Barbara Friend Ish's Blog, page 3

The Next Big Thing

Last week, the gracious and generous Dave-Brendon De Burgh tagged me in the Next Big Thing meme that’s going around. This is a really fun way to discover writers who are new, or at least new to you, and I am most grateful to him for inviting me to play.

Now that I’ve been tagged, I’m supposed to answer the interview questions and tag several more writers. In the spirit of “new, or at least new to you”, I’ve tagged three writers at various stages in their careers:

Leona Wisoker is hardly a new writer, though she may be new to you. Her third and fourth novels, Bells of the Kingdom and Fires of the Desert, will be coming out under the Mercury Retrograde label this spring. She’s got an almost cultish following for her Children of the Desert series. And I appreciate her taking the time to play this game with me.

Rod Belcher is a new writer: his debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, will be published by Tor in January, and it’s already lighting up Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Romantic Times, et al. In fact he’s so new that his website and blog won’t be live until the end of the week…so I am just linking to the Facebook page for his novel for now.

Rachael Murasaki Ish is, like so many of the writers participating in this meme, as yet unpubbed–at least as a writer. I happen to know she’s got That Thing We Can’t Teach in Writing Workshops, and I’m looking forward to her getting her fiction to the point of publishability. Having worked with her in other professional contexts, I know she has the tenacity necessary. (And did I mention that she and I have a book together coming out this spring? For that one she’s wearing her Visual Artist hat. But more on that anon.)

I hope you’ll click through on those links and discover some exciting artists. In the meantime, here are my answers to the interview questions:

What is your working title of your book?

The Heart of Darkness

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Short answer: Everything in World Myth, 398.2 in your library. I started hanging out in that section roughly 6 months after I could read things longer than your average Dick & Jane adventure.

Long answer: This book is the second of a series, The Way of the Gods. I started writing this series because I wanted to explore the nature of godhood. (What makes a god a god? Where does the god’s power come from? What does his existence mean?) Along the way, inevitably, the story also explores the nature of power, the definitions of good and evil, the dichotomy between science and religion, and the tension between honor and exploitation. And the nature of addiction.

The first book of the series, The Shadow of the Sun, introduces the reader to Ellion, a defrocked wizard and deposed monarch who wants nothing more than to redeem himself. But when an opportunity to do that arises, he runs as fast and far as he can in the opposite direction, because redemption will come at the price of confronting all the mistakes he made ten years ago. The problem follows him, as problems will; and he takes on the charter of protecting Letitia, rising monarch of the Danaan nation of Fiana, from a renegade wizard who is trying to take over the part of the world Ellion left behind.  Along the way, he will find it necessary to confront the past he’s been avoiding–and find his assumptions about the gods and the world around him up-ended.

The Heart of Darkness picks up where The Shadow of the Sun leaves off. The title refers to a magical operation that’s critical to the unfolding action–and also to the Joseph Conrad novella of the same name. Like Conrad’s hero, Ellion–and other characters as well–find it necessary to travel into the unmapped interior, the wild places where the rules are suspended, and find the deep truths revealed there: truths both about the world and about themselves.

What genre does your book fall under?

You’d find it shelved as Epic Fantasy. But none of the other Epic Fantasy books trust it. They think it’s a party-crasher, and it’s going to start some kind of trouble. They’re right.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I brought my first readers, Mark and Rachael, in to help me brainstorm this one. I’m the only writer I know who doesn’t automatically “cast” all their characters. And I’m pretty sure we can’t afford all this talent for our imaginary movie. But we had a great time!

In the interests of space, I’m just going to list our casting choices here. We went into more detail on Tumblr, here.

Ellion — Matt Bomer

Letitia — Natalie Portman

Iminor — Jared Padelecki

Nechton — Robert Downey, Jr.

Tella — Charlize Theron

Leahy — Matthew McConaughey

Rohini — Olivia Wilde

Amien — Peter O’Toole

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

One sentence? The book is going to weigh in at over 200K words! Ahem.

