That Was 40: A Pretty Good Trip Around the Sun

So, today is my 41st birthday.  And in the end, 40 was a pretty good year.  A quick recap:

• "Jump the Black" was published in Rayguns Over Texas. 
• With the sale of "Jump the Black", I'm eligible for the Campbell.  And, you know, nominations for that end today.  In case you were curious. 
• I finished the long-suffering Way of the Shield, a book that just tasked me for the longest time before I figured out how to crack it.  
• I attended my first WorldCon.  
• I finally started properly writing Banshee, having now put in 70,000 words in it.  The idea of Banshee had been bouncing around in my head for YEARS, so getting real traction on it was quite a victory.
• I SOLD TWO BOOKS TO DAW: Thorn of Dentonhill and A Murder of Mages.  Yeah, this was definitely the highlight of the year.  
• Got underway on Thorn II so there is minimal turnaround between those two books coming out and the next ones.  And now I'm halfway done.

So, clearly, a milestone year.

It's definitely the year in which I've transitioned from how I feel about writing, from being someone who took writing seriously, devoting much of my energy and time to it, to being a professional writer.

It's been a good year for me, and I'm looking forward to the next one.  More writing, ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop, and Thorn and Murder coming out.  And who knows what else.  

Worldbuilding: Integrating the Top Down and the Bottom Up

I'll fully admit, the worldbuilding work I've done for the Banshee space-opera verse has was done in a strange way.  Namely, I did a combination of top-down and bottom-up building. 

To define these terms: top-down building is when you make first big decisions about the different cultures, borders and interactions, and then build the map to meet those needs.  Bottom-up building is when you create the map first, and then figure out cultures, borders and interactions based on what the map demands.

Neither approach is right or wrong, good or bad.  They're just different ways to go about it.  In fact, I advocate the hybrid approach.

In this case, the "top down" involved the decisions about some of the alien cultures closest to Earth.  I knew one thing I wanted was a large Alliance in close proximity to Earth, who had taken a preservationist/non-interference attitude to the planetbound cultures in their spheres of influence.  I knew I wanted an aggressively expansionist culture (the Paxin) and an imperialist culture (the Surani), and a recent interstellar addition who would give the humans a good fight (the Krek'nik). 

Also, in general, I wanted our interstellar region to be filled with intelligent life that was all, more or less, in the same place-- i.e. everyone had gotten into space or could potentially get into space within a few centuries of each other (or in the case of the three "old" powers in the region, a few millennia)-- which, in cosmic terms is the blink of an eye and highly improbably, unless you incorporate a serious don't-poke-this-too-hard conceit.  Which I did. 

But, in terms of "bottom up", I knew I wanted the stellar geography to be sensible.  Real stars where they really are. Now, this meant I probably did a bit of homeworld-fudging-- I'm given to understand that Procyon is probably too young a star to have a planet with advanced life on it, for example-- but that fulfilled at least a sense of verisimilitude.

But the other "bottom up" aspect I had to ask myself was-- what else was out there?  I had the raw data on stars within 150 light-years of Earth, and from that, crafted some randomization for each star:  Are there planets?  Where are the planets?  Do any have life?  Is that life intelligent?  How technologically advanced is that intelligent life?  Have they achieved FTL travel, and if so, when?  From all that, I could build up exact details of the 147 starfaring cultures, and how their potential interaction might be.

This bottom-up method gave me the opportunity come up with ideas that I might never have had without star-map based data fueling it.  Seven alien cultures in relative proximity to each other form a loose coalition.  One advanced culture with no one in proximity builds a sizable empire before encountering any pushback.  Another with a powerful aggressive species nearby builds their culture on defending themselves. 

From this, I found more interesting discoveries.  I devised a little equation based on expansion (how many colonies or outposts a culture had) and their tech level, and were able to calculate who the true "First Level" powers in the region were.  And from that, I've been putting together how the Astronomical Geopolitics (Astropolitics?) really work. 

I'd like to think doing that work-- while anal and time-consuming-- has created something a little more organic than just a top-down alone process would have.

The Writer's Brain In Constant Motion

So, right now, I'm putting the "finishing" touches on the manuscript for Thorn of Dentonhill before sending it to my editor.  On top of that, I've been charging full-throttle into Thorn II. Working both at the same time has been helpful, especially in making tiny tweaks in Thorn to set something up for Thorn II.  

Which means, of course, that Lt. Kengle and Banshee are pounding on the glass in my brain, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. 

This is not uncommon in my headspace.  I've often made the metaphor that my creative side is much like a full restaurant kitchen.  There's something getting fired to go out as quickly as possible.  There's stuff working on backburners, simmering away to be tackled soon.  Other things are in crockpots, slowly bubbling, but won't be brought out and worked on any time soon.  Then there's stuff being prepped in the back, in the earliest stages.

