Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 38

Out Now: You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton!

My life is weird.

So, the last four-ish years were somewhat ridiculous. Not in a good way, either. Ridiculous in a good way is, WOW HEDGEHOGS CAN TALK NOW, THAT’S CRAZY, AND ALL OF THEM HAVE DEEP, COMPLICATED THOUGHTS ABOUT SPACE TRAVEL, HOW RIDICULOUS. Ridiculous in a bad way is, DONALD TRUMP IS PRESIDENT AND THERE’S ALSO A PANDEMIC COMING.

Further, being on Twitter during this time was just magnifying the ridiculousness (which I originally types as “ridiculocrity” which is not a word but maybe should be), because we were all ants under the sun-touched magnifying glass of our own collective rage. It was just, we were angry. All the time. I was too, I’m not saying it to blame anyone. It was hard not just to want to bite your phone every day.

At the time, there were people who would do daily affirmations and motivations and such, Maggie Smith comes to mind, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and they were great and lovely and genuinely nice in that stop here and rest kind of way. It’s dangerous to go alone, take this! So, I wanted to do that, too. To be additive more than subtractive, to put something nice into the world, even if it was silly or cringe or what-not. Of course, given that it’s me, I couldn’t really leave it alone at “nice,” and so I would take nice motivations and mutilate them in my twisting grip until they were something, uhhh, different. Something weird. Something often at least a little bit monstrous and occasionally in all-caps.

I had no end goal for this. I know some people feel that tweets like these are performative, but I mean, yeah? Obviously? The fuck do you think I’m doing on social media? Once upon a time Twitter may have been a water cooler but it has for a good long while now become a stage, and we’re all on it. Thing is, the performance so to speak was always an earnest one. I did it because I liked it and I hoped other people liked it too. That was the only aim.

Fast forward to a year into doing it or so and, an editor at Rizzoli Books, Jessica Fuller, called to say, and I’m paraphrasing, THESE ARE FUN THEY SHOULD BE A BOOK. She probably said more words. And they definitely were not in all caps. But I mean, yes? Yes! Hell yes. I didn’t know what she had in mind, but she said she wanted art.

And I said, I think I know the artist. Like, I didn’t merely know a potential artist, I had… really one artist from the get-go who I felt was destined to draw this book.

Natalie Metzger.

Natalie said yes.

Jessica put together the tweets she wanted for the book.

We edited the text.

And now it’s here, in your hands. Or, maybe it’s not in your hands, but it damn well could be, if you’d dare to summon it with the matter of your willpower and currency (or library card).

It’s so weird that it exists. I’m really very lucky as a writer and I’m honored to get to do what I do and to have my… brain spasms somehow spawn things like this into the world.

The art is wonderful, and really, is the reason to show up.

I hope you check it out and enjoy it. It makes a good gift! As long as the person you’re giving it to has an, umm, slightly tweaked sense of humor and doesn’t mind profanity. Or possums. Or giant eye-butts. Because there’s a giant eye-butt in the book. That’s just how it is, I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. (Seriously, awooga, awooga, this book isn’t for kids, despite the fun cartoons.)

Anyway, your options for procuring a copy include but are not limited to:

Doylestown Books (ask them to see if I can sign it, and I might be able to swing by and do exactly that, and in fact I may be soon in possession of bookplates also featuring Natalie’s signature).

Let’s Play Books

Indiebound

Bookshop

B&N

Amazon

Rizzoli

Obviously, buying from an independent bookstore is good for the bookish ecosystem and also your soul. Many ship! Including my two locals, listed above.

Enjoy the book.

Become the cosmic possum, the cyborg pterodactyl, or the magic skeleton you wish to be.

Where’s Wendig? April Edition!

DID YOU KNOW, ahem ahem, cough cough, that next week is the release of YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, MAGIC SKELETON, a very silly book of monstrous motivations by me and artist Natalie Metzger? Well, it’s true. It comes out next Tuesday, and as a result, I’m gonna be bopping around this ol’ Internet, polluting your brainwaves with whatever hot shit wants to come out of my fool’s mouth.

Let’s go through it, shall we?

Already Up:

Gabriela Pereira is one of my most favorite people, and I am never not happy to be on her podcast — the conversation always feels informal and fun and it’s one of those where I’m never looking at my watch except at the end, when I am forced to believe that our time is already up. In this one, we get into Magic Skeleton but a whole buncha other stuff too, should you care go give it a listen — Episode 352 of DIYMFA.

April 13th:

Quarantine Book Club, with Natalie Metzger, hosted by Mike Monteiro. I’ve been on QBC before, and it’s a blast — so this time being joined by Natalie Metzger is gonna be an absolute delight. Grab a ticket now.

April 16th:

Lehigh Valley Book Fest, in an event called — *checks notes* “Wendig After Dark.” It sounds sexier than intended, but I do not plan to be doing this conversation in a sultry, seductive voice. Unless you want that, but it costs extra. Anyway! I’ll be in conversation with Rob Dougherty. It’s run by Let’s Play Books, and you can order Magic Skeleton directly from them! They will ship.

April 24th:

Jeff Vandermeer, in conversation with, well, me. He’s got a book out, Hummingbird Salamander, which I found really brilliant — sharp, serious, David Fincherian stuff. A mystery, a puzzle, a warning. It’s really something else and it reads like a descent, like you’re falling into it. Anyway! Join us at the virtual Elliott Bay Book Company, won’t you?

Do I have any other news?

Maybe? Probably? I’ll be back Tuesday to remind you about Magic Skeleton.

Wanderers is out in France, and is… maybe doing well?

More as I know it!

POOF.

Five Reasons to Donate to the Read For Pixels Campaign to Stop Violence Against Women

*Taps the mic* Hello, everybody! Can y’all hear me? Yes? Okay — *deep breaths* — here we go:

The Pixel Project, a 501(c)3 anti-violence against women nonprofit, has been running our Read For Pixels program since September 2014 when Chuck himself, Joe Hill, Sarah J. Maas, and nine other award-winning bestselling SFF and YA authors answered our call-to-action to help us reach out to their fandoms about violence against women (VAW) and raise funds to keep our anti-VAW work alive.

That inaugural Read For Pixels livestream author interview series (where Chuck, Joe, Sarah and co took to their webcams to speak out against sexism, misogyny, and VAW) and fundraiser was a smashing success and the rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Over 160 authors, 14 campaigns, and almost eight years later, we have a steadily growing resource of recorded livestream interviews and panels with authors. These are easily accessible on our YouTube channel to parents, teachers, kids, readers, writers, and fandoms worldwide who can either watch the videos to learn more about VAW while fanning over their favorite authors or use the videos to start conversations about VAW in their communities. Authors and publishers have also helped us raise approximately $10,000 per year by providing exclusive goodies as ‘thank you’ treats for readers, fans, and book collectors who donate to support our work.

You’re probably thinking: “Cool! I’ll go check it out. So why the guest post on Chuck’s blog?”

The answer: the [insert your cuss word of choice here] COVID-19 pandemic.

Like many small nonprofits, The Pixel Project has experienced a drop in donations due to the pandemic. This is a double whammy for women’s organizations like us as this is happening on top of decades of scarce funding for the overall women’s rights movement. So, with our current Read For Pixels fundraiser moving at the pace of a hobbit wading through the malodorous mud pits of Mordor (it’s been a month and we’re stuck at $3,220, which is only 67% of the way to our modest $5,000 goal), you can imagine our growing alarm. While we are 100% volunteer-staffed, we need to ensure that we can keep our campaigns, programs, and services running, especially now, when rates of VAW have been spiking so badly the UN calls it “the shadow pandemic”.

