Melanie Edmonds's Blog, page 35

Make it visceral

One of the most common pieces of writing advice you’ll hear is ‘show, don’t tell’. It’s a favoured phrase online and offline, in person and on paper. It’s deceptively simple and often misunderstood.

I read a blog post recently that claimed it was all about making the story visual for the reader. The writer should think of their story as a movie or TV show and describe that. It’s a very literal interpretation of the ‘show’ imperative and, I believe, misses the point of the advisory phrase.

(To be clear: describing things visually is a good thing, but it’s too literal and limited as an understanding of this advice.)

What does ‘show, don’t tell’ really mean? In a nutshell: I could tell you that showing was better than telling, but it’s far more effective if I show you.

So first, let’s take a step back. What is telling and why is it bad? Why is showing better? What is this advice trying to achieve?

Telling is when you state something and expect your reader to just accept it. It’s usually simple and often glosses over details. As example:

“Jane was terrified.”

Okay, we’ve been told she is scared, but we don’t really know what that means. “Jane was frozen with terror” is better, but it’s still simplified. It has little to no emotional impact for the reader.

Showing is conveying the same message to the reader by describing the effects of the thing, often without naming the thing (though you can). Taking the example above, the ‘showing’ version could be something like:

“Jane’s mouth went dry and her pulse thrashed in her ears. Every muscle froze while her mind ran in tiny, panicking circles. The worst part was that she couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t do anything but stare as it approached her, step by ground-eating step.”

We’re not told that Jane is terrified; her reaction shows it to us. The reader is drawn into the emotion, must empathise with her to understand her reaction, and is taken along with poor Jane.

What is ‘show, don’t tell’ trying to achieve? Better connection of the reader with the writing, better immersion, and a more convincing story. Readers will quickly grow bored with a story that simply tells them things and doesn’t demonstrate what’s going on. Such tales end up feeling very ‘surface’ but depth is preferable. You should be aiming to grab your reader and drown them in your world, your characters, and your story. Hook them hard and they’ll stay for the whole ride. They’ll come out begging for more.

There’s also a level of trust at work here. Telling relies on the reader simply believing whatever it is you’re saying; showing proves it. It’s the difference between saying ‘I’ve got the most awesome gun you’ve ever seen’ and whipping out that gun so the reader can make that judgement for themselves. Forcing an opinion on someone is much harder than leading them in the right direction and letting them do the work themselves. A shown story is more convincing than a told one for this reason.

Still confused? Here are a few more examples:

“Jack was bored.”

That’s nice, but what does boredom mean for Jack? Why do we care? Can we move on already?

” Jack considered the grain of the table in front of him. He started to count the rings, but he got distracted by a peel of skin next to the nail on his right thumb. As he chewed on it, he stared at the ceiling, noted the start of a crack in the corner, then checked his watch. Had it really only been ten minutes?”

This shows us something about Jack’s character and situation, and gets the reader involved in his state of mind.

“Mary crossed the road. Men in a nearby cafe looked at her and she smiled.”

This doesn’t really tell us much other than the bare actions. Why are the men looking at her? Why is she smiling? Does she know them? Is it relief? Why did the Mary cross the road?

“Mary’s stride lengthened as she stepped off the kerb and arrowed across the wide expanse of tarmac. The high heels of her boots put a sway in her hips that made her feel feminine in a dangerous way, like she was prowling this concrete savannah for prey to sink her teeth into.

“A pocket of silence at a nearby cafe table pressed at her awareness and she felt the eyes upon her, like hungry, drooling dogs. They knew she was queen of the street. She was sexy and magnetic. That feeling bubbled up in her chest until she couldn’t help but smile.”

This time, we know how she crossed the road, and why she might attract attention. A simple smile is put into context. We still don’t know why the Mary crossed the road, but as a reader, we know that this scene has some purpose other than getting her to the other side.

Going back to the blog post that claimed it was all about visuals, consider the ‘showing’ examples above again. How much of them are visual? Very little.

As a writer, you have far more tools than mere sight to use: you have all of the senses, as well as thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams, and metaphors at your disposal. You can put meaning in the tiniest gesture, in the fact that the character speaks too much or not at all, in those tiny fleeting thoughts that take the edge off a smile.

All of these things can be used to ‘show’ your readers your story. Text is a very different medium to movies and TV shows, so enjoy it!

By showing, you can layer your narrative with so much more than just pictures and action. This is where your characterisation can be deeper and jump out of the story. This is where your language can be rich and evocative. Revel in the detail and all that it can do for you, and show us what you’ve got.

Inconsiderate art

I love graffiti. By this, I mean graffiti art, not tagging. I hate tagging. I don’t get it. It’s juvenile, it’s ugly, it’s pointless, and all it proves is that someone can be a dick with a can of spray paint. It’s vandalism, straight up. It’s not art (nor is it intended to be, as far as I can tell).

But the other stuff is different. I enjoy the surprise art on my way to work every morning, the splashes of colour snuck onto walls and pillars and panels. Words I can’t read, symbols that mean nothing to me personally, but it’s art. It’s colourful and bright, and far more interesting to look at than blank concrete or brick or wood. I can appreciate the skill that goes into it. There used to be a huge graffiti ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ about halfway to work, and it made me smile every time I saw it. (I was so sad when it got painted over.)

