Yearly Archives: 2016

Pokemon Go and writing

I’ve played a little bit of Pokemon Go, enough to be slightly familiar with the concept. One afternoon I was thinking that Pokemon have a lot to do with writing.

First of all, Pokemon Go superimposes itself on reality. That’s what you do when you write, especially urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy like I do. The characters are in our real life. Sometimes they take over our real life, and it’s all you think about. It’s addicting.

You have to catch characters. They’re fleeting, in certain places and at certain times. To sound a little mystical, they’re out there, but they do their own thing. Sometimes you find yourself with the same characters over and over (How many Ghastlies can you hold, anyway?). You put down lures, or give the characters some reason to exist in your story. They stick around. Then, they evolve.

That is the point of the story, in general–to take your character and evolve it into something that it wasn’t when you first started the story. To make your character grow, you coddle it and care for it, train it and then use it to fight. (I’ve always thought Pokemon was just an baby version of a cockfight, but I digress.) The fight is the conflict, and there’s plenty of them. At a gym, with other people–there’s always fighting. You evolve your Pokemon, your character, and make it powerful enough to surpass the  fight and win.

In order to succeed and get Pokeballs and other Pokemon, you need to go to different Pokestops. This is your inspiration, to go out into the world and let it “fill your well”.  Pokestops around here are churches, parks, and historical sites. Historical sites are the most open-ended places to get ideas. Parks are a great place to people watch and imagine. Churches…I’ll leave that to you. The architecture is nice.

So every time I get a Drowsy (and I have plenty of them at my house), I think of a sad sack of a character, which I might put into a story.

Real Life Muses

Today, I want to give a shout-out to some real-life muses that have helped me along these past few years.

I have been lucky to have such good people around me to give me inspiration and ideas, and, most of all, inspire me to write. They all follow the cardinal rule of improvisation: “Yes, and…”  That is, whatever they do, your reaction should accept what they have done and build upon it. Because most of my muses have been found using role playing (RP) games, this is not an unusual occurrence. Sometimes, though, people take advantage of the rule and “God-mod” their characters so that nothing is impossible for them. It’s tough to play against perfect characters.

Anyway. One of my most important muses was my husband. He still inspires me due to his life. He was a carnie for 4 years, and I joined him on the circuit for one summer so I could get the idea of what it was like. That summer still inspires me. He was a biker, and that inspired me with Knight of the Road, a character I play on Champions Online and City of Heroes. I also have a story on Tumblr called Leopard Knight (which badly needs to be updated). My husband was into the military, but had never joined (though he wanted to so badly), and inspired me with the War Mage series. I learned enough military terms to be dangerous, which is how I wrote War Mage.

He probably would be proud of me, seeing my book in print and in audio. My second book is dedicated to him. He, unfortunately, is no longer with us, but he is always in my memory.

Speaking of City of Heroes, Cedric is another muse I worked with. He fell into the god-mod rule sometimes, also a rule-monger. We played characters from Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and other White Wolf types of characters. Some of the other players were god-modders, playing “races” that were “banned” or exiled. Cedric would jump on that with both feet, which pissed off some people. But he worked with me and Grimaulkin’s character. I wouldn’t have fallen so much in love with Grim if it wasn’t for him.

Steven is another muse. He’s more of a ski-fi type of guy. I never did sci-fi–too much science! He inspired me with his Emerald Flight series, which I developed a character he enjoyed and has taken in for his own, Rusty Raynes. I loved playing Rusty. He’s a constantly recovering alcoholic, drug addict, and all around junkie who is an excellent engineer (he might have some telepathic connection with machines, or at least it seems that way). I can’t wait to see what he does with him in his upcoming book.

Four other guys ended up moving from City into Champions. Chris helped me develop Grim and other characters. Chris was an RP nut, but he was sensitive to his characters.  We developed Knight’s flaws with his characters. Aaron also came along. He worked with Grim (played his “boyfriend” for a time, too and was there at Grim’s rebirth). Chris disappeared; I still get pokes from Aaron every once in a while. Both of them did “Yes, and…but…” which sometimes pissed me off, but helped me to stretch my imagination and my mind outside of the box. Both of them also validated that I could play/write a gay man well.

