Category: Musings

Head Full of World

Some time ago I was chatting with my friends Jody Wurl and Neil Gaiman. Jody made a comment about finding it hard to imagine what it was like to walk around with the whole world of a book in your head. Neil’s response was very smart, as they generally are, and immediate and had to do with the ebb and flow of a book over the course of writing. Since the conversation had moved on by the time a good response occurred to me, I didn’t bring it up at the time, so I’m going to do it here.
I find it difficult to imagine what it’s like not walking around with the whole world of a book in my head. From my earliest days I’ve built elaborate worlds in my imagination. Generally, I’ve had at least several floating around in there of my own design plus a bunch that belong to other people. They may not all be at the forefront at any given time, but it only takes a moment for me to put myself in Middle Earth or Pern or Lankhmar.

Now, there is some qualitative difference in my understanding of the inner world of Aragorn vs. the inner world of Ravirn, since I’ve got a lot more experience placing Ravirn in unfamiliar situations. But in many ways the experience of being a novelist and being a fan have a lot in common experientially, or at least they do for me. Stepping out of this world and into one of fiction, mine or someone else’s is pretty much second nature for me.

The conversation didn’t move that way, but I think it’s an interesting topic so I’m going to leave you with a few of the questions that occurred to me to do with what you will. If you’re a writer, do you find there’s a big difference between having someone else’s world in your head and having one of your own? Does one seem to fill your brain more? Is there a cognitive difference in terms of creative brain space vs. consuming brain space? If you’re not a writer, how do you experience a fictional world? Is it a place you wholly contain in mind, or is it very much a place that you access through the gateway of a book? I don’t have comments turned on here, both due to excessive amounts of spam and because I found that I wasn’t posting when that was the case, but I’m more than happy to entertain them on twitter or facebook.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 2 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Ideas = Cheap and Plentiful

2013 update: This post was originally inspired by a post on the same subject by Justine Larbalestier and Eleanor Arnason’s response when I linked it.

When I say that ideas are easy, what I mean is that producing the basic idea isn’t all that much work by comparison to the other parts of writing a book. It can take no more than a few minutes and sometimes happens as a subconscious process.

Doing the research, blocking out what to do with the idea, and writing and polishing the book can take anywhere from months to years of hard work. That’s certainly been the case for me. The core of even the best of my story ideas have happened in a flash or the length of a dream. Crafting that idea into an actual story is what takes real time and major effort.

I’m a relatively fast writer–I’ve written a 5,000 word story in single day and sold it, and I routinely write novels for my publisher in under six months. In that same six months I will come up with dozens of new story ideas. Most of them will be discarded, but a few go into the ideas file, a few get plotted out for possible later use, and might even became the next novel. I’ve had hundreds of novel ideas that I think are really cool and thousands that I’ve thought would make a decent book. I’ve only written twenty because the writing is where the work and the effort go.

Is the production of the initial idea easy in absolute terms? I suppose that depends on the writer. In my case, I can’t not produce story ideas in job lots.

Is it easy by comparison to taking the core of the idea and doing the research and reshaping needed to make it into something you could hang a book on? That’s certainly been my experience. Is it really easy compared to the actual months long day-in-day-out effort of writing and polishing the actual novel? Again, that been my experience.

More than that, idea generation is pure unadulterated joy, especially if you can get someone else to do the fiddly bits. One of the most entertaining things Wyrdsmiths does as a writers group* is to sit around and brainstorm solutions to story problems. I always find that to be an electric experience. Dozens of ideas get thrown out in a matter of minutes, batted around, added to, twisted, knocked down, thrown out–it’s like eight-way tennis with ten balls, some of which have really strange properties. And, if it’s not my story we’re talking about, I don’t even have to make the implementation work.

So yes, I think idea generation is easy for a certain value of easy.

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*at least for me.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 13 2008, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

The Affordable Care Act & Making Your Living In The Arts

Despite Republican politician feet being stamped and Republican politician breath being held and Republican politicians shutting down the government, Obamacare begins to go into effect today and a lot of people who had no insurance or junk insurance are now going to have the opportunity to sign up for real insurance.

The Affordable Care Act will almost certainly save the lives and/or livelihoods of people who are my very dear friends. Lives is obvious. Livelihoods a bit less so. Let me elucidate: medical bankruptcy, like all bankruptcy, treats copyrights as assets. Get too sick without proper insurance and you lose control of your life’s work. Further, I have friends who have died because of things that might not have killed them if they’d had this level of insurance.

