One Thousand And One Parsecs

Trope Tuesday: Arcadia

What happens when you cross the Ghibli Hills with the Call to Agriculture? You get Arcadia, a simple, uncomplicated utopia where people keep to the good old ways and live in harmony with nature. As home sweet home for the farm boy and the country mouse, it’s often the starting point for the hero’s journey, though you’ll also see an occasional retired badass or old master take up residence after their adventuring days are over. Then again, it might just be a ten minute retirement before they’re back in harm’s way.

This is NOT a town with a dark secret or any other kind of twisted dystopia. There are no knights templar who believe that Arcadia justifies the means. If there is any sort of moral or message behind this place, it’s a green Aesop. If there’s anyone who fights to defend this place, it’s usually the good shepherd.

Because of the Rule of Drama, it seems almost paradoxical that a place as peaceful as Arcadia would exist in any story. However, sometimes it’s good to have the contrast. It also helps to raise the stakes by giving the hero a home like this to fight for. By keeping this in the back of their minds, it can be an effective way to keep them from crossing the despair event horizon.

The hero can visit Arcadia at any point in the story, but it tends to fulfill different roles depending on when they go there.

If the hero starts out in Arcadia, it’s usually the known, familiar world which he leaves behind after getting the call to adventure. He may or may not be able to go back once the adventure is over, depending on how much he’s changed and whether he can adjust to a boring, peaceful life after so much adventure. A good example of this is The Shire from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

If the hero ends in Arcadia, then it’s usually a way to show that everyone lived happily ever after (more or less). Tolstoy was a big fan of this one, though he was also sure to show that living in Arcadia can be hard work–but in his view, the work is part of the reward. In Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee ended in Arcadia on this note. Frodo didn’t.

If the hero visits Arcadia during the middle of the story, it’s usually part of an Arcadian Interlude. The down time may give him a chance to rest and recuperate, as with Medwyn’s realm in The Chronicles of Prydain, Resembool in Full Metal Alchemist, or Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings. Alternately, it may be a leave your quest test–because really, who wouldn’t want a nice, peaceful life when faced with the hardships of adventure?

While the idyllic rural setting of Arcadia seems great to us now, this wasn’t always the case. In all the old stories, when characters strayed into the country, they tended to find themselves in the Lost Woods. And while Vice City is normally considered the exact opposite of Arcadia, the Shadowland, which may or may not be rural, also qualifies.

In the end, the thing that makes Arcadia great isn’t just the rural, agricultural setting, or the simple way of life, or the lack of poverty (or extravagant wealth, for that matter), it’s the combination of all three, combined with a sense that the place is truly incorruptible. It may be full of simple-minded, naive little people who have no idea what’s going on in the rest of the world, but it’s a place where you can feel safe.

In my own work, Terra 4 Dome from Desert Stars probably qualifies as this. Even though it’s an archipelago of small islands rather than the rolling farmlands most often associated with Arcadia, it fulfills the same role more or less. I don’t think I played with this trope at all in Bringing Stella Home, though in Stars of Blood and Glory, there are a couple of places that qualify. And in Star Wanderers, various examples pop up from time to time, some more relevant than others.

As someone who dreams of settling down in a real-life version of Arcadia at some point, you can definitely expect to see me play with this trope in the future.

New publication and first con panel!

Sorry, no Trope Tuesday this week. This day ended up being a lot more packed than I thought it was going to be. Not too productive from a writing point of view, but Stars of Blood and Glory is coming along and should be out on schedule.

I do have a couple of quick announcements, though.

First, issue 63 of Leading Edge is now out, and I’ve got a publication in it! For this issue, they ran a first novel chapter contest, and Stars of Blood and Glory was one of the stories that placed. If you want to pick up a copy, you can do so here. Print copies are $7.95, PDF copies are $3.00.

Second, the schedule for this year’s LTUE symposium is out, and I’m on one of the panels! It’s Friday morning at 9:00, and the theme is “Raising the Language Barrier.”

This will be my first convention panel EVER. I’m kind of nervous about it, but I do have some authority on the subject after living overseas for a year, so it should be a good experience. The other panelists include Dene Low, one of my English professors from back in college. That should be interesting. 🙂

That’s just about it for now. Back to writing!

Thoughts on Twitter

Oh man, I used to hate Twitter so much. It’s amusing (and a little bit embarrassing) to look back on some old threads on the Kindle Boards and see how snippy I would get with everyone who raved about it. I guess it’s just my contrarian nature.

