Frustrations – Page 5 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

It’s all there (mostly), just out of order

So I picked up the rough draft of Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI) this week and started making notes for the revision. It turns out that most of the scenes after the first chapter are jumbled and out of order.

This is good, because it means that I don’t have to toss it out and write it from scratch. All I have to do is figure out the right order, rework the transitions, and then maybe add a couple of scenes to smooth things over. Not too difficult, and it should turn this story around from something’s-broken-and-I-don’t-know-what to dang-this-is-awesomesauce.

It’s not so good, though, because it means I’m going to have a real struggle over the next couple of weeks to get at the core essence of this story and draw it out. That’s always tough, when I don’t get it on the first pass.

To be honest, I’ve kind of been avoiding this story for the last couple of months. When I finished the rough draft and put it on the back burner, I had the sense that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. That’s always the worst. Now that I know, it’s just a matter of doing the work. But that’s also daunting, because it’s like I’m standing at the base of a mountain looking up. At least the climb itself is invigorating, so once I get started, it should be pretty straightforward.

Benefactor takes the Star Wanderers series in a bit of a different direction, focusing on Jakob (Mariya’s father) and his struggle to provide for his family when all he’s ever really been is a star wanderer. As an outworlder, he’s always had a certain amount of pride and independence, but as a starbound refugee with a family to look after, that only gets in the way. When he married Salome and settled down, it seemed like they had a bright future, but now he’s trapped in a life he never wanted, and the love he once shared with his wife has grown cold.

Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter, which probably won’t change much in the final draft:

Jakob never felt more bone-weary than when he came off of a twelve-hour shift at the Oriana Station dockyards. His feet ached and his back groaned with pain, even in the low gravity of the tram as it raced from the hub to the rimside habs. As usually, the narrow car was crammed like a vacuum pack, every seat occupied with the hot and sweaty bodies of the other workers. He glanced out the window to catch a glimpse of the stars, but an advertisement for a synthetic protein formula filled the holographic windowpane.

My life is a prison, he thought to himself—silently, as always. It’s a prison of my own making, but it’s a prison nonetheless.

The twelve hour shifts had started only a standard week ago, but already it felt like months. A Gaian Imperial battle group had just arrived from the Coreward Stars, panicking some and causing a lot more work for others. Jakob didn’t have much time to follow interstellar politics, but he knew it meant longer work shifts for the foreseeable future. Which really wasn’t so bad, except that the overtime pay would barely keep the family above water, without paying off any of their debts.

From the quadrant tram station, he took an elevator to the slums on the lowest level. This was always the worst part: getting used to the slightly heavier gravity, after spending so much time in null-gee at the hub. He shuffled down the rimside corridor, barely lifting his feet off the floor. The walls were drab and gray, but spotlessly clean. That was something to say about the immigrant community—they might be poor, but they weren’t dirty.

The pungent odor of Deltan cooking spices met his nose the moment the door hissed open. That would be his mother-in-law, fixing dinner. He stepped inside and dropped his work boots on the floormat, waking his sister-in-law’s baby in the living room. He cringed from the high-pitched wailing almost as much as he did from the tongue-lashing he expected to get for it. But what did it matter? Ignoring the baby’s cries, he trudged off toward the bathroom for a much needed shower.

“Oh, hi Dad!”

His daughter Mariya bounded down the hallway, her black hair bobbing with every step. The bright smile on her sixteen year old face cut through his dark mood, at least momentarily. She gave him a great big hug, and he returned it with a grunt.

“Guess what?” she said, her eyes lit with excitement. “I finally found someone to rent out the spare room to!”

Jakob raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah! A couple from Delta Oriana—Megiddo Station, in fact. At least, the girl is from there. Her husband is out working on his ship—he’s a star wanderer, see—but she’s out in the living room right now, talking with Aunt Giuli. Do you want to meet her?”

Her words passed over him like a flurry of raw, unprocessed data. He focused on the important parts and disregarded the rest.

“How long are they going to stay?”

