N.E. White's Blog, page 13

WhiteWashedOut

Today is the first day of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Hollywood has been preparing for this month by announcing film after film after film with white people playing Asians. To that end, we’ve teamed up with some of the minds behind #WeNeedDiverseBooks and comedian/actress Margaret Cho to launch a new movement to tell Hollywood […]

via #WhitewashedOUT Twitter Chat with Margaret Cho to Kick Off AAPI Month — thenerdsofcolor

Filed under: writing

Tell A Story Day is Wednesday April 27th — Annette Rochelle Aben

Every picture may tell a story but every person has a story to tell too! Stories of happiness, strength, courage, joy and even fantasy come from deep inside people in all walks of life. Sometimes these stories are written down in books and blogs so we can read them at our leisure. Some stories etch […]

via Tell A Story Day is Wednesday April 27th — Annette Rochelle Aben

Filed under: writing

All the world is spam

The other day, I saw a TedTalk about spam. At least, I think it was a TedTalk. It was on YouTube so it could have just been a random YouTube video. Regardless, it was a talk about spam. Specifically, the kind of spam where someone informs you they have to transfer a huge sum of money and need your help to do so. The fellow giving the talk described how instead of deleting the email outright, he engaged with the spammer, soliciting some funny responses from his would-be thief.

Yesterday, after posting the cover of Lauren Buekes Zoo City, I recalled that a few of the characters in that book were exactly those kind of spammers. It got me thinking about how spam has changed over the years.

In the 90s, spam was fairly innocent. I remember getting a lot of chain letters. While I can’t ever remember getting a chain letter in real life (yes, that’s where they started), they were immediately recognized for the byte-wasters they are.

The oughts brought us all those foreign princes with lots of money to get rid of. This is also when internet hoaxes and urban legends blossomed like fungi on overripe fruit. This decade also birthed Rickrolling. (Rick Astley’s video has been watched over 196 million times.)

This decade seems to be infiltrated by the fake pharmaceutical companies and you can’t wade onto any social media platform without getting a little GIF spam smeared on your pant cuffs.

Mind you, through it all, two types of spam are perennially popular: unwanted products/services and porn. Those have been a constant and, I imagine, will be with us a million years from now when the last computer circuit disintegrates into dust.

But let’s be honest. All forms of spam will never go away.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a nice letter from Dr Park Lee Sung, a Korean, Chief Medical Director attach to His Highness Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, The Emir of Kuwait, who said, and I quote:

During one of his [His Highness] oil businesses with the West, which I helped him to coordinate, I made the sum of $10,500,000.00 and deposited it with an escrow account with Emirates Bank Dubai. I am contacting you now to help me receive the funds in our country for investment, where you will take 45%, while 50% for myself and 5% to any charity of your choice. But you have to keep this project secret and private to yourself, and please get back to me with your details, so that I will inform you what to do next. Waiting to hear from you, parkleesung5@hotmail.com Thanks, you need to act very fast to this, i have little time to handle this [sic]

Until next time, stay spam-free.

Filed under: Life Tagged: Spam

Visualizing Your Characters

If you hang out on readers’ forums long enough, you’ll start to see specific themes crop up time and time again. One of those is: Who would you cast in the movie adaptation of your favorite novel? Sometimes, the question hones in on specific books and characters.

Is this Stephen King’s gunslinger?

What inevitably comes of these discussions are the wide interpretations of what a character should look like. There is rarely agreement.

Frankly, it’s the writer’s fault.

You see, while writers may have a very specific image of their character in their head, we are often told to minimize physical descriptions. The idea is to allow the unfolding story to give the reader enough clues on the appearance of your characters. Besides, writing/reading is a two-way street. A story only comes alive in a reader’s imagination when said reader’s imagination brings it to life. The less a reader has to imagine, the less involved in the story. We want them involved. So, it makes since for writers to keep physical descriptions at a minimum and allow readers to fill-in the blanks.

Of course, that all goes out the window when a movie-adaptation comes along or, more relevant to most of us, when you create your book cover.

Yes, that whole can of worms. What will you put on your book cover? Will you go for a vague landscape scene and stunning font?

Or bold graphics?

Or your characters?

