Nethermore

When I was in the Philippines I learned this quote from a Filipino:

Kailanman ay hindi natutuklasan ang mga bagong lupain kung walang naghihintulot na tumaliwas sa tabing dagat sa isang napakahabang panahon.

Oh, you want me to translate that for you?

One does not discover new lands without first consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

That’s kind of how I’m feeling right now on the book. I’ve been able to coil up the ropes and catch wind in the sails. So far, the trek hasn’t been too treacherous, although I’ve come close to a few rocky shoals that I’ve been able to avoid.

But now I’m losing sight of the shore from which I left. The beginning is almost 80k words behind me, and I’m out at sea. Everywhere I turn all I see is ocean. The dark clouds are starting to gather on the horizon. The smooth sailing is over with. I’m going to have to push to keep at this thing.

And that’s okay.

Would it really be worth it if there wasn’t some hard work involved?

There’s no land in sight. The storms are gathering.

Meanwhile, I’m going to write my way back to shore.

Some of you have commented on how slow the progress bar is moving lately. Just hit a couple of really busy weeks is all that’s really happening. And I’ve had some freelance art jobs that I’ve been trying to tie up before deadlines. I should be good to go full steam again after this week. The deadline for the book looms, and I have friends who are already planning their trips to the grocery store in order to have fruit rotten enough to throw at me should I fail to finish the book and/or reach 200,000 words. Just FYI, I’m about 25,000 words behind schedule.

But the good news is that I’ll be house sitting for part of July. That will give me a place to retreat to for a week and a half. I also did some design work in exchange for a weekend at a condo south of here. Those two retreats will hopefully give me the time and distance to finish Nethermore.

I’ve been reading Scott Meredith’s Writing to Sell and have been learning (or re-learning) some great concepts.

What’s the difference between a story and an incident? An incident is the telling of something that happened. A story, according to Meredith, is a series of events that are causally connected in which a character has a problem, tries to solve the problem and fails, but in the end conquers the problem through his own resourcefulness.

For example, I’m going to recount a “story” in two ways. The first will be an incident, and the second will be a story.

Incident

One time we were driving from Salt Lake to Idaho Falls late at night and the Suburban threw a tire and there were sparks flying and everything when the axle hit the pavement at 65 mph. We waited around in the cold and the snow and finally a cop showed up and took us to Malad.

Story

I stole the Suburban in Salt Lake and managed to get it just past the Idaho border when it threw a tire. The vehicle tipped backward and to the right, throwing me against the strap of my seatbelt, and sparks lit up the night as the axle ground against pavement.

My heart beat faster. Adrenaline shot through my veins. Rather than slam on the breaks, I tapped them a few times as I pulled the Suburban to the side of the freeway.

There I was, twenty five miles from the nearest town on dark stretch of freeway. I was alone with nothing but a shoddy stolen car to shield me from the elements. I’d left my coat at the airport when I’d ditched it to keep people from grabbing a positive ID on me. Otherwise, I would have left the car and walked the 25 miles. Cold or not, I wasn’t going to get caught dead with a stolen Suburban because the stupid thing decided to go bad on me.

Outside, the wind was blowing. I rubbed my hands together, took a deep breath, and braved the cold to see if I could find the tire. With luck, I might be able to reattach the thing long enough to get it back to the podunk town . . . if I could even find an exit close enough to get the vehicle off the freeway and get headed in the right direction.

The snow reflected moonlight. It made it a little easier for me to see the track where the tire had rolled away off the side of the road. I headed in that direction. Already, my feet and arms were getting cold. I started into a jog. Better to get this done as fast as possible. Besides, the jog would warm me up a bit.

That’s when I saw the cop pass by. I turned and watched it flash its lights. It pulled over to the side of the road and shone a light into the stolen Suburban.

I ducked off the side of the road. Maybe he hadn’t seen me. But chances were that he had.

The story would go on to make things worse for the character. Already he’s away from civilization, the cops are onto him, and he doesn’t have a coat. The problem gets worse and worse with each thing he tries to do to fix things until in the end the problem is solved, whether he evades the police, learns his lesson, or changes his name and ends up farming in the Scottish Highlands of Idaho.