“Oh, not long. They just need a place to stay for a couple weeks until they’ve refitted their ship. Apparently, they—”

“How much are you going to charge them?”

So yeah, it’s a new direction from the previous books, but it’s got a lot of the same characters and ties in quite well with Fidelity, I think. Also, it expands the universe and shows some other aspects of what life is like for star wanderers and outworlders in general.

It’s going to be to be a lot of work making sure I get this one right, but it’s a short novella, so it shouldn’t take too long. Barring no unforeseen complications, I should still be able to get it out before the end of the month. The next two books, Reproach and Deliverance, should be ready soon after that.

In the meantime, I’d better get some shuteye so I can wake up early and work full steam on this book tomorrow. Gnight!

I will finish this novella tomorrow, I SWEAR.

I was going to finish it two weeks ago. I really was. But then, things were slow for a while as I adjusted to the new swing-shift job, and it wasn’t looking like I could do it, so I pushed the deadline back a week and went hiking instead. No worries.

Then, the internet exploded and I got distracted. So no book Saturday. No worries, I told myself. I’ll just finish it on Monday and go for another hike on Tuesday, my day off.

So. Went grocery shopping on Monday, putzed around, wrote a bit, but didn’t really finish it. I don’t know why. Maybe I was still distracted. Still, I figured I’d just call off the hike and finish it the next day. Since it was supposed to be my day off, I could cook a nice batch of koshary too.

Tuesday, I cooked a nice batch of koshary, had some friends over, life was good, sat down to write … and got a call from my supervisor (who I’ve seen exactly once) that the regular employees have the 4th of July off, so could I please come in and work?

AAARGH!!!!

Did I mention that it’s been a hundred degrees here recently? I’ve been sleeping practically naked and still sweating like crazy. That’s probably more than you wanted to know, but I mention it only because I’ve been getting up progressively later. Though the smart thing, of course, would be to wake up earlier when it’s still somewhat cool outside …

So anyways, Wednesday rolls around, and I get some good writing in. I start the final chapter, with only two more scenes to go before it’s finished. But it’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow, and I ought to stop by and say hi, which of course turns into a youtube party and playing with my nephew. Also, my tomatoes are dying, so I really should pick up some fertilizer and see what I can do to revive them, but of course I don’t know hardly anything about fertilizer so it takes forever to find something that might actually do the trick. Also, Institute is on Wednesdays, and I really should attend that more often (but I can’t, because of the job), so I go to that for a few hours. Good times, meet some new people and chat up with friends, head back to my apartment but then the guy two doors down asks if I want to join him and a couple of girls for a game of cards, and since I really don’t have much of a social life (again, because of the job), I say yes and end up hanging out with them until midnight.

So tomorrow is the 4th of July. There’s all sorts of stuff going on, including a family barbecue, the fair downtown, my sister’s birthday, my Mom coming into town, but #^$%@^#%^#@ I will finish this book!!!!1!!1!!! Even if it means getting up at 7am, which it probably will.

And if I end up sleeping in again … no, that totally isn’t going to happen. And it’s not going to happen because I’m going to bed RIGHT NOW.

Thoughts on the recent drama in the SF&F community

NOTE: I’ve since changed my views and retracted many of the things I said in this blog post. You can find a link to the retraction here.

Oh, boy, has there been a lot of drama in the science fiction & fantasy community recently. From the trouble with the SFWA bulletin to the revelation of accusations of serial sexual harassment by a senior editor at Tor, it seems like the whole community (or at least, the part that sees itself as part of a wider community) is up in arms. And while a lot of the response has been balanced and civil, I’ve also seen some things that I find troubling.

For the benefit of the doubt, let me just say that I support the people who are coming forward with stories of harassment and abuse. It’s clear that this is a problem, and that it needs to be addressed in a way that brings about real change. Also, I agree that the community has a history of demeaning or undervaluing the women within it, making it a lot more difficult for female writers to earn the same level of respect as their male counterparts. That, too, needs to change.

But guys … can’t we get along? Can’t we come together and get back to what this community is really about–sharing and telling good, fun stories?