If you write in certain genres (Romance and Urban Fantasy, I’m looking at you), you pretty much have to go with the later. But that can be tricky. I remember the first book in Robin Hobb’s Farseer triology. In the edition I had, the boy on the cover had blond hair. It really really irked me because Ms. Hobb referred to her character’s dark looks and dark hair numerous times throughout the series. I’m sure someone in the art department hadn’t even given the boy’s hair color a second thought. Or maybe it was a conscious decision to appeal to a certain demographic that would relate to a lighter-haired character? Who knows. All I know is that Ms. Hobb’s current series features the same character with a physical appearance that matches the one she describes in her book. (And he’s hot, imho – that’s short for ‘in my heated opinion’.)

I won’t go into all the pros and cons of putting representations of your characters on your book cover. That would be a long post and I’m sure there are much better qualified folks out there who can help you decide what to put on your cover based on the genre and style of the book you wrote, the book’s target audience, and your budget.

Let’s just decide you do want to put your main character on your cover. Now what?

You can pore through countless images on DeviantArt or stock photography sites in hopes you’ll find just the right model or illustration that matches the image in your head or you have an awesome artist friend read you draft novel and come up with their own interpretation.

Lucky for me, I happen to know a fellow writer who is also a digital painter. A long time ago, when I thought I could actually finish a novel (hasn’t happened yet), Robert Garbin felt inspired to illustrate the cover of my draft novel, The Denouncer.

Thank goodness, that pile of poo (my first novel) will never see the light of day. After three (hard) revisions, I abandoned the effort after an editor pointed out that my writing, nor the story, wasn’t even close to prime time. Though I made the announcement to leave the project, Robert was still inspired to complete his idea for my cover. Well, I’m happy to announce that he finally finished it! And here it is:

Illustration by Robert Garbin

I think the striking colors are gorgeous. That dark sky against the yellow field of flowers very much reflects one particular scene in the draft novel. More importantly, when I first saw this image, I realized I didn’t know my character at all. If I had been the one to draw her, she would have had a haughty look. She probably would have been looking off into the distance or right at you. But that wouldn’t be who she was. The character drawn here very much reflects the character I wrote: an out caste struggling to find peace with her physical deformity.

The take away?

If you put a representation of your character on the cover of your book, proceed with extreme caution! You might get it completely wrong.

Filed under: Book Covers Tagged: artists, book characters, book covers

I am not what you think I am

Great spoken word video:

Filed under: Life Tagged: labels

Writing Update #7

Howdy Folks,

I hope this blog post finds you on a fine Sunday morning/afternoon/evening (depending on where you might be on this here planet, maybe even Monday morning).

It feels as if I have been neglecting my blog after the non-stop posts in February during NewNoWriMo (remember that?). But really, posting once a month is far closer to my normal output than once a day.

Still, I figured I should post something. And since a writing update is always a good idea, here it is.

The last time I did this, back in October 2015, I hadn’t written very much. Since then, I did write like a fiend. I am currently on the fourth episode of an urban fantasy series I’m working on.

This story is about a woman and her problems with ghosts. Here’s the pitch:

The solar storm of the century has thinned the divide between the living and the dead. Most of the dead pass on to where ever it is souls go, but the murdered are clamoring for justice. The State of California has responded with an acronym: SPI – State Paranormal Investigations.

Lorena Tesseract is a spook, one of the few of the living able to see and talk to ghosts. While the rest of us only experience slammed doors and the trembling ground when a ghost goes berserk, spooks can actually do something about it.

Recruited by Oakland’s SPI office, Tesseract joins fellow spooks Sarita Reyes and Keith McLean cleaning up the streets of Oakland, one ghost at a time. But when things get personal, Tesseract is torn between fleeing her problems or doing the right thing.

I just made that up. It’s all true. That’s pretty much what the story is about, but I just wrote that. I think I can make it much better, but for now, that’s a good start. What do you think?

Written during NewNoWriMo, here’s a snippet near the beginning of the third episode. Keep in mind, this is very drafty first draft stuff. Most of it will change. For the better. I hope.

I toss the bag of my father’s clothes onto my ratty couch when I get to my apartment. It is still dark outside, and I know I should head on back to my father’s place to clean up and talk to Jules, but instead I take a quick shower, dress, and call Reyes. I ask about the missing homeless ghosts.

“We’ve got it covered, Lorena,” Reyes says, her voice soothing.

“You have to watch out for those two,” I say, not sure if I should tell her about what I saw Tyler try to do to her.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they escaped, right?” I say. “How many ghosts do you know that have escaped a control room?”

During my spook test, I knew there was no way I was getting out of a control room. Just thinking of moving had made the magnetic-electrical field scorch my skin. The memory sends shivers up my spine.

“Is that all?” she says. “Don’t worry. We have a lead.”

