Barbara G. Tarn's Blog, page 192

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome, Sunday visitors and regular readers and special thanks to those who comment.

So, It's 9/11… I'm not American, but I have many American friends, and I can't forget either.

From my sci-fi novella Soul Stealers which is set mostly in 22nd century New York, my tribute to this day and this city… the future New York in six sentences!

***

Beth strolled with her friend Frances under a spring sun. Manhattan looked slightly different, compared to the movies in Beth's archives: the preexisting buildings had been transformed inside into self-sufficient apartments, and all the company logos had disappeared. There were no offices anymore, just shops or shopping malls at ground level, and food places without human waiters.

Times Square screens showed views of a reborn planet, with wilderness next to uncultivated fields, and very few towns. New York City itself was now only the isle of Manhattan, as the rest had been destroyed and nature had reclaimed the land. Traffic flew smoothly ten feet off the ground or over the still standing bridges, while pedestrians filled the streets.

***

Soul Stealers is available on Smashwords, Kindle and Lulu for the print version.

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check the other wonderful authors on the official blog.

WoW Saturdays

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

"Don't ask a writer what he's working on. It's like asking someone with cancer on the progress of their disease."

- Luke Angel

Books are more than bits of paper or pixels on a screen. Creating them should be an act of love, and if we create them with love, they will be received with love, and passed on with love.

- David Farland

Never do anything that gets in the way of the writing. Stay away from stupid self-promotion beyond your own web site, and just write the next story and the next book. In other words, be a writer, a person who writes.

- Dean Wesley Smith

This is why I always tell people, write it however you want. It's your book. There should be one person on this planet who's happy with your book, and that person might as well be you. So go and write your book the way you want to and screw all naysayers.

- Ruth Ann Nordin

"The writer, when he is an artist, is someone admits what others don't dare reveal." – Elia Kazan

"Even the best writer has to erase." – Spanish Proverb

Musings on rewriting

All these musings are not meant to teach anything, just thoughts on how I do things. Now, most people say writing is hard and writing is rewriting. For me none of it is true. Stories pour out of me quite easily, especially when it's fantasy (or sci-fi) and no research is involved. Making up stuff is easy for me, probably because I've been doing it unconsciously for 30+ years – and I got stuck when I started research or attempted a new method/genre with the historical novel, so more programming for me results in writer's block! Talk about being unconventional…

Also for 25+ years I had no readers but myself for most stories, so they were really one-draft stories. Sometimes I rewrote them one or ten years later, once I had a never-ending rewrite on one particular story, but basically it was one-draft-is-perfect.

Then I found reader friends and started rewriting. Then I started reading books and going to writing courses/workshops and more rewriting happened. Then I started researching the market and started blogging and more rewriting ensued. Then I had a writer burn out (last year, in case you were already reading this blog). Then I read Dean Welsey Smith's Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series – especially the chapters on speed and rewriting – and decided I should dare to be bad and stop the endless rewrites that left so many of my fellow writers in Rewriting Hell (the prose version of screenwriting's Development Hell).

If you keep rewriting, trying to please every reader/crit partner, you'll lose sight of your original vision and what story you wanted to tell. Especially if you keep all the drafts (which I didn't do at some point, but I do now) you often end up going back to the first version of the story. So why bother? That's why now I finish my first draft, get it out to as many betas and critters I can find (including The Editor) – and all get the very same draft – then I work on a second and final draft with all the feedback I get. And out it goes, the readers out there will be the final judges.

Any feedback is personal. Even mine, if I get to critique or read your piece, no matter how impartial I try to be, it still will be my view. So learn to take the feedback for what it is (and don't take it personally if the writer who asked you for feedback ignored what you said). Of course if two or more people notice something, there's something wrong there. Only one? Might be his/her perspective. I might consider it, think about it and maybe discard it in the end, knowing what I wanted to say in the first place.

