Author
LASER treat tracking systems emgaged.
There were treats and nobody woke me?
You snooze, you no gets treats. Sorry. Iz because rulez.
Did someone say zomezing aboutzzz…oh, never mindzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I have nothing but disdain for your petty cute picture taking ways, thumb-monkey.
What the heck? Someone said treats. Then there were naps, and now no treats. Confuzed.
I am not a cat, more like a very small dragon, but I too like treats….
Dragon? Hmph, I eat dragons for breakfast.
I started to write a comment in Sean Michael Murphy’s post on outlines, but it quickly turned into Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch—my chief use of outline is as a book writing tool…book writing tool and book selling tool..selling and writing… My two main uses for an outline are book writing and book selling…and structuring. My three uses are… and so on. Now it’s become so big that I’m actually going to do it as a two or three part front page post.
Over the years I’ve become a militant outliner. My first two books were written off the cuff, and though I still love the bones of both stories, I can see how knowing where I was going from the beginning would have produced a better end product. My third had a crude outline, and my fourth had a cruder one. Since then, I’ve gotten steadily more efficient and focused with outlines and it’s led to big improvements in writing speed and quality.
Brief digression: I hated outlining in college. Absolutely hated it. I would go to great lengths not to have to write outlines for papers, even going back and writing outlines post paper in classes that required them so that it looked as though I had followed the desired process. To all the professors who tried to get me to outline back then, mea culpa, you were right, I was wrong.
2013 update: second brief digression. The last couple of books I haven’t outlined as completely on paper, but that’s mostly because I can hold an entire book in my head much better now, and I do much of my outlining as voice notes these days.
Back to the main topic. I use many different types of outlines in my work (updated to add timeline):
Sketch/Brainstorm
Working
Timeline
Ongoing
Length
Narrative/Proposal/Pitch
These each have their own foibles and uses, and I’ll get into that in part II tomorrow.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 28 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
I’m an insomniac. Let’s start with that. Sleeping is a skill I’ve never fully mastered and I am subject to both going to sleep too late and waking up too early, as well as occasional bouts of being awake in the middle. In general this is no fun, and actually in specific as well, now that I think about it.
But what does this have to do with writing you might ask. And it’s a reasonable question. I’m not entirely sure it has anything to do with writing, but it definitely has to do with being a writer, or more specifically a storyteller. Not only do I tell stories literarily (my writing) and socially (at parties) but I tell stories to myself in a more or less continual stream.
Someone smiles at me as they drive past me on the freeway? I automatically make up all sorts of things to explain the smile. I can’t help myself, given any starting point and something unknown, my brain starts filling in the gaps. This is one of the two chief sources of insomnia for me–the other being problem solving–I can’t get my brain to shut up and quit telling stories. I seem to need the damn things.
As with most storytellers, I am an avid consumer of storytelling (that might even be the root of being a storyteller–an impulse that says “well, if nobody else is going to tell me a story…). Often this leads to reading–yes, the horror, a writer who reads–quite often at night, when I might otherwise be sleeping. Because of this and the complete exhaustion of some life stress I made a discovery about three years ago.
I sleep better if I don’t finish reading the book. In fact, I can almost always go straight to sleep if I put it down at a cliffhanger moment. If, however, I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open but I still push on to the finish to see how it all ends, I will then spend the next several hours wide awake.
This is because (I think) when there’s still story left at the time I put the book down, my brain stays in happy reader mode–the story is still in the hands of the author and therefore it is not my problem. OTOH, if I finish the book, the storytelling part of my brain knows that the author is done and realizes that if it doesn’t do something right now the story will end! There will be no more story! Aiee!
And so my brain kicks into high gear telling a new story. It may be the story of what happens in the book after it ends, or it may be the story of what’s going to happen to the stupid cat who is sitting on my head. That part’s not really important. The important part is that story is once more my responsibility. I bring this up because last night, like an idiot, I finished the book.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 26 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
I do all sorts of things as a writer and critiquer on the basis of how they taste to me, whether the words feel right in my mouth as I’m mentally speaking them—I always internally voice as I’m writing, perhaps because I came to writing from theater.
