LTUE 2011

So LTUE (BYU’s science fiction and fantasy symposium) was last weekend, and it was awesome.

The venue was the BYU Conference Center just north of where DT used to be, and in my opinion this was a much better place to hold it than the student center, where it’s always been. It felt a lot more professional, and allowed for better interaction.

It felt like there were a lot more people there this year, including two editors: Lisa Mangum from Shadow Mountain, and Stacy Whitman from Tu. I didn’t try to pitch to either of them, since I don’t think they really publish what I write, but they were on a few interesting panels. Tracy Hickman, Howard & Sandra Tayler, and Jessica Day George were also very awesome on all the panels they attended.

One of my favorite panels was the presentation by Tracy Hickman on Lord of the Rings. He basically took it apart using Dramatica theory, showing how the series is composed of several distinct subplot, where each character (even the minor ones, like Eowyn) is literally the hero of their own story.

The presentation inspired me to go through some of my own novels and use the basic character archetypes from Dramatica to outline my own novels. I wrote out the names of all the characters in WAFH and GE on notecards, then on the back wrote down which archetype they fulfilled based on who was the protagonist.

There were several other excellent panels as well. I got a ton out of the “Can your dreams pay the bills?” one, with Sandra Tayler moderating. She sure knows her stuff when it comes to the practical business aspects of a creative career.

I dunno; a lot of my writing friends claim to be at a point where panels at cons are less useful for them. While I can see why they say that, I still find them helpful. While a lot of the advice is stuff I’ve heard before, every once and a while someone will have a fascinating insight on things. It’s like stories, I guess; even though there’s nothing new under the sun, everyone has a different way of making it their own, which is ultimately what makes the whole enterprise valuable.

Also, I had an awesome first this year: I signed my first autographed story! Leading Edge had a booth in the hall, and while I was hanging out there, I mentioned to Eric James Stone how I had a short story published and joked around about signed copies. To my surprise, he bought the issue and asked for me to sign it!

So yeah, my first signed copy of anything ever goes to Eric–thanks for the support! Now I’ll see what I can do to make that signature actually worth something someday…

Oh yeah, one more thing: Dan Wells is going to name a character in one of his books after me! According to Dan, the character (Gabe Vasicek) is “a big guy who wields a minigun.” Hehehe…can’t wait to read it!

Anyhow, LTUE was awesome this year, just as I’d expected. The panels were enlightening and entertaining, the guests were gracious and easy to talk with, and the overall experience was just a lot of fun.

4,271 words…whew!

Just a real quick post before I go to bed.

I wrote over 4k words today in WAFH–all for a chapter that I basically cooked up on the fly. It feels amazing.

For the past month or so, I’ve been recycling old material, cutting a lot of stuff that doesn’t work, tweaking the stuff that does, and putting in a new scene here and there, but basically just doing revision (aka a “triage edit,” as Wolverton likes to call it).

I’m good at revision, but it seems that that’s all I’ve been doing for the past couple months. The more I revise, the harder it is to write new material–or at least, the harder it feels. I’ve always hated drafting new stuff, because midway through it all seems to fall apart and then I have to drop the project and let it settle in my mind.

But for this chapter, I basically told myself: “alright, this is what needs to happen, this is what the characters need to do–now GO!” I sped through the whole thing without paying conscious attention to the act of writing, and just pumped it all out.

Man, I need to do this more often. Writing is so much fun! I’m sure this stuff will need to be revised later, but the story is definitely taking form the way it needs to.

In other news, LTUE was this past weekend, and I was super lame for not posting about it. But have no fear; I’ll recap the event soon, probably sometime tomorrow <fingers crossed>. And, as with past events, I recorded all the panels I attended. I won’t post the links here, but if you want them, send me an email.

In unrelated news, Talecris sucks and I need a job. Actually, correction: I need to start getting paid for the work I’m already doing by writing these novels. One of these days, though…one of these days…

Writing update, getting ready for LTUE, & Katniss must DIE

So I’m back at work at WAFH, making slow but steady progress. At this point, I’m throwing out about half of what’s on the page and redrafting stuff to fill in the gaps, but that’s only going to increase.

It’s not particularly hard, but it does take a lot out of me. I’m finding that I can write for about two or three hours before my creativity runs dry. When I’m spending more time online or playing games and less time focusing on the story, that’s a sign that it’s time to do something else to refill the well.

Man, I wish that well would stay full for longer…but in the meantime, 2.5k words per day isn’t so bad. I’ll take it.

In unrelated news, I’m currently about a third of the way through The Hunger Games and I hate the main character, Katniss. She’s a total attention whore, and fits all the classic characteristics of a Mary Sue. A tortured past, a heart of gold, ridiculously well skilled, beloved by everyone and romantically irresistible, even to her enemies…blegh! I hope she dies or gets tortured beyond all humanity.

In spite of this, I’ll probably finish the novel, just because it’s been such an influential bestselling title–as a writer, I’ve got to do my research. However, I don’t see myself finishing the series. There are other reasons why I don’t particularly like this book, but I’ll wait until a later post to articulate them.