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not trying to minimize any of the problems causing this drama. They need to be fixed, and it’s going to take time to do so. But are they going to become the focus of everything we talk about, or are we going to turn back to the things that unite us, and pull together as a stronger and better community than we were to start out with?

Right now, I get the impression that the majority of members who are active in the SF&F community mean well and want it to be a welcoming space. They may have their faults, but they’re working on them. And most of their faults are not causing direct harm to others.

Then there’s a small but outspoken minority who wants change, wants it now, and wants it so badly that they see problems everywhere. Many of them have legitimate concerns, and people from the less outspoken majority are coming out and confirming that. But many of them are dangerously overzealous–and since we have in this community some of the most imaginative minds in the world, it doesn’t take much for people to start projecting onto people they disagree with, or reading things into comments that aren’t actually there, or seeing those who question or disagree as The Enemy.

I cannot control how others perceive me. I cannot speak without risking that someone is going to misconstrue my intent and feel “silenced,” or “afraid,” or whatever. I can reach out to people privately, though, so if you feel like I’m part of the problem, please contact me and let me know.

This whole thing reminds me of my time from ’03 to ’05 as a Mormon missionary. Oh boy, was there drama. Imagine a couple hundred sexually repressed, 19-21 year-old boys (and a couple dozen young women) in a rigidly structured environment, with tremendous emotional pressures and very little direct supervision. There was drama, and I hated it. The best times on my mission were when I never saw anyone but my companion (Mormon missionaries live and work together in pairs) and maybe the four or six other members of the district once a week or so.

But the way things are playing out right now, I wonder if the outspoken minority is so determined to reshape the SF&F community in their own image that they’re tearing it apart. Orson Scott Card, for example, has been tarred and feathered multiple times and thrown out of the community on a rail. And yet, Ender’s Game is still one of the best (and bestselling) science fiction books ever written. Mike Resnick, for all his chauvinism, has written a lot of really good books and stories too. Jim Frenkel, for all his creepiness, has been instrumental in bringing us great books from Tor.

Does this excuse their faults? Of course not. But guys, these authors and editors aren’t The Enemy–they’re part of the community just as much as you are. And you deal with offenders within the community differently than you do with offenders who are not.

A lot of people are congratulating themselves and saying that we’re doing a good job rooting out these problems and dealing with them in an open and reasonable way. And to an extent, I think that’s true. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from all this drama, it’s that the SF&F community is a lot more fractious than I’d previously realized, and that the ties that bind us really aren’t that strong at all. And that makes me wonder if it’s better just to forget the whole thing–forget the conventions, forget SFWA, forget the major blogs–and just do my own thing independently of everyone else.

And honestly, it would appear that a large number (perhaps even a majority) of SF&F writers are doing just that, especially the self-published ones who don’t really care about courting publishers or winning awards. For these guys, it’s all about the readers–and isn’t that the way it should be?

I need to get out of Provo, but where to live next?

ProvoLogo_FullColor — … yeah, no thanks. Not yet, anyway.

It’s been almost six months since I moved back out to Provo, and I don’t think I’ll be staying here much longer. It’s a great place if you’re a Mormon college student in your early twenties, or married with kids and looking for a nice, quiet place to settle down, but for everything in between it’s just not the greatest.

So where am I going to go next? Honestly, I don’t have a clue. Probably somewhere in the United States, but I’m not ruling out the possibility of another overseas adventure. In fact, that’s exactly the sort of thing that I’d love.

But I’ve got to be honest here: I came back to the States mostly to find a girl. I don’t know about getting married or not–that’s like step twenty-five, while I’m still on step three–but I do know that next time I go overseas, I want to go with someone, preferably someone special. That’s what I learned while I was living in the Caucasus mountains, that an adventure is like ten times better when you have someone to share it with.

I may be opening up a little bit in this post, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression to the people I know who read it. It’s not that I’m uninterested in any of my female friends here, but so far, nothing has really worked out. Some of that is because I’m not as interested as I thought I was, but the reverse is probably just as true. Nothing wrong with that, and I still value all of my friendships. And hey, you never know–things can always change. But when you start to get sick of a place, that’s probably a good time to move on.

