Panel discussions from WorldCon

Again, these notes are not from me (and again, I wish they were). But Leanne Taylor of The Storytelling Dream-Thief blog has done an incredible job of transcribing a handful of panels from WorldCon. The topics range from political structures in science fiction to issues writers might consider taboo in urban fantasy to the struggle of transferring our modern attitudes into medieval or other historical periods. Some great quotes throughout and lots of different perspectives to consider.

Here are a few of my favorites:

From Howard Tayler, author of the Schlock Mercenary webcomic:

You have to believe it yourself, you have to set up rules and follow them and convince them you’re an expert.  Sometimes if you hold up the vaguely-explained thing in this hand and the unexplained thing in this hand, once you have the audience believing the unexplained thing, they kind of read through the other one and accept the explanation.  It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try.

From Catherynne M. Valente, author of The Orphan's Tales, Palimpsest and more:

Someone suggesting that every book contain a warning that has all the things it contains on the front so you can only ever read the things you want to read, and the whole mood of the audience was asking us if we didn’t feel it was our duty to make our audience feel safe, and all of us were going “No, not really.”

From Kate Elliott, author of The Crossroads Trilogy and much more:

I think it’s impossible to separate a character from their culture, because they’ve grown up in their culture just as I’ve grown up in mine, and they are themselves, within that society, and it’s shaped them, and they exist within it.

For those who haven't made it to a WorldCon yet (including myself), the next two years are already scheduled. The 2011 WorldCon will be held in Reno, NV on August 17-21, and the 2012 WorldCon will be in Chicago, August 30 - Sept. 3. Perhaps I'll see some of you there! And thanks again, Leanne, for making these notes available.

Notes on writing from DragonCon workshops

Not from me, unfortunately. I would've loved to have gone to DragonCon, and someday shall. But a writer from Jim Butcher's author forums was kind enough to post a slew of notes he took while attending the Con. Topics range from Characterization to the Physics of Magic to What Editors Want and more. Thanks for sharing!

Juggling a few balls of the writerly sort right now. Working up to the climactic scenes of my WIP, which will likely clock in between 85-90k on the first draft, doing some worldbuilding and note-taking for a future story, and also brushing up on the talk I'll be giving Sat. morning to the Boulder Writers Group on "Literary Agents and You."

Busy times, but fun.

Literary Agents and You - an upcoming pontification

Actually, I'm not sure I'm so good at pontificating. Rambling? Sure. Doesn't sound as cool, though.

Anyways, thanks to a friend I met through the same writing conference I met my agent at, I've been invited to give a talk to the Boulder Writers Group next Saturday. The topic is "Literary Agents and You," where I get to review all the things I've learned through years of trial and error before signing on with my agent.

Best piece of advice? Agents really love it when you track down their home address and show up there (preferably when they're having breakfast in their bathrobe), asking them to read your manuscript--because, you know, it's the personal touch that matters. Oh, and blank checks. Agents are all about bribes. If anyone wants to bribe an agent of their choice, just send a blank check my way with instructions on who you'd like me to get it to.

As far as the talk goes, if anyone's in the area and would like to attend, check out the group's page on Meetup.com to join up and RVSP. Here are a few details:

Date: Saturday, Sept. 25th
Time: 9:30 AM
Location: Paradise Bakery and Cafe
1207 Pearl Street
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 442-3965

Wish me luck!

Editorial Ass. blog closes down

After four years of blogging about all aspects of publishing, MoonRat, the anonymous author of Editorial Ass, has decided to no longer update the blog. This came from a number of factors, including personal busy-ness, job transitions, and MoonRat's feeling that they've said pretty much all they can without starting to just point back to earlier posts.

For anyone who has no previous exposure to this blog, fortunately it will remain online, with the archives available to anyone who wants to sift through them. There's a lot of great info here, similar to the also-defunct Ms. Snark blog--another one for writers who want to learn...well...pretty much anything about publishing from someone on the "other side" of the industry.

So say fond, if sad, farewells to Editorial Ass, and be sure to thank MoonRat for having dedicated so much time and effort in helping writers learn what they need to have a better chance at success.

