Taven Moore's Blog, page 40

Holly Lisle’s Short Story Anthology

*trumpets, red carpet, dancing*

Holly Lisle held a contest to determine the short stories which would be published in her first anthology. Entries were open to all students of her larger courses. From a field of 60+ entries, my story THE DEFINITION OF A SUPERHERO was accepted!

The title of the Anthology is “The Adventure of Creation”, and it will be published in July as eBook and PoD-book. It will be available through all major retailers as soon as possible after initial publication.

I will be sure to keep all of you posted on the publication date, but this is definitely an event worth celebrating! My first traditional publishing credit.

Today, my darling bunnies, is a day for CAKE. Or, more properly, gluten-free cakepops from Cupcakes-a-go-go. Yomyom.

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[Perry] Thomas Was Alone

Have you heard of a game called Thomas Was Alone? Cause I hadn’t really heard of this game. It’s a small indie game, a minimalistic platformer and it completely flew under my radar.

But last night (I’m writing this on Monday), I decided that I deserved a little present for finishing the first draft of a short story.

And yes, for those naysayers who are shaking their heads and tutting at me, I’m totally allowed to do that.

So I played this game.

I never would have believed that I could care SO much for the fate of squares and rectangles if it wasn’t for this game.

I’m serious. I know how it sounds.

The characters you control are a bunch of squares and rectangles with different properties.

Thomas discovers that he’s just a fantastic jumper. And more than that? He also discovers that he’s great at inverted jumping (falling) and he uses those skills to find some friends, because Thomas starts the game alone.

Claire, a big blue square can immerse herself in water without dying like the other boxes and believes that she’s a superhero. She decides that she needs a cape to complete her outfit. Upon first meeting deadly spikes, Claire decides that they’re her nemesis, her own personal kryptonite. And not the cheesy red stuff, but the proper, green radioactive kryptonite.

There are others, a cast of…a bunch of them. All with different strengths and weaknesses.

Christopher who can’t jump that high and is all grumpy, until he meets Laura who can bounce other blocks who jump on her, and he suddenly discovers that he’s in love.

All of these blocks, you control them, switching between them as needed to solve puzzles and jump their way to the exits. Through it all, at the end of each chapter is a brief quote from someone in the real world that sets the stage and actually tells an incredibly compelling story.

An especially compelling story given that there’s only about 15 lines of chapter text.

Here’s the thing.

Thomas Was Alone is a wonderful, shining example that characters don’t NEED complex and tragic backstories to be compelling.

It’s an example that shows that characters don’t need to be beautiful or ugly to engage us.

It shows that all you need is a distinctive voice, a personality that you can identify as that character and a reason to give a damn about them.

The same narrator, the WONDERFUL accented voice of Danny Wallace provides the narration for each character but the personality of each rectangle comes through just so damned clearly. The developers did a wonderful job using the shape of the block, the way they jump and the sound they make while jumping to convey character, in the most bare-bones way possible.

I think the game’s worth a look.

It’s a short game. It took me about an hour and a half to two hours to complete and I’m sure anyone with decent experience with platformers (Mario/Meatboy) can get it done just as fast, if not faster.

If the linked trailer doesn’t tug at you, then maybe the game isn’t quite for you. But if you watch the trailer and feel a bit of a warm and snuggly glow down in the pit of your stomach, give it a try.

Thomas might surprise you.

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Entertaining, Believable Romance

A “Dear Tami” request from a reader.

Do you have any opinions on developing romance between characters? I get really frustrated when characters just magically and instantly fall in love with each other. I don’t want to do that in my writing, so I was wondering if you might have any pointers there…

As it happens, I do!

Romance is made up of two elements.

Lust and Love.

Lust

Lust is the easier of the two. Lust is physical attraction, that drop in the stomach, the desire to run your hands over various body parts, etc.

The only real trick to lust is how you phrase it. “I wanna tap that,” isn’t very romantic, no matter how accurate it might be.

Go subtle. Go shortness of breath and accidental smiles and dry mouth.

[TMI alert] And for the love of pete, go REALISTIC. I am sick of heroines who feel insta-lust for a guy so strongly that their panties are “soaked”. This isn’t an anime. Unless you’re writing an anime, then … um. Carry on. [/ end of TMI]

Right, so. That’s part one. Realize that it’s part one of TWO, though, and don’t equate insta-lust with a strong, lasting relationship.

Love

My definition of love is when someone holds the happiness of another person above their own. In a healthy relationship, both parties do this and as a result, both parties are getting their happiness needs met.

That kind of love takes an awfully long time to build, however, and probably isn’t going to happen in book 1 of a relationship. It’s certainly not going to happen because she looks hot in that skirt or his hair is tousled just-so.

In real life, love blooms in all sorts of ways.

Book love, on the other hand, is reasonably formulaic.

The Formula

Character 1 (we’ll call this “Girl”)

Character 2 (similarly, “Boy”)

Both characters must have the following:

something missing in their life keeping them from experiencing fulfilled happiness
the person they appear to be. The “mask”.
the person they actually are

First Quarter of the Story:

show the missing thing
show the characters interacting, showing their mask
show the characters interacting with each other, letting their mask slip and being rewarded

Second Quarter of the Story:

The mask slips more and more, allowing for growth in a relationship where the other person cares for the true personality, rather than the mask

Third Quarter of the Story:

Fear sets in. Something happens and the mask snaps back into place. Will our two characters make it past this hurdle?

Fourth Quarter of the Story:

Indeed, they will make it past the hurdle, as they overcome their fears and allow their true personality to show.
The missing thing is now complete because of their true selves.

A Link

I am not a romance writer, so all I can advise is the stuff I’ve read and researched. The best link I’ve ever found on this subject is FANTASTIC and I highly recommend you go read it.

Jami Gold’s “Are These Characters The Perfect Match”

She goes into some fantastic detail about successful love triangles, too.

 

Does That Help?

Let me know in the comments. (Also, if Bre, my resident Romance Expert, would like to chime in, that’d be awesome!)

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Turning Negative Self Talk into Positive Self Talk

Our negative thoughts often create anxiety. Going back to the bike wheel analogy, we can lose air just thinking about all the rocks that may or may not puncture our tires.

Negative thinking is a bad, bad habit.

How can you tell if you’ve got distorted thinking?

If things are all or nothing. Something is either entirely good, or entirely bad.
Jumping to conclusions or negative predictions. My friend and I liken this to driving down the highway of life and then just YANKING the wheel at the last minute to get off on Worst Case Scenario exit.
Dwelling on or only hearing the negative. Your story was critiqued and even though they pointed out several things you did wrong, you’re focusing on the negative comments as though they are all that was said.
Mind Reading. (Not literally). When you assume you know what someone else is thinking, typically in a negative way about yourself. 
Shoulds – I “should” do this or that or the other thing, instead of thinking about what you WILL do.

How to turn that negative chatter into positive

Catch yourself having the negative thought and recognize that it is distorted, negative thinking. 
Challenge the validity of the negative thought. 
Replace it with something positive.
Negative thoughts make us feel bad, angry, or scared. 
Positive thoughts are comforting, reassuring, uplifting — realistic rather than rose-colored.

Practice Daily Affirmations

Say these to yourself, in the mirror. The more awkward you feel, the more “fake” they sound … the more likely it is that you have a problem with negative self talk.

I am a good person.
I have many wonderful qualities
I am working hard to create the life that I want
I am taking this too seriously and personally
I can take risks and learn from the experience
I will manage my time better today
I will feel good things about ME today.

Be a good friend to yourself.

Recognize your strengths and focus on the positive aspects of a situation. Celebrate your successes! Comfort yourself when things go wrong.

You CAN change the way you feel by changing the way you think.

You are strong and you are worth it.

30 Rock

Any 30 Rock fans out there?

There’s a pair of scenes from an episode, where you see Liz Lemon giving herself a “pep talk” in the mirror. She calls herself ugly and stupid and yells at herself not to make the same mistakes this time AGAIN like she always does.

When Jack gives himself a mirror talk? He tells himself he’s a handsome bastard and that he can take on any of the people in that room single-handedly. He calls himself smart and successful and amazing.

I don’t think I need to analyze the differences there for you.

 

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[Perry] How the Ending Can Ruin the Tone of the Story

The following post contains spoilers for the movie, 1408. If you have yet to watch this movie and are into creepy (not gory) stories, I highly recommend that you watch it first and then come back. 

Don’t worry. I’ll wait. 

So I recently had the opportunity to re-watch the movie 1408. What had happened was, I recommended the movie to a friend of mine who was hoping for a scary movie to watch but was dissatisfied with the recent trend of horror movies just turning into these giant, gore-fests and devolving into torture-porn. He wanted something a little different.

Why did I push for 1408?

It was based on a Stephen King short story and say what you will about the man, he knows how to write creepy. The other reason was that I felt the movie did a surprisingly good job of it. There’s only a little bit of blood in the movie and it primarily relies on a sense of ‘wrongness’ to the environment to scare the pants off you.

That and it was a haunted hotel room story.

You can never go wrong with a good haunted hotel room story.

Suffice to say, I loved the movie. I thought it had a good (if simple) story and built up the atmosphere nicely as well as dropping along a few scares here and there at a nice and even pace.

The crowning jewel of the movie though? Definitely the ending. As good as the movie was, this was one of those cases where the ending really just shed a light on everything that had happened before, during the course of the movie, and essentially almost redefines what happened.

And I lent the DVD copy I had of the movie to a friend.

Now I’d bought the movie because I wanted it around but I hadn’t actually watched my copy of it yet, you know? I’d just bought the damned thing to add to my collection for later watching.

What I didn’t notice was that I had bought the DVD with the director’s cut ending.

I only found out about it when my friend brought back my movie, telling me that it was pretty good, but that the ending ruined it.

I couldn’t believe it. I defended the ending, wholeheartedly I defended it! I told him how amazing it was, and what a poignant feel it left the story on. I told him how that thrilling moment of revelation sent chills down my spine when you hear the girl’s voice coming through right at the end when the wife is there…

This is when he interrupted me.

“What the hell movie are you talking about?”

And so I stopped mid-rant.

“What the hell movie are YOU talking about?”

It turns out there were two endings.

The theatrical ending and the director’s cut alternate ending.

If you haven’t seen this movie, I VERY highly recommend that you take a watch of the theatrical version first.

So here’s the thing. They have this wonderful story, tightly paced with a classic setup and a good buildup of atmosphere…and then to top it all off, you throw in this powerful, poignant ending that affirms that John Cusack’s character went through everything he did. And it pushes that revelation in a wonderfully subtle way–through the daughter’s voice coming out of the burnt tape recorder. Throw in the wife’s reaction to it when she clearly believed her estranged husband was out of his mind and that blank, neutral expression on Cusack’s face as he looks at her reaction? Not gloating, not happy and not sad. Just blank. It was totally this “believe me now?” kind of face but without any snarky or any ‘I told you so’ feel to it.

It was fantastic. The perfect way to end the film.

Then you have the director’s cut ending. His “original” vision of the ending, if you would.

In this one, Cusack dies in the fire. The estranged wife attends his funeral, to be accosted by a HAMMY Samual L Jackson who goes on and on about how Cusack dying was a good thing because he averted a great evil or some such nonsense.

Understandably, she completely blows him off. In this ending, Jackson is the one listening to the burnt recorder, alone in his car and then there’s this completely inappropriate jump scare with Cusack’s burnt face in the rearview mirror and Jackson doing this exaggerated jumpy motion before the image disappears and he drives off. Then you see the burnt out ruins of room 1408 and a ghostly image of Cusack and his kid as they fade away into the sunlight.

WHY?

That makes no sense whatsoever. How can you take a movie with all of this build-up and then completely reduce it to this last cheesy scare tactic?

What’s worse is that the ending nullifies the build-up of the movie. The wife gets no sense of closure whatsoever, Cusack’s character never really changes as he doesn’t have to live with the knowledge of what happened. For all intents and purposes, in the director’s cut, Cusack’s character died crazy and that’s just…a damned waste.

Endings are important. Endings are damned important. A good ending  can reinforce an average story. Because it’s the last thing you see before you’re done with the movie, a good ending is usually the thing audiences take away with them when they’re done.

And a bad ending? Just the opposite. A bad ending can RUIN all of the build-up, atmosphere and character building you’ve done. An ending that doesn’t quite fit the tone of what the rest of the story is about can completely skew what your audience takes away from your story as they walk away from your story.

So the ending? Super important. It’s an area you want to step lightly with and one of the few places where it might really help to get that trusted second opinion.

In a big portion of the story writing process, I’d recommend going with your gut feelings over anyone else’s opinions. Nobody knows your story and where you want it to go quite like you do.

When it comes to the ending though? There’s a strong chance that your vision might be biased and that second opinion can really help to avoid the trap of writing a mediocre ending and having your story fade from the mind as soon as it’s done.

 

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Stress and Finding Balance

The Wheel

Imagine your life as … a bike wheel. The kind with the inflatable tire.

When you are out of balance, the road is even bumpier than usual and it’s rough going.

Even if the wheel is balanced, if the tire is low on air, you’re in for a difficult journey.

Even when you’re in balance, sometimes you can’t avoid a rock that sets you off course or pops a hole in your tire.

What is Important To You

The spokes in your wheel are made up of the things that matter the most to you. You only have so many spokes, of course, and not everyone has the same ones.

Family, Nutrition, Work, Friends, Writing, Entertainment, Finance, Spirituality … no matter which spokes you choose, if they’re not bearing the burden of your self care equally, you’re out of balance.

You can’t fix things wrong with your unbalanced wheel if you don’t understand the spokes. You can’t fix things wrong with your unbalanced life if you don’t know what is important to you.

Energy Drainers

Your energy is the air that fills the tire. As you go throughout the day, you lose air when you come in contact with energy drainers. Little things that poke holes in your tire.

Social interaction, conflicts, work, money, health, etc.

You can’t avoid all of the energy drainers in your life — you may not even want to.

For example, I find social contact to be a huge energy drainer for me, but I consider the benefits to be worth it. I genuinely like my friends and enjoy spending time with them, even if I often leave the interaction feeling far more tired than I really should.

Identify your energy drainers and really look at them.

Is your boss an energy drainer? Without changing jobs, there may not be anything you can do about that … but you might be able to recognize the ways in which she drains your energy. What can you do to steel yourself against the repeated things that you already know bother you? Slap a patch on that weak spot in your tire.

Sometimes, people don’t even realize when something is draining their energy until their tire is completely flat, and by then there’s not enough energy left to do repairs.

Energy FILLERS

The nice thing is that we can actually refill our energy!

Sure, maybe we ran over a tack and we’re bleeding energy … but maybe we find a relaxing shower to be just the ticket to get those creative juices bubbling again. Or maybe plugging in your favorite music and singing along just gets your lips curving upward every time.

You can’t stop at figuring out what things drain your energy.

You need to go a step further and find out what FILLS your energy.

Reading
TV/Movies
Hobbies/Crafts
Camping
Lunch with friends
shower
picnics
spending time with animals
Church events 
Social or political events
sports
rearranging furniture
playing a musical instrument
saying prayers
looking at beautiful flowers
going to a restaurant
gardening
board games
swimming
running/walking
giving gifts
sex
hiking
shopping
… the list goes on and on

Problem, is, most people just lose air all day long, limping and tottering their way home and they recharge with food and vegetating on the couch. Sometimes those are effective tools, but its worth knowing which tools are in YOUR toolbox, and which ones actually work for you.

Think about it. What can you do — actively go out and do — to put yourself in a better mood?

Make a list and keep it close. Next time you want to reach for a bag of chips and disappear into a mindless television show to try and relax, remember that you’ve got other options, too.

For me? I’ve found that shopping (not even buying … just wandering through my favorite stores) is RIDICULOUSLY calming for me. On a smaller scale? My daily stress levels have dropped DRAMATICALLY since I wrote a little windows app called “Breathe” — it pops up on a timer to remind me to take a deep breath. I’ve also got a yoga music playlist on my phone that plays on repeat throughout the day, and soothing warm herbal teas which require that I get up away from my desk and move around every once in a while.

2 Kinds of Stress

In my opinion, there are two kinds of stress.

There’s the kind of stress you hide from. The stuff that really all you can do is ram into that rock, take your ding, and do your best to refill your tire with air as often as you can.

There’s another kind, though. The kind that requires you ACT against it. If you cannot, no matter what you do, handle the stress from your job? Maybe you should stop running into that rock.

Only you can evaluate your stress, but realize something important. If you get together with your friends and do nothing but complain about the same thing every time you see them? You’re dropping your negative energy on them. You’re letting the air out of THEIR tires, with your rocks. Once or twice is one thing — sometimes even the best people need to whinge, and friends are there to lend a hand.

If you’re consistently using your friend’s air to refill your tires, though, you’re not being a very good friend. It’s a sign that the stress you’re dealing with isn’t the kind that you should just be “relaxing away”.

It might be time to act and make a change in your life to actually solve the problem. Whether that problem is someone else or the way you are dealing with the issue … remember, sometimes? The problem is OUR problem, and we need to stop blaming someone else for the way we react, or expecting someone else to change who they are to make our lives easier.

 

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Art: Barn Owl and a Book

Another commission for someone who is rapidly becoming my favorite person to art for.

A dark and freckled barn owl reading a book.

Acquiring Wisdom

 

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[Perry] One Last Book

Say you’re about to die.

Like…you’re about to die but you have some time. Like, say it’s one of those apocalypse movie situations, right?

So there’s a meteor hurtling toward the earth. At the same time, there’s been a super earthquake on the far side of the world and a super tsunami is on the way toward you. Also, there’s been a zombie outbreak and your city is overrun and on top of that, there are aliens that have been biding their time at the bottom of the sea for millenia that got all woken up due to the super earthquake and the super tsunami and their sensors blaring alarms at them because a huge planet cracking meteor zipping is toward the planet.

With all of this going on huddled up safe with your family, friends and pets, you have time for one last book.

And the timing is absolutely perfect. The instant you read the last word on the last page, your house gets invaded by zombies as the super tsunami from the super earthquake washes over you and aliens rip off the roof of your house as the water comes in and then the meteor strikes the earth, cracking the entire gorramn planet in half.

So what’ll it be?

What’s the last book you’d want to read? You can chance it on something new, something that isn’t out yet. Or maybe you’d rather go back and read a classic, maybe something you read when you were young and all dewey eyed?

For me…I think I’d go back to Jack London.

He was a turn of the century American novelist and what had always struck me about his stories was the sheer force of them. It’d be a pretty serious internal debate between his Martin Eden or his Sea-Wolf but at the end of the day, I think that Sea-Wolf would be it for me.

A last look at a story that deals with life, the value of life and what it takes to live it to the fullest.

So what about you guys?

Many factors coming together to bring the world to an end and you have time for one last book.

What would you read?

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[Perry] Judging a Book by its Cover
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Choose Omnibus NOW AVAILABLE!

The Choose Omnibus (containing volumes 1, 2, AND 3!) is now available on Amazon!

The paperback version is my recommendation — Steve Hall did an unbelievable job on the formatting and it is just a gorgeous, gorgeous book.

And before you wonder why the price is so high, let me assure you that a VERY large chunk of that is the minimum price allowable by Amazon … and this is not a small book. Altogether, it’s more than 400 pages of fantasy steampunky adventure!

For those on a budget, the kindle version is also available.

And for anyone who hasn’t had the chance to get their feet wet and wants to see what all the fuss is about, I did leave the kindle version of Volume 1 available at the low, low price of only 99cents.

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Question 4: Is Secretly Not Really A Question

My request (note: not a demand. That would just be silly.) is that you go back through the three previous blog posts from this week (books, tv shows, movies) and find something that someone else recommended and give it a shot.

Surely we could all use some good recommendations, right?

Comment and let us know which recommendation (or recommendations!) you’re going to act on!

Go forth and enjoy!

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