And, like any closed kitchen, there's a lot of swearing. 

Also, now the orders really have to go out and reach the customers.  It's no longer a hypothetical kitchen.

In an ideal world, over the course of 2014 I will:

• Deliver the final manuscript for Thorn of Dentonhill
• Deliver the final manuscript for A Murder of Mages
• Finish a draft of Thorn II, clean it up and deliver it to my editor.
• Finish a draft of Murder II, clean it up and deliver it to my editor.
• Finish a draft of Banshee, and get that into my agent's hands.

Which seems like a lot, but you have to remember that right now Thorn II is already a third done, Murder II is fully outlined, and Banshee is about two-thirds done.  So this set of goals will be a challenge, but a reachable one.  It's also what my brain wants to do.  I'm not saying I won't potentially run into a snag or pitfall, but there's no question in my mind of, "Oh, no, NOW what am I going to do?"

Plus it will mean that not only will Thorn and Murder have direct sequels in the pipe before the year is out, but my agent will have three manuscripts in hand (Banshee, Holver Alley Crew and Way of the Shield) for the inevitable, "And what's next after that?" question.

And now to work.  I've got deadlines, after all.

Where is the next Star Trek?

Something occurred to me recently: we haven't had a successful show about humanity's future in outer space on television since 2005, and that with a very broad definition of "successful".  Before you say "Battlestar Galactica" or one of the Stargate variants-- neither of those technically qualify.  BSG, strictly speaking, is set in the distant past (sorry, spoilers), and Stargate is more in an alt-present than the future.  The last real attempt was the interesting failure "Defying Gravity" in 2009, and even that was set entirely within the confines of the Solar System. 

In the 1990s, we had three iterations of Star Trek, Babylon 5 and Andromeda. in the first half of the next decade: yet another Trek, Firefly and Farscape*.

So where is the next Star Trek?

Now, so I'm clear, I'm not talking about another iteration of Trek itself.  Not that I would object, mind you, but I'm not sure what form it would take, given the baggage of five different series, and even the rebooted movies come laden with baggage.

But it doesn't need to be Trek-- which Babylon 5 and Firefly proved.  It can be its own new thing, a brand new vision of the future.  In fact, that would probably be best.

So why hasn't it been done?  I mean, it's not like anyone says, "Well, we don't need another cop show" or "we don't need another lawyer show". 

I think there is a huge audience out there hungry for something new that would appeal to fans of Trek (and B5, Farscape, Firefly, BSG, and so on.)  So I'm downright surprised that no one has tried to capitalize on it.  And it can be presented in an entirely new way, because the television landscape has changed radically since any of those shows have gone off the air.  I'm also surprised that no one seems to be hungry to do it. 

My first rule of writing, in terms of what I write, is "write what I would want to read".  I don't bother with trend-chasing or mimicking others or even what's necessarily "sellable"-- just that simple rule that I would want to read it.  If it's something I'm geeked out on, then that passion would come through, and readers would be into it as well.

That's what's at the core of the universe I built for Banshee, my simmering on the backburner work-in-progress.  It's a vision of the future that's not Trek (or B5, Farscape, Firefly, BSG, etc.), but would appeal to the fans of those things. 

But in the mean time, I wouldn't mind seeing a new show.  Trek or otherwise.


---
*- True, Farscape is also an "alt-present". 

Worldbuilding: Aliens and Daily Rhythms of Life

So: get up in the morning, shower, dress, breakfast.  Commute to work, work throughout the morning, take some time for lunch, back to work until the end of the evening.  Commute home, have dinner, attend to duties of household and family, engage in some sort of minor recreation activity before settling down for (preferably) eight hours of sleep to repeat the following morning.

An average day for the average person in modern day North America.

But if you expand it to all the humans on Earth, then it's a different story.  Different rhythms, different daily rituals.  Although most humans prefer to operate in the daytime and sleep at night, even that is hardly universal. 

So, of course, for alien species, the "daily" rhythm is going to be something quite different.  Even what might be considered a "day" to them could be very different, depending on their biological needs and the rotation of their homeworld. 

I started thinking about this more and more with Banshee.  As with many things in that work, I thought about something that was sort of taken for granted on Star Trek, and inverted it.  Namely, the way the time schedules work.  Sure, they use "star dates", so it isn't just exclusively using the Gregorian Calendar, but the day-to-day is still very human.  Life on the Enterprise or Voyager is still a 24-hour day*, and the duty roster is split into three eight-hour shifts.  There's still a "night" shift**, which is incredibly arbitrary in space.   It's not like things are quieter or less active because of when you decided to schedule your sleeptime.