Chuck noticed our predicament and, being the mensch that he is, pinged us to offer to boost the signal for our fundraiser.

So here I am, on the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month and our seven-day flash donation drive, presenting five reasons why you should consider donating to our fundraiser to help get us to our $5,000 finish line by the April 15th 2021 deadline:

Reason to Donate #1: Treat yourself while doing good!

From signed books to goodie bundles to flash fiction/poetry written especially for the donor, we have something for every donation level.

And while you’re enjoying your goodies, also enjoy the fact that your donation will be going towards keeping programs like our daily helpline retweet session on Twitter which tweets out domestic violence and rape/sexual assault helplines for women in over 30 countries worldwide from 8.00PM to midnight Eastern Time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Reason to Donate #2: Get expert eyes on your writing while doing good!

We have a stellar line-up of acclaimed authors who have donated critique bundles for WIPs (works-in-progress), including Adriana Herrera (Romance), Alaya Dawn Johnson (Fantasy), Anna Stephens (Grimdark Fantasy), Bec McMaster (Paranormal Romance), Brigid Kemmerer (YA Fantasy), Jeannie Lin (Historical Fantasy), and Toni L.P. Kelner aka Leigh Perry (Mystery/Crime).  Some have a post-critique video chat workshop bundled in; others allow for three to five questions from the donor about the critique; still others offer to look at a query letter draft in addition to your WIP.

All these authors are willing to take time out of their packed schedules to help you when you help keep programs such as our annual 16 For 16 campaign alive. Through 16 For 16, we have built an ever-growing archive of almost 180 resource articles to date about everything from how to stop street harassment to lists of organizations tackling everything from child marriage to MMIW (Missing and murdered Indigenous women).

It’s totally win-win!

Reason to Donate #3: Chat with your favorite author while, did I mention, doing good!

It’s good to talk… and even better to talk with your favorite author in the name of supporting a good cause. For this fundraiser, Alyssa Sheinmel (Contemporary YA), Jodi Meadows (YA Fantasy), Julie E. Czerneda (Science Fiction and Fantasy), Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Fantasy and Poetry), Meg Gardiner (Crime/Thriller) and Tasha Suri (Fantasy) are all happy to spend some quality 1-to-1 time on a video chat with donors to natter about everything from books and writing, to gardening, stubborn rabbits, and geeky hobbies.

While you’re chatting, we’ll be working on our Fathers For Pixels program which provides dads worldwide with a variety of platforms (blog interviews, panel sessions etc) for sharing their ideas with other dads about raising kids and engaging with their peers and communities about sexism, misogyny, and VAW.

Reason to Donate #4: Treat someone else while… wait for it… doing good!

Do you have a friend or family member who has a birthday coming up? Do you see a Read For Pixels goodie offered by their favorite author available on our fundraising page? Donate to snag that unique treat and delight them.

Bonus: You’ll have an interesting story to tell them about where the gift came from. It might even be a great springboard for chatting with them about VAW.

Meanwhile, your donation will support our Inspirational Interviews series which has been running for a decade and counting. This blog series shines a spotlight on anti-VAW advocates, activists, and organizations worldwide with a focus on how they are changing the world for women and girls as well as their ideas about what people can do to help stop VAW in their communities and countries.

Reason to #5: Just do good.

Donate to our fundraiser because you believe in supporting efforts to prevent, stop, and end VAW. Whether you can give us $5 or $500 to help us reach our $5,000 goal, every cent counts.

(And when you donate to us, please also consider donating either cash or supplies to your local women’s shelter or rape crisis center. Like us, they need all the help they can get.)

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

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Interested in checking out The Pixel Project’s anti-violence against women work? Visit us at http://www.thepixelprojectnet .

Interested in checking out our Read For Pixels fundraiser and making a donation to help keep our work alive? Go here .

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Regina Yau is the founder and president of The Pixel Project, a virtual volunteer-led global 501(c)3 nonprofit organization on a mission to raise awareness, funds and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women at the intersection of social media, new technologies, and popular culture/the Arts. A Rhodes Scholar with a double Masters in Women’s Studies and Chinese Studies, she has a lifelong commitment to fighting for women’s rights. In addition to running The Pixel Project, Regina also teaches English to middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, writes stories about cheeky little fox spirits and terrorist chickens, and bakes far too many carb-and-sugar-loaded goodies.

C.L. Clark: Five Things I Learned Writing The Unbroken

In an epic fantasy unlike any other, two women clash in a world full of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.

Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.

Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.

***

I learned a language.

The idea for The Unbroken came when I was studying French in university, specifically when I was studying Francophone African literature. The authors wrote about their experience with colonialism, including the experiences of writing in French instead of Arabic. At the time, I wanted to learn Arabic for academic/career reasons, like getting a degree in Franco-colonial studies, but Arabic is hard to pick up on your own with nothing but a few Google guides for drawing letters. A few years after my failed attempt at learning on my own, and abandoning the idea of a PhD, I found myself in my last year of an MFA in fiction with a few extra course credits to spend and a novel I wanted to research properly. I tried again.

Arabic is a beautiful language, a language of poets and artists and some of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. It’s both intuitive and simple and as complex as mathematics. There are multiple dialects and my rotating cast of teachers made sure that I had exposure to all of them–resulting in an odd accent that earns me a lot of teasing anytime I’m not speaking formal Arabic.

I learned that a language is so much more than a language.

The better I got at Arabic, the more people I could speak to. The more people I spoke to, the more stories they told me. More than a combination of syllables and rhythms, language is stories, and stories are histories. A language is food and customs and traditions and religions. The right language, even the right accent, is power and privilege. It unlocked moments of parallel understanding and sparked lifelong friendships. And just like learning more and more French exposed me to the underbelly of a chic European nation’s glittering reputation, learning more Arabic gave nuance to a stereotypical at worst, and homogeneous and incomplete at best, picture of the Arabophone world I was exposed to by American and European media.

I learned that learning a language is not enough.

I got to speak with Moroccans and Algerians (at least partially; there was a lot of fumbling on my part) on their own terms, in their preferred languages, about what it’s like living in a post-colonial country. Despite having pretty decent schooling, though, I was at a steep disadvantage in my understanding of the history of the Arabophone world. That meant doing more research. It meant interrogating my own assumptions–what’s the difference between Israel and Palestine? an ignorant American kid might ask–well, here’s a Palestinian journalist. What about the French? Well here’s The Wretched of the Earth. The more research you’ve done, the better you understand complex situations, and the better you understand complex situations, the better you can support the people working to better those situations.

If you do it right, learning a language is empathy. It’s a radical act in learning to listen and understand someone else, which is difficult at the best of times, and it’s an act that native English speakers are so rarely called upon to do.

If you do it right, writing is empathy.

It’s a radical act in learning to listen and understand someone else, which is difficult at the best of times, and it’s an act that those with more privilege are so rarely called upon to do.

I learned that the Sahara really is cold at night.

Really cold.

***

Cherae graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA. She’s been a personal trainer, an English teacher, and an editor, and is some combination thereof as she travels the world. When she’s not writing or working, she’s learning languages, doing P90something, or reading about war and [post-]colonial history. Her short fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, FIYAH, PodCastle and Uncanny.

