I've always known that I have introvert-like tendencies, but I've never thought I was a true introvert because I don't have any fear of public speaking. I'm not shy at all, in fact, and quite enjoy lecturing on technical topics in particular. I gave an hour-long presentation on Trends in Rich Client Development at a local council for technology executives just this Tuesday, in fact.
Therefore, it was with great surprise that I discovered this article from The Altantic, and this follow-up interview from several years after the article's original publication (thanks to Shrinking Violet Promotions). It turns out that I'm apparently an introvert after all, even though I have an affinity for the limelight much of the time, and am quite good at relating to people. Often I unconsciously make myself the center of gatherings (oops) by keeping up with everyone present and providing a lot of casual banter (as I've gotten older, this attention-grabbing habit has lessened steadily from its peak during my teenage years).
There are many different degrees of introverts, but I fit what are apparently the most salient factors in determining one's introvert/extrovert orientation: I don't seek out parties or the company of other people in most cases, I have no problem being alone for extended periods, and I tend to be drained, rather than energized, with extended social contact with others. Workplace contact is fine, and I've been known to run multi-day all-day meetings with large groups of clients, while retaining more stamina than any of the other attendees... but put me in a party with a group of non-family acquaintances for a couple of hours, and I'm bushed by the time I leave.
As the writer notes, this is largely because I have to consciously work to keep up the conversation when its not someone extremely familiar (family or my very best friends) or a topic with a very specific agenda (work, for the most part). I don't have to pause to think overly much when I'm talking about work things, but if you just want to chat with me about random inanities, I'm really going to have to work to hold up my own end unless we slip into anecdote-sharing mode. Then the storyteller in me takes over, and I'll be just fine until I run out of relevant anecdotes or the topic shifts again. And if it's a topic I don't have any real knowledge about, like professional sports, you're going to find me just smiling and nodding a lot (with the occasional grunts of agreement or commiseration).
Reading the interview, I was surprised to discover that my wife is not just an introvert, but also shy. I'm an introvert only, and one with an affinity for positive attention, so that's a pretty big difference in outlook. We've both always known this about ourselves and each other, but we never really had the words to put to it before. It's somehow reassuring to discover that there are a lot of others out there just like us. In college, all our friends thought we were crazy for never going to their parties. We thought they were a little crazy for being amused by the endless routine of empty socializing and drinking. Now that everyone is older, and more focused on careers and apartments/houses and serious relationships, it's a lot easier for us all to relate.
Still, it's nice to see it written in a major publication that we weren't the crazy ones. We were simply introverts, and we still are. Perhaps that's why I so very much look forward to (hopefully) someday going on book tour, even though I know how exhausting it will be for me. I imagine the majority of writers are introverts, and that those who aren't also shy probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Estimated vs. Actual Word Count
This is something that I've been meaning to write about for the better part of a month now, but I've been putting it off because it seemed too difficult to explain. I think that this is partly what has been holding me up from posting more updates on how my writing/editing is going, also, since I need to make this post before I can properly inform you of my progress.
The issue is how word count is reported. I've always just been one to hit the "Word Count" option under the Tools menu in Word, and leave it at that. Seems simple enough, right? That's the actual word count.
Well, I've recently learned that most of the publishing industry still doesn't think in those terms -- they want to know the estimated word count, which is 250 words x number of pages in standard format (12 pt. Times New Roman, double spacing, 1" margins all around, et cetera). See Anne Mini's Word Count category for her detailed first-hand explanations of why that is, and how this works. Suffice it to say that, based on the acceptable word counts that many agents mention on websites and blog posts, and then the corresponding page counts that they mention on occasion, you'll see that Anne is right, and that there is still an overt expectation that you use estimated word count instead of actual.
This means that, when I initially queried THE GUARDIAN with 145,000 words, the agents were probably thinking the equivalent of what you would consider 162,000 "actual" words, when really I should have told them something closer to 118,900 words. When I shrunk my novel to 96,000 words, it was actually more like 84,000 words in their parlance. 80,000 words is what they would consider 320 pages, so that's right in the sweet spot of the range for most debut fiction (80,000-100,000 estimated words).
Please note that there is not absolute conversion factor between estimated and actual word count, even if your manuscript is already in perfect standard format (hence the conversion factor discrepancies between my numbers above). It's all about how many pages you wind up with, which can obviously vary a lot if most of your chapters happen to end with a page that only has one or two lines of text, versus if your chapters largely happen to end right at the bottom of each page. Depending on how many chapters you have, this could throw you off by several thousand words one way or the other.
Right now, however, my actual word count for ALDEN RIDGE is 31,287, and my estimated word count is 27,750. Previously my target was about 95,000 actual words. From now on, however, I'm going to ignore the actual word count, and just shoot for about 80,000-85,000 estimated words. That will probably work out to about the same thing.
At any rate, I figured this estimated-word-count expectation was a little-known fact in the aspiring author crowd. It's certainly not something I had ever encountered before Anne started talking about it on her blog. Hope this was useful!
The issue is how word count is reported. I've always just been one to hit the "Word Count" option under the Tools menu in Word, and leave it at that. Seems simple enough, right? That's the actual word count.
Well, I've recently learned that most of the publishing industry still doesn't think in those terms -- they want to know the estimated word count, which is 250 words x number of pages in standard format (12 pt. Times New Roman, double spacing, 1" margins all around, et cetera). See Anne Mini's Word Count category for her detailed first-hand explanations of why that is, and how this works. Suffice it to say that, based on the acceptable word counts that many agents mention on websites and blog posts, and then the corresponding page counts that they mention on occasion, you'll see that Anne is right, and that there is still an overt expectation that you use estimated word count instead of actual.
