I’m getting a little tired of major technology updates that either I cannot use because my equipment is out-of-date as a result of the update's release or updates that change the world but don’t quite work as advertised.
For both of these situations I have one piece of advice to the technology companies everywhere: slow down. Do we really need all the stuff being thrown at us? Is the quality of my life greatly improved by any of the new features offered by any technology company in the US today? I’m thinking, no, not really. And the effort to keep up in terms of time is enormous. Frankly, my time is at a premium. I need to spend it writing, revising, or promoting a story.
And when I’m not writing, I have a house, two dogs, a wife, a car, and several other personal projects/hobbies to tend to. Who has time to learn about new features or change a workflow that they know well?
In fact, even through I’ve spent a lifetime learning and keeping up with personal and computer technology – it was one of my hobbies – I’m about to bail on it because I’ve got other things to do. Even now, the operating system on my computer is two versions out-of-date because the unit needs more memory and I’m not about to crack the case to change that. I’ll probably buy a new computer next year if I have the money. If not, I’ll solider on as well as I can.
And I’m probably in a minority here but I’d like to see one major update a year instead of several. One. That’s then I have a whole year to get used to it before the world changes all over again. I doubt that will happen. But I can dream.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Monday, September 24, 2012
Rough Draft
It was pointed out to me that many blog posts of mine have grammatical errors.
Okay, sorry about that. I know I complain about self-published work being of poor quality for just this reason so it may appear to be double standard but lets keep in mind one important fact.
These posts are essentially rough drafts -- stream of consciousness if you will -- because I barely have time to compose them never mind proofing and polishing. And yes, there will be sentence fragments. That's part of good creative writing. If that offends or bothers you, that's unfortunate. That said, I have gone back to clean up the last several months of posts and I will be taking steps to improve the quality of new posts.
But errors will skip by. I hope you will forgive and understand.
Okay, sorry about that. I know I complain about self-published work being of poor quality for just this reason so it may appear to be double standard but lets keep in mind one important fact.
These posts are essentially rough drafts -- stream of consciousness if you will -- because I barely have time to compose them never mind proofing and polishing. And yes, there will be sentence fragments. That's part of good creative writing. If that offends or bothers you, that's unfortunate. That said, I have gone back to clean up the last several months of posts and I will be taking steps to improve the quality of new posts.
But errors will skip by. I hope you will forgive and understand.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
A Few Writing Lessons
The whole experience of getting my novel accepted by a publisher has left me thinking about it and what I would do differently if I could. Here are a few of my items that have bubbled up to me:
Lesson 1: If I had to do this over again, I would not do it. Writing a novel of a professional quality is hard work. Much harder than I thought and not for anyone who is easily frustrated. Writing of this type requires that you write and revise until the words you've removed all the wordiness and convey your meaning. As the same time, there needs to be a cadence to the words and flow through the story. The plot has to make has and the characters need to be real -- or nearly so. Talk about dancing on the head of pin.
Of course now that I've started my series I'm going to complete it but I expect some amount of pain as I cobble together six or seven more books.
Lesson 2: Listen you the feedback you receive. Very often it is right and tells you what your next step is.
I received all kinds of feedback on the various drafts of my novel and all of it was right and help me figure out what I had to do to fix the story so it could be published. Now that said, sometimes a comment isn't exactly right but has a kernel of truth to it. For example, one comment I've gotten is the characters are flat; I disagree. I am just taking my time revealing each of the main characters. I've seen this done by well-established writers and I am doing the same thing. Okay, I'm not Robert Jordan by I can use one or two of his techniques.
Lesson 3: Check your ego at the door when receiving feedback. The comments are not about you, they are about the work. And anything that prevents a story from being its best needs to be attended to. I learned that lesson back in college bur you'd be surprise how often I have to stop and force myself to pay attention to it.
Lesson 4: Trust your instincts, they are often correct. And when they are not, the feedback you receive will let you know what sort of adjustment you need to make. I don't know how many times I've received feedback that justified some original idea of mine, which I ignored in the current draft. When that happens, I stop and listen to myself. The story is almost always better for it.
That's enough for now. If other lessons become clear to me as my book makes its way through the publishing process, I'll be sure to post again on this topic.
Keep writing, everyone.
