I'm going through another edit cycle with my novel, based on recent reader feedback. I'm trying to arrange to do a volunteer shift at a local community center. I'm still arguing with BulletPhysics. There's probably a dozen other things I ought to be doing and don't have time for. If Wolfram and Hart showed up at my door and offered to remove my sleep so that I could have more hours in the day, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.
Maybe not. I do like my sleep. But a few more hours in the day would be nice.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Refining
I've been thinking that my novel-writing process needs to include more planning time before I actually get to the point where I'm typing "Once upon a time." While writing Stone of Names, I hit several points where I realized that I hadn't really thought certain events through, and that I needed to go back and rewrite my earlier scenes so that my later scenes made sense.
I didn't have much in the way of an outline for this book. I started with three specific scenes in mind -- one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end -- but with nothing specific planned out in between. It was fairly obvious to me what needed to happen between the first scene and the middle scene, but as I wrote, I realized that I wasn't sure what to put between the middle scene and the last scene. I wound up adding a couple of new characters, which made the last half of the book more interesting, but then I had to go back and introduce them briefly in the first half of the book to keep things tidy.
There were also plenty of little details that I needed to go back and add so that the main character was properly prepared to overcome a variety of obstacles. If I'd thought through those obstacles up front, I might have been able to plan for them ahead of time.
What I think I'd like to try for the next novel is something like this:
Step 1: General statements about the book's action. This could be as simple as two sentences: one describing the physical action (legendary warrior Aria Aviplix must find and destroy the Eye of Elfador) and one describing the emotional action (Aria is forced to confront her ex-lover, the Duke of Dredskul, and resolve her feelings for him). With these two statements made clear up front, I can design the rest of the novel to continually reinforce these themes.
Step 2: Chapter outline. This would be a brief outline, giving a few sentences to describe each chapter at a very high level. This lets me set the pace of the book and ensure that I've established a continuous line of action from the beginning to the end.
Step 3: Scene outline. I'd then break up each chapter into scenes, and for each scene, make a bullet-point list of what needs to happen, what information needs to be delivered, and what needs to happen in prior scenes to make the current scene work.
Doing this work up front would allow me to manipulate the action and the plot elements so that they're nicely distributed through the book, and so that there's no discontinuity or awkward shifts of direction.
The trick would be getting through this planning phase as expediently as possible. It won't be immediately obvious when I'm done with the planning phase, since I could easily wind up tinkering with the story outline for months. At some point I'll need to say "good enough" and start generating prose.
I have no doubts that I'll still wind up doing some level of revision and rewriting. As I'm writing the book and experiencing the characters and events, I may change my mind about a variety of things. But at least with a decent outline up front, I won't be in danger of hitting a dead end halfway through the book.
I'm quite sure that just this sort of planning is recommended by a variety of "how to write a novel" books, but I think that trying to follow someone else's recipe for art is a bad idea. You need to develop your own process that agrees with your own pace and your own goals. My process will probably continue to change with each book; hopefully this means that each book will be better than the last.
I didn't have much in the way of an outline for this book. I started with three specific scenes in mind -- one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end -- but with nothing specific planned out in between. It was fairly obvious to me what needed to happen between the first scene and the middle scene, but as I wrote, I realized that I wasn't sure what to put between the middle scene and the last scene. I wound up adding a couple of new characters, which made the last half of the book more interesting, but then I had to go back and introduce them briefly in the first half of the book to keep things tidy.
There were also plenty of little details that I needed to go back and add so that the main character was properly prepared to overcome a variety of obstacles. If I'd thought through those obstacles up front, I might have been able to plan for them ahead of time.
What I think I'd like to try for the next novel is something like this:
Step 1: General statements about the book's action. This could be as simple as two sentences: one describing the physical action (legendary warrior Aria Aviplix must find and destroy the Eye of Elfador) and one describing the emotional action (Aria is forced to confront her ex-lover, the Duke of Dredskul, and resolve her feelings for him). With these two statements made clear up front, I can design the rest of the novel to continually reinforce these themes.
