Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 68

GenCon 2013 Part 3

Before I write anything more about my trip to GenCon 2013, I thought I’d best take a moment to describe the physical environment. The convention center lies at the very heart of downtown Indianapolis and is surrounded by a great number of hotels, many of which are connected to the convention center via skywalks. As far as I can tell, the entire center is given over to GenCon, which is pretty incredible because you could probably store a fleet of 747s inside.

Nearby hotels roll out the red carpet, issuing keys emblazoned with game-related pictures and renaming menu items. The city closes down a side street beside the center and food trucks are brought in to provide an alternative to the fast food served in the convention’s concession areas. Within the hall itself, great banners display images from various games. Even tables are decorated, some of them doubling as game boards.

A GenCon food court table, complete with part of my lunch.

Board games and role-playing games are both undergoing a resurgence, and convention goers can sit down to try out vast numbers of them, both in separate rooms and in the grand exhibition hall itself. Speaking of which – that hall has to be seen to be believed. I don’t actually remember what the official title of the place is, for I took to calling it the Hall of Treasures some years back. It’s an apt description.

I tried to convey the grandeur of the place and the wonders to be found there, but I don’t think that Lou and Scott and Saladin – all first time con goers – believed me until they saw it for themselves. Imagine the coolest merchant hall you’ve ever seen at a convention, then multiply the amount of interesting stuff there by a factor of at least fifty. Still don’t believe me? How’s this. Any time I was wandering the hall and had to get to a panel, I had to allow myself at least ten minutes to cross from the far side of the hall to the exit closest to the Writer’s Symposium. RPGs, board games, geeky t-shirts, steam punk gear, anime, dice, books, fantastic art work, furniture designed for gamers… I could go on and on. If any of this sounds of interest, you should really just get to the con.

A light traffic moment in the Hall of Treasure.

After the opening day, things are a bit of a blur for me. Oh, I remember many key moments, some of which are likely to remain with me forever, but there are enough similarities to my activities each day that I think a detailed breakdown would bore you. Much of each day was spent either sitting on panels at the Writer’s Symposium – an excellent, excellent program for writers that I’ll detail elsewhere – or at the Paizo booth in the Hall of Treasure. Occasionally there were breaks where I’d join authors and friends, or have an opportunity to wander the hall myself!

If you happen to think that success never happens to the nice guys, I can hold up in rebuttal the astonishing successes of some of my writer friends… or the folks at Paizo. Everyone at Paizo, from the owners to the publishers to the editors to whomever stands on the lower rungs (and it’s hard to tell who those are, because ALL OF THEM are working the floor, managers and editors included) seem to love what they’re doing. While watching them at work you sense a real esprit de corps. The folks at Paizo know that they are creating something greater than the sum of its parts, and that they’re part of something special. It’s sort of like watching the early Beatles, I suppose, because there’s zest and vibrancy and innovation and you wish you could be a part of it. Paizo just keeps raising the bar, as evidenced not just by their continued accumulation of Ennies but by the ongoing excellence of their game books.

Customers queuing up to buy the new Paizo card game.

And they’re good people. There’s not a one I’ve met that I don’t like. The two I know best are publisher Erik Mona (with whom I never truly crossed paths this year, alas, so I will not describe him in depth here) and Fiction Editor James Sutter. James is a bright, talented guy who loves his job and approaches his line with great care and enthusiasm. My wife described him as “genuinely sweet” and though this may put my manliness into question, I must concur.

There was a long gap between my first and second Paizo Pathfinder novel, but I mean to be more involved going forward, and James seemed to be pretty pleased with the new characters and ideas I pitched him when we sat down for a meeting Friday.

While at the Paizo booth I got to better know Chris Jackson, whose first Pathfinder novel Pirate’s Honor was recently released, and Richard Lee Byers, long time Forgotten Realms writer, whose own Pathfinder novel, Called to Darkness, came out only a little while ago. When he’s not crafting pirate tales for Pathfinder, Chris is writing naval adventures of his own. He’s a wonderful fellow with a cheery disposition and a vast knowledge of the ocean, owing to the fact he spends most of his life living on a boat. I spent a little less time with Richard, but found him soft spoken, kind, and possessed of a quiet humor. I look forward to getting to know him better.