Two other muses still inspire me today. They have consistently inspired me over the last…wow, has it been almost 5 years? Jon is an RP gamer and, I think, a GM (game master) for some games he plays offline. So he’s very familiar with how RP works. He presents his characters with such wide-ranging issues that I really have to stretch to both accept and work with. He’s not wild or crazy (well, he could be); he’s very realistic, keeping his characters grounded in reality. He’s witty, funny, and sensitive to how my characters act and react. His ERP (you figure out what that means) is second to none. I’ve learned so much from him.

Joel is also a muse that still inspires me. We have so many pairings that I think 3/4 of my guys have touched his characters, literally and figuratively. He’s always accepting of the “Yes, and…” rule. And, most of the time after a session of RP with him in Champions, I walk away with a story idea that I need to write down. It usually finds its way into 800 Words–except recently because I’m working on War Mage. Because he’s so accepting of the “Yes, and…” rule, I often write myself into a corner that he remembers or points out and I have forgotten. He must take better notes or have a more cavernous memory than I do to remember the details of what one of my minor character did six months ago. He’s also consistent, so I can sometimes take his characters and write about them. And he lets me!

The writers’ muses are in conjunction with the well that constantly needs replenishment. The water in the well is only as good as the inspiration and imagination that draws from it. The “Yes, and…” rule is a cardinal one for muses. They should accept what’s going on, accept you and your character, and work with them without judgement.  Hopefully, they’re living, breathing people with imaginations, too, who are interested in seeing where you’ll send your characters–and maybe theirs.

Do I Really Need an MFA?

My friend, trying to be helpful, sent me a link so a university offering an online MFA. “You’re writing, so you might as well get credit for it,” she said. I don’t know if that was what the school told her to write or what she decided to write before sending it to me.

For the heck of it, I filled out the application.  For four days I got spammed, constantly, with emails and phone calls and text messages saying they wanted to talk to me about my degree.  At all hours of the day and night, they tried to get a hold of me. I ignored them, because I found out that the start of the semester was June 9, and it’s long past that.

It got me to thinking, though, do I really need an MFA to write professionally? Perusing the Writer’s Digest fiction winners over the past few years, most of them had MFA’s. Some of them were professors. Do I need to provide a CV when entering the Writer’s Digest fiction sweepstakes?

The key word is “professionally.” Our work world is so entranced by how much paper you can accumulate from different “accredited” schools to prove that you’re good at what you do. That’s not necessarily true. You can be a good writer without having a degree saying that you are, I truly believe that. Academic fiction is far different than commercial fiction, and I think commercial fiction is open to anyone.

I say this not because I don’t have an MFA. I am the type to enjoy school and learning, being exposed to things that I normally wouldn’t be exposed to. But as for one or two professors to judge my work on a literary basis as opposed to a commercial basis, I don’t think that’s fair.  I am not a literary writer. I have a story. I tell it. So what if I follow certain rules, certain conventions, to make it commercial. Not only do I want to tell the story, but I want to make the reader enjoy it, not scratch their heads at what I wrote.

The purpose of an MFA, to me, is to get a better job. So that is why I would persue it. As for whether or not it would improve my writing? I really don’t care.

Aside: I’m reading Best Intentions, Glass Bottles Book 1 (Or is it Glass Bottles, Best Intentions, Book 1? Hereafter it’s Glass Bottles), which is written by my press-mate J. Dark. I’m going through the first chapter, and she broke a cardinal rule that I strive to follow: Don’t infodump the world in the first chapter. She did. But she did it well enough so that it moved the story along. Unfortunately, it’s not my cup of tea because it’s got a female protag (I have a thing about that), so I’m reading it to see how she handles the female protag, which is all the rage right now. Is she a badass or a bitch or neither or both? I’m not quite sure; I’ll have to get back to you on it.

