Hugh Howey's Blog, page 49

Learning to write

Adelaide from Tasmania sent me an email asking me how I learned to write. She just finished WOOL and didn’t hate it. She didn’t hate it very much! And she wanted to know how I learned to write so not-horribly and get all the way to the end of a story. Because she loses interest after just a few pages. This was my response:

Hey Adelaide,

I think the best place to learn how to write is by doing what you already are: Read. Consume as many books as you can. Absorb all that prose. It will help your own writing.

And keep writing as well. I know it’s hard to finish a long story when you’re starting out, but think of it as running. No one goes out and just runs a marathon. They have to start jogging first. They go a mile. Two miles. They build up to it.

I recommend creating some characters that you enjoy. And then sit down and write ONE SCENE with those characters. Just a bar fight or a first date or a conversation during intermission at the circus. Anything you like. These scenes don’t have to go together or form a book; they are just exercise.

From here, move up to a short story, which is just a few scenes put together. A novel is just a handful of short stories. Don’t get overwhelmed with the whole thing; just enjoy the process.

Best of luck to you,

Hugh

Going through my mail.

The most exciting thing ever!

Don’t let this be you.

Brian the Dog has left our Technicolor Earth. He never finished his novel. Don’t let this be you.

RIP Brian. May suffering ratings bring you back.

Ciao, Europe. :’(

Today is my last day on book tour. Three more interviews, a few more meals, and then I wake up tomorrow and begin the long journey home.

The last two months have felt like an entire other lifetime. It all began at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which was a mind-blowing experience. Frankfurt is the size of EIGHT normal book fairs smashed together. It’s the largest collection of publishing and book people in the world. I met at least a dozen of my foreign publishers and ate a lot of sausages and potatoes. It’s amazing to think I haven’t been home since then.

After a week in Frankfurt, I took a train to Paris. I spent a week there doing promo for the French edition of WOOL, where it goes by SILO (as in Germany). The food was ridiculous, the city gorgeous, the schedule packed. I had five or six interviews a day plus other commitments. Really enjoyed my time with my publishing team. At this point, I was working on two short stories that I needed to have finished before NaNoWriMo began. Yeah, this was still early-October!

From Paris, it was a short flight to Spain. A week in Madrid (tapas!) with a short stay in Barcelona. When I landed in Madrid, I had a free afternoon. I found out Real Madrid was playing that evening, took a train to the stadium, and scored a great seat. Saw Ronaldo and Bale put together a 2-0 win. Amazing time. And had the best cheeseburger EVER in Madrid. It was the size of a single bite, made right in front of me. I could have died.

I left Barcelona and had to take three flights to get to Helsinki, Finland. Arrived late and found a freezing city full of warm people. And tall! Man, I’ve never felt so short in my life. For the next two and a half weeks, I was in Finland or Amsterdam, and I thought I was stooping. In Finland, I finished those two short stories and fired them off. I was ready for Amsterdam and NaNoWriMo. No part of me thought I would pull off 50,000 words on this trip. It just wasn’t going to be possible.

The little over a week I had in Amsterdam wasn’t enough. I loved this city. I met my friend Jasper Schreurs in the flesh for the first time and also one of my most loyal readers. Sat in (non-smoking) cafes and wrote my fool head off. Gave a talk at a museum, which went over much better than it had any right to (I told a very young and artistic crowd that the world was getting better, and they didn’t hate me for it). Lots of interviews in the coolest and quirkiest hotel I’ve ever stayed in (former boys’ prison). Another of the many places I’ve visited where I could easily settle down for a year or more.

From Amsterdam, it was off to Italy. I had extra time here because the trip to Turkey was postponed. I asked my mom to come join me, and we had 10 days in Italy together. This is a vacation I’ll never forget. We had never traveled together, just the two of us. It was great to see family, and Mom was awesome about making sure I got my writing in every morning (and often again at night). I was hitting 3,000 words a day as we jaunted from Rome to Orvieto to Siena to Florence to Cinque Terra to Venice. We hiked our butts off (though Mom complained that for all the walking, she went home the same weight as when she left. I told her muscle weighs more than fat).

