“The Valley Beneath the World”

And it’s done. Or at least it’s drafted. 58,650 words; the first draft, and I mean the first draft. This one is going to need to cleaning up.

It’s weird, the things you learn about writing, when you write. For instance, when I finished this latest, tentatively titled The Valley Beneath the World, a stand-alone book in my “Stolen Future“ universe, I honestly couldn’t remember how many books I’ve written. I mean, Digital Fiction has published three, and I’ve self-published four others plus one non-fiction book (more like a treatise in length, but it counts). And that doesn’t include the practice novels and the ones lying about or in submission, so we’re talking, um, at least 14.* I thought it was more like ten…

And that’s not the only thing. I’ve talked about characters taking over and directing the course of the story, but this was the first time my main character took over at the end of the book and explained what really happened while I thought I was writing it. Seriously, in the last chapter he sat down and explained all kinds of stuff I hadn’t known was going on. And now he expects me to go in and backfill everything, just because it makes a more interesting story than the one I thought I was telling.

I hate it when that happens!

So now before I can edit and do a read-through for draft 2, I have to go in and write draft 1.1. I mean yes, I knew there were placeholder names that had be fixed, but that’s what find-and-replace it for. Fortunately, he not only told me what happened, but he explained how he knew, which means I can go back in fill in those details for the reader. How thoughtful…

Really, I don’t mind characters taking over. I just wish they’d tell me what they’re doing.

*Technically, it’s more like 14 1/2.

#SFWApro

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The Romance of Writing is Not Romantic

The popular romantic view of writers is huddled souls shivering in an unheated attic room, bent over a piece of paper half-covered with cryptic scribblings that are unreadable because the writer is shaking too hard from the cold to write legibly. This picture conveys the impression that writers are poor, wretched, and half-mad, and consequently, is not completely inaccurate.

Obviously, most writers now use computers. And they don’t freeze in their garrets because they’re at the local Starbucks–which also argues against them being poor, although sitting in a coffee shop hoarding your rapidly-cooling latte and a half-eaten bagel can get expensive if you do it every day. (Not speaking from experience here, oh no, not at all…)

But the greatest inaccuracy about the romantic view of the writer is the word “romantic.” English majors (I am being kind by lumping all writers together as members of that noble fraternity) know that “romance” in fiction doesn’t mean “romance fiction.” There’s “romance” in the larger sense of being fictional, such as the old term “scientific romance,” which has been replaced by “science fiction,” still misunderstood but at least literally correct.

I, however, am purposely melding the various meanings here to make a point: If you want romance (literally), you don’t spend all your time being romantic (fictionally). Writing fiction takes time, and romantic partners tend to want you to spend time with them. Unfortunately, while you can divide your time into various pursuits, this subtracts from the amount of time you can spend on each one. And we cannot (as of yet) add or multiply time.

I have been known to spend hours, four or five nights a week, writing. If I don’t, it doesn’t get done. This has required sacrificing other enjoyments (bye, bye, TV), one of which is time spent with my lovely wife. She is surprisingly accommodating, but there are limits. And I, for my part, would like to spend time with her rather than on distant planets. But I can’t do both as much as I’d like.

It’s a balancing act, and it extends to your whole life. How people with small children find time to write is utterly beyond me. But all I know is my own experience, which tells me if you can’t separate the two kinds of romance, and find time for both, you’ll fail, at least one.

But then you might as well spend your time in a freezing garret, too cold to hold a pen. And it’s hard to get any writing done that way. As the Bard would declare if he were alive today: “Get thee to a Starbucks! And try the scones! They’re delicious!”

#SFWApro

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Why I Don’t Use Ghost Writers

I hate my characters.

Me: This is not going well. I need a big finish. What’ve you got?

Characters: Go back.

Me: What? Why?

Characters: This part doesn’t work. It’s hampering you now.

Me: But that was my big reveal at the end of the second act! It informs all the character interactions for the rest of the book!

Characters: That may be so, but it doesn’t work. You can’t make people do what you want, just to fit the plot. You’re not J.J. Abrams.