Lesson 1: If I had to do this over again, I would not do it. Writing a novel of a professional quality is hard work. Much harder than I thought and not for anyone who is easily frustrated. Writing of this type requires that you write and revise until the words you've removed all the wordiness and convey your meaning. As the same time, there needs to be a cadence to the words and flow through the story. The plot has to make has and the characters need to be real -- or nearly so. Talk about dancing on the head of pin.
Of course now that I've started my series I'm going to complete it but I expect some amount of pain as I cobble together six or seven more books.
Lesson 2: Listen you the feedback you receive. Very often it is right and tells you what your next step is.
I received all kinds of feedback on the various drafts of my novel and all of it was right and help me figure out what I had to do to fix the story so it could be published. Now that said, sometimes a comment isn't exactly right but has a kernel of truth to it. For example, one comment I've gotten is the characters are flat; I disagree. I am just taking my time revealing each of the main characters. I've seen this done by well-established writers and I am doing the same thing. Okay, I'm not Robert Jordan by I can use one or two of his techniques.
Lesson 3: Check your ego at the door when receiving feedback. The comments are not about you, they are about the work. And anything that prevents a story from being its best needs to be attended to. I learned that lesson back in college bur you'd be surprise how often I have to stop and force myself to pay attention to it.
Lesson 4: Trust your instincts, they are often correct. And when they are not, the feedback you receive will let you know what sort of adjustment you need to make. I don't know how many times I've received feedback that justified some original idea of mine, which I ignored in the current draft. When that happens, I stop and listen to myself. The story is almost always better for it.
That's enough for now. If other lessons become clear to me as my book makes its way through the publishing process, I'll be sure to post again on this topic.
Keep writing, everyone.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Looking Ahead
The second set of revisions went back to the publisher this week, much delayed because of the flu-turned-sinus infection that I'm fighting. So now I wait to hear back from them about the next step, which I don't even know what that is. It might be the book trailer or the cover or both.
In the meantime I should turn some attention back to Book 2 and the short stories I've been writing. I was planning to collect and self-publish these so I'd have more than just my novel to show when Book 1 launches next year. But I've lost interest in that. Plus several of my stories are tied up in contests that I entered. I have to wait until January to do anything with them.
I'm continuing to write other stories but the time it takes for a story to marinate -- which is Richard-speak for put a story away for awhile so I can look at it with fresh eyes -- means that anything I do now probably won't be ready in time for the book launch.
But I'm finding that I have little interest in Book 2 at the moment. The reason for that may be that the middle of the novel isn't as good as the start. Or I may just need a break from all the writing I've been doing. This year I put final touches on Book 1 and then reviewed it twice, I've wrote half a dozen short stories and at least as many poems, and revised about half of Book 2. That's a lot of work.
At the same time, I can see holes in my process. I still need reviewers to provide feedback. I may have found a way to do that, but it is too soon to tell and I don't know the quality of the review. Additionally, I can only use this new workflow for short stories. My novels, if they are to be published by my publisher, will have to go to them to review.
I am also trying to get involved more in forums and to make my presence known. I've no interest in that at all and I'm going very slowly. But I am told this will help when my book launches. We'll see.
And so I wait and write and do what I can while I feel spent and a little bored. It's the being bored part that bothers me. I've worked very hard to get to this point; I shouldn't be bored.
Maybe I'll shift gears and go clean out the junk out of the back room. That might clean out the cobwebs from my mind too.
Maybe.
In the meantime I should turn some attention back to Book 2 and the short stories I've been writing. I was planning to collect and self-publish these so I'd have more than just my novel to show when Book 1 launches next year. But I've lost interest in that. Plus several of my stories are tied up in contests that I entered. I have to wait until January to do anything with them.
I'm continuing to write other stories but the time it takes for a story to marinate -- which is Richard-speak for put a story away for awhile so I can look at it with fresh eyes -- means that anything I do now probably won't be ready in time for the book launch.
But I'm finding that I have little interest in Book 2 at the moment. The reason for that may be that the middle of the novel isn't as good as the start. Or I may just need a break from all the writing I've been doing. This year I put final touches on Book 1 and then reviewed it twice, I've wrote half a dozen short stories and at least as many poems, and revised about half of Book 2. That's a lot of work.
At the same time, I can see holes in my process. I still need reviewers to provide feedback. I may have found a way to do that, but it is too soon to tell and I don't know the quality of the review. Additionally, I can only use this new workflow for short stories. My novels, if they are to be published by my publisher, will have to go to them to review.