Cool steampunk gear!

The Pathfinder author I know best by far is Dave Gross, who pretty much took me under his wing for my first several GenCons. He ensured I knew people both at Paizo and in the RPG industry at large. He’s quite popular, as evidenced by the queue of Pathfinder Tales fans who were lining up to get his newest novel signed. He has four of them now! Dave has a quietly sharp sense of humor that can sneak up on you. One joke – which I cannot repeat – left me with a fit of recurring giggles for about fifteen minutes. He’s a gentleman, though, and generous with his time and wisdom. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of Kung Fu movies and film in general.

What else can I say about the folks at Paizo? It seemed like they went out of their way to accommodate me and be helpful for all their authors and customers. Chris Self in particular spent a great deal of time sorting out some confusion over the room I’d booked.

While outside the great hall I occasionally met up with other friends. It was a delight to talk with my old friend Patrick Kanouse, with whom I used to work some twenty years ago when I lived in Indianapolis. Thursday my friend Saladin Ahmed arrived, and I joined him and writer Andrew Zimmerman Jones in one of the crowded eateries. Andrew’s a bright, bright guy and I wish I saw him more often. And Saladin, he’s my comrade-in-arms. When his face lit up as he caught sight of me it warmed the cockles of my cold, cold heart.

If any of you readers out there are wondering what Saladin’s like in person, well, he’s humble and caring and has a self-deprecating sense of humor. It’s always a joy to relax at his side, and one of my favorite moments of the con came later one evening when we walked into a gathering separately. Maurice Broaddus asked Saladin and me if the two of us had met. “Oh yeah,” Saladin replied, “we’re sword brothers.”

I’ll talk about the Writer’s Symposium and the panels at greater length at Black Gate, which frankly gets a lot more hits than my own site. I want to make sure I draw as much attention to the symposium as possible, because I believe it’s a fine, fine program. Here I’ll just say that one of the interesting behind-the-scenes effects to being on a panel is that you get a sense of some of your colleagues. And at GenCon, at least, that was always a pleasant experience.

For instance, even though I’ve known of Jim Hines for years and we’ve exchanged an occasional hello, I finally got a sense of who he was in person by sitting beside him on a panel (he’s a good guy, in case you were curious). Maurice Broaddus and I struck up a conversation over our identical phones, a prelude to a great talk we were to have later that evening.

Occasionally I got to spend additional time with new writer friends between panels, as I did with Erin Evans, writer and WoTC editor, who’d just finished writing one of the new Forgotten Realms Sundering novels.

Monday I’ll take one more look at GenCon 2013 and a few more favorite moments, including a great game session. What’s GenCon without a game or two?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GenCon 2013 Part 2

Lou Anders and Brad Beaulieu.

Strange things happen over the inter webs. No, I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about how friendships can develop in ways different from any in previous generations. Four years ago I briefly met Lou Anders for the first time at DragonCon. We shook hands, said a few words, then, things being busy, went about our lives. Slowly, over the last couple of years, we’ve become close friends. Yet it was all done over the Internet and primarily over Facebook as we’ve commented upon one another’s posts and chatted via IM. We’d never actually been around each other AS friends, so I wondered if it would feel a little odd when I picked him up at the Indianapolis airport Wednesday and drove into town for GenCon.

It turns out no, not really. Neither of us was particularly used to the other’s physical presence, but we were over that in a matter of minutes and during the short drive in were quickly catching up on a host of mutual interests — primarily gaming, given our destination. Lou’s passionate about fantasy and science fiction, and I suppose you could say that he wears his heart on his sleeve. You can tell he loves the books he works on, and he loves his authors. James Enge has told me that he’d take a bullet for Lou, which is fine praise indeed. He is, simply put, a great guy doing great things. Some of the most fun I had at the con was wandering around with Lou and taking it all in. He is a never ending source of hilarious stories and pretty astonishing experiences — and is smart, dedicated, tireless, and fearless. Some of you may recall my own dilemma about introducing myself to Wil Wheaton. Well, Lou just went and did it, damn the torpedoes, and had a great chat with him. Fortune favors the bold.