So what am I looking for? Ideally, a place with a lot of Mormons in their late twenties / early thirties, most of them young professionals or recent graduates. A place with a decent art scene, or that sort of vibe to it, where I can meet up with other artists / entrepreneurs like myself and be a part of that community. I really want to live in a place with mountains–my sister is moving to a town just out of Des Moines, and omigosh just from looking it up on Google Earth I know I could never live there. Barring that, I really love deserts, so I wouldn’t mind living in Arizona or New Mexico.

I’ve heard good things about Salt Lake City, so that’s pretty high on the list. I’ve got a couple of friends up that way, and lots of family as well. Other than that, I wonder if Saint George or Cedar City might be good places for a guy in my situation to live. I really love Utah, so if I could find another place out here besides Provo, that would be ideal. Moab, perhaps? Seems like a tourist town more than anything. Though if I could score a job at a hostel out there, that could be a lot of fun.

Texas is also fairly high on the list. Beautiful place, Texas. I’ve always loved driving through that country. Lots of Mormons too, apparently, though where I’d want to go exactly, I have no idea.

One place I absolutely do not want to go is Washington DC. I HATE that place, especially after my internship experience. It’s a great place to visit, and the museums and cultural stuff are amazing, but I never want to live there again.

Other than that … I’ve got a couple of friends who suggested Portland, but I dunno.

And honestly, a not insignificant part of me wants to go somewhere crazy, like Mongolia or the Czech Republic, or even back to Georgia. I’m making enough on my book sales right now that I could probably get a small apartment in Tbilisi and support myself entirely off of my ebook royalties alone. Better yet, I could arrange a long-term boarding situation back in the village, or out in Kutaisi, or maybe even up in Svaneti … but that’s probably just me missing the place. I miss it almost every day.

All I know for sure is that I absolutely cannot stay here in Provo much longer. If I do, I’ll either go crazy or get old and fat and complacent, and I’m not sure which is worse. I’ll stay here through the summer, just to save up some money, but when September comes around, I am getting out of here.

Thoughts on writing advice generally

I’m working a swing shift job at a bakery outlet right now, loading and unloading trucks for the next day’s shipment. It’s a great job because 1) the pay is higher than most warehouse jobs, 2) it’s only 20 hours a week, 3) I’m the only guy there, so there’s lots of autonomy, and 4) I can listen to music and podcasts while I work.

Anyway, I was listening to a panel from this year’s LTUE last night, and at one point I actually got so mad with the panelists that I almost swore. In particular, there was one panelist who doesn’t really have any books out or any publication credits to speak of, but she was constantly (CONSTANTLY) chiming in with writing rules and writing advice, to the point where she started clashing with some of the big name authors on the panel.

The reason that made me angry is because I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of bad advice. Not just advice about the craft of writing, which might be good individually but in the aggregate tends to feed your inner editor and kill your creative drive. I’ve heard a lot of really bad career advice, both from established professionals who have no clue how the industry is changing, and (more frequently) from unwashed newbies who spend more time promoting their last book than writing their next one. It’s gotten to the point where whenever anyone starts to give advice, I just roll my eyes and skim over whatever it is they’re trying to say.

This is not to say that I think I know everything and that now I can stop learning. I have no illusions about that. Just this past week, for example there was an excellent thread on the KBoards about cover design, with several designers chipping in with their insights. I admit, I skimmed a lot of the stuff the writers were saying, but the designers I stopped and paid attention to. There’s still a lot I have to learn when it comes to covers, as well as hiring the right kind of artists to do the job.

When it comes to the craft of writing, I’ve found that the best way to learn is to read a lot of really good books and pay attention to the things the authors do. For example, Louis McMaster Bujold has some really colorful ways to describe her characters’ mannerisms, such as having Lord Vorkosigan simultaneously smile at one character and frown at another. Jane Austen is a master of giving the one or two details that you need to feel like you know exactly what kind of a person each character is. David Drake can write action sequences that really make you feel like you’re there in the character’s head, and Orson Scott Card’s dialog is peerless.