Well, in the last month or so, my opinion of Twitter has done a 180. Most of that has to do with getting a smart phone and having quick and easy access to it. Back when I first signed up, I had lots of ideas for short, pithy tweets, but mostly when I was away from a computer. Because of that, Twitter became just another chore, like checking email or keeping up with Facebook updates. But now that I have easy, instant access, I can drop in whenever I want, without opening a browser and starting up another relentless cycle of timesucks.

About a year ago, I got involved in a huge discussion on the Kindle Boards with Nathan Lowell. It all started when he credited his success as a writer to Twitter. That hit me like a bombshell, since he’s following a very similar career path, and has had a tremendous amount of success at it. He shared a ton of helpful tips on that thread, all of which I carefully filed away for later. I didn’t really have much of an opportunity to try them out, since I was in Georgia and had limited internet access, but since getting back I’ve been slowly trying them out.

What I’ve found in the last few weeks is that Twitter is a great way to get into interesting online conversations that don’t require a high degree of time or commitment. The 140 character requirement makes it hard to say anything of any substance, but that’s actually a strength, because it makes it easier to follow what others have to say. Instead of channeling all your time and energy into a handful of comment / forum threads, you can start a dozen new conversations, or follow a dozen new people, or drop out for a while and do something else. Less substance means less commitment and more flexibility.

It makes me think of something Cory Doctorow mentioned on a panel at Worldcon 2011. He called Facebook the high fructose corn syrup of the internet–which is actually a very relevant comparison. Facebook is very information dense the same way that HFCS is very calorie dense. Both of them are fairly addictive (“compelling without being satisfying” is the way that Cory Doctorow put it). And just as HFCS is not very nutritive, Facebook is not a very good way to stay genuinely close to the most important people in your life, especially when you’re following hundreds of people whom you barely even know.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter is a great way to connect with people who aren’t much more than strangers or casual acquaintances. The value is not in what you’re able to share, but how many people you’re able to connect with. If I tried to make myself accessible to everyone via Facebook, I would quickly become overwhelmed. With Twitter, I am accessible simply by being there, and I can reach out to just about anyone and expect a response.

Some things I’ve found that have helped improve my Twitter experience:

Follow anyone who seems interesting, and unfollow them as soon as they stop being interesting. If you’re not getting much from Twitter, it’s probably because you’re following the wrong people and not following the right people. A follow isn’t a huge commitment, so no hard feelings if you break it off.
Reply to tweets that strike a chord with you. Don’t just consume–start a conversation. Add something, and you’ll get even more in return.
If you’re going to include a hashtag, try to offer something of value. Don’t just do it to get attention, or to draw people to some link or something. Do it because you want to contribute something meaningful.
Don’t approach it like a chore. If you want to bow out for a while, that’s fine–you don’t have to follow every tweet, or reply to everyone who tweets at you (at least, not right away). There isn’t any “right” or “wrong” way to use it–there’s just the way you use it.

So yeah, I plan to be much more active on Twitter in the future. I probably won’t go crazy fanatic with it like some people do, but I’ll be on there, so if you want a quick and easy way to keep in touch, that’s a great way to do it.

And as for Facebook, that’s pretty much only for my close friends now. When I got back from Georgia, I deleted more than half of my Facebook friends. With Facebook, Dunbar’s number (aka the 150 friend rule) is probably a good upper limit. With Twitter, I now agree with Nathan Lowell that it’s more of a lower limit than anything.

Slow, but still making progress

Sorry for neglecting the blog this week. I took a temp job to earn some cash, and that’s been sucking up most of my time lately. Fortunately, it should be over sometime next week.

In the meantime, I found a place to live for the next few months. I’m in the basement of an old house, rooming with a former classmate from Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class. So far, it’s actually been pretty awesome. The rent is dirt cheap and you get what you pay for, but there aren’t any rats and the heater works fine. It should be a good place to spend the winter.

Progress on Stars of Blood and Glory has slowed down somewhat, mostly due to the temp work, but it’s still coming along steadily. If all goes well, I’ll have it polished and sent out to my editor by the end of next week, which leaves only the cover art to figure out. I’m going all out for this one, just like I did with Desert Stars and Bringing Stella Home.

Also, I just (re)started Lifewalker, a post-apocalyptic novel previously titled The Chronicles of Lifewalker. I know, I should be putting more time into getting Stars of Blood and Glory ready for publication, but this project has been begging to be written since 2011. I wrote a first chapter two years ago, but the narrative voice wasn’t working too well. Basically, I was trying too hard to imitate 19th century prose without having read enough to know how to do it well. Instead, I decided to toss all that stuff out and write the dang story without being overly restrictive. I think it’s going to turn out well.

