Category: Musings

The right damn word. . .argh

I was writing yesterday. I’m working on the first chapters of a brand new book, which means that I’m laying out all the new terms. As so often happens, I know what the stuff is, but not yet what to call it. So, when I got to the first actual use of a particular new word, I dropped in a (placeholder) and kept moving. No big deal, I’ve done this many times and I know I’ll come back to it.

Then as I’m writing another scene, I realize that this scene has implications for something I’d done earlier and that I’m going to have to change that scene because of the new stuff. Again, no big deal, this happens all the time. But when I go back and look at the scene, I realize it means changing what I think was pretty tight little paragraph and coming up with the right word*. So, (placeholder).

*the right word—a digression. For me, the right word is not to be confused with what I will call the perfect word. The perfect word is one of those things that writers, with their invariably huge vocabularies, know exists to perfectly describe the thing in question. Usually it’s a polysyllabic monstrosity of the 25 cent to 50 cent variety that makes you smile when you think of it. It also all too often ruins the flow and the voice, and should probably be tossed seconds after it occurs. The right word, on the other hand, is usually only a nickel word, and it’s appropriate to the character’s voice, the setting, and the situation—easy to find, right?

Anyway, I now have two placeholders and 2,000 shiny new words done on the book. Laura comes home, reads the new stuff, makes appropriate happy noises, and reminds me we have a faculty thing. (It was lovely by the way, soup and fresh bread with the English department folks–we seem to spend a lot more time with them than with Laura’s own Physics people) Social obligations pleasantly fulfilled, we return home, do some reading and head for bed.

That’s when the placeholders creep out of their spots and start whispering in my ear about things unfinished and how important they are. I ignore them, pick up Ellen Kushner’s Privilege of the Sword, and try reading a bit more. This only makes things worse.

So, almost three hours after Laura has gone to sleep, I crawl out of bed and bang my forehead on the keyboard for twenty minutes until I’ve got something better than placeholders. I’m really happy with one and will probably keep it throughout, but the other turned into a multi-word sensory flow thing that may yet have to go. We’ll see.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Sept 8th 2006. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )

The original post also included these questions, but, as I’ve elected not to enable comments at kellymccullough.com, I’m separating them out below and people’s answers can be found at the Wyrdsmiths version:

So, do you find yourself dragged out of happy sleep by words whispering themselves incomprehensibly (it’s always incomprehensible otherwise, you could just jot them down and be done) into your ears? Oh and that’s metaphorical, of course, I don’t actually hear voices;-) What writing problems invade your dreams or prevent them?

Writing is Fun. No, Really Really Fun

Sometimes the sheer weight of dour posts by writers lamenting the existential awfulness of writing makes me want to bang my head on the wall.

I like my job. I like writing. It’s fun. Writing is joyous and freeing and an absolute delight. I play make believe every day, and people pay me for it. If you had told me as a child that was an actual job, I would never have been in any doubt what I wanted to be when I grew up. Seriously, I am excited to go to work almost every freaking day.

I am a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. I love magic deep down in my bones, and being a writer is magic. I conjure magical realms into existence before breakfast, invent alien races while my tea brews, and convince other people that my invisible friends are their friends too, giving them a life beyond the confines of my imagination.

Sometimes, I write myself into a corner with no apparent exits where I can’t see any way out. And that’s fun too because then I get to be Houdini and make the impossible escape. It can be dark and scary and hard then, but I like solving difficult problems and pushing myself to do things I didn’t know I could do.

Do I have days where it is hard? Of course. Do I have days when I am depressed? Likewise. Do I have days when I get stuck in a story and it’s extra hard and extra depressing? Yep. Do I acknowledge that I am particularly neurochemically fortunate in that my depression is usually a mild and passing thing, and that many other artists are less fortunate? Absolutely.

None of that changes the fundamental truth that my job is ball.

Dream and Story, or Leaking Weirdness

As Eleanor mentioned, I get some of my ideas from dreams. I thought it might be interesting to talk about that at least a little bit more both in terms of story development and why I think this happens. I have very vivid dreams, but only if I’m between writing projects or it’s been a couple of days since I’ve written.

This is either a subconscious manifestation of something my wife calls “leaking weirdness,” or leaking weirdness is a conscious manifestation of the subconscious phenomena. In either case, if I go for more than a couple of days without actively working on my fiction, I start to get a little strange. The longer I go, the stranger I get, and the stranger I get, the more frequent are Laura’s suggestions that I “go write something and get it out of my system.”

Basically, as far as I can tell, I need to tell stories, to invent new worlds and people and share them. If I’m not working and I can’t get them down on paper, they start to leak into my dreams and out of my mouth, especially first thing in the morning. This has led to such bizarre leaking weirdness ideas as llamoflage, and Robert the Bruce Springsteen-you can take our lives but you canna’ take our guitars.

