One piece of writing advice I've seen over and over is to work without distractions when it's time to write.  The biggest and most controversial writing distraction is, according to these authors, the internet.

I don't often get writer's block.  I've been luck so far to mostly be able to just write and write without getting blocked.  But last night I ran into a wall.  It hurt but I'm ok.


I skipped around it.


Nancy Kress does an excellent job teaching writers to write in scenes.  That always bothered me since I mostly hold the story intact in my head.  Last night and to be honest for the last few nights, my grasp hasn't been so strong.  


(As a little aside, try to write what you're burning to write.  That's your muse or subconscious telling you that your imagination is warmed up and ready.  I was burning to write The Mageborn Mechanic a few months ago. I didn't, spending my time editing Angel Odyssey instead.  Now, here I am...)


I got got stuck.  I had outlined this novel, I 'knew' what had to come next. But I couldn't figure out how to go from where I was to where I needed to be.  So I skipped.


I put some brackets describing the problem I needed to solve and started the next chapter with my main character bleeding and holding a bag of frozen peas to his face with grim triumph.  What happened? I have no idea.  But I'll find out in my second draft when I go back to fix that chapter.


In the mean time, I put down some more words. Go forwards.  Keep moving. Keep writing.  If you get stuck, note down where you're stuck and what you don't know what you have to fix. Then start your next chapter with a hook to draw you and your reading on.  Ke

Sorry for today's lack of content. I have a few thoughts rumbling in my head about evoking emotion in your readers (and which emotions you should evoke) but most of my headspace is focused on the plot of The Mageborn Mechanic.

It's never fun giving an 'C' review. If you utterly love a book, the review flows from you in a rapture. If you despise a book it can bring out invective that is as much fun to read as the book was not.  But with the middle of the road reviews...that's tricky.

Let me start off with some caveats.  I've met Sam Sykes. I like him and I'm going to read the next book in his Aeon's gate series.  Sam is a young writer but a serious one, no matter what his twitter feed is like.  He's also well-read in the Fantasy genre.  He even has one of his characters, almost meta-texually, complain about "...now we're just sitting around in furs, talking instead of killing people."

So, that's a good review tag: Too much sitting around, not enough killing.  

It's a touch trick. Sam Sykes clearly wanted to develop his characters more in this follow up to his action-packed debut, Tome of the Undergates.  However it comes at the expense of plot and movement.  Character revealed through action works better than sitting around and talking.

I will say this: if you can get through the first 120 pages, things do pick up.

Pros:
  When the action happens, it is intense and gory and sure to please fans of the first book. Sam also has a knack for some very beautiful and insightful prose.  He's at his best when he's musing upon the philosophy of violence, the nature of faith and how emotional pain can be greater than any physical injury.  Inventive monsters, races and an interesting world.

One of the fun, yet odd, things about first drafts is watching your subconscious tell you stuff.  For me, at least, it can change dialog tracks, add or avoid action scenes and just generally rampage around my story.


Now, your subconscious is not always right.  Mine understands emotion but doesn't understand plot or story structure. But it is darn good at knowing where to plant a hook.  


My plan (and outline) for The Mageborn Mechanic was twenty chapters of about 5k words each.  5x20 = a book that hopefully comes in at under 100k words for once.  Tonight, my subconscious stopped me at around 2k words for a chapter.  It stopped me just before the big fight scene I had planned for the second half of chapter 4.


Stop there, it said.  And it was like my fingers froze.  I looked down at the page, re-read where I'd stopped.  Yeah, it was a pretty good hook. I as a writer and and a reader desperately wanted to keep going.  


That is an excellent place for a chapter change. Now I get to start off chapter 5 with a big, magic-filled fight.


Heaven knows I'm going to have to do some revisions in this novel but I think if I listen to my subconscious, I may just get the hooks right in this one.


And on an unrelated note, I was reading Hellsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden yesterday.  The man has a real gift for description.  Pick it up, even if you're not a Warhammer 40k fan. If you like action-packed, detailed sci-fi action, you'll love it.  I'll have a review up for it as soon as I'm done.