Marc Tassin and Beth Vaughan.

Lou and I had a second room mate at GenCon, Scott Lynch. I met Scott for the first time at ConFusion two years ago. I had wandered into the hotel bar with my pic of the cover of The Bones of the Old Ones and was sitting with Myke Cole and a few other writer friends when a tall fellow with long hair and glasses walked up and said he’d love to blurb that because the first one was great. He quickly realized he wasn’t yet wearing his name tag, so introduced himself, and then I was left stammering as he said a few more kind words and wandered off. Scott, you see, is one of my very favorite modern fantasy writers. After that meeting, some of my most enjoyable con moments of the last few years have been across the table from Scott talking pacing, plot technique, and character arcs.

So what’s Scott like? Well, he’s insightful, well-spoken, and brilliant, but never in an “I know more than you” way. And he’s very kind. In fact, despite the fact he could probably bend a lot of us introverted writer types in half, he is one of the gentlest souled people I know, to the point I feel strangely protective of him.

The room pre-clutter with Con treasure.

Lou and I reached Indy early enough to drop our bags in the hotel room at the Omni Severin and then wandered over to the convention center where we soon bumped into James Sutter and Wes Schneider, two editorial powerhouses from Paizo. We took in the sights at the Indianapolis mall attached to the hotel, then located the Spaghetti Factory where the Writer’s Symposium dinner was to be held. There I caught up with the delightful Elizabeth Vaughan, and briefly met Richard Lee Byers, not realizing at the time that I was not only going to share a panel with him, but that he was a fellow Pathfinder novelist, like Chris Jackson, sitting at a more distant table. I met others for the first time as well, like Pyr author Joel Shepherd and Writer’s Symposium volunteer Molly Findley.

Some of my other friends were there, including Dave Gross and Brad Beaulieu (whom I never seem to catch up with AT a con, only after). Scott turned up, having made a marathon drive from Wisconsin begun in the early hours of the morning, and then we set to the dinner. As usual, Marc Tassin, director of the Writer’s Symposium, had everything finely ordered. I hope he remains in charge of the Symposium for many years to come.

As dinner wound down, more and more of the writers headed out for the Diana Jones award, but Scott and Lou and Joel Shepherd and I delayed, and I ended up leading us on a wild goose chase trying to locate the bar where the event was held. I used to live in Indy, you see, and maintained a sort of misconception that I knew my way around. Fortunately, I managed to reach James Sutter via cell phone and he corrected my geographical bungle.

Matt Forbeck welcomed us into the award area with a bright smile and a drink ticket, and then we wandered into a crowded restaurant/bar. There were probably a whole bunch of interesting people I could have met, but there weren’t actually that many familiar faces. I saw some Paizo guys, of course, and one or two others — including Wil Wheaton — but for the first time in a while I was reminded of how I felt when I walked into the World Fantasy Convention at Madison. That was my first con, and upon entering its halls, I knew no one apart from my close friend E.E. Knight, and my old friend Bruce Wesley (who’d driven with me).

Monte Cook’s newest work.

Lou knew a few more people than we did and bopped off to say hello, and Joel vanished. Just up and vanished. I spoke with him again the next day, but  at the time I wondered if he’d stepped through some kind of dimensional door. Scott and I talked with author Wesley Chu, and a fan who suddenly realized who Scott was and very articulately complimented his work.

I decided not to try speaking to Wil Wheaton, but on our way out I did maneuver over to speak with Monte Cook. I lurked for a while until, feeling more and more like I was a stalker, finally just interrupted. That’s really not the way to do things, so I apologized, saying that I’d been trying to meet him in person for the last several years so I could thank him in person for the wonderful blurb he’d written for The Desert of Souls (Monte has always been where I have not, no matter our presence at various conventions).

Monte was gracious, as you might expect, and I told him how much I was looking forward to his recently-released Numenera. Scott and I then took off and I helped him carry his stuff up to the room. I also allegedly helped him with his shiny fresh air mattress, but there was no way to manually inflate the thing, and we didn’t have a pump. As it was too late to consult my wife, we did not then know what apparently is fairly common knowledge — you can inflate a lot of air mattresses with a hair dryer.