But what's fascinating is, at least on Trek, there isn't even much lip-service to the idea that Klingons, Vulcans, Trill or any other species might be on a different life-cycle.  One exception: Phlox on Enterprise, whose need for sleep is essentially a six-day hibernation every year. 

Now, part of the fun I've had on Banshee involved taking that to an extreme: you have a ship with eleven different species, and each species is on a different rhythm.  To the point that the higher-ups don't even bother setting a schedule or "ship's time".  You need to sleep, eat, or deal with other biological functions?  Go ahead.  That's your priority, and you deal with it as you need.  It's not for anyone else to say you can't do that.

For a human officer, used to a strict regiment and set duty roster... that's very disconcerting.  But that's part of what she needs to learn to deal with.



---
*- On Deep Space Nine, they at least had a 26-hour day, which was based on Bajor, but even still: hours.  And the rest still applies.
**- "Night" shift might be on some universal-ship time throughout Starfleet, but it seems to be more, "When the Captain is sleeping, that's the night shift". 

Banshee, and the Slow Cooker Process: 2013 in Review, Part Three

The other big milestone, in terms of what I've been writing, that I hit in 2013 was getting solidly underway on Banshee. 

Banshee is a project that's been stewing in the back of my mind for a long, long time, and has gone through several permutations in that slow cooking process.

Part of the reason I took such a long time to get around to this is the little promise I made to myself to finish the first books of my four "Maradaine" series before I really moved on to a new major writing project.  I'm not entirely sure why I felt I had to do them first, but that's how I felt, but on some level it was probably a good thing.

Because the Banshee I would have written several years ago is not the work I'm writing now.  Not even remotely.  Essentially everything except the central character (Lt. Samantha Kengle) and the name of the ship (and only tangentially) is different now.  And in the older versions, Lt. Kengle was more the nominal lead in an ensemble, and now she's in the central spotlight, the only POV character. 

Part of that had to do with the worldbuilding.  I started the Space Opera setting that Banshee lives in way back in 2002, but it's evolved and grown a lot in the past eleven years.  As have my writing skills.  My first attempts at Banshee, some of which reached nearly 50,000 words, were all wrong.  Essentially fanfic for a universe that only existed in my head.  It was only after I really started to interrogate what the story was, and who it was about, and why it was about them, that the pieces really came together.

When I shipped Way of the Shield off to the agent, Banshee was really ready to go like gangbusters.  And in about three months, it's about two-thirds to three-quarters done.  Not too shabby.

So that was 2013, which turned out to be a pretty good year for my writing. And I have a very good feeling that 2014 will turn out even better.

Perils of the Writer: Fanfic of Yourself

I was thinking about one of my trunked projects, Crown of Druthal, as well as the process of novel midwifery that has brought Banshee to the point where it is now (i.e., a rough draft in progress that I feel relatively good about). 

And I came to realize that the problems with Crown and the earlier versions of Banshee (which bear almost no resemblance to the current project) was that neither one was really a story.  Sure, they had characters, they had setting, they had events happening... but neither one added up to a cohesive whole.

I was essentially writing a fun time hanging out with characters I liked in a setting I liked, and not doing much but enjoying doing that.

And that, dear readers, is essentially what fanfic is.

Mind you, I'm not saying fanfic is bad-- if you enjoy doing it, have at it.  But you are quite limited in what you can do with it once you've written it.  You can, essentially, share it with the fan community, and the degree that it can be enjoyed is based on the size of that fandom.  No one who isn't already a fan is going to care in the slightest.

So if you're writing fanfic of a thing that only exists in your head, how many fans are out there?

Just you.

So, if you find yourself caught in that rut, how do you break out of it? 

For me, it was a process of figuring out an actual story, tied to a central character (or characters).  The central character came first, of course, but then figuring out what their story was brought in secondary characters as needed. 

And that was a key place where I had gone wrong with Crown and early versions of Banshee.  In both cases, I had come up with a wide, sprawling cast.  Both involved ships (one at sea, one in space), so I had worked out who ALL the key people on the ship were, what their jobs were, how they all related to each other... but that had nothing to with any specific story.  They were just there, giving me a deep bench of characters to pull from in any given situation, without any organic reason to have them all. 

And in the long run, that won't give you a compelling story that will hook anyone who isn't you.

-----

A small plug for fellow agency-brother.  Glynn Stewart's Starship Mage series has launched on e-books.  The first one just came out, and the next one is due in March of 2014.  Go check it out!