The best example of this comes from a critique I did for fellow Wyrdsmith Sean Michael Murphy. There was a sentence where I wanted one word changed—I don’t remember which one now, but that doesn’t really matter. It was one of a large number of suggestions. Sean was pretty happy with most of the suggestions, ignored some, and wanted to understand what I was thinking with others. This was one of those last and the conversation went something like this:
Sean: Why did you suggest this change? I think you’re right, but I’m not sure why.
Kelly: It just tasted better.
Sean: But why did it taste better?
Kelly: It just did.
Sean:…(waiting patiently)
Kelly: (unable to let the silence stay silent, begins mentally unpacking the process) Let me think about it…
It turned out that when pressed I had six separate reasons for wanting this one word changed. For me, the change reinforced something in the sentence, reinforced something in the paragraph, reinforced one of the story’s themes, amped up a plot point, showed a contrast between character voice pre and post traumatic event, and removed a slightly clumsy related word repetition.
I’ve found that’s usually the case when my brain says something tastes better rather than opting for a specific reason—my sub-conscious has a bunch of reasons to change something and is too lazy to articulate them all without being pressed. My new structural sense is definitely atasting thing because it’s hugely complex. I trust it in part because I know that the taste of something is very important for my process, but I still want to unpack it because I enjoy unpacking.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 19 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Writing can get easier. I won’t say that it does, because every writer has a different journey, but it can.
The good news, I’ve recently developed a strong sense of novel structure. The bad news, it’s still almost entirely intuitive rather than conscious. The worse news, it took 10 books. The better news, it seems to be shifting into a conscious process as I’m writing number 11.
I’ve had a pretty good handle on how to plot since my fourth book—the first three are decently-plotted, but it was a messy organic process. But I didn’t fully develop this structural sense until writing number 10, The Black School, + 30 or more outlines. I got inklings of it with number 8, Chalice, but it mostly blinked out for 9, Cybermancy. And now I’m occasionally managing to consciously invoke it for 11, MythOS.
This is a pretty typical development process for me in terms of learning how to do something in writing:
1. Consciously set out to learn how to do X
2. Beat my head against the wall on X
3. Lose track of the fact that I’m trying to learn X
4. Get compliments about how well I’m handling X
5. Notice that X makes sense to me intuitively—it tastes right*
6. Think about how I’m doing X
7. Bafflement
8. Forget that I’m thinking about how I’m doing X
9. Answer someone’s question about X and realize I now get it
2013 Updated to add:
10. Forget that I ever didn’t know how to do X
11. Forget how to explain X
12. Grrrrr
*Tastes right. I’ll talk about this in some depth with my next post.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 15 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project. In and effort to elicit comment at the old site, I wrote the bit that follows at the end. No response. This is one of the many reasons I have not enabled comments here at kellymccullough.com)
Thoughts? Arguments? Digressions? Large purple groundhogs?
Update up front: I originally wrote this in 2007 when I had just finished my 10th novel and started my 11th. My 1st, which was also my 4th came out last year, and my 9th was going be my 2nd.
You with me so far? My 11th may well be my 3rd, but I’m hoping that my 12th won’t be my 4th, because there are several earlier books that I’d like to see sell and go to print before that and I might try to slip a 12th in before I write the 4th that’s currently sold.
It’s moderately complex now, and likely to get crazy over the next couple years, and that’s ignoring that some of the books were written concurrently. When you add in proposals and partials (which could be characterized as quantum manuscripts) it gets really loopy. So I thought I’d put it all down here as a memory aid and to illustrate an earlier discussion about why you can’t tell anything about writing speed from publishing speed.
Currently complete and projected novels in writing order (updated through 2013):
01. 1990 Uriel
02. 1991 The Swine Prince
03. 1992/1993 The Assassin Mage
04. 1998/1999 WebMage
05. 2001 Winter of Discontent
06. 2002 Numismancer
07. 2003 The Urbana
08. 2005 Chalice book 1
09. 2006 Cybermancy
10. 2006 The Black School
11. 2007 CodeSpell
12. 2008 MythOS
13. 2008 The Eye of Horus
14. 2009 SpellCrash
15. 2010 Broken Blade
16 2011 Bared Blade
17. 2011 Crossed Blades
18. 2012 Blade Reforged
19. 2013 School For Sidekicks: The Totally Secret Origin of Foxman Jr.
20. 2013 Drawn Blades
21. 2014 Darkened Blade
22. 2014 ?????
