Plans For 2021

Well, a new year is almost upon us.  I have plans for 2021, the biggest of which is the release of Homecoming, the first true science fiction novel in my collection(which is weird given that sci-fi has always been where my heart lies).  The current plan is for a March 1^st release, and I think I’m well on track for that, although it’s possible I could move that up.  All depends on the editing corrections I need to make.

I also intend to write my sci-fi/fantasy mashup.  The hardest part of that will be putting it away for a while to stew – so I can edit it with fresh eyes – instead of releasing it.  That goes back to that whole “impatience” thing.

I’m also hoping to start the sequel to Salvation Day, or to rewrite the sequel to Akeldama.  I’ll only do one unless my sales take off and I can do this full time – don’t want to bite off more than I can chew.  I should know more by summer, and I’ll give an update at that point.

What are your plans for 2021?

What To Do With Unpublished Work

I’ve published four novels, with a 5^th out soon.  However, I’ve written double that in terms of actual material.  As a writer, it makes me itchy to have stuff out there that is probably never going to see the light of day.  However, it’s also a recognition that not everything is publishable if one wants to maintain any kind of reputation for quality.

I first encountered this phenomenon decades ago while reading the tenth anniversary book for Calvin & Hobbes.  The cartoonist, Bill Watterson, talked about ripping up weeks’ worth of material to maintain quality, and I remember thinking that that was crazy, because I wanted all the Calvin & Hobbes I could get my hands on.

Of course, now I know better.  It’s hard while writing to really know if what you’re writing is any good.  In fact, it’s hard to know right after you’re done writing if what you’ve written is any good.  You really need to put it away and let it cool down before looking at it again.  Only then might you know if it meets the quality mark.  I thought at least two of my published novels were shit when I was first done with them, but they looked fine when I went back over them.  Unfortunately, not everything I’ve written has aged as well.

The sequel to Akeldama comes to mind.  It took me four months to write(at least…I can’t remember exactly, but that sounds about right).  I had doubts at the time, but I figured it’d be fine once I was further removed from the process.  Wrongo!  Reading it now, it makes me want to cringe.  It’s a bad novel, and while elements of it are okay, they don’t fit, so I’ll be going back to the drawing board completely for the sequel.

Every so often, I’ll write something I think it great that later turns out to suck.  On Freedom’s Wings, my very first novel, is now so cringeworthy that I wonder why I ever put it on paper.  In retrospect, it’s even worse – I should’ve been able to see I was creating a Star Trek knock-off that people would laugh at(myself included).  Just another point to let things cool down(as I need to remember with the new project I’m working on).

So these novels are just sitting there doing…nothing.  I think a couple of them have potential if I rewrite them, so they may see the light of day later on(much later on).  And although it’s hard, it means I need to not get too attached to my work, because then having to abandon, or seriously rework, a novel is less painful.  As silly as that sounds, every writer experiences that when they have work that turns out to not be their best.

Auto-Correct

Computers and the programs associated with them for our writing have come a long way.  They help us spell, they help us find the right words, and they even try to help us be grammatically correct.  Of course, that doesn’t always mean they’re helpful.

The grammar suggestions are what I could do without the most because the computer suggestions are all about efficiency, and sometimes writing requires less than efficient language in order to create the right effect.  Sometimes I’ll look across my page and see a bevy of blue marks under the words, which is annoying.  I’ll occasionally check what the suggestion is, but it has yet to yield a single change from me.

Red lines are different because they denote words that are misspelled, which I’m usually pretty good at(although I have been known to type to fast and get something wrong).  And sometimes I intentionally misspell words(again, for effect), but that’s a rarity, so the red squiggles let me correct my mistakes.  But the blue ones?  The grammatical corrections?  Almost always garbage.

So thanks, auto-correct and grammar checks, but I think I’m a better writer than you.

Character Names

Character names mean things.  I only recently realized just how important that was, even if I’d been unconsciously doing that as I write for years.  Most of my characters have names that I perceive to be ordinary and sympathetic – Michael Faulkner, Seth Gendrickson, Dean Turlman.  These names are kind of generic and allow the reader to put almost whoever they want into them.

However, there are times when the name evokes more meaning.  Christian Gettis from WrongfulDeath was obviously an allusion to God and the afterlife.  As I’ve started writing my sci-fi/fantasy mashup, my characters’ names are meant to give insight into who the character is.  For example, Wilhelm Hoyt IV, Regent of the Braalmin Imperial Realm of Unos Murcan, is meant to sound haughty and above it all.  Grand Magus Vishestar is meant to be mysterious enough for the reader to know he’s powerful magically.  Sultan Brimiri Gildesh is supposed to evoke visions of a grand ruler of an unfamiliar realm.  As soon as the reader sees the name, there should be a mental image of the person and their basic function.

