Tag: Writing (page 46 of 47)

Thinking in UNIX

September 22, 2009 / / 2 Comments

Do one thing and do it well.

From the beginning, my intent was for this blog to be about, for the most part, storytelling. From reviewing movies to posting my fiction to discussion the ins and outs of the publishing industry, I’ve wanted above all else to outline what I feel makes for a good story and the best ways for those stories to be told. Granted, this means the blog will likely have a smaller audience than some, as it has a more focused appeal rather than a universal one, but I really should take that with good grace.

I lost sight of my original goal when I started putting political rants in this space rather than my LiveJournal or Facebook. Sure, some of my diatribes are amusing and there are points to be made, but this is probably not the place I should be making them. I won’t take any of my previous posts down – I have nothing to be ashamed of and am in fact proud of the stance I take on things – but I’ll refrain from posting such things here in the future. If this is to be my place for telling and discussing stories, I should not be discussing politics. I’ll find other forums in which to do that.

There is philosophy among UNIX programmers. They write their scripts to “do one thing, and do it well.” It’s a simple, straight-forward philosophy that made Orville Redenbacher make such good popcorn and brings hundreds of thousands of fans to AC/DC concerts. Orville didn’t try to make snack mixes or granola bars, he just made popping corn. AC/DC doesn’t put hip-hop or electronics or country or jazz into their music, they just give us rock, the whole rock, and nothing but rock. And it seems to me that in that way lies success.

I am not a journalist, nor am I a biographer. I’ve given thought to offering my services to men other than Fritz Sprandel to help them writing their memoirs – this time getting it in writing, of course, because of how it turned out the last time. I’ve also thought about writing a philosophical/spiritual work (perhaps adapting Sun-Tzu’s “Art of War” to a truly Christian mindset, without bringing in things like guilt or evangelism or burning people at the stake) or an examination on how certain political climates of the past mirror some of the undercurrents of the current state of affairs. But are these things I really want to be known for? Are they things I really see myself as being good at?

I’m a dreamer. I’ve spent a lot of time with my mind in places other than where my body was. I’m a gamer. I roll dice, push buttons and deal cards to escape from the rigors of everyday life. I’m a traveler. I want to go places I’ve never seen before and do things I would otherwise not do. And I feel all of these experiences are, more often than not, better when shared. In roleplaying on World of Warcraft, participating in tabletop games and writing speculative fiction, I invite those around me to join me in a journey. I don’t always know the end destination, but sometimes I think that’s less the point than the actual journey itself.

This journey will be a bit more pleasant, I think, if I can move away from the emotionally-charged rants about neo-conservatives. Going from a discussion on the creativity or lack thereof in a given story to an angry response to conservative stupidity and back to movie & television reviews can be somewhat jarring. If I’ve managed to retain readers more interested in the geekiness than the politics I’ll be very surprised, and I’d rather lose the politicos than the dreamers.

I need to focus on doing one thing, and doing it better than the Dan Browns and Stephenie Meyers and Laurel K. Hamiltons out there – produce original speculative fiction that captures the imagination of the reader and takes them somewhere they had no idea existed before opening the cover of a book that I have written.

So. Let’s move on, shall we? The journey into the unknown and undreamed can’t continue unless we take a step in the right direction.

Do Not Adjust Your Net

August 19, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Test Pattern

It could simply be due to the nature of the economy, or perhaps the transition from my previous job to my current one, but I have to admit that over the last month or so I’ve experienced something of a heroic BSOD (that’s “Blue Screen of Death” for those unfamiliar with the acronym). It went unnoticed until recently when I’ve tried to get more original fiction written rather than recycling older things I’ve already completed. As much as I love Akuma and The Jovian Flight, the only way I’m going to prevail in a highly competitive market such as speculative fiction is if I do something original and do it better than anybody else.