I can't believe my faithful beta is still tweaking her baby after 10+ years, no matter what we tell her (we love your voice! We love your story! We love your protag! Wrap it up an write the sequel!!). I think she's afraid of letting it go. And I guess you need courage to let go. Personally, I have so many stories to tell, I don't want to linger on one for too long. Either I shelve it and move on, or I publish it and move on. But then, I have a backlog of 500+ titles. Half of them (probably more) will never be published, but I wouldn't have them if I had stayed with First Shiny Idea and Second Shiny Idea forever, would I?

So, stick to Heinlen rules (and check the comments of the post as well, some pros are jumping in the discussion) and keep writing (and not rewriting! )!

Musings on beta/crit partners

So, I'm still looking. For beta-readers, crit partners, anyone willing to have a look at my writing because I need an external eye to judge it before I dare to be bad and put it out there.

I'd love to swap, but I'm aware that I'm faster and much more prolific than the majority of writers – beginners or not – so I probably need more than one or two, so I won't submerge the poor volunteer without being able to return the favor.

My offline writers group takes too long to go through a novel (and mine are around 85000words, so not that long, but at 10/20 pages per month with summer break, it still takes years), so I tried online groups. David Farland's Writers Forum was a great place for genre writers, with members of both sexes – but again I seemed to be the only prolific (and indie) writer in my group and I couldn't have one full novel looked at. Not to mention that it died after six months for lack of both submissions and critiques.

I don't like reading in installments – I'm plot and character oriented and need to read a complete story to be able to critique. And I need feedback on completed works, I don't need to brainstorm ideas. I have my loose outline and just write from start to finish without writers block. Now, I might read a partial if you're really stuck and need suggestions, but I'd rather not do it.

So I joined Ladies Who Critique in search of this elusive crit partner and I might have found some. I've also found a brilliant Goodreads group of reviewers and other indie authors that truly support each other, and of course I have my trusted beta and dear editor.

Anyway, I'm making new friends, but I'm afraid this year I'll have to stick to paid editors – which means my first year as indie author will close with a very red balance. But it's a long term investment on myself and I sure hope it will take off within the five years plan.

Now let me prepare to give the Tales of the Southern Kingdoms (two short story collections that can be read as novels as the stories are sequential) to my faithful beta – except we're so much on the same wavelength, she doesn't make many comments! As long as she catches plot inconsistencies, confusing passages and clunky grammar and typos, it's fine, though…

Went through one already published Tale of the Southern Kingdoms on my Kindle ans saw a couple of those darn things (typos, what else?), so I better go through the edited, complete version again before sending it out!

Musings on writing

Because I've had two excellent editors going through my writing and their advice did get through even if I didn't apply it every time, I've been thinking about how my prose is changing but still remains the same.

I'm thinking about the "write what you know" law which to me becomes "write what you want to read". So no purple prose from me, and lots of dialog. Mostly two senses in writing, because that's what I use the most in life – eyes and ears. And when I read prose I don't want long descriptive blocks of text, I only need a short sentence to sparkle my imagination.

So I'm not very descriptive, as I have a visual imagination (with years of movies and comics/graphic novels on my back, how couldn't I?), but actually, now that I think about it, I'm a sounds writer, because I don't feel the need to describe things physically. I did in the past, but not anymore – and get upset when someone spends pages on physical descriptions, because it blurs my vision and I can't see a damn thing.

So I guess I'm mostly a sound-writer, or better a human voices writer. I tend to write what I hear in my head. If I use a deep penetration POV, I'll sound like an omniscient narrator anyway during conversations as I don't put many details in besides the spoken lines.

True that I'm not really a talking head and I should squeeze in a little body language – it wouldn't hurt – but adding surrounding details? Not so much. I mean, personally, if I'm talking to someone, I concentrate on the person in front of me (unless my mindwanders off on her own, but that's another story) so I'm not really picking detail on what's going on around us unless there's a big disturbing sound that interrupts the conversation and distract us.

I like to create my own images, that's why I don't like extensive written descriptions – they confuse me more than help me (and bore me, so I just skip them) – but I do need to write down every single word I hear uttered in my head.