C.L. Clark: Website | Twitter | Instagram

The Unbroken: Indiebound | Bookshop | Powells | B&N | Amazon

The Curiously Complicated Emotions of Getting The COVID-19 Vaccine

Spoiler warning, I suppose: I got my first dose of The Vaccine.

It was Moderna at a Wegman’s with a candlestick wait no that’s Clue. (Forget the candlestick part. The rest remains accurate.) Securing the appointment was not easy, and was based almost exclusively on luck — I had not realized that Wegman’s seems to update their appointments at Tuesdays around 11AM, and that’s when I clicked. The first four appointments I clicked did not take me through, but the final one suddenly… scheduled. (I’ll be honest, it’s not unlike how I got a PS5. Pure clickity-clickety luck.) A week later, that appointment happened. It was a simple, fast execution. I went in. Told them I qualify (not a lie, in case anyone fears me a line-jumper, though I have complicated thoughts about line-jumpers, most of which adds up to, “Well, anyone who gets the vaccine needs the vaccine and they’re one fewer link in the infection chain”). I went over, leaned across a pharmacy desk, and a very nice nurse stuck me with a needle so painless that if I had not been watching her do it, I would’ve assumed it was an act of pure medical mimery. Then they scheduled my second dose and after a waiting period of fifteen minutes, off I went, back into the world, my body now in possession of the Death Star Plans, aware of the flaws in its design.

The external process was easy.

The internal process was a little more complicated.

By internal process, I mean — what I was thinking, what I was feeling.

Here’s the thing. I haven’t been inside a store since March of 2020. I’ve remained a relative hermit. Our kiddo’s virtual. I don’t even go to grocery stores, having the combo-pack privilege of money and location so I can order food curbside, or delivery, or from a CSA. This isn’t entirely anathema to my life anyway, as I am a writer who writes in a shed in his backyard, so I’m pretty used to being happy in relative isolation — just the same, I love to travel. I love to people watch. Hell, I love grocery stores. I love shopping for groceries. It calms me. Maybe that’s weird, but it’s me.

So, it’s… interesting, at least, that my next trip to a grocery store was a year later, getting a vaccine for the disease that stopped me from going to grocery stores in the first fucking place. I masked up. I pushed past the small panic attack (ohmygodpeople ohmygodvirus ohmygodsixfeetSIXFEET) and did the deed. And upon receiving the shot it was like —

It was like it all hit me at one time, a cresting wave, a hole beneath me, a light from above. All of it. A pyramid of feelings spun upside-down, its sharp peak pressing down upon that space between my shoulder blades. I was happy, obviously. It’s hard not to be happy, I guess. Just the theoretical promise of even a rough semblance of normalcy felt buoyant, the feeling of being in a cage but seeing someone walking toward it with the door key in hand. Hurry up, you think, get over here, I got shit to do, I’m ready to stretch my legs, I’m ready to run, I want to go shop for produce, is there an orgy, can I get an invite, I dunno that I wanna go, I’m just saying, I’d like the option is all, because now life is all about options again, woooo. 

I felt happy. Obviously. Definitely. Yes.

But I felt… other things.

And it’s the other things I want to talk about.

I was happy about that return to normalcy, but angry, too, for how many people never left normalcy in the first place. So many people who chose to ignore the fire that was burning down their neighbor’s house. People who kept on living life at their maximum, sacrificing nothing while others sacrificed everything. And that anger mounted, too, because those people were sold a lie, a bill-of-sale for a bridge in Brooklyn, handed this disinformation debt from a toxic political environment stirred by a propagandist, a brute, a fool. I was angry at the politicians who even now act like masking is an act of terror against the nation of their faces, their beautiful faces, their God-chosen God-shined God-blessed faces, how dare you cover up their holy mouths with a crass slip of fabric. So what if it protects others? Protecting others isn’t the mandate of this country, damnit. Oh, no no no, individual liberty trumps communal responsibility every time. Who cares if the boat is sinking, you can’t make me use a bucket to bail it out. That impacts the freedom of my hands not to wield a clumsy bucket. Jesus Christ, I might get splinters! How unfair is that?

How dare I be asked to change literally anything in the midst of a pandemic?

And that makes me worried, too, because what happens in the next crisis? We have strong leadership now, but turns out, there are a whooooole lot of people in this country — and, I’m quite sure, the world beyond it — who are happy to ignore reality because it will inconvenience them in some way. We live in this age of Choose Your Own Adventure truth, where if you don’t like the option you picked, you just go back and flip to another page. “I turn to page 37, where climate change isn’t real,” and you get lost in the storyline you prefer rather than the one the rest of us are living in. It feels like swimming upstream, because it’s easier to sell a lie than to deliver the truth.

But then I get hopeful, too. Because if you’d told me a year ago we would have a vaccine, a real goddamn vaccine with real goddamn efficacy, I’d have patted your head and said, well, that’s nice. But we have three to choose from, and may have more on the way. And and and, two of those vaccines are based on new technology pioneered by small companies that were ignored by investors because it wasn’t viewed as reliable, or properly capitalistic enough, or whatever their reasons. And it may lead us to new vaccines for other troublesome diseases. Which is amazing! Technology is amazing! Especially, especially when the important, life-giving, world-essential stuff isn’t subject purely to the whims of unregulated capitalism! Except it sometimes still is! And there enters sadness.

Sadness for those who haven’t gotten the shot yet. Who can’t get it. Who are marginalized and underserved in this country and in other countries, too poor to get the shot, too Black, too brown, too this, too that, you don’t live in the right area, you aren’t white, you aren’t in a more liberal state, you aren’t in America at all, and so on, and so forth. And it’s not just the people who can’t get the shot now. It’s the people who can never get it, because they didn’t survive. The right loves to regale you with how low the chances of death are, when the disease has killed well over a half-a-million people in this country already. We’re coming up on one Wyoming’s worth of people gone from the space-time continuum because we didn’t know how to protect them. One year. So many lost. We broke the world for 3,000 dead in 9/11. But some people shrug off a number that is 180 9/11s. One. Hundred. Eighty. Sometimes we were losing three thousand people in a single day of this disease. A horror show of pain and misery, lost lives, broken families, lost jobs, lost health from long COVID, and when I say lost, it’s not just lost, it was taken, stolen by people who politicized the disease, who governmentally codified a callous, uncaring response.

But, we’ve turned the corner, at least. You can say that much. A lot of doses have reached a lot of arms. We have better leadership now, better than I imagined we’d get. There’s a light at the end. We’re not in that light yet, and of course some people are running rampant (don’t even look up videos of spring break right now, or you’ll shit bees), but we’re… getting there. Rickety, clumsy, drunken. But we’re getting there. And so anger and sadness give way once more to happiness and hope, because for all the torment and woe, any chance out of *gestures broadly) ALL THIS is a good thing.

It’s a wild, whirling blender of emotions, is what I’m saying.

It’s a lot to process, but after you get that shot, you gotta sit there for fifteen minutes, doing very little but waiting to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction or puke up frogs or whatever, and while sitting there, it was hard not to just sit with it all. Because truly, I try not to spend a lot of time thinking about it in the day-to-day, because it’s too damn much. But in that moment, it felt right to dwell. Even to dwell upon what went, and what felt, wrong.

I guess I note all this just because I expected to feel happy and relieved, which I did. But I didn’t really expect that door to open and let all those other unruly feelings in, too. I guess it’s my way of saying, if I’m feeling it, maybe you’re feeling it, too. These days I think there’s more and more value in reminding people that it’s okay to feel things, even when those feelings are complicated.