Tools of the Writer: Growing with the times

You know, way, way back in the day-- by which I mean high school-- I did my writing on WordPerfect, using the 8088 PC-clone that I had at the time.  Before that I had an Apple II+, and I don't recall having a word processing program on that.  I did actually learn to type on a typewriter, though it was probably a weird and strange choice made by a weird and strange child*.  But my high school creative writing classes had us go to the computer labs, where we had to sign in with our TOTALLY SECRET IDS** and use WordPerfect to write our stories.

 At some point around when I started college, I switched over to WordPerfect for Windows, which I mostly used on my dad's computer, since it would have made my 8088 explode.  This did create a challenge in the college computer labs later, which all used-- I want to say WordStar for Windows, but it might have just been Mircosoft Word-- but the important thing was, NOT WordPerfect, and trying to transfer a *.WPW into one of those formats was an exercise in futility.

Ah, the early days of computer usage. 

As a matter of fact, the process of transferring archives from one computer to another, regardless of utility, means I still actually have some *.WPW files on the laptop I'm currently working on.

Eventually, I switched over to Microsoft Word, once I got a desktop that could handle it, and pretty much stayed with it for quite some time.  And that was handy, because it was a format I could use on computers at home and at work, and plenty of early writing was done on that.   Even going back and forth between using PCs and Macs didn't impede me.  Portability of projects was a very crucial thing for me.

Trunked novels "Fifty Year War" and "Crown of Druthal", as well as many plays, unfinished projects, and the early drafts of Thorn of Dentonhill, Holver Alley Crew and Maradaine Constabulary were all written on Word.  And while I never had a problem with Word, the challenges of writing an entire novel on it were quite clear.

And thus, eventually, I went, heels dragging, to Scrivener.  Which now that I'm here, I totally love it.  I won't lie, it had a bit of learning curve that I resisted.  But the process of transferring the drafts of those three novels so I could rework them into Scrivener taught me how it could be a valuable resource to me.  Especially in terms of keeping all sorts of character and outline and conceptual information in one place, and being able to visualize the scope of the story. 

And in writing Banshee, where I've been jumping around like crazy with regards to what part I'm writing any given day, Scrivener has been absolutely perfect.

Will I change again, when some other format presents itself?  Hard to say.  I know that any form of cloud-based writing holds very little appeal to me.  Perhaps that's because I'm already gypsy enough with taking my laptop anywhere, but also because I like the files I'm working on to actually be on the computer I'm using.   

But things may someday reach a point where I'm a dinosaur with my dying MacBook Pro, typing into outdated Scriviner files with the antiquated "keyboard", telling all you kids to get off my lawn.


----

*- Seriously.  I went to a day camp as a child that let you sign up each day for your afternoon activity.  While most children signed up for "soccer" or "swimming", yours truly, at the tender age of eight, signed up for "typewriting".  And I'm pretty sure most of the other people in there were high school kids obliged to do it for summer school. 
**- Mine was "MARMAR".  My friend Dan Fawcett was "FAWDAN".  Ken Chang was "CHAKEN".  You can see how they stayed up all night coming up with the system here.

Perils of the Writer: Clavicle and other crucial word choices

This week's work on Banshee brought me to an interesting point, somewhat unintentionally.  In brief, my main character, Lt. Samantha Kengle, was injured on a mission (a nasty creature managed to bite her on the neck).  She loses consciousness, and when she comes to, she's being treated.

Initially I wrote that she would wake up with her uniform coat off and one of the aliens pressing her hand to Kengle's bare chest.  (Said alien can essentially function as a living diagnostic scanner). 

But then it hit me about the unintended implications behind that.  Sure, it's medical, but the point is my one female human character gets stripped down while unconscious, and wakes up being groped.  Sure, groped in a medical fashion by a female fish-alien, but still.  I had put in a layer of sexual vulnerability that I had never intended, and it rested largely on the word "chest". 

I re-thought the scene.  I needed the alien to be able to get at bare flesh and the injury, but keep it professional.  Leave no doubt, no subtext, that what was happening was anything other than medical treatment.

So I changed "chest" to "clavicle".  Made no difference in terms of the text of what was happening, but pulled away the subtext I wanted to avoid.

I'm not going to get all, "words are important, words have power", because I'm sure you all know that.  But word choice is crucial, and sometimes we make strange choices-- subbing in a not-entirely accurate synonym to avoid repetition, going for an uncommon word to avoid a common one.   And sometimes the words we choose have unintended consequences.

Fortunately, this time, I think I sidestepped it.  But there may be other ones that I'll fall into.

Back to the word mines for now...

Perils of the Writer: Disasters Big and Small

Little things can throw kinks in your day.  A speeding ticket throws you ten minutes behind (and a minor headache to deal with).  Ten minutes behind means you're now in the worst thicket of traffic that you had hoped to avoid, making that ten minute drive to your destination take twenty-five.   Being late means you have to play catch-up, forcing you to miss lunch.  The drop in blood sugar makes you slower, leaving you a pile of work that you have to take home that night.  That takes up your whole evening, and what time is left for you to squeeze some writing in?