When Ellion becomes a pawn in the tug of war between the old gods and the new, he begins to realize that the truths he has spent his life upholding may not be true at all, and the order he defends may be unjust.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book will be published by Mercury Retrograde Press.

Full disclosure: I am Mercury Retrograde’s publisher and editor-in-chief. Fortunately I know that the publisher who edits her own work is a fool, and I humbly submit to colleague Anna M. Branscome during this process.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Hmm. The first draft of this novel was one part of the ridiculous 330K-word, 3-month orgy of writing that produced the first draft of the entire series over ten years ago. As a standalone, the first draft took maybe 6 months to develop. (It was considerably shorter; I am a better, deeper writer than I was then.) The current draft has been in the works for about 18 months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

That’s a really rough question: it’s hard to answer without sounding or feeling arrogant, inflated. Within spec fic, one might draw comparisons between my series and Julian May’s The Golden Torc and the other books in that series; I’ve had people compare it to Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber series and The Mists of Avalon. Thematically, I’d shelve it near Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and Patricia McKillip’s Riddlemaster series. And, maybe, Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Professor Tolkien: I adored his books. Can’t tell you how many times I re-read them. I will say that some of the covers fell off, and those were covers from a nicely-produced boxed set. But for all the beauty and magnificence, there were things I wanted to argue with: among them, the unquestioning acceptance of the feudal ideals that the entire heroic literature tradition brings us. And, while I’m arguing with the master, the easy definition of Good vs. Evil. (This is the part where people will argue with me, and I accept all those arguments as valid. I’ve held them at cons beyond counting. But still I reject the notion that the world, even a fictional world, is divisible into the Good, the Evil, and the Corrupt.)

The Bible: because once you’ve angered all the Tolkien fans out there, the only bigger target is the Bible’s fanbase. No, that’s not the reason why. Because it’s wild and self-contradictory and huge and one-stop shopping for all the ideas a reader needs to unravel the Western canon, as well as an intellectual kleptomaniac’s dream. Because it begs the reader to ask the question Who or What Is God and then argue with herself about the answer.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Magic. There’s a lot of it in this book. Not the hand-wavey fairy-dust kind of magic, but real, there’s-physics-behind-this magic with roots in traditions that go back for centuries and serious implications for the society that has to deal with it.

Gods. Plenty of those, too. They are not nice people. But they are interesting.

*

This was a fun excursion. To my surprise, I especially enjoyed “casting” the novel–figuring out which actors should play the parts. And I had fun putting that Tumblr post together. Thanks for inviting me to play, Dave-Brendon!

How my desk in the study really looks

Because last time I shared pictures, it was one of those days when the place was ready for company.

Writer’s Block Isn’t Really What You Think, Version #73

Recently I’ve been nervous about the scene I’m going to start writing today. I didn’t know what I was going to write, and I thought the reason I didn’t know was that a significant chunk of the discussion was going to center around some RL warfare technologies with which I have only a glancing acquaintance. But then I got there yesterday, and tried to write the lead-in, so I’d have something to come back to after I’d boned up on the technical stuff…and discovered the Real Problem.

The war I’m writing about is erupting like popcorn thunderstorms in a variety of locations, which is how rebellions typically will. In each eruption, the motivations of the people who rebel are different. People don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Hm, I’ve had enough, I think it’s time for a rebellion”: not unless they’re well-fed intellectuals with too much time on their hands. When the peasants revolt, it’s because they believe they’re out of other options.

I knew why the other locus of rebellion I’m writing about had gone over the cliff. I finally realized, yesterday, I couldn’t answer that question for the present rebellion.

Once I finally began addressing that question, I found a huge reservoir of thematic deliciousness waiting for me. Now I’m SO EXCITED to write this scene, this chapter, this thread–and the technical brushing-up I need to do is no more than a minor detour in my head.

