NaNoRetRo: Write-ins (AKA BICHOK)

For those of you who don't know, I have a very active region for NaNoWriMo.  Very active -- every day but Thanksgiving had a planned event, and probably half of the days had more than one planned event.  Most of those events were write-ins.

I gather that the way my region does write-ins is different than many others.  We have a regimen that varies in details but is generally the same every time.  A number of writing sprints are performed during the write-in, during which everyone is supposed to be actively writing, and not talking or disturbing others.  These are broken by 5-20 minute breaks, followed by another sprint.  These sprints are usually between 15 and 30 minutes long and often have a word count goal for people to shoot for, though of course there's no recriminations for missing the goal, nor extra rewards for making it.

They also provide a live-stream for nearly all of the write-ins, with a chat window available for people to virtually discuss during the breaks, and we all write (and report back our word counts) even if we aren't there in person.

When I write on my own, I tend to sit in front of the computer and get distracted for a few minutes (read: couple hours) by Facebook, email, Twitter, and various other easily-found shiny things.  I don't tend to set time limits, nor goals, nor do I have the peer pressure keeping me writing.

How does it compare?  For approximately the same amounts of time allocated for writing, the weeknight write-ins that I attended virtually had me producing an average of 1730 words, while writing by myself I averaged about 1060.  That's 60% more words for the write-in days, and mostly (IMO) due to one main cause, and the acronym I used: BICHOK.

Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard.

That seems to be the secret to the success.  By actually having my hands ready to write, and using peer pressure to keep me from being distracted, I wrote many more words than I would otherwise.  It's a secret I've known for a while, though this year was the first I thought to quantify it.

Also interesting to note: the second-most productive time for me (or maybe first, since it was shorter time periods)? Writing in the car while my wife drove us somewhere.  Apparently having no wifi and also knowing that she could tell when I was typing and when I wasn't also kept me productively engaged.

So there you have it, one of the biggest secrets to writing success (or so I've heard).  Actually writing.  Who would have thunk, indeed.

Writing When It's Hard

So, a confession that most experienced NaNos will maybe relate to: sometimes the writing is hard.  Sometimes, you sit down to get your daily words written, and it's just a grind to get them all done.

But sometimes, you can let yourself get psyched out about it also.

Today was a case in point for that.  Yesterday was tough.  Today I wasn't feeling it; I was sure it was going to be a slog just to get the bare minimum of words in.  I wasn't sure how I was going to face tomorrow and the ISU write-in, other than by hoping that, somewhere in those 6 hours of writing, I'd manage to get a couple thousand words.

BUT, I sat down tonight to write anyway.  I hooked into the UStream link for a virtual presence at the write-in, and I made myself write.  And do you know what?

I did my two highest word-count sprints so far this month.

Not only that, but I also figured out what happens next, other than what I had planned, which just won't cut it anymore because now I know something worse to do to my protagonist.  (That's the beauty of having your protagonist think "I have to avoid this because there's no recovering from it."  Then you know what they think the worst that could happen is, and you can do it to them.)



So, what's the moral of the story?  I admit that some days are still a bit of a slog, but don't just give up because you think it's going to be rough.  Actually sit down and type.  You never know when good things might happen.

Brainstorming Setting: Airships

I was originally thinking that there are not airships, or at least not yet, since that might throw off my town geography.  Unless… what if there were more caves?  Or just that there are limitations to the ships… mostly that big haulers are bulky and ungainly.  Gee, what a surprise.  Dealing with the smaller ones, though… How to handle them with defenses?

The normal propulsion is slow.  That's the key. There are airships, but while it can get them fairly fast eventually, the acceleration is slow.  The bigger the ship the slower for one propulsion, of course, but bigger ships can have a number of them (always a tradeoff between the amount of cargo space and space dedicated to propulsion).  That means that the small ones, with one propulsion unit (which I'll have to name sometime, or ID at least) aren't much faster than a walk, and someone at a fast trot could overtake it.  On the other hand, a quiet one at night…

So there should be some way for the ships to be detected, probably by means of the propulsion.  I would like the propulsion to be silent to human ears, but emitting something that detectors can pick up when the ship is within a mile or so.  This will allow fortresses to be alert against airship raids, to the amount necessary anyway.  Until they realize some of the things I'm thinking up.  However, if even the fastest of the airships doesn't get much faster than, say, 30 mph after a good run-up, that means that an archer should be able to shoot them down if necessary, and pre-mounted ballistas or something like that should be able to make short work of all but the hardiest blimps (those would be made by armies, of course, as siege weapons).

This means that airships also travel high for as much as they can, in order to avoid piracy.  After all, if the pirate can't reach them with hooks, then they can't catch the ship except in fairly unusual circumstances (that should make the pilot or captain uneasy about doing, for that very reason).

I'm thinking there could be other situations that someone might be able to accelerate an airship more quickly than expected.  A rope/pulley system, for example, if there is someplace it could be anchored to.  I wonder if there's some other propulsive method that could be used for short term and light ships, something like a fire extinguisher in space, along those lines.  Perhaps pressurized water?  Or maybe by burning out the aether accelerators (good for a long slow burn, used up too quickly for a short blast).

Um, more airship thinking: They are most vulnerable for the loading/unloading parts (also known as landings)... and also near those landings.  That should play into the world a little bit, I think.  The way I consider it, there would have to be pirates trying to take the airships, but on the other hand there would have to be defenses against that.  The best defense is height, but the airships give that up for landings.  Therefore, the pirates are likely to be the biggest danger during the landings. Not immediately at them, but hiding close by.  It would be a risky business, because presumably the landings are also where the most powerful people, the ones who are able to maintain their own armies, would be looking out for things.  So I think there would probably be specific troops designated for patrolling for pirates, and also probably a crack team or two dedicated to getting out and attacking the pirates when they appear.  Of course, their appearance could be a bluff, etc., especially when more than one airship is nearby.

A pirate's best hope to take an airship would be to take control of it and fly it away from those who would resist them doing so.  That might mean trickery at times, though the more straightforward and risky plan is grappling hooks as it goes by, followed by a quick climb and a fight at the top.  If they succeed, they have it and are presumably so high up that nobody else will be able to catch them.  If they fail, they die (or at least are mangled by the drop to the ground).

I can think of a couple ways of working this in.  The first is to have those troops patrolling around the vicinity whenever there is an airship coming in or leaving, and I think that those may start to be more frequent around the time period this starts.  The other would be to have the priest mention intentionally not finding and healing those who drop from the sky, as opposed to the MC (whom I really need to name and write up a character sheet on).  Possibly due to the morals of the priest/shaman in that the pirates chose a life of crime and fighting for their own gain, and therefore chose to accept the chance this would happen.  The MC, on the other hand, had it forced upon her, and could therefore both be healed, and be taught the ways of fighting back.

Thinking Out Loud

Or more accurately, thinking by typing.  This is mostly a brainstorming post.

I think I've decided to go with an idea I had months ago, of a steampunk Zorro-type story set in Peru during the colonization.  More of an Antonio-Banderras Zorro, and less the older style, though I'm not sure how much difference that will make by the time I get to writing.

Note to self: rewatch the Zorro movies for tone, and maybe to review the beats.  The movie worked well.

Right now, I'm thinking my main character will be a bit younger than I recall Zorro being; I'm thinking around 15-16.  I might have him a bit younger to begin with, so that he can grow physically as well as in skill while he is "exiled" from his regular place.

My current plot basically consists of the MC being forced to leave the city for some reason, and half-unconscious and maybe hallucinating, finding his way to a tiny jungle temple where an old native shaman resides.  Training ensues with the shaman/mentor, after which he returns to foil the bad guy's plans.

The emphasis is going to be heavy on adventure and wonder, with some budding romance.  A 15-16 year old male protagonist means boys around 12-14 will probably be the readers, which is somewhere in that transition between girls are weird and girls are wonderful.  Should the romance be nontraditional?  I'm thinking that making him mixed blood and her pure european may be enough.

Alternately, would the roles work reversed?  The woman as the MC and the zorro figure, the man as the romantic interest?  How would it affect the story?  The main readers would become girls 11-14, with similar interests but more emphasis on romance.  I would have to do some setting changes to allow it, perhaps; slight modifications to mores due to the steampunk setting.  On the other hand, it would mean even less suspicions on the woman herself during the zorro parts.

What would a girl be doing that would be so bad she'd be driven from the city, though?  I can think of a couple things, which aren't pretty; but do those things fit in a YA adventure story like this?  I may have to think through this part, but in some ways I'm liking the reversal.  I especially like that the woman is more active, and in this modification (and social class) for the time period, that would probably work out well.  She'll be pretty, of course, though think herself plain.  The boy will have to be someone we can root for, but showing it may be tough.  I think he'll have to try to act nicely to those of lower status and be put in his place by his father.

Darn, but I seem to have a thing for mean fathers.  I may need to check on that sometime.

So from this I need to extract, in the next couple of weeks, a concept, a theme, characters, and a beat sheet/outline.  It would be good to have the outline in hand a bit before the start of November, in order to give myself time to look it over and make sure it's doing what I want it to, but that may be asking too much by this point.  In fact, I think I'd probably be happy with just having a solid set of characters and some sort of action plan I can refer to.