I haven’t reviewed this book yet because, like I said, I’m slogging through only chapter one and it wouldn’t be fair. It’s a magical murder mystery; I like that. I would suggest, if you like female protagonists, magic and mystery, then jump into this book with both feet. She’s good.

Telling Stories

When I first started writing, I wrote primarily for myself. Success was getting the words out on paper, by pen or typewriter. Then I started posting stories with other people in forums and a blog. People liked my characters and their stories. People commented, which meant they read my stuff. Someone else actually liked what I was doing!

My level of success changed. It was to get published. Because of my fear, I sent out four, exactly four, query letters to different agents. All of them said no thanks.

Then Paper Angel came along. They offered to publish a book it took me a month to write and was my most recent novel (therefore, the one I was most passionate about), Homecoming. I’m working on War Mage, the actual novel, since Homecoming is more or less a prequel.  I have another novel that I’ve been passionate about for the last three years that I hope to get to Paper Angel. This meant I fulfilled my dream of getting published, therefore I’m successful.

Not so much. Because I raised the bar yet again. I had goals: 20 reviews and sell 50 copies in three months, being on the best seller list, whatever that means…but then reality burst that bubble (so far).

However, people who’ve contacted me about my book say it’s a good beginning. They want more. They like the character, the world I’ve created, the setup for the next book. In fact, one of my readers said, “You’ve been writing for over 30 years; what else do you have that I don’t know about?”

What was my original measure of success? To get the words out. Not the money. Not the fame–though they would be nice. I write a story that I myself would like to read. If someone else comes along for the ride, then I have done my duty. By that, I am successful.

Preparation

I’m going along pretty good with the new novel. Mostly, though, I’m doing preparation.

I figured out this method with Blood From a Stone, my NaNoWriMo book of last year. Because I only had 2 weeks to do NaNo, I had to have a road map. I usually pants the thing, and I end up going off on tangents and side roads, getting lost. War Mage‘s first draft is a lot like that. It’s why I ended up with 6 drafts before sending it to the editor (and I know I have issues there).

So with this one, I’m doing up a main plot, and then sub-plots. I happened to be reading a book at the same time called Blueprint Your Bestseller, which describes this method that I stumbled upon. Instead of calling them “plots” the author of this book calls them “series”. You have a theme, which is the main series, and then other series that point to the theme.

I always start out with a theme. Homecoming‘s was Home is where your heart is. War Mage’s is Friends can be found anywhere. High Road‘s is It’s better to take the high road. A lot of times my titles allude to the theme. Heavy-handed, aren’t I?

There can be only one theme in the book, and every scene and series has to point to it. The first draft of War Mage showed me that I had scenes that went no where, scenes that had no place in the book, and characters that were repetitious and similar. Using the method in Blueprint, which was written for rewrites, I can tear apart War Mage and put it back together, with a main plot and subplots. (Sorry, but I’m going to use those terms instead of “series”.)

What I’ve been doing mostly is character sketches and subplots from the characters. Some of them want to be furniture, so I’m doing quick physical descriptions of them and their attitudes. When stuck, I use StoryMatic or The Positive Traits Thesaurus or Negative Traits Thesaurus to get an attitude.

Other characters want a life of their own, so they get the full treatment. I have tiny composition books I bought at Dollar Tree; they come in a package of 3 for a dollar.

char book

I have a character sheet that I downloaded from some writer’s site I don’t remember, but it goes into excruciating detail. I don’t answer all the questions – except for Brent, I really should redo his character sketch. I pick and choose some questions and put them in the little composition books. For example, one question is, “Does he want to have children?” My character, a staff sergeant, is going through a divorce according to the subplot. Does he have kids? How many? What are their ages and names? What are they like – brief traits? How does he feel about them? I fill up a small page with these answers, which spurs me on to other questions, and rinse and repeat.