It has also led to some of my better story ideas on both the dreams front and in terms of leaking weirdness. Basically my brain, seemingly independent of my conscious will, starts to put things together that might not normally go together, like goblins and laptops in WebMage, or food fights and the twilight of the gods in the short story FimbulDinner.

One final note on process, and then I’ll end this ramble. The ideas I get from dreams almost never come complete and coherent. I’ll get one really striking image in a big mish-mash of dream-story that resonates for me. Then, when I wake up, just past the edge of dreaming, I’ll try to identify what’s so cool about that image by telling myself a story about it, filling in a background and future developments that were missing in the dream, and converting impression into narrative in a very conscious way. The dream provides the seed, but I have to plant it and nurture it arrive at something that’s worth sharing with others.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Aug 26, 2006. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )

The original post also included these questions, but, as I’ve elected not to enable comments at kellymccullough.com, I’m separating them out below here.

So, as Eleanor asked, where do you get your ideas? Do your dreams whisper narrative in your ear? Do billboards mix with Celtic mythos and drink recipes in your waking mind? What makes you a writer of the fantastic?

Screw That—Write What Rocks Your World

Original Title: Write What You Know—Not

Every writer has heard writing truisms that drive them crazy.

“Write what you know” is one of mine. Like so many commandments it has a strong grain of truth in it – i.e. if you don’t have a clue about something, there’s a good chance you’ll make stupid mistakes when you talk about it. Prominent examples in fantasy and science fiction include: biological impossibilities, violations of elementary physics, and historical abominations like the juxtaposing of weapons that are just simply not technologically compatible a-la a katana and rapier duel – barring unusual circumstance that one’s going to end real quick with the katana wielder bleeding all over the place. Again, every writer is going to have their very own examples of this. Heck, I’ve made some of those mistakes myself-ask Lyda about the burial vault incident some time.

However, the big problem with “write what you know” is that if we all did that, there’d be a ton of books about sitting in front of a computer typing, with occasional trips to the bathroom and grocery store, and some especially exciting entries on going to science fiction conventions.

I mean, come on people, science fiction and fantasy are about writing what you think is cool, not what you know. I’ve never met a vampire or an elf. I’ve never killed anybody with a sword, though I have fenced. I’ve never ridden in a rocket ship. And yet I’ve written about all of those things, and I’ve even moved people by writing about them, or at least that’s what the email in my in-box suggests.

Write what rocks your world, and if you hear a truism that drives you crazy, stick your tongue out at it and keep moving.

So, go ahead, tell instead of showing once in a while, use a cliché, go wild! It’s only fiction, and if you’re not having fun maybe you should be doing something else. It’s not like we make the big bucks.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Aug 18, 2006 original comments may be found there. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )

Big Boys Do Cry

This is one of those things guys aren’t supposed to talk about, which is, I think, a good reason to talk about it. I cry easily. Always have. Sacrifice scene in a book? I bawl. Poignant story on the news. Bawl. That’s under normal circumstances.

In the last 12 months, I’ve said a final goodbye to one of my oldest friends, a beloved aunt, and two of the finest dogs it’s ever been my pleasure to associate with. I’ve also had my most successful year ever in terms of my career and ability to produce art that I’m proud of. It’s been a huge emotional roller coaster, and it’s a rare day where I don’t at least tear up a touch and go rough throated.

My point? That that’s fine. Crying has been a safety valve and a solace. I miss those I love that I have lost, and the tears are honest tribute. It’s part of saying goodbye to Mike and Lee, and to Cabal and Moonbear.

(Originally posted to Facebook Feb 12, 2013. Reposted as part of the reblogging project)

Writing and Publishing and Despair

I wrote this for a friend of mine who is in that hard place where you know you’re good enough to be published and the professional writers that you show your stories to all agree that you’re good enough, but you just haven’t hit the right editor yet. My friend knows that I had a long road to walk to get to where I am now in the writing world and wanted to know what I had done when I was in the hard places. This is my advice:

Mostly, it’s just write. I know the publication side of things is a goal that we all aim for. But it’s not, at root ,what keeps most of us writing. Certainly not me. I write because I can’t not. I write because it makes me happy. I write because it gives me a place to put all the shit in my head. I write because it keeps me sane. I write because not writing hurts.

I write because deep down in the bone, it’s all about the work. Publishing is what I do so that I can keep writing. Publishing regularly means that I get to do a lot more writing than I would if I had to do something else to put bread on the table, but publishing isn’t the goal. Writing is. It always has been.

That’s where I go when I hit my worst writing moments. Sometimes it takes me a while—days, weeks, months once—to find my way back to that place. To remember that publishing is a tool in service of the writing, which is the real goal, and not the other way around, but it’s coming back to that place that keeps me going on the bad days.

You didn’t write that last story to get published. At least I don’t think you did. Though publishing it was certainly a goal, I don’t think that’s what got you excited about the idea. I don’t think that’s what got you to sit down at the keyboard and work on it.