I'll go into more details later, I hope, but for characters I need: the MC, the love interest, the shaman, and the bad guy (for sure).  Those are the main ones.  There should probably be one or two other bad guy types, though the one I referred to was the main baddie.  I wonder if there should be one or two others that the MC has a relationship with, of some sort.  Something to show that the MC isn't just living life waiting to die.

I may need to come up with a map or two, just enough to keep my areas in the city straight.  I'm wondering if I'll need a b plot, and if so what characters will be needed for that, and how I'll work them in as well.  I should skim through my writing ideas to see if any of them will trigger more ideas to work on.

Concept... concept may be difficult.  I should do a post on that also.  Right now I've got something along the lines of "what if a kid in steampunk colonial peru became Zorro?"  However, I don't think that's quite enough of a hook for the concept... although it does have a few unexpected elements to it, combining steampunk and colonial South America as it does.  I'd probably lose the "Zorro" line after some further fleshing out as well, but there's a lot that Zorro conveys that I'd rather not lose.

I need to work on broadening and deepening that, but perhaps that can wait for the dedicated post or two as well.

The theme seems easier to approach... I'm thinking something along the lines of racial prejudices and breaking caste settings, for better or worse (mostly better).  Maybe just prejudices and discrimination; not that I know much about being discriminated against, but that might work well with the MC being female as well.

Gravity Review

As a bit of a detour, while I was away being trained, a coworker an I went to see the movie Gravity in IMAX 3d.

My main impressions were as such, roughly chronologically: Holy cow it's cold in here.  How low do they keep the thermostat?  Wow is that screen big (I've been to IMAX movies before, but not that often).  Cold.  The pre-previews stuff was mostly dumb, and made my eyes slightly hurt while looking at the screen.  The previews all went as follows: Cold.  Oh, interesting.  I'd like to see that.  I wonder what happens next?  Oh, wait, the trailer is done.  Cold.

The movie itself took very good advantage of the 3d aspect, IMO.  Without going into too many details (at risk of spoiling the movie), it starts with some astronauts in space, and the panorama of the Earth, with depth, behind the crew is space was fabulous.  In many other occasions, the 3d effect added wonderful depth to the film, without being obtrusive to me in any way.  The only time I realized the effect during the movie was when I subconsciously tilted my head for a different view on something, and the movie went out of focus due to the glasses no longer being aligned.  It was a problem I quickly remedied.

The viewpoint was such that I had to close my eyes a few times, though I since that was due to the camera spinning around wildly I have to assume that would have happened without 3d as well.

Many shots were done in apparent weightless environments, and I found after the movie that it seems the filming didn't ever get to space.  I don't know how they got all the shots they did, but as a non-aerospace engineer, none of the physics rang false to me (one did appear to be false, but has an in-movie explanation within a couple minutes, so I'm willing to give that one a pass... for now).

As for the plot itself, again avoiding spoilers, it was a well-constructed work.  The plot wasn't the feature, IMO -- that would be the scenery and the visuals -- but it was completely serviceable.  It did tend toward the disaster-adapt-repeat formula, a little obviously at times, but as I said, serviceable.  The mentor figure is appropriately removed, going out on his own terms.  The emotional beats are there, including a spike of humor at times to help alleviate the tension -- or to prep the audience for an even bigger shock by swinging their emotions elsewhere moments later.

Overall I'd recommend it, but mostly for the visuals rather than the story.  If you do, try to see it on a big screen, with 3d is possible.  I doubt it will translate nearly so well to a TV screen.

NaNoWriMo Prep Forthcoming

I've decided to do an experiment and publish my NaNoWriMo prep here.  This will hopefully provide a few benefits, among them forcing me to get to my preparation work that I've been putting off.  As well, there's a chance that I would get some feedback that may help me as I go, and another chance that someone else may find the process useful for their own work.

Some concerns that play through my head, put out as if my subconscious is questioning my conscious:

• Are you worried that somebody will take your work?
  
  Somewhat, but overall I don't think that this is a reasonable fear.  This is only preparatory work; there is still a lot of effort to be done to turn it into a story.  In addition to this, each writer is going to be interested in and emphasize different parts of the prep work, so the resulting story should turn out quite different even if people work from the same source material.
  
• Are you worried that you'll flood your readers?
  
  You mean flood them with regularly blog posts instead of the occasional one when I remember?  Not entirely.  Google's new auto-publish means I can't just select the best to share and save the rest, but I trust my readers (if I have any) have made it to the level where they can skim past a published link to a blog if it doesn't interest them.
  
• Aren't you worried that you'll fail in public?
  
  Definitely.  However, I don't actually expect to.  One reason is that I've done prep for and tried NaNoWriMo multiple times, and am pretty confident in my ability to finish NaNoWriMo successfully, which is the definition of successful prep work as well, IMO.  Another is that I've always experimented with my prep work, trying to find new things, so if it fails, it might be kind of fun anyway.  Finally, I attribute the remaining fear to just the usual cause of author fright, and move on.
  
• What's the prep this year?
  
  I've decided to do a combination of Story Engineering and Million Dollar Outlines.  More specifically, I'm going to try and develop the prep work according to Story Engineering, and use Million Dollar Outlines to inform the process.
  
  This means a reader can look forward to rumination on concepts, characters, themes, and outlines, potentially all mixed together for the benefit of all... or at least the benefit of me.
  
• Does having your subconscious present as a separate entity worry you at all?
  
  Should it?  Hmm.... I may have to think this one over a bit more.

So there it is.  I'll try to label it all and hopefully not spam too much.

October Goals

As previously mentioned, I'm trying to keep these shorter and more defined so that I can better track done or not done at the end of the month.. and perhaps in between.

1. Write at least 250 words each day.
2. Finish the NaNoWriMo newsletters
3. Prep for NaNoWriMo this year.
4. More revision of my latest story
5. Post my latest story for critique.

The first goal is the same as I've been doing, and I'm happy to say I haven't broken my streak yet.  That's over 120 days for me so far.

The second and third goals tie together somewhat.  The newsletters need laid out, and that's just going to take time.  There's no way around that.  Also potentially taking time is figuring out my prep this year.  I want to experiment with other styles of planning to see what works, but I'm running a bit low on the time I have left to plan.

The fourth and fifth goal are also related in that I want to have a story polished and out for critique by the time we hit November and I'm completely distracted by a novel.  I'd like to do a couple revise/crit passes on the story, since it will undoubtedly be harder to pick up in a few months, but such is life.  

Reviewing September's Goals

Here's what I wrote then:
Write at least 250 words each day.
Finish and submit a short story.
Critique at least 6 stories.
Write NaNoWriMo newsletter articles.
Revise 1 short story for critique.
1: Done.  In fact, I think I made it through the month with at least 400 words each day, but that all still counts.

2: Done.  This was a close one, because I got some more insightful feedback on the story I had been working on, and almost didn't submit it.  However, I got a round of revisions in, and out it went.  I can only do so much, and now it's time to move on to the next one.

3: I didn't count to be sure, but I'm counting this as done.  I can recall off the top of my head at least three, and given the way things have been in my life lately, if I can even remember last week that's pretty good.

4: Done, mostly.  I have to revise them slightly, but they are indeed written.  I'll transition the next part into next month's goals.

5: Done. I have revised a story two times, once for more critique and once for submission after that critique.  I also revised another story to prep for critique, one that I've been enjoying lately.

So, overall, mission accomplished on my September goals.  I think keeping the shorter list helped, though I nearly didn't submit my newly revised piece after the gut-check of a really useful critique.  I'll try to keep October's goals similarly constrained.

Writing and Tiredness and Pain

I continuously find myself surprised by how much being tired saps my desire to write -- or to do anything, really.  If I didn't sleep well, I may be able to fake things for a few hours, but by the end of the day I'm ready to crawl into a corner and cover myself, not make myself spend some of my extra time writing.

Not to my surprise, I've also discovered that pain makes me tired.  Certain types of pain, especially so, like those sore backs or aching shoulder muscles.  I've done a number of things to try and keep myself healthy (which occasionally cause those aching muscles), but sometimes the pain just comes in and wears on me.

Key in that is wearing on me... wearing the body down.  Pain can wear someone's physical energy down as the body fights to right what's wrong, but it can also wear someone's mental energy away as they fight to ignore the pain, to struggle on with what they feel they should be doing rather than just concentrating on the pain and how to manage it.

I've not made the direct connection like this before, but this means if I want to do well at writing, or at least if I want to continue to consider it a hobby and not a chore, I should try to make sure I'm as well-rested and pain-free as I can be.  Some of this might involve changing when I do my writing -- mornings perhaps instead of evenings -- but a lot of it has to do with two things.

First, I need to pay more attention to those small pains when they are small, and at a minimum do something to keep them from growing if I can't eliminate them entirely.

Second, I need to stop my bad spiral where I stay up too late to write, so I'm tired the next day, which  means it's hard to get the energy to write, which means I stay up too late in order to get the writing in.  That's just not good.