Step 2: Chapter outline. This would be a brief outline, giving a few sentences to describe each chapter at a very high level. This lets me set the pace of the book and ensure that I've established a continuous line of action from the beginning to the end.
Step 3: Scene outline. I'd then break up each chapter into scenes, and for each scene, make a bullet-point list of what needs to happen, what information needs to be delivered, and what needs to happen in prior scenes to make the current scene work.
Doing this work up front would allow me to manipulate the action and the plot elements so that they're nicely distributed through the book, and so that there's no discontinuity or awkward shifts of direction.
The trick would be getting through this planning phase as expediently as possible. It won't be immediately obvious when I'm done with the planning phase, since I could easily wind up tinkering with the story outline for months. At some point I'll need to say "good enough" and start generating prose.
I have no doubts that I'll still wind up doing some level of revision and rewriting. As I'm writing the book and experiencing the characters and events, I may change my mind about a variety of things. But at least with a decent outline up front, I won't be in danger of hitting a dead end halfway through the book.
I'm quite sure that just this sort of planning is recommended by a variety of "how to write a novel" books, but I think that trying to follow someone else's recipe for art is a bad idea. You need to develop your own process that agrees with your own pace and your own goals. My process will probably continue to change with each book; hopefully this means that each book will be better than the last.
Friday, April 19, 2013
The Data Center Always Rings Twice
One of the very, very few good things I got out of my time at Borders was a profound appreciation of the luxury of a full, uninterrupted night's sleep.
Within a couple of weeks of my joining Borders, I was handed a pager and given on-call responsibility, 24x7, without rotation. I remained on-call more or less non-stop from that point on. I actually managed to get myself into an on-call rotation for the last couple of years, but all this meant was that I wouldn't be the first person called in case of trouble.
So, on any given night, I might be awakened by the phone ringing at 2 A.M. to notify me of some critical issue that had to be resolved right away. Sometimes it was an issue that had never occurred before and had no obvious cause; sometimes it was an issue that required me to get dressed and drive down to the offices; sometimes it was an issue connected with a system that I no longer had any formal responsibility for.
I don't know how other folks deal with that kind of responsibility, but after ten years, I got to the point where I went to bed every night dreading the ring of the phone. Sometimes I would lie awake, imploring the local benevolent spirits for the blessing of a night without a phone call. If I had stayed there much longer, I would have been rubbing lamb's blood on the door every night so that the Angel of On Call would pass me by.
I have not been on-call since October of 2009. And even now, when I go to bed, I get a twinge of horror when I look over and see the telephone. But then I remind myself that those days are passed, and that my slumber is no longer threatened by the possible failure of a computer program somewhere else on the planet. I assure myself that my life without on-call for the past four years has not been a dream that will shortly be interrupted by the ring of a cell phone.
And then I sleep.
Within a couple of weeks of my joining Borders, I was handed a pager and given on-call responsibility, 24x7, without rotation. I remained on-call more or less non-stop from that point on. I actually managed to get myself into an on-call rotation for the last couple of years, but all this meant was that I wouldn't be the first person called in case of trouble.
So, on any given night, I might be awakened by the phone ringing at 2 A.M. to notify me of some critical issue that had to be resolved right away. Sometimes it was an issue that had never occurred before and had no obvious cause; sometimes it was an issue that required me to get dressed and drive down to the offices; sometimes it was an issue connected with a system that I no longer had any formal responsibility for.
I don't know how other folks deal with that kind of responsibility, but after ten years, I got to the point where I went to bed every night dreading the ring of the phone. Sometimes I would lie awake, imploring the local benevolent spirits for the blessing of a night without a phone call. If I had stayed there much longer, I would have been rubbing lamb's blood on the door every night so that the Angel of On Call would pass me by.