Blah blah blah oh did I mention that I checked out a couple of David Gemmell books from the Provo Library? Well, I did. They are the last two books in the Drenai series that I haven’t read, and I am soooo excited to sink my teeth into them. Just started The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend last night, and it is AMAZING. Expect to see a review here soon.

Speaking of which, I should probably reread Wool and review it sometime. Hugh Howey really took the publishing world by storm last year, and he’s doing some truly amazing things for indie writers. His books are great, too–definitely worth picking one up.

That’s just about all right now. I’ll probably put in another hour of writing/revising, then turn in for the night. Later!

Trope Tuesday: Honor Before Reason

If you can’t do something smart, what do you do? Something right–at least, when this trope is played straight.

Characters who place honor before reason tend to be idealists, starry-eyed or otherwise. It’s not that they’re stupid–at least, not always–but they do tend to be vulnerable to flaw exploitation. If the Fettered can’t take a third option, this is how he often gets trapped.

On the other hand, without this trope, we wouldn’t have as many heroic sacrifices or men of their word. In the dark, everyone would turn out to be a jerkass, and the world would be a terrible place to live.

Since the best stories often have some sort of moral dilemma at their core, there’s something about this trope that speaks to us, even (or perhaps especially) in the face of sadistic choices and necessary evils. It appeals to the more innocent part of us that still wants to believe in incorruptibility. On the other hand, characters who follow this path don’t tend to think creatively enough to actually solve the problem–or at least, solve the problem without committing the ultimate sacrifice.

Not surprisingly, this trope is a very good indicator of where a story stands on the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. In idealistic stories, characters who place honor before reason are often vindicated, such as Bilbo in The Hobbit or Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. In more cynical stories, the honorable characters not only get eaten alive, their noble idealism actually makes the problem worse. The classic example of this is Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones, as the cartoon above suggests.

The opposite of this trope, reason before honor, is shoot the dog. Interestingly enough, in the first scene in which Ned Stark appears, he commits an act that arguably fulfills both tropes at the same time (executing a man who is most likely innocent but has been found guilty by the law). Lawful stupid doesn’t necessarily come into play, but it often overlaps. Again, it all goes back to the scale.

This trope pops from time to time in my own writing, though I’m not nearly as cynical about it as George R.R. Martin. Jalil from Desert Stars generally fits this trope, though Tiera is just as honorable and definitely not stupid about it. Stella from Bringing Stella Home fits this trope at first, though her choices are vindicated later on. In Stars of Blood and Glory, though, there’s a character who fits this trope perfectly, and I’m not sure whether he gets vindicated or not. It will be interesting to see what the readers have to say about that.

Stars of Blood and Glory coming out soon

So last year about this time, I wrote a novel in the Gaia Nova universe. Usually when I sit down to write a novel, it falls apart about midway through the first draft, or I have some kind of a break down, or something else comes up and I have to put it on hold for a while.

From start to finish, this one came out in about six weeks.

Even the title, Stars of Blood and Glory, really seemed to stick (usually, I go through three or four lame titles before finding one that works). It took a lot of energy to write it, but the writing process itself was fun. Seriously, everything just came together and the story practically wrote itself.

However, writers can often be notorious judges of their own work. For that reason, I set it aside and tried not to touch it for a few months (I did rework the first couple chapters, but later ended up cutting out most of that stuff and going back to the original version, which was better). Over the summer, I picked it up for the first revision, and while the scenes were out-of-order and a few of them were missing, but for the most part, everything that was there seemed pretty good.

Just to be safe, I sent it out to some first readers and laid it aside for another six months. I didn’t hear back from everyone I sent it to, but those who did read it said it was pretty good. The problems they found were relatively minor, or could be fixed relatively quickly, without having to overhaul the story.

To be perfectly honest, this blew me away. My first drafts are usually really messy, and require a lot of work before they’re any good. But this one…this one seems different. This one, I might have just nailed it <fingers crossed>. And if that’s indeed the case, it’s probably better not to risk revising it to death, or polishing the voice right out of it.

It’s always a scary thing to send a book out into the world. However, I think the time to send out this one has come. I’m going to do one last revision pass, just to make sure there isn’t anything too egregious, and then I’ll send it out to my editor and commission the cover art. If all goes well, I’ll finish the revision next week, and publish it in ebook and print-on-demand sometime in February.