One morning last week, I looked up from my usual typing on my way to work (my train commute is when I get most of my writing done these days), and my love for graffiti trembled.

Near the stations approaching the city centre, there are a number of murals. They’re community projects and they brighten up an otherwise pretty dingy section of track. They’re well done and lovely in their own right.

We lost one over a year months ago, when a graffiti artist decided to splurge a (badly-done) word-vomit across it. Last week, the long mural that stretches the whole distance between two stations and celebrates the local creative arts got the same treatment. A large section of it is covered in graffiti now. More of it is peppered with tags. The beautiful eagle that covers an entire wall has even got a tag on it.

For fuck’s sake. There are plenty of blank surfaces around to put that shit on, and they have to go and do it on someone else’s artwork? Art that someone has gone to the trouble of getting permission to put up. Art that was done in conjunction with a school (at least one of the murals had a school’s name on it). How many hearts did they just break?

I know if it was my work, I’d be in tears. I know how hard it is to put your work – your art – out there in the world for others to see. I know how hard it can be to hear harsh words said about it, to get negative feedback. I can’t imagine how it must feel to have it just destroyed like that.

Because of people like that, artwork has been painted over and lost to all of us (the council paints over graffiti regularly with plain paint). Are they creating something just as awesome in its place? No, they’re not. Graffiti artists should aspire to be as awesome as those mural artists. It’s what they should grow up to be.

I’m astounded by such selfishness and lack of respect for someone else’s art. I’m saddened that something that brightened my day has been taken away.

Grow up, graffiti artists. Or fuck off, if that’s your attitude, because I don’t have time for you. You make me sad and angry.

Mad writing specialness

When I was sorting out the library room for my Creative Writing Group for this year, I was informed that I couldn’t have the room in April. At all. It was booked out for some month-long event. For about five minutes, I was upset. Then I shrugged and decided to see it as an opportunity to do something a bit different.

April used to mean Script Frenzy, a challenge to write a script in a month brought to you by the OLL (the same people who do NaNoWriMo every year). However, it ended last year; there won’t be one this time around. It’s a shame, because I had hoped to take part one year. But it seems that April is opening up for writers all over.

Now, we all know that I can get a bit ambitious when it comes to writing events. My ‘let’s do something a bit different’ impulse is what led to the Writer’s Retreat. I’ve got a lot on my plate this year, so I shouldn’t go too crazy here. Right? Yeah, okay.

So naturally, ‘we can’t have an hour and a half’s CWG meeting’ prompted the question ‘why don’t we do a day of writing things instead?’ Because that’s a logical progression. My brain immediately leaned towards the notion of making a day out of it, of making it something special, a stand-out event in the year rather than just a fill-in thing we did because we couldn’t do our regular meeting.

I might as well aim high, right?

That was the extent of my pondering late last year, when I got the confirmation of my CWG dates. Then other distractions took over and I put it to the side. After all, April was months away.

It’s a little closer now and my brain is, apparently, a bit restless. So I got to thinking about what we could do, where we could go, options options options.

The easiest thing would be to use the Monthly Write-in time to do something for the whole day (it’s on a Saturday, which means I won’t have to juggle work). That means we could use the cafe where we usually write. Venue and time: easy.

But what to do? We get together and write all the time. It should be different to that. It should be challenging and invigorating. It should be inspirational. Everyone should be able to walk away feeling positive and good about what they’ve done that day. And it should be drop-in, drop-out, because not everyone can make day-long events.

That’s how I wound up with the notion of let’s do a day of writing challenges. Not just writing prompts, but actual challenges. Not snippets, but longer pieces (500-1,000 words). On the hour, every hour, for a whole day. A variety of stuff, things that people might not normally try in their writing. Challenges to push and stretch us.

Uh oh. I feel a plan forming.

I think this can work. I’m already thinking of ways we could make it more awesome. We could have an online version, and post the challenges up online (on here?) so people who can’t make it to the event can still join in. I could see if my lovely friend Sarah would want to start us off with Writercise, a bit of gentle exercise and mind-prep for a day of writing. She created it for the Writer’s Retreat and everyone loved it. I could also see if the QWC would want to be involved (prizes? Maybe even an alternate venue? Or support and advertising?).

That’s what I’ve got so far. What else? I’m not sure. Ideas are still percolating. Anyone got suggestions? Ideas? Candy? Send ‘em over, I’m sure I can put them to good use.

The confluence of ideas

Or, where do you get your ideas from?

Go to any convention or talk with creative people on the panel and someone will ask that question. The panellists will smile or maybe even roll their eyes, because it’s a common and difficult thing to answer.

It seems as if it should be so simple, as if there’s a single, consistent answer. The truth is that inspiration is a vaporous beast, one who lives in the cracks of the world around us. Usually all we get is a wisp; occasionally it emerges, fully-formed and demanding, but those creatures are rare.

The truth is, stories are never created from just one idea (this might be true for short stories, which are focussed on a single idea, but not for longer work): it takes several to make a full, rich tale, whatever genre you’re writing in.

In a recent discussion with a writer-friend, Nick, I described ideas as “like spider-webs, and you have a tiny, tiny flashlight with which to discover them.” We shine light on one piece at a time, and it can be difficult to see the whole picture.

