It’s Still an Experiment

Bottom line: After two (four-day) weeks of 2000 words/day as my goal, I have written 16,147 words. So far, so good! I will not say it’s been easy (hence the four-day work week), because it takes up all of what I would otherwise refer to as “my free time,” but oddly, it’s finding the time that’s difficult; the writing has been surprisingly easy.

Oh, I do it in fits and starts, and (real) Internet research has led to some (unnecessary) Internet “research,” and there are points every evening when I think, “Maybe I’ll cut myself some slack tonight. I have a few extra words banked from last night,” but so far I’ve managed to get past that (except last night. Last night I stopped at 1400. I was wiped.)

I don’t know how I can do this on some projects and not others. It definitely has to do with outlining. The one time I tried something like this on the fly, I wrote 6000 words in two days and burned myself out for a week. But the one time I’ve worked for hire (and thus using an outline someone else imposed on me), I cranked out 2000 words a night without any trouble (which is what inspired me to try it this time).

Obviously, then, it’s not a matter of typing too much (although with this and my day job, I worry about that). It’s more a matter of mental exhaustion. (So, yeah, four days on, three days off.) If I do this again, I will throttle it back to 1500 wds/day. It’s less about the daily word count and more about avoiding those long stretches of writer’s block that come from not knowing where you’re going.

So that’s where I am, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t remind you that this is a sequel to The Choking Rain, available on Smashwords and Amazon.* While you’re there, check out my other books as well, and if you’re one of those sainted people who’s already bought one, please consider giving me a review on Amazon. You have no idea how important those are (to any author).

So in two weeks, will I be at the half-way mark, or will I be a gibbering mass of dangling participles huddling in a corner?

Beats me, I haven’t outlined that far yet.

 

*Current leader in the title race is The Scent of Death. I’m still taking suggestions.

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Heroes of Yesteryear

Today is Errol Flynn‘s birthday. If you don’t know who Errol Flynn was, you can just leave right now, because the rest of this post won’t mean a thing to you. Or, better yet, you can email me for a list of movies that will change your life. Your choice.

Regardless, those of you who remain should follow me: We all know how popular comic book movies are today, and we all know that back in the Golden Age of the 1930s, there were no comic books movies because…there were no comic books (until 1938). Whether this contributes to the 1930s being the Golden Age is left to debate. But what if there had been comic books (and comic books movies) in the 1930s? What if Superman and Batman and Spider-Man had existed during the Depression–and what if all of those superstars had played them?

I have some ideas. Some will be, “Well, of course!” and some will be controversial. But the idea of any of these legendary actors playing any of these roles…that’s just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Errol Flynn: Flynn is first up, not only because it’s his birthday, but as someone dear to me has said, “He put the ‘swash’ in swashbuckle.” On the DC side, I know it’s cliched, but I really can’t see Flynn playing anyone better than Green Arrow. On the Marvel side, however, he was born to play Fandral of Thor’s buddies, the Warriors Three.*

Randolph Scott: Superman. Duh.

Maureen O’Sullivan: Wonder Woman. I know the look is wrong, but I don’t care. Or the Black Widow (where she would fit the look much better).

Tyrone Power: Batman. Again, duh. He played Zorro. Bruce Wayne would never be the same. Or Iron Man. Tyrone Power as Tony Stark? Box office platinum.

Basil Rathbone: In the DCU, he could be stuck in the role of Alfred Pennyworth (whom he would make a headliner). But he might never move over from Marvel, where he would play…Doctor Strange.

Johnny Weissmuller: Aquaman/Namor the Sub-mariner. Typecasting, yes, but he was the best swimmer in Hollywood.

I am wracking my brain trying to come up with roles for William Powell and Myrna Loy, but I can’t. And I really want to. Help me.

 

*Unfortunately, Mr. Flynn was never available to play either of these roles, because he was solidly under contract portraying Han Solo.

 

 

 

 

Sale – “When Gods Fall in Fire”

Very happy to announce that my heroic fantasy tale, “When Gods Fall in Fire,” has been accepted for publication at Cirsova (where one can find several of my earlier efforts). “WGFF” is nominally a fantasy story, but with an SF slant and (if you squint sideways) a sort of Lovecraftian tinge. I tried to be a little different when I wrote it and ended up with something that’s hard to describe. But now you’ll have the chance to make that determination for yourself!

“When Gods Fall in Fire” should appear in 2018.

#SFWApro

It’s an Experiment

I’ve never really tried writing to an outline before, but now I’ve outlined the sequel to The Choking Rain, provisionally titled Something in the Air (but very much subject to change), and I’ve spent the last two evenings writing the first 4300 words. The idea is to write 2000 words a night, which would bring in the first draft before Labor Day.

I hadn’t planned to write another novel so soon; the idea was to concentrate on short fiction this year. But after a couple of tries (and one completion), the Muse wasn’t hanging around. “Well,” I thought, “no plan to do something is good if it keeps you from doing anything,” so I allowed myself to think about writing another book–but only if I could get it done quickly. None of this “twelve months and a bit” this time. None of this foundering in the middle trying to figure out how the plot was going to get from A to Z. (A and Z are easy. It’s L, M, and N that will kill you.)

