June 2009 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

New About page

Traffic to this blog has been picking up a bit, and I decided it’s time to change my “about” page. This was the old one:

In some ways, I live a double life. By day, I study Political Science and Arabic at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, but by night I’m an aspiring writer of science fiction and fantasy. And I have NO IDEA where all of this is going to take me.

A lot of people dream of writing and being a writer, but the motivations vary. Some people are just enamoured with vague ideas of the bohemian lifestyle. Other people are looking for fame and the joy of seeing their name on a book. It’s different for me, however. I write simply because I can’t NOT write. I wrote my first story in 5th grade and I haven’t been able to stop since. Stories just flow out of me–it’s a part of who I am. Most of them are fleeting and pretty crappy, but hopefully, somewhere in there is a story that can bring something meaningful to somebody.

And so I write, not with any illusions of the fame, fortunes, and friends it will bring me, but because it’s who I am. And yes, writing is not glamorous. It’s about hard work and consistency. It’s about rejection. It’s about realizing that the story you love so much reads like crap because you have a LONG way to go before your writing is any good. I know that. I’m experiencing it now. And I can tell you that it’s not without reward either.

So join me as I blog about my struggles, frustrations, adventures, and successes as an aspiring writer. Read about the agonizing and exhilarating process of writing a novel. Keep me honest in my writing goals. Check out my book reviews as I try to learn what I can from what’s come in the sci fi / fantasy genres before. Get caught up in my imagination as I share the story ideas that pop into my head. And please, if something strikes you, drop a comment and let me know what you think!

Goals:

Write and submit at least one novel per year.

Finish 1st draft of The Lost Colony by 25 April 2008. ACCOMPLISHED

Write three polished novel drafts before World Fantasy 2009 and attend the conference.

I don’t know if the new one is much better, but you can check it out. Hopefully, it’s enough to give a good, honest impression of this site.

Also, I bit the bullet and finally signed up for twitter! My username is onelowerlight; you can check me out here.

I submitted a story to the Writers of the Future contest today. Basically, I took the scene from Genesis Earth that won the Mayhew Contest this year, slapped just enough of an ending on it to make it feel like a coherent story (inshallah), changed a couple of universe details, and sent it out. Time will tell if anything will come of it.

On Sunday, I home taught this girl who just graduated in astronomy! She told me all about her capstone project, studying the variance in luminosity of a distant star getting its insides sucked out by a black hole / neutron star / something ridiculously cool. We geeked out on stars more than on the scriptures!

Now I need to make friends with someone who works at the BYU observatory and hang out with them at their work. With my next door neighbor the president of the BYU Astronomy club (no joke!) that might be a possibility. And then we can order heavenly pizza and chill out reading The Leading Edge </inside joke>.

Ashes is coming along. Did my 4k today, but it feels…like it isn’t going the way I want it to. I’m at 30% right now, provided the finished draft is under 150k, which might be difficult to pull off. Lots and lots of sludging for the next month–I’m in the middle of the blue collar work of writing. Middles are not my forte, but I think I’ll learn.

Dude, why didn’t I study astronomy in college? I’m sorely tempted to change my major and go through another three years as an undergrad, just so that after I get my masters I can live at a place like this:

Thank you readers

I appreciate my first readers very much, even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Today I got the comments back from a longtime Quarkie friend on Genesis Earth, and she told me that, in her opinion, the book still needs a lot of work. However, she made it very clear when (and why) she was bored, when (and why) she was interested, and where (and why) she would stop reading. Thankfully, she kept reading and gave me useful feedback right up to the end.

My friend’s comments helped me to rethink several weak points of my novel. In particular, her anthropology experience helped her to pick up on some racist undertones that I didn’t intend and hadn’t realized were there. If my story would have appeared in print like that, I would have been flamed up and down the sf community! Without her feedback, I probably wouldn’t have picked up on that.

The feedback did more than point out problems, however; it helped me to rethink these problems and begin to find new, innovative solutions. Rather than getting me angered or depressed, the criticism stoked my creative engines by getting me to take a step back and rethink my story from the ground up. Though the feedback was harsh (basically, “I’d throw this book across the room at this point”) it was extremely helpful and got me more enthused than ever to write.

Receiving criticism and advice is a very delicate thing, especially for a budding writer. If you try to follow every peice of feedback you recieve, your book will inevitably tank. However, rejecting criticism is also tough because you don’t always know why you’re doing it. There is a fuzzy grey area between rejecting a comment because it’s not right for your story, and rejecting it because it rubbed your ego in the wrong way.