And as for career advice, honestly, the best approach I’ve found is to just say “screw you all–I’m doing it my way!” The industry has changed so much in the past three years that no one–absolutely no one–knows anything.

Four years ago, I snubbed my nose at self-publishers and would have been horrified to learn I’d become one. Two years ago, I hated the term “self-publishing” and avoided it like the plague, using terms like “indie publishing” instead. Now, I don’t really care. I’m reaching readers, growing a fan-base, and making money, and that’s all that really matters.

Everyone seems to have an opinion, but the only way to have an informed opinion is to actually go out there and find out what works for you. So basically, I treat everyone’s advice with contempt unless they can demonstrate unequivocally that it’s worked for them. Even then, I pick and choose what I adopt for myself, based on what sits best with my own personal philosophy. In the end, I learn a lot more by rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty than I do from following someone else.

All of this has combined to make me really loathe to give any advice. At Leading Edge, I’ve taken recently to reading ARCs and writing book reviews, rather than writing out those scathing story critiques like I used to. I rarely comment on blogs or message board communities, and when I do, I always feel like I have to include a disclaimer that this is my opinion, or this is what’s worked for me, or this has been my experience (and therefore may not apply generally). Sometimes, I see writers who are so caught up in stupid myths that I want to reach out and help them, but even then, I feel like there’s something restraining me.

The point is, if/when I succeed in this business, it will be in spite of the advice I’ve received, not because of it. I’ll consider almost anything, but whether I actually follow it … yeah, don’t hold your breath.

Sorry, no Trope Tuesday (again)

Yeah, sorry, no Trope Tuesday this week. Third week missed in a row! Not so good. Thing is, I’m really focused on finishing Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII) right now, with a self-imposed deadline of May 31st. I figure that’s more important, and I really don’t want to break my momentum.

I’ve been vacillating a lot about this project. Sometimes, I think it’s halfway decent, perhaps even good. Other times, I wonder how the @#$! I came to be trapped in this story and why I’m wasting the best years of my life writing this crap. The other Star Wanderers stories are selling decently well, but this one is so shite that it’s bound to kill the series and why am I writing this why why WHY???

And then I get the chains back on my inner editor and drag him down to the dungeon, where I keep him on a strict diet of bread crusts and rotten cheese. No wonder he hates me.

I know those trope posts are a popular feature around here, so I’ll get back on top of them once this project is finished (which WILL be this week! It WILL!!) In the meantime, if you’re looking for a trope fix, you should check out Anita Sarkeesian’s latest Feminist Frequency video. She does an awesome job deconstructing feminist video game tropes, in a much more meticulous and thoughtful manner than I have ever achieved here:

Part of me wants her to take my own stories and analyze them for feminist tropes. The other part shudders in abject horror at what she might possibly find.

Whoops, looks like the inner editor just got loose again. Better go hang out on the KBoards until I’ve got him back in the dungeon.

Later!

Projects, projects everywhere …

… and not a clue where to start.

Seriously, I feel like that guy in the Russian proverb who’s chasing two rabbits. Except, in my case, it’s more like a dozen. Here’s what I currently have to choose from:

Stars of Blood and Glory — This one is in publishing mode, and should be out in a week or two. I’ve gone through all the line/copy edits from my editor, finalized the book teaser–all that’s left is the formatting and cover art. The preliminary sketches look really good, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s ready to go. Of course, it’s more of a publishing thing than a writing thing, but still important.

Lifewalker — This is a rough draft that’s only about 15% to 20% finished. It’s in a totally different genre than I’m used to writing (post-apocalyptic / weird western), but so far it seems to be coming along fairly well. I hit a block a couple of weeks ago and put it on the back burner for a while, but I may be ready to pick it up again.

