[process] Sticking to ideas in the face of the shiny
, in response to my recent post about the books queued in my head [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ], asked the the following question:
How do you keep teh shiny at bay, though?
My biggest problem is getting an idea and having it so overwhelm my thinking process that it derails the WIP. How do you keep that from happening? Your list would (does) slay my productivity with the neurotic notion that I’ll let something fade before I’ve captured it.
To which I responded:
My big secret? If it fades, it wasn’t that shiny.
That’s why I stopped writing down ideas years ago. If it can’t stick in my head, it won’t stick in the reader’s head.
I only write the ones that really, really insist. And even then, only one at a time. If the next one is still insisting when I’m done, that’s pretty much proof positive.
This is an important point, at least for me as a writer. Long time readers of this blog may recall my four rules guidelines of writing. In the original version (linked from that post), number four was “Work on one thing at a time.”
“Work on one thing at a time” is a big part of how I handle the issue Elf refers to. Long before I ever sold a damned thing, I used to believe ideas were precious. I wrote them down a lot, in text files and notebooks, long lists of titles, phrases, images, concepts. Eventually I came to realize that for me, ideas are very nearly the most trivial part of the process. Stop me in a hall sometime and ask me for six story ideas. I can give them to you in about a minute, from just looking around.
Obviously, this depends on your definition of “idea”. If an idea has to come with an outline, a character, a plot, a resolution, and a fair amount of detail attached, well, no, it doesn’t work the way I described. But I can and have written entire novels based on one brief mental image. Virtually all of my short fiction works that way still. It’s like the grain of sand at the heart of the pearl — Fred will grow the story if I just bed him with the proper irritant.
Hence my perception of my own process as having been largely based on unconscious competence. It’s long been clear to me that I have no real idea what I’m actually doing when I’m writing, since to me, writing is an extension of reading: I am experiencing the story as it hits the page, with many of the same moments of wonder and anger and tension that you the reader (hopefully) will. This is part of why 99% of the time I write in reading order, no matter how nonlinear or complex the plot and structure might be. I don’t write fiction so much as channel it, and enjoy the ride along the way.
Parenthetically, this ties to why the process of working on The Heart of the Beast has been so exciting for me. As I’ve discussed repeatedly [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ], I’ve much to my surprise developed a stronger sense of conscious control over the fiction and its flow with this project than I ever have possessed before. This in turn gives me a much better set of explicitly supported tools for creating future work.
One way I deal with the shiny of ideas, to point back to Elf’s question, is with the cloakroom of ideas. That’s me operating metaphor for what I do with cool, shiny things to see if they will stick in my head. I don’t need to write them down. Something else cool and shiny will be along shortly — much like drunk drives outside a frat party, there’s one every minute. It’s ones that stick which count for me. Those I take out and work on, one at a time.
Tags: Beast, Process, Writing
Posted: 6:38 am Fri February 13 2009 | Comments(0) |
[publishing] Possible issue with orphaned REALMS contracts
This really only applies to people with contracted stories orphaned in the Realms of Fantasy shut down, but per an email I received from Sovereign / Homestead Publishing today, they have not yet determined the disposition of the story rights. Since our contracts are with Sovereign / Homestead Publishing and not with Realms of Fantasy, and Sovereign is still in business, reversion clauses are not clear-cut. (And I need to go drag out my most recent contracts with them and check this out.)
So, if you’re a Realms orphan, I strongly advise not attempting to remarket your story for the time being, to avoid creating a contractual problem.
Note: if you had a story orphaned in slush, without a contract in hand, this will not affect you.
Tags: Publishing
Posted: 2:15 pm Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(0) |
[conventions] Heading out for RadCon
Have taken happily in tow. We’re about to head for RadCon in scenic Pasco, WA. See some, all or none of you there!
Tags: Calendula, Conventions, Travel
Posted: 2:11 pm Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(1) |
[books|writing] Thinking about the road ahead
So here in my post-novel ennui of the past 24 hours, I have sold a novella, signed 500 sig sheets of the METAtropolis limited edition, mailed out a few more Green ARCs, done story marketing WRPA in which I noted that I recently passed the 250 stories mark, have been working several interesting short fiction publishing deals, and, um, cleaned my house. But I already reported that last bit.
My brain being what it is, I’m quite actively thinking about the road ahead, book-wise. Here’s what’s committed, what’s on deck, and what’s floating in my backbrain waiting for time and focus.
Committed
- Revisions to Tourbillon (March)
- Revisions to the Heart of the Beast (whenever Jeff gets them to me)
On Deck
- Continue to write first volume of diplomatic/espionage thriller series with my Dad the retired ambassador (as time permits)
- Develop collaborative concepts with (YA trilogy) and (steampunk romance) (as time permits)
- Draft Sunspin (From May through Ghu only knows when)
Backbrain
- Sequel to Green
- Original Destiny, Manifest Sin
- Black Tulip
- Reign of Flowers
- As yet unnamed Mainspring book which started jogging my elbow as I worked on “Chain of Stars”
That last bunch won’t happen this year, and some of them may never happen unless there’s commercial demand, but they’re in my head. I already know that even if I were a full time writer, sans day job, I couldn’t write much more than I do now. It’s not like I can write any faster. In point of fact, recent bouts of hypergraphia aside, I’ve been trying to slow down in the interests of improved pacing and work quality.
