Reality Doesn't Live Here

I've Moved!

2007-01-24T12:08:00.000-05:00

Yep, my blog has moved. Reality now doesn't live here.

Which Science Fiction Writer Are You?

2006-12-22T12:38:00.000-05:00

I am:

Ursula K. LeGuin

Perhaps the most admired writing talent in the science fiction field.

Which science fiction writer are you?

It's Done

2006-12-05T12:41:00.000-05:00

The first draft of Lessons is done. I finished it late Sunday night. Final wordcount: 194,880.

I miss it.

This story has been a driving obsession since it appeared in my head in late July. Now it's over. I'll need to revise it, but that will come later. For now, it's done. And I'm feeling aimless.

I still have Nothing So Pure to finish, but I'd like to get a few days of distance from Lessons before I dive into it again. So what do I do? Maybe I should take a break from writing for a couple of days. That would be the sane thing to do. But who ever said I was sane?

I've got a plotbunny dancing around in my head. Maybe I'll try doing a little worldbuilding for it. Take it nice and slow, and see if I can come up with something I'd like to work on after Nothing So Pure is done.

Lessons is done, and it's time to move on. Part of me is glad it's finished... but part of me wants it back.

The End... Almost

2006-11-27T22:42:00.000-05:00

NaNoWriMo is almost over. I'm going to miss it. Right now my wordcount is at just over 160,000 - much more than I had expected I would write this month. My goal was 100,000 words, but I didn't know whether I'd be able to get that far. I don't know if it's something about this story, or whether I've just discovered that I can write more than I thought I could in a day; I'm hoping it's the latter.

I don't want NaNo to end, but at the same time, I'm about ready for this novel to be over. It was supposed to be about 120,000 words long; now it's probably going to end up at just under 200,000. As much as I love the story, I'd like for it to end sometime soon. I'm still having fun with it though, and I'll miss it when it's gone.

Luckily I've got another plotbunny waiting in the wings... The downside to that, of course, is that this plotbunny sees no reason why I should be working on Lessons; it wants all my attention for itself.

More Lessons

2006-11-16T22:34:00.000-05:00

Still working on Lessons. I hit 100,000 words on the 14th. That means I've reached my goal for the month. But I'm not stopping; I'm still only halfway trhough the outline. This book is going to be massive, apparently. I don't know what happened.

Today wasn't such a good writing day. The weather was yucky and rainy all day, and I was writing a scene that was sandwiched in between two exciting scenes but wasn't as interesting as either of them. I had to write it, so I could introduce two new characters, but I'm glad it's over. Tomorrow I get to write a scene that will hopefully be more interesting. Though to be honest, I think the main reason I had a problem with what I wrote today was just that I wasn't in a very good mood to begin with.

And I figured out something about my character; I got an answer to a question that I hadn't been able to resolve. I'm happy with that, even though it wasn't a very good writing day.

Six Days

2006-11-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

Until now, my best record for hitting 50k was 18 days. I hit it in 19 days my first year, 29 days my second year, and 18 days my third year.

This year I hit it in six.

I don't know what happened this year. I think it's a combination of the phase outline and the fact that I've been enthralled with this idea since late July, but the story has been flowing wonderfully. Now that we're in the middle of the second week - always the hardest - of NaNoWriMo, I've slowed down a bit, but for this novel, "slowed down a bit" means I'm writing 4000-5000 words a day instead of 6000-10000. I seem to have turned prolific. I just hope it lasts.

Now that week two is here, the story isn't flowing quite as well as it did. But it's still going very well.

A couple of my fellow WriMos have gotten hit with plotbunnies that they're trying to fend off while finishing the current novel; I'm having the same problem. Lessons is still my top priority, but I've got another story knocking at the door, asking if there's room for it too. I keep telling it to wait, but characters are appearing in my head, and intriguing hints of a plot, and I find myself going online after I'm done NaNo-ing for the day and researching things I'll need to know for this project.

It's still an ephemeral idea at this point. I don't know if it will even last. But it's definitely caught my interest.

But for now, Lessons is more important. My goal for the month is 100k; I decided to double the usual NaNoWriMo goal this year, and I had wondered whether I'd be able to make it. Now I think I'll hit it by the end of next week.

And if you're doing NaNoWriMo, and are struggling with your wordcount, try dropping in an insane character or two, and let them babble. I've got one, and not only is she good for the wordcount, she's a lot of fun to write.

Lessons

2006-11-02T17:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the first day of NaNoWriMo. I woke up before my alarm, at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep, but somehow my brain interpreted "Go back to sleep" as "Try to come up with a good first line for the novel." So I didn't get back to sleep; instead I got up and started writing. (And came up with a first line that I like quite a lot.)