Think about this in other work.  Dumbledore is a pleasant sounding but complicated enough name for readers to know that this friendly wizard is more than he appears.  Grand Admiral Thrawn is regal enough to know he is in charge.  And none of this is by accident.

As a writer, you have to spend time on your names.  Names can draw in readers or turn them off(if the name doesn’t match the character…would you buy a badass punk rock warrior named Steve?)  Dwell on it, brainstorm it.  And if necessary, change them as the story progresses to better match.  It will make for more enjoyment for the reader and an easier time for you to write.

Finding The Right Word

Part of being a writer is finding the right word.  That’s not as easy as it sounds.  Words have great meaning in our heads as we think of them, but on paper, they don’t always work as envisioned.  Remember, a word not only needs to evoke vision and emotion in the writer, but also(mostly) in the audience.  And that word choice often comes down to a matter of degree.  In other words, it’s more often a choice between anxious and nervous rather than between tree and whistle.

I encountered this recently while trying to decide between tiresome and tedious.  Which fit better?  The scene was about a routine task, so was the task tiresome, or was it tedious.  I decided that it was more tedious than tiresome, because, to me, tedious evoked images of moving forward but being mind numbingly boring while doing so.  Tiresome, on the other hand, spoke to me of an air of exasperation, as if someone was sighing while doing the task.

Yes, we writers really do obsess over these things.  They may seem trivial to the reader(I just substituted reader for audience), but they’re often the difference between being interesting and engaging.  Interest is great, but if I can get someone engaged, I may have hooked a reader for life.

SME Exaggeration

An SME is a Subject Matter Expert.  Think of a doctor, lawyer, Soldier, or mechanic.  These are professionals in their fields.  Yes, many can do a few things the experts can do – lots can stitch up a cut or change out a starter on a car – but the experts can do so much more.  And that’s where, in writing, the problem can come into play.

Because, to be honest, being a professional can be boring sometimes.  It’s one thing to know the overarching and exciting parts of an issue, but professionals know the minute details that bore the hell out of most people.  But because they know those details, they are so much better than amateurs.  As a retired Soldier, I cannot tell you how many amateur tacticians I’ve laughed at who think they know anything about war.  So many think it’s about picking up a rifle and opening fire while giving no thought to how to achieve suppressive fire for maneuver, how to achieve a combined arms integration, or even that most wars are not won or lost through fighting, but rather through logistics(I have to be careful myself here…I can talk all day about warfare in detail that would be mind numbing to most…but that’s why I’m a professional and you’re not).  Similar practices apply to lawyers who scoff at TV courtroom dramas or airline pilots who see random amateurs landing planes heroically on TV.

So why do I bring all of this up?  Because as a writer, SMEs sometimes have to alter their expertise so it can be portrayed in an interesting way for the reader.  Think about it – who would read a story about a doctor working his or her way through pathology slides looking for a single error involving cholestasis or a firefighter who spends hours and hours working on how to attach a hose to a fire hydrant?

It can be maddening to SMEs to have to dumb down their knowledge so that the vast majority of the public, those who have zero expertise in the field, can enjoy a story without lots of requisite knowledge.  Sometimes that even involves changing capabilities to fit a story(and sometimes those capability changes affect the public mindset…most firearms experts know that a “silencer” deflects the concussive pressure from a gun down and away from the shooter but does not “silence” the bang like the movies suggest).  This is fine so long as people understand they’re reading fiction, but it gets either amusing or annoying(depends on your outlook) when those same readers now purport to be experts because they’ve read a book.

In areas I’m not an expert, I’ve had to seek out expert advice from some in order to make my story more realistic.  From medical knowledge to how prisons work, I’ve asked a bevy of professionals, and I’ve usually taken what they’ve told me and tried to incorporate it into my story.  That doesn’t mean I’ve always taken everything unchanged – again, enjoyment of the story has to come first, so some details shift depending on whether or not I think the public would buy it, whether realistic or not.

So please keep two things in mind when you read a book – it’s a story(and usually a fictional/exaggerated one at that), and the exasperation of the expert you know who you tried to dazzle with your knowledge is real.  Maybe they’re patient with your new “expertise,” but not always.  Try to remember that while you enjoyed it, it had almost no practicality in the real world.  But hey, who reads books for reality anyway?

Writing Impatience

Every novelist will tell you that writing the actual novel is the fun part.  Unfortunately, that’s the “game time” at the end of preparation.  In my case, preparation means outlining.

