C.J. Brightley's Blog, page 16

Guest Post: My Five Favorite Dragons in Fantasy

This guest post is part of the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and was written by Wendy S. Russo, the author of January Black.

My Five Favorite Dragons in Fantasy
5. Falkor – The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende, 1979

Like every kid from the ‘80s who read the English translation of the Neverending Story, I saw the movie first. Falkor was a friendly and fluffy creature with far more in common with puppy dog than a dragon. He was ever so nice, plucking Atreyu out of the Swamps of Sadness and flying almost ten thousand miles to boy’s next challenge while Atreyu forgot about his horse losing the will to live.

4. Toothless – How to Train Your Dragon, 2010

Oh em gee, how cute is Toothless! Dreamworks did such a good job with him. He has courage, loyalty, and spunk. There’s more personality in that little ball of pixels than in half of the major cast of the Star Wars prequels combined. Writing-wise, I actually feel there’s more character growth illustrated in Toothless than in his human companion, Hiccup…and Hiccup was well rounded, too.

3. Maleficent – Sleeping Beauty, Disney, 1959

She’s not just one of my favorite dragons ever. She is, hands down, my favorite Disney character of all time. She’s dark, intelligent, and beautiful. I grew up believing that the witch cursed Aurora out of spite for not being invited to celebration. As an adult, I’ve come to see Maleficent differently. Her quips about being slighted were just for sake of conversation. She cursed Aurora because she felt like it. Maleficent wasn’t misunderstood. She was evil. Plain and simple.

2 & 1. Garrett Terago and Aoni’a – The Dragon’s Blood Chronicles, by Sean Poindexter.  (2012)

Sean Poindexter’s dragons are massive, yet graceful creatures who spend much of their time in human form and amass beautiful treasures in out of the way fortresses. They don’t care about having the wealth as much as they are compelled to collect it, and defend it. They also live a very long time, form families of sorts, and have wildly varied degrees of interaction with humans.

Garrett Terago and his friend, Aoni’a, could not be more different. He’s asexual and hiding out in the Ozarks when we meet him. Aonia lives in Los Angeles and parties with celebrities. They are close friends. The type who’ve known each other for so long, they have few secrets. She delights in pushing his buttons. Garrett is the self-controlling type and rarely gets upset, which gives Aoni’a all the more incentive to misbehave.

The two are not coupled in the book—Garrett’s love interest is an utterly human woman—but the fact that Aoni’a wants him, and he has no sexual interest in her at all provides for a lot of delicious tension over the two books so far.

Guest Author Interview: Wendy S. Russo:

CJB: What authors or books have been most influential in your writing? Why?

WSR: Neal Stephenson, Umberto Eco, and Stephen King.

Eco opened my eyes to the use of logical fallacy as a frame for storytelling. Logic tells us that if A is true and B is true…if all of the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. His book, Foucault’s Pendulum, the main character takes hundreds of years of historical facts and builds a massive conspiracy based on a document he believe to be a Templar plan to avenge the death of their last grandmaster, Jacque De Molay.  Years later, the main character’s wife takes one look at the document and says, “It’s a grocery list.” She’s right. And people die because of what he has done. I was so impressed by Foucault’s Pendulum book, and his next novel, The Island of the Day Before, that while I found other books interesting, it took more than ten years for me to find a book that touched me the same way.

That book was Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. The depth and complexity of storytelling by both Stephenson and Eco is amazing. However, I will admit that it’s one of Stephenson’s shorter books, “The Diamond Age,” that wears the crown my favorite book ever.

Finally, there’s Stephen King. I avoided King for a long time because I thought he’d scare the crap out of me. A lifeguard I worked with one summer suggested that I read Robert McCammon’s “Swan Song.” After that, I was brave enough to read King’s “The Dark Half,” which I loved, and in its last few pages, it taught me something very important about mainstream published authors. As celebrated as they are, as much money they make, they have faults. They make mistakes. Stephen King has a problem ending his stories. He knows it. Everyone knows it. He takes a lot of guff for it, but he keeps on doing what he does. That has stayed with me as I’ve worked toward my first publication.

My favorite King novel is “The Eyes of the Dragon,” which taught me something very valuable, too. You can please every reader in the world, but maybe only one at a time. King wrote “The Eyes of the Dragon” for his daughter, Tabitha, who was 13 at the time. She loved to read, but dad’s creepy-crawlies were not her thing. She told King at the end of this book that her only problem with it was that it ended. I’ve always thought that was sweet.

CJB: Tell us a little about your newest/upcoming book.

WSR: January Black is a YA Science Fiction/Fantasy coming of age story. It follows 16-year-old Matty Ducayn, an unruly genius recently expelled from school, and his gardener girlfriend, Iris Locke, on a two-year hunt for an answer to a deceptively simple question. What was January Black? The only answer is “a ship.” Everyone in the kingdom knows that. It would be exactly like asking an American third grader, “What is the Mayflower?” But the king’s question is actually a riddle of sorts, involves semantics, and on his quest, Matty uncovers a state secret buried for centuries. Along the way, he falls in love, gets his heart broken, and is eventually forced to choose between satisfying his curiosity and his life, because answering the king’s question will mean going toe-to-toe with against his kingdom’s oppressive central government.

Several readers have mentioned “dystopian” in their reviews.

CJB: How are you going to celebrate the release? Do you have any traditions?

WSR: This is my very first published book and I celebrated by going to the house of a friend and signing her copy. Seriously, Candace–she’s mentioned in the acknowledgements–she saw the print copy before I did!

CJB: What future projects are you looking forward to?

WSR: I am working on two series right now–one YA paranormal fantasy, one NA sci-fi–that reside in the same alternate timeline. The big joining factor right now is an emo rock band called “Parvana.” (Shout out to Jean Murray. The band gets their name from her book, “Soul Awakened.”) Anyhow, the band has scenes in both books. Most of my attention recently has been on a series I’m calling “The Choir Boys.” It has an Angels vs. Fallen storyline. In the first book, we meet a cute couple of high school juniors who get caught up in the angels’ on-going war when an ambush of a fallen angel goes horribly wrong. I’m toying with ways to turn prom into a night no one will ever forget, even if no one remembers it correctly. *Cheshire cat grin*

CJB: Where can we find you online?