This means that, when I initially queried THE GUARDIAN with 145,000 words, the agents were probably thinking the equivalent of what you would consider 162,000 "actual" words, when really I should have told them something closer to 118,900 words. When I shrunk my novel to 96,000 words, it was actually more like 84,000 words in their parlance. 80,000 words is what they would consider 320 pages, so that's right in the sweet spot of the range for most debut fiction (80,000-100,000 estimated words).
Please note that there is not absolute conversion factor between estimated and actual word count, even if your manuscript is already in perfect standard format (hence the conversion factor discrepancies between my numbers above). It's all about how many pages you wind up with, which can obviously vary a lot if most of your chapters happen to end with a page that only has one or two lines of text, versus if your chapters largely happen to end right at the bottom of each page. Depending on how many chapters you have, this could throw you off by several thousand words one way or the other.
Right now, however, my actual word count for ALDEN RIDGE is 31,287, and my estimated word count is 27,750. Previously my target was about 95,000 actual words. From now on, however, I'm going to ignore the actual word count, and just shoot for about 80,000-85,000 estimated words. That will probably work out to about the same thing.
At any rate, I figured this estimated-word-count expectation was a little-known fact in the aspiring author crowd. It's certainly not something I had ever encountered before Anne started talking about it on her blog. Hope this was useful!
Talent or Learning
Okay, this will be my last cross-post for today. If you haven't seen today's post over on the BookEnds Literary Agency blog, you should definitely check it out. It's called "Talent or Learning: What Makes a Writer an Author." This is not only a sterling example of why the BookEnds blog such a great read, it's also a really well thought-out examination of the broad ingredients for a good author (or football player, as it happens). I've seen similar discussions of this topic many times before, but this particular salvo in the ongoing debate really surprised me (in a good way), and helped me to think about the whole issue in a new light. Highly recommended.
Marie Brennan on Writing
While I'm posting links to content by others, I thought I'd point out this essay by author Marie Brennan (thanks to Chandra Rooney for pointing me to this). Marie's essay discusses the perception by non-writers that writing is easy and that it can be done by anyone. I think that Marie's response is not surprising when you think of how professional writers are likely to react to such (even indirect) aspersions on their craft, but her response is better put than any I've previously seen. Definitely an essay to bookmark and look back at whenever philistines have got you down.
Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge
If you're a writer and haven't yet seen Nathan Bransford's Stupendously Ultimate First Line Challenge, you should drop by and submit your first line(s), and then get ready to vote on your favorite from the finalists list later this week. There are lots of entries already, but I'm sure he'd love more. Contest closes tomorrow evening.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
My initial Mozy backup is finally complete
About a month ago I wrote a post on Mozy, a new backup tool that I had been using for a few weeks at the time. Well, I thought I'd post an update, since as of 5 hours ago, my initial backup set is finally complete.
Perhaps it seems egregious for an initial backup set to take a month and a half, but I was backing up 59.3 GB of data. About ten years worth of my computer art materials, (legal) music, home video clips, numberless digital photos taken by my wife, and of course my writing. The whole process took longer than it otherwise would have because I throttled it down to about 30 Kbps between 8:30 AM and 10:00 PM, so it was only able to run at a full (for my cable connection) ~390 Kbps during the night hours.
I must say, it's been a bit interesting checking in each day to see how much progress had been made. But still, I'm looking forward to having this just kick off at 2AM every night, and quickly back up whatever changes I've made during the day. That's what I got this for, after all.
If I had one main suggestion for Mozy regarding initial backup sets, it would be this: how about creating a service by which clients can email you DVDs for you to upload straight from your data center? The indexes would certainly be a problem since you normally map everything to the hard disks, but if you made it so that Mozy had the option to do an initial backup set to a set of DVDs, then you could embed the indexes right on the DVDs and easily read them when the clients send them in.
This, of course, would take development time away from your main efforts, and would also require ongoing man hours for staff to handle the DVDs as they arrive. So I wouldn't expect this service to be free -- perhaps $5 per DVD would work for all parties. Whatever covers your costs while making it easier/faster for clients to do that initial backup set. Although, I can see where that added service might cause capacity planning problems in your data center, because your volume of data could quickly jump upwards when a lot of DVDs come in, whereas right now every individual client stream arrives at a fairly predictable trickle.
There are always so many different concerns when you have a centrally hosted software service like this. Part of what professionally interests me in that model, I guess.
Perhaps it seems egregious for an initial backup set to take a month and a half, but I was backing up 59.3 GB of data. About ten years worth of my computer art materials, (legal) music, home video clips, numberless digital photos taken by my wife, and of course my writing. The whole process took longer than it otherwise would have because I throttled it down to about 30 Kbps between 8:30 AM and 10:00 PM, so it was only able to run at a full (for my cable connection) ~390 Kbps during the night hours.
I must say, it's been a bit interesting checking in each day to see how much progress had been made. But still, I'm looking forward to having this just kick off at 2AM every night, and quickly back up whatever changes I've made during the day. That's what I got this for, after all.
If I had one main suggestion for Mozy regarding initial backup sets, it would be this: how about creating a service by which clients can email you DVDs for you to upload straight from your data center? The indexes would certainly be a problem since you normally map everything to the hard disks, but if you made it so that Mozy had the option to do an initial backup set to a set of DVDs, then you could embed the indexes right on the DVDs and easily read them when the clients send them in.
This, of course, would take development time away from your main efforts, and would also require ongoing man hours for staff to handle the DVDs as they arrive. So I wouldn't expect this service to be free -- perhaps $5 per DVD would work for all parties. Whatever covers your costs while making it easier/faster for clients to do that initial backup set. Although, I can see where that added service might cause capacity planning problems in your data center, because your volume of data could quickly jump upwards when a lot of DVDs come in, whereas right now every individual client stream arrives at a fairly predictable trickle.