Outlining is okay at times, but it can be tedious.  The reason is that I want to write.  I want to actually tell the story.  However, I also know me and realize that if I write without outlining, as I’ve tried in the past, the result will be shit.  So I have to outline to a certain point before I attempt to write.

I also can’t outline the entire story, which can be just as maddening.  I’d like to get outlining out of the way so I can focus on writing, but if I outline too far, the story will eventually not match the outline.  So it becomes a process of stops and starts.  The temptation, of course, is to shortchange the outline, but that’s also folly because that provides the foundation of what I write.

All of this reminds me of football players who say that they love playing on Sunday, but the rest of the week is where the work comes in.  Outlining is that rest of the week.  It’s necessary, but I just wish it would go faster so I could write…which is what I got into this to do.

Original Ideas(NOT!)

How many truly original ideas are out there?  Aren’t most stories just variations of ideas we’ve been batting around for centuries, if not longer?

I know, I know…that hurts.  How can I say there is nothing original?  Well, because humanity has been around quite a while, and we’ve said a lot.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t new ways to tell the same stories, but they’re still mostly the same story, right?  Let’s look at some things we think of as “original”:

The Shining – ghost story and possession

Harry Potter – boy hero saves the world, plus wizards

Star Wars – boy hero saves the universe…plus space wizards

Guns of the South – Bring the Jubilee gets a modern update

Earthclan – mankind goes into space and finds older, more powerful races

World War Z – zombies

Our stories tend to follow predictable patterns.  Either hero finds incredible, overpowering evil and has to protect(the world, family, an orphanage), star-crossed lovers must find each other under incredible odds(one is dying, they’re both dying, lovers from a past life, bad guys get in the way), or savage conflict creates chaos(brutality of war, oppression breaks out and people must be set free, cowboy has to defend the ranch and his woman against outlaws).  A few other basic plotlines are also out there, but most of what we read today are mere variations of stories we’ve been telling each other since we sat around the fire roasting what’s left of a woolly mammoth.

Am I doing this to shit on everything?  No – I’m doing it to say that we can make old ideas new and fresh by adding variation, by putting our own spin on things.  But that’s what we have to do; we have to look at these stories from new angles.  Lazy writers will just slough off old tropes and hope they sell again, while creative ones will find an approach no one has seen before.  That’s what makes storytelling exciting.  It’s not easy, but if we do it right, we get people to think we’ve found something new, even if we’re aware it’s just a classic we’ve cherried out.

Read, Read, Read

For writers, there is one absolutely essential element to getting better – reading.

That’s right, kiddos, if you want to improve as a writer, you need to read everything you can get your hands on.  And I don’t just mean good stuff; you also need to read bad stuff.  Good stuff can help you figure out ways to approach a story – The Shining did that in Marvelous ways for me for Salvation Day – but bad stuff can help you figure out what to avoid.  It may be cringeworthy, but knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do.  In some cases, it may be even more important because while sometimes it’s hard to describe what we like, it’s not hard to know what we don’t.

I’ve fallen down on this for a while, but I’m trying to get back in it.  My biggest problem is in finding stuff that captures my interest.  Some of the supposed giants write in ways I find difficult to enjoy(David Brin comes to mind), and even some of the greats are hit and miss(like Stephen King…great with 11/22/63, but not so much with Salem’sLot).  Even writers I’ve loved, like Timothy Zahn and Harry Turtledove, don’t always write stories I’m interested in.  And if a book doesn’t capture my interest quickly, I put it down.

Of course, I return to books I love frequently.  I’ve read Tim Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy multiple times, and I go back to Guns of the South over and over.  But that’s not getting me new stuff.  I need to see what other authors might capture my fancy…as well as which ones turn me off(and why).  It can be challenging, but that’s what writers must do to improve, for other books are the best teachers.

Style Effect

A writing style can affect the way a reader absorbs a story.  Actually, any writer worth his or her salt will ensure that their writing style affects the way the story is read.  I’ve written stories from the perspective of an observer and from the perspective of the main character, and that choice is intertwined with the mood of the book.  Do I want the reader to be disinterested, absorbing the world from the point of view of an outsider, or do I want them to be exhausted by the end of the story, as if they went through it themselves?

Of course we all want readers to be invested in the characters and plot, but specifically how can be manipulated(I almost didn’t write the word “manipulated,” but isn’t that what writers try to do to a reader’s emotions?).  Therefore, choosing a writing style has to be made before writing the story, and it has to be a conscious decision.  Further, changing styles must also be a conscious decision.  I have a novel that requires rewriting but which plays with two different styles – one from a first person present point of view, and one from a third person limited point of view.  Moving between them has proven harder than I thought because each style has a different effect, and changing too often or randomly can be jarring to the reader.  That jarring must serve a purpose beyond just screwing with someone.