None.

Unless you sacrifice your sleep, and thus oversleep in the morning, come in to work late again, etc. etc. 

And what happens when you have a real disaster?

Be it a minor, personal disaster (a grease fire in the kitchen, a fallen tree through the bedroom window, a leak in the bathroom necessitating ripping open the walls) or one's own story within a greater disaster (a flood or tornado tearing through one's home)-- disasters change our expectations of how the rest of our day, week, month, even life are going to go.

And while it's incredibly inconvenient, it's also the underlying source behind great drama in writing. 
First off, the thing that comes to mind is the immediate, quick decisions that need to be made in the face of disasters.  How we (or our characters) react when disaster strikes define us.  

But once a disaster has hit, and the immediate repercussions have been felt, what next?  For me, the thing I always start thinking about is the small details.  For a personal example, the thing that sticks with to me (in the case of the bathroom one, which happened to us a few years ago) was less the big work of having to have the bathroom remodeled, but the steps we took to minimize dust from the remodel from covering the rest of the house, and cleaning off the bits and pieces of personal items that did get covered. 

Stuff like that sticks with you-- sometimes literally, as you find something that got missed weeks later-- and as I work on Banshee, a story that is quite populated with disasters, and how each character deals with the big and small of the disasters that befall them.

Time to jump into the wordmines.  See you when I get out.

Perils of the Writer: NaNo No No No

Right now, on November 25th, the rough draft of Banshee stands at 54,932 words. 

If I were doing NaNoWriMo, that would be pretty impressive.

But I'm not doing NaNoWriMo, and I started writing this book in earnest in September.  I've been writing at a steady pace that, while hardly breakneck, has been working for me.  And it's the fastest I've written a rough draft, with the exception of the one year I did successfully did NaNo.

And that novel is an unreadable mess.  Even with a post-NaNo re-write.

This novel?  It's a rough draft that will need a strong editing hand when its done.  But I feel like I'm laying a solid foundation of character and plot to make that editorial work far more rewarding than I could ever have done with that NaNo project. 

Part of that is because I'm a stronger and far more seasoned writer than I was when I did that.  That NaNo project was part of the process of learning how to write a novel, and I think it is a fantastic way to do that.  When it comes to those Big Question sort of things about "Can I write a novel?" "How do I write a novel?" "Am I really a plotter or a pantser?", then an exercise like NaNo is a great way to test yourself.  An old friend of mine recently ran a 5K, more or less to see if he could, to figure out what his currently fitness level is.   NaNo is the same sort of thing. 

Plus there is the emphasis on "winning" and "losing", and keeping that pace.  I know personally, nothing is more discouraging to my writing than failing self-imposed deadlines.  More specifically, when falling behind makes making said deadlines feel more and more impossible.

Now, this is different for everyone.  If writing at a 1500-2000 words a day pace works for you, if you can manage it without your pulse hitting 180 and your lungs burning, go for it. 

But it's not for me.  Especially since having only one month as "novel writing month" doesn't work for me.  Every month is novel writing month.

Which means its time to jump back into the word mines.

Perils of the Writer: Writing on Shuffle

I am not a NaNoWriMo person.  I don't think it's a bad thing to do, per se, but I do think it sets an artificial ideal of breakneck pace over, you know, writing a good novel.  But I do think it's a good way to learn about your own writing habits and needs, and to learn how to write a novel. 

But you eventually reach a point where every month is a NoWriMo, and you've got to run that at your own pace. 

Which is what I've been doing with Banshee.  Since mid-September, when I really officially "started" it (I had had about 4,000 words and copious notes already), I've been writing 500 words per day as a minimum quota.  Every day*, I've written at least that, sometimes more.  Now, on no day did I write the NaNo minimum (1,666), but that's probably a good thing.  A. I've got other stuff to do, and B. that could burn me out.

Burn-out pace is no way to write. 

That said, I've hit several walls.  Several times I've hit points where, on any other project, I would get stuck, and spin my wheels, stare at a blank screen, etc.  But here?  I've been jumping around.

Now, I've jumped around before, but usually it's along the lines of, "I'm stuck here, so I'm going to jump ahead to THIS PART, and then come back to fill in the gaps between later" or "I need a scene where X happens somewhere down the road, so I'll write it now and figure out how to get to it when I need to."   In other words, I'll jump, but remain fairly linear in my jumping. 

This is not what I'm doing on Banshee. 