Lessons is going very well. In fact, I think it's going better than any story I've ever written thus far. I haven't hit any points yet where I get stuck (knock on wood). It's all flowing so easily. I told a friend a couple of months ago that I didn't understand how people could write as much as 10,000 words in a single day. Well, yesterday I wrote 10,000. 10,889, to be exact. And today I reached the 20k mark in the novel. I'm stunned. I expected it to go well, but not this well. Not that I'm complaining, of course.

I'm having a blast with it. I've discovered a huge glaring flaw in my main character, one that she'll overcome over the course of the story. Always a good thing. And my villain is a lot of fun to write.

The difference between this novel and the others I've written? With this one, I decided to write about things that fascinate me, but that embarrass me to write about. I thought I'd have to fight my way through awkwardness and embarrassment because of it. Instead, it's going amazingly well.

There may be a lesson here.

E-book challenge

2006-10-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

I don't know how many of you have heard about PBW's E-book Challenge. For those of you who haven't, Paperback Writer (who writes the Darkyn novels as Lynn Viehl and the StarDoc novels as S.L. Viehl) challenged writers, both published and unpublished, to post a novel, novella, or short story as a free download by or on October 31st. As it happened, I had a story just waiting for me to do something with it, so I did a rewrite of it and posted it.

The story is called "To See You With," and it's a horror story, just in time for Halloween. It can be found here. The file is in PDF format; to download it, right-click the link and select "Save Target As" (or your browser's equivalent). To open the file in your browser window, just click the link normally. If you can't open the file, you can find the necessary program here. (And if you still can't get it working, let me know, and I'll see about posting the story directly to a webpage.)

I encourage you to check out both my story, and the other stories people have posted for the challenge. And once you've read "To See You With," tell me what you think!

Why the Hostility?

2006-10-23T11:50:00.000-05:00

I love the NaNoWriMo forums. In fact, now that I've won Nano three years in a row, and have amply proven to myself that I can do large amounts of writing in a short amount of time, one of the main draws of Nano is the community. The writing is still my focus, of course, but a big part of the fun is doing it with so many other people. Every year, the forums have been filled with people getting ready to tackle a large goal together, supporting each other, and approaching writing with a fun and playful attitude.

But this year it's different.

This year, the forums are much more hostile than they used to be. There are people tearing apart other people's plots, people complaining at the number of people who aren't writing a serous novel, people complaining that the new people are too enthusiastic (which struck me as very strange), and more. I don't know what happened. Maybe the event has reached some sort of critical mass; maybe people are just feeling cranky this year; maybe this hostility has even been there all along and I just didn't notice it before (though I know at least one other person feels the same way I do). Whatever the reason, I hope it stops; I want the old Nano forums back.

An Answer

2006-10-12T15:36:00.000-05:00

Apple left a comment asking about what a "Nano-novel" is. Nano is an abbreviation for NaNoWriMo, which is, in turn, an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo, if you haven't heard of it, is a challenge where you try to write 50,000 words during the month of November. I've done it every year since 2003, and it's a lot of fun. It's what got me to finish my first novel - before then, I started plenty of novels but didn't finish any of them. Nano is what gave me the push to actually get one finished.

The community is a big part of why I enjoy it, too. The forums are filled with other writers, all approaching writing with more playfulness than anything else. For Nano, it's not about coming up with a masterpiece - it's about writing an insane amount of words in a single month, and having a lot of fun doing it, and getting to be around lots of other people who are doing the same thing.

It's not for everyone, but I definitely recommend it. The novels we write during Nano may not be great, but they'll be fun to write - and that's more important than we usually make it.

Valley of the Soul

2006-10-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I received an ARC of Valley of the Soul by Tamara Siler Jones. I promptly devoured it. The book starts out absorbing, and quickly becomes more so. The story is densely woven, with many plot threads that all held my attention.

This book takes place after Ghosts in the Snow and Threads of Malice, the two other books featuring Dubric Byerly. Having read the other books in the series does give a better understanding of the characters, but it's not necessary by any means – this story works well on its own. The premise of the series is intriguing – Dubric investigates murders, but in a traditional fantasy world. This means he is without any of the technological advantages that modern detectives have; it also means that in addition to facing ordinary killers, he often comes up against killers who are using magic.

That is the case in Valley of the Soul; Dubric and his team begin investigating a series of killings that look as if they're the work of a mage. In this book, the very idea of a mage in town is a chilling prospect, because in Dubric's world, the mages are pure evil. Nobody can use magic for good purposes, and when mages are found, they must be killed.