Same old story: the thing I think is the problem is just the thing my left brain can identify. The reason my right brain is really holding me up is that I haven’t done the deep plotting work.

This Week in the Study

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Life on the publishing side has been, shall we say, stimulating of late. Blogging and house-cleaning are the first things out the window when my schedule gets overfull.  You can imagine how ashamed my mother must be.

Be that as it may–

Those of you who follow the play-by-play over on Facebook know I blew my editorial deadline for The Heart of Darkness in spectacular fashion. The book should have been off my desk and on Anna‘s months ago. And meanwhile I have promised to launch it, the associated Fortunes deck and book, as well as the Fortunes electronic game, at ConCarolinas next year. Which means it’s got to go to press in May of next year, hence to the reviewing world by February. So I am in crunch mode.

The Heart of Darkness picks up where The Shadow of the Sun left off. Really. About an hour later. This time, rather than just following Ellion through the chaos, I’ve had to bring in other points of view in order to tell the story:

Leahy, the Bard of Arcadia–a name readers of the first volume may remember, even though they haven’t met the character yet

Letitia*, would-be Mora of Fíana, the focus of the conflict between Ellion and his nemesis

Iminor, her appointed consort

As you may imagine, that’s a lot of story. At present the novel stands at just less than 179,000 words. I presently estimate a finished length of ~225,000.

My goal is to finish this month. That will give my beta readers–and Anna!–a bit of room to maneuver. So I’m trying to write 2K words each day.

Stay tuned.

*I swore I’d never write Letitia as a PoV. Didn’t want to do it. And then it became necessary. She’s turning out to be more interesting than I anticipated.

The Importance of Failing

Today, this article lit up my little corner of Facebook. A friend posted it; I shared it; soon ripples were spreading out from those twin centers and conversations were starting all over the place. The author of the article puts forth a wondrous theory about the problems women have with success as stemming from a conviction developed during childhood that they simply are or are not good at any given thing, and that failure is an indication of a total lack of ability. Facebook debated the merits of this theory and rightly concluded that to assign it solely to a gender issue is to miss the point, which is this: people who are encouraged to see failure as a signal that they need to dig in and try harder, differently, smarter, etc. are much more likely to eventually succeed.

When I say it like that, it sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But here is the hidden corollary, which consistently trips up adults and children of both genders:

In order to achieve things that are difficult,

we must accept failure as a part of the routine.

I fail all the time. I consistently set goals and don’t manage to meet them. I take on too much, I aim higher than my current abilities or resources can take me, I execute to the limit of my ability but encounter obstacles I had not anticipated. I believe that’s OK.

I believe that if I’m not failing,
I’m not trying hard enough.

I wasn’t always this way. For years I was the prototypical “good girl” described in the article, and I beat myself up for each failure, and concluded that every time I failed it was  because of some intrinsic fault in myself. But then I had my First Midlife Crisis, in which I decided that the adult world was bullshit, and there was no real point in being a good girl, and so threw myself into pursuing my own passion. Because, really, what was the point of doing otherwise?

My passion, as it happens, was (and is) writing speculative fiction. I wrote a novel and began doing all the things young writers are taught they must in order to get their novels published. The writers among you already know how painfully difficult this particular trek is; failure is the norm. It was my introduction, at long last, to a culture in which multiple failures are expected, and the attitude is not all-or-nothing success/failure but successive attempts.

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

–Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

The publishing life is not for the faint of heart; but it is a brilliant teacher of resiliency. Accepting that most attempts will end in failure, but if we are willing and able to learn from those failures and improve our craft we may well succeed on the next attempt, is a philosophy that stands in direct opposition to how we are taught to live. It is madness.

It is the key to successful pursuit of one’s dreams.

We must allow ourselves to fail. To try, to not succeed on the first or the fifth attempt, to risk looking foolish in public. More importantly yet, we must allow our children to fail, and teach them to treat those failures as learning experiences. A failure yields data we can use to build a better story, a better souffle, a better company, a better building. To master the math we need to take on the scientific learning we adore. To do a thousand other things that will not come easily, and accomplish something wondrous in the process.