Currently complete or projected novels in tentative publishing order:
01. 2006 WebMage
02. 2007 Cybermancy
03. 2008 CodeSpell
04. 2009 MythOS
05. 2010 SpellCrash
06. 2011 Broken Blade
07. 2012 Bared Blade
08 2012 Crossed Blades
09. 2013 Blade Reforged
10. 2014 School For Sidekicks: The Totally Secret Origin of Foxman Jr.
11. 2014 Drawn Blades
12. 2015 Darkened Blade
But any of the following could end up in print between #2 and #4 (2013 update: That was the 2007 order and projection—now Uriel is out of the lineup, though some of the others might get slotted in somewhere after Blade Reforged but before Darkened Blade)
Uriel
Numismancer
Winter of Discontent
The Urbana
Chalice
The Black School (goes to my agent in March)
Plus there are proposals which could get written at any time
Chalice books 2-4
The Eye of Horus (proposal—now complete)
The Shadow in the Blood (proposal)
2013 update adding a few more books in pontentia:
The Hand of Light (Black School III)
Aqua Vitae (series proposal)
Mirror Duel (series proposal)
Nightmare Academy
The Uncrowned Prince (series proposal)
And partials which may or may not ever get written (still true)
Uprising
Outside In
Ave Caesar (mystery)
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 12 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
In the year of the Falling Yeti in the century of Eviscerated Yak, the only jade dragon that has ever graced our world died, taking a perilous beauty with her. Due to the heresies of the Staggering Sloth cult five centuries later, all known pictures of the early dragons were destroyed.
Fortunately, the great poet Vash Tilborn was alive in the days of the dragon’s youth—a witness to her early glory, and the perfect man to describe her draconic magnificence.
Unfortunately, before he had the chance, he saw the transcendent dancer Aishen Bira dance her Portrait of a Jade Dragon. Whereupon, he put aside his quill and said that no mere words could paint the dragon as well the dance of Bira, and that he would not write of her.
Only one other poet was willing to venture onto the ground that Vash feared to tread. Some thirty years after the death of of Vash, Sjel Seastrand—known as The Incomparable for his ability to find exactly the wrong rhyme—laid down his own verses on the jade dragon.
The only contemporary art we have that references the most beautiful of all the dragons who have ever lived is this:
Jade Dragon:
She is big she is awesome.
Better than pig, better than possum.
Jay Lake has a post up about workshops here and some of the things they do or don’t do. I agree with a good bit of what he has to say in terms of structure and how they function and that whether they are good or bad for you is situational. For example, I get a good deal out of the critiques of my work. Perhaps less now than ten years ago, but still quite a bit because my investment in my stories is structured a little bit differently from many folks.
On the other hand, I think he missed completely some of the things that I find most important about a writers group, the things that aren’t critique at all. And this may be a distinction between an ongoing writing workshop and a writers group, which seem to me to be two different animals.
So, here are some things besides critique that a good group can do for you:
Brainstorming, both on stories and career.
Mutual promotion.
Share industry gossip.
Writerly support and cheerleading.
Cross introductions to agents, editors, and con folk.
Listening to complaints and brags.
And, most important of all, peer friendships.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 6 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2007/03/workshops-vs-writers-groups.html
This cat bed is too big!
This cat bed is too small.
This cat bed is just right. But the catering service leaves something to be desired.
Bring me a cat bed thumb-monkey!
Who needs a cat bed when you can haz sweater?
Cats have beds, we goddesses have our own chairs.
About once a month I run across the idea that you must suffer for your art. There are a number of variations on the theme, but one of the more common one for writers is of the sweating blood variety—writing is easy, I just stare at the blank page until the blood I’m sweating spills all over it. This drives me crazy. So does the oft quoted Everybody hates to write. Everybody loves to have written which is usually attributed to Hemingway.
If it hurts that much to do something, it’s probably not a good idea. (Okay, there are subset of writers who can’t not write and who hurt themselves in the process. This has always struck me as terribly unhealthy, but everyone’s got their kinks.) However, excluding the compulsive writing masochists, if writing doesn’t make you happy, why are you doing it?
The monetary rewards are low, arbitrary, and rare, so you really need to find the process emotionally rewarding if you’re going to do it. I write because there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do. I love every minute of it, from the conception of an idea to fussing with final drafts. Yes, I love having written, but I love writing more. It brings me joy. That’s why I do it. It’s actually quite simple.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog March 1 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)