I am a very fortunate artist in that I am married to a women whose insurance carries us both. If I were not, I would not have functioning knees, and I’d be down a number of teeth. That or I would have had to give up on writing to find other work. This isn’t an abstract partisan argument for me. This is personal and it is life and death.

15th Publishing Anniversary

I sold my first short story 15 years ago today. The story was WebMage and went to Weird Tales, then edited by George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer and published by Warren Lapine—I still remember the magazine’s address: 123 Crooked Lane. That short later became the 1st couple chapters of the novel. I started writing fiction in 1991, so in terms of my career, I have now been a professionally published writer twice as long as I was an unpublished one, which is surreal beyond all words.

Notes for …And a Bottle of Rum (Aqua Vitae)

So, I thought it might be fun for my readers to get a view of the inside of my head. I’ve been working on and off on a project tentatively titled Aqua Vitae. It’s a contemporary fantasy series with six books loosely plotted out so far. I hope it will be my next group of books for adults following the Fallen Blade series which would would put it on shelves sometime around 2017. I just got back from Jamaica (setting for book six) and these are my raw notes for the book. Very little here in terms of story since that’s all established in the notes for the previous volumes. This is all about atmosphere.

Title: “…And a Bottle of Rum”

Notes on Jamaica for Aqua Vitae series

Pirates and rum runners and ganja, oh my.

August: ~90 Relentlessly hot out of the wind but not bad with sea breeze or on the beach where you can wander down and float for a bit to cool off. Bikinis everywhere. Tourists standing in the water drinking rum and pretending they’re not smoking weed. Roasted breadfruit, delicious and starchy like a natural pretzel, but pale and veined like a yellow sweet potato.

Gareth the bartender. Crystobel the desk clerk.

Old men with young girlfriends.

2010s portion of story. Ya Mon has a soft y emphasis on the A—yA Mon. Ask the bartender for whatever’s fun to make—neverending variety of different rum drinks. Hazey-dazey beach scene soaks up ambition. Hustling vendors march the beach—dressed laid back with a mellow attitude, but soaking in sweat and working their hustles hard:

“Ciiiiiigarettes—Ciiiiiigarettes—Ciiiiiigarettes!” Plastic bag of cigs

“Saahvoneers—Saahvoneers (souvenirs)” Big plastic tray—conchs

“Lobsters mon!” A couple of lobsters dipped in the ocean periodically

Quieter, friendly, “Hey Mon, need some ganja, I set you up.”

Bright colored little open boats with rods on the rails down at the edge of the resort where security can pretend to ignore them. “Fishing Mon?”

A man roars up to the edge of the sand: “Jet ski?”

Beach musicians, guitar and banjo, using an empty VHS rental container as a tip jar. Good voices, mostly old men with dreadlocks and smiles like the musicians in Mighty Quinn.

Tour guide, chatty see the real Jamaica, Appleton, Black River—certified by the tourist board. Got me a taxi with a cooler full of red stripe. Got me some skunk weed too if you want smoke. Not up for a tour? I can still get you the stink, Mon.

This gentle version is at the resort with guards and staff to police the beach. The sales are harder, pushier where there are no such watchers.

Sun so bright that you can burn in the shade just from bounce light. Hairy chest and legs SPF 10+. Sunscreen wears off and you cook, but not where the hair is, not in the shade at least. Lay on the beach, move with the shade, drink rum, wander down to waves when the shade get too hot.

All kinds of rum, sweet, spicy, sharp. White, brown, blended with coconut or banana. White rum, pineapple juice, splash of lime-deadly refreshing on a hot afternoon.

Steel drum band. Men and women. Three tops rigs with two drums each. One set of big complete oil drums (four). One regular old drum kit. Dancers doing headspins and all the stuff we eighties children think of as breakdancing, but a tropical beat.

Beach party, dancing to drums and electric guitar on the edge of the waves. Splash out to knee deep when the sweat runs too thick from dancing. Scottish step dancing surprisingly appropriate.

Walking along the interface between water and sand at sunset, waves less than ankle height, rum buzzing in your head.

The rains coming with thunder and lightning every day between 3-5 in the afternoon. Usually quick and cooling, then off, but every so often with the hint of monsoon. The boatmen stand under the tiny shelter of the the fish sanctuary sign, and bail when the rain has passed.