I think you wrote it because it was a story that you wanted to tell. A story that only you could tell, because you were the one who cared enough about it to give it form. Without you, that story wouldn’t exist. That would be a loss for the world of story because it’s a good one, no matter what its eventual fate.

We build the world of story. We do it one word at a time. We do it because no one else can. That’s what it’s about.

Getting Fit

I wrote this as a response to my friend Kyle Cassidy’s recent post on realizing that he’d somehow gotten overweight and needed to do something about it. He asked people to share their fitness/weightloss/body image stories.

Here’s mine:

Maybe 5 years ago I found myself having an issue with my hip going out. I also found my knees bugging me. They haven’t been great since I tore the cartilage in my late teens, but had been much better after surgery shortly after I turned thirty. I knew that I’d put on some weight both from the fact that my pants size had crept up to the high end of 38″ from 36″ where I like to keep it and because the scale told me so. I was hitting 218, which was three pounds higher than I’d ever let myself get before.

But still, only 2 inches extra around the waist, how bad was that? I wasn’t really that heavy… But I figured that losing some weight would make my knees and hip happy. I scheduled an appt with my doc, and told him what was up, and that I thought maybe if I lost 20lbs I’d solve the hip and knee problem. He just nodded and said, “yep, that should do it.” And, “every pound you carry has an effect of two pounds add strain on your hip when you walk and three on your knee.” It was a sobering moment, and I started to get much more serious about both exercise and diet.

I’m a writer by trade, so I spend most of my day on my butt on the couch. I mostly stopped driving to anyplace within two miles—which was also an environmental choice my wife and I had been talking about for a while—and started shifting my diet away from my bread heavy ways. I love bread and carbs but I can eat them in vast quantities and then two hours later I’m hungry again.

I didn’t do it all at once, because I wanted to deeply inculcate actual lifestyle changes, not just crash diet the weight off. I lost ten pounds fast, then another ten pounds slowly. Five of that kept coming back then sliding off ad infinitum. Then I signed a deal for three books that needed to be written in 18 months.

By the 2nd month of the 2nd book I knew I was starting to fall behind. I cut myself a deal. If I got 2,000 words in before afternoon I got to go for a sunny snowshoe in the woods with my friend Neil’s giant white dogs. It was a good deal. I was hitting my word marks again and I was also losing two pounds a week. By the time I was finished with the book I was under 190 for the first time since my late teens. I was also borrowing Neil’s weight machine in there and I was trading pounds of fat for pounds of muscle.

2 years on from there and the dogs and the weight machine are still a part of my routine and I’m hovering just over 185, which is my ultimate goal and 33lbs lighter than when I started—it’s what I weighed when I was a two hours a day martial artist at 17. I’m also routinely benching my own weight and running a mile or two every day, which is at least half a mile farther than I’d ever run before getting fit this time around. I recently added a weight machine, an elliptical, and a recumbent exercycle to the treadmill in my basement to make a real gym down there. The plan is to add additional bite-size exercise sessions to my main workout in the afternoons, not supplant them.

It’s been a long slow steady slog and has required significant permanent changes to my eating and exercise habits to get here, but I’m very close. These days, I get very antsy if I don’t get my workout in and my waist size is back to 35-36″.

Fwiw, I found two things of particular value to me in getting here. 1) I do much better on a diet heavy in lean protein and light on carbs. I need less food and I don’t get hungry again nearly as fast. 2) Coming to understand that I was never going to get the endorphin high some people get form exercise and to get over that. I don’t like running, not even a little bit, but I do like the strength and stamina that I get from running.

All that said, I should probably note that despite putting in a ton of work to get here and making major lifestyle shifts, I know that I was also lucky. I’ve always been something of a natural athlete. I pack on muscle easily and that ultimately makes losing weight easier. I’ve got a job that allows me to build a big workout in at the best time of day for me. I have friends whose resources I can tap. I also have the personal resources in space and funding to put in a home gym. The four machines cost me a grand total of $175.00 but that was more luck. It’s not easy even when you’ve got a ton of preset advantages.

The Inklings Effect

One of the odd/cool things about my life these days is the juxtapositions. I will see someone I know online linking to the incredibly cool or important thing that they’ve just read and I will follow the link to find out that said thing was written by someone else I know, often a friend.

I’ve come to think of it as the Inkling’s Effect. When I was younger, I was baffled about the degree to which all these cool people who DO THINGS seem to know each other (e.g. Lewis and Tolkein in the Inklings). It seemed a powerful coincidence. As the years have gone by, it’s become obvious to me that there is no coincidence involved. People who DO THINGS are naturally drawn together by, well, doing things. What would be strange is if they didn’t know each other.

The older I get, the more cool people who DO THINGS I meet, and the more I find myself encouraging and mentoring people who want to DO THINGS.