Scott resigned himself to sleeping on top of what was for all intents and purposes a lumpy piece of plastic. I ran back down to my car to get a sleeping bag, which I thought might help a little. I felt pretty terrible about the whole sleeping arrangement, but, gentleman that he is, Scott refused to take the bed.

So ended day 1.

 

 

GenCon Part 2

Lou Anders and Brad Beaulieu.

Strange things happen over the inter webs. No, I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about how friendships can develop in ways different from any in previous generations. Four years ago I briefly met Lou Anders for the first time at DragonCon. We shook hands, said a few words, then, things being busy, went about our lives. Slowly, over the last couple of years, we’ve become close friends. Yet it was all done over the Internet and primarily over Facebook as we’ve commented upon one another’s posts and chatted via IM. We’d never actually been around each other AS friends, so I wondered if it would feel a little odd when I picked him up at the Indianapolis airport Wednesday and drove into town for GenCon.

It turns out no, not really. Neither of us was particularly used to the other’s physical presence, but we were over that in a matter of minutes and during the short drive in were quickly catching up on a host of mutual interests — primarily gaming, given our destination. Lou’s passionate about fantasy and science fiction, and I suppose you could say that he wears his heart on his sleeve. You can tell he loves the books he works on, and he loves his authors. James Enge has told me that he’d take a bullet for Lou, which is fine praise indeed. He is, simply put, a great guy doing great things. Some of the most fun I had at the con was wandering around with Lou and taking it all in. He is a never ending source of hilarious stories and pretty astonishing experiences — and is smart, dedicated, tireless, and fearless. Some of you may recall my own dilemma about introducing myself to Wil Wheaton. Well, Lou just went and did it, damn the torpedoes, and had a great chat with him. Fortune favors the bold.

Marc Tassin and Beth Vaughan.

Lou and I had a second room mate at GenCon, Scott Lynch. I met Scott for the first time at ConFusion two years ago. I had wandered into the hotel bar with my pic of the cover of The Bones of the Old Ones and was sitting with Myke Cole and a few other writer friends when a tall fellow with long hair and glasses walked up and said he’d love to blurb that because the first one was great. He quickly realized he wasn’t yet wearing his name tag, so introduced himself, and then I was left stammering as he said a few more kind words and wandered off. Scott, you see, is one of my very favorite modern fantasy writers. After that meeting, some of my most enjoyable con moments of the last few years have been across the table from Scott talking pacing, plot technique, and character arcs.

So what’s Scott like? Well, he’s insightful, well-spoken, and brilliant, but never in an “I know more than you” way. And he’s very kind. In fact, despite the fact he could probably bend a lot of us introverted writer types in half he is one of the gentlest souled people I know, to the point I feel strangely protective of him.

The room pre-clutter with Con treasure.

Lou and I reached Indy early enough to drop our bags in the hotel room at the Omni Severin and then wander over to the convention center where we soon bumped into James Sutter and Wes Schneider, two editorial powerhouses from Paizo. We took in the sights at the Indianapolis mall attached to the hotel, then located the Spaghetti Factory where the Writer’s Symposium dinner was to be held. There I caught up with the delightful Elizabeth Vaughan, and briefly met Richard Lee Byers, not realizing at the time that I was not only going to share a panel with him, but that he was a fellow Pathfinder novelist, like Chris Jackson, sitting at a more distant table. I met others for the first time as well, like Pyr author Joel Shepherd and Writer’s Symposium volunteer Molly Findley.

Some of my other friends were there, including Dave Gross and Brad Beaulieu (whom I never seem to catch up with AT a con, only after). Scott turned up, having made a marathon drive from Wisconsin begun in the early hours of the morning, and then we set to the dinner. As usual, Marc Tassin, director of the Writer’s Symposium, had everything finely ordered. I hope he remains in charge of the Symposium for many years to come.