Writing, Editing, and Critiques

Two stories, both related, about me having a story critiqued, and critiquing another.  Similar outcomes.

First, a friend sent me a short story she had sold, and was settling in to revise.  I read it over and had a generally good reaction, and sent her some of my comments.  Soon after, I got an email that primarily read "THESE COMMENTS ARE AWESOME".  (That's a nice feeling, by the way, when your efforts are so appreciated.)

So as a follow-up, I took the short story I thought was in the best, most sellable state, cleaned it up a bit more, and sent it to her for comments.  She... well, she didn't tear it apart, but she pulled it into many pieces, and explained how those pieces kept the story from being as effective as it could be.  In particular, I had extra exposition at the beginning that was probably unnecessary, I could introduce more conflict and handle the exposition by having an oppositional character (rather than just the circumstances), and the ending could be more life-altering, maybe.  I'm really not sure about the last one yet, but the others are advice gold.

Of course, that means the story I thought was in good enough shape to submit for potential sales, I have serious doubts about.  On one hand, I need to wrap it up as best I can sometime, and send it along.  On the other hand, I don't want to send less than my best work, or at least work that I feel fully realizes the story... and I now know how much better the story could be.  I don't think I can send it like that.  I will be missing my goal to submit a story, unless I somehow both revise that story and get another round of critique in somehow, but after some other discussions about how magazines can now easily track a submitters previous submissions and how they improve (or not), I'm pretty sure I don't want to put anything too terrible out there.

Not that this is, but still.  Goal officially abandoned, for another month.

On the other hand, I also recently did a critique where I didn't see much of a story in the short story.  Others disagreed, which is their right.  It's good to remember that some critiques aren't just what the story needs either.  Writing them out may help me figure out my own stuff, but that doesn't mean they will always be helpful to the recipient.  It's when it is helpful to neither that I should really be careful about even posting the critique.

September Goals

Let's keep this short and sweet for the goals.

1. Write at least 250 words each day.
2. Finish and submit a short story.
3. Critique at least 6 stories.
4. Write NaNoWriMo newsletter articles.
5. Revise 1 short story for critique.

I'm going to write about about why, in the hopes that writing my thoughts down will help keep me on track to accomplishing the goals.

The first one is pretty obvious.  I've got a good streak going so far (approaching 100 days), and I'd like to keep it going.  I've been using the Magic Spreadsheet, which has been good, but I may need to cut back on the whole level-up idea due to the number of extra words it adds to my "should do" list.  I'm not sure I need that pressure.

The second is because, while I've been "finishing" short stories for a while, they sit in various states of editing, and I never mark it as done enough to send it off for submission (recently, anyway; at one point in my college career I was submitting some stuff that should never have left my computer, as well as one piece I'm still proud of).  I need to get on the ball for submissions, or decide that I'm not really in it for publication, which is entirely wrong.  I'm just scared of negative feedback at this point, which is a phase I'm pretty sure every author goes through.  In fact, according to some, they never get over it.

The third is to keep up the goodwill I think I've developed among some critiquing communities.  I hope this goodwill allows me to get good critiques of my own stories when I submit them.

The NaNoWriMo newsletters is a task I took on very early this year.  I've got some of it in hand, but I need to write my own articles for the newsletters to help out.  In fact, I need to poke a few others who might write as well.

Finally, I want to keep the critique pipeline going.  In fact, I think that should be one of my big goals this weekend: start editing my next short story for critique.

Hugo Results and Thoughts

So, the Hugo awards were announced this past weekend, and I thought it would be amusing to look back at how I ranked things, and how they ended up in the voting.

First up, short stories:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Mono no Aware	Mono no Aware
2	Immersion	Immersion
3	Mantis Wives	Mantis Wives

Interestingly, I pegged this category. I have a feeling Mantis Wives struck others the same way it struck me, and hten that leaves a 50/50 chance for the order.


Novellettes:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	The Girl Thing Who Went Out for Sushi	The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi
2	Fade to White	In Sea-Salt Tears
3	In Sea-Salt Tears	Fade To White
4	The Boy Who Cast No Shadow	Rat-Catcher
5	Rat-Catcher	The Boy Who Cast No Shadow

This one was pretty good as well, with me getting the correct winner, but flipping around a couple of places below it.


Novellas:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall	The Emperor's Soul
2	San Diego 2014	After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall
3	The Emperor's Soul	The Stars Do Not Lie
4	On a Red Station, Drifting	On a Red Station, Drifting
5	The Stars Do Not Lie	San Diego 2014

I would talk about getting it completely wrong, here, except that I correctly placed the #4 story. Not much of an accomplishment, that. Interestingly, except for Stars, I personally enjoyed all of these and don't feel like the voting is out of line as much as reflecting a different overall enjoyment factor for the stories. I know I'm supposed to gripe about politics or the poor taste of the voters, but I can't bring up the bile right now.


Novels:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Redshirts	Redshirts
2	Blackout	Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
3	Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance	2312
4	Throne of the Crescent Moon	Throne of the Crescent Moon
5	2312	Blackout

Again, I somehow managed to call 4th place (and first). I've talked to enough people to figure out that apparently Redshirts can be polarizing -- some love it, and some don't. Some people, of course, gripe about it winning (or blame it on political factions and the fix being in). But my review stated my reasons for the vote; I won't repeat all of them here.

I will say that it is interesting how different the rest of the order was. I'd truly like to know what those who loved 2312 and voted for it to be first place saw in the novel, as I apparently missed it.


Graphic Novels:

	My Choice	Award Order
1	Grandville	Saga
2	Schlock Mercenary	Locke & Key
3	Locke & Key	Schlock Mercenary
4	Saga	Saucer Country
5	Saucer Country	Grandville

Does this count as completely wrong? I think so. I share no special insights into the category.

I'm skipping my rankings of pro and fan artists, since there is little I can learn from them to apply to writing... at least at this point in time, for me. Also, I think the overall point has been proven that I don't necessarily align with the general fandom's rankings when it comes to these stories. This is something I've known, but it then reinforces the point made in Million Dollar Outlines that I should be studying the other, well-ranked stories to look for things I might want to include in my own.

August Goals Retrospective

At the beginning of last month, I said my goals were:

1. Read at least one book on writing.
2. Continue to write every day (at least 250 words)
3. Summarize my notes from a writing book (this month's or last)
4. Critique at least 6 submissions
5. Apply lessons from a writing book to at least 2 stories
6. Get at least 2 submissions critiqued
7. Revise two stories
8. Do a title exercise on at least 1 short story

How did I do?

1. I read Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and loved it.  I'll have a review written sometime (cue goal for this month).
   
2. I wrote every day, using the Magic Spreadsheet, which continues to be magic and full of spreadsheet-y goodness.
   
3. Half marks here.  I did do a review of Million Dollar Outlines, and I finished my notes from the book, but I didn't summarize it yet.  Soon!
   
4. I easily beat this one out of the water.  This was one of the things I ended up emphasizing this month, and I believe I critiqued 3 a week, on average.  Many was the day I felt like I didn't have the mental energy to write (or edit *shudder*), but finding the problems in other people's works... that doesn't seem to be so hard.  Now if only I'd be able to translate that to my own works more easily.
   
5. I've applied some of the lessons to 1 story.  In this case, I'm going to give myself a fail.  I'm sure I'm internalizing some of the lessons, but not as many as I'd like.
   
6. Oh, look, another fail.  I might give myself half-credit for 1 story critiqued 2 times, but I'm not sure.  The good news is that I'm starting to feel pretty good about the story again.  (This probably means it's time for somebody to tear it apart again, but I'm enjoying the feeling while I can.)
   
7. There is a theme here, and that theme is that I've been working on one story.  I need to improve that, and soon.
   
8. Complete fail.

So how did I do?  3 succeeds, 2 halfsies, and 3 fails.  That's not the way to get my goals met, is it?

My take-away from this is actually to dial back on the goals for a bit.  I felt kind of pushed for this past month (the daily writing is part of that, I know, and I shouldn't be leaving it for so late at night, but I'm not ready to give that up yet).  I also don't like seeing the halves and the fails.  So, I'm going to trim the list and really focus on meeting those goals.

Million Dollar Outlines Review

Million Dollar Outlines, by David Farland.  In short, I'm very glad I bought it.

In more detail, then.  David Farland starts off with what might appear to be a digression -- why do people read?  In reality, he gets to the heart of why people read in order to figure out what authors need to do in order to deliver to people what they are looking for when they read.  His conclusion?  Without nuance, to be put through an artificially stressful time for a good emotional payoff.

Emotional payoff is a theme that recurs.

He then covers audience research, including a lot of information from his days as a movie consultant.  This includes the emotions different audiences want to experience (statistically, at least), and how to look at what is selling well now in order to try and figure out what audiences are looking for.  This can be done with movies, TV shows, and books, though caveats apply to all of the analysis.

Also included are some ideas and tips on characters and plotting.  I thought the tips sections were well done in general, though of course they weren't the primary point of the book.

Then the outlining sections start.  Farland walks you though why outlines might be needed and the benefits they bring.  He continues with developing the outlines, including working on them over multiple passes and rearranging them at times in order to make them work better.  Near the end, he takes you step-by-step through the process he uses to develop an outline.