Me: If you’re so smart, you write the book.

Characters: Isn’t that what you just asked us to do?

Me: Smart asses…

#SFWApro

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Once a Knight on Sale

For a limited time, my comedy/fantasy/medieval quest novel, Once a Knight, is on sale for 99 cents!

Set in the quaint and you’ll-never-find-it-on-a-map kingdom of Ieed (named after the last words of its first king, who died in battle), Once a Knight is the story of two brothers, Bruce and Stephen Legume, who, after suffering the misfortune of being separated at birth, experience the even greater misfortune of finding each other again.

Bruce has been raised in Japan to become a noble and fierce samurai warrior. When his clan is betrayed, he is forced to flee to the West in order to discover the family Secret, which may help him avenge his adopted kinsmen. Stephen has grown up on the streets, never knowing a bed of his own (but plenty of others’). A rake and a con man, the only nobility he recognizes is the jack of hearts.

As they say, you can’t choose your family–no matter how hard you try.

And yet, through a series of adventures both thrilling and fortuitous, our boys find themselves the only hope of a kingdom besieged by enemies that appear invincible.

Will Bruce ever find the family secret? Will Stephen ever pay his bar bill? Can they save Ieed? Will they be able to keep from killing each other long enough to do the job?

Heroes. You take them where you find them.

“…cleverly written… [A] pun in every paragraph and a smile in every sentence…” – Fantasy-faction.com

 

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SALE – What if They Gave an Invasion…?

Happy to announce that I will have a story in the anthology, Alternative Apocalypses, scheduled to be launched at the Worldcon in Dublin in August.

“What if They Gave an Invasion and Nobody Came?” is 625 words covering the secret recent history of the world, with emphasis on the real cause of global climate change. (It is, unfortunately, a work of fiction…or so they would like you to believe.)

 

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The Beginning of the End

I’m roughly 10,000 words from the end of my latest book (unless it goes longer than I planned), which is typically the point at which my energy spikes and my production soars and I barrel toward the smash-bang ending in a frenzy of creativity, completing ten days’ work in two laser-focused nights.

Yeah, so you noticed the word “typically,” right?

The problem with going on that creativity-fueled last run to Kessel in 11 parsecs is that you need the creativity to fuel it, and while the ideas have been coming fast and furious as I approach the finish line, supplying all sorts of little details to be incorporated into the final product (and with any luck, so seamlessly that you’ll never know I threw them in at the last minute), the Great Idea, the climactic crescendo designed to take the reader up on the crest of a wave and deposit him (or her) gasping on the beach of my epilogue, still escapes me. In other words, I know the ending, but I don’t quite know how to get there.

This is, as one will anticipate, a bit frustrating. Not only do I want to deliver a suitably exciting ending to my book (which has already taken significantly longer than I’d hoped), but I have other projects I want to get onto. Two, in fact, which is a lot for me. And they’re not even the same projects I thought I was going to tackle next. One is a short story that’s already drafted but far from finished, and the other is the most ambitious task I’ve ever set myself. It’s a novel, but this time, I have to outline it first. And I can’t even do that until I’m finished researching it. Fortunately, I have literally spent years amassing a small library of the kinds of research materials I will need. I’ve never really done a lot of pre-research before. It should be fun and educational.

But I can’t do any of that until I finish this book. It shouldn’t be so hard; all I need is a slam-bang action set piece that the guys at Marvel Studios do three times a week. Of course, they do have a multi-million dollar budget and a crew of experienced screenwriters. I have my own brain and a crew of experienced baristas at the local Starbucks (who are all probably budding screenwriters themselves).

I can do this. I’ve done it before. And as I keep telling myself, it will be great.

Someday. “In the not-too-distant future…”

#SFWApro

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Dog’s Best Friend

I’ve been noticing lately an influx of dogs in restaurants. I’ve never said anything–who wants to argue with stranger who might be packing heat?–but I was going to write a scathing blog post about it…until I discovered that it’s legal in California to bring your dog with you into a restaurant so long as you’re eating in an outside patio. They changed the law in 2014. Who knew?

