Jan
02

State of the writer: New Year, New Approach…ish

I’m not doing New Year’s resolutions this year.

The difficulty I have with them is that constructing useful ones is quite challenging because of the time scale is relatively large, habit forming is a slow process frought with distractions and breaking them can lead to levels of guilt bordering on the religious. (What..? Just me..?) There’s a strong part of me that feels any attempt to form habits concurrently is doomed to failure. I’m going to have to put this coffee down to eat chocolate and keep typing, aren’t I?

In any case…

If I were to describe most of the resolutions I would like to make, they all revolve around writing and fixing the issues I mentioned in my end of year post:

- submitting
- avoiding redrafting endlessly
- becoming distracted
- getting rid of that terrible stop/start project judder that characterised the majority of last year

I believe there’s a root problem underlying all of these issues which is that I’ve not really adjusted the process I use to write to fit my lifestyle. I’ve noted before that my instinct for writing is very much born out of my preferred reading style, that is I like to binge, writing in long sprints until my brain fizzles to a stop. This works well for short stories under 4k in length when I have plenty of time but kind of sucks for novels. The approach has some major obstacles:

- It requires me to keep an almost impossible amount of story information in my head, which means other activities fall by the wayside.
- The number of drafts required to approach readability is higher as draft 1 is essentially a basic outline, draft 2 is structural, draft 3 is structural based on feedback and so on.
- I have a natural inclination to get bored and distracted the longer the process runs.

In short I need to work smarter.

With this in mind, I’m experimenting with a much more detailed approach to story plotting to see if this allows me to produce a more readable draft, faster. My hypothesis is that this approach will:

- better suit the demands of a challenging day job (which I like) by requiring me to carry less of the story in my head while still being prepared;
- allow me to generate ideas further ahead without having to compose entire drafts satisfying my need for variety while preventing large gaps between projects;
- mirror professional pitching where you can’t really not produce an outline and allow me to make smarter choices about what I do next.

My hope is it will also be a bit quicker.

I didn’t just conjure this out of the ether. There is some evidence from my experience on Forever that this approach is more effective. For example, it was only when I got really detailed in planning out the end of the draft I managed to finish the book.

That said, I can’t really afford to experiment at novel length on something this fundamental, the time cost of getting it wrong is simply too high and so I’m experimenting on a short story with the added bonus that it buys me enough time to work up an outline for the next novel*. I made good progress on the short story plan which definitely made a difference today when I came to start. I was able to begin writing with very little preamble but the confidence that I had a story that worked and that’s when I enjoy writing the most: when you can turn the internal editor off and just go. Seems to be the internal editor can’t talk with an outline in his gob. Who knew..?

This working smart seems to offer rewards. I may introduce it to other things…

It’s not a resolution though. Oh no. :)

*I think this is probably where I see any short fiction I work on fitting in the future as it’s a more economic way of experimenting. Like I said, I haven’t been working smart.

 

 

 

 

Dec
31

The year that was…

2011 is done. Shit. Insert sands of time cliche here.

There are lots of reason to dislike 2011: financial meltdowns that roll on and on, riots, large swathes of the world still embroiled in conflict, large swathes of the population still living in abject poverty that we seem increasingly too self-involved to do anything about. Ho hum. I mention these in passing to remind myself that, really, the low points I experienced weren’t anything really.

Pass the whisky.

Writing wise…2011 was a bit of a mixed bag for me…

- I recovered my spine and moderated my first panels at Eastercon.
- I wrote a new book (technically I rewrote an old idea but it was from scratch so it counts. It does to. Shut up.).
- I revised said book (and learned the perils of Not Planning Enough).
- I read a bunch of awesome books.
- I met new people.
- I renewed acquaintances (and made a fool of myself in front of someone I admire a lot but…well…that’s a running theme on this here blog, besides, the author in question has been good enough to keep talking to me).

But…

- I didn’t submit enough.
- I didn’t read enough.
- I didn’t play to my strengths.
- Stuff got in the way, which is not an excuse but something to overcome moving forward.