He then finishes with an appendix containing tips on moving from the outline to the completed novel, and a few items of note -- including some analysis of Lucas and Speilberg's discussions when trying to develop the concept and plans for the first Indiana Jones movie.

The book has me excited to try out some of the techniques, and also to try and combine them with another book I recently read, Story Engineering.  I have little doubt that my stories would be better with some more pre-planning and a little less seat-of-the-pants writing.

Some minor critiques I have would include the fact that the story plot graphs aren't very well explained (or perhaps I missed the reference to the book that would explain them).  I have a feeling I've been missing something with these, as I've seen them referenced more than once.  Then again, I might be able to pick up the idea from the book itself.  Also, reading the book on my b&w kindle made some of the graphics included for the plot graphs be less than illuminating, though the main points were easy enough to follow.

Mistakes Waiting to be Made

I seem to be referencing articles talking about movies a lot lately, but another one came to my attention the other day.  From tor.com, a number of mistakes movies make that can throw people right out of the movie:

I’m not talking about the “sound in space” problems or never-ending ammo. Just weird niggling details that remind you all too easily that what you’re watching isn’t remotely real.

Some of them, of course, are very movie-centric -- sounds in the wrong place or the wrong sounds is one -- but it's possible that any of them might show up in writing as well.  After all, a writer is describing the sights and sounds to the reader, and if the writer describes a metallic ringing as the hero draws her sword, well, that's the same error as listed in the article.

The cash problem mentioned is another that some novels do well, some novels gloss over well enough you don't notice, and a number of them somehow have the heroes with enough money to stay at inns on an extended voyage with nothing bringing them income.  It may be slightly easier for written works to fix, also, unbound as they are to the visual medium that is movies, and thus able to add in an aside or two that takes care of the problem.

One of them hit directly home for me, however.  Number four, about the lack of smoke for many blazes.  I'm currently editing one of my short stories that, wouldn't you know it, takes place inside a burning building.  And after reading the article, I realized I don't have enough smoke in the area.  Granted, for most of it I don't have open flames visible either, but the smoke is an insidious challenge -- and therefore something great to add to the story to make the hero's life even that much harder.  Needless to say, I'll be making another pass through the story to cover that as well.

Be sure to read the comments as well, as they cover some other points related to, or even not mentioned  in, the article.

The ones that stood out for me in particular, other than those mentioned:

• Getting beat up should have lingering repercussions.
• Parchment is too valuable to burn in most cases, and much harder than paper to burn anyway.
• Characters running around with their fingers on the triggers of weapons -- or, alternately, cocking the gun/chambering a round too many times.  This is beyond the classic six-shooter with 13 bullets problem.

4 Levels of Art Consumption

So, I've been going through the Hulk Smash articles (at least some of them) since my enlightening discovery of his confusing blockbuster article.  In this article on the levels of art consumption, Hulk talks alot about spoilers (in various non-spoileriffic* ways), but how he groups the levels of consumption (or appreciation) are interesting to me.  Paraphrased, the given levels are:

1. Experience [art] with childlike naiveté.
2. Callused by repetition, but still seeking the experience from 1.
3. Transcended above 1 & 2; able to contextualize the emotional experience and think about why it is so (the "critic class").
4. Those who understand the craft of creating the [art].

I've always enjoyed reading, and in good stories I'm still in group 1.  I may sometimes be in group 2 (those are the biggest complainers about spoilers, according to the article), but I don't think I'm often there.

However, as a writer, where I want to be when reading a good story (fiction or "true-life", the important part is the story) is in group 4.  Group 3 is good, and a nice step toward group 4 if necessary, but if I want to create stories, I want to be one of those who understand the craft of creating the stories.  It's where I aspire to be, and when I'm in my critique groups, trying to fulfill the function of group 3 as best I can, is when I try to practice actually being in group 4.  However, I should practice on other stories, even or perhaps especially on the ones I love.  It may be hard to avoid being pulled in to the story, but if I take it slowly and work on it, hopefully I can pull it off.

It's also important to note that group 4 for writers can still be applied to movies and TV shows, since it's the story that matters, though there are obviously some techniques that don't work well on the screen, and some techniques that don't work well in novels.  It's still a source of practice for understanding the story and how it's constructed, and I should take advantage of that as well.

Finally, one of the best bits from the article, about group 2:

THEY LONG TO FEEL THE EMOTIONS THEY ONCE HAD SO EASILY AND CHERISH MOVIES THAT CAN MAKE THEM FEEL THAT WAY ONCE AGAIN. [...] BUT THERE ARE ONCE AGAIN MORE CONCERNS. LIKE THE  FACT THAT THIS IS THE LITERAL PATHOLOGY OF DRUG ADDICTION (IE, CHASING YOUR FIRST HIGH AGAIN AND AGAIN TO DIMINISHING RESULTS).

Yes, perhaps it's best to stay out of group 2 as much as possible.


*"non-spoileriffic" and "non-spoilerrific" both pass the spell check filter, but "alot" doesn't?  What computerized world do I live in?

HULK SMASH: Blockbusters

From Film Crit Hulk Smash: THE AGE OF THE CONVOLUTED BLOCKBUSTER:

ALL OUR BIGGEST POPCORN MOVIES SEEM DESPERATE TO STRIVE FOR OBFUSCATION. AND AS HULK RECENTLY WALKED OUT OF A SCREENING OF STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, THE DEPTHS OF THIS REALITY HIT HULK DEAD ON… 

WE LIVE IN THE AGE OF THE CONVOLUTED BLOCKBUSTER.

I'll say it right out: this is a wonderful demolition of recent blockbusters that end up making little to no sense, either in the movie theatre or after (I'm not versed enough to call it a trend, though Hulk might be).  The impetus seems to be Star Trek: Into Darkness, which I saw a couple months ago and had a few problems with (pointed out superbly in this article as well).

Still.  Some of the main points from the article can easily be applied to writing novels as well as the screenplays.  Such as:

SO WHEN WE LOOK AT THE STORIES IN ABRAMS’ WORK WE DON’T FIND MUCH IN THE WAY OF STORY AT ALL. WE FIND PLOTS. IT’S ALL MASTER SECRETIVE PLANS BUILT ON REVEALS UPON REVEALS UPON REVEALS. [...] WE WATCH FILMS WHERE THE MECHANICAL PLOT DICTATES CHARACTER REACTIONS, RATHER THAN CHARACTER’S ACTIONS DICTATING THE STORY.

and

BY OBFUSCATING CLARITY IN THE NAME OF A GRANDIOSE PUZZLE, WE CAN’T HELP BUT GET IN THE WAY OF THE OPTIMAL EMOTIONAL RESONANCE IN OUR STORIES. WE MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE CONSTRUCTIONS.

and

THERE'S CAUSE. THERE'S EFFECT. AND THOSE TWO THINGS ARE  GROUNDED IN A THROUGH-LINE OF TRANSPARENCY BECAUSE IT STEMS FROM LASER-FOCUSED OBJECTIVES THAT GUIDE THE SHIFTING NARRATIVE. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, THERE’S ALWAYS A POINT TO ALL OF IT, AS THE ENDGAME OF ANY GOOD MYSTERY HAS TO RESONATE.

and... and... and just read the article, alright?  I can't keep quoting it or I'll just be reprinting the whole thing here, practically verbatim.

But on to the practical parts.

Which has more inherent drama, a stranger telling you he is your long-lost brother and being chased, or your actual brother you've known your life telling you he is being chased by cops?  By analogy, when a mystery person has things happen to them, we care less, but when a character we've come to know has things happen to them, we're invested.  This requires setup.

About reveals:

ALL A WRITER NEEDS TO MAKE A REVEAL WORK IS TO ASK TWO SIMPLE QUESTIONS: “WHAT IS THE SPECIFIC CONFLICT BEING CREATED BY NOT KNOWING THIS INFORMATION?” AND “WHAT IS THE SPECIFIC CONFLICT CREATED BY NOW KNOWING THIS INFORMATION?” AND DEPENDING ON THE STRENGTH AND VIABILITY OF THAT CONFLICT YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWER ON WHEN TO REVEAL.

...and in the course of reading the article find out how Finding Nemo could have been a huge flop.

So what do you think?  What are the best pieces of writing advice you find in the article?  Or can you convince me it's wrong, somehow?

August Goals

Herewith my writing goals for August.

1. Read at least one book on writing.
2. Continue to write every day (at least 250 words)
3. Summarize my notes from a writing book (this month's or last)
4. Critique at least 6 submissions
5. Apply lessons from a writing book to at least 2 stories
6. Get at least 2 submissions critiqued
7. Revise two stories
8. Do a title exercise on at least 1 short story

For (1), I've got a bit of a head start, since I finished one writing book while on vacation, and got the first couple chapters of the next started.  I can't remember if it was at the very end of last month or the start of this one, but I'm going to count it as this month.

I'm excited about the books, both last month's (Million Dollar Outlines) and this month's (Story Engineering).  I'm ready to start analyzing my stories again, and trying to figure out how to improve them even more.

