Tag: World Fantasy 2009

update on the novel

Ughh…….

Alright, in the tradition of last year when I would write until 2am every night and then blog on it before going to bed, here is another update on how Bringing Estella Home is going right now.

It’s getting tougher.  I’m right in the middle of it right now, in chapter 7, and I’m not sure whose viewpoint I should do next or how I should be organizing these chapters.  I’ve got four viewpoints, but really there are three separate subplots going on, and I need to give them each equal time while structuring them so that the tension builds from one to the other.  When you don’t know what your chapter is doing in relation to the novel as a whole, it’s difficult.

My readers in English 318 tell me that one of the most interesting things in this story is the culture of the antagonists, the Hameji, and that’s really good because I want it to be interesting.  I’ve created a sort of ruthless, cold-hearted, irrationally violent barbarian culture, and over the course of the rest of the novel I’m going to show exactly WHY they are so violent, what drove them to it, etc.  Sound familiar?  It’s my Mongols in space idea, and it’s coming along very well…

…except that I didn’t have Ben’s part figured out very well.  He’s the one who gets brainwashed and turned into one of their soldiers, given a drug that melds his emotional being with that of a collective–kind of like the borg, but only with feelings and emotions, not with thoughts.  It will be interesting to play with that idea, but this chapter, which was originally supposed to focus more on his experience with that transition, just…didn’t work out as well.  Not a lot of screen time for him, for some odd reason.

So I did a little bit of thinking as I was walking home today.  I thought to myself, “if I were a Hameji commander, how would I train these guys?” And it worked out very well!  I think I know what I need to do now, what Ben’s story is going to be for the next couple of chapters.  That’s very good.

Man, going for a walk can really help you sort things out and figure out what happens next.  Even though I have an mp3 player, I rarely listen to it as I’m walking to and from campus.  Many times I have my best ideas while making the commute.  If/when I become a professional novelist, I’m going to have to set aside time each day for long walks.

Finally, I’m a little worried that I’m falling behind on my deadline.  I wanted to finish this thing by the final exam day, sometime in April, but now that I’m sludging through the middle, I wonder if it might take longer.  I have the climaxes figured out very well, but I’m still a long ways away from them.  I might not finish this novel until the end of May, especially since I’ll have to do some major revisions of the first three chapters to hand it in for the English 318 final.  That won’t give me a lot of time to revise my novels for World Fantasy 2009…

Bah.  There is so much to think about.  Rather than deal with it now, I’m going to go to bed.

LTUE 2009

Wow. Life, the Universe, and Everything 2009 is over, and it’s hard to believe that only three days have passed. It feels as if this symposium has been going on for a week, and that’s a good thing. Friday and Saturday, I spent practically every waking moment in the Wilk, the student center where the symposium was held. By the end, I think some of the professionals there were starting to recognize me and strike up conversations with me instead of the other way around. Kind of interesting. Way fun. Loads and loads of helpful advice and information to process. I’ll be lucky if I can soak it all in before the end of the year.

I’m glad to say I was able to open up and talk with a lot of people these past few days–in fact, I got a chance to talk with just about everyone who was on a panel that I’d attended. It was fun to shake their hands, compliment them on what they said, and strike up a conversation around that. It was surprisingly non-threatening, to be honest. I definitely feel more prepared for World Fantasy 2009 now–definitely.

By far, my favorite part of the convention was Tracy Hickman’s main address. It was titled Creative Reading 201, and it was all about how the reader and the writer are both collaborators in the creative experience, something that’s fascinated me for a long time. The implications of this simple fact are tremendous. First of all, it means that a story does not come to life until it is read. Anyone can get published, especially with the technology today, but all of those words are empty symbols until someone takes the time to read it. Second, it means that the spirit speaks to us in the white spaces between the lines. Just as people with different needs take the unique message they need from the scriptures through the power of the holy spirit, so each work of fiction speaks differently to us. Finally, all of this means that stories change as we change, even as they inevitably change us. As we grow, the stories that touched us the most simultaneously grow with us even as they help us to become better people.

Tracy Hickman then shared an incredible story about a book signing he and collaborator Margaret Weis had recently at a veteran’s home. A man in a wheelchair came up to them with an extremely tattered copy of one of their earlier works, about a knight who sacrifices his life in battle to save the order, even though all of his fellow knights in the order look down on him as less than a true knight. This wounded soldier then told them that this tattered book had traveled with him in his pocket throughout his military career, through parajumps, underwater operations, and into war theaters like Afghanistan. While fighting in Afghanistan, this soldier was shot in the lower back. As he went down, his first thought was “what would the knight in Tracy’s book do?” He saw the Taliban forces setting up a mortar on the opposite ridge, and in spite of his wounds and the risk to his life, he took down the enemy and saved twelve of his fellow soldiers fighting in that battle. The soldier then presented his purple heart and bronze star to Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, for writing the story that inspired him to be a hero.

Sometimes, as I’m sludging away with my writing and wondering what I’m going to do in 2010 when I finally graduate, I wonder if I’m somehow being lazy. I worry that I’m somehow being irresponsible by not going into some other profession, some kind of respectable 9 to 5 job in an office, the kind of thing that everyone else goes into. I wonder if I’ll ultimately become some kind of a parasite on society, trying to make it big as a writer. In the worst moments, I worry that even if I make it big, I’ll still be some kind of parasite, not really producing anything respectable or useful. After all, fiction is entertainment, especially in genre fiction–don’t we have enough of that already?

Then I remember the impact that one good book can have on people–the way it changes us, the way it opens our eyes and helps us to become better people than we were before we picked up the book. Then I realize: what could possibly be more respectable than telling good, honest, life-changing stories? And then, as I think about it a little more, I realize that that 9 to 5 office job isn’t what I think it is. I realize that I’m not slacking off by trying to be something more than a cog in the corporate machine, producing widgets.

If I strive to tell the truth as a storyteller, and to write the kinds of stories that truly inspire people to do marvelous things and become better people, what greater career is there than that? Teaching, I suppose, comes close to having a similar impact, as well as some kinds of therapy work. Certainly there are other careers that have tremendous opportunities to sacrifice and have a meaningful impact on one’s fellow men. However, my talent is in writing and telling in stories–and it’s a talent that I cannot suppress, from which I cannot escape. So long as I live, I will always tell stories–it’s just hardwired into who I am. Certainly I can use this talent to serve my fellow men in a way that is both respectable and meaningful. And really, for me personally, what else could be better?

It doesn’t mean that it isn’t scary. However, thanks to LTUE this year, I feel that I’ve learned a lot that can help me break in and make it. Whether it was something said in one of the panels or just the experience of attending, it was a truly awesome experience for an aspiring writer like myself.

As far as the files, I’ll post links to the audio files from the conference after I get them uploaded. I should be able to do that sometime within the next 24 to 48 hours, so look out for that.