WSR: I’m LOTS of places. Amazon | Blog |  Facebook |  G   | Goodreads | Pinterest | Tumblr | Twitter. Come say hi. I’m friendly.

 

About Guest Author Wendy S. Russo:

Wendy S. Russo got her start writing in the sixth grade. That story involved a talisman with crystals that had to be found and assembled before bad things happened, and dialog that read like classroom roll call. Since then, she’s majored in journalism (for one semester), published poetry, taken a course on short novels, and watched most everything ever filmed by Quentin Tarantino. A Wyoming native transplanted in Baton Rouge, Wendy works for Louisiana State University as an IT analyst. She’s a wife, a mom, a Tiger, a Who Dat, and she falls asleep on her couch at 8:30 on weeknights.

Find her: Amazon | Blog |  Facebook |  G   | Goodreads | Pinterest | Tumblr | Twitter

January Black: Amazon: Print | Kindle | Nook | Other Digital | Goodreads |  Awards and Praise

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google !

The post Guest Post: My Five Favorite Dragons in Fantasy appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Guest Post: How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators

This guest post is part of the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and was written by Sharon Bayliss. Her most recent publication is The Charge.

How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators

Manipulating historical events, either for an alternate history novel or to deceive the masses, takes a lot of research.

Personally, my experience in re-writing history comes from writing my alternate history fantasy, The Charge (not from being a ruthless overlord). In The Charge, the state of Texas never joins the United States and instead becomes an independent nation. I’ve complied a set a tips for how to create a believable alternate timeline.

1) Determine and research your pivotal moment

To alter history, you don’t necessarily need to be an expert on every single historical event, but you do need to be an expert on at least one pivotal moment–a place in history where if things happened differently it would have taken the timeline off course. Everything that happens before the pivotal moment stays the same, but everything that happened after is on an alternate timeline.

2) Read similar alternate histories

You obviously don’t want to steal anyone else’s idea, but you can get a solid sense of pivotal moments and possible alternate paths by learning from others. That knowledge makes it easier to come up with your own idea.

3) Start re-writing that timeline!

After you know about your pivotal moment, you have to follow the rest of history from that point and decide what happens next. I suggest a good old-fashioned timeline like we created back in school. Of course, everything that happens after your pivotal moment is in question, but to keep your head from exploding, focus on how the most important events changed.

You’ll alter real events, and you may end up creating new events that never happened at all. When you’re creating new events, I suggest modeling real world events. No one can say, “that would never happen”, if actually did or almost did.

4) Edit with a critical eye

I suggest that you do a final read through where you’re specifically looking for factual inconsistencies. Look for any references that could possibly have been altered by your change in timeline. Places, events, brand names, political figures, basically any proper noun.

Put on your critical super-geek pants to assess your work…or another critical super-geek might get you!

I hope that novelists and dictators found that helpful! Now go upset your history teacher!

Guest Author Interview: Sharon Bayliss

CJB: What authors or books have been most influential in your writing? Why?

SB: I really fell in love with the dystopian genre in high school, especially Brave New World, 1984, and The Handmaid’s Tale. Ever since, I’ve loved alternate worlds and dystopian futures.

CJB: Tell us a little about your newest/upcoming book.

SB: The Charge is an alternate history fantasy set in a world where Texas never joined the United States and instead is ruled by a supernatural royal family.

CJB: How are you going to celebrate the release? Do you have any traditions?

SB: The Charge released in March, and as it was my first novel, I did a lot to celebrate. One thing I did was enjoy a blue margarita and some Alamo beer.

CJB: What future projects are you looking forward to?

SB: Right now I’m working on the sequel to The Charge.

CJB: Where can we find you online?

SB: www.sharonbayliss.com http://www.facebook.com/authorsharonbayliss @SharonBayliss 

About Sharon Bayliss

Sharon Bayliss is a native of Austin, Texas and works her day job in the field of social work. When she’s not writing, she enjoys living in her “happily-ever-after” with her husband and two young sons. She can be found eating Tex-Mex on patios, wearing flip-flops, and playing in the mud (which she calls gardening). You can connect with Sharon at www.facebook.com/authorsharonbayliss and www.sharonbayliss.com.

Sharon’s newest release is The Charge, a unique, fast-paced new adult alternate history set in a world where Texas never joined the United States and instead is ruled by a superhuman royal family.

You can find The Charge on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Kobo. And if you’re in central Texas, you can also find it at The Book Spot in Round Rock and Book People in Austin. Locals can also check out The Charge Scavenger Hunt for a chance to win prizes!

Add The Charge to your Goodreads TBR list   this week and you may win a copy! During the week of 7/29 I’ll be gifting up to 30 Amazon Kindle copies of The Charge to people who add The Charge to their Goodreads TBR list during the Blogger Book Fair.

“A solid cast of well-developed characters, including a “super-tall” royal Texan family, stars in this thrill ride of a novel teetering between sci-fi adventure and alternate historical epic.” ~Publishers Weekly Review (won in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition)

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Guest Post: How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Blogger Book Fair! My Schedule and Guest Posts

I’m participating in the 2013 Blogger Book Fair! I’m excited about the great group of authors and bloggers participating, and I hope everyone will have a great time.  I wrote the following guest posts for other authors and bloggers as part of the fair (links will be added as the posts go live):

Beyond the Magic - for Sophie Duncan

Interview with Daniel Sherrier

Writing as a Man for Wendy Russo, with an extra spotlight here

Writing Fight Scenes for D. H. Aire

Managing Reader Expectations Through Cover Art for Sharon Bayliss

Excerpt from The King’s Sword and Interview for Yolanda Renee

 

I also hosted the following authors who wrote guest posts this week:

Daniel Sherrier – Making Paranormal Rules is Fun!

Kyra Dune – Do What Works for You

Sophie Duncan – Magical Forensics

Sharon Bayliss – How to Rewrite History: A Guide for Novelists and Dictators

Wendy Russo – My Five Favorite Dragons in Fantasy

D. H. Aire – Blending Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Blogger Book Fair! My Schedule and Guest Posts appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Guest Post: Making Paranormal Rules is Fun!