I don’t ever want to reject critical feedback because it hurts. After all, it’s not about me at all–it’s about the story.

Criticism is never “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” It is only “useful” or “not useful.” To pick out the useful feedback, you always have to listen to–and appreciate–every piece of feedback that you get. Only after you’ve done this can you can say (in private!) “no, this isn’t right for my work.”

In the meantime, thank everyone who takes the time and effort to read your work and comment on it. They’ve done you a huge service, and the last thing they deserve is to be attacked by an egocentric, peurile, self-righteous amateur. Honest criticism, no matter how much it hurts, is the best thing any writer can receive.

On that note, I want to thank all my first readers for helping me with my novel, Genesis Earth! I genuinely appreciate all of your comments. You’ve helped me to step back and see my work for what it is. You are helping me to make this novel a stronger, better book, and that means more to me than you know. So thank you!

Breaking 20k/7day and a new apartment

Today I broke 20k words for the running seven-day total. According to my records, the last time that total was over 20k was Monday, June 8th. Despite the fact that I moved into a new apartment today, I managed to finish with just over 4k for the day.

You should have seem me at the library at 11:39 pm. I was sprinting. “Just let me finish this scene, just let me finish this scene!” Didn’t finish it, but I only have another 500 words left. I’ll use it to help get me back into the zone tomorrow.

Momentum is so important for me as a writer. I can plow through long chapters and difficult scenes if I know I’m making progress. Once I get bogged down for a couple of days, it doesn’t matter how exciting the next scene is; it’s going to be painful. Once I’m up to speed, though, the book practically writes itself.

According to my records, in the 2+ weeks since I started Ashes, I’ve only surpassed 4k on three days. That’s not good. I should at least be hitting 3.5k every day through July in order to finish this beast by August 1st. If my momentum is running steady at 4k, that will be much easier.

I don’t have too many interruptions planned for July–no conferences or major trips. That’s…good and bad. I need to get out of Provo. I can feel it. But…blegh.

Fortunately, I’ll be getting out tomorrow, touring some ghosttowns with Charlie and some of her friends. I’m REALLY looking forward to that, and have been for some time. Man, it’s going to be awesome! I’m going to check out a whole bunch of Western music from the LRC, and we’re going to have a picnic, and it’s going to be great!

In other news, I moved into a new apartment south of campus. It’s pretty nice and spacious, and since I only have one other roommate, I’ve got a private room. His name is Brett, and he’s from Colorado. As of this week, he’s an elementary ed major; even though he could graduate from the Marriott School in April, he realized that that’s not what he wants to do. He’s also engaged, to a girl he met in his freshman ward. They’re both RMs now, which is pretty cool; kind of like my parents, they kept in contact through letters and stuff. She’s in Atlanta now, and they’re getting married in August. He seems like a pretty cool guy; I think we’ll get along.

Church meets at 8:30 am in the JSB. Hehe…unless I bring a snack, I’ll probably end up sleeping through most of the meetings. It’s going to be nice, though, having the rest of the day to do stuff.

Thoughts after finishing Legend by David Gemmell

I just stayed up a bit late, finishing Legend by David Gemmell. Wow.

According to his wikipedia entry, Mr. Gemmell wrote Legend in two weeks while waiting to hear if his cancer diagnosis was terminal. After reading this book, I can definitely see how that influenced the writing.

This book is incredible, one of the most authentic, thought-provoking things I’ve read. It is…just incredible. I’ll articulate my thoughts better when I write the review, but let me just say that reading this book made me a better man.

I want to quote the passage that impacted me the greatest, because it has to do with some of my more existential thoughts about being an aspiring writer–no, being a writer and aspiring to be an author.

“All things that live must die,” said Vintar. “Man alone, it seems, lives all his life in the knowledge of death. And yet there is more to life than merely waiting for death. For life to have meaning, there must be a purpose. A man must pass something on–otherwise he is useless.

“For most men that purpose revolves around marriage and children who will carry on his seed. For others it is an ideal–a dream, if you like. Each of us here believes in the concept of honor: that it is man’s duty to do that which is right and just, that might alone is not enough. We have all transgressed at some time. We have stolen, lied, cheated–even killed–for our own ends. But ultimately we return to our beliefs. We do not allow the Nadir to pass unchallenged because we cannot. We judge ourselves more harshly than others can judge us. We know that death is preferable to betrayal of that which we hold dear.