Of course, none of that really matters to me because I got married this year and it was fantastic. That’s what I’ll actually remember*. :)

I hope 2011 was equally memorable, in a good way, for all of you. May 2012 rock for all of us.

* Self indulgent but true.

Dec
05

State of the Writer: Planning

Let’s see: a writing update. When last seen I had just completed the 2nd draft of Forever.

I’m in the process of doing a short tidy pass before handing the manuscript to my first couple of test readers. This should only take a couple of days (cold not withstanding).

While the draft is out being knocked around by readers I plan to write draft zero of my next novel. I’ve been making idle notes on this one for a while, they’ve accreted into the start of a world building document and the threads of a basic plot. I’m hoping to have started this in earnest next weekend.

I’m pretty much focusing my efforts at novel length now as most of my ideas seem to be occurring at that length, the learning curve is a bit steeper, and I have quite a few half baked short stories on my hard drive that need revising. I plan to do something with these in the spaces between drafts before I start any new ones.

Mood: cautiously optimistic.

Nov
12

State of the writer: nearly there…

Let’s see: when last seen I was just getting over my Energy Crisis.

In good news, I’m pleased to report that my energy levels have held where they were in the first half of the year and, consequently, good progress has been made on the second draft of Forever. You will note I don’t say I’ve finished yet, I refer you to the title that grows ever more ironic with each passing day. The muse, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. It matters not: I have to press on, it’s do or die time.

I may be over-egging it a touch…

In any case, what I’ve been doing is a substantial plot change to the third act in order to remove a somewhat superfluous plot loop that would have made the book longer than it needed to be. This has made the manuscript much tighter than before but has left a ragged tear and so I’ve been repairing this cut with a full revision to the penultimate set piece*. Really without going into massive spoilers I have to leave that explanation at that level of cryptic technical detail. I reckon I’m probably about two weeks of hard graft from a finished draft. Fingers crossed.

This puts my plans for the rest of the year somewhat out of whack as I had planned to write the first draft (a somewhat easier task) of a new novel by year end. I’m unlikely to hit this target now but I want to at least have started one and so I was pretty excited to have a reasonably well formed idea land in my head as I walked to work the other day completed with a concept that is considerably less research heavy, not to mention lighter, than the present piece. I’m going to start the world building once I’m a bit closer to the end of this piece but my mind keeps noodling on the idea as I dash from place to place in the final sprint to Christmas.

Really the upshot of the state of this writer is, for the first time in along time, I’m cautiously optimistic.

That can only be a good thing…

* Yes. I applied a four-act structure in a moment of madness but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oct
10

Energy

Some writers are able to craft wonderful prose come what may be they drunk, knackered or in the midst of crisis.

I am not one of them.

Failure to use the correct fuel may result in premature wear…

I require energy to be creative, drink leaves my inhibitions alone and goes straight for my brain and crisis makes me turn, by stages, into first a volcano and then a glacier, with neither state particularly conducive to either poetic prose or a coherent yarn. In recent weeks, therefore, it was frustrating to have my writing first slow, before stalling altogether, as my energy levels crashed. This happened before the wedding as well but at the time I chalked it up to being stressed at the life event looming towards me like an immovable object. No such excuse this time.

It was embarrassing. To be clear: we’re not talking a bit yawny, I mean bone tired, falling asleep at the keyboard, unable of stringing even a couple of words together after 9pm. It was concerning. I have little excuse: yes, my day job is stretching on occasion (and this was a full on time) but I do have colleagues under similar amounts of pressure – not to mention with families to raise and hobbies to keep going. I am not a special case.

By the same token, I know what unusual tiredness can mean. My family has known diabetes, cancer and heart disease. I’m not stupid. Yet: I’m not overweight (anymore), I exercise regularly (indeed, I’m fitter than most people I know), my blood pressure is low, didn’t feel ill other than tired and while I was working hard I wasn’t stressed.