But that doesn’t explain the dog I saw the other day in the supermarket. And it wasn’t in some woman’s purse or a carrying case, it was on a leash. Seriously, I should have said something, because apparently that’s not legal, but in L.A., nobody says anything about anything. We’re too cool. And too worried about who’s packing. Or a YouTube star.

It makes me wonder, though, if this is all part of the dogs’ plan. I mean, it’s gotten to the point where we’re carrying them everywhere. What the hell does a dog need to be carried for? Hint: They don’t; it’s part of the plan. They’re taking over. They’re in our restaurants. They’re in our supermarkets. They’re in our cars.

And when I say they’re in our cars, I mean they’re driving. How many times have you seen someone driving along with a dog in his lap? That’s both illegal and cruel.* And it’s crazy–most dogs can’t reach the pedals. But soon we’ll have self-driving pet Ubers where you’ll be able to commute and scratch a dog’s ears at the same time. A dog’s life? I should have it so good.

At least I don’t have to worry about dogs taking over my profession, writing. Not because they don’t want to, but because cats have beaten them to it. How many cat pictures on the Internet have the cat spread over a keyboard? They’re not sleeping, they’re outlining.

There’s still time to stop this. Don’t take your dog into your favorite restaurant or local supermarket. Make him walk when you take him for a walk.

And if your Uber driver is wagging his tail, you’d be better off walking too.

______________________________

*Seriously, what do you think is going to happen when that airbag deploys?

#SFWApro

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A Badly-Kept Secret

You’re not supposed to read your reviews, so I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to write about them, either. What the heck, call me a rebel.

The truest thing about reviews that we don’t like to talk is that almost all writers read them, at least once in a while, at least for a time. It’s easy to be turned off by reviews; obviously you like the good ones, but you almost always dislike the bad ones–which is to say, you disagree with them. (The ones you don’t like and can’t disagree with, those are the hardest to take.) And bad reviews carry a lot more weight on your self-esteem. One bad review can erase a half-dozen good ones. (Remember that if you like to post bad reviews just to be snarky.)

On the other hand, in this e-book era, even bad reviews have their uses (and by “bad” I mean “low ratings”). Reviews and ratings (which I use here interchangeably) tell people (and Amazon algorithms) that someone is reading your book. There is a certain pleasure in knowing another person has read your story, even if he didn’t like it much, and I’m not even counting the fact that he probably paid for it. (Ka-ching!) Writers write to be read (and being paid is a nice bonus). But while self-published authors can track their numbers in close to real time, the rest of us make do with royalty statements and bestseller rankings which are vague and uncertain at the best of times. Reviews, however, those we can see. Reviews offer not only a sense that your book is selling, but feedback as well.

And you wonder why authors secretly read their reviews… Why writers make it a secret, though, I don’t know. Playwrights are always eager to read the opening night reviews in the papers (at least in the movies). Artists invite critics to their galleries. Why do writers pretend reviews don’t exist?

I have no idea. All I know is that it’s a badly-kept secret, both in the sense that writers do read their reviews, and in the sense that everyone knows they do. (Or at least they will now that I’ve spilled the beans.) But here’s the thing: If you want your favorite author to know what you think, if you want to influence his/her output or style, if you want your favorite author to write about the things you want to read–review what’s already been written. Because your author will read it.*

So make it count. Make it thoughtful. It doesn’t have to be an essay, but it should be honest. (We can tell.) And most of all, make the effort. A novel takes anywhere from a few weeks to ten years out of a writer’s life. We need to see that someone out there cares. If one out of ten readers bothered to take one minute to leave a review on Amazon, you can bet your next Lotto ticket that writers everywhere would gear up and work twice as hard.

You think readers go crazy waiting for the next installment from their favorite author? It works both ways, my friend.

_________________

*Obviously, the more successful the author the less chance your particular review/rating will be seen, but the chances are probably greater than you think.

#SFWApro

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