I'm back to reading some dark fantasy, the kind of sword and monsters thing that I dig.  But I'm noticing something happening in the plot that is frustrating me.  Time and again, the main character(s) are put into impossible, deadly situations and getting out of them through no effort of their own. In fact, in a fit of emo nonsense, one of the main characters has (yet another) mental breakdown and stops even trying to defend themselves in a chaotic melee.

Naturally, this whiny idiot does not get spitted on a sword, like he deserves.  At least in that circumstance, he was defended by his compatriots.  Later, however, he's put at the mercy of his enemies who...take mercy on him. For some reason.  Even James Bond didn't have villains like this.

Now, this isn't a bad novel, in fact it's this isn't even a first novel, this author has been published before and has a multi-book contract.  So they're doing something right.  But they're also doing something wrong.  

They're not letting their heroes save themselves.

I like heroes who are active, who get into trouble and find a way to fight or think their way out of it.  I respect that.  I respect them. 

Its great to have a huge, powerful enemy.  That's cool.  If you show the enemy being so powerful they can manhandle the main characters, that build tension. When the main character's attack and fail, that raises the tension even more. When some guy who's had two scenes in the past four hundred pages suddenly flies in, out of nowhere, to save your main character...that kills all the tension.


Take Star Wars, which on the surface has this kind of 'out of nowhere' crisis resolution.  Luke is attacking the Death Star.  Darth Vader is blowing the crap out of every X-wing that gets into the trench and he is terrible, unstoppable.  Luke can't beat him.  What happens? Luke doesn't give up, he keeps trying, he uses the Force to delay Vader's attempt at a lock-on.  Then, just as Vader has Luke dead to rights, boom, in flies Han Solo to save the day.  On the surface, this seems to be the exact thing I've been complaining about.  But it's not.  Luke is not the only main character in Star Wars. Han Solo is as well.  Han Solo saves Luke and redeems himself in doing so. That works.  Having one of the barflies from Mos Eisley suddenly fly in and save Luke does not work.  As cool as the devil-guy may have been, he hasn't been in the movie enough. He isn't a main character.


If you've made your villain too strong, then you have a plot problem. Give them a flaw. Go back and lay the groundwork for how the main character can win. That's what revisions are for.  

It doesn't have to be that deus ex machina to still be unsatisfying. If your main character is sitting around waiting for their romantic partner, sidekick or familiar to come rescue them, that's just as bad for me.  

Your main character needs to drive the action and they need to be constantly trying.  If your plot has the main character winning and surviving (and I highly recommend that) make sure they are the ones who are cutting the heads off, unlocking the vault door, defusing the time bomb. That gets my blood pumping, makes me want to cheer.  Make your readers cheer.

One thing that was jarring to me when I met my literary heroes was how disappointed I often was.  Some writers really are as wonderful as the books they create, others...not so much.


The problem is, of course, that writers are people. And people are different from other people.  They have different beliefs, vote for different candidates and have different levels of tolerance for those who, in turn, are different from them.

The other day, a writer was posting telling everyone NOT to buy Orson Scott Card's books.  It appears this writer, a man, likes putting his genitals into other men.  OSC is a member of a religion where that kind of thing is frowned upon.  Ergo, in his works "If you're gay and buying Orson Scott Card's books, you're supporting repression."


Now this is not an issue of avoiding a book because of subject matter.  No one likes to be preached at. I tend to avoid books with a heavy-handed dialectic even if I happen to agree with the author (which isn't often).  No, this is someone calling for the shunning of a writer because of their religious beliefs.


The opposite happens as well. Openly gay or Republican or whatever writers will be shunned, not for their books but for who they are.


My question is, should we separate art from the artist?  Richard Wagner was, to most people, a loathsome human being but man he wrote some good music.  Modern day, there are lots of musicians I'll listen two that I wouldn't trust with my sister or my house or my bathroom for that matter. 