This guest post is part of the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and was written by Daniel Sherrier, the author of RIP: Touch, a paranormal novella series, and Earths in Space vol. 1: Where Are the Little Green Men?.

Making paranormal rules is fun!

I’m writing a series about ghosts, but before I started, I had to figure something out: What on Earth can ghosts do?

If I was writing a series about police officers, I’d need to research and learn about the laws governing their behavior on the job. If I was writing about tigers, I’d need to learn everything I could about tigers. But there aren’t any concrete, factual accounts of ghosts. Tons of stories and legends are out there, but to what degree my stories conform to existing folklore is entirely up to me.

That means I got to make up my own rules, and I couldn’t get started on the first draft until I sorted out what some of those rules were. I was certainly free to change my mind along the way—and I did—but I needed a tentative rulebook to get started.

The series premise shaped the rulebook. RIP is about a guy who perceives ghosts with his five senses as if they were flesh-and-blood people. Physical interaction with ghosts is the cornerstone of the whole thing here, so that led to my first decision: Ghosts would appear in human shape only, and only their own human shape. No shape-changing, no turning into mist, no floating bedsheets. These ghosts are people.

To set my main character apart, I wanted him to be the only living person who could perceive these ghosts. If he can see, hear, smell, and touch ghosts, then no one else can.

That brought me to my next question—how do these ghosts interact with the living?

But before I could answer that, I needed to figure out a bit more about these post-life folks, namely why are they still here? Why didn’t they go somewhere else? Why aren’t they ready for Heaven or Hell yet?

Then I realized another key component of the series. These ghosts aren’t ready for Heaven or Hell. The truly good and truly evil people went straight up and straight down, respectively. Anyone who’s a ghost on Earth is in purgatory. These people still need to prove themselves worthy of either destination, so even the “good” ghosts are deeply flawed, and the “bad” ghosts couldn’t have been all that terrible in life.

And that brought me to two main categories of ghosts—those who are trying to improve themselves to earn entry into Heaven, and those who have given up and are just doing whatever they darn well please until Hell sucks them in. To spice things up, they don’t know for a fact that Heaven and Hell exist. They have a vague notion that there’s a better place and a worse place, but it’s up to them whether they want to take that notion seriously.

So now I had to figure out how ghosts earn their way to Heaven and Hell. Basically, what supernatural powers do they have to help or hurt the living? Direct physical contact is already ruled out. Instead of physical, then, how about…emotional?

Yes. These ghosts can adjust emotions. That could easily come to resemble mind control, so I decided they can’t create emotions. They can only work with whatever the person is actually feeling. How much they can dial something up or down depends on the unique strength of that particular ghost. The bad ghosts, naturally, have an easier time manipulating people. All ghosts are empathic, and emotions are basically the only thing they can feel.

That didn’t seem like quite enough, so the wicked ghosts can also conjure minor hallucinations, and some are better at it than others. The strongest can manipulate small objects, not with much precision, just to fling a pebble across the room, for example, or knock a glass off a counter. The bad ghosts are the antagonists, so they need to be formidable to some extent.

The good ghosts need to be more limited. They can’t move objects or make people hallucinate, but the good ones can visit people in their dreams and try to communicate with them there. It’s all trippy and ambiguous, though. Can’t be too easy.

I also had to consider what it would feel like to be one of these ghosts. If people can’t touch them, then the ghosts can’t touch people. They can’t touch anything. They need to be able to see and hear. I could allow myself that convenience, and I decided it’s better not to bother explaining why those two senses still function. It’s just a weird quirk. But they can’t touch, smell, or taste. All that sensation is denied to them. They can see and hear the world, but it feels like it’s nothing. Living people are like ghosts to them.

As I wrote, additional details emerged, such as how ghosts are always flying, even if it looks like they’re standing or sitting. Everything is immaterial to them, so how could they stand? They’re just acting in a way that makes them feel human.

That’s basically how you build a paranormal world. Start with your main idea and develop the rules around it, and each new idea will lead to more ideas. Then fine-tune these concepts as you write.

It’s fun. You get to make up all the rules! The hardest part is getting started. So, go and get to work.

Guest Author Interview: Daniel Sherrier

CJB: What authors or books have been most influential in your writing? Why?

DS: I’ve been influenced by writers from multiple media. Mark Twain’s humor, Kurt Vonnegut’s informality, Harper Lee’s sincerity, J.K. Rowling’s brilliant world-building, and Douglas Adams’ creativity have all played a role with me, as have numerous comic book writers, such as Peter David, Mark Waid, Brian Michael Bendis, and Neil Gaiman. Joss Whedon’s TV shows have taught me much about dialogue and structure, and Jim Henson’s writers taught me not to take myself too seriously. They’ve all fueled my imagination.

CJB: Tell us a little about your newest/upcoming book.

DS: My newest and upcoming books are closely related. In March, I launched a series of e-book novelettes called RIP. Here’s the basic blurb: “Opening yourself up to a whole new world can leave you vulnerable — but it’s the only way to grow. That’s what Rip Cooper has to do when he learns he can perceive ghosts with his five senses as if they were flesh and blood people, and he’s just as solid to them — in fact, the only solid thing to them. This young loner has to overcome his fears and kill dead people to prevent them from corrupting the living. He works alongside an impure angel and his ex-best friend’s ex-girlfriend as they teach him how love can conquer fear.”

The first novelette, “Touch,” is available on Amazon. However, I’m going to re-release that as part of a four-novelette volume, RIP vol. 1: Choices. So, you can download the first novelette for a dollar, see if you like it, and then grab the next three installments as part of a single e-book, which should be available in the late summer/early fall timeframe. It’s in the hands of beta readers right now—or on their computers, I suppose.

CJB: How are you going to celebrate the release? Do you have any traditions?

DS: I’m still developing plans on that. I’ve only released two books so far, so I haven’t formed any traditions yet. I also had no idea what I was doing marketing-wise with those two, so I’ll have to plan a bit more carefully this time around.

CJB: What future projects are you looking forward to?