The difference between the story and the incident is the experience that the reader goes through. An incident is little more than an anecdote, like something you would read in a letter from a friend. It’s cool to get some news, but you’re not experiencing it as if you were there. In the story, the character’s problems suck you in, creating tension, and then giving you—the reader—a release of tension when the whole thing’s done. Vicariously, you are there, and hopefully the resolution will give your an endorphin release worth the time you spent reading the story.

In other news, I found a very interesting article last night about Chronic Deja Vu. Again, this is the type of news story that puts my story-making brain cells into overdrive.

Also, if any of you are interested in seeing firsthand how a published author writes a book, take a look at this post over on Brandon Sanderson’s blog. He’s writing a novel called Warbreaker and posting chapters of it as he goes for his readers to comment on. This is a great way to see an author in action.

What’s your excuse for not writing? Mine is lack of a secluded writing yurt that I can retire to when things get too crazy around the apartment. Or I tell myself that I’m too tired and that my writing will suffer because of it.

Scott Meredith said that most writer’s excuses are “just as make-believe as that fiction you write.” And then he offers this advice:

If you will force yourself to work out those book ideas without waiting for inspiration to slosh you across the back of the head, and if you will force yourself to write one sentene after another despite the fact that the picture is awry, and the pencils are blunt, and your family is making an awful racket, and you’re writing in one corner of a bedroom instead of in a big soundproof study, and you had a big night with the boys last night, and the stuff looks awful as you write it—you will find, when you examine it a day or two later, that the material you’ve produced is exactly as good or bad as the material you normally produce, or would produce under ideal conditions.

I think that Meredith is right on this account. The conditions for living life are rarely ideal. So if writers waited for ideal conditions in order to write their books, then nothing would ever get written. We wouldn’t have need for bookstores because all the publishers would be out of business as their writers waited for the Rapture and cleansing of the earth before things would be ideal enough to start writing that manuscript.

Meredith also suggests the need for a writing schedule. Stephen King in his book On Writing suggests the same thing. He says that you can train the muse. I suppose she gets a little jealous when you do creative things without her, so if you sit down to write at 9pm every night, then she will get the idea and start showing up at that time.

I’ve been at this for almost two months now—the writing schedule, that is—and the muse certainly does show up at 9pm for me every night. And she beats me over the head with a big book of ideas until I sit myself down in my chair and start writing.

In ancient times, the muse inspired people. In our day, the muse is more than just that. If you train her right, she will help make writing a habit for you.

A few nights ago I started reading Writing to Sell by Scott Meredith, a writer and literary agent of great renown. He created his own literary agency and represented some very big names like Arthur C. Clarke, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ellery Queen, Carl Sagan, and Philip K. Dick. Meredith certainly had the experience to back up his writing of this book.

The first edition was published in 1950. My copy is a reprint issued in 1995 by Writer’s Digest Books. For this thing to still be in print fifty plus years since its first publication is testimony to the sound advice found in the book. Although there are a few things from the Fifties era that stand out, I don’t think I would have noticed them if I hadn’t known when the book had been originally printed.

Meredith has some very good things to say. The first chapter got me to thinking about the mentality of a writer.

In my opinion, writers can be put into two camps of people: those who want to write, and those who do write. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of will power to cross over from one category to the other.

Meredith says:

I’ve found again and again that the surest indication of the genuine writer is that amount of push and drive inside him that keeps him struggling to succeed at writing. His early scripts may not show it, and you sometimes have the feeling that the kindest thing would be to buy him a course in candymaking or welding, but if he keeps working away at it, you have the pleasure of watching his material change from terrible to fair to good to excellent.

Pure animal drive can take you from the category of “wanting to write” to the category of “actually writing.”

As I’ve heard it said before, “You’ve got to bleed words.”

It works like this in anything that you want to do. In most cases, passion and attitude can make up for whatever you may at first lack in talent.

Remember the Science Fiction/Fantasy Gold Rush of the 1990s? That’s when publishers were scrambling to put out the next big, thick fantasy, ala Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, and Robin Hobb. All four of these authors (or pseudonymns) became big in this last decade of the century.