It’s good to talk…

Exasperated, and unwilling to brave the local surgery after the last time (Of Which We Will Not Speak), I was willing to entertain the only sensible thing* left: I turned to Twitter to get a sense of whether this was normal.

The result was interesting.

For a start, people were far more forthcoming than I thought they would be given the stigma that seems to go with admitting you’re shattered. It seemed I wasn’t alone by any means in feeling myself crash in the evening with most people reporting tiredness to some degree and there was a definite trend amongst those who described themselves as light or broken sleepers. Perhaps this is unsurprising but it rang a bell with my own experience.

Once you eliminate the impossible…

I am a notoriously light sleeper. A gnat farting can wake me. Moreover, once I’m awake that’s it: my body will not entertain a further wink if I know I have to get up in an hour or so. Yet my sleep had always been broken, I couldn’t understand why it would have gotten worse in recent weeks or why it hadn’t really been an issue while I had been away as the hotel had not been particularly quiet. I like my psuedo-science. I decided to experiment.

The first night I made sure I closed the window to avoid any street noise. It made no difference. In fact, if anything, it was worse as the lack of fresh air left me feeling even groggier on waking, allowing me to sport an interesting array of bruises as I stumbled across the room, and that first night I woke at least three times. The second night I placed my alarm on the other side of the room, my alarm is my mobile, and I reasoned that it would at the very least help me get up on time and that might help me get a routine going again. It didn’t help but I did notice as I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom that the screen was on, a push update having ignited its little back light. I didn’t think much of it at the time.

The next morning I couldn’t shake that image of my phone flashing in the silent dark like some ineffective lighthouse amongst the choppy sea of my discarded laundry. I may have overshared there. Anyway. I long ago disabled the sound as I went to bed because I know people on three continents and the damn thing goes all night long otherwise with emails, push notifications and what not. Just for fun I left the mobile in another room the next night, relying on other mechanisms to wake me up.

Slept like a baby.

And the next night.

To sleep perchance to dream…

Turns out that at least some of the waking was down to the phone but more interesting, to me anyway, is that though I still wake sometimes my quality of sleep has been so much better that I seem to have more energy for longer despite only racking up the same amount of hours. I wake feeling like I have actually slept. Best of all since my sleep has improved I’ve found myself actually writing again and at a volume that would have been unthinkable on my previous energy levels. A couple of thousand words a day is achievable again.

And I don’t have as many bruises as I don’t seem to trip over as much.

You may well be skeptical about whether or not my mobile was really responsible. That’s OK. A few weeks ago I would have been as well but whether it’s just psychosomatic or an actual physical disruption to my sleep it won’t be sharing my headboard again. It works for me. It might for you.

* Our definitions of sensible may, I acknowledge, differ somewhat on this point.

Sep
21

Back

*Taps screen* – This thing on…?

It has been a while, hasn’t it?

Let’s see: when we last spoke I was heading off to get married in darkest Wales before heading off to Italy for a rest.

I am pleased to report that the NLP worked well and G did indeed turn up, agree to marry me and has – as yet – not changed her mind about the arrangement. Excellent, all I need now is a book deal, packed lunch and a sturdy hat and my plans for world domination shall come to fruition.

*Cackles*

Joking aside, I had a really great August where I got to catch up with lots of family and friends before attempting to eat my own body weight in pasta an ice cream. I’ve been back a while now but it’s taken some time to get back to blogging as I’ve been largely focussing on fiction writing.

It’s always tricky when you take a break. Your routine goes, you fall into bad habits like only being able to write in a yogic position on a slab of volcanic rock with Vesuvius in the background…just me? Oh well.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been focussed on getting my writing routine back on track and now I’m making a bit more progress I thought it was time to start to throw this back into the mix. Hopefully, we’ll get some regular features going again here soon.

How about you? How was your summer?

Aug
16

Colin

Like everyone else in the SF community, I’m shocked and saddened to hear of Angry Robot author Colin Harvey’s untimely death following a stroke.