There are always so many different concerns when you have a centrally hosted software service like this. Part of what professionally interests me in that model, I guess.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Baby talk is perhaps biological?
Yesterday, there was a very interesting article on baby talk from macaque monkeys in the Chicago Tribune. Evidently, researchers have discovered that the monkeys have a special voice that they use only for talking to infants. This voice is higher-pitched, too, just like humans when they do baby talk. From the article:
Evidently, this tail wagging is extremely rare when they aren't in the presence of infants. The article vaguely suggests that this behavior in macaques might be indicative that baby talk in humans might have a biological imperative behind it. That seems plausible to me, given the ubiquitousness of baby talk amongst all human cultures.
The interesting thing is that this could fly in the face of modern critics of baby talk, who believe that using nonsense words and such stunts the baby's ability to learn real words. Of course, my argument would be that the nonsense words don't necessarily have to be a part of baby talk; it seems like the tone, facial expression, and intent alone would qualify.
My wife and I have both had an aversion to using nonsensical baby talk, even before the studies that show that might be harmful (or at least not helpful), but we still do the tone and facial expressions and such with kids. I'm no expert, but it seems like that would both satiate any biological imperatives that exist (plus fulfilling whatever role they play in the baby's development or at least mood), while also not confusing the baby with gibberish. Who knows for sure, anyway? But it is quite interesting...
The intent seemed simply to get the infant to look over and make eye contact with the caller, she said, then to amuse the infant, much as a human might try to get a baby to smile.
A rhesus macaque wanting to charm a tot has an advantage over a human: Besides babbling in baby tongues, it can wag its tail. The monkeys often wag their tails in the presence of a monkey infant, like a human using a rattle to entertain the little one.
Evidently, this tail wagging is extremely rare when they aren't in the presence of infants. The article vaguely suggests that this behavior in macaques might be indicative that baby talk in humans might have a biological imperative behind it. That seems plausible to me, given the ubiquitousness of baby talk amongst all human cultures.
The interesting thing is that this could fly in the face of modern critics of baby talk, who believe that using nonsense words and such stunts the baby's ability to learn real words. Of course, my argument would be that the nonsense words don't necessarily have to be a part of baby talk; it seems like the tone, facial expression, and intent alone would qualify.
My wife and I have both had an aversion to using nonsensical baby talk, even before the studies that show that might be harmful (or at least not helpful), but we still do the tone and facial expressions and such with kids. I'm no expert, but it seems like that would both satiate any biological imperatives that exist (plus fulfilling whatever role they play in the baby's development or at least mood), while also not confusing the baby with gibberish. Who knows for sure, anyway? But it is quite interesting...
Friday, August 24, 2007
Talk about a wate of paper
Check out this article on the bills that AT&T sends to iPhone customers. Apparently some of these monthly bills were as large as "small novels." That sounds like gross exaggeration, but, looking at the pictures, it doesn't seem like that is the case at all. Makes you feel a little bit better about the volume of paper used for manuscripts in the publishing industry, doesn't it? At least all that paper actually has a point...
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Author Bio Updated
Anne Mini recently did a series on how to construct proper author bios (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), and this inspired me to redo my own author bio. The old version was much longer, and in some senses more informative, but the problem with it was that it was just too long. There was just too much information that I was trying to convey at once, so the important points were lost in the shuffle. It was really styled more like an encyclopedia entry than a marketing tool, anyway, so I doubt it would have been very effective with professional readers.
As Anne points out, one of the primary purposes of the author bio is to make the author sound interesting. I think my new version does that a lot better (and more concisely) than the old version did. For those of you with websites and/or blogs -- do you have an author bio online, yet? It might be a good thing to do, both as a great thing to have on hand for when agents request it, and to have readily available online in case someone from the industry stops by (you never know, right?).
If you post one, drop me a comment and let me know; I always like finding out more about the people who stop by my blog!
As Anne points out, one of the primary purposes of the author bio is to make the author sound interesting. I think my new version does that a lot better (and more concisely) than the old version did. For those of you with websites and/or blogs -- do you have an author bio online, yet? It might be a good thing to do, both as a great thing to have on hand for when agents request it, and to have readily available online in case someone from the industry stops by (you never know, right?).
If you post one, drop me a comment and let me know; I always like finding out more about the people who stop by my blog!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Forging New Habits Is Hard
I've recently started trying to adopt the habit of putting two spaces after every period. This was not something that I ever learned, and it's something that still seems very foreign to me to do. I've of course seen plenty of other people who do this, but it's not been anything I've ever wanted to do myself; I always thought it was an antiquated practice. But recently I've learned that it throws off page counts in Standard Format, so I'm trying to learn this as a new habit.
I'm getting pretty good at automatically remembering to add that extra space most of the time, but fairly often I look back at my text and notice a string of places that I missed. Ah well, I've taught myself to put spaces on either side of em dashes, to put spaces between my ellipses -- and then to take them out again once I learned that was wrong -- and to put spaces between parentheses and their contents in programming but not in fiction. Ah well, I'll have this latest change down soon enough, despite years of conditioning to the contrary. It's just a bit amusing to see my subconscious struggle with it for the time being. How hard or easy do you find changing habits like this to be?
I'm getting pretty good at automatically remembering to add that extra space most of the time, but fairly often I look back at my text and notice a string of places that I missed. Ah well, I've taught myself to put spaces on either side of em dashes, to put spaces between my ellipses -- and then to take them out again once I learned that was wrong -- and to put spaces between parentheses and their contents in programming but not in fiction. Ah well, I'll have this latest change down soon enough, despite years of conditioning to the contrary. It's just a bit amusing to see my subconscious struggle with it for the time being. How hard or easy do you find changing habits like this to be?