I think another “Golden Age” of fantasy is on the verge of exploding in the publishing community. Of course, it’ll be different this time around. At least I hope that it’s different. I’m excited to read new fantasies that aren’t exploitatively derivative of the big series I mentioned above. And I don’t think that we’ll see a resurgence of the truly “big, fat” fantasy novels (bigger than 200k) for a few years yet. But who knows? Any breakout book could buck that trend.

In the past few weeks, two large publishers have opened (or will soon open) their doors to manuscripts in advance of beefing up their fantasy and science fiction lines.

Orbit Books is one of the leading publishers of speculative fiction in the UK, and now they will be opening offices in New York and Australia according to this press release. Additional information can be found here.

Wizards of the Coast, of Magic the Gathering fame, is opening their doors for what they call “author property” submissions. Several years back Wizards bought out TSR, creators of the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms book lines/campaign settings. Wizards took up where TSR left off and continued to publish books in several of these “shared-world” settings. This is (to my knowledge) their first effort at branching out into the general fantasy publishing market.

I visited Wizards of the Coast in August of last year, and you wouldn’t believe the marketing power these guys have behind them. They also produce beautiful books and have wonderful editors working for them. Not only is their fantasy/science fiction line opening up for submissions, their Young Adult line—Mirrorstone— is also accepting author properties, as mentioned in these guidelines.

Exciting times!

Yesterday I wasn’t looking forward to coming home to the apartment. (The air conditioning has been broken for five days now and we’ve been having record high temperatures.) But when I came in the door, I noticed that my Amazon package had arrived. I just ordered two books on writing, Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, the literary agent. And How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein. Both of these books came highly recommended, so I’m looking forward to diving into them as soon as I have a free minute.

In other news, the Scotsman now has a name. Angus.

Here’s to the time when I’ll actually get him animated.

—”Stewart!”

Only wrote for about two hours last night and did well over 3k words. I’m getting faster at this, and I don’t think the quality of the writing is suffering. It could have been that I’ve hit a pretty big action sequence, and I tend to write those faster.

I’m pretty pleased with the way things are going. I’ve been training the muse to hit between 9pm and midnight, and she’s starting to show up at that time every night to beat me over the head until I sit down and get some writing done.

My only worry is that Nethermore is going to be longer than I expected it to be. I thought I would be done with Part One by about 25k words. Now I see that it’ll be about 75k.

In the end, I think I’ll be surprised one way or the other by the outcome.

Orson Scott Card talks about this in one of his writing columns at his website.

There is a weird story-dilation effect that I’ve noticed. At about 25,000 words, I start thinking this novel will never end — I’m barely started and I’ve got all these pages! That feeling persists up to 50,000 words. But then, along about 75,000 words, I start getting a real anxiety that I’m suddenly moving so quickly that this novel won’t get even to 90,000. Then, at about 100,000 words, I realize that I’m not done yet so I have nothing to worry about. And at 108,000 or 112,000, I’m done.

Interesting arcticle about how story lengths are particular to the author.

Quote for the Day

Isaac say, “Life is like a road trip. The company you keep largely makes or breaks it.”

Scotsman say, “If life is a roadtrip, then let me bring my bagpipes.”

Stinky Hobo say, “Roadtrips are fun, except that one time when a Scotsman brought his bagpipes.”

Just to give a little idea of what Nethermore is about, I’m posting the section that comes right before Chapter One. Hope you like it!

Sid found the innkeeper’s body in the alley behind the butcher shop. Luckily it was still a few hours fresh, otherwise an Unborn would have been able to seize it and reanimate it.

On closer inspection, Sid discovered something much more disturbing than just a dead body.

It was missing its skull.

The skin of the head and face remained, still attached at the neck. Only a slice on the back of the skin told the story of how the skull had been removed.

Sid knew the lore. The man had no doubt been still alive while his skull had been slowly removed. The cuts were skillful and precise; this was no prank.

Since the time Sid had overheard a clandestine conversation in that Origin prison five years ago, he had anticipated that the skull snatchers would rise again.