As dinner wound down, more and more of the writers headed out for the Diana Jones award, but Scott and Lou and Joel Shepherd and I delayed, and I ended up leading us on a wild goose chase trying to locate the bar where the event was held. I used to live in Indy, you see, and maintained a sort of misconception that I knew my way around. Fortunately, I managed to reach James Sutter via cell phone and he corrected my geographical bungle.

Matt Forbeck welcomed us into the award area with a bright smile and a drink ticket, and then we wandered into a crowded restaurant/bar. There were probably a whole bunch of interesting people I could have met, but there weren’t actually that many familiar faces. I saw some Paizo guys, of course, and one or two others — including Wil Wheaton — but for the first time in a while I was reminded of how I felt when I walked into the World Fantasy Convention at Madison. That was my first con, and upon entering its halls, I knew no one apart from my close friend E.E. Knight, and my old friend Bruce Wesley (who’d driven with me).

Monte Cook’s newest work.

Lou knew a few more people than we did and bopped off to say hello, and Joel vanished. Just up and vanished. I spoke with him again the next day, but  at the time I wondered if he’d stepped through some kind of dimensional door. Scott and I talked with author Wesley Chu, and a fan who suddenly realized who Scott was and very articulately complimented his work.

I decided not to try speaking to Wil Wheaton, but on our way out I did maneuver over to speak with Monte Cook. I lurked for a while until, feeling more and more like I was a stalker, finally just interrupted. That’s really not the way to do things, so I apologized, saying that I’d been trying to meet him in person for the last several years so I could thank him in person for the wonderful blurb he’d written for The Desert of Souls (Monte has always been where I have not, no matter our presence at various conventions).

Monte was gracious, as you might expect, and I told him how much I was looking forward to his recently-released Numenera. Scott and I then took off and I helped him carry his stuff up to the room. I also allegedly helped him with his shiny fresh air mattress, but there was no way to manually inflate the thing, and we didn’t have a pump. As it was too late to consult my wife, we did not then know what apparently is fairly common knowledge — you can inflate a lot of air mattresses with a hair dryer.

Scott resigned himself to sleeping on top of what was for all intents and purposes a lumpy piece of plastic. I ran back down to my car to get a sleeping bag, which I thought might help a little. I felt pretty terrible about the whole sleeping arrangement, but, gentleman that he was, Scott refused to take the bed.

So ended day 1.

 

 

GenCon 2013 Part 1 — the Wheaton Conundrum

Last Wednesday night I almost met Wil Wheaton.

Let me rephrase that. Last Wednesday night, I almost inflicted myself upon Wil Wheaton. I was standing with Scott Lynch at the Diana Jones Award, held the night before GenCon begins, and not ten feet off was Wil Wheaton, bigger than life. Well, actually, he was appropriately life-sized.

As I saw him and briefly considered introducing myself, several scenarios played through my head.

Scenario 1: Visceral 

Me: I have noticed that you are Wil Wheaton, and I wished to say that it’s really cool that you are, and how nifty it is that you are in the same room with me.

Wheaton: I praise you for your observational skills, for I am Wil Wheaton. And it is, indeed, a nifty room.

 

Scenario 2: Self-Promotional

Me: Mr. Wheaton, I love your essays. They frequently leave me chortling.

Wheaton: That’s kind of you to say. You just don’t hear the word “chortle” enough anymore. I wish to commend you for using it.

Me: Thanks! I, too, am a writer, which is how I know to employ words like “chortle” and “lugubrious.”

Wheaton: Zounds! You’re exactly the sort of writer I like to read! You should send me all of your writing, and I’ll promote it through the inter webs, which, as you know, are a series of tubes.

Scenario 3: Friend of a Friend

Me: Mr. Wheaton, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your essays and blog posts.

Wheaton: Why, thank you!

Me: We have a mutual acquaintance, John Scalzi.

Wheaton: He’s a good friend of mine!

Me: I’ve spoken with Scalzi on at least four occasions — in person even, sometimes for several minutes at a time! We’re practically brothers.

Wheaton: You should fly out and chill with me and Scalzi and Michael Dorn. We’ll do lunch and make prank phone calls.

Me: Count me in!