Monday, August 20, 2007
Writing Update
Been a while since I've logged one of these, unfortunately, but that's just the way it goes when planning and editing. I've partly been working on the worldbuilding, etc, for LUCIEN'S STORY, and that's not something I can really share much about, since I'd rather you learned of all that by actually reading the novel someday. The decision-making and discovery processes for that sort of thing are not all that scintillating, anyway.
The other part of what I've been doing is working on ALDEN RIDGE again. I showed the manuscript to an editor I know, to get some outside feedback, and this has resulted in some very good new ideas on how to handle certain aspects of the structure of the story. So I've been working on planning those changes, as well, and am just now getting to the point where I'll be working on them in earnest.
I'll post more updates as they become relevant, and try to keep you up to date on what's going on. I hope you're using my RSS feed and Google Reader (or whatever RSS program), and not relying on just checking back every few days.
The other part of what I've been doing is working on ALDEN RIDGE again. I showed the manuscript to an editor I know, to get some outside feedback, and this has resulted in some very good new ideas on how to handle certain aspects of the structure of the story. So I've been working on planning those changes, as well, and am just now getting to the point where I'll be working on them in earnest.
I'll post more updates as they become relevant, and try to keep you up to date on what's going on. I hope you're using my RSS feed and Google Reader (or whatever RSS program), and not relying on just checking back every few days.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Rejection Collection
Here's a great post from the blog of Stephen Parrish. It basically lists a number of famous authors and works, and the ludicrous number of times many of their works were rejected before going on to become massive bestsellers. So if you've got a nice little pile of rejection letters, as I do, don't let that alone stop you. Maybe your prior works just weren't quite ready for prime time, maybe the industry just wasn't quite ready for your book, or maybe it was just dumb luck that passed you over. There's nothing to do but keep at it, and if you start feeling too down on yourself for being rejected, just look at Stephen's list again. You're in excellent company.
On Outlines and Revising
I saw this post over at The Incurable Disease of Writing today. It's called "I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw." The post itself is a reaction to an interview in The Writer, and I have to say that I could not agree more with the original interviewee or Missy from The Incurable Disease. I don't have much to add to her post; you should just read it for yourself.
I will say, though, that I treat anything as an absolute. I do plenty of research and character design and worldbuilding and so on -- both before I ever start writing and consciously as I go -- but my initial outline is never even close to how the book comes out in the end. The characters always take me in unexpected new directions, and new ideas occur to me all throughout the writing process. And yes, I find it impossible to move on if my previously-written chapters have not been edited to some fair degree. Sometimes there's nothing to do but just plunge ahead with nothing but a long-term plan, good worldbuilding, and strong characters -- in such situations, the characters themselves will almost invariably show you what their story will be. And, you know what? I think that's how important parts of the most unique stories come about.
I will say, though, that I treat anything as an absolute. I do plenty of research and character design and worldbuilding and so on -- both before I ever start writing and consciously as I go -- but my initial outline is never even close to how the book comes out in the end. The characters always take me in unexpected new directions, and new ideas occur to me all throughout the writing process. And yes, I find it impossible to move on if my previously-written chapters have not been edited to some fair degree. Sometimes there's nothing to do but just plunge ahead with nothing but a long-term plan, good worldbuilding, and strong characters -- in such situations, the characters themselves will almost invariably show you what their story will be. And, you know what? I think that's how important parts of the most unique stories come about.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Mozy
A few weeks ago, a client told me about a program called Mozy. It was so inexpensive ($5/month) that I signed up right away, and I've discovered that this program is really a terrific value. It was recently featured in PC Magazine, I'm told, but I haven't subscribed to that particular publication for a number of years now (too consumer-oriented; I've gotten so I much prefer TechRepublic).
I did a popular post on Data Loss and Backup Solutions a few months ago, and I think that this particular product is an excellent solution to the backup issues I outlined before. This is very similar to the more-expensive tools from Connected TLM that I have used in the past, but this tool is much simpler and more cost-effective. They even have a version that is completely free for up to 2GB of data, which should be more than enough if all you're looking to back up is your writing materials. I have a a lot more data than that to back up (58GB for now), so I'm doing the paid account. If you don't already have a backup solution (or aren't happy with the one you do have), check this one out and see what you think.
I did a popular post on Data Loss and Backup Solutions a few months ago, and I think that this particular product is an excellent solution to the backup issues I outlined before. This is very similar to the more-expensive tools from Connected TLM that I have used in the past, but this tool is much simpler and more cost-effective. They even have a version that is completely free for up to 2GB of data, which should be more than enough if all you're looking to back up is your writing materials. I have a a lot more data than that to back up (58GB for now), so I'm doing the paid account. If you don't already have a backup solution (or aren't happy with the one you do have), check this one out and see what you think.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Lucien's Story
I've been finding myself very stuck with ALDEN RIDGE lately, and this past week I've hit a point where I realized I just needed to set ALDEN RIDGE aside for a bit. A number of life events, some of which I mentioned recently and others of which I don't care to mention right now, have certainly helped me fall into a non-writing rut, but even back in early May when things were easier I was having trouble with this particular story. It's told from the perspective of multiple protagonists, and though it is "dark fantasy" it is still more than a little off the beaten path for my normal writing genres -- that's both good and bad. Variety is good, but being in unfamiliar territory has been slowing me up and giving me a lot of issues to consider that just wouldn't come up in a genre/writing style I am more used to writing in.
