S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 88

LJ's Ten

Ten Things About Derelict by LJ Cohen

Adventure in a fully-realized, beautifully-built world with spectacular attention to details. I'm still not sure if LJ made them up or found a way to teleport there to take lots of notes.

Awesome cover art by Chris Howard, whom I think my publisher should hire for my next novel. Hey, a girl can hint.

Earned a cover quotation from Yours Truly, and as you know I'm not a pushover or easily impressed.

Fast-paced story. Honestly. It reads at warp speed. Prepare to have your eyelashes singed.

Great, unpredictable characters who are absolutely not the usual suspects.

Has a neat video trailer here with more info on the story.

Intiguing plot so packed with twists and turns that San Francisco is totally jealous now.

Reminded me of the good old days of SF, when story was daring, inventive and basically more important than anything.

Superb writing that transports you to a fascinating future and yet doesn't drone on and on, talk down to you, or make you feel like you're trapped in a broken elevator with that boy from high school Chemistry who sampled one too many of his own experiments.

Last but not least -- I am convinced Derelict is the best book L.J. has ever written (to date; expect a lot more.)

You can purchase Derelict at these online retailers:

B&N.com (Nook)

iTunes (iBooks)

Amazon (Kindle)

Step Back

Solitude is a lost art in these days of ultra-connectedness, and while I don’t bemoan the beauty of this global community, I do think there’s a need to step back from it on a regular basis. -- Leo Babauta

The desire to be included and valued as part of a group is basic human nature, and there's nothing wrong with that. I love hanging out here with my writer and reader friends, and in real life I'm an active member of a quilt conservators guild. This month I'm also trying out an online class (unrelated to writing) and just joined a discussion/accountability group made up of other students. I think any quality time spent with colleagues and friends who appreciate or share your passion is never wasted, and with our hyper-connectedness these days it's easy enough to arrange.

All these connections are having one serious negative effect, however, in that they're eliminating our ability (and by extension, our desire) to be alone. Stop for a minute and think about the last time you spent a day alone without using a computer or a smart phone; when you didn't bother to update your Facebook status or twit or otherwise social mediate. How long has it really been? A week, a month? A year? Longer?

Being part of a group can be fun, and may contribute quite a bit to your creativity and your self-esteem. I'm not a huge fan of most groups, but I do know how nice it is to belong to something important to you, and work or socialize with others who share your passion. On the flip side, you can become dependent on a group in ways you might not realize. People in a group tend to mimic each other's behavior, for example, as any hashtag campaign on Twitter will illustrate. This is not a bad thing when the tone is positive or encouraging, but when it's the opposite the dynamics can be draining, distressing or even toxic. There's also a basic instinct in most people to let more aggressive and outspoken members of any group set the tone and tenor of things, and to follow their lead rather than initiating one -- even when you don't agree with that direction. Aka it's easier to go along with things and keep the peace versus standing up for yourself and going against the group.

You don't have to deal with any of that when you seek solitude, which is why it opens you up creatively. You may be on your own, but everything you do on your own is genuinely yours. You're not obliged to invite or cater to other opinions, or fall in line behind someone else's lead. You're the leader, and the only person you have to please (or discuss anything with) is yourself. In solitude you do not have to be clever or "on" or otherwise perform in any way for anyone, either; you can be your true self.

If you'd like to find out more about the benefits of solitude, Psychology Today has an interesting article here, and I think Leo Babauta's Zenhabits article Solitude is also worth a read.

Image credit: Liang Zhang/Bigstock.com

Fantasy Contest

Baen is holding a fantasy story contest: "Write a short story of no more than 8,000 words. It must be a work of fantasy, though all fantasy genres are open, e.g. epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, contemporary fantasy, etc." What they want to see: "Adventure fantasy with heroes you want to root for. Warriors either modern or medieval, who solve problems with their wits or with their sword--and we have nothing against dragons, elves, dwarves, castles under siege, urban fantasy, damsels in distress, or damsels who can’t be bothered to be distressed." What they don't want to see: "Political drama with no action, angst-ridden teens pining over vampire lovers, religious allegory, novel segments, your gaming adventure transcript, anything set in any universe not your own, “it was all a dream” endings, or screenplays." Prizes: "The Grand Prize winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at industry-standard rates for professional story submittals. The author will also receive an handsome engraved award and a prize package containing various Baen Books. Second and Third place winners will receive a prize package containing various Baen Books." No reprints, electronic submissions only, see contest page for more details. Deadline: June 30th, 2014.

Courage & Love

This for a beautiful dreamer who forever changed my life, and the lives of so many others -- safe journey, Dr. Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou - Courage & Love from Daomay on Vimeo.

Just Write

Everyone can come up with a reason not to write: family obligations, the day job, writers block, the Internet, or life in general. Porfessional writers can add another hundred or so excuses revolving around the biz, promo, production work, wrangling contracts, etc. Writing is easy to put off, too. We make bargains with the work: Next month I'll have more time or I need to take this class/go to this conference/study this how-to so I can be a better writer or the ever-popular, one-size-fits-all Let me deal with this more important thing and then I'll get back to you.

Those bargains work because the writing can't talk back, or send us a text, or encourage us to give it another go, or even remind us of the empty promise we made. Writing simply waits in silence wherever we abandoned it, stuffed in a file, stowed on a hard drive or tucked in a notebook. It always waits, even when we completely forget about it.