From the characters come the subplots. I am an index card freak. I write out the scenes on index cards and put them on a ring. Staples has what I normally use, and they can be found sometimes for $1-$1.50. I bought oodles of them on sale, so I have a box full of them. I write out or keep in mind the subplot’s main point – the “where am I going with this” idea – and then I write out the scenes. Then I thread them among the main plot on the ring.

index card

This card is using the subplot named “Sergeant” (at the top) and goes into a scene. I don’t give a lot of details because then I’m writing the scene, I believe. I give enough to whet the muse’s appetite, or to spur on what I was thinking of at the time.

Sometimes, though, I get the urge to write. I’ve prepared the first few scenes, so I know where I’m going with those, and those are the ones I write. I’m still in chapter one, but I’m on scene three. I need to make “looking at profiles” exciting.

Appearances, definite dates

Welcome if you’re new. Here are my appearances in the New England area, the definite ones:

New England Author Expo, July 27 from 4 pm-9 pm, Danvers, MA
RI Comicon, November 11, 12, and 13 from 10 am to 8 pm?, Providence, RI
RI Author Expo, December 3, from 10 am to something, Cranston, RI

I’ve also started on War Mage’s third book, tentatively titled The High Road. I did the planning like I did with Blood From a Stone, my NaNoWriMo book last year. I got together index cards and wrote out the main plot. Then I wrote out the subplots and their results. I gathered all the index cards together and put intertwined the subplots in the main plot. I only have five subplots, one not very well defined, but I’ll let the muses work on it.

I will admit, this method worked really well for Blood, because I could keep on task and each index card was vague enough that they let the muses and my mind think up the details. With Blood, I dictated it, so I really didn’t have the time to stop and rewrite like I do normally.

I think with this new one, I’m going to transcribe literally from my first draft, the composition notebook that I usually use. Composition books are portable, don’t need electricity, are easy to bring anywhere and I can sometimes hide my writing at work in it. Now, my first draft isn’t perfect. But I’ve found that I refer to a lot of things in it that aren’t in the second draft. The first draft is ingrained in my memory, which is why sometimes the second draft ends up being confused. Then I have a third draft to try and get the second draft ingrained in my memory. At least, this is what happened with War Mage. I went through six drafts before finally sending the one to the editor. And I personally feel that 1) it’s way too short and 2) it’s a hot mess because I went so far off the first draft. Although another part of me thinks that the character development in the final draft is the best.

I started listening to a couple of books that I had on Audible, (Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis, Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman and Butcher Bird by an author I can’t read) and noticed that almost all of them break the cardinal rule of “no info dump in the first chapter.” Also, they don’t go into the detailed description of people. Some description yes, but not the detail that my editor wants. When I listened to the audiobook version of my book, I noticed that the description dragged. It’s something I need to improve.

I dumped Hard Magic because the first chapter was the main character’s in detail discussion of how she gets ready for her day and an info dump of her backstory. I didn’t bother listening to the rest. I dumped Butcher Bird because of the bad grammar and writing. Hard Spell seems like  fun, even though the author did the info dump, it was interesting and something I need to aspire to. I noticed also that all three used the first person POV, and that Hard Magic and Butcher Bird used prologues. That’s one of my cardinal rules – no prologues. I read in a writing book somewhere something like “Prologues are scenes that don’t fit in the novel, but the author thinks are too good to get rid of.” I agree with that sentiment. In fact, in physical books, I don’t read the prologues until I finish the book, and I find that most of the time, they aren’t integral to the book.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to these days. Writing, listening to books. A book I’m reading is Blueprint Your Novel, which kind of uses my index card method but converts it into lists. I’m also reading Heretic, which is a very interesting take on the Knights Templar.

Appearances

Here’s where I plan on being in New England to promote my book and books from Paper Angel Press.

New England Author Expo, July 27, Danvers MA
Autumnfest, October 8, 9, or 10, Woonsocket, RI
Big E, Some time in September – October, Springfield, MA
New Bedford Fall Book Festival, October 15 or 16, New Bedford, MA
RI Comicon November 11, 12 and 13, Providence, RI

I’m gunning for the RI Author Expo, December 3 in Cranston, RI, but that depends if I get a spot.