I have not been on-call since October of 2009. And even now, when I go to bed, I get a twinge of horror when I look over and see the telephone. But then I remind myself that those days are passed, and that my slumber is no longer threatened by the possible failure of a computer program somewhere else on the planet. I assure myself that my life without on-call for the past four years has not been a dream that will shortly be interrupted by the ring of a cell phone.
And then I sleep.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Richard Kadrey
I just got finished reading Butcher Bird, by Richard Kadrey. I grabbed it as soon as I saw it on the shelf, dragged it home, read it, and enjoyed it. I didn't like it quite as much as Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels, but it was still a fun ride.
I suppose you could say that the Sandman Slim novels and Butcher Bird are urban fantasy, but you'd have to take urban fantasy and ...
Well, let's say that you and Urban Fantasy decide to hit the bar. You've worked two 16-hour shifts straight, but Urban Fantasy was just fired after a shouting match with the boss, so between the two of you, you make up one well-adjusted working person. You go to your favorite bar in Los Angeles: it's in a dicey neighborhood, but the drinks are honest, the music is good, and the bartender is hot and knows your entire life story.
You and Urban Fantasy spend most of the night there, chain-smoking and drinking tequila. At some point a couple of attractive bar patrons join you, and you know, from the first moment, that some combination of the four of you are going to wind up in bed, but there's an order and a process to these things. You all get drunk and tell each other outrageous things, brilliant things, things that might have been lies, but they were the truth as soon as you said them.
One of your two new friends owns a tattoo parlor, and you you all drift over there, for more drinks and cigarettes, and you and Urban Fantasy both get new ink to add to your collection. It looks like things are getting romantic quickly between Urban Fantasy and the third member of your party, but the fourth member is passing out, so it looks like you're about to be superfluous. You head out, stone drunk and in a strange and dangerous neighborhood, but you sing yourself home, singing all the good old songs, the songs that were written by musicians who weren't chasing MTV or YouTube; they wrote the songs because they had to, because those artists were full of beauty and pain and if they didn't put it into notes, they would have died (and some of them eventually did).
You wake up alone in your bed when the phone rings. Urban Fantasy is calling you. It seems that Urban Fantasy woke up sprawled out in the hall outside Urban Fantasy's apartment, without any clear memory of getting there, and without the apartment door keys. The keys are probably at the tattoo parlor, and Urban Fantasy wants to know if you remember the name of the place?
You eventually remember, and the two of you track the place down, only to find that it's been taken over by apocalpytic cultists who are trying to summon a colossal elder god, and you and Urban Fantasy have to charge in with motorcycles and shotguns to save the world, save the owner of the tattoo parlor, and get the apartment keys back...
...and that's pretty much Richard Kadrey's urban fantasy.
I suppose you could say that the Sandman Slim novels and Butcher Bird are urban fantasy, but you'd have to take urban fantasy and ...
Well, let's say that you and Urban Fantasy decide to hit the bar. You've worked two 16-hour shifts straight, but Urban Fantasy was just fired after a shouting match with the boss, so between the two of you, you make up one well-adjusted working person. You go to your favorite bar in Los Angeles: it's in a dicey neighborhood, but the drinks are honest, the music is good, and the bartender is hot and knows your entire life story.
You and Urban Fantasy spend most of the night there, chain-smoking and drinking tequila. At some point a couple of attractive bar patrons join you, and you know, from the first moment, that some combination of the four of you are going to wind up in bed, but there's an order and a process to these things. You all get drunk and tell each other outrageous things, brilliant things, things that might have been lies, but they were the truth as soon as you said them.
One of your two new friends owns a tattoo parlor, and you you all drift over there, for more drinks and cigarettes, and you and Urban Fantasy both get new ink to add to your collection. It looks like things are getting romantic quickly between Urban Fantasy and the third member of your party, but the fourth member is passing out, so it looks like you're about to be superfluous. You head out, stone drunk and in a strange and dangerous neighborhood, but you sing yourself home, singing all the good old songs, the songs that were written by musicians who weren't chasing MTV or YouTube; they wrote the songs because they had to, because those artists were full of beauty and pain and if they didn't put it into notes, they would have died (and some of them eventually did).
