One Thousand And One Parsecs

Go to Tor.com and read this.

Brandon Sanderson’s story of how he decided to become a writer is very interest.  It goes back to elementary school, when he hated books and reading in general.  A wise teacher put a copy of Barbara Hambly’s Dragonsbane in his hand, and it started a chain reaction that led to him becoming a bestselling writer.

As one of Brandon’s students, I’ve heard the story several times.  However, I had no idea how significant a role that Michael Whelan, the illustrator of that book, played in it all.  Tor commissioned Michael Whelan to do the cover for Brandon’s next book, The Way of Kings. In response, Brandon wrote a blog post at Tor.com explaining how significant it is to him that Mr. Whelan was chosen to do the cover art for The Way of Kings.

It’s an awesome and moving blog post.  You should check it out.

In unrelated news, I am 110 pages into outlining Bringing Stella Home 3.0 and enjoying the process immensely.  I’ve got some awesome first readers.  Even with all the honest criticism, I’d much rather be writing than doing office work at my internship.  Ah, well, April 15th will be here before we know it.

As for graduating and finding myself in the real world…not quite as thrilled about that.  More like scared s***less.

Major project shift

I’ve got this goal to finish my current work-in-progress, To Search the Starry Sea, by May 1st 2010.  However, the deeper I get into the story, the more I realize how many problems it has–how much it sucks, in other words.

Normally, this wouldn’t keep me from dropping the project or putting it on hold.  It happens with every rough draft (or second or third draft, for that matter); midway through every project, I start to get all angsty and worry that the project sucks, that it’s beyond saving, that I’m wasting my time, etc.

However, this time it’s different for a number of reasons.

First of all, the story itself doesn’t suck. However, it does have a weak beginning and a poor setup, which makes it very difficult to develop the middle section.  With better conflict foreshadowing and character introductions, I could tear right through this section, but without that, I’m floundering more and more.

A couple months ago, I started to realize this, so I started a set of revision notes for the next draft.  My thought was “if I know the story needs changes, rather than going back and changing them, I can just make a note of them and move on.”

However, that approach isn’t working because the unwritten changes aren’t impacting the story as fully and completely as they would if I’d write them out.  If the changes were minor, I could let them go–but when they have to do with something fundamental, like setting up a romantic subplot, or turning a minor character into a major character into a major viewpoint character, I can’ t just make a note of the change and move on–I need to write the thing to see what it changes.

In other words, I need to restart this project from the beginning.  But if I do that while I’m still angsty about it, it’s going to end up like crap.  I’ve got to let it sit for a while.

It’s frustrating, because I really want to finish a straight draft from start to finish.  For both Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home, I only finished the rough draft after dropping the project for a while and restarting it at the beginning.  If it works, I guess it works, but it would be nice if the creative process were more linear.  Blegh.

All is not lost, however.  Most of my first readers for Bringing Stella Home have gotten back with their feedback, and it’s been extremely helpful.  I’ve got a clear direction and lots of ideas for where I want to take that story, and now that I’ve spent some time away from it, I can honestly say that it doesn’t suck all that bad.  In fact, after a lot of work, it might actually be decently good.

There are several reasons why it makes sense to work on Bringing Stella Home right now.  For example,

1. I’m excited about it.  Better to capitalize on that now than wait until after the enthusiasm has died.
2. I’ve got lots of ideas flowing to me now.  I could try to write them all down for later, but why not try them out now, while they’re still fresh?
3. I’m sending Genesis Earth out to a bunch of places, and the rejections are starting to come in.  If I can respond to a rejection by sending out a second book in a timely way, I will look much more like a professional, and the agents/editors will take me more seriously.

My goal was to have To Search the Starry Sea done by May 1st.  Let’s see if I can do Bringing Stella Home 3.0 (and yes, the title will change) by that day instead.  And if that proves too difficult, what with graduation, internship, looking for work, and figuring out life, at least I can reach the halfway mark by then.

So that’s my new goal: Finish Bringing Stella Home 3.0 by May 1st, 2010 (or at least be halfway finished). To do that, I’ll have to read through all the comments by the end of this week and have the revision notes all figured out.

Better get started!

I’m published!

That’s right–my first published story just came out in issue 58 of The Leading Edge.  I am happy to say that after three years of formally pursuing my career as a writer, I am now a published author!