As an indirect sequel to Bringing Stella Home and Desert Stars, Stars of Blood and Glory has a lot of recurring characters. Here are some of them:

Captain Danica Nova
Master Sergeant Roman Andrei Krikoryan
Rina Al-Najmi
Stella McCoy, aka Sholpan

Besides that, here are some of the other cool things you can expect to see:

A far future Japanese-Polynesian society on an ocean planet with giant floating cities.
A Hameji offensive, with massive space battles and planetary slaggings.
A lonely boy emperor who fears that he’ll never live up to his father’s dying wish.
A runaway princess who wants to experience everything the universe has to offer.
A young Hameji prince who yearns to prove himself in the field of battle.
A cyborg mercenary who feels like his humanity is slowly fading into irrelevance.
An unlikely assassin whose mind and body are not completely her own.

All of this comes together in a war of epic proportions that will determine the fate of the last free worlds in the galaxy.

So yeah, I’m really excited about this story. It’s a departure from some of the more intimate (and less action-y) science fiction romances I’ve been putting out lately, but in all of the right ways. If you read Bringing Stella Home and wondered when you’d get a worthy sequel, well, this is it. And hopefully, it’s just the first of many.

Expect it to be out in ebook and print-on-demand sometime next month.

Back in Utah…again!

Chillin' on the observation car of the California Zephyr.

So Sunday afternoon, I boarded a train with most of my earthly possessions (at least, all of the ones I care to enjoy for the next year) and headed out to Utah. I arrived Tuesday night, without a car, a job, or a place to live, but things have been working out really well so far and I hope to get all that stuff squared away in the next few days.

This was my sixth or seventh time traveling cross country by train, so I knew the drill. The hardest part is getting enough sleep, so I brought a blindfold and some earplugs, and that actually worked out really well. There were a lot of interesting people on the train, and I spent some time chatting with a few of them. The train is one of the easiest place to make friends, just because the people who take it tend to be very laid back and friendly.

BAsUBItCIAAYenb Most of the time, though, I spent reading, figuring out my new phone, and writing. Made some good progress on The Sword Keeper, though it looks like I’ll be putting it on hold for a while to get Stars of Blood and Glory ready for publication. Wrote a little bit in Star Wanderers: Benefactor as well–man, whenever I need a good escape, it’s always fun to write a Star Wanderers story! I have no idea when this one will be ready, but I think it will turn out well.

The train arrived in Provo late Tuesday evening, and I spent the night at my brother in law’s family, where I’m staying until I find a place to live. Let me just say, it’s great to have friends and family to help you out when you really need it. My old car was in the shop, so I set out on foot the next morning in search of an apartment. Not much luck on that front so far, but I got my car back and found a few job leads, so it looks like I should be settled back down before long.

So why am I moving back to Utah? A lot of reasons, but mostly because I just really like it out here. I wanted to take a break before my next overseas adventure, catch up with some old friends and spend some time in a place that I know and love. It also helps that there’s a good writing scene out here, with a bunch of great local conventions and conferences in the spring.

I didn’t always like Utah, but it’s really grown on me since I first came out here for college back in 2006. The landscape is beautiful, with lots of amazing places to explore. The people are really friendly and easy to get along with, even if your political views aren’t conservative (though admittedly, it’s harder). The Mormon culture makes some things kind of quirky, but not in a way that makes it too hard for me to fit in. In fact, if there’s any place in the world where I “fit in,” it’s probably here.

Things are kind of upside down right now, of course, but that will change once I find a place to live. That’s going to take the focus away from my writing for a while, though hopefully not for too long. In the meantime, today is another day, so I’d better get busy!

4:04 hours and 2.8k words. Not bad!

You know, sometimes I miss the days when I would churn out 1,000+ badly written words and throw up a badly written blog post, still reeling in awe from a white-hot creative heat.

Well, I think those days are coming back! Except hopefully, my writing has improved since then. Today was the first day I hit my four hour writing goal, and it was awesome. Also, I wrote over a thousand words in two different projects: The Sword Keeper (which is my primary project right now) and Star Wanderers: Benefactor (a secondary project, though that may change in a month or so). Not bad!

The really cool thing, though, is that when I woke up, my brain was actually wordsmithing. It was weird–I was actually crafting sentences in my sleep. Of course, being an idiot, I didn’t actually sit my butt in the chair until around 11:00 am. Still, the words came out all right, and they didn’t stop coming all day.

I think my new time tracking goal is going to work out really well. For most days this week, I managed to get at least 3:00 hours in. Also, I noticed a lot of interesting things about the way I write. Starting is the hardest part, especially first thing in the day. Frequent short breaks can help, but the internet is a huge trap and should definitely be cut from my writing computer. If I can’t manage 500 words/hour, chances are I’m not going to stay put for very long, but once I hit 800 wph, it’s smooth sailing.