To epilogue this motherfucker, I’ll note that the after-effects of the first shot have been mild. On the way home, my shot arm got weirdly hot right in the crook of my arm, as if I were bending the joint around a hot curling iron. It lasted for maybe five minutes, and then was done. During dinner last night, my tinnitus kicked up real hard — I pretty much always have it in my left ear, never in my right. The left dialed up loud and the right started, too. That was maybe ten minutes. Other than that, this morning I feel like I shouldered open a door with all the arm pain, but it’s not too terrible.

I’m told the second-dose is likelier to be a doozy, and to prepare for a day or two of downtime. That’s okay. Sometimes when you update the ol’ meat computer, it takes a while to properly install the upgrades. The antivirus software will have some bug fixes. That’s okay. I’m giving off good 5G software now as the Tiny Robot Tom Hankses inside me are learning their way around. My teeth are microchips, which is cool. I can access my own thoughts via an app, which was unexpected, but hey, the future is wild, y’all. The future. Is. Wild.

Anyway, eat shit, coronavirus.

Hope y’all get some shots in your arms real soon.

Be well, stay safe, mask up in the meantime. Care about others. Yay science.

Should Writers Write Every Day?

Writers as individuals and as a community are often, maybe even always, in conversation with themselves and that community about the nature of writing. The predominant Badminton birdie that is whacked about comes in the form of writing advice — do this, don’t do that, definitely don’t do that other thing, never this, always that, holy fuck you did what, and so on and so forth.

This is normal, I think. It’s not that there’s not theoretical harm baked into it, because there damn well can be. Telling anybody, “This is how you walk up the mountain” is great, as long as the path remains stable for everyone and is not, say, already washed out and now serving as a dangerous trek fraught with tigers and bees. Writing advice is often given with this SACRED TABLET CARVED BY GOD HANDED TO AUTHOR FROM ON-HIGH vibe, as if it’s Gospel Good News instead of, say, a proclamation of preference marinated in a salty broth of survivorship bias.

So! That leads us to the question du jour, which I’ve seen going around social media a bit —

Should you write every day?

Because that’s sometimes the advice, right? Write every day. Butt in chair. Every damn day. Put words to paper. And then it goes farther — if you don’t write every day, are you really even a writer at all? Or are you just a poseur, a dilettante, an imposteur masquerading as a propeur autheurrrr. WHAT IF YOU DON’T WRITE EVERY DAY, WILL YOU DIE, YOU’LL PROBABLY DIE, YOU’LL FALL INTO THE ABYSS OF WORDLESSNESS, YOU FOOL, YOU ABSOLUTE FOOL.

“Ah-ha,” you say, “I’m picking up what you’re laying down. Your all-caps snark has made it clear to me that I, a writer, absolutely do not need to write every day. Got it. Boom. Done.”

Well.

Hold on.

(Only a Sith deals in absolutes, I say, absolutely.)

I don’t know what you need to do, is the point.

Here, let me tell it this way:

When I was a Young Writer, Wet Around The Neck (which is not a saying, I don’t think, but I like it and I’m going with it), I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. The act of writing was fine, but where I fell down was the discipline of it. I became a freelance writer and I had deadlines out the small and large colon, and to develop both discipline and skill, I wrote every day.

At that time, I had to write every day. Not just to keep up with word count, but also because it was useful to me. Dare I say, essential that I did so. Essential because I really needed to build that muscle and that schedule. It stopped me from falling behind on the work, but it also helped me get into a rhythm with that work. To some degree, it was like one does with exercise: as a runner, and with the weather getting warmer, I will run three times a week, even if I don’t want to. As long as I’m not injured, I’ll run. Even if it sucks and I hate it. I run.

So it was with writing.

That worked for me for a long time.

It worked, of course, until it didn’t.

There came a point, after transitioning from freelancing to novel-writing, where writing every day was burning me the fuck out. I couldn’t catch my breath. I was writing, what, four or five books a year? My output was profound, and for a good while, it worked fine. Until it didn’t. Then I was running parallel to burnout, nearly falling into it. I didn’t, though it came close. I relaxed. I eased off. I recognized what had happened and over time I changed how I wrote books. Further, I learned that I don’t actually know how to write books, and that’s been the greatest boon to my career — because I know with every book I’m starting over, I’m at Square Fucking One and though I know how to write in general, I don’t know how to write The Book In Front Of Me. Sure, I learned how to write the last one. But this one? It’s different. By nature and necessity, it is a whole other beast.

Things work until they don’t.

When I run, as I said, I run three times a week. Unless I don’t. And if I don’t, I forgive myself and move on to the week after, when hopefully I do (and so far, have, outside wintertime). If there comes a time I can’t, I still won’t kick myself — I’ll try to see why the schedule isn’t working, and what needs to change about it. Because things work until they don’t.

And when they don’t, you adjust. You course-correct.

Without shame or hard feeling. With kindness to yourself.

For a time during this pandemic I wasn’t writing much. (Read: at all.) Part of that was down to the fact I had a lot of editing to do (which, yes, is part of writing, admittedly; see how I already dinged myself on that one?). Part of it was, well, we were in a pandemic. In a year of violence. In an election year. It was hard to get going. All my processes had taken a beating. We’d all taken a beating — and I say that as a person of great privilege. But I got back to it. I pushed. Not hard. Just a little here and there. It’s like physical therapy: you won’t get there if you don’t exert, but you also can’t exert so hard you break the thing you’re trying to fix. You never want to break yourself. And yet the work is the work. Which is to say, sometimes you also have to realize that holding yourself to some high-yet-reasonable standards is itself a flavor of kindness. To trust in yourself, to say, I can fucking do this, is a favor from you to you. Sometimes, kindness is eating the ice cream. Other times, kindness is knowing you can’t always eat the ice cream. Balance and moderation.

That’s writing, to me, a lot of the times. Finding that sweet spot between self-accountability and self-forgiveness. There’s powerful magic found when wandering that interstitial terrain, and you only get there by reaching a different aspect of yourself:

Self-awareness.

The greatest advice I think I offer to writers these days is to Know Thyself. Which is to say, figure out who you are as a writer. Your processes are your own to discover. Your voice is your own to seek and to find. Who you are and what you write and further, how you write, is something literally nobody else can tell you. So, should you write every day? Some will tell you YES YES YES, some will tell you NO NO NO, but the answer is, well, shit, I dunno. It’s both. It’s neither. All/none of the above. Maybe it’ll help you. Maybe it’ll hurt you. Maybe it’ll do the one until it does the other, because things work… until they don’t. You only learn this by trying.

Writing advice, and the conversation around is, is always to help you crystalize and contextualize your own way of doing things. And sometimes, it’s there to challenge them. I was a pantser at the start of my career until I realized I had to — had to! — be a plotter to get a book done. But Wanderers was a book I wrote without an outline. So was Dust & Grim, Book of Accidents, and Wayward. I was a pantser, then a plotter, then a pantser. None of this is permanent. I’m not permanent. My works will change and how I approach them will change, too.

People want to tell you how to write because it helps to tell them how they write. It confirms for them that they are on the path of good, and it was successful, will continue to be successful, and if you do differently, then what does that say about them? But that’s hollow. That’s coming out of a place of fear and vulnerability. They want to tell you how to write because they’re afraid they don’t know how, themselves. By speaking advice aloud as “rules” they codify it and control it, but inadvertently, they might be giving you bad advice. And it could be harmful advice if internalized as The One True Way, especially when tangled up with a variety of mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, or ADHD.