So decide your style.  Figure out how and when it changes.  And do so prior to writing, because it’s way too hard to change in midstream.

Excitement Versus Reality

It’s one thing to get excited to write a new novel.  It’s something else altogether to find the time to write it.

I came up with an idea recently for a new novel that merges science fiction and fantasy.  Basically, a fleet of ships from Earth heads out to explore the galaxy and finds a world run by magic.  I thought it would be interesting to see if these two genres could be integrated.  So far I’ve managed to get two chapters written and have started on the third.  Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten further, and given that it’s been over two months, you’d have thought I’d made more progress.  Alas, life gets in the way.

I think this is the case with most writers who aren’t able to do this for a living(ie, almost everyone not named King or Rowling).  We get excited for the idea, but we have to keep our “regular” jobs and tend to our families.  Taking time out to write consistently is challenging.

And let’s not forget that writing requires momentum.  I can’t just write 50-100 words at a time and create something coherent.  That’s too bumpy, so I need time to write at least 500 words in order to have a rhythm that works.  Five hundred words takes about 15-20 minutes, so I have to try and carve out time in an otherwise busy life.

So I’ve had to temper my enthusiasm.  If I could get some time to concentrate, I could have this new novel ready(1^st draft) by mid-Spring, but as long as we’re wishing, the winning lottery numbers would be nice…

Formatting Fantasies

An author’s imagination can be limitless, but how he or she conveys the ideas of that imagination aren’t.  This truism came to me again as I was reading an old Calvin & Hobbes book.

Anyone who knows me knows I have an affection for Calvin & Hobbes.  It was my favorite comic growing up(replaced now by Zits), and I instantly related to Calvin.  I think inside we’re all whiny kids who want things our own way, and we approach the cruelty of the world by creating our own.  So I often go back to the Calvin & Hobbes collections for a laugh, or even just a wistful memory.  As I was reading the 10^th Anniversary Book, I came across Bill Watterson’s laments regarding the Sunday strip.

I won’t go into too much detail here – if you want that, buy and read the book yourself – but he was frustrated by the format of the Sunday strip, as it had to be laid out in certain ways, and it limited what he wanted to do.  After several long, protracted battles, he finally freed himself from those constraints, only to find his joy at that freedom tempered by the reality of it.  See, regardless of how he wanted to tell the story, he needed readers to still be able to follow it, so there had to be a natural path of progression.  Although more open to what he envisioned, it was nevertheless not unlimited.

That’s something that many writers need to remember as well.  For starters, few of us have the pull Watterson did to get folks to print our stuff in whatever format we want – fonts are limited, type size can only be so big or so small, and even pictures can’t be random.  So we have to shoehorn our vision into the format of a printed book most folks offer.  Further, our story needs a natural path for the reader to follow.  This could be solved if we could simply crack open our skulls and let the reader see completely into our imagination(and understand it), but that’d be messy, both literally and figuratively.  Our minds are a mess, understandable mostly only by ourselves.  We have to farm it and give it order so others can follow along.

Keep this in mind as you write.  That great idea you have means little to anyone but yourself if others can’t understand it.

Homecoming Cover Reveal!

As usual, my cover artist, Carl Graves, has done an outstanding job taking my idea for a cover and making it even better.  This is the cover for Homecoming, and it captures the spirit of the book in several ways, from the shadow across the planet to the different sides folks see the history to the light and dark the story represents.  I hope you like it, as I expect Homecoming to be out at the end of February.

Taxes And Penalties

Writers like to write.  But if you’re an indie author, you have to worry about that boring business stuff to…or else you will pay the price.

I recently had to pay a mild tax penalty because I misinterpreted the tax year.  I was under the impression that since I arrived in my new home in Tennessee at the beginning of December last year that I my fiscal year could run from December to December, with taxes due on the 15^th of the 4^th month following the end of the tax year(March 15^th, in my case).  Well, that wasn’t quite true.

Turns out that the state of Tennessee said that my taxes began fresh every January…meaning that I owed them for 2019.  It wasn’t all that much since I haven’t sold very many, but I had to pay a $27.50 tax penalty for late filing.  I jumped on it quick because I’m pretty paranoid over government taxation bureaus(lots of horror stories on that front).

So pay attention to your business.  Writing is great, and if you never want to sell a thing, then don’t worry about it.  However, for those of us with the dream to one day do this for a living, there are governmental rules and regulations that, like it or not, we have to pay attention to.  Otherwise, our next memoirs will be of prison time.