A new idea for a story set in the world of THE GUARDIAN has recently come to mind, and in light of these troubles with ALDEN RIDGE I've decided to pursue that for a bit. It's actually something of a prequel to THE GUARDIAN, and adds a number of exciting new elements to the mythology of that world. Right now I don't have a true title for the book, as it is still in pretty early form, so I'm just referring to it as LUCIEN'S STORY. Lucien is the protagonist, who lives about in Ivoria about 10,000 years before Sean Sunderland (the protagonist of THE GUARDIAN) is born.
Now, this isn't to say that I'm giving up on ALDEN RIDGE. It will take a whole lot more planning before I can even start writing LUCIEN'S STORY. I'll be working on both books at once, dividing my attention however my attention wants to be divided at the time. Right now I'm a bit burned out on ALDEN RIDGE, and LUCIEN'S STORY is still new and exciting, so I'm solely focused on the latter. I have a feeling that will change over the next few weeks, as I rekindle my enthusiasm for writing through this new work. Once I've got a little bit of distance from ALDEN RIDGE, I'm not as likely to feel like all my eggs are in that one basket, or that I'm in some sort of rut or that it's bad that I'm off doing something outside my usual specialty.
I've been warring with myself about making ALDEN RIDGE more traditional-fantasy-like, or adding more elements of Science Fantasy, but that's counter to my original vision for the story and I keep having to make myself not do that. I want this story to been broken-earth fantasy, with some elements of magic but not in a reassuring way. This is a world of fear and supernatural darkness, and frankly it can be hard for me to exclusively inhabit that world for months on end. If you were to pick up the book, it would only take you a few days at most to finish it, and there wouldn't be any problem. In most respects, writers like Stephen King are far darker than I am, anyway, and it's not like that has hurt their readership. But as a writer, while I truly want to produce a work like ALDEN RIDGE, it's not my "bread and butter" and so I find my thoughts turning to my world of Ivoria again. Indulging my hunger for visiting Ivoria should actually make it a lot easier for me to finish ALDEN RIDGE in a timely manner, with all its original darkness and spareness intact.
Hopefully the two stories will feed off each other -- when I hit a block with one, I can just divert attention to the other. I've read of various professional authors who do this, Orson Scott Card chiefly among them. I've long thought that this is how I would like to handle things if I were writing full time; writing something off-beat (for me) while at the same time continuing to service my core worlds. I hadn't thought I would do this unless I was able to make writing my full-time job, but seeing as I'm not writing much at all these days, I feel like this tactic will get me out of the rut I've fallen into with ALDEN RIDGE.
Of course, now I'm tempted to tell you more about LUCIEN'S STORY, but there's quite a lot I can't say. I will say that this story tells of the beginnings of Ashmedai, the lord of the demons that Sean Sunderland struggles against in THE GUARDIAN, and also Arc, the vampire who aids Sean. LUCIEN'S STORY is actually set back when Ashmedai and Arc were both human, before demonkind had even appeared. I also get to explore how the links between Ivoria and our world (the real world) first came about, back when Ivoria was free and still fairly advanced, and yet people in our world were barely learning agriculture. The story will be told in third person, but will follow Lucien about as closely as THE GUARIDAN follows Sean Sunderland. The other two most notable characters in this book will be Morgan Reed and Vincent Valerian, Lucien's two closest friends and companions.
A new idea for a story set in the world of THE GUARDIAN has recently come to mind, and in light of these troubles with ALDEN RIDGE I've decided to pursue that for a bit. It's actually something of a prequel to THE GUARDIAN, and adds a number of exciting new elements to the mythology of that world. Right now I don't have a true title for the book, as it is still in pretty early form, so I'm just referring to it as LUCIEN'S STORY. Lucien is the protagonist, who lives about in Ivoria about 10,000 years before Sean Sunderland (the protagonist of THE GUARDIAN) is born.
Now, this isn't to say that I'm giving up on ALDEN RIDGE. It will take a whole lot more planning before I can even start writing LUCIEN'S STORY. I'll be working on both books at once, dividing my attention however my attention wants to be divided at the time. Right now I'm a bit burned out on ALDEN RIDGE, and LUCIEN'S STORY is still new and exciting, so I'm solely focused on the latter. I have a feeling that will change over the next few weeks, as I rekindle my enthusiasm for writing through this new work. Once I've got a little bit of distance from ALDEN RIDGE, I'm not as likely to feel like all my eggs are in that one basket, or that I'm in some sort of rut or that it's bad that I'm off doing something outside my usual specialty.
I've been warring with myself about making ALDEN RIDGE more traditional-fantasy-like, or adding more elements of Science Fantasy, but that's counter to my original vision for the story and I keep having to make myself not do that. I want this story to been broken-earth fantasy, with some elements of magic but not in a reassuring way. This is a world of fear and supernatural darkness, and frankly it can be hard for me to exclusively inhabit that world for months on end. If you were to pick up the book, it would only take you a few days at most to finish it, and there wouldn't be any problem. In most respects, writers like Stephen King are far darker than I am, anyway, and it's not like that has hurt their readership. But as a writer, while I truly want to produce a work like ALDEN RIDGE, it's not my "bread and butter" and so I find my thoughts turning to my world of Ivoria again. Indulging my hunger for visiting Ivoria should actually make it a lot easier for me to finish ALDEN RIDGE in a timely manner, with all its original darkness and spareness intact.
Hopefully the two stories will feed off each other -- when I hit a block with one, I can just divert attention to the other. I've read of various professional authors who do this, Orson Scott Card chiefly among them. I've long thought that this is how I would like to handle things if I were writing full time; writing something off-beat (for me) while at the same time continuing to service my core worlds. I hadn't thought I would do this unless I was able to make writing my full-time job, but seeing as I'm not writing much at all these days, I feel like this tactic will get me out of the rut I've fallen into with ALDEN RIDGE.