DS: There will be at least two more volumes of RIP (for a series of at least twelve novelettes), but first, I’ll release the second volume of my science-fiction series, Earths in Space. In that universe, there are no aliens, but there are lots of people out there living on other Earths with unique histories. Amena, a whimsical realist with a compulsion to heroically save days, leads a team of explorers to learn about those other worlds in this series of episodic e-novellas. The first two novellas are available in Earths in Space vol. 1: Where Are the Little Green Men? and the next volume will feature three new stories. Most of it is already written and just needs revising.

CJB: Where can we find you online?

DS: Sherrierbooks.com is my website. Please come and visit. I’m also on Facebook, Twitter, and you can find me and my books on Goodreads.

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Guest Post: Making Paranormal Rules is Fun! appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Guest Post: Blending Science Fiction and Fantasy

This guest post is part of the 2013 Blogger Book Fair and was written by D. H. Aire. He is the author of Highmage’s Plight.

CJB: Tell us a little about your book.

DHA: First, thank you, C.J., for the opportunity to appear on your blog. I know you’re a fantasy writer, so you likely understand why I love to write across genre, sci fi and fantasy. These are among my favorite genres and combining them in unusual ways offers me the opportunity to dream up unique stories, combining adventure, satire, humor, and, of course, elves.

My debut novel Highmage’s Plight, published last year, and the forthcoming sequel Human Mage, is the story of an archeologist from our future, who falls through a ripple in reality while holding onto his computer staff for dear life. He finds himself in a world where long ago a starship with human colonists crash landed and the elves did not appreciate the invasion. To win the ensuing rather devastating war, magic bent the laws of science and it will need the reintroduction of science on the level of magic to save the world from a terrible evil.

In a similar vein, I have published a number of time travel short stories which entwine fantasy with sci fi.

CJB: What future projects are you looking forward to?

DHA: The next book in the Plight series, Human Mage, is being published in a few months and I’m about to begin serializing the next book in the series, Highmage, in the ezine Separate Worlds. One of my current projects is Dare2Believe, a Young Adult urban fantasy series. I have posted sample chapters on Wattpad, a free site for YA fiction. Dare is best described, I guess, as Gulliver’s Travels meets Urban Fantasy.

CJB: What authors or books have been most influential in your writing?

DHA: As I mentioned, I enjoy writing a blend of sci fi and fantasy. In many ways sci fi started out as fantasy. The authors and books that have been most influential to me include the works of Jules Verne From Earth to the Moon (where people fly to the Moon by being shot out of a cannon), Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea (with its wonderful submarine and sea monsters) are sci fi as we describe it today. I doubt they were so easily classified back when Verne wrote them. He offered visions of the fantastic and looked at what technology might make possible. He captured imaginations, a hallmark of good sci fi. Yet to me the fantasy element is what resonates.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic, The Lord of the Rings, caught my imagination just as strongly as a teenager. After that, I found myself appreciating fantasy as fantasy, magic, quest, and all. I wasn’t able to read enough of it after that. Thinking about it, I couldn’t read enough sci fi, either. I guess not being able to get enough made me dream up my own stories and spurred me to write them.

For me, combining both genre is rather, well, fun. I love dreaming up worlds or twisting ours. I love stories like Gordon Dickson’s The Dragon and the George, which takes a psychology experiment over reality’s edge and makes a dragon a twentieth century man, and Roger Zelazny’s Amber Series, where reality changes for the family that can walk between worlds. I’m also a fan of Anne McCaffrey’s The Dragonrider’s of Pern Series, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover Series, Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar Series, the works of Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Moon. On the sci fi side, I’m a big fan of David Feintuch’s Nicholas Seafort Saga, and David Weber and John Ringo’s March to the Sea.

In terms of my own writing, I feel you really don’t need to have elves or dragons to write fantasy… but it helps. I also like to explore issues in my stories, which is what good sci fi should be about, through a different lens, which can be clearer when, for example, humanity faces racist elvins. Okay, not all elves are racist. Trolls can have their human issues, too, which I love too.

For those interested in a chance to win a free Highmage’s Plight t-shirt and the opportunity to get an advance read of the sequels in the series, visit my website at www.dhr2believe.net for details during the Bloggers Book Fair, July 22 – 26, 2013.

You can find me online at www.dhr2believe.net, librarything.com, shelfari.com, #dhr2believe1 on twitter, and facebook. Oh, I am also featuring a guest blog post from C.J., so you’ve another great reason to visit.

Dare to Believe,

D.H. Aire

www.dhr2believe.net

@dare2believe1

Facebook

Author of Highmage’s Plight and Human Mage (forthcoming) Paperback Kindle Nook

Flights of Fantasy, Vol. 1, featuring the short stories of D.H. Aire and Barry Nove, ed. Colin Neilson (Spectacular Publishing) Paperback epub formats

Look for my short story Crossroads of Sin in the anthology RealLies (February 2013) the story behind Christopher Columbus’s voyage and the time traveler, who had to make sure he wasn’t a footnote in history as his three ship flotilla was in hers. Available on Amazon and at https://www.facebook.com/tzppbooks/app_138996027389.

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Guest Post: Blending Science Fiction and Fantasy appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Writing Lessons from Martial Arts

Some of you know that I’m a martial artist. I’ve been training in martial arts for over 19 years as of this writing. I started in taekwondo when I was 12 and earned my first black belt in the now-defunct International Taekwondo Council (ITC). I trained for about two years in a Japanese Karate Association (JKA) Shotokan karate school before heading to college at 17, where I trained for a year in judo. When I transferred colleges, I ended up in a Chidokwan karate (basically Shotokan + escrima sticks + street-style self-defense) university club, where I trained for two years before taking over the club as the head instructor (for free… it was a university club, after all!). I was awarded an honorary black belt so that I could promote my students, based on my 9 years of experience at that point. Meanwhile, I was also training under a local Goju Ryu instructor and earned my first degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo, or weapons. This involved training with the bo, sai, nunchuku, and tonfa. Later, when I moved to Texas for graduate school, I took a brief break from training to focus on school, and then trained off and on at a Shotokan school in DC (while I worked) before having my daughter. I’ve been teaching for a different school for about a year and a half and mostly teach private lessons now.