I don’t want to write books just to entertain. I don’t want to fill pages with words just so I can get paid and take care of my temporal needs. Both of those are important, of course, but I don’t want to write “good reads” that people put down and completely forget about after a few months.

At the same time, I don’t want to write just to express myself either. I don’t think I deserve any special treatment for being a writer, and I don’t suffer under the delusion that I’m somehow gracing the world with my genius (at least, I hope I don’t). The world owes me nothing, and I’m certainly not the most qualified person to be out doing this kind of thing, making the world a better place by telling stories.

What I do want to do, however, is write books like Legend, or Mistborn, or The Neverending Story, or Ender’s Game, or Spin, or any number of other books. Books that you read and remember, because they changed or inspired or impacted you in some profound way. Books where you read the last hundred pages in a breathless sprint, because you connect with the story in a deep and personally moving way. Books that help people to understand the world better, to appreciate its beauty, to see the people in your life in a new light, and connect with them in new ways.

I can tell you exactly when I crossed the threshold from childhood to adolescence, down almost to the very day. I crossed that threshold by reading a book: Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech. For what I was going through at that pivotal time in my life, that book had a profound, formative impact. It helped me to see my family members in a new light, to understand a little bit better the changes I was experiencing in my own life, and to get through an emotional period that was particularly rocky. When I read that book, I changed as a person.

That’s the kind of stuff I want to do as a writer: pass something on. Something meaningful. Something that will make this world a better place by connecting with someone, anyone, on a deeply personal and intimate level. Something that will help peope to stand tall and live their lives more fully.

I don’t know if I’m getting this across effectively, but those are my thoughts at this time. Legend is a damn good book. It’s in good company, along with all the other books that have just made me go “wow.” Someday, I hope something I write will be up there on the same level for someone else.

Twenty percent, Writers of the Future, and the INTERN

I am now 20% finished with Ashes of the Starry Sea. Huzzah! The story is definitely picking up steam.

In related news, my seven day totals has peaked higher than it’s been in the last two weeks, up above 17,500 words. Inshallah, that number will rise to +24,000 befoore the end of the week.

In unrelated news, I’ve decided to recycle my 2009 Mayhew story for the Writers of the Future contest this quarter. I’ve got until July 1st to get it out, but I have a plan, and I don’t think it will require too much extra work. That was the thing holding me back (since, really, it’s not a story, it’s just a scene), but now I’ve got something that I think has a chance of working.

It’s funny how reading other people’s manuscripts motivates you to send your own stuff out. I mean, reading the Leading Edge slushpile, I said to myself “you know, that story you wrote two years ago could probably get a pass.” Lo and behold! With Writers of the Future, it’s definitely worth a shot. Definitely.

Oh, and as I skimmed through Genesis Earth 2.0 today, the thought occured to me that I’ve written a kickass story here (pardon the language). I mean, it’s far from perfect, and it’s not the best book ever written (not by a long shot), but it’s a lot more than a “stuff happens, the end” kind of story. Maybe I’ll even see it in print someday. And to think I almost trashed the project a year ago.

As something totally unrelated to personal news at all, check out this awesome new blog:

The straight dope on publishing from publishing’s most fearsome figure—THE INTERN.

Nice tagline!

As I read about the exploits of this publishing intern, I can’t help but think to myself, “hey, that could have been me.” Not quite sure how I feel about that, but I’m really glad to have all this time to write and work on my craft. I definitely need it.

Blog buttons!

So I was reading my friend Gamila’s blog, and she mentioned that she made some blog buttons. Immediately, I thought: “Cool! I should do something like that.”

So, without further ado, I give you…blog buttons!

Post them to your blog! Put them on your sidebar! Attach them to your message board forum signature! Use them as your avatar! Write a spam virus that will…okay, don’t do that. But seriously, if you love me, go crazy nuts and post these EVERYWHERE!

And just in case you don’t know how to put these onto your sidebar, here are some basic html instructions:

Fly, my pretties! FLY!

Dragging behind a bit

My writing slowed down significantly during the Writing and Illustratin for Young Readers conference a week ago, and it hasn’t really picked up at all since then. For my seven day totals, I’ve only been averaging between 17k and 14k–that means, on average, I’m doing about half what I want to be doing. Blah.