So, write every day if you want to, and it feels right to do so.

Or don’t.

Maybe you can’t — maybe you work, or have a family, and it’s just not an option. The goal is to write when you can write, and like I said, push where you can push. That’s it. There’s no answer. There’s no equation with missing variables, solved when you answer for X. It’s just trying a bunch of stuff, failing at some of it, and succeeding sometimes. You zero on on what works for you today, while recognizing it may very well change for tomorrow. All while finding the Goldilocks just-rightness of working hard for yourself, and being kind to yourself.

That’s it.

Good luck.

Go write. If you wanna.

***

Coming in 2021…

Douglas Wynne: Five Things I Learned Writing His Own Devices

In 2016 an occult cabal activates a psychic trigger in a popular video game and a countdown to chaos begins.

While her husband is deployed in Afghanistan, Jessica Ritter finds herself navigating the pitfalls of parenting on her own. That includes moderating her ten-year-old son’s screen time—an obsession that hits a fever pitch when YouTube sensation Rainbow Dave releases an addictive new iPad game. Gavin knows he isn’t supposed to keep secrets from his parents, but when his achievements in the game unlock personal messages from Dave instructing him to embark on real world mini-quests, he can’t resist.

In the aftermath of an ambush that leaves her husband missing in action, Jessica grapples with fear and sorrow while clues to a threat closer to home evade her detection. Rainbow Dave, the charismatic host of Scream Time, is America’s cool big brother—a gamer who built a video empire on the strength of his personality. He is also the focus of a shadowy conspiracy hell-bent on sowing chaos with vast technological resources. Dave’s anonymous benefactors have granted him a glimpse of paradise between the pixels, and the real world hasn’t looked the same since. Now, wired with a head full of unholy revelations and a crate full of dangerous devices, he’s on a mission to help his fans “level up” at a live event. Scream Time is coming to town, and it may be too late to stop a deadly game.

* * *

SOMETIMES TIMING IS EVERYTHING

This book took me longer to write than any other since my first novel. The first draft came pretty quickly, but that was followed by several years of revisions before finding the right shape for the story in between working on other projects. I will generally tinker with a book for as long as I’m allowed to, but I knew this was a timely story, focused on a cultural and technological moment that would eventually pass. So while I spent years reworking the manuscript and pitching it to agents and editors, I had a panicky sense of urgency that it would eventually expire like a carton of milk before it was ever published.

His Own Devices is set in 2016, on the brink of what we now know will be a cataclysmic upheaval in America. Because I felt confident I had a story that spoke to the moment, I was willing to wait for the right allies to hopefully bring it to a mainstream audience. But that clock was ticking, and then Covid hit, and maybe it was me or my book but all of the sudden no one was answering those follow-up nudge emails. Eventually, after a lot of deliberation, I decided to self-publish and strike while the iron was hot. And to my surprise, all that time I’d spent working on the novel had only made its themes more prominent in the news. Russian psyops, YouTube horror memes like Momo, dark web open source domestic terrorism, and quasi-religious social media conspiracies were all more relevant than ever.

None of this gives me any joy as I finally arrive at promoting the book, but in the final drafts I realized I could enhance the resonance that was built into the story from the start by keeping it set in 2016. That year turned out to be the inflection point for much of the digital chaos we’re grappling with now. And that “foreknowledge” enabled me to calibrate the final version of the book to set the stage for every horrible thing we now know happens next.

TEST YOUR STORY BUT TRUST THE SPARK

Part of what took so long between the first draft and the last was my openness to criticism and feedback. After years of publishing with small presses, I felt like this could be the one to break out if I didn’t screw it up, so I gathered a lot of notes from beta readers, agents, mentors, and editors who read the early versions. At one point I even had the data scientists behind The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel run the manuscript through their “Bestseller-ometer,” which uses algorithms trained by thousands of blockbuster novels to run a diagnostic check on a text’s style, pacing, emotional beats, and character agency. I know how cynical that sounds, but the approach seemed consistent with a novel that’s mostly about the dark power of technology. (I’ll spare you the details of the forty-page report, but that version of the book scored 4 out of 5 stars, for whatever it’s worth.)

I do think the novel benefited from all of this feedback—or most of it, anyway. For one thing, I heard consistently that my main character came off as a bit of a high-strung helicopter parent, a criticism I haven’t heard repeated by the final readers of the final draft because I realized it was better to let the reader do a lot of her worrying for her. On the other hand, I also realized late in the game that I’d taken the advice of one agent too far and padded the opening with boring details intended to make the protagonist more “likable,” hindering the thriller pace in the process. That all ended up on the cutting room floor.

But there were some elements of the story that were never up for debate in my mind. Like the unnerving ambiguity that pervades the story and leaves us with some unanswered questions at the end. Fiction may satisfy because it often resolves things better than the Mueller Report, but I wanted to reflect the deep unease we live with in these times. That was the book I’d set out to write, the spark that got me excited about the story in the first place. To betray it for a neat and tidy ending wasn’t on the table. So yeah, you can chew on feedback until you don’t know if you’re making a book better or worse, but never sacrifice the story spark that got you invested in the first place. It’s your North Star.

THE APOCALYPSE HAS BEEN HAPPENING ON THE DARK WEB FOR A WHILE

My villain uses the dark web to research some dangerous terrorist plans. I also researched enough of that to know what was plausible while leaving out any details someone would need to cause real trouble. And hoo-boy! We’ve come a long way since the paperback copy of the Anarchist’s Cookbook we used to stock when I worked at Tower Records in the 90s. I did my homework using the anonymous Tor browser so I wouldn’t end up on more government watch lists than I’m already on as a horror writer, but when you bump into a recipe that starts with the disclaimer “Do Not Make This Until TSHTF,” you realize that some of the preppers among us are not invested in the promise of a peaceful and prosperous society. It’ll put a chill down your spine.

STORY FIRST, IN ALL THINGS

Writers, especially indie writers, have to learn to wear many hats these days. It took me a few years and a lot of frustration to get the hang of writing back cover story blurbs. It’s a different kind of writing from the fiction it endeavors to sell, with a different set of rules and techniques. And that’s just one example. I’ve had to learn how to write newsletters, pitch emails, bookstore banter, and blog posts like this one. As I set out to self-publish a full-length novel for the first time, I discovered there were all kinds of techniques I could learn from successful indie authors—like using a “reader magnet” to cultivate an audience for a book before the release. That kind of marketing speak usually makes my eyes glaze over, but then I realized it wasn’t about sleazy marketing tactics. It was about storytelling. The only thing that makes people want to download a free novella as a newsletter subscription reward, and the only thing that makes them want to read that newsletter long enough to hear about your next book, is compelling storytelling.

It was liberating to realize that every email or promo piece I dreaded writing would also be dreadful for readers unless I viewed it as one more effort to do what I’m trying to do in the first place, which is tell a story. I may not always succeed, but it has to be the intention. Realizing that led me to write a prequel for His Own Devices called Random Access, which became a way to expand on the characters and hint at some intriguing answers to those questions I left dangling at the end of the novel. In trying to write a freebie that would both hook people who have never heard of me and also reward people who had already read the book, I ended up expanding my fictional world in some surprising ways.