In addition to the main mystery, there are several side plots involving the other characters. People who have read the previous two books will already care about these characters, and those who haven't will come to care about them by the end. Finding out what happens to these characters quickly becomes as important as catching the killer.

Apparently another Dubric novel is being written as we speak, which, as far as I'm concerned, is good news. I expect that the next story will draw me in as much as this one did – and this one left enough unresolved that I'm eager to see what happens next.

2006-09-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile - I've been so busy writing that it kind of slipped my mind.

It's hard to believe I only started Nothing So Pure a little over a month ago. I'm already almost 80,000 words into it. The phase outline is helping me immensely. I plan to use one for my Nano novel too. (I know there are a few people on the Nano forums who think using such a detailed outline is cheating, but even if it is, I've won three times already - I don't need to prove myself at this point.)

Speaking of the Nano outline, I started it yesterday. I can't tell whether it's going to be very hard or very easy. Maybe a little of both.

I've heard a lot of writers talk about inspiration coming to them in the shower. That rarely happens for me - for me, those flashes hit when I'm swimming, or sometimes when I'm on the trampoline. But last night, I was showering, and suddenly lines of dialogue started appearing in my head. (That's often how my flashes of inspiration appear - as dialogue.) I got out of the shower as quick as I could to write them down, and presto, I had new scenes to add to the outline.

If that just keeps happening, I'll be all set.

The Bad-Writing Fairy

2006-08-24T22:41:00.000-05:00

I think the bad-writing fairy visited me today, because today my writing stinks. I don't know why; it could be because my allergies are acting up, making me feel half-dead. It could just be my perception - I've had times before when I sat down and wrote and thought what I was writing was horrible, only to find later that that part was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the story - but either way, it feels like everything I write today is terrible.

Despite this, I've written nearly 3000 words on Nothing So Pure today. I just keep telling myself that it's better to get the story out, even if it stinks, and that I can fix it in the rewrite. But I'm going to dread rereading this chapter after the novel is done.

Further Along

2006-08-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

I passed 30k on Nothing So Pure today. I'm at 31k now; I'm just about a quarter of the way through the book. This amazes me.

The phase outline is helping me a lot. I often get more words per day than I used to, but more importantly, the words are coming easier. And I'm past the comfort of the beginning and into the dreaded middle... and I'm doing all right.

My enthusiasm has dwindled a tiny bit, but not by much. With every other book I've written, my enthusiasm has dropped off sharply at this point, causing me to hate the story that I previously loved. This one is going very well so far, and I'm grateful for it.

As for the Nano novel, I'm still doing worldbuilding and character creation, and have taken the first tentative steps into plotting. I plan to start the outline sometime in early September.

Yes, the writing is going well.

Another 4k

2006-08-14T15:11:00.000-05:00

I ended up with 4000 words on Nothing So Pure yesterday, and got another 4000 today. I like the phase outline a lot so far. There's enough detail in it that I don't have to wonder what's supposed to happen next, or try to stretch for something to fill the space between one important event and the next one. I already have a rough idea of what needs to fill that space, and because I worked it out beforehand, it's important and necessary instead of just filler. And there's still enough room for me to play around and be creative. A lot of stuff that I never wrote in the outline makes it into the story, and not everything from the outline makes it in. I know that for a lot of people this type of outline would be too much structure, but so far it's just right for me.

I'll see how it takes me through the middle, though. Especially the beginning of the middle. That will be the real test.

The latest class still isn't up, so I feel vaguely guilty for starting the story. But this is technically the beginning of the writing section of the course; I read this week's lesson in the 2YN book. And even if it weren't, we have permission to work ahead in the book. I guess I just got trained in elementary school that working ahead is Very Bad.

I'm getting to know my main character a lot better. From all the planning I did, I knew who she was, but now I know how she moves through the world. And speaking of the world... this is a weird world I'm writing in. The more I write, the more I see it. But I like it a lot. I just hope it comes across as believable.

Nothing So Pure

2006-08-13T21:10:00.000-05:00

I started Nothing So Pure (my 2YN novel) today. This week's class, the first in the writing portion of the class, isn't up on the site yet, but I read it in the 2YN book this morning.

I've been working on this idea since January; it's been in my head since last December. It's hard to start actually putting the story down on paper. I've had an ideal version of it in my head for so long, and by making the story real, I kill the ideal. No story is ever as perfect on paper as it is in the writer's mind. For the story to be written, the ideal has to die. It's necessary, but I still grieve for all the perfect visions of my stories.