It’s been crazy to see my book in shops all over the world. And to meet so many readers! I worried when I left that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my writing, my e-mail, my blog, FB, Twitter, and everything else. But it all went very smoothly. My inbox is completely empty right now. I’ve nearly finished my next novel. John Joseph Adams and I have announced our trilogy of anthologies (I’ve also been editing some of those stories and organizing cover art while on this trip). It’s amazing what you can do while living out of hotels and spending all your free time in airports and on trains.

Now it’s time to head home, suffer a few days of jet lag, and enjoy some family time over Thanksgiving. This year, I’m thankful for you all. I really appreciate the support and kindness. I’m thankful that so many people took a chance on my writing, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know you via FB, Twitter, and your comments here. You’ve sent me on an incredible journey, one that I appreciate every single moment with no expectation for tomorrow. None of this would’ve happened without you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

What are you doing here?

You should be on Joe’s blog reading this, instead.

Go. Scram.

GB Badass

I’m pretty sure that’s his real name above, but he writes under the pen name of GB Banks. Greg is a regular over at KB’s Writers’ Cafe, always chiming in with helpful thoughts and advice. He recently shared an IndieGogo campaign he started to raise the funds he needs to help promote his latest novel Revolution Z. For a few bucks, you’ll get a copy of his book and help support his writing career. Maybe even send him to a few cons so he can meet his readers in person.

I shared his latest video on Facebook and mentioned that it simply isn’t fair that some people like Greg have advantages the rest of us don’t. Many of us suffer from self-doubt, apathy, a lack of work ethic, a shortage of determination, a tendency to procrastinate. I’m sure Greg isn’t immune to these shortcomings, but watch this video and see what he does have, and tell me if it doesn’t fire you up to do something today.

I’m sitting here in the last of a dozen hotel rooms, on the second to last day of a book tour that kept me away from home for two months, during a year in which I flew over 50 times and spent more than half the year on the road, and damn if I’m not lucky. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to have these opportunities. Greg would love to go to WorldCon or DragonCon, set up a booth, show off his books, speak on a panel about what it takes to pursue and conquer your dreams, how to be a writer. I hope to see him at a con soon. I’ll be the first to rush up and thank him for inspiring the hell out of me. If he inspired you, consider supporting his career. Don’t let his obvious advantages keep you from it. Greg can’t help it that he was born a badass. Hell, he changed his name so as to not rub it in.

SAND: Have it Your Way

Thanks to the mystical powers of NaNoWriMo, this wild and zany book tour across Europe has been wildly productive. In addition to getting two short stories wrapped up, I’ll also be coming home (Tuesday! Yay!) with some SAND in my back pocket. That’s right, the story is nearly complete, just another dozen or so chapters to write, which I should have filled in by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, I’ve done several passes over the first two parts of this story, and they are just one more pass away from going off to my copyeditor. I’m targeting December 15th for the release date of the first work, with each part coming out at two week intervals, the fourth and final part hitting near the end of January.

There is absolutely no reason to read this story as it releases. None whatsoever. If you wait until January, you can pick up the full novel for six bucks. (It’ll be a few cents cheaper if purchased individually, but it’ll also clog up your e-reader). I’m only releasing this work serially because I know quite a few people who will prefer to follow along on the journey as it unfolds. Part of the thrill of the original WOOL release was the chatter and speculation between episodes, akin to a season of some enjoyable TV show. Each story will wrap up a small part of the tale while introducing something new, and the anticipation and wait can be a lot of fun for some.

So, consume this story however you prefer. I’ll have some warnings on the product page to steer those who might be dissatisfied away. And the plan right now is to just do the serialized parts on Amazon, as it gets unwieldy to keep up with 4 issues going out to 4 or more vendors and making sure people understand how the story is being told in advance. If you don’t have a Kindle, their reading app installs on pretty much anything with a screen. You can read on your phone or iPad or computer. There will also be paperback versions of each of the short installments, but again, I would wait for the full novel to come out before buying a physical copy. Most of the price of a book is in the cover, so the four installments will cost more in paperback than the collected edition.