Feral cats live on the edge of resortland begging scraps from the tourists. The cautious hiding on the edges, the more successful, playing the loving house cat-hustling every bit as hard as the beach vendors. Compact cats—7lbs or so. Content to wait in the rain if it means they get some jerk chicken or grilled fish.

Smokers everywhere, and more black tourists than white. White folks often from Italy or Spain or points east. Lots of slavic accents. Only redhead on the beach is with me. Men with shaved heads and weightbench muscles abound. Tattoos are everywhere. The most obnoxious tourists are American, same as everywhere else.

Most tourists have a light buzz on, rum or ganja. Though some are gone by noon, really drunk drunks are rare. Maybe because the culture encourages the light buzz and demystifies alcohol and weed.

In resortland its rare to go half an hour without smelling someone light up. The weed smokers are neither furtive nor brazen, and the smell is what tells you they’re there more than behavior does.

The staff and the locals all laid back smiles. Some of that’s the job, some of it’s the culture. They work hard, but don’t rush. Handclasp or fist bump to say hello and goodbye. Everyone seems to have good teeth, often flashed in smile. When they speak amongst themselves it’s patois, fast and impossible for this outsider to parse. Braids and dyes are popular for the women—long hair mostly. Men mostly wear it short, in tiny dreads, high and tights, or low afros. Quite a few shaved heads though, and the longer dreads can be seen here and there, mostly on musicians.

Rehearsals for Jamaican dance show. Walkthrough to adjust the dance to the available space. Tights and legwarmers for heat even when its eighty out.

Sitting in the ocean during really heavy rain cold on shore, warm in the water. Rain so hard you can barely see, like spatters of sleet on my bald head. Marvelous as it was. Glorious in book form with a bottle of passed back and forth in the warm surf. Run ashore to fetch a bottle, feels like stepping into a hot bath when you splash back into the waves. Lightning overhead so loud and so close you can feel it vibrate your chest cavity like a skin and bone drum.

Tropical wedding. Groomsmen in whit linen shirts and sand pants. Groom in a sand suit. Bride in a white and sand silk mermaid that somehow works. Bridesmaids in teal, one, two, or no straps. Caribbean rock band with a teal guitar that matches the dresses. Loud obnoxious Americans who smoked and drank the week away, ruining other folks fancy dinners suddenly and briefly transformed into something  marvelous as they sway down the hall to steel drums on the way to a beautiful moment. After the recessional, once the wedding party has walked out of easy hearing, the band breaks into an instrumental Hotel California with the steel drums going sinister and eerie, and you suddenly wonder what fate awaits the wedding crowd once they revert to the “ugly American” stereotype. The story turns again, transformed into a prelude to horror…perhaps the dark sorcerer of Aqua Vitae did not like having his fancy dinner interrupted.

Speaking of which, the author would like to note that in combination with the water pouring out of the ceiling of the fancy Sir Andrew restaurant, the loud American crowd transformed a romance story first to disaster, and then to charming absurdist farce.

Difficult Things

The most difficult things I’ve attempted as a writer are to write funny and to write poetically well—i.e. in a way that doesn’t look overwrought or overwritten.

I’m not actually sure which is harder, but I know which I’m better at. The books where I’ve written poetically are none of them in print yet, though I’ve had more than one editor say very nice things about them. Mostly that they like them but don’t think they’re commercial enough. I’ve even had editors try to put deals together for them, but as yet they have all gone boom at some point.

Funny on the other hand. Well, even my more serious books get reviewers saying nice things about the elements of humor. I’m good at funny. I have the checks to demonstrate it. Poetic…well, I think I’ve done it well when I’ve tried, and the lurkers* support me in email—I have the very kind rejection letters to demonstrate it.

The thing that I occasionally find frustrating about this is that if you’re doing comedy right, it looks effortless. The reason this is frustrating is that when it gets really hard, as it does sometimes, you feel a bit of a jerk for saying “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.” Whereas, no one thinks twice if you’re known for writing beautiful, poetic prose, and you say “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.”

This is because, when you’re reading along and you come across a long beautiful poetic passage, you generally think something like “wow, that’s gorgeous, I wish I could write like that,” or “wow, that’s gorgeous, they sure can write.” It’s obvious that what the poetic writer is doing is hard, and people acknowledge it without even thinking about it.