“Oh?” I say, trying to keep my enthusiasm down.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “We’ll take care of it. You take care of your family.”

I want to say that with Diego gone, I don’t have much of a family. Father hates me and Jules is pretty much the same. Both keep blaming me for something I had, and have, no control over.

My eyes fall on the bag of clothes and my father’s personal belongings. I guess I should get them to Jules.

“I’ll be in later this morning,” I say. “I just have to drop something off.”

Then I hang up before she can tell me not to come.

My bike ended up in the back of Reyes’ car, so I jog back to my father’s place.

It feels good to run. I haven’t had a drink since…when? A day and a half? A smile creeps onto my face and the muscles in my shoulders relax. I lengthen my stride and wonder if maybe it’ll be alright now.

Diego, rest his soul – we know those are real now, though we still have no idea where they go – is dead, but no matter what we thought of the officer who shot him, that’s what Diego wanted. He wanted to be with Jonas. If Diego was at peace, maybe I could find that too. I would rather I do it while still alive, though.

A dense fog has crept in from the bay, smothering the city. When I cross under Highway 980, the condensation drips off the concrete bypass, as if it’s raining.

A hear a shout in the distance. I duck at the sound of a crack. But the gunshot is muffled, as if far away. I resume my jog, glancing over my shoulder, my heart pounding in my throat.

“Fuck,” I say to myself. “What’s scarier? Demon’s or gangsters?”

I laugh out loud at my own joke, but my hands start shaking. The image of Diego splashing into my father’s pool threatens to fill my head, but I mentally shove it aside, concentrating on my breathing and the sounds of a city in uneasy slumber.

The rest of the way is uneventful. When I get to the house, the lights are on upstairs, in Diego’s room – it was his room – but otherwise, the street is dark.

When I go up the porch steps, a neighbor’s car starts up; an early morning commuter. I lift my hand to knock on the door and then hesitate. Maybe I should have called first. Jules probably thought I was making a bad joke.

“You didn’t have to come,” Jules says from my side.

If I could have jumped out of my skin, I would have.

He’s sitting in a chair in the shadow of a tall azalea. I hadn’t even looked. What makes me think I could be a detective? Let alone a spook detective?

“I’m sorry,” he adds. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t,” I lie. “Just wasn’t expecting you outside. It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“Is it?” he asks, and stands up.

Jules is the spitting image of my father: face all angles, tall and dark, with a full crop of blue-black hair. Diego and I took after my mother; lighter brown skin and hair.

I wipe a bit of sweat from under my nose.

“I ran,” I say.

“Worked up a sweat,” he says.

“I needed to,” I say.

I notice how quiet Jules’ movements are. There’s a peace in him I’ve never seen before. Usually, I’m the last person he wants to see and does a mighty good job of ignoring me. Last week when I came to wish dad a happy birthday, Jules told me to leave. But here he is now, talking to me like I’m a normal person.

Looking back to the closed door, I say, “You knew.”

“About Jonas and Diego?” Jules says. “Yeah, I knew what they were. It’s about time they got what they deserved.”

“Are fucking kidding me?” I say. “You do know they have rights now, don’t you? He was your fucking brother.”

Jules doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yes, he was my fucking brother. And he and Jonas got what they deserved.”

My body moves faster than I thought it could, faster than Jules can react and I collide into him, fists pumping into his midsection.

I’ve wrestled enough times with Jules to know he’s way stronger than me. If I don’t get in quick, I don’t get in at all and he’ll knock me out before I can get out of his way.

“You fucker, how can you say that?” I say before jumping away.

Jules tries to bear hug me, but I slip out of his reach. I take two steps backwards down the porch steps, keeping my eye on him.

He has one arm cradling his torso and the other outstretched towards me.

“Fucking spook,” he says. “Get the hell out of here.”

An automatic retort to deny I’m a spook dances on my lips. But we all know it’s true now.

“Fuck you,” I say.

I kick over the bag of father’s clothes. It had fallen from my grasp when I jumped Jules.

“What’s this?” he asks, but he doesn’t move.

His eyes are on me, but they’re still calm. I may have hit him, but I didn’t touch him. His only sibling and he really couldn’t care less about me. And he obviously thought so little of Diego that he thought Diego’s death was better than…what? Living?

I’m sure the only thing Diego ever wanted to do was live. Live and love freely. And I had never even suspected. Hell, I lusted after Jonas every time he came over to clean the pool.