Still, it's going well. I have a little over 4000 words done, and I've done nine phases from my outline. Nine phases should equal 2700 words, which means I'm getting extra words, which is good, since normally my word count runs low. And I'm enjoying it. My writing doesn't look very good to me right now, but I think that's based more on my perceotions than on any objective idea of its quality.

Genre

2006-08-10T12:26:00.000-05:00

Genre is a funny thing.

At first it seems simple enough. Fantasy books have magic in them; science fiction books are set in the future (with the exception of sf books that involve aliens visiting modern or ancient Earth). Romance novels are about a love story. Mysteries are - surprise - about a mystery. And so on. But it gets more complicated than that. A fantasy novel is generally expected to be written in a certain style. The same goes for a science fiction novel. And if you're writing, say, science fiction, that not only implies that your novel is set sometime in the future (except in the cases mentioned above), but that you will most likely have spaceships or other planets or aliens or lots of futuristic technology. I think romance has the most freedom in this regard - there are a lot of different flavors of romance novel, with the common thread being only that they're always primarily about a love story - but from what I understand, romance has stringent rules in other areas, so I suppose it all evens out.

I was thinking about this the other day because neither of my current projects fit comfortably within their genre. In the case of the 2YN novel, I'm still not entirely sure what genre it is. It's set in the future, which makes it sort of science fiction, and it involves the supernatural, which makes it sort of fantasy. But it doesn't have any of the things that would make someone say without question, "Yes, it belongs in such-and-such genre." Does its setting make it science fiction? Do its supernatural elements make it fantasy? Or is it neither? And I'm having similar genre issues with my Nano novel.

So is there a place in the world for either of these stories? I don't know. I hope so. But either way, it won't keep me from writing them.

This Travel Scene Is In My Way

2006-08-10T12:10:00.000-05:00

I thought I had figured out how to start the 2YN novel so that I wouldn't have to immediately move into a scene of boring travel. But I was looking through the 2YN book today - not reading ahead, just seeing whether the actual writing really does start this coming week - and came across a line that said something like, "If your opening requires a flashback in the next few pages to explain it, you've started in the wrong place." Which basically means the new opening won't work. I had thought the flashback was kind of iffy, and now I've got confirmation.

So it's back to the old opening, and I still have to figure out what to do with the travel scene. I don't think it can be eliminated, but I want to devote as little time to it as possible, without detracting from the power of the opening. This may not be a fix-it-in-the-outline thing. In fact, this may be a fix-it-in-the-rewrite thing. But I'll see if I can figure out how to fix it in the next couple of days... along with seeing what I can do about the cluster of chapters whose purpose is to reveal everyone's backstory.

That means I'll have to spend more time thinking about my book. Poor me; what a hardship that will be. (That was sarcasm.)

Waiting

2006-08-02T14:26:00.000-05:00

I finished the outline last week. Yay! The only problem is, I can't start writing the novel until mid-August, because that's when the outlining portion of the class ends and the writing portion begins. But there's only a week and a half left. I can't wait to start this book, and yet at the same time, I'm very nervous about doing so. It works so well in my mind; I'm afraid to put it down onto paper, where it will inevitably turn out more flawed than the story I see in my head.

In the meantime, I've been preparing for NaNoWriMo. Yes, it's three months away. But a few days before I finished the outline, an idea came to me - or, more accurately, hit me over the head and abducted me. I had planned to start planning in September, but apparently that's not how it's going to work. In any case, it's good to have the planning time now, before I'm preoccupied with writing the 2YN novel.

I seem to have picked up on some sort of NaNoWriMo planning vibe, too. When I returned to the site's forums shortly after I got my idea, people were just hanging out there, not talking much about preparations for this November. But a few days after I showed up, other people started returning, and more people started talking about their novels for this November. And a NaNoWriMo preparation board opened up on Forward Motion a couple of days ago. I must have just picked up on it a few days earlier than the others. That explains my idea coming to me, at any rate - I guess it's going around.

Good News, Bad News

2006-07-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

Good news: I'm almost done with the outline. I have 376 phases done (out of what will probably come to somewhere between 400 and 450). I'm finally past the middle and on to the ending. I think I'll be done by the end of the week.

Bad news: My computer has taken to shutting down randomly. The thing that is supposed to keep it alive during power failures is malfunctioning, and every so often it decides to turn off, turning my computer off with it. I'm backing up my writing files frequently.

List Night?

2006-07-19T20:07:00.000-05:00

I was just reading through a short story to see if I needed to make any changes before sending it off to my writing group. In the first paragraph, I had a character saying, "Last night was amazing"... only that's not what she said. She said, "List night was amazing." What's amazing is that this made it through one revision already, as well as several readers. I wonder if any of those readers wondered what "list night" was and why this character was so enthusiastic about it. It certainly doesn't sound that exciting to me.