You can make a case that the character of an artist is relevant for non-fiction or memoir.  But should we take the artist into consideration for fiction as well?  If someone snorts cocaine or cheats on their spouse or worships Shub Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Forest with a Thousand Young does that matter if they're writing about made up worlds and made up people?

I mentioned in an earlier post how taking a break from writing, even if its just for a few minutes, can recharge your creative batteries.  I think that can also work on a larger scale.


Humans are perverse. We want what we don't have.  When I'm writing, sometimes my mind wants to be anywhere else. When I'm not writing, I want to be back home, typing away.


Mentally, I think we need other things -work, hobbies, etc- in our life that is not writing to challenge other parts of our brain.  I seem to be a lot more productive when I'm working than when I have a month off to 'just write'.  I think being away from my keyboard gives my subconscious a chance to mull things over.  Work forces me to use other, logical parts of my brain, letting my creative side rest, recharge and ready itself.

Make your Muse (or subconscious if you perfer) chase you.  Have something to do that doesn't involve sitting down in front of a computer.  Get out of your house, DON'T write for part of your day.  You might be surprised at what comes rushing out when you get back in your Throne of Writing(tm)

Time for a cheerleading post. One of the most important things an aspiring author can do is to write stuff and submit it.  Sounds obvious but you'd be surprised how many of us just keep writing, keep polishing and keep...not sending our work out.


Yes, we want to do the best job we can on our stories. But we also want to get published and advance into our calling.  At some point we need to take the scary step of submitting our work to editors (and agents if you are so inclined).  


The work you submit is going to be rejected.  Submit it anyway.  We need to get used to rejection and get used to getting up, dusting ourselves off and submitting it again.  Write your story, edit it for typos, submit it to your critique group, mak


This is why it is useful to write short stories even if your passion is for novels.  Write both.  Spend one day a week writing a short story.  Or take a month off after finishing your first draft of your novel and try writing a short story a day.  Short stories are a great way to polish the craft of writing, to get feedback and to get used to sending your stuff out.  I wish I'd figured this out two years ago, when I decided AGAINST writing short stories in favor of writing my second novel.  Sometimes I can be both lazy and stupid.  Don't be me.


I have two short stories out for submission right now.  I should have more and when I get a few moments to myself (which should come after holidays end. Parents are in town), I'll take some of the stories that have been rejected already and try to find another home for them.


I know I might be preaching to the choir here.  So be it.  Write.  AND submit your work.  Do it today.

I've been giving some thought to self publishing Smooth Running (barring Ace deciding they'd like to buy it). I've made plans for hiring an editor (Andrea at http://www.bluefalconediting.com/) and now I'm thinking about cover art.


There's an old saying that "you can't judge a book by it's cover".  Which is nonsense or at least mis-phrased. People judge everything by the cover. The cover of your book makes a promise to your readers as surely as your first few pages do.


Images have power. I've bought books purely for the cover art.  Check out the cover art for the Amber Enchantress (art by Brom).  How cow, I scooped that bad boy right up. The book itself?  Eh.  A 'C' at best*. But it got me to pick up the book.


The same is true for bad art.  I can't tell you how many books I haven't read because the cover didn't appeal to me. Scroll through the lists of self-published books on Amazon.  Go ahead. This post will be here when you get back.  Ok?  How many of those books would you be interested in reading more about?  Some might have a snazzy title but way, way too many of these self-published books have bland, photoshopped art.  Say what you want about the John Locke books, the covers catch the eye. I have no idea what that model and that photographer got paid but I hope it's a lot.


So, for Smooth Running, I want an eye catching cover.  Just the two main characters forgrounded with a backdrop of magic-haunted Seattle. Now, how am I going to do it, since I can't draw circles let alone attractive people?  That's the puzzle.  I'm going to try www.elance.com and see what kind of artists are willing to bid on my work contract.  Backup plans include searching Deviant Art's site for artists I like,  trying the Art Institute in Seattle and if that doesn't work, I'm going to find an indy writer who's cover art I like and pester them (politely) to find out who did their art.


I'll keep you posted on how it goes.




*It feels like they bought the art then tried to write a book around it, instead of the other way around.