While I haven’t been writing a whole lot, however, I have been doing a lot of outlining. It looks like I’m going to be throwing out a ton of scenes, putting other scenes in different chapters, and adding whole new scenes in places where I previously didn’t have any. Yikes.

In other words, I’m in the process of completely reconceptualizing the structure of this novel–taking a few steps back and looking at the entire project as a whole. It’s taking up a heck of a lot of time right now, but hopefully it will help the rewriting process to be more successful. After all, if I try to stumble through without a clear idea of what I want this story to be, it’s just going to be a waste of time.

But if I’m going to finish this draft before August 1st, I need to pick up the pace. If this draft runs up to 150k as expected (and at the current rate, it could easily go over), I need to do just under 22k per week. That means, if I do anything less than 3k per day over the next six weeks, I’m going to fall behind this deadline.

The deadline is entirely arbitrary and artificial, but still, I want to keep it. Keeping deadlines is a writing skill I want to train myself to do, and I think it will help me out tremendously down the road.

So the goal this week is to pick up the pace again and get the seven day totals back up to 24k by next Sunday. It’s going to be something of a psychological struggle to get the momentum up again, but it’s something I know I can do. Inshallah.

In the meantime, I’ve been putting together some awesome ideas for a steampunk novel. Things are starting to gel for my next big project, and I’m getting REALLY excited. I still have an enormous amount of research to do before I can begin (like, tons of research), so I won’t get started just yet, but man! The ideas in my head are hot, I can feel it!

I know I’m speaking in vagaries…but to make up for it, I’ll leave you with a link to this wicked awesome steampunk picture I found the other day. Seriously–how cool would it be to be this guy??

Steampunk Airship Pilot by ~homarusrex on deviant ART

“Why people read”

Dave Farland puts out this great e-newsletter called “Dave’s Daily Kick-in-the-Pants.” For the kick today, he suggested the following exercise:

You probably have a good idea about what you want to write—horror, mainstream, fantasy, historical, romance, westerns, religious fiction, and whatnot. Sit down for ten minutes and on the left-hand side of your paper, list five things that you feel you most like in the fiction you read. On the right-hand side of your paper, list the biggest potential danger that you see in trying to create that effect.

Doing this exercise will help you understand who your potential audience is, and some of the challenges that you may face in reaching that audience.

This was my response:

Why I read:

1) To meet interesting characters and get lost with them in an exciting fantastic world.

2) To think deeper about fundamental truths I see in my own life.

3) To feel like I understand another person and connect with them.

4) To be reassured that true heroism is real, alive, and within the realm of possibility.

5) To experience beauty in the language and metaphor, the imagery and tension.

Potential dangers:

1) Trying to write about a world without a story–all info dumps, exposition, lacking interesting characters with whom the reader can journey and experience the world. Story IS experience, and experience does not exist independent of the person doing the experiencing.

2) Waxing allegorical or didactic in the writing–trying to force the message instead of leaving it open for the reader to discover multiple layers of meaning.

3) Focusing so hard on the character that the plot lacks the structure and tension to keep the reader interesting. Characters do not exist separate from plot or setting; they change and grow in reaction to both.

4) Creating a hero whose struggle is so far removed from the real world or our real life experience that the reader feels that this type of person could only exist within the pages of a book. Or, trying so hard to follow the monomyth structure that the story falls flat (ie Star Wars I, II, III).

5) Thinking that poetic license frees you from basic rules of style and grammar. Creating metaphors that are so unusual that they are merely non sequiturs. Writing prose so thick and “literary” that it kicks the reader out of the book.

something

So…I figure it’s been a week and I should probably post something on this blog.

Wow.

Well, work is underway on Ashes of the Starry Sea, and I’m starting to have a love-hate relationship with it. Most writers say you first novel isn’t that good, and you just need to get it out of your system so you can write the real stuff.

Well, this is my first finished novel…but it’s not my first novel attempt. My first novel attempt was in 8th grade, and I am happy to report that it no longer exists. Anywhere. No, seriously, I lost (or destroyed) it after my mission, and I am perfectly happy with that.

My second novel attempt was in ninth grade, and I still have a copy of it, though I haven’t looked at it in a while. Somewhere around page one hundred (single spaced) I realized that the story wasn’t going anywhere, and I got all angsty and depressed about it. Then, midway through tenth grade, I realized that the problems were fixable, and stopped being angsty and depressed.

And then I got bored and moved onto other things.