Star Wanderers: Benefactor — This is another rough draft, about 35% to 40% finished. It’s a parallel novella to Star Wanderers: Fidelity, except from Jakob’s point of view. Right now, I’m in the phase where everything sucks and I don’t know where to go with it. It’ll probably turn out just fine, but I may have to put it on hold for a while. However, if I could just push through and finish the damn thing, that would be preferable. It’s only another 15,000 words …

Star Wanderers: Dreamweaver — This is a first draft that I need to revise. Last night, I looked over it for the first time in eight months. Opening the file was like pulling out an unopened bottle of wine that’s been sitting for years in the back corner of the wine cellar. So far, it seems pretty good, but I’m going to wait until I hear back from one of my first readers before doing any serious revisions. After that, maybe run the first chapter through Kindal’s writing group, and if everything seems good, I’ll probably publish it sometime in April/May.

Star Wanderers: The Jeremiah Chronicles — This is purely a publishing project. Basically, I want to bundle the first four Star Wanderers stories and release them as an omnibus. To do this right, though, I’d have to commission some cover art, which takes time and money. Since it’s not a writing project, and I already have enough publishing projects on my plate, I’ll probably put this one off until Dreamweaver is out.

Mercenary Savior — Long term followers of this blog might recognize this as the old title for the novel that became Bringing Stella Home. Well, I plan to recycle that title, as well as the original prologue, in a prequel novel that basically tells the origin story of Danica Nova and her band of mercenaries. So far, I’ve got the prologue and the beginnings of the first chapter. Haven’t looked at it in a few months, but if I get stuck on these other projects, I just might pick it up again.

Heart of the Nebula — A second or third draft that needs a deep revision. This is probably going to consume all my writing time for six to eight weeks, and I’d rather do it all at once rather than in chunks. It’s been on the back burner long enough that I can probably pick it up again, but I want to finish a rough draft first.

The Sword Keeper — I’ve still got this one on the current projects bar, but it’s been a while since I’ve worked on it, so it’s pretty much on the back burner. I think it’s at about the 40% mark, though honestly I have no idea. It’s an epic fantasy novel, a bit outside my usual scope, and it’s turning into a beast of a book. The story is pretty solid, though, so I’ll probably finish it before the end of the year–that is, unless the muse drops an anvil on me (which has definitely happened before).

Empress of the Free Stars — An unwritten novel that’s been kicking around in my head ever since I finished Stars of Blood and Glory. Basically, it’s a direct sequel from Hikaru’s point of view … except that I can’t really discuss it without giving away spoilers (TO A BOOK THAT ISN’T EVEN OUT YET). In any case, the prologue has been beating on me to get written, and I finally caved and started it last night. I’ve got a pretty good idea for what’s supposed to happen in this novel, but there’s still a whole lot of room for the story to surprise me.

Edenfall — Ah, Edenfall … this is probably my most neglected story. I started it a little over a year ago, but hit a block, and then Star Wanderers happened. I’ll pick it up eventually, but to really do it justice, I feel like I need to go backpacking in the wilderness for a week or two. The weather isn’t good for that right now, so it will probably have to wait until spring. Or maybe I’m just making things too complicated. We’ll see.

Star Wanderers; Wanderlust — A Star Wanderers story from Samson’s point of view. This one is going to be tricky, but I’ve actually got the whole thing plotted out already. However, I don’t want to write it just yet, because there’s still a bunch of other Star Wanderers stories that need to come first. Or maybe I will write it, and let it sit for a while until I write the others. Maybe it’s better to finish it first and let it sit for a while, just to be safe …

Those are pretty much all the projects with titles that are floating around in my head right now. There are a few others, like parts VII and VIII of Star Wanderers (from Mariya and Lucca’s points of view, respectively), but those aren’t quite ready to start. With all of these, I’ve at least got some words on the page.

So now that I’m in that frustrating space between projects, I think I’m going to take a week or two to just let my creative mind do whatever the heck it wants. Hopefully, I’ll get excited enough about one of them to see it all the way through. I’m not going to stress about word counts so much as putting time in at my chair, doing something.

Man, I wish my creative side weren’t so scatterbrained. Though as long as I’m still finishing stuff, I guess it’s all right.

And now that I’ve procrastinated long enough by writing this blog post, it’s time to go hang out with my friends and procrastinate some more. Later!