Of course, now I'm tempted to tell you more about LUCIEN'S STORY, but there's quite a lot I can't say. I will say that this story tells of the beginnings of Ashmedai, the lord of the demons that Sean Sunderland struggles against in THE GUARDIAN, and also Arc, the vampire who aids Sean. LUCIEN'S STORY is actually set back when Ashmedai and Arc were both human, before demonkind had even appeared. I also get to explore how the links between Ivoria and our world (the real world) first came about, back when Ivoria was free and still fairly advanced, and yet people in our world were barely learning agriculture. The story will be told in third person, but will follow Lucien about as closely as THE GUARIDAN follows Sean Sunderland. The other two most notable characters in this book will be Morgan Reed and Vincent Valerian, Lucien's two closest friends and companions.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Fear not, there will be no spoilers here. I know that it seems like everyone in the world is reading Harry Potter just now, but I haven't yet had the heart to look out into the news and blogosphere to find out what everyone else thinks about this last installent. Truthfully, I don't really care what anyone else thinks: to me, this was the last great book in a great series, and Rowling's best yet (The Goblet of Fire and The Half Blood Prince were previously my favorites of her work).
The day before the last book's release, I saw blog post from a reviewer at The Guardian, and they were really smashing Rowling's writing in prior books. The only specific complaint leveled at her, however, was her use of saidisms, which is currently very un-trendy. Personally, I think if that's the most serious complaint you can give to someone's work, that's really saying something.
But I know how people can get when something is this popular. I actually avoided reading the Harry Potter books until the fourth one came out (and then I started at the beginning and read all of them). I myself tend to think that anything wildly popular can't be good (and I'm often right), and so it took years of prodding by my wife and other members of my family before I consented to read the books. But once I did -- wow. I'm a huge fan of Rowling's genre, and yet I've never read anything like her books before.
I was less captivated by the first three books in the series simply because they are not as deep as the later ones, and because they are clearly aimed at a younger audience. Not to say that I wasn't captivated to some degree, or that I didn't enjoy them, but for me they failed to reach the level of personal connection that the later books evoked. Reading the Deathly Hallows, I found myself utterly in its grip, and the sadness that I feel at its close has, for me, only ever been evoked by three series before: the original Ender Quartet, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Dark Is Rising Sequence. Maybe The Chronicles of Prydain as well, but it has been a long time since I read those books.
Were there things that could have been handled better in Rowling's books? Yes. Undoubtedly, yes. There are things that could have been handled better in all human works, no matter how venerated. With older written works, such as Shakespeare's plays, we may be too culturally removed to see the seams in the writing, but I feel certain that the great authors and playwrights saw them in their own works. What author doesn't see the seams, however minor, in even the greatest that they have created? The only way authors become great is by seeing those flaws, and overcoming them.
Whatever her detractors may say, whatever they may point out as failings in her style, it is clear to me (and many others) that J.K. Rowling will be remembered as one of the great masters. There is a universality, a depth, and a poetry to what she has created that I am certain will endure. I look forward to sharing these books with my children someday, and I am certain they will find it curious how their parents remember the times when the entire world was caught up by the tales of Harry Potter all at once.
These are some of the happier thoughts that I have now that I have followed Harry's story to it's amazing close. These are the thoughts that battle with my feelings of loss, now that yet another great tale has come to an end. Whenever a series like this concludes, it is as if all breath is stolen from my body, and life seems shallow and pale. It is as if someone very close to me has died, quite frankly, because I know that I will never read anything new about Harry or his friends ever again.
If there is one true complaint that I can leverage against the end of this series, it is that I would have liked a little more closure between the last chapter and the epilogue. I would have liked a little more chance to say goodbye. But, after all, it isn't really goodbye, is it? Harry's world will live forever, or at least longer than I will, and I can experience his first day at Hogwarts any time I like simply by going to my bookshelf.
And yet, right now, all I am conscious of is that his world is now closed to me. All I have left are moving photographs, a pensieve full of rich memories. In a few days, or perhaps weeks, I will be able to feel that this is enough. But at the moment, I must feel that something very special has been taken from me. So bravo, Ms. Rowling, for in my mind this is the greatest achievement of all literature: You have created a world so compelling, so robust, that readers like me find their very selves entangled in the stories you weave. Harry Potter has changed me, like so many others, and for the better. My greatest hope, not just as a writer but as a human being, is that I may someday create something that will do the same.
The day before the last book's release, I saw blog post from a reviewer at The Guardian, and they were really smashing Rowling's writing in prior books. The only specific complaint leveled at her, however, was her use of saidisms, which is currently very un-trendy. Personally, I think if that's the most serious complaint you can give to someone's work, that's really saying something.
But I know how people can get when something is this popular. I actually avoided reading the Harry Potter books until the fourth one came out (and then I started at the beginning and read all of them). I myself tend to think that anything wildly popular can't be good (and I'm often right), and so it took years of prodding by my wife and other members of my family before I consented to read the books. But once I did -- wow. I'm a huge fan of Rowling's genre, and yet I've never read anything like her books before.
I was less captivated by the first three books in the series simply because they are not as deep as the later ones, and because they are clearly aimed at a younger audience. Not to say that I wasn't captivated to some degree, or that I didn't enjoy them, but for me they failed to reach the level of personal connection that the later books evoked. Reading the Deathly Hallows, I found myself utterly in its grip, and the sadness that I feel at its close has, for me, only ever been evoked by three series before: the original Ender Quartet, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Dark Is Rising Sequence. Maybe The Chronicles of Prydain as well, but it has been a long time since I read those books.
Were there things that could have been handled better in Rowling's books? Yes. Undoubtedly, yes. There are things that could have been handled better in all human works, no matter how venerated. With older written works, such as Shakespeare's plays, we may be too culturally removed to see the seams in the writing, but I feel certain that the great authors and playwrights saw them in their own works. What author doesn't see the seams, however minor, in even the greatest that they have created? The only way authors become great is by seeing those flaws, and overcoming them.