So what are these pieces? What are these wisps of inspiration? They could be anything. It could be an image, or a particular situation or scene that has caught my attention. It could be a turn of phrase that sparks something. It could be a character, or maybe just a particular part of one. It could be something done so badly that I think of a hundred ways to do it right. It could be a single fact spun out to the extent of logic to see where it takes me. It could be someone else’s story. It could be the way that dust motes are caught in a beam of sunlight. It could be the gap in another plot that is begging to be filled in. It could be the sound of a name on someone’s tongue. The patterns the birds make in the sky or the colour of a sunset that just doesn’t seem real.

Anything.

Once I catch the scent of that wisp, it’s time to try to bottle it. But how do you capture something like that? First, you need something big enough to grab hold of.

That’s when the ‘what if’ games begin. Asking endless questions, rolling possibilities around like a bowl of chicken bones, to see what future or past they might tell. I spin and tease and wheedle to see if I can take a single spark and make a flame out of it.

Sometimes, it works. It can be that straight-forward. From a single wisp of smoke, I can draw out a whole story, complete with cast and characters, just by asking questions. By being curious, I discover everything I need to know.

Starwalker was like that. I had a single, strong idea: a ship’s log as told by the ship. Then I asked myself questions. Who is this ship? Why is she different or interesting enough to write about? I knew I wanted her to be part human, but why is this unusual? How did she come to be? What is her mission? Who are her crew? What kinds of battles can she face? What is the main challenge that she needs to face and overcome? From there, the background, characters, and plot emerged.

Most of the time, it’s not that easy. A single idea isn’t enough to build an entire story around.

A writer at a talk I went to once said it best. Sadly, I can’t remember the who the writer was, but the message remains true: sometimes you’ll get an idea long before it’s time to use it. It’s good but it’s not complete. So you file it away, tuck it into a drawer and let it sit. Later, you’ll get another idea. It could be weeks or months or years, but there it will be. It will click with the first one and fill in the gaps, and suddenly you’ve got a story.

I’ve had this happen. Even with Starwalker; that single idea gobbled up a few facets that had been hanging around in my mental filing system for a while. I knew I wanted to write about a serial monogamist, and that became the captain. Elliott took on elements of Harper from Andromeda (among other sources). Kess is a character that I have been writing for over a decade, in many different forms and iterations; this is the first time she has fit into a much larger story. Scraps of ideas from many sources merged into the whole.

With Tales from the Screw Loose, a story I’m still in the process of teasing out of inspiration and into a plan, it has been much more bottom-up. I had the initial idea some months ago: a robot brothel, told from the perspective of the mechanic responsible for the whores’ maintenance. I have a few choice scenes already mapped out in my head. The mechanic is a character that I’ve been toying with for a few years but haven’t found a place to make hers until now.

But that’s all I had to start with: a main character and the place she works. Ideas from several sources but not enough to make a story. There was still a lot missing.

A few months after that initial idea-gathering, another element fell into place when I got to thinking about tidally-locked planets. (Tidally-locked planets do not rotate: one side is permanently turned towards the sun, so there is a dark side and a light side. Our moon is the same, except that it always has the same side facing Earth, so the light-based implications are not the same.) From this, a whole wealth of ideas sprung. The implications of living on the dark side of the planet, even the impacts of perpetual daylight, are interesting to me. Putting a city on the terminus between night and day and placing the brothel smack in the middle was just too perfect to resist. Symbolism, imagery and metaphor all rolled in with delicious simplicity.

It meant that the story definitely couldn’t be on Earth, and that slid the story into one of the colonies in the Starwalker universe. I now have a solid basis to build from and the freedom to build a new colony planet (the Starwalker story hasn’t visited this particular colony).

It is taking shape but it’s not ready to write yet. I’m still missing a few elements that I don’t want to push forward without: namely, the details of the supporting cast, and the central conflict that my poor protagonist has to battle. I’m missing a driving plot. I may be planning to serialise this story, but I can’t write it without a central purpose or a goal to aim for (others may be able to do this, but it’s not for me).

I could force it. I could sit down and try to map out a plot, but that seldom works for me without that initial conflict in mind. The forced nature of it shows and honestly, it’s much less fun to write. They organic development of ideas makes for better stories and that shouldn’t be rushed. Sometimes the idea is knotty and requires a lot of untangling before I can write – and I’m not afraid of putting the work in – but it’s hard to do that without the idea in the first place.

So I’m still waiting for that wisp of inspiration to show itself for Screw Loose. Waiting for that last piece to snap into place. It could be months before I figure out what that piece is, or I might come across the spark for it tomorrow. When it does, I’ll have a complete entity in my head that is ready to write.

(Complete doesn’t mean fully planned-out – I don’t work that way. It just means I have all the elements I need to start writing.)

And then the words start flowing.

So what does this all mean? It means that searching for ideas is something that never stops. It means that even though you have the best idea in the world, it might not be enough to make the best story on its own. Sometimes you’ll take three mediocre ideas and make something fantastic. Sometimes it will take a dozen different elements. Sometimes it will be months or years before that perfect lynchpin for your story appears.

Never throw away an idea. Inspiration is never wasted unless you discard it. Makes notes in your mental filing cabinet, or a notebook, or a scrapbook, or on a pinboard, or on post-it notes stuck around your bed. Keep even the smallest glimmer of an idea, the barest wisp of inspiration, because you never know how you might use it one day.

And then you get to make it awesome.