I am jumping ALL OVER THE PLACE.  I mean, I know the general outline, so I know how the plot goes from A to B to C to D.  And most of my shuffling has been between A and B.  So far A involves setting up a bunch of dominoes, and B involves rebuilding after knocking them all down.  Both are fun in their own way.  Both are frustrating and blocking in their own way.

So I'm jumping around. 

Which can be very helpful, because I can write something in B, and think, "Oh, I need to properly set this up", and slip it in something in A. 

On the other hand, it can be confusing, because I sometimes forget what I need to set up, or what I've already set up.  For example, last night, I started writing a bit where one character talks about needing to ask another character to do something.  Except I already wrote the bit where he asks, and that bit takes place before the bit I was writing.  It was utterly redundant. 

And that's where I run into trouble: I'm not quite sure, at this stage, when I'm reiterating or reinforcing a key point, or if I'm just repeating it. 

Not to mention, I get confused about how my main character feels about certain characters at any given point.  She has a fair amount of trust in one character at B that she wants nothing to do with in A... and sometimes I screw that up and the trust retroactively bleeds into A.  Whoops.

It's a rough draft, of course, but it's shaping up to be a far rougher rough draft than I typically write.  Which is okay.  That's what editing is for.


----
*- To be fair, on Saturday I only hit 300ish words.  But I also was doing a ton of prep work and organization for a huge event on Sunday, while also hosting a house guest.  Frankly, only failing quota by a small margin under those circumstances was pretty damn impressive, in my humble opinion.

Heinlein's First Rule

If you go to workshops-- especially SF/F related workshops-- or otherwise seek out Writing Advice, sooner or later you're going to hear Heinlein's Five Rules for getting published. 

The rules are pretty strong, solid advice, but to a degree they have more bearing on a short-story market than a novel market.  So I'll go over the five rules over the next few posts, and how I've integrated them into my process.

RULE #1: YOU MUST WRITE

You really can't argue with this, right?  If you want to be a successful writer, writing is a given.

But what does this mean, in terms of actual action?  Here's how I see it:

A. You must know what you're writing.
B. You must know how you write.
C. You must work with discipline.

Now, for the first part, knowing what you're writing: apply this as broadly as you want, but I think you need to know what your general plans and intentions are.  Of course, things can get away with you: you can start writing a short story and discover a novel.  Or you can start a novel and find it's only a novella.  But the point is you've got to have some sort of plan when you sit down. 

This ties directly to the second part: know how you write.  Which is very different from "know how you think you write".  For example, I'm a big outliner.  This is what works for me, and I learned that through a process of discovery.  I did a whole lot of, "I'm going to write and see where it goes" and where it went was nowhere slowly.  Another example: I'm not a writer who can do the "just get it written, and then fix it in editing" thing.  That isn't to say I don't edit or make a lot of changes when I do, but I see a rough draft as a foundation, and if I'm not building a strong foundation, it doesn't work for me.   Another point: I get the most creative in later hours, usually after 10pm.  I've accepted all these points as how I work best, and I've thrived by accepting that.  So the advice I have there is: learn how you write, but look very critically at if that's really what works best, or if it's how you think you ought to work best.

Finally: write with discipline.  Once you know what you're doing and how you do it best, sit down and get on it.  "Write every day" is good advice, but it doesn't necessarily apply to everyone (see point B).  But this is what I've found effective for me:  when I'm working on a project (in rough draft), I set a daily writing goal.  This is a low-balled goal, a minimum quota.*  This is the, "Fine, you've earned the right to eat today" amount of writing.  It's a C-.  Now, many days I will write more than that quota-- and going over quota doesn't give me slack the next day.  But by keeping that quota low, I keep myself from getting in a shame-spiral of failure.  Because I know how I work, and if I "get behind" on even an arbitrarily set quota, part of my brain says, "We can't do it" and shuts down. 

And before I learned properly how I write, I would do that to myself constantly.  I would set an Unreasonable Writing Goal (I would even call it that to try and spur myself on), and then kick myself for not reaching it, and the whole thing would stall out.

Next time: Rule #2.  But for now, it's time to get writing.

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*- Currently for Banshee**, it's 500 words a day.
**- Of course, one thing that helps in having a solid outline-- I can jump all over the project and write crazily out-of-order, which makes a big difference when one section is stuck.

Worldbuilding: Aliens and Environments

Now I'm working on Banshee, a space-opera novel that, on a fundamental level, is about putting a human being on a ship with a whole lot of different aliens and asking, "So how is this going to work?" 

There are some hard questions that can be asked that a lot of sci-fi works tend to ignore or only give a passing nod to.  

If I'm being honest, on my end, I'll probably be giving a passing nod to some of them myself.  But here are some things I've been thinking about in terms of putting nearly a dozen different alien species on one ship together.  First and foremost, the question of, "Is this even worth the trouble?"  Can the advantage of mutual cooperation amongst different species outweigh the inherent difficulties in trying to live in the same space?