FORGET IMITATION—LIFE AND ART ARE IN A WEIRD FEEDBACK LOOP

Any fiction writer who’s been at it for a while will tell you they start to notice things in the real world that are uncomfortably synchronous with whatever weird shit they happen to be making up at the time. Just ask Chuck: he wrote a book in which a pandemic called White Mask competes with a white supremacist insurrection to destroy America. And he published it the year before it actually happened, which I think earns him the Carl Jung Medal of the Cosmic Mindfuck.

I can’t compete with that. But remember I told you about how I watched the country creep closer to a state of chaos wrought by shady digital actors in the few years between the conception and publication of His Own Devices? Well, when it came time to pick a publication date, I went with March 4th for the private joke inherent in the pun (March forth and conquer, little book!). I picked that date about a month ago when I set up the Amazon pre-order, and just a few days ago I saw on CNN that the latest Q-Anon theory is that “the storm” will finally result in Trump reclaiming power on March 4th. Let me tell you, friends…I’ve had enough of relevance for a while.

* * *

Douglas Wynne is the author of the horror/thriller novels The Devil of Echo Lake, The Wind In My Heart, and Red Equinox. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and his writing workshops have been featured at genre conventions and schools throughout New England. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son and a houseful of animals.

Douglas Wynne: Website | Twitter

His Own Devices: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Kali Wallace: Five Things I Learned Writing Dead Space

Hester Marley used to have a plan for her life. But when a catastrophic attack left her injured, indebted, and stranded far from home, she was forced to take a dead-end security job with a powerful mining company in the asteroid belt. Now she spends her days investigating petty crimes to help her employer maximize its profits. She’s surprised to hear from an old friend and fellow victim of the terrorist attack that ruined her life—and that surprise quickly turns to suspicion when he claims to have discovered something shocking about their shared history and the tragedy that neither of them can leave behind. 

Before Hester can learn more, her friend is violently murdered at a remote asteroid mine. Hester joins the investigation to find the truth, both about her friend’s death and the information he believed he had uncovered. But catching a killer is only the beginning of Hester’s worries, and she soon realizes that everything she learns about her friend, his fellow miners, and the outpost they call home brings her closer to revealing secrets that very powerful and very dangerous people would rather keep hidden in the depths of space.

***

Nobody knows where AI is going.

Writing a book that features artificial intelligence in a major role was not, perhaps, the wisest idea I ever had. I am not an AI expert. I am not even an AI amateur. As soon as I start writing, I had a huge amount of research to do. I started reading through a great pile of articles and books and learned a few key things. The first is that everybody who does AI research disagrees with everybody else who does AI research. The second is that nobody who does AI research truly knows how AI will evolve in the future. The third, and most interesting, is that AI is every bit as flawed and messy as the humans who create it.

These things might be annoying for the scientists, but for me, lowly sci fi writer, it was a huge relief. I was writing a mystery/thriller, which meant that in-fighting, uncertainty, and fucked-up humans were exactly what I needed.

The asteroid belt is a big, weird, mysterious place.

In the real estate of our solar system, the asteroid belt is like that creepy empty lot that’s sitting between the cute bungalows on one end of the street and the imposing mansions on the other, the one that’s so overgrown you can’t really see what’s been dumped there, except for how sometimes you catch a glimpse of a something that might be a rusty bicycle frame or might be a discarded murder weapon, and there might be a shortcut through it but you know better than to take that path after dark.

The asteroid belt is huge, it’s mostly empty, and everything is unimaginably far from everything else. Until last year the closest we ever got was photos from targeted flybys. I didn’t appreciate its scope and mystery before I started writing Dead Space. Now I know better, and I understand why so many sci fi writers love to set things in the asteroid belt.

You can handwave more than you think in sci fi.

On a similar note, writing my second thriller set in space taught me some valuable lessons about what kind of details you can handwave when writing sci fi.

I do enjoy the intellectual challenge of solving scientific problems in fiction. But more and more I come down on the side of “exactly what you need and no more” when it comes to scientific rigor in books. That’s not always a simple thing to figure out. Does it strengthen the emotional impact to know how the spaceship works? Do the stakes rise if you know how the life support systems function? Does detail about the state of futuristic medicine draw the reader in deeper? Sometimes the answer is yes, because sometimes key parts of the story are in the scientific and technical details.. Sometimes the answer is no, and what the book needs instead is more corpses and explosions and sadness and space crime. Writing sci fi is an ongoing exercise is figuring out what your story needs every step of the way.

You need to know what works in a story as much as what doesn’t.

While my previous books had taught me to be pretty good at identifying where a story has serious problems, somewhere during writing this one I lost the ability to know where it was working. I don’t know why this happened. Maybe it was my natural evolution as a writer, my emotional state, the editors and readers I was working with, the state of the world, the nature of this book, or all of the above. I have no idea.

Whatever the case, I found that trying to figure out what aspects of the book were strong and effective was a bit like trying to determine which kinds of wallpaper paste have the best flavor or which kinds of pebbles feel the nicest when stuck inside your shoes. And that made it very hard to write. What made it even harder was that I didn’t know how to ask for that kind of feedback.

We talk a lot about how authors need to accept criticism; editors joke about the “compliment sandwich” to protect delicate author feelings. But I think we forget that its not actually about accepting criticism or delicate feelings. It’s about making the story the best story it can be. To do that we need to know what could be better, but we also need to know what’s already strong, compelling, and interesting.

Every book grows out of the environment in which it is written.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to separate Dead Space from the year 2020. This is unfortunate, because I think it’s a pretty good book that doesn’t deserve such a scurrilous association.

But I spent the first half of 2020 revising Dead Space, and it was only after the novel was finished did I realize just how much that experience had altered book. My revisions took it farther away from science fictional ideas of AI and space exploration, while at the same time pushing it much deeper into an exploration of corporate capitalism, political corruption, the perceived value (or lack thereof) of human labor, and the many ways in which human systems of economics and politics can fail.

I was also learning just how important it is to recognize that human social systems rely on humans, and humans make terrible choices. I was also learning to have a great deal of sympathy for people stuck in relentlessly shitty situations. Sometimes all of our possible choices are bad choices. Sometimes the whole game is rigged against us.

I suspect the feelings of helpless, unending rage have also seeped into the book in ways I don’t even recognize. I haven’t read a word of it since I turned in the last proofs. I’m a little bit afraid of what I’ll find.

***

Kali Wallace studied geology and earned a PhD in geophysics before she realized she enjoyed inventing imaginary worlds more than she liked researching the real one. She is the author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels for adults, teens, and children, as well as a number of short stories and essays. After spending most of her life in Colorado, she now lives in southern California.

Kali Wallace: Website | Substack | Instagram

Dead Space: Mysterious Galaxy | Powells | B&N | Indiebound | Bookshop | Amazon

Emily R. King: Five Things I Learned Writing Wings of Fury

Althea’s world is ruled by Cronus, the God of Gods, whose inheritance is the world and women, his playthings. He takes mortal women as prizes and discards them when he’s through. No woman dares to defy him.

After her mother is taken from her and dies as a result of Cronus’s cruelty, Althea is determined not to suffer the same fate as so many women before her. To honor the dying wish of her mother, Althea promises to take care of her sisters no matter the cost.