Productivity? Yeah, about that…

So, for the past week, I’ve kind of been between projects. I finished the revisions for Stars of Blood and Glory last Saturday, after a week or two of light revisions, but since then it’s been a bit of a struggle. I’m still working on Star Wanderers: Benefactor, and progress on Lifewalker had been coming along, but haven’t managed to really immerse myself in either those stories yet. As a result, I don’t really have much to show for this past week, other than a scene or two in Benefactor and a new first chapter for Lifewalker.

One of the problems, I think, is that I haven’t really been able to turn off my internal editor. Even with my blog posts, I’m constantly going back and rewriting the previous sentence. This sucks, because it slows down the writing, makes the process tedious and painful, and doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of my writing either (at least, not beyond a certain degree).

What I really need to do is run with a project until I hit my stride, and then do all I can just to keep a steady pace. So that’s what I’m going to do with Lifewalker this next week: force myself to write without really caring too much about whether the stuff on the page is pretty good. Because usually, when I don’t angst about it too much, it actually turns out pretty well. Sure, I might write myself into a hole I can’t get out of (at least, not without breaking the story), but if that’s the case I can always toss out a couple of chapters and redo things.

So far, Lifewalker has surprised me quite a bit. I have a general direction I want the story to go, and a vague idea of where the main character is going to go up, but when it comes to a particular scene, things will pop up out of nowhere that takes the story in all sorts of interesting directions.

For example, my main character is currently wandering a post-apocalyptic Utah with just a handful of possessions. One of them is a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire. At one point, he spends a night among the people living in the ruins of Santaquin (“Sannakin”). Out of nowhere, I decided to have him read them a chapter or two from the novel, which of course confuses the heck out of them. So then they start asking him questions, like whether the world before the apocalypse was covered in ash like in the novel, which leads them to all sorts of wild and ridiculous speculations. The aside only lasts a couple of paragraphs, but it takes things in a whole direction that I hadn’t planned it to–one that really fleshes out the world.

This is my first time writing post-apocalyptic fiction, and while it seems a bit daunting, when I actually sit down and focus on putting out new words, wild and interesting things happen. The research is a bit daunting, but the story takes place two hundred years after the apocalypse event, so there’s actually a fair amount of leeway. As long as I’ve got Google Earth running in the background, with ready access to Wikipedia when I need it, I should be all right.

As for Benefactor, don’t worry, that one’s coming along as well. When I’ve had too much of the post-apocalyptic world, it’s actually quite refreshing to come back to the familiar universe of the Star Wanderers series. Bouncing between the two stories should be a good way to avoid burnout–though at my current pace, that’s the least of my worries.

Next week is going to be fairly eventful. I’ve got a job on Monday that will take up most of the day, and LTUE will keep me occupied all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Still, I should be able to get in at least a chapter or two in both stories. We’ll see how it goes.

That’s about all for now. It’s getting late, so I’d better turn in. Night!

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.

Hello internets! I’m back (sort of)

So today I said goodbye to my village and moved out to Tbilisi, where I’ll be spending the next week. It was emotional. My host mom cried. It was raining, too, which pretty much reflected the way I felt. Goodbyes are tough when you’re going halfway around the world.

The last few days have kind of been like a slow-motion whirlwind, a sort of in-between state where I’m not really rooted where I am, but I’m unable to go anywhere else. Unfortunately, due to some poor planning on my part, I don’t fly back to the States until the 31st, so things are probably going to continue like that for a while.

Well, there are worse places to be stranded over Christmas than Tbilisi. There’s still a lot in this part of the country that I haven’t seen, not to mention the city itself. For about $9 a night, I’ve got a roof over my head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, as well as regular internet. Also, with all that free time, I should be able to get a lot more writing done.

So yeah, when I’m not busy writing or exploring, I’ll definitely be more active here on the blog. I’ve got a couple of new years-ish posts lined up, and I’ll probably come up with something Christmas-related for Trope Tuesday. Life day, perhaps? We’ll see.

In any case, it’s getting late and I’m exhausted. Good night.