Let's just presume, in this instance, that most species on the ship have a respiration cycle that requires oxygen.  It's not a terrible presumption, mind you-- any respiration cycle will need a molecule that's reactive, but not TOO reactive-- but then you have the question of How Much Oxygen?  Odds are not everyone will need the same balance as everyone else.  What if one species needs, say, 30% oxygen in their atmosphere?  Then the reactive properties that make oxygen molecules useful for humans becomes a little more problematic.  What if one species requires an atmosphere that's toxic to another?  What if one species's waste product is toxic to another? 

How do you decide who needs to just wear an environmental suit, since their environmental needs are far too inconvenient to everyone else?

Other factors to consider, just for starters: Gravity.  Light levels. Temperature tolerances.  Radiation levels.

And that's just about being in the same space.

What about working in the same space?  Even presuming that interspecies communication is functional enough to facilitate working together, what about ergonomics?

How do you make workstations that accommodate beings with different body sizes, body types, forms of fine-motor control, visual ranges and hearing ranges?  Do you put chairs at them?  If you aren't humanoid, chairs are pointless.  If you have only two hands (or equivalent) then using a console designed for four or more will be very challenging.  Similarly, if you have four or more, using a console designed for only two would feel woefully inefficient.

So you have to ask yourself, which compromises are the best fit for everyone, and which ones create ones that everyone can tolerate, but no one is comfortable with?  And at what point would it become too hard to be worth the trouble?

Future Worldbuilding: Choosing the Future

I've now switched gears, in earnest, with my "primary" writing project.  I've written four books in Maradaine and the world around it (six if you also count the two trunked novels), and while I'm not at all bored of it*, a palate-cleansing switch is due.   So I'm now (finally) writing the project that I've been calling Banshee for some time, which is pure space-opera.

The setting of this book is something I've been cooking for some time.  I've done a fair amount of worldbuilding here, with regards to future history, alien species and technology.

Now, trying to predict the future, especially in broad strokes for the next four hundred years, is pretty much a fool's errand.  You're not going to get it right.  So, you need to just embrace what the future you're creating is going to be, and jump in at the deep end.

The way I see it, you need to ask yourself three Big Idea Questions:

1. Where are we?
2. How did we get there?
3. Why aren't we over there instead?

The first two are essentially about establishing what your setting is.  In the case of Banshee, it's a wide-sprawling, vibrant space-opera where great interstellar powers are forming alliances and empires... and humanity is a minor power that has only started to be a part of the larger community.

The third question is about establishing what your setting isn't, which is just as vital and necessary thing to think about when building sci-fi in the future.  For example, is genetic engineering of people common?  To what extent?  And if it isn't being used to the fullest possible extent, why not?  Cybernetics, nanotech, cloning, brain-taping?  Artificial Intelligence? Have these been fully embraced as part of normal life?  Or have they been shunned?  If so, why? 

For example, the future humanity in Banshee do not have artificially intelligent computers, and any form of cybernetic replacement of limbs or organs is done in a very controlled way (or on the black market).  Partly because, as a writer, these were cans of worms I didn't want to open and had little to do with the future I wanted to explore.  But I felt I couldn't just ignore it, pretend that such sciences didn't exist.  So I've included in the history a point where humanity achieves Artificial Intelligence, and it goes horribly badly; a bloody war against the machines where AIs try to take over, and people with cybernetic implants are unwilling meat-soldiers used against the rest of mankind.  Humanity wins out, but the cost is high, and the result is the feelings behind never do that again are quite strong.

So, with that worked out, I'm diving into tomorrow.  See you there.

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*- In fact, I've got specific outlines for Books Two and Three for each of those four books, and a rough plan for more beyond that, which all really excite me. 

Worldbuilding/Perils of the Writer: One-Story Worlds vs. Many-Story Worlds

There are pretty much two ways a sf/fantasy writer can go about writing and worldbuilding: come up with a story, and build a world for it to be in; or build a world, and come up with stories to put in it.

One way to think of this is the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.  The Star Wars universe is really only about telling one story: the rise and fall of the Empire, and the concurrent fall and rise of the Jedi.  I would argue that part of the problem with the Star Wars prequels is all they do-- all they really can do-- is set up the board for the story the universe has been built to tell. Star Trek, on the other hand built its universe out of telling many different stories, and has the ability to telling many, many different kinds of stories.  Of course, with the Star Trek universe, you've got a lot of patchwork worldbuilding, held together by spackle, baling wire and wishful thinking. 

There's no right or wrong in this, mind you.  Like plotting/pantsing, whichever method works best for your own particular style is the right way to go.  However, both methods have their challenges.