I like finding amusing typos; they make me laugh.

The Rest of Us

2006-07-19T07:57:00.000-05:00

It seems like more and more, urban fantasy and paranormal romance are merging. I like the books that result; they're fun, and I enjoy reading then. But it makes me wonder – is there still room for the rest of us?

My books don't have a strong romance component. I'm not a romance writer, primarily because I'm not a romance reader. I'm not prejudiced against romance; I don't think romance is worth less than other genres. It's just a personal preference. I'm perfectly happy to read a romance if it's got lots of other stuff in it besides the romance (for example, Lynn Viehl's Darkyn novels, or Tall, Dark, and Dead by Tate Hallaway; the latter has secret Vatican witch-hunters, and there was no way I could pass that up), and occasionally I'll pick up a romance if it looks particularly angsty (yeah, I'm a sucker for angst). But while I like love stories, for the most part they're not what get me excited about a book, and when I'm writing, the love story is rarely what ignites my inspiration and makes me eager to sit back down at the keyboard.

I also don't write sexy chick-lit heroines. I'm not offended by reading about them – sometimes they're so alien to me that I wonder if I've picked up a science fiction novel by mistake, but assuming the book is well-written, that's just part of the fun. But they're not what I write. Take Phoenix, the heroine in my 2YN novel (which isn't precisely urban fantasy; in fact, I'm still not entirely sure what it is). She's not sexy; in fact, she's quite socially awkward. She doesn't exude sex appeal, and probably never will.

For awhile I tried to write this style of urban fantasy. After all, I like to read it, so it only made sense that I would like to write it. But my ideas were lackluster, and I couldn't sustain enthusiasm for them; only one actually made it to the writing stage, and I never got more than a couple of pages into it. In contrast, when I let myself write in my natural style, the writing flows much more smoothly. Liking to read something doesn't necessarily mean you'll like to write it.

So I wonder – is there still room for me in this genre, or has it moved far enough away from what I write that I don't fit anymore?

The Halfway Point

2006-07-11T21:43:00.000-05:00

I hit two hundred phases tonight, which means I'm about halfway through the outline. This is good; my goal was to hit two hundred by the end of this week, which would get me finished with the outline a week before the actual writing starts. I often feel like I'm going too slowly with this, so it's encouraging to see that I'm ahead of schedule.

I'm still in the middle. Seeing as I said I'm halfway through the outline, you probably guessed that. Sometimes it feels like an impenetrable forest, or a collage of unrelated fragments, but sometimes it actually feels like I'm building something that's true to the vision in my head.

It doesn't help, though, that the humidity here is making it very hard for me to think. It was bad enough this evening that I felt nauseous.

Frankenstein's Monster

2006-07-07T08:04:00.000-05:00

I'm doing a phase outline for the 2YN novel (tentatively titled Nothing So Pure) - a very detailed form of outline developed by Lazette Gifford. So far I'm liking it very much - it gives me a chance to write down all the little details and snippets of dialogue that tehd to occur to me when I'm in the prewriting stage. That way I won't have to worry about forgetting them, and I won't have to rush through a scene to make sure I don't forget what's supposed to happen next. It also makes it harder for me to save the hard work until the last minute - in my usual line-per-scene outlines, I can get away with saying vague things like Tim somehow finds out where Lia is, but in this type of outline, that's harder to do.

This outlining process is also having an unexpected result. I think I may have figured out what my problem is with novels - why they always seem to die on me. I think my problem is middles. Beginnings are for setting everything up, endings feel like coasting down a hill, but in the middle the book starts to feel like Frankenstein's monster - a collection of scenes badly sewn together, trying to be a book. And then I feel like it must be a weak idea, and then I get discouraged. With this form of outlining, I'm close enough to the story that it's almost like I'm writing it, but I'm also far away enough that I can observe the process, so I can see this happening more easily than if I was doing actual writing or doing a more distant outline.

So now I finally know what the issue is. That's the good news. The bad news is, I'm smack in the middle right now, and the book is starting to feel like Frankenstein's monster.

I've Never Even Heard of This One...

2006-06-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

(Apologies for how skinny the result is; unfortunately, I don't know how to fix it.)

Which Classic Novel do You Belong In?

Your belonging in The Mysteries of Udolpho is quite evident; a world of intrigue, melancholy, sublimity and terror. You belong where there are danger, gloomy edifices, and evil Italian guardians. Your passion for the passion of the Mediterranean, the divine contemplation of nature, and for adventure stories, makes you a prime contender for a spot in a gothic romance.
Take this quiz!

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