I am also trying to get involved more in forums and to make my presence known. I've no interest in that at all and I'm going very slowly. But I am told this will help when my book launches. We'll see.
And so I wait and write and do what I can while I feel spent and a little bored. It's the being bored part that bothers me. I've worked very hard to get to this point; I shouldn't be bored.
Maybe I'll shift gears and go clean out the junk out of the back room. That might clean out the cobwebs from my mind too.
Maybe.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Picking a Genre
So you have this idea for a genre or you've written a story and are ready to sell it. Now what?
Well, you need to know what genre the story belongs in. Why? Because knowing which genre a story belongs to can help you sell it because publishers (and readers) use these classifications to make some assumptions about the story. For example, in a science fiction story I can expect to see alien races or plausible future speculated. Depending on the type of science fiction, the writer may adhere to science facts as much as possible with only a slight deviation, such as faster-than-light spaceships, or they may use many of the accepted conventions in the genre to create a story that is both interesting and enjoyable.
Orson Scott Card makes are great point in his book on writing speculative fiction that genres are more for bookseller and publisher and less for you. Nevertheless, you should have a rough idea which genre best describes your story if only so you can identify your audience (always a good starting point when writing anything). And knowing the genre helps me to know what conventions I can alter. For example, if the audience is expecting aliens maybe I write a first contact story. Or if they expect faster-than-light spaceships, maybe I restrict the technology to star gates only.
I'd love to give you a list of genres but alas they are subjective and I have not found one that is inclusive enough to satisfy me. Suffice to say that fantasy, horror, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, and mystery are the main categories, although I'm sure others would amend and modify this list.
But here's the good news, unless you are trying to write serious literature that will stand the test of time like Joyce or Faulkner or Hemingway, your story will probably fall into one of the genres I listed. And generally speaking, you will not have to explicitly pick a genre. Your story will do that for you.
But here's the bad news, sub-genres make the whole process of determining a genre a little like order coffee at Starbucks. In my case, for example, is my fantasy novel, an epic or traditional or swords and sorcery or something else? It is clearly not contemporary or urban fantasy, but it could be light fantasy depending on how you define these terms.
Personally, I think of my novel as an epic fantasy because it will span eight books and the result changes the world in which the characters live. In that sense it is no different that many of the epic fantasy novels I've read. Frankly, so long as you know the main class your story belongs in you should be okay. Don't worry about the sub-genres unless you are submitting a short story to a magazine. And then look for the magazine to define their terms.
Well, you need to know what genre the story belongs in. Why? Because knowing which genre a story belongs to can help you sell it because publishers (and readers) use these classifications to make some assumptions about the story. For example, in a science fiction story I can expect to see alien races or plausible future speculated. Depending on the type of science fiction, the writer may adhere to science facts as much as possible with only a slight deviation, such as faster-than-light spaceships, or they may use many of the accepted conventions in the genre to create a story that is both interesting and enjoyable.
Orson Scott Card makes are great point in his book on writing speculative fiction that genres are more for bookseller and publisher and less for you. Nevertheless, you should have a rough idea which genre best describes your story if only so you can identify your audience (always a good starting point when writing anything). And knowing the genre helps me to know what conventions I can alter. For example, if the audience is expecting aliens maybe I write a first contact story. Or if they expect faster-than-light spaceships, maybe I restrict the technology to star gates only.
I'd love to give you a list of genres but alas they are subjective and I have not found one that is inclusive enough to satisfy me. Suffice to say that fantasy, horror, science fiction, romance, historical fiction, and mystery are the main categories, although I'm sure others would amend and modify this list.
But here's the good news, unless you are trying to write serious literature that will stand the test of time like Joyce or Faulkner or Hemingway, your story will probably fall into one of the genres I listed. And generally speaking, you will not have to explicitly pick a genre. Your story will do that for you.
But here's the bad news, sub-genres make the whole process of determining a genre a little like order coffee at Starbucks. In my case, for example, is my fantasy novel, an epic or traditional or swords and sorcery or something else? It is clearly not contemporary or urban fantasy, but it could be light fantasy depending on how you define these terms.
Personally, I think of my novel as an epic fantasy because it will span eight books and the result changes the world in which the characters live. In that sense it is no different that many of the epic fantasy novels I've read. Frankly, so long as you know the main class your story belongs in you should be okay. Don't worry about the sub-genres unless you are submitting a short story to a magazine. And then look for the magazine to define their terms.
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