Personally, I'm a Method Two guy: I start with crafting and detailing the world, and the process of doing that opens up the avenues for stories.  The challenge behind that is narrowing things down to figure out what, actually, you need to write in that world.  With a whole wide world of grand and epic scope, you want to treat the whole thing like an enormous brood of children.  No one gets neglected.  So a world that has the potential for many, many stories might not yield any stories, because no singular story you write can be as grand and far-reaching as the worldbuilding work you've done. 

This was exactly my problem with my trunked project Crown of Druthal.  It was nothing but a travelogue, going from place to place with no through-plot and little purpose.  And why was that?  Because I had made EVERYWHERE and therefore I had to go EVERYWHERE.  It wasn't until after realizing the flaws with that mindset that I was able to narrow my focus to one city, and let the rest of the world only brush up to it, as the rest of the world would in a cosmopolitan city.  I had a similar problem in the space opera setting for Banshee-- I had defined so much, I had to force myself to narrow the focus of what the story actually was going to be. 

So why not do it the other way, and build the world to suit your story?  Of course you can, like I said, nothing wrong with that.   The challenge there comes from when you need or want to do more beyond that story.  I've mentioned this before with David Eddings.  Everything in The Belgariad was set up to tell that story, as the ultimate, saving-the-world, fulfill-the-prophecy, make-everything-right story.  And then a sequel series was asked for.  So they had to undercut The Belgariad by essentially saying, "Yeah, that was the dress rehearsal.  Here's the REAL event." Of course, building the world to fit the story you've come up with doesn't have to have this problem.  Sometimes doing it that way can open all sorts of avenues to new stories that you hadn't imagined to begin with.

Independence Day Writing Pledge

Today's post is quick, because for the holiday I'm going to be prepping in the kitchen, then off to an event, so opportunity to post will be minimal. 

However, I've been thinking about what I wrote on Monday and my future writing plans.  See, once I finish cleaning up Way of the Shield, I'll start working on Banshee in earnest.  The protagonist of Banshee is Lt. Samantha Kengle.

Right here, I'm going to make this pledge regarding the writing of Lt. Samantha Kengle:

• At no point will she be called a "bitch" or a "whore".  Or cunt, strumpet, floozy, slut or quim.  
• At no point will her competence or ability to do her job be called into question on account of her gender.
• At no point will rape or sexual violence be visited upon her.  Nor will it play any role in her backstory or motivation.
• At no point will the reader be subjected to lurid descriptions of her physicality.
• Her uniform will be identical to every other officer's in the fleet. 
• She will be a complex, vibrant and engaging protagonist.  Given that I don't screw up in writing her.  If I do screw up, reader, hold my feet to the fire.

State of the Writer: Summer 2013

A writer is at a party where he meets a neurosurgeon.  "So you write books," the surgeon said.  "I've always thought about taking a summer off to write a book."  "That's funny," said the writer.  "I've thought about taking a summer off to do some brain surgery."

So, we're knee-deep in summer now, and for me it's always more of a challenge to maintain my writing discipline, but I've been pretty good so far.  The main thing I've been working on is editing, and that's a bit harder to put a metric on.  When you're writing, you can use daily word count to track your progress.  That doesn't quite work with editing.

Given that, here's where things stand, and where I plan things to go for the rest of 2013.

Thorn of Dentonhill, Holver Alley Crew and Maradaine Constabulary are, of course, out in the world shopping.  I try not to dwell too much on the details of this process.  That's what agents are for. 

Way of the Shield is finally finished as a rough draft.   Editing it to a fine, clean draft that is worth sending to my agent is my current "main" project.  Part of that is also outlining summaries for the planned Books Two and Three of Way of the Shield.  Knock on wood, that stuff should all be send to the Agent by the end of July.  Should. 

Secondary project is fine-tuning the outline for Banshee, which has gone through a lot of permutations over the years.  However, I've found a new angle that really excites me, and I look forward to tackling that once I send out Shield. 

Beyond that, I've got a handful of loose ideas that haven't quite coalesced into a plan.  Of course, with any luck, someone will be wanting the Book Two for Thorn, Holver Alley, Maradaine Constabulary or Way of the Shield.  I might even write a first chapter for each as a warm up.  I'm thinking of also trying my hand at novelette/novella length works.  We'll see.  I've had some Secret Projects that I've intentionally kept back-burnered until I finished the quartet.  So something may beat its way into the forefront of my brain.

Also: Rayguns Over Texas will be an actual, printed book that you can hold in your hands in two months.  Isn't that exciting?  I mostly consider it a small reward, a reminder that this hard work will be worth it.  And it will.  And as another reminder of that, here's Macklemore to play you out.