So, I’ve had a little experience with martial arts. Many of the lessons from martial arts can be transferred to writing.

1. The details matter.

I’m not the strongest person in the room. I’m not the fastest. I’m 4’11″ and 99 lbs, and I’m female. I’ll never be the strongest. But I almost always have the cleanest technique, and there is not a fighter in the room who doesn’t understand that I can score on them when I choose to. Why?

My technique is clean. In karate, that means that the movements are efficient, smooth where they’re meant to be smooth, and sharp where they’re meant to be sharp. Clean technique is harder to block, faster, more powerful, and easier to execute (provided you’ve done the necessary training ahead of time).

What does that mean in writing terms?

Write cleanly. Do the work to edit, pare down, shore up, and carry your story through from idea to beautiful execution. Don’t wimp out in the middle with lazy writing or inadequate editing. Yes, it takes more work. Nobody said it was easy. But if you do the work , the payoff is worth it… clean, efficient writing that achieves its purpose without wasted motion or flailing around.

2. You need examples.

It’s impossible to become an effective martial artist on your own. You need to see what others have done, and how and why it worked or didn’t work. You need to be able not only to analyse what they did, but why each situation was unique. Why did this technique work here and and not work there? Why does this trope continue to exist, and what makes it work when it works, even though it’s been done a thousand times already?

One of my favorite things in a martial arts studio is the mirrors… a long wall of mirrors. As in a dance studio, you can watch your technique and self-correct, provided you have a good example. You learn what correct form feels like and use that to form the muscle memory.

You need to know what clean writing looks like. Read the classics. Read successful, respected books of all genres. Read genre fiction, even if it isn’t “classic” or great literature. Figure out what makes them work. A Tale of Two Cities works for different reasons than The Hunger Games… but you can probably learn something from both of them.

3. You need feedback.

In martial arts, you have an instructor or coach. Often you have more than one. Given my training background, I’m a big fan of multiple coaches and multiple styles, but it can be challenging to find even one that is truly qualified not only to do, but to teach.

An instructor isn’t someone who knows everything. An instructor is someone who knows what “correct” looks like, and is reasonably competent at both executing techniques correctly themselves and teaching you to execute technique correctly too.

4. Doing and instructing are different but overlapping skill sets.

If writing is technique, editing is coaching or instructing. A writer may be a great editor, but not necessarily. A martial artist may be a great instructor, but not necessarily. A great instructor may not be the best martial artist out there, but he or she may have a phenomenal ability to pinpoint what isn’t working for you, and help you fix it. It would be nearly impossible to be a good instructor without being a competent martial artist, but instructing requires additional/separate skills that not all great martial artists have. A good writer is probably a competent editor, if only from the practice editing his/her own work. But truly great editing is different than just being a great writer.

As a side note here: Please don’t consider anything I write on this website as instruction. I am a writer. I am not an editor, nor am I a writing instructor. What I write here is meant to be insight into my journey as an indie author. I hope it is helpful for you, but it is not sacred writ meant to dictate how you do anything. What works for me may not work for you. In fact, it’s totally possible I’m the only weirdo who does things this way! Creativity is unique.

5. Not all instructors are equally beneficial.

There are a lot of people out there who bill themselves as martial arts instructors. A great many of them are mediocre at either doing or instructing or both. A non-trivial percentage are so bad they will actually make you less safe in a fight, because you’ll think you’re prepared to defend yourself when you’re really not. Some just want to pat you on the back and make sure you’re having a good time. Some just want you keep paying them for instruction, regardless of whether you’re learning anything useful. Some are well-meaning but just don’t have the skills they think they do.

It’s hard to find a good martial arts instructor, both because they’re rare and because when you’re a newbie, you don’t really have the skills necessary to evaluate instructors. Good writing mentors and editors are similar. If you’re not already an expert, it’s hard to evaluate experts… but in order to spend your money wisely, you have to figure out how. The wrong editing experience, workshop, or critique group experience can not only be painful, but seriously harm your writing for years. Choosing your writing team should not be done in a rush or haphazardly.

Every instructor-student relationship is different, but one tool you can use to evaluate your potential writing team members (editor, cover artist, etc.) is the experiences of others in your position. Does the editor have other clients whose books have sold well? Do they have some experience verified by an outside organization that can serve as some sort of quality assurance? In martial arts, there are many organizations with differing standards because there are numerous forms of martial arts… and not every great instructor is a member of a group, because organizations can be a money-suck for no apparent benefit. But if you like an organization’s standards, you can use an instructor’s credentials in that organization as a baseline. The same is true of editing – not all great editors are members of organizations, and not all great editors have previously edited bestsellers or previously edited for a large publisher. But those factors are one way of finding an editor who is probably competent.

Whether that editor or instructor is the best fit for you is something only you can evaluate. Some skills are objective, but others are subjective – the degree to which the editor sees your vision, the ability to work with you and your personality to bring your work to its fullest potential, etc. Don’t choose people who only want to pat you on the back and tell you’re great. There’s a place for encouragement, but it’s not the only job of an instructor. An instructor should make you better. At the same time though, perfection is impossible. Striving toward some mythical ideal is not only discouraging, but likely to strip out the voice and beauty that make your work unique.

6. You need to test yourself.

Training in a vacuum isn’t useful. You can develop nice technique by practicing in front of your mirror all day, watching videos, and self-correcting. But you’ll never know whether you can take care of yourself in a fight if you don’t spar. And by sparring, I don’t mean just playing tag… you need to get a little bruised. Sweaty. You’ll probably get a split lip a few times. Sparring with training partners and friends isn’t meant to result in injury, but you have to test yourself and your limits to find out what you need to work on.

7. You need to self-correct. Learn from your bruises.

I started my martial arts training in taekwondo, and I still have a preference for keeping my opponent at a distance by using my feet. Being smaller, this seems to make sense… I don’t want to get clobbered by opponents much stronger than I am. But since I’m so petite, most of my opponents have at least 6 inches on me,  often closer to 12 inches or more. A kicking-only fight can go downhill for me really fast.

Don’t keep fighting a losing game. If it’s not working, do something else. If your plot isn’t working, get creative. If your characters aren’t making sense, figure it out. Call in reinforcements… have a brainstorming session with some friends. All your beta readers hated your characters? Figure out why and decide what to do about it.