Whatever her detractors may say, whatever they may point out as failings in her style, it is clear to me (and many others) that J.K. Rowling will be remembered as one of the great masters. There is a universality, a depth, and a poetry to what she has created that I am certain will endure. I look forward to sharing these books with my children someday, and I am certain they will find it curious how their parents remember the times when the entire world was caught up by the tales of Harry Potter all at once.
These are some of the happier thoughts that I have now that I have followed Harry's story to it's amazing close. These are the thoughts that battle with my feelings of loss, now that yet another great tale has come to an end. Whenever a series like this concludes, it is as if all breath is stolen from my body, and life seems shallow and pale. It is as if someone very close to me has died, quite frankly, because I know that I will never read anything new about Harry or his friends ever again.
If there is one true complaint that I can leverage against the end of this series, it is that I would have liked a little more closure between the last chapter and the epilogue. I would have liked a little more chance to say goodbye. But, after all, it isn't really goodbye, is it? Harry's world will live forever, or at least longer than I will, and I can experience his first day at Hogwarts any time I like simply by going to my bookshelf.
And yet, right now, all I am conscious of is that his world is now closed to me. All I have left are moving photographs, a pensieve full of rich memories. In a few days, or perhaps weeks, I will be able to feel that this is enough. But at the moment, I must feel that something very special has been taken from me. So bravo, Ms. Rowling, for in my mind this is the greatest achievement of all literature: You have created a world so compelling, so robust, that readers like me find their very selves entangled in the stories you weave. Harry Potter has changed me, like so many others, and for the better. My greatest hope, not just as a writer but as a human being, is that I may someday create something that will do the same.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Blogger Reflection Award
Many thanks to the very humorous and insightful Stephen Parrish for tagging me with the Blogger Reflection Award, which is, as he notes, not so much an award as a gesture. Still, it's nice to hear that one's blog has been of value to someone (even if it's not updated as often as one would like recently).
Now it's my turn to tag, so here goes (in no particular order)...
- Stephen Parrish himself is the funniest and has the most-interesting-topics-I-wouldn't-otherwise-read-about.
- Anne Mini is the most knowledgeable person on everything writing that I know. And she shares her knowledge for free! Amazing!
- Colleen Gareau (through her blog) has taught me more about Canada than I ever knew before, including an number of things about Canadian politics and civil rights that I might never have encountered before (since I live in the USA).
- Karen Mahoney (who has only recently left livejournal for Blogger, so has few archives at the moment) is by far the most refreshing aspiring writer's blog that I've found. She undergoes the same trials and tribulations as the rest of us, but her posts generally try to find the positive in these things, and she is frequently insightful. Just check out her recent post on Writer's Block if you aren't convinced.
- Jamie Boud is the only diary-style blog (about nothing in particular) that I read. It's a really good read (and the pictures are routinely excellent as well).
- Rachel Vincent is the most interesting new-author blog that I read at present. It's exciting and informative to see how her career is progressing.
Of course, there are many other blogs that I read and enjoy, time permitting, but these are just a few highlights (out of those that don't belong to agents).
Now it's my turn to tag, so here goes (in no particular order)...
- Stephen Parrish himself is the funniest and has the most-interesting-topics-I-wouldn't-otherwise-read-about.
- Anne Mini is the most knowledgeable person on everything writing that I know. And she shares her knowledge for free! Amazing!
- Colleen Gareau (through her blog) has taught me more about Canada than I ever knew before, including an number of things about Canadian politics and civil rights that I might never have encountered before (since I live in the USA).
- Karen Mahoney (who has only recently left livejournal for Blogger, so has few archives at the moment) is by far the most refreshing aspiring writer's blog that I've found. She undergoes the same trials and tribulations as the rest of us, but her posts generally try to find the positive in these things, and she is frequently insightful. Just check out her recent post on Writer's Block if you aren't convinced.
- Jamie Boud is the only diary-style blog (about nothing in particular) that I read. It's a really good read (and the pictures are routinely excellent as well).
- Rachel Vincent is the most interesting new-author blog that I read at present. It's exciting and informative to see how her career is progressing.
Of course, there are many other blogs that I read and enjoy, time permitting, but these are just a few highlights (out of those that don't belong to agents).
Monday, July 9, 2007
Wherefore art I?
No, I'm not dead. A confluence of life events this past month has pretty much wiped me out, though, so that blogging has been a bit less of a priority. I don't care to go into specifics, but at any rate the normality of life has been interrupted by a few family medical emergencies, several large batches of new work at my day job all at once, and also the Independence Day holiday and the attending family visits. Some good stuff, some bad stuff, a large amount of stress from various items, a smaller amount of relaxation to recuperate.
That's largely what the art I've been doing over the past few weeks was all about; relaxing my brain. As a writer, you'd think that I would find writing relaxing, that I would find my solace from the world into escaping into the worlds that I create. I suppose that's partly true; certainly, if I stray away from writing too long, I get really antsy to get back to it. But in truth, I don't think that any career (or hobby, or anything else) should dominate one's entire life, or all of one's leisure time. That seems to be the impression that a lot of writers give on the Internet: that to be a successful writer, you must let writing consume virtually your entire life.
I posit that this is not true. Certainly, you must be prepared to let writing consume virtually your entire life on occasion--say, during revisions, or at the end of the novel when things are really flowing fast or a deadline is looming. That seems quite reasonable to me. However, keeping that mad pace (or anything close to it) up at all times seems to me to be, well -- mad. As writers it is expected that we have stories to tell, things to write about. In order for that to be true, I should think it an obvious corollary that writers must thus have lives of their own; after all, if most of their life experience comes from reading and writing alone, they aren't likely to produce much that is startlingly original.