As for body language, I guess I'm limited to my own, so my characters mostly shrug (and yeah, they do shrug a lot!), nod, shake their heads and sometimes snort. But then this goes back to the "write what you know" which naturally translates into "write what you feel is natural to you", the writer, so most of your characters will behave like you even if they have completely different goals and wants.

Also, probably because I'm used to following stories on visual media, I can easily skip the "boring bits". Even when reading, I don't need to know your character went to the bathroom (I'm assuming s/he does if s/he's human) or what he ate, unless something happens that pushes the story forward on that occasion. I'm not interested in what menu is on their table or what objects are in their house, unless they come into play (who said "If you put a gun in scene one you better use it later"?).

That's why I'm quite fast-paced in my storytelling and like fast-paced stories as well. The thing that upsets me the most is reading a novel where nothing happens. If I want to read a day/month/year in the life of someone, I'll look for a biography or a non-fiction book. A story is conflict, internal or external, I don't care (I'm not a big action fan), but something must happen – and possibly fast.

Do I make any sense?

Do you, as a writer, linger in descriptions?

Do you, as a reader, look for long descriptions otherwise you can't feel the book or are you for a more dry prose that takes you on a roller-coaster ride?

Musings on punctuation

I've had an email conversation with one of my two editors about what a writer should accept or not from a pro editor – which was a topic she started on her blog. I commented I take 50% of it because I don't want to lose my "voice" and then she wrote me in private to ask me more, which ended up in a discussion about style, more than voice. Which taught me that "style" is closer to "formatting guidelines" than "voice", but you never stop learning, right?

OK, keep in mind that my original punctuation isn't even in English as I've written in my mother tongue (Italian) for over 30 years. In Italian dashes are used for dialog, so I had to change to quotation marks for dialogs in English, and that was unsettling for me at first. That's because I used them for thoughts, which I now write in italics (or as third person deep penetration) – while I used the italics only for telepathic conversations in Italian or to highlight words. In typewriters day I used all caps to highlight a word in a sentence, but thanks to computer I now use italics for either foreign words or to highlight words (like, I really mean it, damn it!)- right or not.

I learned the correct use of dashes for interrupting dialog when I was writing screenplays (when I had to switch from the British spelling I grew up with to American spelling and punctuation – so you see I'm fairly new to American spelling/punctuation, although it's now 10 years, out of 46 I might add) and I hated it (along with Courier New, but that's another story! ). For me interruptions or lingering sentences are all done with ellipses, and that's the only thing you'll ever find in my dialog. It wasn't fixed in Air, and I'm not going to change it now. I understand it might upset some editor or reader, but I guess it's now part of my voice (but I might be wrong with that, of course).

After six years with an English speaking offline writers group (where the British members are harder to please than the American when it comes to style and punctuation and everything) I've learned to take critiques for what they're worth and I've been refining my English voice at my best. Although I'm still learning and yes, comments and edits are useful anyway, even if I didn't use all of them (like I said, a 50%) because I don't want to sound different in newest releases from the rest.

I'm also going to rewrite a short story because I feel there's too much input from the first beta-reader and it doesn't sound like me (besides the character evolved in the meantime, so when I read the dialog I go "Yikes, this doesn't sound like her at all!"). I'm currently writing a new story, and I'm keeping in mind all the comments and edits made on my writing as I write.

I'm afraid I'm stuck in the middle of both styles anyway – I had no idea of what a comma splice was until someone from the David Farland writer's forum (and a Swedish friend) told me about it. Now I try to avoid it, but sometimes it just doesn't always "read right" to me… And yeah, I still use lots of exclamation marks. I don't find them distracting – but that probably comes from my years of reading comics!

And as I learned English by ear or something, I'm aware I do need someone to check my grammar as well! So, future beta-reader or critique partner or editor… now you know where I come from and where I stand!

Happiness is…

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome Sunday visitors and regular readers! Today I'm giving an excerpt of my brand new release, a sci-fi (romance) novella titled Soul Stealers. In the 22nd century Beth Golden is a virtual director who uses past Hollywood icons for her movies – her latest "star" being Keanu Reeves. Until she gets a take down notice and goes to meet the guy accusing her of image copyright infringement. Here's the meeting.

