision turned a blazing yellow. Everything was still and soft. For a moment, he felt alone, realizing he was dead...

Clearly, the camera has changed. However, beyond the metaphor of "camera angle" how do we break down the different modes of a perspective?

Smarter people than me have identified two axes within the third person point of view--which can also be applied to first and second point of view in extreme cases, although I would be hard-pressed as an author to write in 2nd person omniscient*.

As I was saying, you can move within these axes, but the trick to this movement is pacing and subtlety. Take this passage from David Weber's On Basilisk Station.

The universe went mad. Stilettos of X-ray radiation stabbed deep into Fearless's lightly-armored hull, breaching compartments, killing her people, clawing and rending at her bulkheads and frame members. And then, a sliver of a second later, the light cruiser smashed into the blast front of the warhead itself.

It was below her as she drove forward, not the direct frontal collision from which nothing could have saved her, but a savage eruption of plasma spumed up beneath her belly through the vacuum of space. Generators howled in protest as the massive shock front of radiation and particles smashed at her shielding like a flail, but they held—barely—and Fearless heaved like a goaded horse as she shot the rapids of destruction.

Dominica Santos screamed as she was hurled from her feet. She wasn't alone, and her com was a cacophony of other screams and cries as her work party was hurled about the compartment like so many discarded dolls.The concussion slammed her into and through a half-fused bank of circuit-breakers, scattering it in an explosion of debris. She bounced back, arms windmilling in a wild clutch for any anchorage, and a terrible, bubbling shriek filled her ears. She caught the heat-slagged edge where cutters had slashed away a buckled access panel, jerking her body to a brutal halt, and swallowed vomit as she saw electronicist 2/c Porter clawing at the spearlike hull fragment projecting from the belly of his suit. The wreckage thrust out from the bulkhead behind him, impaling him, and he writhed upon that dreadful spike like a soul in hell while his scream went on and on and on, even as blood and internal organs began to bubble and boil from the wound. Globules of blood and more horrible things sprayed out into the vacuum, and then, mercifully, the 'tronicist's ghastly sounds sobbed into silence and his arms went slack. He hung on the wreckage, the inside of his helmet opaque with the blood that had sprayed from his mouth and nostrils, and Santos stared at him, petrified by shock and nausea, unable to make herself look away.

"Come on, you people!" Sally MacBride's voice cracked like a whip. "Move your asses—now!"

Dominica Santos dragged herself up out of her pit of horror and stumbled back towards the gutted drive circuits.

The first two paragraphs could either be seen as omniscient objective or Limited Subjective to the ship, then we move without a section break into the mind of a crew member, but because the crew member is experiencing the same event as the ship, the transition smoothly shifts the reader's view without being jarring.

In modern fiction, Point of View shifts are not only an option, but one of the most effective storytelling tools. You can, of course, write an entire novel in one point of view, as many first-person books never stray from the perspective of the protagonist or sidekick telling the story, but if you are writing in the third person, this is an option to which you should be aware.

*I imagine the entire "novel" would be something like "You know what I'm saying," and probably be written by a Canadian rapper.

Words of wisdom from 'The Intern'

2009-11-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

The blogger known simply as the intern has a wonderful piece of advice for souping up your manuscript:

If you [pick a random spot in your manuscript and] need to read an entire chapter before being able to identify some kind of internal or external conflict, you might have a problem.

Read the rest.

Call me crazy.

2009-11-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

Today, I decided day 4 would be the perfect time to start Nanawrimo. So that comes out to 50,000 words in 27 days, or about 1851 words a day,not really all that much more than the usual 1667 words per day-about 184 words.

Okay. I'll put down the pocket calculator.

Honestly, I could have done those figures in my head, but that would involve putting down the wineglass, and that's not gonna happen. So there.

I decided to do Nano for a couple of reasons. The simplest being I just like Nano. Nano is what convinced me I had the chops to run the marathon that is finishing a novel, and I believe in their mission. Also, I was at a good stopping point in Hard Luck, my military science fiction piece.

I thought I had outgrown Nano. I skipped it last year, and I didn't feel any poorer for the experience, but this year I felt especially compelled to do Nano. After finishing my last two novels, I feel like I have learned enough about polishing my writing, and I would like to reconnect to the spontaneity of working without rules. So I'm setting off into a word jungle without a map, a compass, or a native guide, armed only with this truly mediocre metaphor, which I thought was going somewhere else.

When is a chapter long enough?

2009-11-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

When is a chapter long enough?

This is a question I have asked and been asked a hundred times. I have heard answers as general as “as long as you want it to be” or as specific as “around 5000 words, depending on genre.”

I think they biggest mistake people make in relation to chapter length is ignoring the element known as “scene.” In the hierarchy of writing, scene comes between paragraph and chapter. This is why many books have those little breaks inside the chapter—because a chapter is a collection of scenes in the same way that a paragraph is a collection of sentences. A chapter may only have one scene in the same way that a paragraph may only have one sentence, or a sentence may have only one word.

Okay.

How do writers decide how many scenes go into a chapter? Grouping scenes that are related on some level would be preferred, but in practice, I find the bottom line is chronological presentation. While modern fiction—and especially science fiction—has given us some great examples of non-chronological storytelling* readers who are looking for a good story are 9 times out of 10 going to want see things happen in order.