Perhaps some of you will read this as a long-winded excuse for the fact that I have not written anything new for about two weeks now. Feel that way if you must, but someday I hope you'll find that you are able to take long breaks of your own. It will do you good, in any endeavor; any ruts you were in before the break, you'll tend to break out of. I've also been doing a lot more reading over the past few weeks, since I haven't been so busy writing. Harry Potter has been the order of the day for most of this time, as I'm rereading years four through six in preparation for the fairly imminent release of the closing seventh book. Despite the differences that some take with her style, I must say that J.K. Rowling really is an incredible writer and storyteller. You might not think that there's much I can learn from Harry Potter for a broken-earth zombie novel, but there certainly is . . . .
At any rate, before my life-imposed writing hiatus, I had had a number of breakthroughs on my manuscript. Aside from greatly expanding my second chapter, I've also now greatly expanded my first. The new opening that I have provides a little more depth, and is significantly less teaser-ish. I'm very excited about it. At some point in the next month or so I'll post the new versions of both chapters on my website, but I'm going to wait until after I've let them sit a bit longer, and until I've had a chance to get a bit more outside editorial feedback.
I've also made it about two thirds of the way through chapter 10, so that's some progress there. The planning and writing of the first chapter additions was a major hangup for me for a couple of weeks, so that really stunted my other progress as I wrote three different new openings before I found one that I liked at all (and that one I loved). I've had about enough editing for at least a few weeks, at any rate, so this week I'm going to get back in the saddle and write some new content--finish off chapter 10 for sure, and hopefully get a good ways into chapter 11.
So that's the news from my part of the world; I apologize for not responding to comments as much as I normally would have lately, and for not posting comments on everyone else's blogs. It's just too time consuming at the moment. I am still reading all my regular blogs, however, and I've been enjoying hearing how all of you are getting along (quite well for the most part--bravo!). Until next time . . .
That's largely what the art I've been doing over the past few weeks was all about; relaxing my brain. As a writer, you'd think that I would find writing relaxing, that I would find my solace from the world into escaping into the worlds that I create. I suppose that's partly true; certainly, if I stray away from writing too long, I get really antsy to get back to it. But in truth, I don't think that any career (or hobby, or anything else) should dominate one's entire life, or all of one's leisure time. That seems to be the impression that a lot of writers give on the Internet: that to be a successful writer, you must let writing consume virtually your entire life.
I posit that this is not true. Certainly, you must be prepared to let writing consume virtually your entire life on occasion--say, during revisions, or at the end of the novel when things are really flowing fast or a deadline is looming. That seems quite reasonable to me. However, keeping that mad pace (or anything close to it) up at all times seems to me to be, well -- mad. As writers it is expected that we have stories to tell, things to write about. In order for that to be true, I should think it an obvious corollary that writers must thus have lives of their own; after all, if most of their life experience comes from reading and writing alone, they aren't likely to produce much that is startlingly original.
Perhaps some of you will read this as a long-winded excuse for the fact that I have not written anything new for about two weeks now. Feel that way if you must, but someday I hope you'll find that you are able to take long breaks of your own. It will do you good, in any endeavor; any ruts you were in before the break, you'll tend to break out of. I've also been doing a lot more reading over the past few weeks, since I haven't been so busy writing. Harry Potter has been the order of the day for most of this time, as I'm rereading years four through six in preparation for the fairly imminent release of the closing seventh book. Despite the differences that some take with her style, I must say that J.K. Rowling really is an incredible writer and storyteller. You might not think that there's much I can learn from Harry Potter for a broken-earth zombie novel, but there certainly is . . . .
At any rate, before my life-imposed writing hiatus, I had had a number of breakthroughs on my manuscript. Aside from greatly expanding my second chapter, I've also now greatly expanded my first. The new opening that I have provides a little more depth, and is significantly less teaser-ish. I'm very excited about it. At some point in the next month or so I'll post the new versions of both chapters on my website, but I'm going to wait until after I've let them sit a bit longer, and until I've had a chance to get a bit more outside editorial feedback.
I've also made it about two thirds of the way through chapter 10, so that's some progress there. The planning and writing of the first chapter additions was a major hangup for me for a couple of weeks, so that really stunted my other progress as I wrote three different new openings before I found one that I liked at all (and that one I loved). I've had about enough editing for at least a few weeks, at any rate, so this week I'm going to get back in the saddle and write some new content--finish off chapter 10 for sure, and hopefully get a good ways into chapter 11.
So that's the news from my part of the world; I apologize for not responding to comments as much as I normally would have lately, and for not posting comments on everyone else's blogs. It's just too time consuming at the moment. I am still reading all my regular blogs, however, and I've been enjoying hearing how all of you are getting along (quite well for the most part--bravo!). Until next time . . .
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27,315 / 95,000 (28.8%) |
Monday, July 2, 2007
Numerous New Art Pieces
I've been doing some new artwork this weekend and this evening, in some new programs. The first two below were done in the (free!) Personal Learning Edition of Vue 6, a pretty incredible program that I'm just now discovering. Those forest scenes that were such a bugbear for me in Bryce are incredibly easy in Vue--and the atmospheric effects of Vue beat even Terragen 0.9, which is saying something. The latter two (abstract) images were done in Apophysis, an awesome freeware fractal flame generator. I actually did a fair bit of post-render editing in Photoshop for both of those images, but I never would have been able to create effects like that by hand alone. If you're into digital art, I highly recommend you take a look at both these programs!
Here are the new pics:
PS: I'm also on deviantART now.
Here are the new pics:
PS: I'm also on deviantART now.
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