Okay, that’s the SAND news. It’ll start hitting soon and it’ll be done early next year. Read it how you see fit. Personally, I would wait if I were you.

Assume the Position

The key to reaching most goals is pretty simple to understand but difficult to execute, and that is Willpower. Whether you’re writing a novel or trying to diet or exercise, or you want to be a better spouse or student or son or daughter, Willpower is the key. But it feels like this magic-sauce is always in such short supply.

There’s an excellent book on willpower that I recommend every human being to check out. It’ll change your life in whatever ways you want to change your life. But this is the first step in self-improvement or reaching any goal: examining yourself and seeing what weaknesses you want to work on.

I was born a mess, so I’ve been trying to smooth the rough edges for a very long time. Much of what I stumbled upon through trial and error I later discovered to be tried and true techniques. But this isn’t about all of that nonsense, it is about a very simple technique that will help you out if you are writing a novel or dieting, exercising, any number of things. It’s all about Assuming the Position.

The most difficult part of any repetitive task that we would really like to avoid doing is getting started. It’s tough to force yourself to go for a run when you’d rather watch TV. Or force yourself to work on your novel when you’d rather play around on Facebook. So the trick is not to tell yourself that you’re going to do these things. The trick is to do something much simpler, which is to place yourself into position to do these things.

Writing can be painful. Opening up your work in progress and getting it on your screen is not painful. But we avoid doing the latter because we dread doing the former. Stop thinking about the writing. Just open up your work in progress. Let it sit in front of you. Maybe you read what you’ve already written and you decide to make a sentence snappier. Maybe you think of a later scene you want to jot down. It doesn’t matter. Just open your document and be with it. Don’t think too far past that.

There’s an old saying that writers hate writing, what they love is having written. The same is true of me when it comes to dieting and exercise. I don’t like giving up donuts, but I enjoy the way I feel when I haven’t eaten them. I don’t like doing situps or pushups or any kind of exercise, but I like having exercised. So I approach these things like I approach my writing. I lay down on the floor. I’m not thinking of doing situps, I’m just thinking that it takes no effort at all to Assume the Position.

And then, once I’m there, or once I’m staring at my open manuscript, or once I’m hovering over the salad bar, I think to myself: Damn. I’m here. I got this far. I don’t know when I’ll motivate myself to get this close again. Or when I’ll find the time. So I might as well…

It works wonders for me. I know it’s a hokey thing to blog about, but I’m taking the chance that it might work for someone else out there. Keep it up, NaNo’ers!

The Apocalypse Triptych

Ah, lookie here! The APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH has been announced over at io9, which means I can finally talk about the set of anthologies I’ve been working on with John Joseph Adams. We’re looking at a June 2014 release—there will be a lot more news coming up well before then. Also, before the first book comes out, we’ll have a story or two you can read for free over on the website dedicated to the books.

Before explaining how the triptych came about, I thought I’d share my crazy story about meeting John Joseph Adams for the first time. John emailed me out of the blue over a year and a half ago to ask if I had anything I’d like to submit to Lightspeed magazine (for which he’s been nominated for several Hugo awards as best editor). I thought this was pretty cool. Lightspeed is one of the great modern SF anthologies, the kind I used to collect rejections letters from. Getting an invite to submit was a helluvan improvement.

I told him I’d see if anything came up. I had just written my first Kindle Single about that time and was hoping to return to writing short stories. But I was also very busy with SHIFT and I, ZOMBIE, so I was doubtful I’d get anything submitted.

WorldCon came around, and John and I made a point to get together in Chicago to meet in person. The editor’s #1 job is to browbeat writers into writing, as it turns out. By now, I’d read John’s excellent WASTELANDS anthology and was a massive fan of his keen eye, reading tastes, and editorial work. He, his wife, and I had lunch together in downtown Chicago and really hit it off. As we got back to the hotel, I asked John where  he had lived over the years. He mentioned Florida. I told him that I was about to move back to Florida and that my wife was from there. He asked what part, and I told him Fort Pierce.