Go out and fail. Do it a hundred times. I guarantee your hundredth failure will be nothing like your first. And somewhere in the midst of all that failing, almost without noticing, you will find yourself amassing success after success.

Compton Crook Award Finalist

Yesterday afternoon, in the midst of RavenCon and my ongoing bewilderment, I received notification that my novel, The Shadow of the Sun, is a finalist for the 2012 Compton Crook Award. (!!) as you may recall from earlier squee,

The Compton Crook Award is presented to the best first novel of the year written by a single author: collaborations are not eligible: in the field of Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror by the members of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc., at their annual Baltimore-area science fiction convention, Balticon, held on Memorial Day weekend in the Baltimore, MD area each year.

I wish I could find a list of this year’s finalists, because i’ve no doubt they should be on my radar, but the BSFS doesn’t seem to publish that list in advance of the award. So I’ll just have to check back later, and I’ll let you know what I find.

Meanwhile I can’t wait for Balticon. If you’re within range of Baltimore, I hope you’ll come out and see me there.

Come see me at the Library of Congress

Like a little story in your game? What about a little game in your story? Or does the whole thing sound crazy to you?

At Thursday, April 12, 2012 at noon, I'll be at the Library of Congress, talking about putting games in our stories and stories in our games–and the magic that happens when we do. The name of the talk is "Storytelling Through Games", and it's hosted by the Library's "What If…?" Speakers Series. The event is free and open to the public. If you're within range of the Library of Congress, come and join the discussion!

…And check out the Library while you're there, maybe. I hear they have a lot of books.

Play me a story

Next month, I'll be speaking at the Library of Congress on the topic of storytelling through game. I'm a relative newcomer to game, but that doesn't prevent me from having a great many opinions–as can be seen in this interview and this post. And of all the laundry list of potential topics I offered them when we were discussing programming, this was  the one they chose.

I suspect I'm a fitting ambassador to the literary crowd when it comes to game: I'm one of their own, and we understand one another. And I'm able to talk about game, particularly as it relates to storytelling, in ways that make sense to non-gamers: especially non-gamers of the literary variety.

One of the things I'd like to do for this very literary crowd I'll be addressing is to offer them a list of games that do an effective job of telling stories. I've got a little list of my own, but I'd like to get more game-wise minds to contribute as well. So here is the question, and I hope you'll address it in the comments wherever this post comes into your feed:

What games do the best job of telling a story? I'm particularly looking for games that do one or more of:

(a) give the player a rich experience of an existence not their own, the way we can in a well-written novel

(b) make the player truly engage with the problem set

(c) make the player explore serious questions, whether they are questions of morality and ethics or other topics that truly engage the mind and heart

(d) give the player a story experience s/he would never have in a novel

Game doesn't get the respect it deserves as a storytelling medium. This is an opportunity to help shift the thinking of some fairly influential minds. If you could get a literary snob to play just one game, what would you offer them as a gateway drug? Add your suggestions in the comments–or, if you're having a fit of shyness, email me.

And if you happen to be within range of the Library of Congress, I'll be there on April 12th, appearing at their "What If?" speakers series. I think the presentation is at noon, but I'll be there most of the day. Stop in and say hi.

Come see me at MidSouthCon

I'll be at MidSouthCon this weekend with Mercury Retrograde's own Anna Branscome. This is always a fun con. We'll be hanging out and taking in panels, and I'll be sitting on a few panels myself. Here's where you can find me:

Friday 8 PM Friday Night Book Club: Fantasy

Settle in w guests for a cozy chat about your favorite fantasy stories.

Friday 10 PM Diversity in Spec Fic

Saturday 10 PMThe Modes of Publication (Moderator)

Big house? Small press? Self-publish? How do you decide which option is best for you?