When I was just starting to attend conventions in 2008/09, Colin (along with the Flash Fictioneers) looked out for me, he took the time to offer advice, and has been a fun friend to be around at cons ever since. Ever generous with his contacts, willing to give a shout out if you had a story out, willing to take the time to come along to panels and pretty much doing whatever he could to support new writers.

We were going to have a drink in the autumn at the next con we were both going to be at. Neither G or myself can quite believe he’s not going to be there with his famous big grin, a pint and that infectious enthusiasm.

Like many others, I will miss my friend.

May
25

Starve Better

There are books that make writing fiction (or writing anything) sound like a deep and mysterious art practiced by a higher form of intellectual being. Frequently, such material is written by someone you have never heard of with a handful of credits from a list of publishers who you have likewise never heard of and/or teach at such and such university but have no fiction credits.

Such material is to be distrusted and avoided.

There are books that make writing decent fiction sound like a lot of hard but fun work, where competency and a reasonable level of skill can be reached through hard work. These are usually written by people you have heard of, in the genre world they are the likes of King, Kress, Card (though his personal outlook is a little hard to get on with), Delany and so on.

Such material is to be paid attention to but is not gospel.

Occasionally, there are books on writing by people who you probably haven’t heard of unless you submit regularly to short fiction or read very broadly within genre seeking out small press items as a matter of course. These guys are quietly beavering away earning a living writing and frequently eschewing the common apocryphal Rules that tend to get bandied around online. I think these are ignored at your peril. That’s why I was delighted to see Nick Mamatas on Scalzi’s Big Idea recently pushing his new book Starve Better.

Being the susceptible marketing whore that I am, I immediately bought it via Kindle. Nick rejected one of my short stories when he was at Clarkesworld. At that point I wasn’t getting much feedback from editors or slush readers but Nick made a point of taking the time to write some feedback (as he did, I believe, with most submissions) and it was good, useful, stuff without the sugar coating you frequently get from readers closer to home. I was keen to see what else he had to say on the subject.

I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a great book to make you think about why you write; what you write and how you write while challenging prevailing wisdom. Moreover, it’s an entertaining read and I went through the thing in pretty much one sitting but I’m very likely to go back to it again and again because there’s lots of good stuff in there. Aside from anything else it’s a good kipper to the face when those unhelpful habits start creeping back in, like opening my laptop in a coffee shop.

It’s brilliant: go read it.*

* Naturally, I doubt my little plug will even register versus Scalzi or anyone else but a modest bit of unique link-juice will, I hope, help and not everyone I know who writes reads Whatever. Hard as that is to believe. :)

Apr
26

Post Con

I have returned from the 2011 Eastercon (Illustrious). Held annually, this is where readers, writers, editors, agents and publishers of SF gather once a year to talk SF, catch up and drink. It’s a good place for an aspiring author (or artist for that matter) to make contact with all of the above.

My Eastercon was really split into two parts. The first, where I was basically a bag of nerves, was prior to completing my two panels (both moderating). The panels went reasonably well, thanks in large part to the excellent panel participants (including John Jarrold, Roz Kaveney, Gillian Redfearn, Chris Wooding, Liam Proven, Phil Nanson and Peter Hamilton). They were very kind to an inexperienced moderator and the audience seemed to enjoy the discussions which is all you can ask for really.

From there I relaxed and spent most of my time catching up with old friends and making some new ones. I was around to see Paul Cornell present the BSFA awards including that for Best Short Story to my friend, the talented Aliette de Bodard, for her story The Shipmaker, a handful of panels and the return of Who to the BBC for another season. But other than that I was in the bar.

A situation I am now paying for as my body struggles to settle back to an even keel. :)

Mar
29

Genre for Japan

I’m a bit behind on this.

A collection of people from the genre scene have gotten together a charity auction of genre collectibles. Proceeds go to the Red Cross fund for Japan and there’s a bunch of stuff up for grabs.

It’s in a good cause. Why not take a look?

The site is here: http://genreforjapan.wordpress.com

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