In other unrelated news, LTUE 2011 is coming up, and I am so freaking excited for it! Here are the panels I definitely plan on attending:

Thurdsay

9:00 am:
– Best and worst writing advice ever given
(Anna del C Dye (M), Mette Ivie Harrison, Tyler Whitsides, Frank L. Cole, James Dashner)

11:00 am:
– Self-Publication pros and cons
(Jessica Douglas (M), LuAnn Staheli, Sandra Tayler, Anna del C Dye)

2:00 pm:
– Writing Strong Female Characters
(Sheila A. Neilson, Aleta Clegg (M), Clint Johnson, Jessica Day George, Bree DeSpain)

4:00 pm:
– The Writing Life: how to set and keep goals, how to prioritize.
(Angie Lofthouse, Julie Wright (M), Sandra Tayler, Berin Stephens)

6:00 pm:
– Marketing and Publicity–what can you do?
(Stacy Whitman (M), Bree DeSpain, James Dashner, Dene Low, Elana Johnson)

Friday

10:00 am:
– Tracy Hickman Presentation

11:00 am:
– Main Address: Steve Keele

12:00 pm:
-Charisma is not a dump stat: The real world importance of personal appearance and social skills in achieving your creative dreams.
(Howard Tayler, Jake Black (M), Tracy Hickman)

2:00 pm:
– The Problem of Sequels
(Anna del C Dye, Mette Ivie Harrison, Larry Correia (M), Bree DeSpain, Jessica Day George)

5:00 pm:
– What You Can And Can’t Do In A YA Novel
(Mette Ivie Harrison (M), Elana Johnson, Bree DeSpain, Robison Wells, J. Scott Savage)

Saturday

9:00 am:
– What I wish I had done, if I could do it all over again – A Guide to New Writers
(Lisa Mangum, Dave Wolverton, Brad R. Torgersen (M), Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury)

11:00 am:
– Main Address: James Dashner

12:00 pm:
“Zombies and You: A guide to what does and does not constitute an apocalypse”
Ross Wolfe

2:00 pm:
– Building believable economies/politics
(Dan Willis, Eric Swedin (M), Roger White, David Ferro)

3:00 pm:
– Can your dreams pay your bills?
(Rebecca Shelley, Ami Chopine, Sandra Tayler (M), Dave Wolverton, Michael R. Collings)

There are more, but these are the ones that look most interesting to me. As usual, I’ll record all of the panels I attend, so if you want a copy, just email me.

Man, I’m so excited! LTUE this year is going to be awesome!

Deceptively unproductive day

Man, where did the day go? I don’t feel like I was lazy, yet I only wrote about 1.2k words for the whole day. And things were going so well the day before…

Well, I guess I was busy, just with a whole lot of other things. Donated plasma (which took all morning), got some groceries, started GMing another round of werewolf on the quark forums, did some more research into ebooks, started the online TEFL course, went to Leading Edge and signed a contract for a poem they’re going to publish–

Oh yeah, check it out! I signed my second publishing contract today–again, with Leading Edge. They’re going t0 publish a short poem I wrote about Gliese 581g, otherwise known as Zarmina’s World.

(which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to blog about NASA’s Kepler mission since forever. It’s an incredible mission which, I believe, will lead to some revolutionary astronomical discoveries–and may even rejuvenate interest in science fiction. But more on that later…)

So yeah. My goal is to finish WAFH before the end of February, which is going to require a lot of work. Two and a half weeks, with LTUE 2011 sucking up one of the weekends…it’s going to be tough.

Numbers-wise, though, it’s still quite doable. I want to keep this draft pretty close to 90k (no more than 100k), and I’m already at 53k words. With sixteen days left in the month, I need to write between 2.3k and 2.9k words per day to make it.

In the meantime, it’s 2 am, and I’d better get some sleep. Waking up late is definitely bad for productivity, and I hate it. If I could train myself to wake up every morning at 5 am like Aneeka, that would be awesome. Actually, I’d probably just complain about how much it sucked to get up early every day, but hey–the grass is always greener…

Almost at four

I’ve got half a dozen things I could blog about, but it’s 2 am and cleaning checks are tomorrow, so I think I’m going to give a quick update and go to bed.

Worlds Away from Home is doing quite well–I’m only two chapters and five scenes from the end. I’d push really hard to finish it tomorrow, but I’m still waiting on some of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior and probably won’t start that project until after I go back to Massachusetts at the end of the month.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the seven point story structure Dan Wells talked about at LTUE 2010 (which I missed, but caught on youtube), and I’ve got a TON of ideas for Mercenary Savior now. I’m practically chomping at the bit to start analyzing this story and working out all the complex plot and character elements. That’s very good.

While chatting with one of my alpha readers for Mercenary Savior, I had an interesting idea for a direct sequel. Basically, while James’s storyline has some closure (or should, after I finish this next revision), he’s still got a lot of growing and maturing to do. My mind is already working it out…should I make that my fifth novel? Or move on to something else first? The thing about direct sequels is you can’t sell them without the first book, and if the first book doesn’t sell…

I’m applying for Redcliff Ascent; if all goes well, I’ll be participating in the November training (since September is full). At first, I was hesitant about this (since I kind of need a job now), but looking at it now, that’s probably the best time to do it. It’s after World Fantasy, which gives me time to finish Mercenary Savior, and late enough in the year that I can still finish that article for Mormon Artist. Plus, I can easily get a schedule that allows me to attend LTUE 2011. The only disadvantage is that I won’t be able to attend all of Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 classes, but that’s not such a big deal (seeing as I’ve taken the class twice already!).

Other than that, life is good. I’m going home in a week to see my parents and get my teeth done (since my mom’s health insurance covers me until my birthday in September–why pay for a checkup when you could have it for free?), and I’m definitely looking forward to that. And now that I’m almost finished with Worlds Away, I can see that it’s got potential, and that’s encouraging. Not this draft, certainly, but once I fix all the holes, it could really go somewhere.

Either way, it’s going to be nice having four novels under my belt.