And from 4PM to 5PM Saturday I'll be doing a book signing in the Pro Row. Stop by and chat!

The Time to Do It Right

The clock is ticking. I swear I can hear it in my sleep. I don't even have time to be here writing this entry.

It would be easy to assume that I have the time to do exactly what I want, when I want to: I'm the boss around here, right? In a sense that is true. But I am also very aware of the promises I've made, on both sides of the desk, and so very behind on all of them. I continually try to do too much.

Most importantly, for our purposes here now, I'm way behind in the study. The one-year anniversary of the release of The Shadow of the Sun is next month, and I'm still writing the sequel. In fact I'm writing the next two books simultaneously, for a variety of reasons I don't have time to get into here–some of which are discussed in the previous post. And this week I found a new way to put more pressure on myself. Yeah, I'm pretty good at that.

This week, in the midst of planning a scene in the third novel (which is what I'm supposed to be working on) I realized that I had overlooked some details of the wider story when I was developing one of the act breaks of novel #2: seemingly small details of what-else-is-going-on, natural outgrowths of a plot development that will take place entirely off-camera but which will matter late in novel #3. It would be out of character for either of the PoVs I am writing on this pass to have overlooked those details; it was obvious, as soon as I'd realized the omission, that I must go back and weave those details in.

So far, not so bad, right? I went back into Novel #2, right before the act break in question, and began looking at how the facts would play into those scenes. A whole group of new players had to be brought onto the stage; I had to stop and work out a couple aspects of worldbuilding I'd been mentioning but not fleshing out, even in my head, and then weave them in. Took me a precious day, but the results were well worth it.

And then my two PoV characters were in the same room, and interacting, and suddenly I found myself tripping over the edge of a veritable plot sinkhole.

Oh, yes, I know this territory. I was skirting the edges of one of the central problems of the series, a piece of backstory that I won't otherwise be addressing for another two novels. This problem is the Third Rail of this part of the series: both an engine that drives major stretches of story and a thing that is so deep and complex that to touch it is to immediately lose all forward momentum. It's a mind-trap.

And I don't have time for that right now. I've got to get a novel out.

All the pro writers in the room are nodding vigorously: they've all been here. The wisdom of the deadline tells us to step away at this point, to slap a bit of paint on that scene and go make the deadline. By last night I had talked myself around to that position, promising myself a nice stretch of open weeks to do nothing but solve this problem right before beginning work on Novel #4, and resolved to come into the study this morning and start slapping on the paint.

I couldn't quite do it. I convinced myself to look up one more thing while I ate my breakfast in front of the computer. That was the Muse whispering into my ear, of course; in short order I was entirely seduced by the tantalizing closeness of understanding. I learned things about the classical references I'm working from this week of which I had been completely unaware; it sucked me in, and I dug around in references, and gradually throughout the course of the day I built the framework I needed to do justice to this half a scene I need to finish before moving forward.

It ate the day. By this evening I was once again flagellating myself for allowing myself to get sucked into the seduction of research.

But then something magical happened. I sat down, "last thing before calling it another wasted day", and made notes on the scene I was planning. And what I realized I had pieced together in the back of my brain was not merely something that would fill the rhythmic hole in character interactions that I couldn't go forward without addressing–but something that offered an entirely new lens on not one but both of the primary plots' conflicts in this novel.

I couldn't have planned that, not with the left side of my brain. But the right side, the Muse, is smarter than me–as usual.  I had almost forgotten the importance of allowing myself the time to do things right. I had nearly fallen into the trap that separates the guild craftsman from the artist. And now I am reminded of the critical importance of following the instincts I spent so many years developing.

We all have those instincts, that knowledge of what is necessary. Sometimes there's a lot of pressure on us to push those instincts aside in the interests of doing what we think is expected of us. But those slow-moving instincts are the source of the art we create, and we try to push them aside or put them on schedules at our artistic peril.

But I'm still behind, and so I have to race on again. As quickly as my slow creative brain can.