And now, after five years of evading them, they had finally caught his scent.

We’ve all had a friend like this, the one who’s going to write a book someday. He’s still planning the book (been planning it for several years) and rather than write it, he wants to talk to you about it.

I know all about this friend, because I was him.

Several of my friends and a few acquaintances knew that I wanted to write another book (besides the one I wrote when I was eighteen). And often these friends would say, “So how’s the book coming along.”

My response: “I still need to do a little more planning. But hey, I figured this one thing out and it’s really cool.”

“I need to do a little more planning,” became my mantra.

My friends were starting to think, “Yeah right. He’s never going to write the book.” I felt embarrassed each time I was left to defend–unsuccessfully–why I hadn’t started yet. I was a bowl of excuses. I don’t have time. I don’t have the energy. The book isn’t ready yet.

Not ready yet? It had been prowling the streets of my imagination for six years! Maybe more.

I didn’t actually realize how much of a wanna-be I was–all talk and no action–until last night when Bryce from my writing group mentioned something.
“I’m glad you’re actually writing now,” he said. “Because I seriously thought that you would never start your book. You kept talking about it, but nothing ever got done.”

Why couldn’t I get over the planning stage? And what is different now that is allowing me to actually proceed with writing the book?

I think a lot of things contributed to the break-through that’s helping me move forward. And I’m pretty sure I know what was keeping me from achieving my goals.

Fear. Fear that I wouldn’t do it right the first time. Fear that maybe I don’t have what it takes to become a writer. Fear had effectively frozen me in my tracks.

So the number one thing I needed to overcome was the idea that things had to be perfect the first time. I had to turn off the internal editor (AKA the internal perfectionist) and just write. Don’t get me wrong, there should be a time for planning. But once that’s done, for heaven’s sake, do the writing! And that’s what I had to tell myself.

Some other things that helped me oust the perfectionist dictator:

1) I decided not to show the book to anyone until it’s finished. This gives me the chance to edit things after the first draft and clean it up so it’s not so much of a train wreck.

2) During the writing, I made it a rule that I cannot edit once I’ve written a paragraph, except in extreme cases. This allows me to turn off the internal editor and worry more about the writing and the story than the actual mechanics. I’ll worry about this stuff when draft one is done.

3) Don’t worry that you’ll forget about foreshadowing! Hey, you’re not showing this thing to anyone until after draft two or three, so you’ve got plenty of time to go back later–after draft one–and foreshadow every deus ex machina to your heart’s content.

Peer Pressure

I owe a lot to my writing group for helping me get out of non-writing mode. Each week the writing group would get together and say how much writing they got done this week and which agents they had sent to or what contracts were coming in on which books. I had nothing to say. I felt left behind. These are people I know, and they’re achieving their goals. Why couldn’t I?

I made a goal that if I was going to do one thing this year, it would be to write my book and send it to a publisher or agent. I looked deep inside and found the determination to do this, even if I had to push other things out of the way in order to do so.

After I found the determination, I had to find a way–build a road, if you will–in order to be able to write every day.

Trial and Error

I kept a log of how I spent my time and tried writing at different times of the day to see what would work best for me.

I tried mornings. They didn’t work. I suspected they wouldn’t. I don’t know why I even went down that road.

I tried afternoons right after my day job. That didn’t work either. I needed time to eat dinner and wind down from the day, plus there are too many activities and meetings that I needed to attend that fall in the afternoon/evening slot of the day.

That left nights. I had noticed that this was where I tended to waste most of my time. And all my efforts at trying to get to bed before midnight had always failed in the past. I’m a night person; I have always been that way. As a teenager, most of the time I was doing my writing after everyone else was in bed. Why was I trying fight it? I decided to roll with the natural schedule I’ve been on for a very long time.

So I tried writing in the late evenings. And things started getting done. I told my friends that between certain hours at night (right before bed) that I was unavailable to chat or go do things. Now that I’ve been at this schedule for several weeks now, I get really antsy if my writing time has come and I’m not writing. Writing is becoming a habit.

Deadline Pressure

I’ve discovered that deadlines motivate me. I also knew that you’re more likely to reach a goal if you tell someone about it. So I built my little webpage and told the people of the world (all five of them) about my goal to write a book by the end of July.