I do plan on submitting at least one story, though I'm not making that an official goal because I don't know how long it's going to take me to work through all the issues found in my current frontrunner for submission.  Now that I have another of my favorites finished, though, perhaps it will get some love as well.

July Goal Retrospective

I initially typoed the headline as "gaol", and while that may sometimes be an accurate indication of my feelings toward goals I set up for myself, in this case I don't think so.  As Freud would no doubt say, sometimes a typo is just a typo.

• 250 words written a day -- Done!
• Revise 3 stories -- 1 revised twice, and 1 finished.
• Clean up email -- nowhere close
• Critique >= 6 short stories or submissions -- Done!
• Get >= 2 stories critiqued -- 2 stories, but one of them again after revision.
• Renaming exercises for story titles -- 0.
• Submit >= 1 story -- 0.

Regarding submitting, I had big plans and had the story picked out (the one I revised, got critiqued, revised, and got critiqued?  Yeah, that one).  Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) when I returned from vacation, it was to an evisceration of how I used a given profession in a modern setting, but somebody who obviously knows more about that profession than I do.  It was great, and it gave me much to think about, but in the meantime I don't feel I can submit something that I know has flaws that I can fix.  It will just need a bit of time, that's all.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: 2013 by Kim Stanley Robinson

The last of the Hugo-nominated books that I read, and in many ways one of the largest.  I haven’t read any of Kim Stanley Robinson’s other books, so I don’t know how common this style is for his writing, but I gather that they generally span quite a range of places and people.  What I would call epics, though the term is usually used more with fantasy than with sci-fi.

The world-building was far and away the strongest part of this book, in my opinion.  The many ways that people might adapt things in space to allow humans to live there (and adapt humans as well) were considered, and by the end of the story large amounts of them had been shown.  So far as I could follow it the science (of the parts we can know right now) was accurate, and I trust that people who can follow more than me probably verified it as well.  It’s that kind of story.

What it isn’t, as much — again, in my opinion — is anything much of an actual story.  To me, it read a lot more like “stuff happened” than “connected events leading to a revelation or change.”  As presented, changes happened aplenty, and the POV characters may even have been integral in some of them happening, but for the majority of the novel the POV characters weren’t acting toward causing many of those things to happen.

Analyzed from a promises/resolutions point of view, the novel started with Swan’s life disrupted from losing a family member, and you could say that the rest of the novel was her gaining a new one, forging a new connection in the world.  On the other hand, you could say the inciting incident was Swan’s grandma dying, and the resolution being the fruition of her plans.  So far as I recall, neither was given much prominence by Swan herself, which means that neither played strongly.  It might have been a novel of Swan finding herself, or finding her way, but again Swan doesn’t appear to be dissatisfied with much that gets resolved by the end of the story.  She doesn’t appear to change, and with the majority of the book from her POV, that gets rough for me.

Other side characters, and even POVs, eventually get woven into the end of the book, but I will admit to heightened expectations after seeing the good reviews the book had received, and so I was kind of expecting a bigger bang of colliding plot-lines at the end.

In the end, 2312 reads more like “a year in the life” book, with a few other POVs thrown in and some pastiche material added from the world-building notebook, than it does a story with a defined beginning and end.  There must be people that this appeals to, but I am guessing I’m not one of them.  The ideas were grand, but the story did nothing special for me, so in the end it falls to the bottom of my rankings.

1: Redshirts
2: Blackout
3: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance
4: Throne of the Crescent Moon
5: 2312

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Fan Artists

Since I covered Pro Artists (and since I don't have a review ready yet for 2312), I thought I might touch on Fan Artists.

In many ways, this is an easier category for me to judge than Pro Artist for the past few years.  Again, I don't know much about the technique of art, but my guess is that the Fan Artists presented in the category tend to have less wide-spread appeal (for whatever reason), and so in a sampling of the art, I am more likely to be strongly drawn to some and not at all interested in others.

Again this year, one of the fan artist nominations was for sculpture rather than just images, which I appreciate even if I didn't rank it the highest.

Normally I'd go from bottom up, eliminating what I think is the weakest from a strong group of contenders, but in this case the work from one artist that was included in the nominating packet stands out so much for me that I'll skip right to it.  That is Galen Dara, with a strong showing across the board.  Each of the pieces included in the packet intrigue me, and each of them have further details for me to notice when I am looking at them.

Next I'd go for Brad Foster.  His samples in the voter packet are hit-and-miss for me, but they appear well-drawn, and a couple of the samples really catch my eye.

Third I'd take Maurine Starkey.  None of the samples of her work appealed to me as strongly as did Brad's (or even others ranked lower), but they are all consistently interesting and appear well-done.

Fourth, then, I'd take Spring Schoenhuth.  This kind of irritates me, because I'd like to take sculpture higher, but I'm afraid that the very form doesn't appeal to me as much as the images do.  All of the sample sculptures presented looked neat and I'd love to have them, but I just am attracted to the images more.

Finally, then, comes Steve Stiles, who loses out not by being bad (the Scalzi piece included as a sample I thought was really good, individually) but by having 2-4 eek out victories over his stuff this time.

1. Galen Dara
2. Brad Foster
3. Marine Starkey
4. Spring Schoenhuth
5. Steve Stiles

July Goals Update

How am I doing on my July goals?

1. 250 words written a day -- done so far.
2. Revise 3 stories -- 1 done so far.
3. Clean up email -- not done yet.
4. Critique >= 6 short stories or submissions -- 2 so far.
5. Get >= 2 stories critiqued -- 2 so far, but I'm not calling this done yet.
6. Renaming exercises for story titles -- 0 so far.
7. Submit >= 1 story -- 0 so far.

So, two-thirds of the way through the month, more or less, and it's not looking good so far.  I'm really going to have to hit these hard this weekend, and I'm already booked.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Pro Artists

This isn't exactly specific to writing, but since I'm doing reviews of the Hugo nominees, I figured I could write a few notes about the professional artists as well.  This will be a bit different as well in that I have minimal ability to analyze or critique the art.  Instead, I have to go entirely with what I feel.

Actually, sometimes that doesn't seem as different from the written works as I thought at first.

So, the professional artists are always hard for me to judge, because I feel all their works are good.  For many if not most of this year's nominees, I even recognize a number of the works as covers of books I've read.  I'm not sure if that makes a difference, but I suspect I can't help but like or dislike a particular work a little more based on my feelings for the book it was on.

Sometimes I also feel like throwing a dart and being done with it.  Nice and simple.

Instead, I'll rank them from bottom to top, totally in my opinion and with no credentials to rank them whatsoever.

Coming in last, but still hard to say anything bad about, I have Julie Dillon.  I don't know why in particular, but I think it's because most of the works shown in the packet represent basic scenes I've seen represented before.

Next, Vincent Chong.  Primarily because, despite how generally good the packet submissions are, none of them really held my attention for long.

Third, Chris McGrath.  I liked the two browner pieces a lot (one of them being the Alloy of Law cover), but made this elimination due to the similarity in scene construction for all of the submitted pieces.

Finally, and this is a really tough choice, I go with Dan dos Santos in second place.  I really like the detail in his works, and could look at them for a while just finding new neat things about it, but even though it might be nearly a toss-up, I have to give the nod to John Picacio.  This makes me a bit of a hypocrite, I suppose, since all of his pieces in the packet are also composed the same way.  However, each one evokes a sense of wonder in me, and a desire to read the story (or in the case of Hyperion, re-read the story) they represent.  Granted the Shrike isn't quite like I imagine, but that's the risk on cover portraits, and it is still a really cool painting.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Blackout by Mira Grant

Blackout is another of the Hugo nominated novels that is one book in an ongoing series -- this time, the culminating novel of the Newsflesh trilogy, one of my favorite settings since I read Feed as a nominated  story a couple years ago.

Like the other two, the use of blog updates (published and private) add good texture and additional viewpoints to what is happening in the story.  Having tried blogging myself (this is my third? fourth? attempt at blogging), I do have a bit of difficulty in suspending my disbelief that everybody seems to blog -- from the vice president to random scientists, not just those making their living from it.  That aside, though, the world continues to be richly detailed and this book exposes even more natural consequences and developments in the world it has created as events continue.

In Feed, the story was first-person POV until [redacted for spoiler], at which point another first-person POV took over (not counting the alternate viewpoints shown in the various blog entries).  In Deadline, that POV was continued (to the best of my knowledge, and I haven't double-checked), except for one twist at the end.  In Blackout, the story alternates first-person POVs between the two POVs from the first two books.  This could be confusing, and indeed it was a bit difficult for me to get used to at first, but the strict alternation of viewpoint chapters helps keep everything sorted out, as well as the fact that the two storylines are unrelated for the majority of the novel.  This also allows more tension to be introduced as, when the storylines were drawing together, one POV would show actions that would unknowingly affect the other POV, and vice-versa.