Following the vision that has been revealed to her by the Fates—that she will crush the Almighty and free the world from his terror—Althea travels to the southern isle of Crete, where women who seek refuge from Cronus live hidden among the exalted Boy God. The Boy God, Zeus, the only son of Cronus, is believed by most of the world to be dead. But he is very much alive and his destiny is tied with Althea, for the Fates foretold that he too will destroy his father.

As Althea and the Boy God train and gain support for their fated journey, Cronus learns of the rebellion and begins amassing his own army to quell any resistance. Cronus may be The Almighty, but Althea will not fail her mother, sisters, or the imprisoned women helpless against the cruel god. 

***

It’s…complicated

Writing a book based on Greek Mythology required loads of research. Those clever, creative Greeks often had more than one version of the tales about their gods. For example, take the origin story of Aphrodite. Some say the Goddess of Love was born from the blood Uranus shed during his castration. Drops fell upon the sea and turned into foam, and Aphrodite arose from the foamy water as a fully formed woman. A less dramatic version tells that Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.

Greek Mythology is full of conflicting stories. To write Wings of Fury, I had to research them all, select one version to bet on, and then be prepared to back up my decision. Some could say this mythology is as complicated as the gods for which it’s about, and they would be right.

Zeus was a sack of shit

Zeus was known for his wandering eye. His first wife, Metis, Goddess of Wisdom, didn’t have to put up with it for long, but only because Zeus swallowed her. (Talk about an unhealthy marriage.) Metis was pregnant when he ate her, and while inside of him, she gave birth to their daughter, Athena, who then hatched from his head. Of course, the oh-so-humble Zeus took full credit for birthing one of the fiercest warriors of all time.

Meanwhile, Zeus was hooking up with Leto, Goddess of Motherhood, who later birthed twins, Artemis and Apollo. Hera, Zeus’s second wife, refused his marriage proposal, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he tricked her and seduced her into matrimony. Hera became known as the Goddess of Marriage. Sad, isn’t it? Hera was forced into wedlock and then gained the reputation as a jealous queen who had multiple fits of temper, usually regarding her sleezy husband. I’m not going to delve into Zeus’s countless indiscretions. All I’ll say is this: Zeus was consistent.

Cronus was a bigger sack of shit

Cronus was one of six sons of Uranus and Gaea. When it came to dethroning his father, Cronus was the only one willing to pick up the adamant sickle and castrate him. Sounds pretty personal, doesn’t it?

After Cronus usurped the throne, he was paranoid that one of his children might do the same to him, so every time his consort, Rhea, had a child he swallowed their infants. He devoured Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon, Hades, and Hera. But when it came to their youngest, Zeus, Cronus’s mother had other plans. Not only was Cronus power-hungry and paranoid, he was a liar. Gaea had given him the sickle to take down Uranus, and in return, Cronus was supposed to release her imprisoned children—the hundred-handed monsters and the Cyclopes—from the underworld. Cronus did no such thing, so Gaea waited until Rhea was pregnant with Zeus and then helped her stash away the newborn on the island of Crete. Rhea gave Cronus a stone to swallow instead. Apparently, Cronus was more brawn than brains, because he was none the wiser, until Metis (remember Zeus’s first wife?) tricked him into eating an herb that forced him to throw up his children.

Bad father. Bad husband. Bad son. Cronus was the worst.

Oceanus was a badass

Not all Titans were dirtbags. Oceanus was one of the six sons of Gaea and Uranus. When Cronus took up the sickle to castrate their father, he had help. His brothers Iapetus, Coeus, Crius, and Hyperion pinned down dear ol’ dad while Cronus swung the blade. You can imagine how big of a fight Uranus put up to protect his family jewels… Anyhoo, Oceanus was the only son who didn’t offer aid. For this, Cronus cast him out.

Maybe Oceanus knew Cronus would be a terrible leader. Maybe he was loyal to his father. Or maybe he was simply a peacemaker. Whatever the reason, Oceanus stood up to Cronus first, long before Zeus was a twinkle in his mother’s eye.

The Titanesses kicked ass too

Gaea and Uranus had six daughters—Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Themis, and Mnemosyne. I highly doubt the Titanesses sat by and watched while their brothers (and in many cases husbands…yay for royal incest) dethroned daddy. When their brothers held down Uranus so Cronus could spay him, they must have had an opinion about it. Perhaps they helped pin him down too, or maybe they tried to stop their brothers. We don’t actually know.

Fast-forward to the next generation of goddesses: Cronus’s daughters—Hera, Demeter, and Hestia—didn’t sit by idly. They united with Zeus and battled Cronus and his allies in a ten-year war that earned them the honored title of Olympians.

The Titanesses deserve their time in the spotlight. In Wings of Fury, these goddesses finally get their moment.

***

Emily R. King is the author of the Hundredth Queen series, as well as Before the Broken Star, Into the Hourglass, and Everafter Songin the Evermore Chronicles. Her latest novel, WINGS OF FURY, will be released March 1, 2021, the first in the Wings of Fury duology. The second book, Crown of Cinders, will be released October 5, 2021Born in Canada and raised in the United States, she is a shark advocate, a consumer of gummy bears, and an islander at heart, but her greatest interests are her children and three cantankerous cats.

Emily R. King: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Wings of Fury: Amazon

Amanda Cherry: Five Things I Learned Writing The Dragon Stone Conspiracy

When the Fäe go to war with a Nazi cult, one woman will protect humanity’s future.

As World War II rages, accidental immortal Pepper Elizabeth Jones is on the run from government agents on both sides of the Atlantic. Hidden in neutral Ireland, she is summoned to meet with a mysterious general, The Righ, who tasks her to save magic itself from the Nazis. Now, she must race against the clock to stop an evil ritual and prevent the Nazis from gaining a world-shattering supernatural power.

This book is part of the Strowlers Shared Cinematic Universe, a collaborative global story that anyone can join.

Tell your story. Change the world.

PREPCRASTINATION IS POWERFUL

My first book was a contemporary fantasy set in an imaginary city. If I needed a point of fact, I probably knew it off the top of my head. And if I didn’t just know? I was free to make it up. Making things up is, as it turns out, one of the chief skills involved in being a writer. And, I came to learn, I am actually quite good at making things up. Need a fancy bar? Make it up! Need a traffic light so the character has to stop driving and see something? Make it up!

Making things up is so satisfying. And easy! And awesome!

And did I mention easy?

Writing historical urban fantasy that [partially] takes place in real locations is an entirely different animal. It is not easy. It is, quite honestly, the opposite of easy. Unless you don’t care about accuracy (but, then, why are you writing historical urban fantasy when you could instead be writing just-regular-fantasy and saving yourself a lot of difficulty: see above re: making things up)

I am a history nerd, and I wanted an accurate book! I wanted all google-able real-world things to be as real as real can be. This was both for my own edification and also to keep the vultures of popular review platforms from screaming ugly things in my general direction.

The desire to make the historical reality as accurate as possible led me down such research rabbit holes as maps of the pre-WWII Berlin subway (which I found!) & the price of bus fare from Donegal to Dublin in 1943 (which I did not find). There were days I spent so much time trying to figure out what car to put on a road, how far X was from Y, or whether or not there would have been streetlights someplace that I barely got any words on the page at all.

These deep dives into time and place are some of the best procrastination techniques I have ever stumbled upon. I mean: copious researching is a super-easy way to keep from having to do any actual writing while still feeling all, “Whee! Look at me! I am Very Much on task!”. Y’all: IT’S A TRAP.

Yes, I had to do the research, but I also had to do the writing. Because even the best-researched books patently refuse to write themselves.