My brother built the progress bar to help me along. So every night when I’m feeling like I want to do something other than write, I remember the webpage and the status bar. People want to see progress, and I want to give my brother the opportunity of updating the status bar–didn’t want to take for granted his hard work in making this tool!

Stagnation is the Devil

The process of breaking the non-writing habit has taught me many things, but foremost among them is this: If I’m not moving ahead, I will never reach my dreams. If I want to drive to California, I won’t make it there if I don’t get in the car and start putting miles behind me (in the right direction, of course).

Movement is necessary, otherwise your goals and your ideas go stagnant in the pool of your mind. Keep the fresh ideas flowing in, process them, and let them flow through your fingers to the keyboard. This is the movement that one day will lead to publishing success, if that’s what you’re looking for.

That’s what I’m looking for. And that’s what I’m going to find, because I’ll do what I have to in order to make it happen.

Living the Dream

Maybe I’m speaking a little too early. I mean, the book’s nowhere near done, I haven’t reached my goals, and I’m not a full-time writer yet.

It won’t be today or tomorrow and it probably won’t be even a year or two from now that I can say I’m making a living at writing. But each time I meet my daily goals, I can call myself a success. And every time the progress bar moves, I can see that I’m moving in the right direction.

Last night Bryce asked Brandon this question, “You’re living the dream. You’re doing what we all want to be doing, writing books for a living. Do you ever just want to pinch yourself and say this is so awesome?”

“Of course. Every day I wake up whenever I want to and realize that I get to write today. And do it for a living.” Then he added, “This is the best job in the world.”

–”Stewart!”

I’ve failed to mention another reason why I’ll finish Nethermore by the end of July. In August I’ll be going to the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles. And for those of you who don’t know, conventions (cons) aren’t just for those who want to dress up, although plenty of people do and have a grand old time. Many of the Pros (writers and publishers) make it to one or more cons each year, and this is a great place to meet them.

I go because I love the publishing industry and the fandom that surrounds science fiction and fantasy. I always meet great people and have a great time at these things. And it gives me something to do with my days off besides driving to Idaho, which normally doesn’t involve dressing up in any way (unless I’m up there for a wedding).

Last year I went to NasFic in Seattle (since WorldCon was in Glasgow–I know, I know, Stewart! didn’t go to Glasgow? Blame a petty blood feud with a neighboring clan), and I also went to the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin.

I met editors, agents, and writers and had a chance to spend time with all of them. And who knows, you may hit it off well with an editor or agent and get the chance to send him or her a manuscript. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any books done last year. This is a big no-no: don’t pitch a book to an editor or agent if the book isn’t done.

But this year, I’ll have a book done by the time I go. With that under my belt, I can try to find information about agents and editors who are currently aquiring manuscripts. With luck, the editors or agents will be at the con, and with some more luck, maybe I’ll be able to find and talk to them for a few minutes.

Last year, I met several authors who have later asked me to help them out with graphic design. I’ll post some of what I’ve done for them when I get the artwork section up and running. But here are a few buttons I made for Tobias S. Buckell. And he even mentioned me in his blog!

Dinner with my agent and Brandon Sanderson, and Isaac Stewart. Isaac is a friend of Brandon’s and a great graphic designer. Brandon had his first novel out from Tor not too long ago, and he and I are Joshua’s two 20-something year old clients. Brandon was a lot of fun, and had lots of ideas, some of which I’ll poach The food was incredible, including cheesecake sitting on an elaborate syrup design.

I should add that in addition to being able to spell my name correctly, Toby is a great guy, an awesome storyteller, and a real benefit to the science fiction community.

I’ll defintely be at WorldCon and World Fantasy this year, in addition to the smaller, local cons that I try to get to. Cons are a great source of information (panels), networking (writers and editors), and like-minded friends. I give them two thumbs up and a side of hagis!

The other day an acquaintance of mine found out that I’m writing a novel, and he asked me where I get my ideas. After some deliberation, I’ve decided to let the secret out.

This website is the template I’m using for Nethermore.