So I tried outlining, and surprisingly, it wasn’t tough. (I’ve had this idea for a long time, so that helped.) I had the outline done in half the time I had allotted, including details for the first dozen chapters, so I started even sooner than I thought I would. So far, I’m 300 words ahead of schedule. We’ll see how tonight goes.

I’ll keep you all updated every week or so, unless I fall completely behind, in which case I will close this page and start writing under an assumed name, something with fewer expectations. I’m leaning toward “Will Shakespeare,” since no one thinks he ever wrote anything anyway…

#SFWApro

There are Two Kinds of Blog Posts…

Those who have followed this blog faithfully (and I appreciate both of you), know that I am a man of sober mien. I run a factual, serious, and intellectual site.

Except when I don’t.

Everyone knows there are two kinds of people in the world: writers and those who think they can’t. But that’s not the only division–I’m sure if you think hard you can come up with other dichotomies, types of people divided down the middle, each equally certain that their way is the only way…okay, you laugh, but really, they exist.

Just to save you the trouble, I’ve come up with a few examples.

• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who like math, those who hate math, and those who failed calculus.
• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who understand comic books, and those who think the Fantastic Four is a Beatles cover band.
• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think a man stomping around in a rubber suit is some kind of weird fetish, and those who like Godzilla movies.
• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think George Lucas should have stopped after one movie, and those who think he should have stopped after three.
• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who think William Shatner is experiencing a career renaissance, and those who are glad that they do not live in an alternate world where he was cast as Batman.
• There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who argue the minutiae of the ramifications of time travel in Outlander, and the men who married them.

I could go on, but I’m inclined to believe that there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who like this kind of stuff…

 

A Weird Universe–but It’s Consistent…

I heard about a discussion on a board concerning a very popular book series, where the fans passionately argue each and every minute bit of plot, character, and setting. During a recent conversation, someone asked why everyone was arguing this or that point, anyway? “After all, it’s only fiction. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Right there I knew the poster wasn’t a writer.

One of the very first things they tell you in Secret Writer School (also known as “the real Hogwarts”), is that your stories have to make sense.* This doesn’t mean they have to agree with reality, that’s an entirely different question. If you write SF/F, in fact, your stories are required not to agree with reality.**

The dichotomy comes from the need for internal consistency. You can write about elves, dragons, and werewolves fighting off invaders from Mars, but you have to set up rules about how each of these characters works, and you can’t deviate from them.*** If your elves are trapped at the bottom of a volcano’s caldera, even if the only way out is to fly, you can’t suddenly say, “So I unfolded the wings the author hasn’t mentioned in 200 pages and rode the updrafts to safety.” (This is precisely one of the reasons I didn’t like E.T. In fact, E.T. is a perfect example, but I’m not here to do a review.)

If you don’t write consistently, then when you fall off the wagon, the reader will be thrown out of the story. More importantly, you will have lost the reader’s trust, and without trust, the reader will not be led where you want him to go.

And where you want the reader to go, of course, is to the bookstore to buy your next book–which is a consistent desire, no matter what kind of writer you are.

*One of the great things about the Secret Writer School is that, it being “the real Hogwarts,” genre fiction enjoys its proper place.

**This is also a requirement if you plan to work in the White House.

***I see you there, reaching for your pen. Hands off! Come up with your own ridiculous ideas.

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Imitation: The Sincerest Form of Bad Writing

I recently became aware of…I guess you’d call it a game, called “Tom Swifties.” The idea is to see how many examples you can come up with of the kind of writing that was used in the old Tom Swift books, i.e., Adverbs Gone Wild. I was horrified to learn that I am rather good at it. Some examples of my own:

• “Your axe has hit me in the chest,” Tom said half-heartedly.
• “There is no one staying in this hotel,” Tom said vacantly.
• “I understand it all now,” Tom said comprehensively.

I said I was horrified. Now, these are quite silly (and believe me, there are worse), but at the same time they do show up a major problem that even highly-successful writers have: the use of adverbs to describe characters’ feelings. In other words, they are telling instead of showing.

“Show, don’t tell,” was one of the hardest lessons I ever had to learn as a writer, mostly because no one could explain it to me. Now I understand, and I try hard not to make this mistake. It’s very easy once you see an example of it: Instead of saying, “Tom said vacantly,” you write, “Tom said with a faraway look in his eye,” or “Tom said, staring into space,” or some other description of Tom’s actions. If you can stay out of Tom’s head, you’ll do fine. And that’s all there is to showing instead of telling.

When I was younger, I tried to imitate writers I liked, and usually made a hash of it. It took years to develop my own style, to stop trying to be someone else.

Ironically, I’d still like to be Tom Swift. Maybe he couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag, but he had the coolest adventures this side of Jonny Quest.

#SFWApro