This does not mean that you need to change everything to satisfy every reader out there. Your stories are yours, and only you can write them. It does mean that feedback may have a kernel of truth it – dig out that truth and figure out how to use it.

Getting bruised hurts. It hurt when my Shotokan instructor kept bopping me in the head. But I learned to keep my guard up! Don’t pay attention to mean critiques that are meant to hurt. But honest critiques can hurt too. Don’t take them personally, and don’t take them as gospel, because writing is subjective. See if there is anything useful to learn from, and then move on to the next fight.

8. Do the unexpected.

As the shorter fighter, I had to overcome my natural tendency to keep my distance. Instead, I close distance. My opponents can’t kick me with their long legs, but I’m flexible enough I can generally still kick them, plus I can use my hands. What does this mean? I need to guard my head, because it’s at the perfect height for them to hit! But it works… closing distance isn’t what people expect, especially if they don’t know me. Imagine the fierce little bunny from Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.

9. Play to your strengths.

See the explanation for point 7. Avoid your weakness and play to your strengths. Distance isn’t my strength; being in close is. Don’t fight a losing game… change it.

Does this mean never do anything that doesn’t come naturally? No. Using my hands did not come naturally – I had to retrain myself to use them effectively at closer distances. But my height is always going to be a factor. “Oh well, I’ll always lose to people taller than I am”…. NO! That’s not an option, not when you’re like me and you enjoy winning! What were my strengths? I’m naturally coordinated  and athletic, I work hard, and I pay attention to the details. I care about getting it right. Those things allowed me to turn my petite size into something that, if not exactly an advantage, isn’t as much of a disadvantage. Use your strengths to overcome your weaknesses.

10. Don’t give up.

No one has ever become excellent at something without working hard. Sure, some people have more talent than others. Some people are more coordinated. Some people have faster reflexes. Some people are more intelligent. Some people are naturally slim and athletic.

Talent alone may make you decent. But it takes hours of focused practice to become skilled.

Don’t waste time and energy envying people with more talent than you. We all have talents, and we all have areas where we’re not as talented. We can’t change that. But we can develop skill. It takes hard work, humility, good examples and instruction, blood, sweat, and tears, but it’s possible.

Combine talent and skill, and you get excellence.

And a bonus point:

11. Don’t give up (redux).

Writing, like martial arts, is a two-person exercise. The writer writes so the reader can read. Aside from personal journaling, writing without a reader is like shadow boxing… you’re expending a lot of energy, but nothing really happens. No one can appreciate your skill or lack thereof, and no one can give you much feedback on whether your techniques are effective or not.

If you’re writing for traditional publication, that can be incredibly frustrating. Rejections can come for myriad reasons, only some of which have to do with the quality of your work. Maybe your work is great, but your “ideal reader” group is smaller than the agent wants to deal with. Maybe you wrote a great book but the agent or publisher thinks it falls into an overdone trend. Who knows? We need both constructive criticism and validation of our efforts, and when rejections pile up, it’s easy to consider throwing in the towel.

If you are indie-published, or are considering it, sales numbers may cause you the same frustration. You publish a book you believe in, but the sales are slow, reviews are non-existant or not as glowing as you’d hoped, and… you wonder if you’re wasting your time.

Don’t give up. Don’t hang all your hopes on one book. Sweat over it, give it your all, and then let it go. Move on to another book, another story, another opportunity to shine. Another opportunity to practice your skills. Another opportunity to find that spark that makes the hard work feel like fun.

If you look for famous authors who self-published, you’ll find whole lists. Self-publishing is no longer the self-imposed exile of the almost-good-enough or the not-even-close-to-good-enough. It’s a business decision, not a quality-of-work indicator. Consider it if your main goal is to reach your ideal readers. Aim for traditional publishing if your main goal requires something only traditional publishers can give.