I would generally classify the novels as horror, and though I don't usually claim to read horror, some of the recent items I've read in the genre have been pretty good, and not at all what I would expect.  That said, there is still a quotient of horror that must be had, a minimum level, as it were, and in a book and trilogy dealing so closely with the zombie uprising, it almost had to end with a fight against hordes of zombies, and with some characters dying.  It seems a necessity of the genre to do so, and although I have no objections to how the novel ended, to me the need to include those elements made the ending less memorable, rather than more.  The reveals were great, but rather than face down the (face of the) smart enemy, the good guys had to face mindless zombie hordes instead.

Still, a smart book and a good end to a well-done trilogy.

My current ranking:

1) Redshirts

2) Blackout

3) Captain Vorpatril

4) Crescent Moon

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold

I've been reading Bujold's Vorkosigan saga for years, and at it's best it is some of the very best speculative fiction I've read, let alone some of the best space opera I've read.

Unfortunately, this isn't one of the best entries in the series.  However, given where the series has been and how Bujold has expressed the desire to show growth and change in her characters, it is inevitable that the focus had to move to other characters, and Ivan ended up being a nice choice for it.  It gives a breath of fresh air to the series, and even though it's inherently more lighthearted, this hearkens back to some of the origins of the Vorkosigan saga, before Miles had kids and responsibilities (and, dare I say it, a bit of restraint).

So, how does it hold up on it's own merits?

Bujold is one of the best writers I've read lately in multiple aspect of the craft, and I can't do much but pick nits here.  Here, due to the light-heartedness and the POV character (and somewhat due to the genre), we have another episode of plots threads that are driven in large part via external conflicts and circumstances.  Both Ivan and Tej do have their own internal conflicts, but while they struggle with the internal ones, there really isn't much in try-fail cycles for them.  Instead, we have a good rom-com in space, with events conspiring to alternately drive the couple together and then try to keep them apart.

The technical skill in the writing is excellent, and the characters are well-drawn and properly hit the right emotional notes.  The circumstances flow well, and actions have consequences.  Basically, all the ingredients are there... but this still falls short for me.  Maybe it's overshadowed by it's more prestigious previous books (definitely true, IMO), but I also think that, considered on it's own merits, it ranks as a good story but not a great one.  And, in continuing my reviews, what is needed to rank on top is a great story.

Current rankings:

1) Redshirts

2) Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

3) Crescent Moon

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

Of the five nominees, this is the novel I have read (completely) most recently.  I finished it a little under a week ago, but have been waiting a bit to give the novel time to percolate before I review it.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is Saladin Ahmed's first published novel, though he has had multiple shorter works published, and overall I thought it was very polished for a debut novel, though in a couple of places I thought it could have used a touch of improvement -- mostly in POV clarity.  I recall two or three times when I got confused about exactly who the POV is, which isn't exactly good in a strict 3rd-person limited story.  At least one of those I can blame on the book's layout, as what appears to have been a space break in a chapter happened to fall at the end of a page and was lost to the margins, but others happened as well.  Every time I got confused I went back and reviewed the section and realized that it was still in a particular person's POV, but not so firmly that it was unambiguous to me without double-checking.  In particular, I think that a couple times started by mentioning the POV character's names and one thought on what was happening, followed by paragraphs of other people's actions and reactions -- oftentimes, one main actor, who I would start to think was the POV character, until a thought was presented from the original POV character once more.  My takeaway from this is to always make sure I have the POV character firmly established, and possibly default to too much reminder rather than too little, even if occasionally I need to wedge a reference to the POV character in among other character's actions.

There is also common advice to limit the POV characters, especially as beginning authors writing a novel, and that might have helped here as well.  I believe there were at least 5 POVs -- 6, counting the guard's POV in the prologue -- and I'm not convinced that we were always, to use the often-given advice, following the POV of the character who was in the most pain.  (Of course, there are other valid reasons to choose a POV character, one of which is to remind the reader of that POV's plot thread, but since this book followed one main plot thread from multiple POVs, that doesn't apply as strongly here.)

So far as the plot goes, it was very externally-heavy in conflict, or at least in progress during the conflicts.  Each main character seems to have been given one (1) internal conflict to deal with, or possibly 2 for some of them if you count "I'm getting too old for this" to be an internal conflict.  Most of the internal conflicts were introduced and stayed constant until the end, after the external conflict was resolved, whereas the external one had them doing the try-fail cycles.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and so far as I understand it is more of the norm for the sword-and-sourcery subgenre, but it still makes for a work that is less engaging to me.  I want the characters run through an internal-conflict mangler as well as the external-conflict one.

Overall, it was a fun, fairly quick read, with a handful of problems I can hopefully take and learn something from.  I wouldn't rank it the best story I've read that was published last year, but it was by no means a bad story either, and not disappointing as a Hugo nominee.

Current ballot rankings:
1) Redshirts
2) Throne

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi

I think this is the first novel of this year's nominees that I read, which means it's been sitting my my memory and fading the longest, and yet I can still remember large parts of what I felt.  The plot, yes, if I concentrate, but especially what I felt while reading it.

To begin with, the only other Scalzi fiction I'd read was Old Man's War -- a nice little tale, though given all the praise I'd heard of it, I thought it fell a bit short.  I had been meaning to pick up more of his works since then, to see if they improved and how much, when Redshirts came out.  I requested it from the library, got it a few weeks later, and settled in to read one night.

In the first part of the novel, I remember being surprised and amazed that such cheesy writing had been published, honestly.  Still, there was something about it -- Scalzi walked a fine line there, since for the novel to work it had to be cheesy, and yet keep the reader going.  In retrospect, the prose must have been nicely crafted for that effect, but at the time I was almost on the border of giving up on the novel.  (Sidenote -- the name, cover, and blurb all helped as well.  They pointed out that this was not a novel that was taking itself seriously, so I could sit back and go along for the ride a bit more than I might otherwise.)

The next part I remember was that same night, as I got to the part where the Narrative was introduced, and having some strong disbelief -- again, not that it was wrong for the story, but that an author could get away with something so meta.

By then I was hooked, though I had to stop for the night.  I picked it up again the next night, a Friday, and devoured the rest of the story.  Really, once I got to the audacious plan to fix things, there was no stopping me.  Sure, the novel was cheesy and meta, and still felt a bit like a popcorn-flick, but it gloried in being so, and I gloried with it.  Then it's characters started struggling even more, and I cared about them, and even as the cheese faded away and it actually became a (kind of) serious novel, I enjoyed it.

The story came to an end, and it was satisfying.  It worked, and tied everything together, and it was a nice little story.  I was satisfied, and considered stopping there, but I had time before bed and there were the three codas remaining.

The first one intrigued me, spinning a new perspective on the story's events.  It was plausible enough to wonder if the whole thing was in fact the writer's delusions causing him problems.  It added some interesting ambiguity to the novel, which I appreciated.

The second coda started slow, but hit me hard.  I've not exactly flitted from thing to thing (heck, I've been programming computers for more than 20 years now, and over 15 of that professionally, which is almost the opposite of flitting), but some of my hobbies feel that way.  I pick something up, then drop it.  Pick up another, and drop it.  At the time, I had been considering if writing was going to be that way or not -- because let's face it, writing can be hard sometimes, and when things get hard, a big part of my subconscious thinks I've been doing something wrong, because how hard can it be to sit down and produce professional-quality output, right?  I mean, I do it at work all the time (nevermind those 20 years of practice -- those aren't the reasons you're looking for, my subconscious says while waving a hand).  So I felt somewhat indicted by the end of that coda, even though it was a story and fictional character who had been doing something wrong.

As an author, I'd also note that this coda was another extremely effective use of second-person writing. Either these are getting more common, or I'm just noticing them more, but either way I should pay attention to when they are used and why.

So, thus set up and already somewhat reeling from the second coda, I read the third one.

Look, I'm a guy, and talking about emotions is sometimes hard for me.  Also, I don't analyze them much or spend time thinking about the hows and whys of them -- quite possibly to my overall detriment, I'll admit.  However, I'm not ashamed to admit this coda nearly brought me to tears.  I was, frankly, shocked at how much it affected me.  I was moved to send @scalzi a tweet about it, something I'd never done about a story before (or since, so far).  I had to, quite literally, sit on the couch with the closed book in my hand for fifteen minutes or more before I could get my mental and emotional balance enough to do anything else -- like remove my bookmark and put the book in the "return to library" pile.

So, you might say that I have a high opinion of this book, and you'd be right.  I liked it enough I actually made a note to nominate it for a Hugo when the nominations opened, and followed through on that.  Will it get my final vote?  I haven't finished two of the novels yet, so I can't be sure, but it is certainly a very strong contender.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Novellas

I enjoy shorter works, but with the novellas I sometimes get the best of both worlds: small enough to be read in a day, or sometimes even half a day, if I have nothing else I need to be doing, but long enough to get some depth and a full plot, sometimes with a couple of subplots.  While they can't do the intricate tie-together of dozens of plot threads that the best epic stories can, they can still pack a wallop at the end.

How did this year's nominated crop do?  In what seems to be a trend this year, many solid pieces and none that jump out at me, forcing me to vote for them.

• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon Publications)

Of all the stories here, this was the one that felt the most like a complete novel -- and I could be mistaken, but it might have been the one with the longest wordcount as well.  It certainly sticks in my mind as one of the longest to read.  That said, the story was also one of the most intriguing to me.  I loved the way it wove the three timelines together, raising questions in some just to answer them in the others, only to have those answers reflect back and then cause more questions again.

On the (small) downside, some of the character actions felt a bit undeveloped to me -- that is, they could well have been justified, but what was in the text might have been a touch too sparse.  Also, while I enjoyed the "we did it to ourselves" aspect of the ending, I thought the reference to Gaia specifically protecting herself was odd, and in my mind there was no need to introduce it; one or two catastrophes leading to nuclear armageddon is plausible enough by itself.

Back to the plus side, the Tesslies were never explained, which surprised me but in a good way.  I think including something for them would have been too neatly wrapped up.

• The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon Publications)

Brandon offered an electronic version of this to nominating members of Worldcon, and I took him up on it, having otherwise little chance to read the story.  I can't say how much that effort helped in getting him nominated, but I feel it holds its own when laid next to the other selected nominees.  As usual with his fantasy stories, the magic system is both unique and well-thought-out, and is one of the strengths of the story. (I found after reading the story that this was set in the same world as Elantris, which I didn't grasp during the story but after learning this found a couple hints scattered throughout.)

On the negative side, I'm of split minds about the ending -- specifically, the action scenes.  The majority of the story is more along the lines of a mystery or court intrigue, with the various players and factions maneuvering against each other.  The flight and fight to wrap up the story is a good thing for paying off some promises about how the magic system can be used on a person, and yet the fighting in particular seemed off from the tone of the rest of the book.  While I'm being critical, I'll add that I don't recall much of a growth arc to the MC through the story.  Both of these are rather small nits to be picking at, however, and the overall story is quite solid.

• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)

This story is apparently set in the same world as some others by Aliette de Bodard, including the short story Immersion.  In this particular case, I wonder if the story suffers just a bit for it.  The worldbuilding is comprehensive, and the look into another future culture is fascinating, but despite my general appreciation for this length of story, in this case I think it was the wrong choice.

In a bit more detail, schematically I can see how the story is structured such that the ending matches the beginning, the arc for the main character is there, there are hints of arcs for other characters... but in the end, there is so much happening in the story, and so many references to other things happening, and so much detail that is glossed over, that I thought the story would benefit from more room dedicated to these things.  The threads weren't dangling, necessarily; we were given the information about where they tied up, but not where they went in between, or, from my perspective anyway, sometimes enough information to see how it should impact the rest of the story.

My other complimaint (that's a combination compliment and complaint) is that the characters were realistically drawn, each of the prominent ones with their own goals and troubles, but I really didn't know who to latch on to and none of them elicited that sympathy in me that makes me want to keep reading and see what happened to them.  Probably the closest in that regard is the grandmother AI, who is unfortunately silenced before the end of the story.

• San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, Mira Grant (Orbit)

This is another that ties into other fiction, but in this case I've happened to have read the other fiction.  I can't know for sure, since I haven't approached it from a blank slate, but I believe that having read the novels adds just a bit of resonance to the story, and in particular the framing device.  The interview and look back adds to the suspense, because you know something bad is going to be happening, but without having read the novels I doubt I'd care who is doing the interviewing or want them to be able to succeed in getting the subject to open up.

Likewise, I can't recall if the story explicitly mentioned that this was one of the first giant zombie outbreak problems, or if that information came with the other novels.  That said, I found the portrayal of a zombie attack in an environment set very close to current days to be pretty realistic.  I liked that each of the people presented in the meat of the story had their own reasons for being there, their own behaviors, and their own goals as things started to get bad.  And their own responses to the events that were happening.  Plus, of course, Mira Grant did a wonderful job in getting me to like most of the characters even though I knew they were going to be killed by the end.

An interesting side-note to liking the characters -- she didn't make all of the characters likable, though they almost all had something about them that the reader could identify with, even the ones who made poor choices.  I think this made it feel a lot more realistic, rather than making it feel heavy-handed.  In the same vein, the one character we know survived isn't incredibly likable either.  She's not horrible, but she's a typical teenager who isn't having a good day, and takes it out on people around her.  Rather than make the reader dislike her, though, it actually causes empathy and pity.

• “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2012)

I don't know if the world this story is set in is a larger one populated by Jay Lake in other stories or novels, but this is another with a large amount of worldbuilding evident.  The amount of ideas in the story is impressive, as is the author's ability to convey so much of the setting without bogging down the story.  Part of that is due to playing on some strong parallels to our history -- and playing on a few tropes -- but a lot of it is due to good writing.

Unfortunately, this one fell down more than the rest for me, due mostly to plot.  There is plenty of conflict, and (at least somewhat) sympathetic characters on all sides of the inciting event, but in the end it seems more like a chronicle of events and what the characters did during them than it does a story.  I'm going to take a stab at why with the MICE quotient -- the story starts with a scientist announcing a discovery that upsets the religious teachings of the time.  To me, this indicates a clear event story, since the status quo is upset (and if that's not enough, the later revelation that his evidence will only become more and more obvious to others as well clearly indicates that the status quo will not continue).  However, after a fight in the end, we have an event that doesn't restore the previous status quo (the church's figure running off), and a character-arc resolution for the scientist follows -- where he resolves to not push his discoveries on others, which undermines the idea that a new status quo has been accepted.  I think this ending, as much as anything, leaves a feeling that things are still unresolved, which is what leads to my feeling of stuff-happened rather than story-occurred.

My Opinion
As the discussion of "The Stars Do Not Lie" may indicate, it quickly falls to the bottom of my rankings. For the remaining four, I'm afraid I have to rank On a Red Station, Drifting fourth, followed by The Emperor's Soul third (despite it's magic system creativity, the story didn't strike me as hard as the remaining two).  Finally, between San Diego 2014 and After, Before, During, I have to give the nod to After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall.  This is primarily due to how well it kept me engrossed in the story, and despite my feelings about the Gaia explanation in the end.  San Diego 2014 didn't maintain that level of interest from me, but it did provide a more satisfying ending (IMO), so I may end up swapping before I cast my final ballot, but I doubt it.

A Giant Pain in the Neck

So, I haven't been writing as much as I had wanted to over the weekend.  In fact, it's been a struggle to meet my daily word count, and I haven't made any progress at all on my other writing goals.

The reason?  A giant, and literal, pain in the neck.

I suppose, to be fair, I have a pain in my upper back also, and my shoulders.  It all started last Wednesday, when I went to a Personal Training appointment after work, and spent a lot of time working on my back and shoulder muscles in various ways, including the dreaded pull-ups.  I should say that I don't like pull-ups, and I doubt I ever will, but I do appreciate being able to do a few of them, and that I am starting to be able to do more.  In this case, however, I think I strained too hard attempting a new personal best.

That night was fine.  The next day was 4th of July, and I woke up stiff and achey, and it never really went away, though it occasionally got better.  Friday I went to work stiff and sore, though by the time I was there for an hour or so I was basically functional.  That lasted until Friday night, at which point I spent way too long hunched over my laptop.

What followed was excruciating pain, only slightly relieved by a very unpleasant and persistent -- but effective -- massage from my wife.  That got me good enough to fall asleep, but every time I rolled over in my sleep I was jolted awake in pain.  In the morning, it was so bad that I couldn't sit up like normal, because I literally could not stand the pain that came from supporting my head while lifting my body from the bed.  I had to use a hand to hold my head in position while sitting up, which is not the simplest thing to manage; nor, fortunately, have I had much practice at it.

So there I was, Saturday morning, and I couldn't even turn my head side-to-side or lean over more than a couple inches without large warning pains shooting through my neck and back.  Saturday morning, the time I had set aside for making good progress on my writing goals this month.

Instead, I spent an hour, maybe more, stretching and loosening those muscles.  Then I got a massage.  I went on a gentle walk, and then stretched again.  Eventually I could move my head around, though not 100%, and I only needed one painkiller every 4-6 hours, instead of two.

As part of my rehab, I avoided the computer.  I couldn't avoid thinking about my story, and many other things I wanted to use the computer for, but I avoided it as much as I could.  I spent about 20 minutes on it Saturday, writing a blog post so I could get my daily word-count.  I've spent a bit more today -- I'm probably up to 30 minutes working on it (and an additional 45 minutes video chatting with family that I don't count due to standing in a neutral position the whole time).  Doing all of this at a standing desk helped a lot also, though I'm actually about at my limit now, which means I should set this aside and do more stretching.

So, my long-term take-away from this pain?  Keeping my body in shape is important, and part of that is stepping away from the computer for frequent breaks.  That I can try to do both at work and at home.  Another is to use my standing desk more again.  Finally, I need to get in even better shape so I can hit those workouts without the long-term pain, and also bear in mind my limits while doing so such that I don't repeat this incident.  Especially not this week -- I'm already too far behind in my goals as it is.

July Goal the Seventh

My last writing goal for July, and potentially one of the hardest for me, as it's a step I haven't done since college: submit at least one story for publication.

Of course, I can't just make it easy on myself.  I intend to use one of the stories I edit into better shape, and I intend to do some research to figure out where best to submit it first.  I have decided I will submit to the most prestigious market I can find that it fits in first, and go down the list from there.  Hmm, perhaps a spreadsheet is in order...