Dreaming stories

Last night, I had a weird, vivid dream. It was packed with random, wildly unconnected elements, as dreams usually are, but a couple of them hung around in the back of my brain after I woke up. They decided that hey, we’re cool, so we’re staying. Oh, and wouldn’t we make an AWESOME story?

I both love it and hate it when that happens. On one hand, yay! New idea! On the other, I already have enough projects to juggle; I don’t need any more. But on the third hand, it has taken up residence in my brain and wants to get out.

I’m all up-to-date with Starwalker, so I decided to let the dream run wild this morning. I ticked over the idea as I got ready for work, and by the time I was sitting on the train with my netbook out, I had a place to start writing. I’m partway into a short story now and thoroughly amusing myself with it.

The scary part is that I could do a series of these shorts stories, maybe tie them all together into an anthology… yes, I’ve already spun out dream-fired snippets into an anthology’s worth of stories. Not in any detail but the potential is definitely there. I am both cheering and facepalming at myself. I even have a name for it.

This sort of thing doesn’t happen to me often. I’ve had dream-inspired pieces happen before but it’s fairly rare; I’ll be posting soon about the genesis of ideas and stories, and dreams aren’t on my list of sources. I might draw inspiration from them in a general idea-soup kind of way, but the ‘wake up and must write’ thing just doesn’t happen very often.

The last time was back in November, which prompted an abortive short story. It was creepy and fun, but the concept wasn’t formed enough to write and it petered out before I figured out where it was going. Maybe one day I’ll go back to it and finish it up.

This one is different. I think I know where it’s going and what it needs to be. It has scope for creepiness and some tongue-in-cheek playfulness, for raunchiness and a touch of horror. So far, there are vampires (possibly because I’ve been watching The Vampire Diaries lately), an orgy, some goth wannabes, and a viewpoint you don’t get to hear from often: random nameless victim. The viewpoint appeals to me because, while I enjoy the fantastical and speculative aspects of fiction (I’ve written scifi, superhero, and fantasy fiction), I’m also interested in the effects is has on those on the edges of the story. Regular people are fascinating creatures.

I haven’t forgotten about everything else I want to write this year. This is only a short story, so maybe I’ll keep poking at it for a little while longer. See where it takes me; see if it runs out of steam or drags me along to the end.

Wayward sales

The last few weeks have been a worrying time for me when it comes to ebook sales.

I sell through a number of retailers. Through Smashwords distribution, my Apocalypse Blog ebooks are available at all the major stores: Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, and more. These dribble a few sales in every month but not a huge amount. They’re fairly steady and have seen a slight increase lately (though nothing to get overly excited about). I haven’t crunched the numbers properly yet, so the exact patterns here are hard to see.

The other retailer that I sell through is Amazon. This is far and away my biggest earner (the sales volumes are several times all of the above retailers combined), and so variations here are both more obvious and have a larger impact. And, to put it bluntly, my sales lately on Amazon have sucked.

I don’t know why. From my end, nothing has changed. Both sales and rankings have plummeted, so it doesn’t look like a general slump in book sales; it’s my books specifically that are not doing well. The books continue to get positive reviews and rankings.

It could be a simple blip in spending habits. After all, I don’t have a lot of data about this time of year to compare it with, so this could be perfectly normal. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned.

It could be due to some of the changes that Amazon have been making. In his (free!) ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success, Mark Coker has some interesting insights into Amazon’s attitude in the marketplace and their worrying lean towards forcing authors to be exclusive (through the KDP Select program). He also has some interesting predictions about the future of indie, digital, and traditional publishing over on the Smashwords blog. The marketplace is changing. Could this be a part of it?

I’m waiting for the December sales reports to come through before I do a look at 2012 as a whole, and I’m planning to do an analysis towards the end of this month (here on this blog). Hopefully that will give a clearer picture of what’s happening.

In the meantime, I shall cross my fingers and hope the sales pick up. I’m also pondering options for how I can rejuvenate my poor, struggling books. Watch this space: there’s more to come on this!

 

Getting back into the swing of Starwalker

I’m going to let you in on a secret: I haven’t written Starwalker for a while.

Why is this a secret? Because I wrote so much during NaNoWriMo in November that I’m still enjoying the buffer. It’s posting away happily and all I’ve been doing in the meantime has been editing and formatting it for release (and moving house and sorting out all kinds of other things, but this post is about the web serial).

After the long slog of NaNo, I needed the break. Writing it so quickly pushed the story along in ways that I’m not entirely sure about. Now that I’m down to a handful of pre-written posts, I’m looking at them more and more closely and asking myself: is it really going where I want it to? Eventually, sure, it’s all heading towards the ending I have in mind, but the journey is what’s important to me. I’m just not sure that they’re doing it right.

So I’ve been using the last month or so to look at Starwalker more critically than creatively. I’ve already decided to scrap one entire post (and it was a monster; nearly 2,800 words!). It was torturous and not entirely necessary, and I think the story will be better off without it. The plot had started to feel like it was dragging its feet and it didn’t need a long, talky post that revealed little that we didn’t already know.

I’ve spent some time pondering over the details of another post, too, and finally figured out what was bothering me about it. I spent some time this week going over it and fixing it up, and hopefully it makes more sense now.