A lecture on proofreading

Warning: This video is salted by a few naughty words, so easily offended folks might want to avoid.

That said, a hilarious video. Thanks to Pub Rants for the find.

The necessity of backtracking

Over the years, I've come to recognize symptoms of various problems I've encountered in writing. One of these is when a scene (or the plot in general) is headed in the wrong direction. Either a character is doing something inconsistent (without a reason) or the plot-logic is flawed, or any other number of issues pushing the story down the wrong road. 

The symptom of this is an increasing slog in progress. Events don't flow as well as they once were. Character interactions start to feel awkward, and I start rewriting conversations and actions because I can't figure out a good way to move things forward. Daily wordcount shrinks and frustration grows.

Think of it like getting a flat tire. Or four flat tires. Instead of driving down a nice paved road, I took a wrong turn and ended up heading along a road made of broken glass and boulders. Unpleasant, to say the least, and the longer I head down that road, the worse it's going to get, and the more repairs the car is going to need when I stop. 

The solution? Don't ignore the bumpy progress. It's become difficult for a reason, and I need to find out why and fix it. Now, this is a different sort of difficulty than finding general writing motivation, unraveling a plot twist or otherwise. It's not writer's block, either. It's just that my subconscious realizes the story is drifting off track and starts to put on the brakes so I don't waste too much time driving over glass and boulders.


Most of the time I go back to the last point where the writing was flowing. This might be halfway through the particular scene I'm working on. Maybe it's a few scenes back. But mostly I start feeling this mental wall building pretty quickly, and I've learned to turn back early enough to avoid having to chop too much at once. When I identify the spot where the flow started to slow down, I scrap everything from then on and start over. 


Part of me resists this solution, even though it works well. I just had to cut a thousand or so words from a scene and start over from the midway point. My instinct is to go, "No, don't cut that! That's progress! You worked hard to get that written, and undoing it would be a waste." But in the end, the words must go, because they don't belong. And I've found that if I ignore this symptom and grind forward to the end of the story, then revising becomes a much rougher process with bigger issues to be fixed. 


How about you? What symptoms alert you to plot or character issues?

Writing with metal - a gift for the writer you know

Even writers with extremely horrible handwriting (such as myself) might be tempted to write longhand with one of these instruments: The Inkless Metal Pen and the Endless Ink Pen.

Downsides? Some people have reported that the metal pens write too lightly, making the words difficult to read, depending on what it's being used for. Also...how difficult would it be to get this kind of thing through airport security? Pointed metal rod? Sure. "Writing instrument" will be the first thing through the inspector's head.

Thoughts? Anyone have/used one of these?

Towers of Midnight book trailer

There's a new book trailer for the upcoming Wheel of Time release, Towers of Midnight--the thirteenth in the WoT series being finished up by Brandon Sanderson. Dragonmount.com has revealed this glimpse into Robert Jordan's world and the return of one of the more famous characters in the series.

Produced by the creative forces of Dragonmount and Mythmakers Entertainment, this video is the first-ever official video representation of Robert Jordan's masterpiece series. The majority of the crew for this project were fans themselves, and were led by Dragonmount founder Jason Denzel, who directed the short.

Be warned. Depending on where you are in the series, there are some slight spoilers in the video, but nothing huge. Enjoy!

Game of Thrones production videos and blog

HBO has set up a new blog with a handful of videos on Making the Game of Thrones. Videos and blog entries come from people such as actor Sean Bean as well as the author of the book series itself, George RR Martin. From what the videos show, the series is shaping up nicely, capturing the essential elements of Martin's fantasy world. Take a look for yourself.

In Production

The Fiction Writer's Virtual Toolbox

You may have noticed a bit of a change on my Writer's Resources page on the main site. It's been updated and upgraded a tad bit, expanding it from the dozen or so links I had before into a Fiction Writer's Virtual Toolbox, with 150+ links. This new collection of links gathers together the many resources, tools, author and fiction writing websites I've collected over the years of pursuing my own writing career and researching ways to grow and improve. I finally managed to bring them all together and organize them into a semi-coherent way so other writers and aspiring authors might take advantage of them as well. Let me know if you have any suggestions or recommendations on tools to add to the mix.