“Dad’s stuff,” I answer. “You better go talk to him. I’m not sure if he called a lawyer or not.”

Jules’ face goes hard and he squints at me. “What do you mean?”

The light is changing. There are more people out on the street, folks with an early class or work schedule, making their way to the bus stops.

I straightened out my jacket and the ferric scent of Diego’s blood fills my nostrils. It brings bile to the back of my throat.

“He confessed,” I say. “To killing Jonas.”

Jules eyes go wide, his lips press into a thin line, and I back up the rest of the way to the front yard.

But he doesn’t come for me; instead he goes into the house. I can hear him pound up stairs, then back down. His steps get muffled until I can’t hear them anymore. The back door of the house slams, then soon after my father’s ’67 Chevy roars to life.

Jules is at the wheel as he backs it out of the side garage and into the busying street. He takes off without giving me a backward glance.

That’s it for now. Until next time, join me on myWriteClub every weekday at noon.

Filed under: goal, writing Tagged: writing update

My Write Club (part 2)

Hello Everyone,

Earlier this week, I dashed off a quick post about myWriteClub.com. I was super busy, but excited about the (newly discovered) site and wanted to share. Plus, I find I do much better writing with people than alone. (Fancy that, I’m the classic introvert.) Anyway, the quickly formed plan was to let you all know in hopes I would get you ALL to follow me and join me with some word sprints during my lunch break.

Alas, I posted much too quickly.

The site is in beta and it doesn’t quite have all the features one might want. However, it is very cool and I plan to keep using it. I wish I had known about it for NewNoWriMo, but I did not. So, here’s the skinny:

When you join, you can add a Goal or not. You can add Friends or not. The only reason to have Friends is if you want to be able to see their progress and cheer them on (so leave the option for people to comment on your goals checked).

Here’s the real value of the site:

Custom Sprints

Up at the top of the screen, there are six icons. The third one looks like a little person running. Click on the running person, or sprint, icon and you’ll be given a choice to join the global sprint (anybody and everyone can join in here) or you can start a custom sprint. But there’s also a third choice. If you have a link to a custom sprint someone else has already started, you can join that sprint by simply clicking on the custom link. Like these two:

SFFWorld Sprintathon
Nila’s Posse

Viola! Once you visit a custom sprint page, a dropdown arrow next to ‘Start a custom sprint’ appears and you can easily get back to those custom pages.

Timing

There’s another important element to the sprints. Obviously, I’m not always on there. It’s useful to do the sprints all by your lonesome, but it’s…lonely. So, it might be a good idea to let your friends know your schedule.

Unfortunately, that’s one of the failings of the (admittedly beta) site. There’s no way to schedule a sprint session with your friends. Or to even message them on the site to let them know when you’ll be on. I put my tentative schedule in my bio so that at least, when folks visit my goal page, they’ll see that above my goals. At the moment, I have committed to the SFFWorld Sprintathon every weekday at noon (PST). For weekends, you’ll have to email me or comment on a post here on this blog for us to figure out a time that works.

Speaking of which…

How It Works

Once you get to the right custom sprint page (or the global one, feel free to jump in whenever you like), at a time when you know your friends will be there, you simply write on the blank page.

There’s a global clock that is continually running. For all sprints, custom or global, a writing session begins on the hour or the half hour and goes for 25 minutes. During those 25 minutes, anything you type on the sprint page (visible only to you) is tallied on the right side of the screen where you can see the progress of your compatriots. If you don’t want the visual distraction, you can click a little left-facing arrow to make it go away. There’s also a chat function for the breaks in between (you can’t see both the chat and the progress at the same time, but you can chat anytime).

And that’s it. I think the beauty of the site is its simplicity. It provides the basic tools you need to Just Write – with your friends!

Keep in mind that anything you write in the sprint pages is stored in your browser cache. It will be there the next time to log in or move from one sprint to the next. I’ve hooked up my myWriteClub account with my Dropbox account so I can periodically save to Dropbox. In addition, after each writing sprint, I cut/paste whatever I wrote to a Word document. That way, I start out fresh for the next sprint.

You’re more than welcomed to just leave your magus opus up there, but keep in mind that if your browser cache gets cleared, you will lose it.

One other thing – your sprints are not linked to your goals. You’ll have to update your goal progress independent of your sprint sessions.

I think that’s it.

If you decide to join me, remember I’ll be in the  SFFWorld Sprintathon every weekday at noon (PST) and I’ll be in Nila’s Posse at various times during the weekend.