Due to vacation vagaries and timing issues, I'm willing to cut myself a bit of slack on this one.  Since I'm on vacation in the last week of July that will entail me being cut off from internet access for the majority of the time, I'm willing to accept a detailed submission plan and prep instead: specific publication chosen, story formatted appropriately, and query written, all ready to be sent as soon as I return from vacation.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Graphic Story

A detour from the regular fiction here, to deal with the pictures with words attached.

I always have an interesting time with these.  On one hand, I like graphic novels, and think they can do some pretty awesome stuff with the pictures, as opposed to just words.  On the other hand, I have a preference -- a strong preference -- for complete stories, or at least complete story arcs.  For the few years I've done the Hugo thing, I've struggled on how to rate the graphic novels, especially for many of them that are published collections of ongoing stories, but are not a complete story, or even a complete arc in a story, in and of themselves.  For many of the nominated works in the past, they read more as a chapter in a story than anything else.

This year continues the same tradition for at least two of the nominees (Saga and Saucer Country, both just starting out), while two others (Grandville and Schlock Mercenary) tell what seems to me to be a complete story.  The fifth, Locke & Key, further blurs the lines, because it seems like a chapter in the overall story (some of which I've also read), but also presents at least a story in the flashbacks.

So.  There's that.

• Grandville Bête Noire, written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse Comics, Jonathan Cape)

Last years' voter packet was my first exposure to Grandville, and I loved it.  I thought at the time that it was a one-off book, though it had a lot of worldbuilding involved.  Silly me.  This year saw another nominated, and now I know that it is an ongoing story, and that I should be paying more attention to what it is doing.  Last year's was one of my favorite graphic novels ever, and unfortunately this year's entry didn't quite hit the same notes, for me, though it's a very solid entry and quite worthy of the nomination.  The art is top-notch, and the worldbuilding remains wonderful.

• Locke & Key Volume 5: Clockworks, written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)

As I mentioned before, this was a very interesting one.  It continues to be wonderfully illustrated, and the subcurrents of the plot keep it tense for me.  The horror is well-done also.  However, I continue to find it hard to rank the chapters in a longer tale as the best among nominated works.

• Saga, Volume One, written by Brian K. Vaughn, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

I love this introduction to the world and story -- for the most part, at least -- and it has some very effectively creepy images in it.  I am in awe of the imagination that can come up with these images and situations.  However, it suffers twice in my opinion; once from being only part of a story (though it did complete the mini-arc of finding the transportation location), and once from being the introduction, which to me means there's more setup and less payoff in this part.

• Schlock Mercenary: Random Access Memorabilia, written and illustrated by Howard Tayler, colors by Travis Walton (Hypernode Media)

I've been reading Schlock Mercenary for longer than I've been voting on Hugos, and continue to enjoy it on a nearly daily basis (my misses on some days; Howard Tayler's update record is near legendary).  That said, while Random Access Memorabilia is a decent story, it suffers a bit from the same symptoms as Grandville does this year: for me, I've seen these characters in a story I felt was stronger, and though I try not to let that color my opinions too much, it undoubtedly does.  The artwork, while different than all the others, hasn't been any sort of weakness for years now either.

• Saucer Country, Volume 1: Run, written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Ryan Kelly, Jimmy Broxton and Goran Sudžuka (Vertigo)

I could almost copy and paste sentences from above for this one.  The premise is interesting, and I want to read more of the story, but that's the problem as well in my opinion; this was almost all setup, and really very little payoff (though playing the psychologist was a nice touch).  None of the entries had anything less than solid artwork, and though this is one that I remember the least about, I think that has more to do with what it depicts (mostly modern, non-fantastical settings) than anything else.

My Opinion
I can't go against my strongly-held inclinations toward complete stories.  I inevitably enjoy those stories more than those I only get a chapter of.  With that said, it comes down to a choice between Grandville and Schlock Mercenary for the top choice, and as much enjoyment as Schlock Mercenary has given me through the years, it comes in second in this comparison.  Following that, I'd have to rank them Locke & Key, Saga, and then Saucer Country.

July Goal the Sixth

As mentioned in one of my retrospectives from last month, I need to work on my story titles.  This goal is to go through at least 5 stories -- probably the ones I think have the most potential -- and do some renaming exercises for them.

Story-A-Day Retrospective: Final Thoughts

My last thoughts on the Story-A-Day challenge are mostly about how I accomplished it, and what helped me do so.  In particular, I gave myself more accountability than I often do, and I think that helped force my way through it.  Without the built-in support and accountability of NaNoWriMo, I felt I had to do something to help myself out.

The main outlet for this was posting my goal and occasional progress on the goal to G+, to the survivors (at the time) of Mary Robinette Kowal's online writing class.  In particular, I think staking the goal out early and publicly helped, and I've continued the tradition for July.

The other tool for online accountability was using the Magic Spreadsheet, which a local writing friend introduced me to.  The idea there is to build up the chain of writing (at least a small amount) every day, and it gives you points -- more based on the chain you develop than on the amount of words that you write.  Since I had already decided I wanted to end up with 30 stories in 30 days, and mostly write them one a day, it was a natural fit.  So I started at the beginning of June, and was encouraged to see my words and points pile up through the month.

I've continued the habit as well, allowing my points to pile higher in the spreadsheet.

In conclusion, it was a great exercise, and I'll probably do it or something like it again -- but not too soon.  I've much enjoyed not having as much pressure when I've been writing for these past few days.

Hugo 2013 Reviews: Novelettes

A full slate of novelettes to consider this year.  This is usually one of my favorite categories, since there's a bit more room to play in than short stories allow, but they are still short and focused enough to read in one setting.  Also a unique aspect: two nominated stories by the same author (Seanan McGuire).  Also interesting is the pervasive melancholy or couple-doesn't-get-together endings through this set of stories.

• “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Postscripts: Unfit For Eden, PS Publications)

An interesting story that glosses over the magic/science behind it to deal with people who are made of different stuff -- literally, in the case of the boy made of glass.  I liked the melancholy tone the end set, and indeed the whole endpiece once the two decided to run away, but overall this one left me feeling so-so.  I wonder how much was potentially lost in translation for this one, since it was originally published in Dutch.

• “Fade To White”, Catherynne M. Valente ( Clarkesworld, August 2012)

The advertisement interludes sold it for me, and a good thing too, because otherwise the full-immersion effect may have been too much for me to keep reading (other than the Hugo nom, of course).  I liked how it worked the post-apocolypse angle, and all the changes to society seemed very believable, along with the daily concerns of the POV characters presented.  A bit of credulity-stretching with the teenage interest in older movies, but that added an important element of translation from my world to that of the character's, so it's hard to complain too much.  The two POV characters don't end up together, and I'm not sure if I applaud this as not being cliched, or am sad because they were nice characters and could have made each other happy.

• “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan (Edge of Infinity, Solaris)

Space exploration and body modification, with a hint of lawyer struggle and oppression from the home world?  Sounds like a lot, and for all the world-building that seems to have gone into this, I hope there are other stories or novels set in the same world.  Still, the density of world-building made this one of the easiest for me to get into, and I liked it all-around.

• “In Sea-Salt Tears”, Seanan McGuire (Self-published)

Each of Seanan McGuire's stories were apparently set in a larger world of her own, and deal with at least some of the same characters as appear in her novels.  I haven't read those novels, and yet for neither of the stories did I feel like I was missing anything vital to my understanding.  This story seemed early-on like it was going to be a twist on The Little Mermaid, and I was happy it didn't end up that way.  I was also invested enough in the relationship that I was hoping the MC wouldn't accept the transition after all, though I knew it was probably a forgone hope.  I liked how the choices seemed to come from the characters and incidentally create conflict, rather than appear to be done by authorial dictate.

• “Rat-Catcher”, Seanan McGuire ( A Fantasy Medley 2, Subterranean)

As above, the story was well-contained enough that I didn't feel lost without having read any of the novels that these characters appear in.  I've always liked stories about intelligent, prankster, or fae cats, and this one delivers.  I also like the idea of cats sitting and watching the Shakespeare plays, way-back-when.  This one does hit the somewhat-cliche result of the self-fulfilling prophecy -- or at least, it strongly hints at it -- but really the prophecy and its fulfillment are almost just background texture around which the story takes place; that of the new king of the Cat Sidhe taking the position from his elder.

My Opinion

These are a hard lot to choose between.  None seem unworthy, but none jump out and force me to move them to the top of the list either.  I think for sheer fun and world-building, Fade to White and The Girl Thing... move to the top of the list, with The Girl Thing Who Went Out for Sushi first, Fade to White second, followed by In Sea-Salt Tears, The Boy Who Cast No Shadow, and finally Rat-Catcher... unless I change my mind between now and when I lock in my vote.

July Goal the Fifth

I need to get critical feedback on my stories.  I will chose two of them specifically to submit for critique.

Once I have that feedback, I'll integrate it into a new draft.

Ideally, I'll go through two rounds with each story  (fresh readers each round).