Find a way to reach your readers.

~~~~~

Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

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My Writing Process

Tips and Tricks to Overcome Writer’s Block

First, read this post on Writer’s Block and How to Defeat It. It outlines how writer’s block is generally a result of either fear or confusion, and how to address those issues.

This post does NOT address those deeper issues. These tips and tricks work best for me when I’m only “sorta stuck”… I have some ideas, but the words aren’t flowing. These are ways to jog your creativity and exercise your mind. If you’re dealing with writer’s block, please look at the root causes first before relying on the tips and tricks below.

Exercise and Think About Your Story

Go running or go on a long walk. If you’re fit and healthy and your doctor gives the ok, go on a long, sweaty run. Bring a water bottle or choose a route with a water fountain. Don’t bring an mp3 player. Be alone with your thoughts and think about your story while you sweat.

This works best for me if I can go on a long, tiring run on a Saturday morning, come back and take a shower, and immediately sit down to write. The physical exertion helps get my thoughts flowing, and it’s easier to focus on my story because I want to be distracted from the effort of running. Physical exertion apparently puts my inner editor into an exhaustion coma and I can get lots of good thoughts out before she wakes up. Your definition of long and tiring may vary… do what works for you.

Or Exercise and Don’t Think About Your Story

Try something far outside your comfort zone: martial arts, a Zumba class, rock-climbing, kayaking, etc. Don’t hurt yourself, but try something that is genuinely challenging. Don’t think about your story at all, but be observant. Were there other participants? Listen to them talking. How did they react to challenges? How did you react? What feelings did you have as you faced something new and possibly scary?

Give yourself some time to process your thoughts, and then see if any of those feelings or experiences are applicable to your story.

Have a Brainstorming Session

Find a friend willing to participate in a brainstorming session with you. Talk about your story with them, and ask what they think would work or not work. What do they expect from your characters? Use that as a starting point, not the deciding factor. Encourage them to be bold in their suggestions… they might come up with ideas that really spark your imagination. This is a brainstorming session, not a write-it-out session. Take notes, but only hit the high points… the goal is to get you thinking about the story in new ways, not to plot out everything.

Do Something Else Creative

Try painting, knitting, making jewelry, photography, or making a collage. I make jewelry, and I tend to alternate between writing phases and jewelry-making phases. Having another creative outlet is a wonderful way to exercise the creative parts of your brain while sidestepping the frustration of feeling like you’re not getting anywhere on that one frustrating project. I find that problematic scenes or storylines are sometimes resolved while I’m doing something else… in the back of my mind, ideas are percolating through, and I just need to give myself time to let that happen. Putting stories on the “back burner” doesn’t have to mean that you leave that burner off!

Change Your Scenery

Do you always write at your desk? Go to a coffee shop. Sit on your deck with a cup of coffee or tea. Do you always write on your computer? Take a notebook and write longhand. Wear a hat (if you normally don’t). Sit in your basement on the floor. Go to a park. Do you always listen to music? Put on noise-canceling headphones and write in silence. Get up really early and write in the pre-dawn hours when you’d normally be asleep. Stay up really late and write hours past your bedtime (best done on weekends!).

Do something different. Get out of your routine, and see where it takes you.

Take a Nap

Yes, seriously. As adults, we’re generally pretty sleep-deprived. Between jobs, children, spouses, other hobbies, yard work, pets, and possibly even a social life, we’re pulled in 9 different directions every day. It’s hard to write when you’re mentally exhausted. Sometimes physical exhaustion is helpful (at least for me), but mental exhaustion is different. Write some notes to yourself about what you want to write when you get up. It doesn’t have to be a detailed outline, but a general direction for the next scene.

Then go to bed earlier, sleep a little later, take a nap… find some way to grab an extra hour or two of sleep. When you get up, hopefully feeling fresh and rested, begin writing immediately. You might have to do this on a weekend, and you might have to do a little prep work to make it feasible… plan for a crockpot dinner so you don’t have to cook that night, etc.

Clean Your Writing Space

This is not an excuse to procrastinate! But I’ve found that I write more and better with minimal clutter around. A messy desk stresses me out. Clean your writing space. Keep it clean for a week. See if a neater space makes you more productive. If so, take 5-10 minutes before each writing session to clean up. It’s better to spend 10 minutes cleaning and 30 minutes writing than it is to spend 40 minutes staring at the screen or notepad because you can’t focus.

Challenge Yourself

Give yourself a word goal, or a time goal, or a scene goal. Write 300 words in the next ten minutes (writeordie.com is a fun, easy way to prod yourself on word/time goals). Write for an hour without being distracted. Finish that scene.

Get silly! Write a scene while standing on one foot. Write 500 words before you’re allowed to drink your morning coffee. It doesn’t matter much if they’re good… they got you going. If the first 250 are garbage and the next 250 are only mediocre, then you get your coffee and BAM! The next 500 will be perfectly adequate for a first draft. Editing is for later… just get the words out now.

Have a Goal

Set goals for yourself. Try a daily or weekly word count goal. Monthly goals don’t work for me because I need shorter term goals, but they may work for you. Daily goals often don’t work because life gets in the way. Don’t get too hung on up on word count goals, and don’t make your word count goal so high it’s unattainable. Be flexible and realize that real life takes time too. But you do need goals, or you won’t get anywhere.

Try having a “complete this story” goal instead of a word count goal. Or a “write this scene” goal. Or a “work for one hour” goal. Try different types of goals to see which motivates you best. Be sure to break huge goals into smaller, achievable goals.

Be Accountable

Find a buddy who will expect a report on how many words you’ve written either daily or weekly. Report to them every day or every week. A quick text, or an email, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. But know that they expect a report from you. This buddy does not have to be a writer… they just have to be someone you can rely on to be consistent and remind you if you don’t send in your daily report.

Track Your Progress

Track your progress by word count, time of day, day of the week, and location. Pay attention to patterns. Are you always more productive in the mornings, even if you think of yourself as a night owl? Are you always more productive on Mondays because the big office meeting is over and no longer stressing you out? Figure out what factors affect your productivity, and change your routine to maximize your own productivity.

Don’t use tracking your progress as a procrastination technique. There are lots of tools you can use to do this, but you can also do it by hand in a spreadsheet or even a notebook. I use RescueTime.

Don’t Get Distracted

Are you addicted to Facebook/Twitter/Google+/Pinterest? Are you addicted to researching your story rather than writing it? Ban yourself from the internet. Don’t have the self-control? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I just found SelfControl (Mac only) and am trying it out. Sometimes, writer’s block isn’t writer’s block, it’s just “easily distracted and can’t focus ooooh, shiny!” Use your time wisely. You don’t have to block out 10 hours a day to make progress… even one hour a day of solid writing can add up to a first draft pretty quickly.

What works for you?

Did any of these tips work for you? Please tell me! Do you have other suggestions? Please let me know in the comments.

~~~~~

Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Tips and Tricks to Overcome Writer’s Block appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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Race in The King’s Sword

I’m writing this partly because I was inspired by this post at SF Signal, in which Zack Jernigan conducts the first part of a round-table interview focused on writing about race in science fiction and fantasy (SFF). I’ve also been asked about race and racial issues in my writing by some readers and thought I could shed some light on my perspective.

Unlike Zack, I don’t have a varied and accomplished panel of interviewees to make excellent points, so I’m attempting to do this myself. I’m a white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class American. I don’t have personal experience of being the outsider for racial reasons. I grew up in the Southeastern U.S., so I’m aware of all the history and baggage that can intrude into a discussion of racial issues, but I have rarely seen it openly and obviously displayed.

When I wrote The King’s Sword, I wasn’t setting out to make any kind of statement about race. In fact, I was actually intending to write Hakan’s story, a simple coming of age story from the perspective of the young man’s mentor. Instead, what unfolded was Kemen’s story, the story of a man who felt out of place in his own country, yet who loved and respected it. Initially, Kemen’s minority status was only one of many reasons why Hakan was cautious around him at first. I knew the history of Erdem (their country) and why Dari and Tuyets were cautious around each other. Dari and Tuyet history and cultures were not meant to be an analogue for black and white race relations in the U.S. – race was only one of several fractures dividing people in this world of my invention. Slavery was never a major factor in Erdemen history, and when it occurred it was unrelated to race.

However, awareness of race and the divisions it can cause was an unavoidable fact of living in Kemen’s skin. He’s not a perfect narrator, and although he’s honest and self-aware, he’s also human. He makes mistakes, he makes assumptions, and he’s sensitive about feeling like an outsider.