Happy Sprinting!

 

Filed under: goal, writing Tagged: myWriteClub, writing sprints

My Write Club

Howdy Folks,

I just discovered My Write Club.

If you join up, follow me: N_E_White. I’ll follow you back.

Then, set your goals and join me today at noon (PST) in the global sprint. Here’s a handy time-table to help you figure out when that is where you’re at:

Location
Local time
Time zone
UTC offset




Santa Rosa (U.S.A. – California)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 12:00:00 Noon
PST
UTC-8 hours


New York (U.S.A. – New York)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 3:00:00 PM
EST
UTC-5 hours


London (United Kingdom – England)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 8:00:00 PM
GMT
UTC


Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 11:00:00 PM
EAT
UTC+3 hours


Delhi (India – Delhi)
Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 1:30:00 AM
IST
UTC+5:30 hours


Perth (Australia – Western Australia)
Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 4:00:00 AM
AWST
UTC+8 hours


Auckland (New Zealand)
Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 9:00:00 AM
NZDT
UTC+13 hours



Filed under: Wednesday Writer, writing Tagged: my write club, myWriteClub, writing sprints

The Party is Over

Well, I’m done. And good riddance to NewNoWriMo.

It has been a lot of fun, and I appreciate all the effort my fellow writers put into our collective efforts, but it was a lot of work.

I shouldn’t complain though. I reached my goal of 17,400 words! Better yet, I finished the third episode of my Ghost Stories series and I started the fourth episode and I even got a bit done on a (newish) short story.

Here’s yesterday’s tally:

I managed to write 2,611 words (in one day!)
which brought my monthly total to 17,470.
I finished the 3rd episode at 16,777 words,
so I started on the next episode. I only got in about 294 words of that when I realized I really need to sit and think about it a bit before writing much more.
So, I started working on a short story, adding 399 words to it.

So, even though I’m glad to see it end, NewNoWriMo worked! It really did help to make a big event out of setting a goal and seeing it to completion with you. At least, this whole process helped me.  I hope it helped you, too.

So, what’s next?

Good question.

But before we get to that, how about some stats? I love stats.

Collectively, eleven participants wrote 95,763 words during NewNoWriMo. Not bad. If we put all our stuff together, it would be a perfectly sized novel.
The lowest word count was 0. We won’t name names.
The most words written by one person was 25,491. Way to go Daniel! Not only did he write the most during NewNoWriMo, he reported the completion of an episode in his series and he started on another project. Woohoo!
Joe surpassed his goal by 39.7%. I wonder if he sold himself short in the beginning? Next month, reach for more!
Both Daniel and Joe managed to write every single day of NewNoWriMo – 29 days of writing. I’m most impressed by this. I only managed to write on 19 days.

We also had six write-a-thon sessions via Google Hangouts. These were a lot of fun. Though not all the “haberdashery” participates were also NewNoWriMo participates, we all managed to work together towards our goals. Many thanks to: Katrina Robinson (speed demon), Sean Betzer, Victor K, Jonathon Laidlow, and Johann Thorsson. It was great hosting you all and I hope we get to do it again very soon.

Now…to answer that question…what’s next?

Prizes

Yup, I promised prizes. Here they are:

Professionally designed e-book cover
$50 Amazon Gift Certificate
A box of chocolates or a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate (your choice)

And the winners are…well…that’s the hard part. You see, other than Joe and I (the instigators of all this and not eligible to win) only one other person successfully completed NewNoWriMo:

Daniel Ausema

So, instead of a random drawing, Daniel wins the lot – except for the box of chocolates. That goes to Jon Laidlow for preserving through a terrible incident. Thanks so much for sticking with it, Jon. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

I’ll be contacting the winners soon to make arrangements. In the meantime, take a break. But don’t abandon all the work you managed to write during NewNoWriMo. There’s still all the editing to do!

“It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.” ~ C.J. Cherryh

Filed under: writing Tagged: NEWNoWriMo

Day 29

Yes, folks, it’s the last day of NewNoWriMo!!

For those of you who have made it this far, keep going! In less than 24 hours, you can rest, so give it your all RIGHT NOW. Write all day if you have to, but don’t stop until you see your goal in the rear view mirror.

“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote… By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught.” ~ Walt Whitman

Record your final word counts here: NewNoWriMo Tracking. I’ll do the drawing on Tuesday and announce winners on Wednesday. Until then, keep writing.

Filed under: inspiration, NewNoWriMo, writing Tagged: NEWNoWriMo