As for the writing…not so much this week. I was thinking about writing, but I didn’t actually do anything. I wrote in my journal for the most part, and even then I skipped 2 days. I started to work on the rewrite of Grimaulkin Rising. That has to have extensive rewrites. I’m not looking forward to that, though I want to get it done by the end of the summer.

I also have to start work on the next book in the War Mage series, and make sure that it’s LONGER. The torture isn’t going to be all it’s about. It has to be about the other magical creatures that he meets in Iraq. More dragons? Other wizards that aren’t dicks? The Black Lions? The development of his and Chrissie’s relationship? Need to get this together, start an outline or at least some index cards.

Wish me luck – I’m going to a job interview on Tuesday for a “Communications Consultant” at my company. Not quite a step up, but it’s a step over so that I can hopefully use my talents somewhere else. If I do that, then they own my creative mind and writing time will be cut even more. Maybe. We’ll see.

I have this vision…

about my display when I go to sell books.

I have on a small easel, the Paper Angel Press logo. On the two sides of the table are two 24×32 pictures of the covers of my books, hanging from a hanger contraption that is about sic-feet tall.

On the table, which has a plain black/dark green/purple tablecloth, are six copies of both books, three or so copies of other books from the Press, business cards and some other swag that I can’t think of. Oh, and Hershey’s Kisses. (That always gets people to stop – it’s something I learned in training.)

The pictures will cost $50 to print – each. The clip hangers cost me $.99. The hanger contraption is something that is in my mind, but I don’t know if they sell them. I have to search the internet for it.

I’m have to find my list of places to go and make up my list of appearances.

God, I’m nervous.

Off to the Editor!

On Thursday night, I passed in War Mage. I’m not happy with it For one, it’s too short, 34,000 words. It’s honestly not my best work. I’ve been worried about following so many rules that it seems like a hodgepodge of rules.

A beta reader read the second draft, and gave me some pointers, which I tried to put in. However, some things I meant to follow based on my reading of some writing books. I really wonder whether writing books are worth it. They create so many rules that I realize I’m not following, that I feel like I’m being forced to write in a box.

Take romance, for instance. I always throw in a twist. I’ve read more books on writing romance than actual romance books. On the books about romance, there’s a certain formula that does not include the twist. So does that mean I’m not writing a romance?

I’ve been reading some books on general writing, and these come up with the formula for sellable books. Maybe that’s my problem? I don’t write sellable books, but I write stories.

I started listening to a book called Crimes Against Magic. I liked the premise, a modern sorcerer/thief. The first thing that turned me off was the prologue. Is there a point to a prologue? I honestly do believe that a prologue is there because it’s a cool scene and the author has no place for it in the book. I liked the description, even if the scene was stupid and made no sense.

Then I started listening to the first chapter. The scene was just too easy, too contrived, too, I don’t know. There was  a lot of improper sentence structure that grated on me, but I listened through it. Finally, when the guy gets his object (within ten minutes of the story), and the final bad sentence I could stand, I deleted it.

And this was published by a big publisher?

Dear God, what the hell is wrong with people! There’s no accounting for taste or editorial ability.

Next on the list: rewrite of Grimaulkin.

Finished the rewrite! Now if they’d leave me alone…

I finished the rewrite, at least on paper. However, I need to transcribe it to the computer.

I don’t know about you, but writing, to me, is a solitary activity. I need to have no one in the same room as me. I don’t know why, but I need to have it absolutely solitary.

Unfortunately, my computer – the computer that’s in the cellar – is also near the only working TV in the house. My kid prefers to watch TV. So he’s downstairs watching TV, while I’m upstairs doing this instead of transcribing the rewrite.

It’s like reading. I need to be transported into that other world as fully as possible. I used to be able to put my feet in both worlds at the same time, the writing world and the real world. Then I got old and cranky, and have to deal with rules. One of those rules is to write with the proper music or in silence. Rewrites need to be in silence because I’m editing and thinking about writing.

I had planned on getting it done today, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be done today. Maybe tomorrow?