Part of the reason why I struggled during NaNo was that the next step of the ship’s journey was being slippery to pin down, but I think I have a plan of attack for that now. I’ve had time to mull over the options and try to work out what would be the best thing for the story. I’ve mentally thrown away my original idea and replaced it with a new one, which I think will work much better. I can already see ways I can use the tension to the story’s best advantage.

So where does that leave me? I have another couple of completed posts ready to go up (I’ll get them all scheduled and ready to go over the next few days). I have a half-completed post, which was where I stopped writing during NaNo. I stopped before I ruined it out of sheer exhaustion, but the scene is one I love, so I’ll be keeping it (and finishing it!). I’ve got that one scene to throw away, but I’ll be picking out a few choice facets that will crop up later; possibly, much later.

Once that’s all done, it’ll be back to writing for me. It feels weird now that I’ve been away for a while. It feels a bit like chatting to an old friend; no matter how long it’s been, the conversation comes as easily as it always has.

The end of the story is on the horizon. If I squint, I can see it. I’m not entirely sure of the path that’ll get us there but that’s half the fun. I’m trying not to think about what will happen after that, because that’s a distraction: what I’m writing here and now for this wonderful adventure is what’s important to me.

Join me. It’s gonna be a blast.

Creative Writing Group: into 2013

I have been pondering the future of my Creative Writing Group for a while now. I have been running it for over 4 years, and it’s good to stop and consider the situation every now and then.

It’s going really well. As I mentioned in the 2012 retrospective post, I still get a really good turnout, and people seem to enjoy the sessions. I still enjoy running it.

Still, it has been getting hard to think of things to talk about at each session. I don’t want to repeat material too much or people will just get bored and stop coming. On the other hand, I’ve got enough fresh members that most of them won’t remember the first time we went over things.

Also, over the time the CWG has been running, the format has evolved. We used to do regular critiques, but that dropped off over the past couple of years because no-one wanted to submit pieces for critiquing. I’m perfectly fine with that; I run the CWG for its members, so I’m happy to go with their preferences.

Lately, I’ve been leading discussions on specific topics. I usually get a pile of material together, and either talk us through it or call on others for opinions and experiences (most often, both). The room in the library that we use has a whiteboard, and this is proving useful for gathering information and prompting discussions.

It has been a great learning experience for me. I’ve done a lot of writing courses and study, but I don’t pretend to know everything there is to know about writing. I may lead the group but it’s not about expounding my views. It’s about exploring different aspects of writing and working out what’s important for our writing. In preparing for a meeting, I research the topic of the month to make sure I’m not just taking my own limited knowledge in with me.

For example, when preparing for a meeting about planning novels/long-form stories, I had to look up the snowflake method because it’s a basic planning method. It’s not for me, but the whole point of these sessions is to share things that others might find of use. It’s hard to do that if you don’t know what the options are.

That’s all going really well, but like I said, I was starting to run dry of things to talk about. It felt like it was time to shake things up a little and see if I could refresh our group. I want 2013 to start with a surge of enthusiasm and engagement.

So, at our last meeting, we had a long discussion about what sort of things we wanted to talk about in the CWG. I ask at every meeting if people have stuff they wanted to explore and got few responses. This time, with the prospect of a new year and a fresh start, the group opened up and gave me a whole list of things they wanted to tackle. I was delighted! For some of it, I have no idea how I’m going to find material to talk about. Other stuff I already have loads of notes prepared. I’m looking forward to both!

I also floated the idea about getting critiquing going again. On the heels of a frenetic NaNoWriMo, most of the people in the CWG have at least a first chapter. The reactions were overwhelmingly positive about this idea, and so we’re going to give it a try.

So now I’m really enthused about the CWG going into 2013. I have lots of stuff to look into, which is something different to fill my brain up with. I love learning new things. And the CWG members seem eager to keep going.

I’m also pondering some marketing options. I’ve had many comments about how people struggle to find the group and most have stumbled across it by accident or heard about it by word of mouth (for example, through NaNo). I’ve got a couple of options that I can pursue, so maybe I’ll try them out and see what happens.

Another thing I’m pondering is what to do in April. The library where I hold the group can’t let us have the room that month, so we’ll be homeless. I want to do something else instead. But what? Some kind of Writing Derby? Games? A party? I’d like to take the opportunity to do something a little different (no-one likes a stale writer) and there are so many options that I don’t know where to start!

I’m sure something will come to me. It usually does. If all else fails, I’ll just pick the brains of my writers.

Feeling good about the CWG in 2013; I think it’s going to be heaps of fun!

2013: plans and dreams

I’ve done the retrospective for 2012; now it’s time to look to the future. Now is the time for possibilities and ambition.

I usually like to aim high at a time like this. I know I probably won’t do everything I put on this list, but if it’s not here I’ll never do it. I’ll most likely get to most of it and that’s all good.

Let’s get the boring, necessary stuff out of the way first.

Work

This is settling down for me at the moment. I’m hoping to stay with my current team for a stretch and make a bit of a home for myself, and the management have assured me that this is likely (as far as their current plans say, but, well, you never know with these things). Some stability would be nice.

The stress is a lot less than it was and I’ll be aiming to keep it that way.

Financial Issues

Now that our house move is complete and we’ve reduced some of our overheads, I’m hoping that this will plateau as well. We’ve got a bit of work to do on this front but, with luck, our situation should be sustainable for the next few months at least.

I’m working to worry less about this stuff.