You wake up alone in your bed when the phone rings. Urban Fantasy is calling you. It seems that Urban Fantasy woke up sprawled out in the hall outside Urban Fantasy's apartment, without any clear memory of getting there, and without the apartment door keys. The keys are probably at the tattoo parlor, and Urban Fantasy wants to know if you remember the name of the place?
You eventually remember, and the two of you track the place down, only to find that it's been taken over by apocalpytic cultists who are trying to summon a colossal elder god, and you and Urban Fantasy have to charge in with motorcycles and shotguns to save the world, save the owner of the tattoo parlor, and get the apartment keys back...
...and that's pretty much Richard Kadrey's urban fantasy.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Boston
My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those caught in yesterday's blasts, as well as their friends and families.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Give Me Your Honest Opinion
The three stages an author goes through when receiving criticism are as follows:
- Supervillainy: "How dare they malign my work? Clearly they are incapable of comprehending the true magnitude of my talent! When I've reached the top of the bestseller list, they'll crawl over each other to beg my forgiveness -- crawl, I tell you! Mwa ha ha ha!"
- Melodrama: "How could I have been blind to all of these flaws? This book is a failure, from start to finish! I'm nothing but a no-talent hack with a word processor and delusions of grandeur! I must now drown my existential pain with vokda/chocolate/Nethack/etc." (Note: the author does not condone the use of Nethack for purposes other than for which it was originally designed: verifying that your computer is capable of displaying the entire ASCII character set.)
- Progress: "Hmm ... I think I see how I can address these shortcomings while staying true to my vision for this book. The book will be richer and more complete as a result."
Friday, April 12, 2013
From The Ashes
A little while back, I wrote about the ultimately futile efforts to wish a dead MMORPG back into existence. Now it seems that a group of folks have decided that the only way that anyone is going to do the work to rebuild City of Heroes is if someone actually does the work to rebuild City of Heroes.
This group, Missing Worlds Media, carefully avoids mentioning anyone's IP, but it should be clear to CoH veterans exactly which "missing world" they're hoping to replace. The web site is still under construction, but what's there seems to suggest that the all-volunteer team has a leadership structure, programmers, and artists, and they've chosen a graphics engine. Now all they need is a logo and a T-shirt and they'll have everything they need to be a failed startup.
What you're reading now is not the original blog post I wrote about this. I had written a long, snarky, world-weary article about how I would personally graph out the betting pool squares for this project's failure.
I've deleted all of that. Yes, an MMO is a huge project, and the idea of pulling together a worthy successor to City of Heroes with an all-volunteer team seems insane.
But what if they pull it off?
Wouldn't that be incredible?
I'm going to temporarily turn off my cynicism chip and encourage anyone who believes in City of Heroes, anyone with any talent in art or programming or anything to go to the Missing Worlds Media site and see if there's a way you can help.
Best of luck, Missing Worlds Media. Excelsior.
This group, Missing Worlds Media, carefully avoids mentioning anyone's IP, but it should be clear to CoH veterans exactly which "missing world" they're hoping to replace. The web site is still under construction, but what's there seems to suggest that the all-volunteer team has a leadership structure, programmers, and artists, and they've chosen a graphics engine. Now all they need is a logo and a T-shirt and they'll have everything they need to be a failed startup.
What you're reading now is not the original blog post I wrote about this. I had written a long, snarky, world-weary article about how I would personally graph out the betting pool squares for this project's failure.
I've deleted all of that. Yes, an MMO is a huge project, and the idea of pulling together a worthy successor to City of Heroes with an all-volunteer team seems insane.
But what if they pull it off?
Wouldn't that be incredible?
I'm going to temporarily turn off my cynicism chip and encourage anyone who believes in City of Heroes, anyone with any talent in art or programming or anything to go to the Missing Worlds Media site and see if there's a way you can help.
Best of luck, Missing Worlds Media. Excelsior.
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