Dangit.

WHERE IT’S BETTER NOT TO BE ACCURATE

So, there’s research, and then there’s reality, and then there’s perspective. And when writing about history, especially the ugly parts, balancing those things can be um…well…challenging.

There are parts of the past most of us find nostalgic and delightful. Just look around at the Rockabilly movement and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Fedoras. Victory rolls. Benny Goodman. Yes. Yes. Yes. Give me the music and the dancing and the clothes and slang words like “Murgatroyd,” and Casablanca on the marquee at the Bijou. All of it.

Ok. Not all of it. Because things were happening in the world of my book that are much better left in the past.

Jim Crow, Eugenics, that time Hitler was Look Magazine’s Man of the year.

Yeah, no.

There is at least as much NOPE in the 1940’s as there is wonderful- and figuring out which parts of 1943 to keep and which to toss was an adventure I wasn’t aware I was signing up for. I wanted to evoke the era with enough delight to keep the reader happy to be there, but also with enough dread to remind y’all that the stakes are serious.

And as though that wasn’t a fine enough line to be walking, I discovered pretty early on in my writing process that I had bought myself a ticket on the evolution-of-language-train.

Figuring out how to be period-immersive while leaving behind harmful language was a lesson I’m glad I learned, but it didn’t come easy.

Just because the book is set in 1943 doesn’t mean I have to bring all of 1943’s problems into it. So much easier said than done….

When it came time to introduce a character with Romani heritage, I was a big mumbling mess of yikes. The only word Pepper would have known to describe this character is considered a slur these days; y’all know the “G” word. I’m not gonna write it here any more than I did in the book.

There we stood: a character who, without malice, wouldn’t have known better and an author who does know better but isn’t sure how to go about making this work in a way that neither pulls the reader out of the world of the story nor puts a slur in my book.

Writing around your protagonist’s prejudices, especially those borne of the time in which they live, double especially when they’re your sole POV character is a whole ball of wax. But with the help of my editors and the support of awesome friends with Romani heritage, we made it work.

Because, in the end, it’s about the reader’s experience, and since we don’t live in 1943, I’m not confined to the vocabulary of the era.

AND WHERE HISTORY IS HELPFUL

This book is about some imaginary magic in a real place. Real people rub shoulders with fictional ones, and my adventuring protagonist goes back and forth between actual historical locations and the world of the fantastic.

In order to make this work, I had to ground the adventure in actual historical time and place.

Starting with time.

When this book could possibly happen was the first problem I had to solve. I had constraints on all sides, both in-universe and real-world. Can’t be before THIS can’t be after THAT, and I need to get this guy out of the way.

You know how, when you’re writing a fanfic and you need to shoehorn this very intense conversation between your favorite pair into the cut between scenes in the movie? It was like that, only with Nazis.

And this, my friends, was 100% a job for history-nerdery. Putting those old fanfic muscles to good use, I dove deep into Things I Learned in College and found just the right historical moment to exploit for my purposes (insert evil laugh here). I got rid of Himmler and I did it with a real-world reason. Go me.

Sometimes history gives you just what you need—you just have to bother to go and look for it.

If you’re the type of reader who likes to Google what else was happening on the very specific dates given for the events of a piece of historical fiction, I see you, and you won’t be mad about this one.

Or maybe you will, but at least you’ll know I did my homework.

HOW TO USE “STET” WHEN I MEAN “STFU”

One of the things that happens when you write a book is that you’re not actually done writing it when you think you’re done writing it. Other people get to tell you things about what you wrote and how you wrote it and then you have to write more things in your book (or take some things out of your book—ugh.) based on what those other people say.

Those people are called Editors and in my case they do the very heroic thing of turning my long rambles of storytelling into something people are willing to buy and read. It’s neat!

One of the things I learned from my first book was how working with an editor happens—the processes and power balance and all that jazz. For me, a big part of learning to work with an editor was learning when to accept their suggestion and when to shake my head and say STET. For those of y’all unfamiliar with the term (as I was just one book ago), that’s a word writers use when we choose not to accept the editor’s version of something and instead want to leave the words the way we had them in the first place.

With THE DRAGON STONE CONSPIRACY, there were far more fingers in the pie than there were with RITES & DESIRES (a thing to be expected with a larger IP, no worries) and some of those fingers were really long and over-stretchy. And one of them just…didn’t like the way I write. Like… not at all.

Reading through and responding to those notes kind of sucked. Ok, no—it didn’t kind of suck, it sucked bigtime.

I wanted to get *so* defensive. I wanted to yell and scream and stomp my foot and explain in the greatest of detail not only that the person was wrong but also how much and how come. However, authors throwing temper tantrums in the general direction of their editors (especially when those editors weren’t the source of the offending comments) is generally frowned upon.

Luckily, the industry has gifted me the beautiful tool which is STET. And boy did I make use of it.

It’s now fighting “snollygoster” for the title of my Very Favorite English word (although it’s technically Latin, so I suppose it’s actually fighting “Post hoc ergo Propter hoc” to be my favorite Latin).

STET is good. As an early-career author, it was kind of empowering to stand up for my writing, my voice, and my choices. Self esteem not really being the biggest thing for most of us writer-types (especially those of us who are new to the business), it was uncomfortable, but rewarding, to use all caps and demand my words be respected.

It was also way more professional than some of the other words I might have chosen.

Good times!

WORD RATIONING

I write books, and sometimes other things (like guest blog posts) as my job. All of these things, books and otherwise, are made up of words. Words are the tools of my trade the same as wrenches and hammers are the tools of a mechanic’s trade. And I love words—I always have.

When I was in second grade, we were doing a phonics exercise wherein we were each assigned a letter of the alphabet and tasked with going to the blackboard (yes, I’m showing my age here, but whatever) and writing down a word beginning with our letter. I got the letter “T”. I then proceeded to that chalk board and proudly wrote “totalitarianism” for my whole class to read.

My teacher called my parents.

Words are my stock and trade, and they’re also my hobby. And there are some I apparently like way more than a person really ought to. I have a particular affinity for oddball words (see above re: snollygoster) and I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t use my favorite words in my writing. Words are good, and we should use them!

In getting RITES & DESIRES revised and ready for primetime I learned all about my addiction to “that”— which is a thing I continue to work on. But while working through revisions on THE DRAGON STONE CONSPIRACY I learned that isn’t my only word problem.

Too much of a commonplace word is one thing. But multiple instances of a beloved-but-uncommon word is enough to be disruptive. So I’m told.

I have now learned to read my own work with a critical eye for overuse of words that aren’t part of everyday speech for people who are not me.

I am now allowed only one “hodgepodge” per manuscript. One “slapdash”. One “ramshackle”. And I only get a “snollygoster” every other book. It’s a hard-knock life, y’all. But it is what it is.

Learning to parcel out the more peculiar words in my vocabulary has been a useful tool as far as making my work more approachable, but I still love my weird darlings and won’t be giving them up entirely any time soon.

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Amanda Cherry is an author/actor who still can’t believe people will pay her to write books. She enjoys documentary films, fried food, and spending time on her boat. In her spare time, Amanda volunteers as an announcer and referee for Flat Track Roller Derby. Amanda lives in the Seattle area with her husband, son, and the world’s cutest puggle. She is represented by Claire Draper of the Bent Agency.

Amanda Cherry: Website

The Dragon Stone Conspiracy: Amazon | Bookshop