Health

The CFS isn’t going away anytime soon, and as long as it doesn’t get any worse, it’s manageable. I’m used to dealing with it (I was diagnosed over 7 years ago), so not a big worry there.

I’ve got some testing coming up in a couple of months to investigate some other issues I’m having. I’m nervous about the tests (mostly because they’ll put me out and anaesthetic doesn’t get along well with me), but I’m glad at the possibility for answers and, hopefully, treatment. I won’t say ‘cure’ because I don’t believe in unicorns and there’s no way I’m that lucky. Progress is good, though, and it’s moving in the right direction.

Writing

Ah-ha, here’s the important part! Here’s the section of my life where I get to have fun, where I aim for the stars and am quite happy with landing on the moon. So, what’s on my list for 2013?

Starwalker: Web Serialising

First up, I will finish Starwalker. I keep saying that there’s still a lot to come, and while I don’t want to put a date on its conclusion, it will definitely finish this year, probably in the first quarter.

When I say ‘finish’, I mean that I’ll get to the end of Book 3, which is the end of the original story arc I planned when I set out on this journey. Will that mean the end of the web serial completely?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t believe in stringing stories out for the sake of it (which is why I haven’t gone back to the Apocalypse Blog in so long: I haven’t felt like I’ve got more story to tell there). However, I’m pretty sure my readers will have something to say if I kill it completely and I’ve come to love my readers a lot.

I do have a follow-up story in mind. There has been a notecard with the name of the story-arc on it pinned to my planning pinboard for a couple of years now. I don’t think it’ll be a full novel-length story – it’s a novella at best at this stage – but maybe it’ll make a good interim story for me to tell while I ponder the future of the Starwalker and her crew.

Starwalker: Ebooks

This is something I’ve had my eye on for a while now. I’d really love to package the Starwalker saga up into ebooks and release it.

However, that’s not a quick process. Firstly, they have to be edited. I already know of some rewriting I want to do (nothing major, but it’s work that needs to be done), and I’m sure there will be more honing and polishing that I’ll do as I go through. This all takes time, and how much I continue the web serial will impact on how quickly this happens.

Next up, I need covers. That will probably cost money, which I’ll talk about later. I have some base graphics already but I want something really slick and professional for the book covers. Which means no home jobs by me (I freely admit that I suck at graphics).

The formatting and releasing parts are easy once all the above is done. I’d like to get at least one book out this year.

Starwalker: Shorts

I made a start on this in 2012 and I mean to continue it. I have stories planned for almost all of the crew (the shorts are character-focussed stories) and I’d like to get through all of them eventually.

It’s hard to have a fixed goal with this, because so much depends on other commitments. Shall we say one a month? That’s probably a bit ambitious; one every two months is more realistic.

My end goal with this is to compile them into an ebook – a Starwalker ‘get to know the crew’ anthology – and release it. Possibly for free. (Having a freebie available really helps draw people into paying for the series: this is what the Apocalypse Blog ebooks have taught me!)

Alternatively, I could release them individually, but that depends on being able to get the covers for them. On the plus side, I would be able to release them sooner if I didn’t have to wait for the anthology to be complete. Also, individual character covers would be awesome.

Vampire Electric

My goal for this year is somewhat simpler here: finish the first draft. I already have a pile of notes for the second draft, including a bit of a restructure, but I really need to get the first run-through finished. I’d love to find out how this story will end! (Yes, yes, I have something in mind, but as always with me, it’s a general, blurry picture that I won’t truly figure out until I get there.)

Tales from the Screw Loose

This is, potentially, the next web serial on my list to pick up. It’s set in the Starwalker universe and is the first spin-off that I have in mind to tackle (I have a whole list of spin-off ideas for the Starwalker universe!). You may have heard me refer to it as the ‘robot brothel story’: Tales from the Screw Loose is its proper name.

I’m not sure if I’ll get to this over the next year. A lot depends on whether or not I keep Starwalker going (as a web serial), because I have a strict rule of one web serial active at a time. I know my own limits well enough to know that both stories would suffer if I tried to keep two going in tandem.

Regardless, I still have some work to do before I can get started on this story. I have made a start on the worldbuilding (it’s set on one of the colony planets) but I need to work out the cast and some of the plot elements before I start putting fingers to keyboard.

I also need to sort out the website and I’m pondering some custom graphics/design for it. This may cost money, so is dependent on a number of factors. On the plus side, I’ve already got the domain: screwloosetales.com (yes, it’s a bit early, but I’m determined like that and I didn’t want to lose the domain while I sorted the rest of it out).

For this year, I think I’d like to have the prep all done and the story ready to go. Actual words on the page will be a bonus!

Apocalypse Blog

The ebooks are going pretty well. I’d like to capitalise on some of the good reviews and see about marketing it, but I’m pretty bad at self-promotion, so I won’t make any firm plans about this.

I would like to do paper book editions of it, however. Most likely through Amazon’s CreateSpace, which will link nicely up to the ebooks on Amazon (and it seems like a better and cheaper system than Lulu).

I’ve had a look at the work required to do this and it’s not as easy as the ebooks were. It’ll take some time to get the formatting done for printing, and I’ll also need to get the covers redone.

I’d also like to get the books re-edited, and will most likely refresh the ebook editions when I do that.

I’ve been tossing around the idea of doing an omnibus edition, at least of the ebooks, so I’ll look into this, too.