So now we are looking at a collection of scenes. How do we know how many of those scenes to group together? I think the answer to that question is IMPACT. Short chapters make the reader expect something immediate to happen. At the very least it makes them take notice, especially if you suddenly go from four scenes per chapter to one.

Twice in the book I am working on, I ended up adding 1000-1500 words to a chapter which I thought was “done”. In each case, I decided that structurally the chapter needed another scene.

In the first case, I added a scene because it cohesively fit the scenes in the previous chapter.

In another case, I joined a scene to the previous chapter because there was no connecting scene to link it to before a major section break. I avoided making a 1000 word chapter because it would have been inappropriate.

In the end, I really think it does come to personal preference. I have read books with seventy chapters, and I have read books with ten. You’re the author, you decide.

* I’m looking at you The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Good Times are Killing Me

2009-10-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

In retrospect this post may seem rather maudlin. Just mentally insert a bad 80s laugh-track every time you see this symobol !@!, and it won’t be so bad.

Unlike the Modest Mouse songs, my good times don’t involve LSD, coke, methamphetamines, or whiskey—although it’s easy to see why writers might turn to these things. They do involve a whole load of failures—an in the interest of full disclosure, more than a little wine. !@!

I read a great deal of materials by authors who have a handful of books published, and they often say that the time before they got published were the good times, because they didn’t have to worry about deadlines, editors, or art departments.

I sent out ten query letters last night for CALL OF THE BEAST. With every button press I still hesitated, my gut twisted, and my heart pounded in a way that wanted me to go all-out Fred Sanford, clutching my chest and yelling at the sky. “Oh, this is the biggest one I ever had. You hear that Elizabeth? I'm coming to join you honey.” !@!

I find it amazing that I can still feel so much anxiety after sending out almost seventy queries for PANIC NO MORE. If anything, I feel more nervous, because this manuscript should be better. Sure, the pros say that persistence and a well-written book will eventually get you somewhere, but in reality, they were only persistent until they crossed that magic threshold that converts them from hobbyist writer to author.

Still, I can take comfort in the advice of the pros. After this, it can only get worse. !@!

Journaling, a Family Tradition

2009-10-27T19:18:00.001-07:00

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to read some journal entries from one of my ancestors--basically a log of snowfall rates and swearing. At least I now know my distaste for large snowfalls and penchant for verbal profanity* is a genetic proclivity.

In forming my own author blog, however, I wanted to set out with some loftier--or at least least repetitive--goals. Of course I am going to write about my writing, but how do I not sound like my ancestor:

Feb. 12th: Five god damn inches of snow. 1029 words written. When will this #&#(#~ @#~$%~#! winter end.

Fortunately, Catherine** gave me some good and obvious in hindsight ideas about what to blog. It turns out I should blog not about how much I write but how I write. That's what I'm going to try to do here.

However, because I do like to rant, I thought I better set up some ground rules as well.

No politics - I have wasted good years of my life ranting on politics.
No religion - who can know the mind of God? Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
Fewer Chicago quotes - I'm serious about this one
Minimal snowfall totals - I'll do my best, but you can't argue with genetics.

* Or it could have been from my dad who did a stint in the Navy.
** You remember Catherine from the other day, he said in second person while referring to himself in the third person

Momentum

2009-10-26T18:02:00.001-07:00

I have a 2 year old manuscript out to a small house. I have a recent manuscript out to an agent. I'm working on a third. And I am going to be sending queries out on the recent manuscript this week.

I'm beginning to feel like a working author. Now I just need a good (or bad) sale.

ICON 34

2009-10-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

This week I attended ICON 34, my first con ever, and I felt a little like Moses must have when he realized those people building the pyramids looked like him.

Despite the fan element, I went into ICON expecting it to be like most of the conventions I have gone to for my day job--dry and technical. I expected to get tired of talking about writing simply because there were so many different things to go to.

I now know I can not get tired of talking about writing. Sunday Morning after spending 10 or so hours with Jim C. Hines. I held back after one of his talks so I could chat with him some more, then I went to another panel with Jim and Catherine Schaff Stump. In addition to hearing a lot from Jim and Catherine, I also got to meet writer Adam Whitlatch, who is going to be the Guest of Honor at Keocon. I also got to talk a bit with Glen Cook and quite a bit with his sweet wife, Carol.

If that wasn't enough, I got to pitch a book idea to Tyree Cambell of Sam's Dot Publishing, and he asked me for a manuscript. Sure, it's still a 1/100 chance, but I feel better for pitching the idea than not.

The highlight of my con experience had to be having dinner with Lettie Prell. Lettie and I have worked together for years but in different cities, and we tend to only see each other in groups of other coworkers, and we never have gotten a chance to just sit down and talk about nothing but writing--okay, work came up once or twice. Lettie is always intelligent and insightful, and it was nice to be able to discuss our writing careers (or my lack thereof) more casually.

Even if I hadn't met all these cool people, my head--and my notebook--is full of great information on writing, including the advice to read Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, which I even own, but I've never cracked the cover (shame one me.)