Topics range from literary agents and writing queries to fleshing out your characters and plotting out the novel as a whole. Included are some of my favorite tools I've used, such as WordWeb and Focus Booster, plus a big list of books on writing which I wholeheartedly recommend. Most likely you've already read a few of them yourself.

Some of the links focus specifically on speculative fiction writing, but many are applicable across all genres (some nonfiction even). Certainly not all of these links will work for you or be helpful, depending on whatever your writing style is, but I think you'll be sure to find something to add to your own toolbox.

And thank you to all the authors and others out there who have influenced my own writing path in such a big way. Whether we've met or not, you've made a huge impact.

Books in the mail

Look what I got! While I have a sizable stack of review copies waiting to be worked through, two new arrivals have put me in a tizzy. Yes. I am tizzying. I doth tizzy.

First up: The Tavernier Stones, by Stephen Parrish.

This is an award sent from first-placing it in the last Clarity of Night flash fiction challenge, and I've been looking forward to reading it quite a bit. Drop by Stephen's website to say hello and congratulate him on this debut novel.

Second, while I'm excited to crack this spine, it also shows how far behind I am in following popular series. We have Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.

Please, for those of you who have been following this series since it first came out (and with its conclusion, Mockinjay, recently released) don't let any spoilers slip my way. You are free to tell me your opinion of the books, but I've heard enough ranting about how great they are to figure it's worth the investment of picking this up from Amazon.

I also just finished reading The Unincorporated War, the second in a science fiction series by Dani and Eytan Kollin, which continues to impress. A full review will be up on my Speculative Fiction Examiner page soon.

What are you reading/have recently read/are looking forward to reading? What's getting your tizzy...um...tizzied?

Tobias Buckell talks book titles on Twitvid

Sci-fi author Tobias Buckell has been experimenting with video blogs during his daily walk, and he's been picking questions readers and fans send his way. I asked him about his process of choosing book titles and such, and he was kind enough to give quite a detailed answer on several of his books and the titles they ended up with. And, if you are so inclined, you can send questions Tobias' way through Twitter or general contact info found on his site.

Enjoy!



http://www.twitvid.com/Z0ZHF

The guilty writer

Guilt [gilt] -noun 

1. An unfortunate side affect that results from being overly exposed to morality.

2. see "chocolate"


Sometimes guilt hits me while I'm sitting and working on a scene. Guilt that I'm not outside working on my farmer's tan instead. Guilt that I'm ignoring friends and family for the sake of fictional characters, or that the dog is sitting by the door with a longing look, tennis ball and leash by her paws. (dogs really do know how to lay on the guilt trips, don't they?)

This sense of guilt increases as I consider the chores I could be doing, the emails I haven't caught up on, the lawn which needs mowing, a nifty television series I haven't watched in a few months...even books I want to read and review.

But you know what? I love to write. I love thinking about writing. It's in mah bones, you might say. I love the process of creating these worlds and characters, of discovering new forms of magic and figuring out the villain's motivation and why he stole another character's birthday cake (the fiend!). And while it's work--sometimes hard, hard work--it's fulfilling and a joy to write.

So why the guilt? Should I feel guilty? Obviously there has to be some sort of balance, what with the whole needing to eat and bathe and socialize (not necessarily in that order). To take trips and hike with my wife and dog and remember that there's life beyond the blank page. I think part of it comes from my mind saying, "Why are you wasting your time with this? You'll never be good enough to make this worthwhile. You'd be better off becoming a monk or doing something involving orphans or cleaning up oil spills." Guilt and doubt often go hand-in-hand.

But if it's what I love and want to build a career out of, then no. Guilt has no place there. Guilt is just another roadblock I have to overcome in order to see the story through. It's a distraction, one of the deadliest banes of writers.

Do you ever suffer from guilt while writing? Where do you think it comes from? Do you ignore it? Banish it to some nether region filled with bitter winds and hungry monsters?