I thought I'd toss out a challenge on the blog to see if any of you want to join in. Starting today I'm going to devote my Thursdays to writing something new -- flash, poetry, a scene, a short story, or whatever appeals to me -- and then post the results online before midnight. In other words, just write something new once a week and put it out there for the readers. The length will be whatever I can write in 24 hours.

Why do this? I have a couple of reasons, but the primary idea came to me when I read Anne Frasier's Blood Moon, a short fiction piece that she posted on her blog. I thought it was exceedingly cool, and it reminded me of how as a rookie I used to post a new short story on my old web site every month. Some of those stories turned into novels and novel series, but that wasn't the point -- having fun and trying something new was.

No matter how lame, silly, unprofessional or otherwise flawed it is, I will post whatever I write today online in my Google Docs account, and add a link to it to this post, before midnight EST tonight. I invite you to do the same, and if you do take up my Just Write challenge and want to share your results when you're ready please post a link to your Thursday fiction in comments.

Image credit: Ivalin Radkov/Bigstock.com

Erotic Steampunk Sub Op

Via AbsoluteWrite.com's paying markets forum, House of Erotica has an open call for their upcoming erotic steampunk antho, and the editor is looking for ". . . stories set in a might-have-been Victorian setting filled with clockwork machines and airships. Think Jules Verne or League of Extraordinary Gentleman, think Sherlock Holmes with clockwork machines and the film Wild, Wild West. The stories do not have to be focused in the Victorian era they could be modern day stories but still with the Victorian clockwork style. They could even be off world – think spaceships powered by nothing but steam, or mighty metal boats propelled by sails powered by the rays of the sun. Be as inventive as you can but please don't forget the story line and the relationships! Since this is an erotic anthology there should be on the page sex scenes however don't forget the interaction between the characters and the relationship they have" Length: 5-15K; Payment: 40% of net profits split between contributors; no reprints, electronic submissions only, see post for more details. Deadline: August 31st, 2014.

Dreaming Up Story

Writers often find inspiration for their work while they're sleeping. Authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley, Jack Keroauc and Stephen King have written entire books based on their dreams (or in Poe's case, nightmares.) According to this article, even Stephenie Meyer's mega-bestselling series Twilight was inspired by a dream. This isn't surprising when you consider that creative people seem to be more prone to vivid dreams and better dream recall:

There is a fundamental continuity between how people experience the world during the day and at night. People who are prone to daydreaming and fantasy have less of a barrier between states of sleep and wakefulness and seem to more easily pass between them. -- David Watson, Professor of Psychology, Univerity of Iowa

Researchers believe we all dream at least four to six times every night. There are many theories on why we don't remember most of those dreams, but the consensus seems to be that we're simply not paying attention. Fortunately there are also techniques like meditation or keeping a dream journal to help improve one's recall of dreams.

I've been an intense dreamer since childhood, and while I don't always love my dreams (my nightmares tend to be regular, lengthy and terrifying) I do draw inspiration from those that are particularly vivid or that generate an intense emotion reaction from me. At first I used ideas and themes from my dreams as writing prompts, and then gradually began incorporating imagery, people and dialogue from them into my stories. The first time I wrote an entire, actual dream of mine into a story was in my novel If Angels Burn (pages 65-70 of Chapter Six, if anyone is interested in reading it.) Channeling all that into the story worked wonderfully, not only as a significant building block for my universe and the series but as a way to settle how I felt about the dream, too.

Since I remember in part at least one dream I have every night I got into the habit of keeping a dream journal on my nightstand. I discovered that jotting down a quick outline about the dream as soon as I wake up helps me recall details later in the day. Sometimes I only wake with a few images or fragments from a dream, and when that happens I'll write those down in list-fashion, like so:

milkmaid
barn
Dali cows
pier
boat

Those words were all I could remember from a nightmare I had, and I think I forgot most of that particular dream because of the cows (they were severely emaciated and had spindle legs like some of the creatures from Dali's surrealist works, and they really upset me.) Using them as and outline and inspiration for a dream scene in my novel Private Demon also helped me make peace with the nightmare and move on from it, which I've learned is the best way to keep any nightmare from recurring.

You won't find instructions anywhere on how to translate actual dreams into fiction, so how you work your nightly adventures in slumber into your work is up to you. I try to use dreams that directly relate in several ways to my story elements versus dropping in something random that has no connection, and I always try to first think about the dream and what might have triggered it before I use it as story material. My cow dream, for example, was likely a symbolic narrative of most of my major fears when I had it; at the time I was undergoing cancer treatment. After I thought about it I realized who the milkmaid was, and the barn, and what the cows, the pier and the boat meant to me personally. When I began working Jema and Thierry's story in Private Demon, those dream elements went into the very first scene I outlined in detail, because they fit perfectly.

Have you ever used a dream to inspire one of your stories, or something else you've created? Let us know in comments.

Remembrance

21 Tips

I'm still offline dealing, but since I'm not here to write I wanted to share a link to a very blunt, helpful list by The DIY Couturier of ways to cope when you're struggling with depression. As someone who has wrestled this (and continues to climb into the ring with it on a regular basis) I give it a huge gold star for honesty, realism and practicality. If I could add anything it would be to start a gratitude journal that you write in once a day about something (anything) for which you are thankful, and why -- that can help shift your perspective in another direction than down/out.

Off to Deal

I am bailing on you guys again to deal with some work-related things this weekend. So your stop here was not a total waste, I direct you to go and play with this story plot generator, which based on your input or random fills generates a short synopsis for a variety of stories (and cover art, too.) Here's what I got by just going with the random button: