Taven Moore's Blog, page 42

2013 Reading List (As of March)

Been a while since I’ve updated my reading list!

September, 2012

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Very highly rated YA distopia. I didn’t get further than about halfway through before I turned away. Not that it was bad … just that it was very predictable, with evil villains and an obviously flawed world order that was clearly going to be overthrown as part of the book, whose plot seemed to revolve mostly around the characters figuring out just how screwed up the society was. Not my cup of tea.

No rating

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvator

Another highly rated book, this one about an island with man-eating horses and a very important race. I love horses, and therefore I loved a large portion of this book.

I did not love multiple PoVs in first-person present tense, and although the final bit of epilogue was BEAUTIFUL, the pacing was weird to me and some of the moral issues brought up in the book were brushed aside. The prose was undeniably beautiful and the author clearly did her homework with regards to horses and racing … but it still ended up falling a little flat for me.

A heartbroken 6 out of 10

Well Witched by Frances Hardinge

I am now a Frances Hardinge fangirl, and I’m not ashamed.

This is the story of three kids who steal some coins from a wishing well and end up unwitting pawns for the well guardian.

Fun, well-written, featuring non-perfect and believable characters, with excitement and magic. Very good book.

An eager-to-read-more 8 out of 10

October 2012

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

Memoir from someone with a talent for turning the absurd into the hilarious. She talks about things like anxiety and depression and the issues she deals with on a daily basis, and I would be lying if I didn’t say I found some of it sad and uncomfortable even with her humor added to it. I am very glad I read this book.

A laughingly pensive 9 out of 10

Legion by Brandon Sanderson

Novella featuring a main character with multiple personalities in a very fascinating and unique way. One of my favorite reads of the year, hands down.

A fascinated 9 out of 10

November 2012

How To Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by The Oatmeal

Exactly as funny as expected.

A smile-filled 6 out of 10

December 2012

This was a re-read for me. Fantasy novel about a witch and her quest to avenge the death of her teacher … except the witch is under a curse that makes her crave human flesh. Also, her companion is a demonic, bloodthirsty duck.

Good, but not great in the pacing/plotting department.

An entertaining 7 out of 10

January 2013

Gregor the Overlander (the entire series) by Suzanne Collins

Reviewed in great detail here.

MG/YA fantasy series about a boy who finds a hidden world populated with strange humans, giant bats, rats, centipedes, and more. Adventures galore.

LOVED. Gobbled up each book with glee.

A thrilling 9 out of 10

February 2013

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

A woman opens her bruised eyes in the rain, surrounded by dead bodies and with no memory. She finds in her pocket a letter written to her by her past self, instructing her on how to hide and survive, and of the choice she must make. Run and find a quiet life somewhere, or take up her old life and try to figure out who is trying to kill her.

SUCH an incredible hook. One of the best openings I’ve read, ever. An interesting take on the nature vs nurture question, and a well-written romp that spends half its time in the life of the new personality and half its time in the letters written by the very different old personality.

I enjoyed the read to the end, and though I had some quibbles with certain aspects of the book, my overall experience was very positive.

A reserved 8 out of 10

A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

MG/YA fairy tale retelling … sort of. More a smooshing of several fairy tales in the old style, where people were beheaded all the time and there was lots of blood. Omniscient narrator with a fantastic sense of humor throughout.  Dark, but not serious.

I liked. Fun.

A dark 8 out of 10

March 2013

In a Glass Grimmly by Adam Gidwitz

Unsurprisingly related to A Tale Dark and Grimm and a worthy companion novel.

A bloody 8 out of 10

Darkbeast by Morgan Keyes

Fantasy novel in a world where children are bound to a darkbeast and grow to maturity with their creepy animal companion, who gives them advice and who “takes” their negative qualities away. If a child is spiteful, she is told to “take it to your darkbeast”. When the child reaches maturity, there is a ceremony where they kill the beast. In Darkbeast, the main character chooses not to kill her raven darkbeast, and the rest of the story follows her flight from the law trying to bring her to justice for this rebellion.

At the quarter mark, all of the setup had been done and the girl set off on her adventure. Good pacing up to that point, but then it gets a little muddled and turned into a watery version of “the adventures of darkbeast girl” where she continually ignores the darkbeast’s good advice and learns things about a theater troop. The ending is abrupt and the moral of the story seemed to be “why should we have to kill our darkbeasts?” … which was. Well, it was anticlimactic to say the least.

No vibrant characters, weird pacing, and left-field climax took what started out as a good book down to an unsatisfying finale. (note: the series continues, but I won’t be reading further).

A disappointed 5 out of 10 

The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper

A nonfiction book on interaction design that examines some of the problems with the current software development system, and suggests tools needed to fix them.

Easy to read. (noteworthy in nonfiction!)

An intrigued 8 out of 10

War of the Oaks by Emma Bull

Urban fantasy. Heroine gets drafted into a fae war. Some romance. Lots of music (band-style). Great characters.

I found it a little tedious until the main character stopped struggling against her situation, but the moment she started creating alliances, I was hooked.

(I’ve just read too many novels where the main character spends a few chapters disbelieving in magic for that to be cute anymore, no matter how realistic it might be).

More Emma Bull is definitely in my future.

A delighted 8 out of 10

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia Wrede

Fairy tale retelling by an author I love. Unfortunately, despite my love for the fairy tale and author, I did not enjoy this book. The author went to great pains to simulate period language, which distanced me from the book, and the plot wove between a good half dozen point of views, none of which were emotionally close in the way that I enjoy. Also, there were two “John”s and one “Joan” and I found that jarring.

End result, a dry, rambling tale with unimportant details, distant characters, and unfamiliar language.

A sadfaced 4 out of 10

Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

Another swing and miss from Wrede for me, which makes me glum. Interesting concept — alternate history set in old west times with magic. Main character is the 7th daughter of a 7th son, twin to the 7th son of a 7th son. Her twin is considered uber-magician, and she is the 13th child, which makes her evil and unlucky according to some.

Plays out a bit like Little House on the Prairie but with magic, which is fun for a while, but … well, the book is mostly watching her grow up as things happen around her which she observes. The finale has her taking an active role and actually doing something, but the majority of the book is her overhearing conversations or noticing the actions of everyone around her.

The first in a series, but one that didn’t entice me enough to keep going.

A disheartened 4 out of 10

The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson

Another novella by this author, again gifted to me by Perry, who is making solid inroads into my giving the author’s novels another shot.

I love novellas. They don’t have the rushed (or surreal) feel of short stories, but they’re not as much of a time investment as a full novel.

This novella was a real treat, although I will admit it took a few chapters before I was grounded enough in the story to weed through the jargon. I’m also not a fan of the alternate-PoV first chapter, but these are known personal peeves of mine.

The novella itself was a gem. A “Forger” (uses magic to transmute items under a specific ruleset) is imprisoned and due for execution but finds her sentence lifted when an assassination attempt on the emperor nearly succeeds, leaving his body an empty shell due to brain damage.

She is tasked with the monumental request that she break the law again, this time to forge a soul for the emperor so that he can remain in power.

The magic system is fascinating (one of Sanderson’s skills, I’m told) and the characters are rich and believable. I won’t ruin any more of the story, but for those who have read the story, know that I cherished the window scene, and I absolutely adored the plot’s resolution.

A glorious 9 out of 10

Related posts:

2012 Reading List (as of August)
2012 Reading List (as of April)
Reading, For Writers

[Perry] Why You Should Play Bioshock: Infinite

Elizabeth.

Today’s post is now complete. Go play the game so that you can meet her.

…What? You want more reason than that?

Do you NEED more reason than that?

Fine.

It starts simply…but then again, the best stories always do, don’t they?

You’re Booker DeWitt. You’re rowed out to a lighthouse, given a key, a gun and a simple directive.

“Bring us the girl and wipe away your debt.”

You get launched up to Columbia, a floating haven ruled by “The Prophet”, father Comstock, who’s like a…theological dictator, kinda.

Anyway, you run into the girl, find out that she has special abilities, the ability to open ‘tears’ in reality.

One of the best examples of how her power works was shown in this old E3 trailer. Watch about a minute of this if you feel so inclined (bonus, it involves a horse!).

Once you ‘rescue’ Elizabeth, she starts to run around with you, accompanying you around as you go.

Playing games for a while…you sort of learn that escort missions kind of suck.

So the team at Irrational had a dilemma on their hands.

If they forced the player to constantly watch over and protect Elizabeth, she would quickly become an annoyance. Imagine an escort mission that lasts the whole game. As soon as she died or if her AI fucked up and she wandered into the open, it’s game over and restart from the last checkpoint.

So what to do…?

They apparently seriously considered the option of removing her from the game altogether, it got that difficult to develop her AI.

Until they hit upon a new idea.

Instead of FORCING the player to protect her…they made it sort of optional, in a way.

Elizabeth can’t be hurt in combat. She doesn’t have any sort of life bar so she doesn’t ever ‘die’ when you’re in a fight.

But in the way they made her act…

They wanted to make her live and breathe. So they recorded and filled her with many many kinds of idle animations.

She’s alive. Really, really alive. Not just some fixed NPC that stands there spouting a set of ‘randomized’ lines.

Not just some tethered NPC partner who follows two steps behind you all the time and barely speaks.

Like…she talks. ALL the damned time, she talks. She’s been locked in a tower all her life, remember, so she’s possessed with this huge, burning curiosity about the world.

She’s alive even without your input and she reacts to the world around her.

She’ll wander off when you’re on the boardwalk to browse the shop fronts, or take a handful of free cotton candy from the vendor.

It’s not like she follows you…and more like she follows an approximate area around you, and the area is fairly large.

It’s hard to describe unless you see it in action. She reacts to her environment, do you know what I mean? If something interesting happens that every other NPC is looking at, she’ll stop to look at it too, regardless of how you’re moving around.

Ken Levine, the creative director of Bioshock and Irrational Games’s cutely named “Liz Squad” talk about the somewhat revolutionary (I’m using that word with FULL awareness of what it means) AI and how it came into being, how they brought her to life. It’s an interesting watch, even if you’re not really into games because there are nuggets of wisdom in there regarding how to PRESENT a living, breathing character to your audience, regardless of medium.

During fights, though she can’t be damaged, she takes cover. She hides. She SCURRIES from cover to cover to move with you or stays behind if there are too many explosions and bullets.

There’s this strange….protective urge I feel toward her despite the fact that I know intellectually that she can’t be hurt.

She reacts and moves in a realistic enough way that in the hectic moments of combat, I kind of forget that she can’t be hurt and sort of naturally focus on enemies that are shooting around her first.

On top of that, during combat, she throws shit at you.

When you run low on ammo, when you run low on salts (mana) or health? You’ll be kind of cowering behind a pillar and your gun clicks empty and you have just long enough to get that little spurt of panic when you hear, “Booker! Catch!”

Then you hit the button and Elizabeth throws you whatever you need at the time.

She pulls the objects from tears and there’s a decently long cooldown between when she can do it so it doesn’t feel particularly overpowered. It’s juuuuust enough to make her feel real, ish? Enough to get the sense that she WANTS to help you.

At the beginning and the end of the day though, Bioshock IS a game. All things must be slave to the whims of the player. If you’re the type of player to just charge through from one objective to the next, if you’re the type of player to never stop to take in the scenery or walk because you think your character might…I mean, in all honesty, if you’re that type of player, there’s a fantastic chance that this will mean nothing to you and that you won’t meet the real Elizabeth. Above all of her interests, Elizabeth is required to stay by you, so if you just charge from one objective to the next, she’ll be right there with you, doing her best to not hold you back.

To you, she’ll just be a supply of items and ammunition and a convenient plot device.

If you’re not that type of player though…

If you’re anything like me…you might meet a completely different Elizabeth altogether.

Elizabeth is vibrant. She’s utterly and completely vibrant and watching her struggle to get through the trials she faces is…difficult.

But you root for her, you know? You root for her and you hope that by the end of the game, she’ll finally get to go and see Paris, that she’ll get to go out and see the world she’s read about for so long.

I can’t describe this character in a way that will make you understand, I really can’t. Simply put, I just don’t have the words to convey to you just how amazing she is. I don’t know how to tell you about the protective urge toward her that you just gradually start to feel.

And I certainly don’t know how to tell you how badly it breaks my fucking heart to witness some of the things that she goes through.

But…maybe I don’t have to.

Maybe you’ll decide to pick up the game, just to see what all the fuss is about.

Maybe you’ll enter the city of Columbia and meet Elizabeth for yourself.

Maybe then you’ll understand.

Related posts:

The Games We Play
[Perry] Be Careful What You Leave Out
[Perry] Dishonored and Why It Failed (For Me)

Saucy Dragons Giveaway WINNER

Random.org has shuffled the decks, rolled the dice, and spun the wheel to select the winner for the copy of Saucy Chronicles II: The Dragons.

FAITH

Congratulations, Faith!

I’ll be contacting you via the email your original comment was placed under.

Related posts:

Saucy Dragons GIVEAWAY!
Saucy Chronicles : Dragons — Now Available in Print!
There Be Dragons!

Changes In Choose

Instead of releasing the third volume of Choose on its own, I will be releasing an omnibus version to both kindle and print (CreateSpace, Amazon) and removing the individual volumes currently available for sale.

The Omnibus will contain volumes 1, 2, and 3. Each book will be preceded by a page showing the cover art for each book, and I’m probably going to have a section for various character art at the end, though I’m not sure I can get all that in color.

The book is not yet available, but I thought I’d give you guys a heads-up in case you wanted a print copy (or kindle copy) of each individual book for some reason.

=]

The book is currently being formatted for sale and should be available soon!

Related posts:

Volume 2 of Choose Now Available for Purchase!
Choose: Volume 1 Available
Choose-Your-Own-Novel?

“Teenage” Girl’s Voice

Question

Result of an “Dear Tami” post request.

The original request (reposted because it came from Perry and it makes me giggle)

If I want to get into the head of a teenage girl and use her voice in a manner that sounds like it’s truly coming from a teenage girl, what must I do?

Do I have to consume like 6 teenage girl souls?

Or maybe pray at the altar of Hello Kitty and Justin Bieber?

Or any non-life threatening tips to get that voice right? haha.

Answer

The first and best answer I can give you is to read current YA stories with a strong female teenage voice. Learn from them.

I am not currently a teenager, nor did I have what is considered a “normal” teenage voice even when I was a teenager. I freely admit this.

The “voice” of any character should suit their maturity level, education, setting, and history.

Let’s take your “teenage girl” and play some voice games.

Situation : our heroine is comforting a close friend who has been emotionally hurt by a boy.

Stereotypical Teenage Girl

“I can’t believe what Trevor said! He’s a grade-A waste of air, girl, and doesn’t deserve you.”

Dramatic, slangy terms. Contractions. Informal sentence structure.

Bookworm/Shy/A-Student Teenage Girl

“Oh! Oh, I am so sorry! I just … can’t believe he would say something like that to you. You’re worth a billion slimy weasel sleasebags like Trevor.”

Less likely to be angry, more likely to apologize for no reason. Still uses contractions, but has pauses in the speech and uses more descriptive words.

Teenage girl in a fantasy/medieval story where she is a warrior

“I’ll kill him. Just say the word and he’s dead before the sun rises.”

Terse, angry, powerful. How is this still teenage? Because it’s very emotional. There’s no room for gray areas, it’s black and white. He hurt my friend, he must pay. Adults, who have more experience in these kinds of matters, would hopefully try to find out what’s going on instead of assuming that pain equals injustice.

Teenage Steampunk/Victorian Girl

“Oh, darling! Trevor is a cad, a cad and a bounder. He shall rue this day, weeping at having lost your favor. Come now, you’re staining the brocade. He deserves not a single tear from you, nay, not a one!”

Okay, that’s just me being goofy, but still.

The Point

The POINT is that the “voice” of a teenage girl should depend upon the character speaking. Every generality is going to help point you in the right direction, but remember that each character should be their own person.

Would you compare the voices of Veronica Mars, Kaylee from Firefly (if she’s not a teenager, she’s VERY young), Alexis from Castle, and … say … Regina from Mean Girls? Or even Cher from Clueless?

The Generalities

In general (and thus a breakable rule), teenage girls tend to be fueled by emotion. They are more likely to make passionate decisions and have self-esteem issues and care greatly about what other people think. They still think it’s possible (and important) to please other people and will go to great lengths to do so.

Adult women can suffer from all of these things as well, but it tends to be less black-and-white with them, assuming they achieve maturity of mind as well as body.

A teenager sees a cute boy and crushes on him, wondering if he likes her and possibly doing silly things to get his attention. (See 10 Things I Hate About You for a fantastic movie that does NOT follow this trope.)

A woman in the same situation sees a handsome man and crushes on him, but wonders whether she’s making the right decision or if he’s secretly a jerk or …. Basically, it gets more complicated.

The Best Advice

Back to the first advice.

Read.

You’re writing a book with a teenage girl character, and you’re hardly the only author who ISN’T a teenage girl doing so. Other people fake it all the time, and the ones that succeed are easy to find. =]

Related posts:

Character Voice
Revamping a Very Old Story
Writing Space

[Perry] Wherein Perry Goes Rock Climbing

So the first three months of the year tend to be a little busy in my family when it comes to the birthday department. There are four members of my family with birthdays between January and March.

Most years, we usually pick a day in mid to late February and do up everyone’s birthdays at once with some sort of get together.

This year was no different.

The initial plan was to head out for a day of trampoline dodgeball.

Yeah, you heard me. Trampoline-fucking-dodgeball.

Doesn’t that sound like a hilarious time?

Unfortunately, those plans fell through due to distance, availability and money so we opted for the backup option instead and trouped off to an indoor rock climbing center.

Now, I’ve never been rock climbing, indoor or out. Have you?

It was an interesting experience.

We started with a brief session on ‘bouldering.’ That’s when you’re shown a short wall with a whole bunch of knobbly little bits that you’re supposed to hold and navigate to the top of the ‘course’ as best as you can using only certain assigned colored holds.

It was half puzzle solving and half learning to plan your route before you actually went up.

It was here that I learned that as light as I always found myself (compared to the average guy my age and height), that light weight felt a lot heavier when you’re hanging on by your fingertips and the very tippy tips of your toes about four feet off the floor.

Following that were the harnesses.

Oh dear lord, the harnesses.

For one thing, stepping into a harness and clinching it tight sort of felt like being hugged by an amorous octopus.

…and given exactly where and how the straps felt the tightest and most binding? It was a VERY amorous octopus, if you catch my drift.

I mean, there were a few times throughout the course of the day where the straps slid up in just the wrong way and I started wondering if I’d ever have children.

We didn’t start climbing then, though. Because then, we had to learn how to tie a few knots, something that I was apparently much worse at than I thought. I had a hard time following along with the instructor’s instructions visually, sort of like the difficulty I initially had learning how to tie a proper knot for my tie. Eventually, the instructor had to come around to me and run through it again with a little child’s mnemonic about forming a snowman, giving him a scarf and punching him in the face (if you know how to tie a figure 8 knot, run through it and you’ll see it makes sense lol).

Then came belaying.

This is the method climbers use where one person at the bottom uses their weight to sort of anchor the person climbing against the threat of falling.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a story worth telling if I did it properly the first time, would it?

What happened was my older cousin James went climbing up a wall with me serving as his anchor.

What happened was that the guy was about 50% heavier than I was.

What happened was that he got to the top of the climb and, ready to come down, stopped holding his own weight.

That, of course, sent me freaking flying off my feet and toward the wall as his weight yanked me off mine. If my other cousin hadn’t been there to grab my legs, I’m not sure what would have happened but I’m assuming nothing good.

Hilarious, to be sure. But not good.

The rest of our lesson went without other issues and eventually we broke from the lesson group to find another wall to climb.

The first wall I decided to tackle was a fairly high one but it didn’t look too bad from the ground and I figured, what the hell. With James on the ground belaying for me, there’s no way I’d plummet screaming to my doom, right?

I was fine for most of the climb. Please keep in mind that this was my first time rock climbing at all really and I want to repeat that I was doing just fine.

About three quarters of the way up, though, there was a window. Not directly in front of me, but a bit off to the right, there was a window in the side of the building looking out onto the street below and I remember thinking to myself, “hmmm, the view out the window looks pretty high up.”

Then I looked down.

You ever get that feeling? You know…the Coyote feeling? I’m sure you have. It’s like when the Coyote chases the Roadrunner in the cartoons. he runs straight off a cliff but he doesn’t fall right away, does he? No, he’s perfectly fine for a couple of steps until he makes the mistake of looking down.

Yeah, that happened.

Looking down suddenly pounded home the fact that I was most of three stories above ground.

Very suddenly, I felt fragile and the handholds I was clinging to seemed a lot smaller than they were a second ago.

I made it the rest of the way up the wall alright and back down but I’ll admit to just you guys that there was a tiny bit of shakiness going on in my fingers and toes.

But that didn’t stop me from going up and down another wall a couple more times before the day was done.

It was a fun activity and I highly recommend it. It’ll stretch your body in ways you might not expect and if you’re in the same kind of shape I’m in, you’ll go through a day or two with some pleasant twinges in your shoulders, much like you’d get from good, honest exercise.

The day ended off with dinner at a Mexican restaurant downtown. There were no tables open so me and my cousins ended up sitting lined up at the bar which made for a wonderful unexpected picture.

Moral of the story?

Go rock climbing.

Related posts:

[Perry] Not Everything Needs to Make Sense
[Perry] The Flag of Splenderificness
[Perry] Wherein Not All Things Need To Be Ambitious

Saucy Dragons GIVEAWAY!

I have one shiny, brand-new copy of Saucy Chronicles II: The Dragons just ITCHING for a new home.

The contest is simple.

The Prize : One paperback copy of Saucy Chronicles II: The Dragons to be mailed to the address you provide.

To Enter : Comment on this blog post (not facebook, not twitter … on the blog) with your favorite fictional dragon.

The Dates : Contest runs for only ONE WEEK, ending on April 1st.

I am keeping this contest open to international readers as well, despite the recent postage increase.

Related posts:

Saucy Chronicles : Dragons — Now Available in Print!
There Be Dragons!
Happy Herbivore Cookbook Giveaway!

[Steven] I Am The Hero

Steven and I were playing around the other day with some story ideas, and he not only came up with a great one, he nailed the execution. The last bit of this is some of my favorite stuff that he’s written, and I thought you guys should get to enjoy it to.

——

I Am The Hero

They’ve taken everything from me. First came the dark one, she placed me into this abandoned valley basin, returning later to place her other captives here as well.

I know these captives, these people…all people I have saved before. How devious the dark one’s plan, first taking my power from me and then putting me into a position where I can no longer save these unfortunate powerless souls.

Joshua, a disciple of the dark one came later. He put in motion events that would flood the basin, invariably leading to the demise of these poor souls, and surely my own death after I have been made bear witness to theirs.

Joshua, I had thought you a friend.

As the water rises, I make my way to one captive after another. Each is surprised to find me without my powers, no longer capable of super strength or of granting myself super size. As I explain to each that the dark one took my powers, I load them into a makeshift barge I crafted out of the flotsam left in the basin.

Joshua returns to taunt me, and make light of my most recent heroics, having saved these would be victims once again.

The dark one returns, happy to see that I have played along with her grand scheme once again. She shares a knowing glance with Joshua, they embrace and then it is decided I shall be removed from this would be basin of death and placed in the normal torture chamber.

As I am strapped in, I find a foul smell reaching my nostrils.

Joshua sits a dish on the tray made into this torture device I have been strapped into and plops down across from me. He delights in mocking me as the personal torture begins.

“Honey” the dark one says “make sure Jenny eats all of the carrots.”

They will not break me, these villains. I am the hero.

Related posts:

NaNo2010 > Everyone’s a Hero
[Steven] Coffee-Based Moisturizer

[Perry] Ain’t Gots to be Perfect. Just Gots to be Written

Alternatively: It Won’t Get Done If You Don’t Get to It

You can thank Tami for the title up top there and to be honest, I had a conniption over which of those words needed to be capitalized but to hell with it. Who’s writing this post, huh? Me? That’s what I thought and I’ll capitalize whatever the hell I want!

Ahem.

So here’s a little story.

Around November of 2011, I was approached by a friend to join a little group of creative people. The goal of the group was to promote creativity. Everyone that joined had some sort of artistic craft they wanted to pursue, whether it was painting or video editing or writing, and this group was sort of a way to keep ourselves focused. We’d meet once or twice a month, touch base with each other on projects that we were working on, obtain feedback and criticism and encouragement and it’d all just be seventeen kinds of awesome with chocolate sprinkles on top.

At first, I thought this was a fantastic idea. One of my biggest problems when it came to getting a piece of writing done was that I didn’t really have anyone to share it with. Sure, I should have just been writing for the sake of it and I was…but I can definitely say that having a reliable audience, a deadline, and getting some consistent feedback did wonders for my productivity.

I can’t say the same for the rest of the group.

There was a lot of talking about the projects they were about to start on and what they hoped to accomplish…but little to no actual product. One of the other members, a friend, also pursued writing. Throughout the past year and a bit that we’ve been meeting, I haven’t seen a single finished product out of her, or from any other member of our little group save for one of them.

There is a horrendous lack of apples in this group and there are two reasons for this. Two traps that the various members of this group have fallen into that I am here to SAVE you from today.

Yes, you heard me right. I’ve come down from the mountains with their mistakes writ large on butterscotch tablets so respect my buttery burden and listen up.

The first one is the trap of conflating talking about doing something with actually doing it.

I can see the sugary, butterscotchy glaze coming over your eyes already so concrete example time!

A couple members of this group want to film short little comedic sketches, about two or three minutes long. After a lot of talk, they decided on one idea…and they’ve been talking about filming this same sketch for over a year now. They’ve shown absolutely no sign of actually getting it done or even doing any concrete work on making this a reality other than talking about it.

This is a trap that MUST be avoided. I’ve seen it happen to many people, I’ve experienced it firsthand myself a few times and I’ll be damned if I see anyone else get sucked down into that Sarlacc Pit of doom.

For some reason, the act of talking and describing what you want to do suppresses that little voice at the back of your mind that tells you to get off your ass and get to work. It’s sort of like the more you talk about how much you WANT to do it, the less you feel like you have to.

For a personal example; there are a number of stories that have died a quiet, whimpering death in my head because I spent too much time talking about them. I talked to people about where the plot would go, who the characters were, the way the magic system worked, all of the details of the worldbuilding and on and on and on. I talked so much about this story that I was planning to write that I never actually got around to sitting down and writing it.

Eventually, half a year to a year of no actual progress would come and go and I’d give up the project for lost, moving onto the next shiny idea that slipped to mind.

I’m here to tell you not to be that guy. It is a TRAP. If you want to create something, at the most, talk about it with one other person, someone whose opinions you trust to give you some constructive feedback during the project but keep the rest of it to yourself. Resist the urge to grab a passerby on the street by the lapels and tell them all about this amazing story you’re planning to write. Keep it all inside and make sure that the only outlet you have is to sit down and get it done.

The more you talk about it, the less you will be inclined to start and/or finish so keep your ideas to yourself and GET IT DONE.

This is the really awkward transition to the second trap so in your head, I want you to pretend that the curtains have come down and there’s a line of can-can dancers (gorgeous ones!) prancing across the stage as the curtains come back up and…

[SCENE]: A dilapidated house stands at the corner of the stage. A FOR SALE sign is seen shrouded by weeds, bugs and other things that make you sad. The front door opens and an anthropomorphic bear trap steps out onto the creaking front porch.