There have been many calls for another (fourth) book in the series, and a part of me really wants to satisfy this desire. However, I’m not sure what that fourth book would entail. I’m letting it rest in the back of my brain for now; if inspiration strikes, I’ll be sure to let you all know. Never say never!

NaNoWriMo

Ah, my annual nuttiness. I don’t have a huge amount planned yet, but we’re all pretty sure that there will be another Writer’s Retreat. This time, up a mountain! I’ll be heading on a roadtrip soon with my lovely co-MLs (I might have two this time!) to check out the options. I’m sure that it won’t be long before that ball is off and rolling.

The rest of the NaNo stuff will be worked out over the months leading up to November. No other firm plans yet, but there will no doubt be plenty of write-ins at our favourite Coffee Club, drinkies, and possibly a write-out or two.

Crowdfunding

This is an option that I’ve been looking at lately. I know other writers have had success with platforms like Kickstarter and have raised money to allow them to develop a new story, pay for covers and printing costs, and that sort of thing.

As mentioned above, some of what I want to do requires paying for services. I’ve had donations through the links on my websites and I am endlessly grateful to the donors for their generosity: they helped to pay for the Starwalker graphics I had done in 2012. But what I have in mind is going to take rather more.

Due to being based outside the US and UK, I can’t run a Kickstarter campaign. However, there are other options available: most notably, Pozible and iPledg look promising, but I haven’t gone through all the crowdfunding platforms available to me yet.

A campaign seems like a lot of work but I think I want to give it a go. I am terrible at asking for money (see previous comments about self-promotion), but I have always been astounded by the generosity and support of the online community. I approve of the notion of the rewards you can offer to supporters, too. And at the end of the day, what’s the worst that could happen?

It’s good to know that I have this option when I’m looking at commissioning covers for Starwalker, or a website for Screw Loose. All those things that require money for me to achieve could actually be possible!

Now all I need to figure out is what to ask for and what I can realistically offer as rewards. And then the time to do it all.

Other Stuff?

Wow, I’m not sure. What else might 2013 hold for me? No doubt I’m forgetting about something. These are the things that are buzzing around in my head right now. This is what I’m taking with me into 2013.

Now excuse me, I think I’m going to go away and write something.

The year that was… 2012

The beginning of a new year is not so different from any other day. It’s an arbitrary demarcation of a calendar that we give meaning to, rather like a lot of people did to the Mayan calendar (particularly, its end). It think it’s good to remind ourselves that calendars only hold the meaning we give them.

The turning of the year is a way to mark time and, hopefully, progress. It’s a chance to step back and take a look at where we were and where we are now. It’s a chance to try to gain some perspective. It’s when we look forward and think about where we want to be. It’s when we take the time to make plans, rather than the usual day-to-day we live.

So let’s start with the road travelled so far. 2012: a year of struggle for me.

Work

Necessary toil: my day job as a technical writer pays the bills and lets me do my creative writing. Plus, I get to put my writing skills to good, professional use.

Over the past year, I coordinated the delivery of:

A major release, 2 and a half years in the making. I coordinated the entire documentation side of the project from start to end. Getting it released was a huge effort and I was glad to see if over and done with!
2 minor releases, both roughly 4-month projects. There might have been another one in there. I lost track; they kept turning up on my plate without any warning.

With all that to juggle, there were a lot of changes. Over the year, I changed:

Positions twice. Once from team leader to team writer, and then back to team leader again (it’s a different role now and I’m managing developers and testers as well as writers, which is all new to me).
Teams thrice. Lots of reasons for this, most of them positive about me.
Desks more times than I can remember, but at least three times!

Other challenges included continuing to strive to overcome problem team members (despite no longer actually being in the same team as them) and adapting the documentation processes after a restructure as our department moved into Agile practices.

It has been stressful to say the least, and a lot of mental effort to stay on top of it all. But I did. I pulled off everything they handed to me. I made it to the end of the year without snapping and breaking down or getting myself fired. I’m still here, working away and keeping my head above water.

Financial Issues

At home, things have been tough, too. Like so many others here and around the world, our financial situation is not good. We’ve been fighting to make ends meet, and wound up moving house to reduce our costs. (It’s a good move and a lovely house, so I’m not disappointed by that, but wow it was a lot of work.)

A lot has been resting on me at home. I’m the primary breadwinner, which means those times when I’ve wanted to walk away from my job, even downgrade to something less stressful, I can’t afford to. So I’ve pushed through and done what I can to support my family while they get their own stuff sorted out.

It’s all coming along, as slowly as it always has. We’re in a more sustainable position now, which is good, and that should lift some of the pressure.

Health

Between the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and other issues that are exacerbated by stress, I haven’t had the best of years. I’m running ragged most of the time. I’ve been sick more than usual.

I’d like to think that it hasn’t impacted my writing but I know it has. I’ve missed posting deadlines; more than once, I’ve put posts off for a week because I can’t make it. I despise that. I hate knowing that I’ve failed to keep my promises; my readers are wonderfully forgiving, but I’m not. I know that if I don’t push myself, it won’t get done at all. I don’t like letting myself or my readers down.

I don’t know if the quality of my writing has been impacted. I don’t have any real perspective right now, but I suspect that it has.