It’s fun to juggle all these balls in my head. It will be interesting to see where and how they land in real life.
Tags: Beast, Books, Green, Mainspring, Sunspin, Tourbillion, Writing
Posted: 6:51 am Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(2) |
[sale] Novella “Chain of Stars” to Subterranean
I am pleased to announce that my novella, “Chain of Stars”, has been accepted by Subterranean for publication online later this year.
This piece is set in the Mainspring universe, and is a loose sequel to “Chain of Fools“, published last year at Subterranean.
ETA: The acquisition announcement at Subterranean Press.
Tags: Sale, stories
Posted: 5:33 am Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(0) |
[contests] Time to vote in the newest Green ARC contest
The latest contest for an ARC of Green [ Amazon
] is now live with a voting poll.
Note that this one was a little different. I asked people to nominate someone else to receive an ARC. Due to the limitations of the poll code, some of the nominations have been truncated, so be sure to check out the comments on the original posts [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ].
And yes, there will be goodies for the person whose nominee wins.
So what are you waiting for? Go vote!
Tags: Books, Contests, Green, Polls
Posted: 5:20 am Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(0) |
[contests] Voting poll for the latest Green ARC contest
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Tags: Books, Contests, Green, Polls
Posted: 5:05 am Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(3) |
[links] Link salad wishes it was a fisherman, tumbling on the seas
Various interesting comments concerning my Lone Star Stories short, “On the Human Plan” — I like what Rich said about my ‘poetic mode.’
Mr. Tact responds to my recent post on backing up your fiction like a pro [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] — He is not so much with the agreeing with my methods, though our goals are pretty much the same.
The Geek Goes for the Job — , One of Our Own, makes a pitch for that Australian dream job. Note her excellent taste in books, too.
Lesson Planning 101: How to teach comics responsibly in a composition class (Watchmen) — Snurched from The Edge of the American West.
Covered Wagons: When Paint Just Ain’t Good Enough — Mmm, art cars.
Two satellites collide in orbit — Wow. Though this is old news by now, the Internet being what it is, still fascinating. And of course, part of me wonders if this was a ‘satellite killer’ test strike. (Thanks to .)
New antibiotics would silence bugs, not kill them — In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don’t kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another. (Thanks to .)
Something Darwin Didn’t Know — The first part of this is hilarious, but I disagree with his conclusions, which privilege religious discourse with a false equivalency to empirical discourse.
New Clues to How Primates Evolved — Regions of DNA prone to duplication may have played a vital role in human evolution.
When Was the Last Time Someone Answered “Yes” to One of These Questions? — Freakonomics asks something I’ve long wondered about. (And yes, I’ve long understood the answer, too, but it still strikes me as weird; on the order of nailing Al Capone for tax evasion.)
?otD: What is a hurtling fever train, anyway?
2/12/2009
Body movement: 40 minute stationary bike ride
This morning’s weigh-in: 220.0
Currently reading: The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville
Tags: cars, Cool, Culture, Funny, Links, Personal, reviews, Science, stories
Posted: 4:08 am Thu February 12 2009 | Comments(0) |
[writing] What drafting a book does to my life
First drafting a novel for me is always a bit of a sprint. Last spring, Green was about 200,000 words in 35 days. Last fall, Tourbillon was about 200,000 words in 51 days (I was being a slacker on that one). Just now, Heart of the Beast was 40,500 words in nine days, once I got to straight drafting, plus the eleven previous days of revision and bridge writing on Jeff’s draft. Not quite the long-haul sprint (so to speak) of the other books, but if you do the math, a comparable pace. (And we shan’t speak of what Sunspin is likely to be…)
When I come off of one these writing jags, it feels rather like running up the stairs and not realizing you’ve made it to the top. I look around the house and discover a bleeding mess. I look in the mirror and discover that my beard has advanced beyond the razor-wired Maginot line of my indifferent maintenance. I wonder why the laundry hasn’t been done, then remember that a) I live alone; and b) I haven’t been doing the laundry.
My IRL friends will tell you how distracted and generally unfocused, even inattentive, I become when I’m in manuscript mode. A book sort of eats my brain, and that’s almost the most fun I can have. But as all good things must come to an end, eventually I must recover equilibrium.
So tonight’s writing activities consisted of a bunch of house-cleaning and maintenance of various sorts, along with Con prep, packing and whatnot. Given that I’m leaving town tomorrow for nine days, this seems like as good a time as any, because I’d sure hate to come back to this mess.
Tags: Beast, Books, Green, Personal, Process, Sunspin, Tourbillion, Writing
Posted: 8:54 pm Wed February 11 2009 | Comments(0) |
[child] Wisdom (or not) of the Child
Just now as she was reading to me, her book contained sentence, “Alice had named the pig she talked to, and now the man who owned it couldn’t butcher it.” Under her breath, muttered, “I don’t see why not.”
And this morning she announced to me that last night she had punched herself in the face repeatedly to knock out a loose tooth.
That’s my kid… way tougher than me.
Tags: Child, Funny
Posted: 7:15 pm Wed February 11 2009 | Comments(0) |
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