 

In the end I simply turned to Scott and said: “There’s Wil Wheaton.”

After consideration, Scott nodded sagely, as he is wont do do, for there was no denying the truth of my words.

“I’d like to introduce myself, but I’m not sure what I’d say.”

Again Scott nodded, which might have been because he’d reached that same conclusion, or might have been because he’d climbed out of bed at four in the morning to drive to GenCon.

 

GenCon Part 1 — the Wheaton Conundrum

Last Wednesday night I almost met Wil Wheaton.

Let me rephrase that. Last Wednesday night, I almost inflicted myself upon Wil Wheaton. I was standing with Scott Lynch at the Diana Jones Award, held the night before GenCon begins, and not ten feet off was Wil Wheaton, bigger than life. Well, actually, he was appropriately life-sized.

As I saw him and briefly considered introducing myself, several scenarios played through my head.

Scenario 1: Visceral 

Me: I have noticed that you are Wil Wheaton, and I wished to say that it’s really cool that you are, and how nifty it is that you are in the same room with me.

Wheaton: I praise you for your observational skills, for I am Wil Wheaton. And it is, indeed, a nifty room.

 

Scenario 2: Self-Promotional

Me: Mr. Wheaton, I love your essays. They frequently leave me chortling.

Wheaton: That’s kind of you to say. You just don’t hear the word “chortle” enough anymore. I wish to commend you for using it.

Me: Thanks! I, too, am a writer, which is how I know to employ words like “chortle” and “lugubrious.”

Wheaton: Zounds! You’re exactly the sort of writer I like to read! You should send me all of your writing, and I’ll promote it through the inter webs, which, as you know, are a series of tubes.

Scenario 3: Friend of a Friend

Me: Mr. Wheaton, I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your essays and blog posts.

Wheaton: Why, thank you!

Me: We have a mutual acquaintance, John Scalzi.

Wheaton: He’s a good friend of mine!

Me: I’ve spoken with Scalzi on at least four occasions — in person even, sometimes for several minutes at a time! We’re practically brothers.

Wheaton: You should fly out and chill with me and Scalzi and Michael Dorn. We’ll do lunch and make prank phone calls.

Me: Count me in!

 

In the end I simply turned to Scott and said: “There’s Wil Wheaton.”

After consideration, Scott nodded sagely, as he is wont do do, for there was no denying the truth of my words.

“I’d like to introduce myself, but I’m not sure what I’d say.”

Again Scott nodded, which might have been because he’d reached that same conclusion, or might have been because he’d climbed out of bed at four in the morning to drive to GenCon.

 

Link Man!

The other day I was joking with my sixteen-year-old son that there really ought to be a superhero who could defend Internet users from slow or broken links. (Because that would be ridiculous, of course, and we’re pretty decadent and spoiled to be complaining about slow internet connections when people are dying in the streets in other parts of the world. I thought I should mention that in case any of you actually thought I was serious.)

The next thing I knew he’d drawn up three pics, which I scanned mere moments before my printer/scanner died for the last time. Here, then, is the work of Darian Jones, provided for your amusement. Click to embiggen. Tomorrow I’ll get to some GenCon recapping.

pic copyright Darian Jones

 

Who will save Maggie from dull and broken internet links? How can she Like anything on Facebook?

 

 

pic copyright Darian Jones

 

Why it’s Link Man, defender of safe, interesting, and swift loading internet content! And he’s here to stop the menace of The Spinner !

 

pic copyright Darian Jones

 

 Link Man Triumphs again!

GenCon Photos

Every time I go to a convention I swear to myself I’ll remember to take pictures, and I never do. At GenCon this time I finally had my camera with me, but by the mid-point of the con I’d stopped snapping pics, and I never took that many. Fatigue? My natural absent-mindedness? Whatever the case, I have but a handful of pictures.

I’ve lost a lot of writing days and need to climb back into the saddle this morning, so I’ll provide a longer recap later in the week. For now, though, here are a couple of photos.

Andrew Zimmerman Jones, Saladin Ahmed, and Howard Andrew Jones illustrate the three coolest GenCon hairstyles for men.