It’s just another one of those things that I’m pushing through. I’m carrying on despite it, because I refuse to let things like this stop me from doing what really matters to me. Which is:

Writing

Here’s the part that we’re all interested in: that wonderful activity that I fill up all my off-time with, the thing that gives me a break from everything else when I need it and keeps me going. The things that spurs my hopes and dreams, and spills my soul out onto pages.

Even with everything that has been going on (and still is!), even with all that clutter in my head, I have stories to tell. I have characters who want to speak. I have things to say. It has been harder than usual – writing with energy when you don’t have any is far from easy – but I’ve done my best to keep up.

Starwalker

My web serial is still going strong. I’m averaging a book a year and this year doesn’t seem to be any different (though this third book is looking like it’s going to stretch well into next year!).

I’m still loving it. Starry and her crew are so much fun to play with, even when I’m torturing them. I have a wonderful, supportive readership; checking the comments on the posts is a highlight of my week.

The visit rate has been holding fairly steady through the year, slowly creeping upwards. Currently, I’m getting over 3,000 unique visitors a month, and anywhere between 250 and 400 visitors every day. It’s easily beating the Apocalypse Blog‘s stats, which hit 200 visits on a good day if I was lucky (I think it averaged around 180 v/d).

Starwalker has made it to the top 10 of Top Web Fiction‘s lists, and has been hovering around the number 1 spot for science fiction for some months now. This makes me insanely happy and proud.

The actual writing part has been rocky. As mentioned above, I’ve had to delay posts a few times this year. Keeping it going has been a struggle at times; one that I hope hasn’t been visible to the reader, at least not in the writing itself.

I feel like Starwalker’s plot has slid sideways and meandered more than I’d like, but it’s still heading in the right direction. I still know where it’s going to end up and how it’s all going to end. I’m excited to get there, though it’ll be a little while yet. So many miles to go!

Overall, I’m really happy with where I am. The serial is over 300,000 words now and still going. All my plans are still working and I’m laying the foundations for what’s to come. It still makes me smile when I sit down to write it.

Shorts

This is usually something I keep promising that I’ll do and then never get to. But this year, not so! I made a start on some Starwalker shorts, and three of them are complete.

Not as many as I had hoped for, but it’s a start. They prompted positive reactions and I can’t ask for more than that. I have lots of plans in this area, but that’s for another post.

Vampire Electric

Ah, the elusive steampunk novel. I started off this year writing it in tandem with Starwalker, but had to take a break around March to get my breath back. It took until November for me to pick it up again. I made good progress with it, though there’s another big chunk that needs to be written before the first draft is done.

I’m really pleased that I’ve been able to keep working on it, even if my attention in this area has been sporadic. Often, it takes me a while to get back into a project – it’s one of the reasons I try not to take ‘breaks’ – but not so with this one. It still speaks to me loudly enough that I can take a few months off and still go back to writing it without any problems.

It’s not finished yet but it’s getting closer.

NaNoWriMo

The annual novel-writing craziness was a wild ride this year. I’ve written four blog posts about it, so I won’t go into details here. In brief: it was hard, I learned things, my people are awesome, and I’m completely nuts (but the Retreat was amazing).

Apocalypse Blog

This one is last because I haven’t done any actual writing in this area this year. However, there has been activity!

Early this year, books 2 and 3 of AB were released. Around the same time, Amazon realised that Book 0 was free elsewhere and price-matched it, which led to a huge up-kick in sales.

I am now getting monthly cheques from Amazon. They’re not huge, they’re not enough to pay the bills with, but they do mean that I’m a published, paid author. I still grin like a kid when I think about that. I feel like I’ve Made It, at least in the indie sphere.

The books are doing well! After some experimentation with pricing, I’m selling roughly 150 books per month. Book 0 (the free one) usually hovers in the middle of Amazon’s top 100 (in science fiction).

I’m also getting some pretty awesome reviews. People keep asking when the next (4th) book is coming out. There’s no more, not yet!

Readers like my work enough to want more. Couldn’t ask for more than that, really.

Writing Community

I wrote about this in reference to NaNo, but it’s worth saying how awesome the people around me have been this year. The group has been building for several years now, and over the past year or so, it has taken on a momentum of its own. I feel that the writers in this city have really gelled and become a wonderful, supportive community that I’m a big part of.

In fact, I’m often leading it, which is intimidating when I stop to think about it. As a NaNoWriMo ML, I naturally do a lot of the coordination, but it extends well outside November. It’s monthly write-ins and weekly drinks that run all year now, along with my regular writing group.

My Creative Writing Group is still going strong. It has been running for over four years now and I still have a good turnout every month. There are new faces joining and long-standing ones drifting away, but that’s the way of things. We have yet to run out of things to talk about and explore, and if I know my group (which I do pretty well now!), we won’t stop any time soon.

I’ve made many good friends through the various groups and events that I’m a part of. They’ve become dear parts of my life and I’m grateful for all of them. As years go, this one has been a winner in this respect.

Not to mention that I have an actual social life now. Who knew that would happen to me? Who could have predicted that it would come out of what is, essentially, a solitary activity?

Life is strange. And there’s so much more to come.

That has pretty much been my year. Productive, hard work, and progressive. I’m in a better place now than I was at the beginning of the year. I’m getting there, one slow step at a time.

I’m glad 2012 is almost over; I’m done with it. I’m looking forward to closing the book on this year and starting a new one. Next year will be better and brighter.