I think part of the subtle test pattern that’s been droning in my subconscious is due to actually having work to do day in and day out. Being in a maintenance position for a web development company is like working the front desk at a Jiffy Lube – people bring in their vehicles (in the case of my employers, vehicles for marketing and sales) with what they think might be a terminal problem and it requires some billable hours to sort out the root of the problem, which is likely not as major as it seems. However, a tiny shard of glass lodged in a minute part of the body can still be cripplingly painful and needs to be removed. If you’re not a salesman – and I am in no way, shape, or form one of those – it can be difficult to both relate to a client’s needs and make your own known in a direct and honest way. There’s a reason doctors in a hospital tend to not talk about where the money’s coming from for a procedure. I know I’m drawing parallels between two very hands-on professions and one that doesn’t require dirt or blood under my nails, but it’s still a labor-intensive service industry.

While I don’t feel that I’m in over my head, and my co-workers give me a definite and welcome sense of being part of a family rather than a cog in a machine, the intensity of the labor tends to leave me feeling drained afterwards and it can be difficult to muster creative energy. My novel needs to be finished, and I know how I want it to proceed, but getting from where I am now to where I want to be in terms of the story can seem a daunting task after a long day at the office. Especially when it’s easier to fire up World of Warcraft to knock out some dailies or a dungeon, or cuddle with my wife in front of entertainment saved on our DVR or provided by Netflix – though I’m planning on leveraging the latter for creativity more in future posts.

I guess the point of this post is mostly to remind myself that my system’s in a state of rebooting and should soon be back to normal creative levels as it adjusts to the workload. It’s also material I feel capable of posting in lieu of anything comic book related, since tight finances have curbed my trips to the local comic book story indefinitely.

But I do have a few graphic novels I could review. Hmmm.

How Not To Query

August 6, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Yes, it's stolen from ZP.

One of the biggest challenges in writing a novel, other than writing it in the first place, is finding a way to get your masterpeice into the hands of a public eager for new stories. Provided you’d like to get paid for your hard work, frustration and original ideas, you’re going to need to get your novel to a publisher. You can try to contact a publishing company directly, or have an agent take a potential editor to the mat on your behalf, but either way, you’re going to need a query letter.

Query letters are odd things, in that as a writer a little two paragraph snapshot of a work you’ve slaved over should present no challenge. However, you don’t need to simply talk about your work. You need to sell it. The person reading the letter will be looking for evidence in the letter that both you and your work are marketable. With that in mind, here are two examples of how not to write your query.

Dear Publisher X:

Hi, my name is Josh and I’ve written a fantastic new novel called the Adventures of Captain Spanky. The Adventures of Captain Spanky is a great novel because it has this awesome main character and it’s set in outer space. There are space aliens and rockets and laser beams, which are all really cool. I hope you like it too, because if it gets published I’m sure it’ll sell really well considering all the cool stuff I’ve written about.

Let’s leave aside the atrocious grammar and run-on sentences. The main problem with this first example is that it talks way too much about the ‘cool stuff’ in the novel. It doesn’t go into detail as to why these are key selling points, it just claims they are. The author also comes across as a gushing fanboy of their own work. Both of these are turn-offs to potential agents, editors and publishers.

Dear Publisher Y:

I have recently completed a novel entitled the Adventures of Captain Spanky. It is approximately 100,000 words in length. It is written in a science fiction setting, which is one of the more popular genres of speculative fiction. There are characters from a diverse selection of both human and non-human races, all of which are explored in terms of biology and culture. Therefore, this novel should have appeal to a wide variety of readers.

Some interesting points are raised here, to be sure. But they’re presented in a very dry fashion. There might be marketable ideas, but the author comes across as stodgy, or perhaps even arrogant. Hopefully, this sort of thing is obvious to an author who’s written a novel with the idea of having other people read it.

A much better query for the above novel would probably look something like this.

Dear Agent Z:

Captain Gerald “Spanky” McSpankerson is not what you would call an exemplary astronaut. He’s disobeyed orders on a number of occasions, his long orbital assignments and tendency to womanize have ruined more than one relationship, and he doesn’t know as much as he thinks about the nuances of spacecraft maintenance. However, he’s a skilled pilot and reasonably intelligent, so his superiors have elected to ship him to the edge of space for exploratory duty rather than simply firing him. This is the situation Gerald finds himself in at the opening of “The Adventures of Captain Spanky,” a novel of 100,000 words.