“I went to high school in Port St. Lucie,” John says.

“Where?” I ask.

“Lincoln Park Academy.”

“That’s where my wife went to school,” I say.

“How old is she?” John asks.

“Thirty-six,” I say.

“Me too,” John says. “What was her name?”

At this point, I already had goosebumps. We’re talking a class size of less than 200. Same school and same year. I was standing by the river in Chicago with a person I had met through my writing who now lives clear across on the west coast.

“Her name is Amber,” I say.

John couldn’t believe it. He remembered Amber very well. They sat in the same class. So we spaz out while his wife looks on politely, and I have to call Amber right then to tell her, and Amber is screaming on the phone for me to tell John hello. Bizarro, right?

Later, John followed up on our meeting and asked about contributing to various anthologies he was working on. I wrote a short called DEEP BLOOD KETTLE that November that I thought he might enjoy. I fired it off and kept my fingers crossed. It got published in Lightspeed and won a recommend from a well-respected  critic. Two other stories followed, both of which will appear in future anthologies of his. My love of the short form was renewed.

And then John comes up with the idea of a trilogy of anthologies. Known as THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, the first of the three books deals with pre-apocalyptic settings; the second occurs during the apocalypse, and the third the post-apocalyptic. Ideas fire back and forth. We think about authors who might span their stories across all three books. Authors who might just write for one or the other. We decide to self-publish the work so we can really do whatever we want. John makes a list of the authors he’s worked with in the past, and I make a list of indie authors who I think might want to contribute. Things start coming together.

While I was over here on this wild European book tour, we started talking about cover art. It was getting to be time to make an announcement, so I got in touch with an artist on DeviantArt named Julian Faylona whose work I love. Julian came up with the brilliant banner you see up top. The awesome Jason Gurley hit us up with the incredible title design. When you put the three books together, you will get a single unbroken image, as above. Cool, eh? I have to thank my Korean and Japanese publishers for the inspiration.

But of course the star of this show is the stories. Wow. We have a handful submitted, and there are a few already that are going to blow readers away. One of them is probably the best short story I’ve read in the last decade. Another feels like a near-certain Nebula nominee. Every time another comes in, I get more and more excited.

Of course, I had to come up with something for the books as well. I started an alien invasion piece a few months ago that I’ve had in mind for a while. But while I was writing it, DUST came out, and I started getting a flood of emails begging me for one more story in the world of the silo. So I decided I’d keep the invasion pieces for another time and write three WOOL stories, one from the before, one from during, and one from after. The triptych has given me an excuse to revisit a place I didn’t think I would ever see again. I’m excited as hell about that. I hope you are too.

So much going on right now!

Man, things are crazy. I’ve got a ton of news around the corner that I can’t wait to share. On Monday, there will be an announcement about a super-cool project I’m working on. It’ll mean a return to the world of WOOL, but maybe not in the way you imagine. The project is a ways from being released, but we’re going to have news about it just so you know what we’re cooking. The other half of the “we” thing is not Natalie Portman, by the way, so calm down.

Also: My first work of official fan fiction has been turned in and accepted. I’m extremely excited about that. This was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I’ve ever written in my life. And it isn’t even close. I, ZOMBIE was a walk in the park compared to this. It’s not a work I’m going to recommend to people, but it’s a work that I’m really glad I wrote. I bawled constantly while writing and revising the piece. Writing has never been more cathartic. I’m nervous but excited about this story going public.

Finally, I’m really enjoying how SAND is shaping up. This is a very different sort of story for me. The science is hazy enough that I’m embracing this as fantasy. I hope to have the first part available in December, and I have some cool surprises in store for the physical edition. For those who order signed copies, anyway. Stay tuned.

On the book tour front, I’ve got just under two weeks left before I go home. And then it’s a quick turnaround for a visit to USC in Columbia, SC. I’m speaking with Adam Griffey’s students about writing. Yeah, Adam Griffey of THE PLAGIARIST fame. I have a solid six weeks with no travels after that, and I’ll be spending that time getting your signed books out to you. And then the madness picks up again!