For the next two years, I started all sorts of projects but never really got anywhere with them. This was when I came up with my “great golden idea” that I wanted to hide from the world until I had the skill to turn it into my masterpiece.

I’ll tell you what the idea was right now: a high school kid learns how to control his dreams and realizes that the dream world is just as “real” as the waking world. An amazonian dream mage named Lachoneus takes him on as his apprentice and he saves the world from demons while struggling to turn his dream-world relationship with his hs crush into a reality in the waking world.

It’s got potential, but if this is the best idea I ever come up with, I’m going to be very disappointed. Fortunately, I kept writing through this phase.

My next project that got past page ten happened my senior year. I created an island fantasy world with a Greek aesthetic and started what I thought was a character study on my sister. If she ever read it, she probably wouldn’t see any similarities between Sareli and herself, but she was kind of distant from all of us in those years.

Then my mission happened. Not much time for writing there, but even so, I had this one idea that was so good that I spent a handful of p-days in my second area writing it out longhand. It was supposed to be this incredbly poignant allegory based around Lehi’s dream. I got about two chapters in it before things got too busy for me.

When I came home, I picked up a story that I’d started before the mission and got pretty far with it…word-wise, at least. The pre-mission version was based on this game I used to play with my Zaks building blocks. When I got back, I renamed it Planet New America and envisioned it as Jesus’ second coming as experienced by American colonists on another planet, under Chinese occupation.

Sound pretty bad? Yeah…about 60k words in I realized it had no plot and put it on the “back burner.” I haven’t picked it up since.

Sophomore year went by, and I wrote a short story and an undeveloped novel that I thought was a short story. Decision LZ150207 was the short story, and it’s getting published!!! in The Leading Edge. I signed the contract yesterday (woot!). The Clearest Vision was the undersized novel, and…it was pretty bad. Cheesy, sentimental, poorly written–but some of the ideas were cool. Too bad it probably isn’t marketable.

Then, in the summer of 2007, I decided I was going to start another novel! This one was going to be…<drumroll please> a Final Fantasy 6 fanfic (huh?!). Thankfully, I had a much more original idea in gestation, and Aneeka convinced me to run with it.

Thus began the rough draft version of Ashes of the Starry Sea, my first finished novel and my current primary project.

So, yeah, they say to throw out your first novel…but I wrote at least five significant partial drafts before I got to Ashes. I think that’s enough to justify my assessment that this story’s going potential. I still worry about it, though…I’m only in chapter 4 and I’m already struggling with the same angsty doubts that don’t usually hit until about halfway through.

The other day, though, I sent out my first three chapters to Charlie, who read them at work and gave me her assessment. I thought that the main character, Ian, was weak and boring, that the first chapter didn’t have enough of a hook, that it took too long to get into the action, etc. To my surprise, this is what she said:

Charlie: “Charlie is the coolest person I know”
say it.
me: charlie is the coolest person I know
Charlie: thank you.
me: because she read my first three chapters
Charlie: I just sent them to you
me: oh, nice
Charlie: 😀
me: they kick my other characters’ trash?
Charlie: yes
me: really?
how so?
Charlie: I like them
I can see their dinstinct characteristics very well
they’re developed subtly and efficiently
me: yeah?
Ian isn’t boring?
Charlie: no
I like him more than michael
me: ???
how?
Charlie: because he has definite character
me: he does?
Charlie: I totally understand how he thinks and his motivations after three chapters
yeah. He’s a passive weenie of a guy, but I like him
me: he’s a passive weenie and he isn’t boring?
Charlie: nope
I like him
me: you like him even though he’s a pansy?
Charlie: yeah
I like him because he’s a pansy
me: really?
huh
I don’t understand
Charlie: I’m sorry?
I like that you don’t have a complacent protagonist
me: Ian isn’t complicated?
sorry for all the questions
I’m just trying to understand
Charlie: no
me: so you like him because you get him
Charlie: that’s part of it, yeah
me: but if he’s weak and doesn’t start being proactive for very long, you’re going to stop liking him
is that right?
Charlie: I am expecting him to grow, yes
me: ah, so it’s the potential for growth that hooks you
Charlie: yeah

Like any first novel, Ashes of the Starry Sea has some serious plot issues, against which I’m currently banging my head. However, despite the voices inside and outside of my head, it’s probably got potential. Now I just need to convince myself of that. Hopefully, as the story progresses, the story itself will do the convincing. And you know what? If I shut up and listen to it, it just might do that.

Month: June 2009

Movin’ along