Science fiction is by no means an unexplored genre. However, most trends lately have been towards gritty realism. The Adventures of Captain Spanky harkens back to an earlier time, foregoing hard science exposition or deep social or psychological themes for a feeling of retro camp and humorous asides. This atmosphere is delivered through Gerald’s perspective as the newest arrival on an intergalactic space station largely unexplored by humans. Populated with alien species ranging from nearly humanoid creatures with green skin to beings that amount to little more than ambulatory rocks, the station is the setting for Spanky’s first real trial by fire. Invaders from a distant galaxy have come to conquer, and Spanky must rally friend and foe alike in order to save trillions of innocent lives.

I look forward to sharing more of the Adventures of Captain Spanky with you. My writing has been featured in the online magazine Interstellar Dreams Limited and in Quarterly Sci-Fi Digest. I thank you for your time and interest and await your prompt reply.

That’s how I’d do it, anyway. More on querying in weeks to come!

Dry Spells

July 30, 2009 / / 3 Comments

Dunes of the Namib Desert, taken by Simon Collins

Let’s say you’re a writer, and you’re finding it difficult to write. You have ideas, perhaps you can even see events you want to write about happening in your mind, but you can’t commit them to paper. Maybe you feel that your ideas are invalid. Maybe writing is not your primary profession, and your main bread-winning scheme is hogging all of your time and energy. There are any number of reasons for it to happen, but whatever the reason is, you’ve hit a dry spell.

A dry spell is different from writer’s block in that while writer’s block stalls the writing process through a lack of ideas, a dry spell occurs when influences outside the writing process itself prevent the process from moving forward. Writing can be a deeply personal undertaking, even a quest, and personal issues and concerns can derail the smooth flow of a writer’s work as diabolically as errant pocket change on a public transit system. The worst part of a dry spell is not knowing how long it’s going to last. A good night’s sleep might restore confidence in one’s ideas, or a lack of free time & ambient energy can last for weeks or even months on end.

The key of surviving a dry spell is simply to not give up. Even if you feel any efforts you make might be futile since you’re not getting paid for them and you have to make ends meet more than you need to finish a particular article, chapter or story, dedicate yourself to writing it anyway as soon as you’re able. You also need to remember that you’re not alone in your struggle. With the economy in rough shape, and the publishing market a highly competitive and critical one, it’s highly likely that more than one would-be author is experiencing the same malaise, frustration or even despair that you are feeling now. Reach out to other writers, and I’d bet money that I unfortunately do not have that you’ll find them supportive and helpful.

I suppose I should get back to work, which sadly is not writing. But the ideas in my skull refuse to keep quiet, so I need to commit them to paper sooner rather than later.

Up and Coming

July 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Writing image stolen from a blog who stole it from a zine.

In the midst of my day-to-day workflow, the aftermath of my nuptials, and trying & failing to keep several financial chainsaws in the air while ducking for cover to avoid losing limbs, the news coming from my various writing prospects has taken a rather positive turn. I need to push forward on writing my fantasy novel, but some of my other writing has been getting attention or might earn me some scratch and, more importantly, notoriety.

The Escapist

Since my first article was published there I’ve been keeping my eye on their upcoming issues. I have one query in to Tom Endo, the acquisitions editor, and hope to brew up a couple more in the next few weeks. People actually seem a bit surprised when they realize I write non-fiction as well as my usual flights of fancy.

Adventure On A Dare

About a year ago I wrapped up working with Fritz Sprandel, a man who found himself on quite a few journeys in his life. I helped him chronicle one of his many sojourns, a solo canoe trip down the east coast that landed him in Castro’s Cuba. It’s a good tale and I hope he gets it to print soon. I heard last night my name will be prominently featured on the book’s front cover. More on this as it develops.

Blood from the Underground vol. 2

I was made aware of this by a dear friend of mine. This anthology of horror stories will have a second volume produced soon, and they were looking for submissions before September. I pointed them towards Akuma, which was quickly accepted. It’s a free contribution on my part, but it’s another way of getting my name out, this time in the realm of fiction.

For now, however, I have bills that need to be paid and a bank account waving its arms at me after getting tossed overboard by a wave of life events, so I’d best get back to work.

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