The fantasy setting allowed me to write without having to worry about my ability or right to write authentically about a specific real-world racial group. One of the things that I think worked especially well about writing Kemen’s story in first person is that you meet him as an individual, rather than a representative of a race. Everyone is different; everyone has different experiences that shape who they are. Part of what makes us compassionate people is caring about others as individuals, valuing them for their uniqueness rather than assuming that a group label, experience, or judgment defines them. That ability and responsibility to see others as individuals, rather than a label, is also what can help us write about race, or incorporate race as one of many threads in a story.

Kemen isn’t meant to be the “noble savage” or any other caricature or stereotype; he’s just a man, who is affected by but not defined by his race and the experiences he’s had as a result of his skin color and the world in which he lives. He’s acutely conscious of being different, but he’s not sure how much of that feeling is a result of his skin color vs. his personality, his combat experiences, and the simple fact that sometimes everyone feels like an outsider, for reasons that aren’t always easy to identify.

If there’s a message in Kemen’s story, it’s that people are individuals. We are shaped by our experiences, but we’re defined by our choices.

Who will you choose to be?
~~~~~

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Guest Post – The Importance of Alternate Realities

In fantasy and other fiction, a lot of stories begin with the question “What if…?” Humans love to explore what might be and what might have been. It’s entertainment, but it’s also a way to learn about ourselves and about the world we live in. Today’s guest post is by chick lit / romance author Deb Nam-Krane.

The Importance of Alternate Realities

Even though my writing stays firmly in the world of Newtonian physics, it’s important for me to know that for all of my characters there’s an alternate reality or, as I call it one of my books, everyone’s unique If Only.

Contemplating what could have been is as painful in fiction as it is in real life; with the benefit of hindsight, our pasts could have been perfect… or could they have? How many SF/F works feature someone going back in time to get the destiny they should have had, only to find that altering history is more complicated than changing a few details? And how many stories across genres center around someone trying to recapture the glory of their youth, only to find that it wasn’t as glorious as they remembered it? Alternate versions of the past, in my opinion, are best used as a tool to help a character come to terms with their present and progress to a better future.

In my debut novel, The Smartest Girl in the Room, my main character is filled with regret because of both the choices she made and, worse, circumstances she couldn’t control. At one point, she fantasizes about what her world could have looked like if only she had had different parents and two men hadn’t lied to her. Underlying all of that is her regret that she didn’t have the power to change those facts. That ache, more than anything else, is what motivates her actions throughout the second half of the novel.

Sometimes the fantasy of what could have been allows a character to see what actually is. Later in my series, two characters with a complicated history find themselves wishing that one essential detail between them could be changed, then later settle for imagining a world in which the truth was known from the outset. In one character’s imagination, the other becomes a better version of themselves. That rumination allows the character to see that the other has, over time, started to become the better person they were always capable of being.

It’s important not to make one character solely responsible for the difference between what could have been and what actually was, even if that character is a “villain” (perhaps especially so). As my characters start imagining the better world they could have had, they see that the person they’ve blamed for their troubles was only one person that needed to change; other, beloved figures would have needed courage, acceptance and/or patience. The world imagined here is possible, but because of all of the moving pieces that would have needed to come together perfectly, not probable. Reality, tragic as it was, becomes something both can make peace with. That understanding finally allows the two characters to stop being haunted by the actions of others and genuinely move forward.

As writers, it’s all too easy for us to live in our heads; we know that if we do that too often, we won’t get anything of consequence done (including our writing!). We need to take that insight into our stories as well; if any of our characters spend too much time imagining what could have been, they will never make a reality that they can ultimately live with. Sometimes, that can make for a compelling story- the modern version of the person who “could have been a contender”- but in most cases we have to eventually move our characters out of their regrets and into action, however subtle it may be.

If we’ve done our jobs right, the reality our characters create for themselves will be something that is true to them, even if it isn’t the happy ending they would imagine for themselves. That, after all, is life: everyday trials and tribulations punctuated by challenges and (hopefully) those brief moments when our dreams come true. That’s what our characters should experience as well.

About Deb Nam-Krane (guest poster):

Deborah Nam-Krane was born in New York, raised in Cambridge and educated in Boston. You’re forgiven for assuming she’s prejudiced toward anything city or urban. She’s been writing in one way or another since she was eight years old (and telling stories well before that). It only took 27 years, but she’s finally ready to let the world read her series, The New Pioneers.  The first book in the series- The Smartest Girl in the Room- was released in late March.

Please connect with Deborah Nam-Krane on any of the following sites:

Written By Deb
Deb In the City
Adventures in Urban Homeschooling
Amazon Author Page
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google+
Goodreads
Join her  mail list  to find out first about new releases

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Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

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Musings on Writer’s Block

I wrote this post weeks ago, serenely confident in my wisdom. It just went live, but the post has been written for almost a month. And it’s good advice! Nothing has changed… what I wrote then is still true.

But now, as I’m struggling with Book3 in the Erdemen Honor series, I’m reminded of how very frustrating writer’s block is.

I’ve asked a few online writer buddies to help me with brainstorming. Once I know where my characters are going, I can write it. Sometimes I don’t need that… sometimes we’re all heading off toward crazy adventure together. I may not know where we’re going, but I know we’re going, and I can see a few feet down the roller coaster tracks. I don’t have the whole track in view, but I have a general idea of the direction.

This time I need the track in view. And apparently my own little headlights aren’t lighting it up enough… I need more writer brainpower to shine some light down the tracks.

So thank you, writer friends.

And thank you, if you’ve ever been a brainstorming buddy for a writer. Writing can be hard. It can feel lonely. It can feel like pulling teeth. It’s creating something beautiful out of nothing. It doesn’t have to be difficult, but sometimes it feels that way. If you’ve encouraged a writer, helped a writer with ideas, patted a writer on the back, been a beta reader… thank you.

If you’ve ever read a book, thank you! You are the reason we write.

~~~~~

Please connect with me on Facebook or Google+!

The post Musings on Writer’s Block appeared first on C. J. Brightley.

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