OTOH, when you’re reading along and you come across something really funny,** you laugh and keep right on moving, because that’s what a good joke does. It makes you laugh and it makes you feel a little lighter and more ready to go on. It acts as a lubricant for life, and lubricant is something you generally notice most in its absences.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather have the book contracts and the money that comes with them and make people smile when they read than be able to get more sympathy when I’m feeling whiny. But it was something I was thinking about, and when I’m feeling thinky I generally end up writing about it, because, hey, writer—that’s what we do.

One final note here and I shall go back to attempting to make the very difficult look like slipping on a banana peal. Neil Gaiman. Among the things that make Neil one of the best writers in our field is his ability to simultaneously do both. He writes things that are beautiful and poetic and funny, which makes people say “Wow, that’s gorgeous, how does he make it look so easy,” and then laugh about it, which is amazing.

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*In this case lurker = editor.

**There are exceptions, of course, mostly in the realm of socially relevant humor, where you laugh because it hurts, or because it’s uncomfortable. But the kind of humor I write is mostly there to make you feel like your day just got a little better.

Woke up with a bit of book lodged in my head

Update 2013: Not sure if this will interest anyone other than me since it’s mostly a process post on a book I haven’t gotten the chance to write you, but I’m bringing it over so I have a copy on the site.

Storms last night, big ones. They set off the sirens and sent Laura and I to the basement at 4:00 a.m., always a pleasure, especially since it means herding cats. I was just starting to nod off after getting back to bed when I realized I had a chunk of book lodged in my brain.

Since I can’t leave story alone, I started nibbling around the edges of this one and pretty soon realized it was both quite large and, technically, on my schedule. It’s the beginning of the Halifax book that I’ve mentioned once or twice before, which isn’t supposed to show up for at least a year– possibly more since I’ve got 3 books firmly scheduled in front of it and, depending on the vagueries of contracts and such, as many 7. Update: 9 and counting.

Silly book, I don’t have the time to write you right now. Unfortunately, it’s not listening and I quite like what I’ve got so far – 1-2k words and big bit of plot, character, and setting. Maybe I can cheat and carve out a bit of extra writing time in the mornings before I’m really awake. I’d have to see if I could hold two novels in my head while writing them in parallel for a bit, but that might make a fun challenge.

Oh, and for those of you who’ve been paying attention to my process, this one’s a real oddity. I don’t have strong ideas about the contours of the world at the moment. I’m not even sure about the edges of the magic system beyond the way they affect the protagonist personal situation. I’ll have to see how that goes. Since I’ve caught this one forming, I’ll try to add bits of the how of it as I go.

A bit more on the Halifax book

 I’ve known ever since I wandered around the Citadel that I was going to write something set in Halifax with the old fortress as a major component. What I hadn’t planned was doing anything about for the next two years or so. Books take time, and I’m currently all booked up. Also, I find that I need to let ideas marinate in the back of my head for a while before I get something really useful. This has taken as long as ten years and rarely takes less than one. So, not only was I not planning on working or even thinking about this, I honestly didn’t think my back brain would spit anything out at least until next summer. I was wrong. I even know why I was wrong. Two reasons:

First, The Halifax environment was so rich that in its marination phase bits of it dribbled down onto other brain structures that had already been bubbling away for years.

Second, I just finished Zelazney’s A Night in the Lonesome October. This is one of those books that I’ve had kicking around the house on and off for more than a decade. I’ve even gotten rid of it on at least two occasions, but it keeps coming back–I think I’ve been given three copies over the years and bought two. I’ve picked it up, read four pages, and put it down quite a number of times. Three nights ago it had come out on top of the bookdrift on my bedside table once again, and I decided to try it one last time before getting rid of yet another copy. This time it was fabulous, fast, fun, dark, and most importantly, educational. I learned something new from this read something about both plot and character. Really, about a specific kind of plot and a specific type of character: The Big Magical Event, and the World Weary Cynic. They’re F&SF staples and I’ve used variations of them over the years, but I suddenly had new insights into how they work at a deep structural level.

Cool! Something that I would find a use for in years to come–after it had marinated a bit. Except, my subconscious took the shiny new toy and dropped it into the same bucket where the Halifax stuff was soaking and there was something of catalyst reaction that reached through all the other layers Halifax had already touched on and then somehow cross-connected itself with some things I’d been thinking about the WebMage series and what to do after book five (assuming that ACE is interested in five) that would extend the brand I’ve been developing with them while still giving me something new and exciting. Et voila, the Halifax book leaped from my forehead nearly fully formed.