TRAP: My name is Early Revision and I am the second trap to creativity.

[SCENE]: Curtains fwoomp back down, can-can dancers trot back across the stage and a debonair young Asian gentleman steps to the front of the stage, sets down a soapbox and steps atop it.

For the love of all of the corgi puppies and grammatically challenged kittens on the internet do NOT do this!

The urge to go back and edit and revise before you’re done is a terribly insidious one. Maybe you noticed a glaring plot hole or maybe you suddenly had an idea on how to do something better or  make it more effective. Like, if the main character loses both his parents at a young age at the beginning of the story instead of starting the story without them, you could totally turn that character into Batman.

I know that in the midst of your creative fire, some lightbulbs are just too damned bright to ignore. Some ideas to change things around are SO good that there’s no way you can ignore them. Burn this into your heart; I’m NOT telling you to ignore them. All I’m saying is to leave it for a more appropriate time. Leave a comment in your document or a post it note at the appropriate spot (if you’re using a typewriter and being all old-school) stating exactly what your new idea is or how to change the scene to make it stronger and then move on.

If you get bogged down trying to fix something you haven’t finished, I can almost 100% guarantee you that you’ll never finish it. The first draft of a story is NEVER going to be ‘finished’ and trying to polish it while you write is is as fruitless as trying to catch a greased up deaf guy.

Save all of the ideas and insights that you have. Make a note of all of the things you thought to change about the story to make it better. But leave it until the first draft is done, done, done.

I’m telling you this three times so that you know it to be the most profound truth.

Leave it until the first draft is done.

Leave it until the first draft is done.

Leave it until the first draft is done.

FINISH the story first, then go back to start polishing.

I promise you that you’ll never be happy with your first draft. You’ll think it’s crap or you’ll think of so many things that you want to change about it before you would dare show it to another soul.

But I can also promise you that if you stop at every chapter to go back and try to edit before the story’s done, IT. WON’T. GET. DONE.

So look up at the title of this post. Look at Tami’s words of infinite and sagacious wisdom and burn them into your heart and soul because everything you will ever accomplish as a writer starts with that all-important piece of advice.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

In fact, it won’t be perfect.

It just needs to get done.

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Perry’s Review of The Unremembered
Weekly Wordcount
[Perry] Be Careful What You Leave Out

Free Farmer’s Market Veggies?

CSA Shares

Some of you may remember my posts about CSA (Community-supported Agriculture) shares.

Basically, you pay X number of dollars for a “share” of the produce from a local, often-organic farmer. Buying local is awesome, the farmers really NEED that guaranteed income in order to pay for their considerable up-front expenses every year, and veggies are considered healthy on almost all diets.

Plus, many of us get reimbursed for up-to-x number of dollars spent on a CSA share, which results in free or almost-free veggies throughout the season.

Win/win, right? Well, mostly.

CSA Box Blues

See, a traditional CSA share gives you a box full of random veggies, based on the harvest. Some weeks, this meant I got like four butternut squashes and five baby bok choi but only a handful of fingerling potatoes or heirloom tomatoes.

Last year’s CSA was particularly weak (it was a hard year on the farmers in general) with less than half the produce offered in the boxes being something my household wanted to eat.

Market Share

This year, we found something new. It’s called Market Share.

You buy an entire “share” at the beginning of the year, just like you would for a CSA box, but instead of getting a pre-determined set of vegetables, you have a card at the Farmer’s Market booth and you shop using that. You buy the veggies you want.

The farm still gets that initial boost of revenue, and you’re not left wishing you had less acorn squash and more red peppers.

Best of all? It’s still a CSA share and it’s still covered by many insurance companies so we get a lot of these vegetables for “free” (reimbursed money covers most of the cost of the full share).

It’s all the fun of going to the farmer’s market without having to have the cash handy!

Anyone Else?

Anyone else out there participated in CSA shares? Does your health insurance offer a healthy eating rebate?

Related posts:

Free Vegetables!
Vegetable Season!
NaNo2010 > Market Day