***

He came back and sat by the wall of pictures, throwing the baseball cap on the table in front of him – it landed near the closed laptop.

Beth gasped as indeed she was staring at a flesh and blood Keanu who looked back with defiance.

"I'm a father, I have a family, I'm not interested in playing with pictures," he said. "And I don't want to be famous like my look-alike of the past. I want the world to forget me as I forget the world."

"But you still follow what happens in the world," she blurted, recovering some form of control over herself and pointing at the closed laptop.

***

For complete book blurb and buy link go here, or to the Kindle store, or if you're a fan of dead tree books here.

Now hop back to the official blog for more six sentence goodies! Have a great Sunday!

WoW Saturday

Both "writers on writing" and "words of wisdom" can be shortened with the same word. Thus, welcome to WoW Saturdays, June to September 2011. Enjoy this collection of writers quotes throughout the summer.

Here's the thing: Most authors are inherently insecure; it seems to go with the creative mind. They need to hear how much someone believes in them; that their writing is appreciated; that their labors are worth serious money. So it doesn't take a brainy agent to know the points of vulnerability most authors have. The poacher's bait probably varies little, as he or she moves along, snatching up vulnerable authors with the same hook and line.

- agent Janet Kobobel Grant

The real gatekeepers are the readers.  They are not publishers.  Readers will decide if a book is worth buying or not.  They're the ones who make the final investment.

- blogger Ruth Ann Nordin

At this moment in history most writers and all newer writers have no0 backbone. Writers as a class do not believe that their work is their art. And they are not willing to defend it and keep learning from their mistakes and keep working to make their art better.

- Dean Wesley Smith

The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master – something that at times strangely wills and works for itself.

- Charlotte Bronte

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense."

- Mark Twain

Friday read

It should have been a Review Friday, but as I said, these two weeks are a little exceptional.

First of all I wanted to point you to the six sentences of a lovely lady who wrote this piece about a child, but I could recognize myself in it even if I'm no longer a child.

"I only imagined how difficult it must have been for her not to be able to express exactly what she wanted and/or needed in a way others could understand.

Coupled with that was that those people she couldn't communicate with tried teaching her how to communicate using methods she didn't feel comfortable using. In fact, even when Jaimie tried expressing herself, she was told it "wasn't the right way." Then those people tried making Jaimie do things their way—their "right way"—without trying variations of their way to see what worked best. Finally, how she related to those people changed on a daily basis depending on her own sensitivity levels. If she wasn't able to deal with a person's smell, for example, she wasn't able to concentrate on the task at hand, which caused frustration on both sides."

Talk about touching. That's why I feel an outsider sometimes… and sometimes a rebel, because I refuse to follow some rules that are passed as the only right way to do things. There is no right or wrong way, there's each's personal way in everything. Take it from someone who tried desperately to fit in until she realized she shouldn't force herself to be what the others wanted her to be.

Next week you'll have some musings about writing and everything related as I relax with my nephew AND my Kindle – my wonderful techie bro set up the wi-fi, so I'm all set to start a TBR digital list! I guess he deserves a BIG present for his upcoming b-day!

Working on SKYBAND (which might have found more readers), I did the cover for the next chapter:

and it so reminded me of the Sweeties, or the original Mercenaries?! (you might remember the working title for this graphic novel was New Mercenaries) as you can see here:

Of course I've become better at coloring with Photoshop, so the next generation looks better! I'm also noticing now that Birdsong (first on the left) has the same shirt as Brayan (upper drawing blond guy with long hair)… but it's OK, as Birdsong is actually Brayan's uncle!

Now, to today's announcement: Soul Stealers is now available on Smashwords and Lulu (and even on Kindle, this time I uploaded the Smashwords .mobi file and it went live much quicker)! I didn't do a book trailer for this one, so enjoy the cover only… and happy birthday, Keanu!