Keeping a daily time goal also makes me conscious of a lot of things. For example, when I first wake up, I look at the clock and think “if I do my full four hours right now, I’ll be finished by XX:XX.” That motivates me to start earlier, since it means I can finish earlier (or at least have less pressure later when I’m tired). Also, it motivates me to write for longer lengths at a time, rather than writing in short, less productive bursts. And even though I’m still keeping track of how many words I write, the pressure to hit a certain word count is less, since once the four hours are up, the goal is accomplished no matter what’s on the page.

Of course, all this mean I’m actually writing more. Even on the days when I didn’t hit the full four hours, I wrote a lot more than I otherwise would have. And the neat thing about writing is that the more you do it, the easier it comes. It takes a while to build momentum, of course, but if you can just ease back on your inner editor and let the words come, they really will come.

So the next few days are going to be interesting. I’m leaving Massachusetts on Sunday, to take the train across the country. That will give me plenty of writing time, I’m sure, but once I arrive in Utah, things are going to get tricky.

My first priority will be finding an apartment, then a job–probably a crap job, though in this economy even those can be hard to find. From what I’ve heard, things haven’t changed much since I left. My writing is starting to take off, though, so I’m not too worried about the long-term–it’s the short-term that’s going to be a challenge.

I don’t know how long I’ll stay in Utah this time, but definitely until the summer. There’s a lot of old friends to look up, and writing conferences to attend. If I’m not totally broke by August, I’ll do my best to attend Worldcon as well.

That’s just about it for now. I’ve got a lot of chores tomorrow, so I’d better get some sleep. Later!

Hugo 2013 nominations, if you’re so inclined

So a bunch of the sf&f author blogs I follow have been mentioning that the nominations are open for the 2013 Hugo Awards, and listing their works that are eligible. Since that seems to be the tradition, I thought I’d do the same.

For those of you who don’t know, the Hugos Awards are the highest awards given in the literary fields of science fiction & fantasy. They’re held at Worldcon each year, and voted on by everyone who is registered for the convention. If you plan on attending Worldcon this year, or if you attended it in 2012, you are eligible to nominate!

At this point in my career, I know it’s pretty unrealistic to think that I have a chance of winning. Still, it doesn’t hurt to dream a little. I figure that since all the other authors in the field list their eligible works each year, I should do the same.

I have one work that qualifies for the novelette category: Star Wanderers: Outworlder. There are others in the series that also qualify, but I think this is the best one, and also the one that works best as a standalone. It’s available for free from every major ebook retailer, so if you haven’t already read it, feel free to pick up a copy.

That’s just about it. I didn’t publish any novels in 2012, but I should have at least a couple out for consideration next year. The nomination form for the 2013 Hugo is here, and the nominations are open until March 10th.

That’s just about it. Thanks, and I’ll see you around!

Slow going (but still going)

I’ve been back in the States for exactly one week now, and while my stomach is still having trouble adjusting, I’m more or less used to the American way of life. Not much culture shock this time, though that could change once I get back to Utah. That place is pretty strange.

So without a foreign culture to navigate (or a job, though hopefully that will soon change), I have a lot more time to focus on my writing. Trouble is…it’s coming slow. Like, reeeally slow, at least for me. I’ve been clocking in at less than 800 words per hour, sometimes as low as 500. I’m still hitting betwen 1.5k and 2k words per day, but still, it’s way more of a struggle than it needs to be.

I think the main problem right now is that I’m writing with my internal editor looking over my shoulder. Somehow, I seem to have forgotten how to turn him off (maybe that’s why I didn’t get very much written in Georgia, hmmm…). To compound matters, it seems like every ten minutes I want to get up and do something else. That’s not a very good way to be productive at anything, let alone writing.

Fortunately, I think I’m slowly getting the good habits back. I’m writing a little less than two scenes a day, and the momentum is building. With this timer constantly staring me in the face, I’m much more conscious about how I structure my day. I haven’t hit four hours of productive writing time yet, but I am consistently getting to three, so I think it’s just a matter of self discipline before I can up that to four.

All boring writer stuff, I know. But the long and short of it is that I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. If I can turn off that internal editor and start writing faster, I think I can finish The Sword Keeper before the end of the month. That would free me to work on a lot of other things, most noticably publication of Stars of Blood and Glory. That’s the next one in the publishing queue, though I’m still waiting on a couple of first readers <cough>.

That’s about it. I just wanted to vent some frustration, since man, writing is tough when your internal editor is breathing down your neck. But don’t worry–I’ll shut him up soon, and my writing will be better because of it.

Time to get immersed back in story.