 

Behind the game screen across from Dave Gross and Scott Lynch.

I haven’t disappeared — at least, not yet. I’ve been gett...

I haven’t disappeared — at least, not yet. I’ve been getting ready for GenCon, which has meant helping to make sure the pantry was stocked, the laundry was done, I was packed and prepped, horse fence repairs continued, etc. Add in the start of the school year for both my kids and, well, it’s been busy.

As a result, I’ve been absent from both this blog and my writing desk for the last few days. I have this crazy idea I’ll be able to report in about GenCon each day, but conventions are pretty busy, so it will all depend. When it comes down to it, I’d rather be meeting new people than hiding in my hotel room typing, so a report may have to wait until I return.

I start my drive in just a few hours. As I mentioned before, my schedule is here. I’ll be sharing a room with the Amazing Lou Anders and the Astonishing Scott Lynch. Who knows what adventures are in story for the three of us!

Hope I see you at the con.

Howard in the Heat

I ended up getting a reminder yesterday that I’m not as young as I used to be. Really there are regular reminders, but getting a mild case of heat stroke after working in the sun most of the day Thursday was a lesson I didn’t really need. It wasn’t really that hot, but by three o’clock my body was done, and by five o’clock, still feeling flushed, I wasn’t good for much else other than lying on the couch cooling off and drinking plenty of fluids. Whoops! Should have paid more attention to what my body was feeling and stopped sooner.

I was out in the pasture fixing horse fence and trimming weeds. Seems like with a large yard that kind of work just never gets done, because after six hours of hard work there are STILL repairs to be made. Today I’ll be back writing, although I’ve got to do a little prep work for my GenCon trip next week. I’ll be moderating a panel and reading from one of my works, so I need to research my topic and rehearse the story I’m going to read a time or two. I have this crazy idea that I’ll be able to report in each day while I’m at GenCon, but I’m usually so busy at conventions that never happens.

Outlining

I learned a while ago that no one method always seems to work for me when it comes to story drafting. I do have some tried and true tactics, but as I’ve told writing students, though the point is to scale the mountain and you’re likely to use the same tools each time, every mountain is a little different. You might use some of the tools less often, or not at all, or lean on some other device that you don’t usually employ.

These days I’ve been experimenting with super-detailed outlines. I found, though, in the writing of both The Bones of the Old Ones and Stalking the Beast that a super-detailed outline didn’t save me completely from having to rework things, hair loss, and general grumpiness. I’ve since hit on a second phase that really seems to be working for my new Hearthstones series. I don’t know if it will always work or if I will use it for ever book going forward, but it’s working now, so I thought I’d share it.

First, I went ahead and drafted a super-detailed outline, which took weeks. It might have taken longer, but I had these characters and the world knocking around my head for a long time. Second, once I had the outline in hand, I started drafting it almost like a loose play — my “stagey outline.” It includes snatches of dialogue, bits of scenery description, and notes to myself about when some element or creature or piece of information was introduced. I didn’t just do this for a single chapter — I wrote to the end of the novel like this, which took another week or so. It varied in some places quite considerably from the super-detailed outline because I was moving through the story with the characters, and thus their needs and wants changed it organically. That’s always a plus.

Now, as I write forward through the draft, the chapters are flowing pretty smoothly. It’s becoming one of those strong rough drafts that I used to hear about in envy. Maybe you’re one of those authors who can get the draft right after a polish or two. I’ve never been one of those writers (except with short stories) but I want to become one. I’m wondering if this is my method for making it happen.

What’s working for me may or may not work for you — every writer’s experience is different. I think it’s working for me, though, because I’m playing to one of my strengths. Dialogue always comes fairly easily for me, and dialogue is the lynch pin of this method. If the dialogue isn’t sounding right as I’m doing the “stagey outline” then I just keep massaging it until it does, without having to worry about having wasted tons of effort on description I won’t need anymore, etc.

I should also say, though, that this method wouldn’t work if I didn’t know who my characters were. Because these characters are like a second skin to me (I’ve known most of then since before I knew Dabir and Asim) the conversations flow fairly easily.

Anyone else have any outlining strategies they feel like sharing?