The story is titled Decision LZ1527, and it’s about a guy asking a girl out on a date–as told from the point of view of the little men inside his head piloting his body like a starship. I really like the tagline in the table of contents: “A man, a woman, and a whole crew of matchmakers.”

Full disclosure: I submitted this story after I joined the staff as a volunteer slushpile reader.  Most of the editors for this issue are pretty good friends of mine (including the Production Director, who’s one of my most trusted alpha readers).  I submitted it under a pseudonym, however, so most of the staff didn’t know it was mine until after they’d accepted it.

The Leading Edge is known for the excellent quality of its illustrations, and I’m happy to say that I lucked out with with the artist the editors picked for my story!  Josh McGill is a graphic designer and aspiring children’s book illustrator.  He’s done art for issues 53 and 55 of The Leading Edge. The picture on the right is the one he did for the front page of my story.  I must say, I’m impressed!

The Leading Edge is a semi-professional small press science fiction and fantasy magazine affiliated with BYU.  It’s been in publication since the early 80s, when Marion K. “Doc” Smith’s famous “class that wouldn’t die” got together and started it, along with Quark and LTUE.  If you would like to support the magazine (and read my story!) you can purchase a copy of issue 58 at the following link:

Issue 58: “Redemption Songs”

Lot’s of people dream about getting published, but it takes a lot of hard work and rejection to actually make it happen.  As writers, though, we tend to be harder on ourselves than we ought to be.  It took almost four years for Decision LZ1527 to find its way into print, but it did.  That’s enough to make the rest of the process worth it.

Let’s hope it’s the first of many!

Writing the synopsis

Ugh.  It’s so hard to write synopses.  I spent all my free time tonight writing one, so it doesn’t look like I’m going to get more than a couple hundred words (if that) in To Search the Starry Sea.

It’s a necessary evil, though–so many agents and editors require it.  Now that I’ve got a one-page synopsis down for Genesis Earth, I can start submitting more liberally.  I’m sure, though, that it needs tweaking before it’s ready to send out.

For that reason, I’m uploading it to this blog, so you guys can take a look.  I’ve got to warn you, though, there are SPOILERS in this document–so please, don’t read it unless you were one of my first readers!  You all know who you are.  Here it is:

10-3 march one-page synopsis 4.0.

What do you think?  Let me know in the comments.  And thanks!

End of the apprenticeship

I got in a long conversation with my roommate tonight, where we talked about girls, government, the economy, 2010 elections, corporatism, Ursula K. Le Guin, and all other kinds of good stuff.  Towards the end, we got to talking about my goals to be a full time writer, and I showed him the record I’ve been keeping of my daily word counts.

In case you’re interested in seeing a copy of it, here it is:

wordcounts (to 27 February, 2010)

I basically showed him how I’ve been keeping track of my work, setting and keeping goals on a daily basis, juggling work, school, etc while taking a very professional approach to my writing.  While it impressed him, it impressed me almost more–all of this is so habitual by now that I sometimes forget how hard I’ve been working at it.

The most surprising thing?  Since May 2009, I have written over 422,000 words!

There’s a saying in writing that says you have to write one million words before you write your first good word.  Until now, I thought I was still somewhat short of that number–on the upper end, certainly, but still short.

Well, I’ve been writing on a more or less daily basis since August 2007.  If I’ve written almost half a million words since May 2009, how many words did I write between August 2007 and May 2009?  At least half a million, I’m willing to guess!

In other words, it is quite possible that I’ve already surpassed my millionth word.

Wow.

I’m not sure what to think about that.  On the one hand, it’s exciting. On the other hand, it’s downright scary.  If it’s true, it means that I should move past the apprenticeship phase and start pushing this as my career.

That is insanely scary–and yet, at the same time, absolutely thrilling.  It’s going to mean investing a lot more time into researching the market and sending out to agents, receiving lots of rejections and wondering if my stories are any good.

Scary.  And yet, when I finally do get a publishing deal (and I’m more confident now than ever that this will actually happen someday–inshallah someday soon), that’s when it gets really scary.  If that first book doesn’t earn out, my career will be toast.  I’ll have to slave away in an office for the rest of my life.

Holy crap, that’s scary.  At the same time, though, it’s gonna be awesome.

Bring it on!