I don’t know if all of that makes any sense to anyone else, but that’s what happened. I was mugged by a book that hasn’t even been written yet.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog in two part on August 28 and August 29 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

 

Milestones and Playing for an Audience

I bumped into myself the other day–the child me that is.

On Tuesday I went to a concert in the park with my wife and her parents. It was a typical small town affair held at our bandshell with a bunch of enthusiastic amateur musicians sharing their joy and talents. The audience paid intermittent attention to the music while they ate pie and ice cream sold by one of the local community groups. The reason I mention it here is the little girl.

A tiny blonde, maybe 5 years old, she was standing on the grass between audience and band and very obviously pretending that the former were there to watch her and the latter to provide her with background music while she performed a silent play. At the end of the first number when the audience clapped she made a big show of bowing to everyone there. I remember being that little girl–okay, so I was a boy, but the intent was the same.

Sometime when I was very young, call it 5, I started telling stories to anyone who would listen, mostly myself in those days. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t love the stories or having an audience. Somewhere along the line I learned that there were people who got to do it for a career and I never looked back. That led me into theater at the ripe old age of 11 where I stayed until I got my first computer and wrote a novel at 22—right after finishing a BA in theater.

I’ll be turning 40 on Sunday and yet in so many ways I’m still that kid playing make believe at the concert. The business side of the business can be a royal pain, but the storytelling and playing for an audience are still a blast 35 years on. So, to that little girl–go for it, kid! You never know where it might lead. Someday someone might even pay you to entertain yourself. Oh, and the audience too.

2013 Update: With my 46th birthday coming up in a bit over a month and having just started writing my 20th novel. This. Still, and always.

(Published on the Wyrdsmiths blog August 20th 2007, and before that at SFnovelists. Original comments may be found at both sites. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project and getting all of these in one place.)

Travel and Recharging the Batteries

So I’m just back from two weeks wandering around the Canadian maritimes with friends (Or, I was in June of 2007 when I first wrote this). On one level it was a vacation, on another level it was very much a business trip. One of the most important things a writer can do is collect new experiences, ideas, images, and places that can be filtered and focused and used as grist for the mill of our work.

For me, travel is one of the most important ways to develop new ideas and scenes for works in progress and works yet to be, in part because I’m a world driven writer. On this trip I had two particularly fabulous visits that will be incorporated into future work, as will the whole trip over time. Oh, and I might get a bit of blog fodder as well, if you hadn’t guessed.

First was a place called Woodleigh. It was one of those weird tourist attractions driven by an eccentric genius with intense focus. In this case it was a good sized parklike area studded with miniature versions of important British landmarks in varying scales, including a Tower of London big enough to walk through and a Westminster with doors only a few inches high but with two tons of lead used in the roofing. Fascinating and utterly bizarre, it will be a major and important setting for parts of WebMage book IV. In fact, the book will take place almost entirely in the Canadian Maritimes.

Second and even more important for me was Halifax and in particular, The Citadel—an 1850s era British fortress with a mix of kilted re-enactors and actual soldiers manning it. The place was fantastic and I literally couldn’t move without getting story ideas. In all I collected scenes and ideas there for WebMage IV, The Eye of Horus, Outside In, and a new as yet untitled book to be written after I’ve got some free time again, maybe 2-3 years out at the current rate. I took well over a hundred pictures and made a number of short cryptic notes that tie back to big ideas for various stories. A lot of it needs to marinate in the back of my head for a while, especially the future Halifax book, but some of it will come out more immediately with WebMage IV and Eye of Horus. 2013 update: It did indeed come out in both of those books.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog June 26 2007 and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Zach Braff Kickstarted This Headdesk

Not getting the Zach Braff Kickstarter freakout at all. Oh noes, popular people are using Kickstarter to fund popular things! And? The main thing it is going to do is bring new people in to Kickstarter. And, while they’re there, they may fund other projects. Sure, it will drive some hipsters away, but it’s also going to create new casual Kickstarter backers, and new backers is a good thing.

This seems like a variation of the whole fake geek girl/casual fans aren’t real fans, purity cooties thing. Which drives me crazy. Yes, some people don’t love the stuff you love with the same intensity and purity. Get over it. Them liking it casually means more funding. More funding means more of that thing you love. It means shows not getting canceled and book series getting renewed. Casual fans are good.

I make a more coherent version of this argument over at Apex Magazine in my I Married A Fake Geek Girl Essay.

This Real Life comic is also relevant.