Out & About

I started a short story ("Kritarchy") today in addition to working on "Lived Too Long To Die".

But I have a good excuse: I can only visualize 10,000 words at a time.

On those days when I'm out in the world and working out of a notebook, it's a lot easier for me to keep the plot of a short story straight in my mind than it is to organize the multiple threads of a book plot.

This isn't a way for me to justify procrastinating on the book, it's just a statement of the current facts-on-the-ground. I'm also confident in my ability to juggle multiple plots, anyways, so I don't have to worry about getting confused.

I've discovered that writing a book is different from writing a short story. Writing a sentence or two in downtime throughout the day works for short stories, but a book requires concentrated effort of at least an hour in length, because I have to remember where it's going.

My theory is that this is all just a symptom of my having written about a hundred short stories that I like but only one book that I am barely satisfied with. I've got the "short story" mindset down, and I need to practice the "at-length" mindset. Presumably the only way to do that is to write more books.

On it.

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I want to get better at writing Fantasy, by which I mean "Not Science Fiction per se". Yaknow, ghosts and magic and such. Or steam-punk. Or bio-punk. Or alternate history. Or some unholy union of all four, where the Nuclear-Powered Merrimac battles the Organic Regenerating Monitor while the opposing sorcerers Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis have it out in the dream-realm of Robert E. Lee's conscience. And the ghost of Stonewall Jackson is the narrator.

I call it "Sibyl War".

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500 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die" - chapter 9
Short Story "Kritarchy" - in progress (~1/4)

Rejection and the Single Guy

I get rejected a lot.

But this is a writing blog, so let's focus on Rejection Slips: Dang! I've got a lot of those. I should wallpaper my bedroom so that all the ladies I bring home can read them.

This is a good thing.

It's old by now, but you can't go four steps on the Writing Internet without running across somebody who got a piece published after 84 rejections. And you can't read a biography without ferreting out from between the lines that One Day of Luck that explains the rest. Luck is the 1% that makes the 99% pay.

Fortunately, by all accounts it doesn't take a lot of luck to make it as a writer.

Rejection means I'm trying. And caring about rejection motivates me when I don't want to try anymore. When it's no fun and I'm feeling demotivated, I can just look at a rejection form and say "well, dammit, I'll show them!" and keep trying. If I were feeling pithy, I'd say that the only person who can reject you is yourself.

I'm going to go so far as to say that I Love Rejection. Especially brutal rejection, fast and to the point. "You, sir, are a Bad Writer, you should feel bad about that piece, and here's WHY: 1,2,3." Wham! Reaction! "Well,  try this one!" Until They Stop Being Brutal. They're the ones with the money, I'm the one with the talent. We can have a beautiful relationship.

I've had a lot of experience with rejection, but I've also had a lot of experience getting what I want by blatant stubbornness. Not the jackass kind, but the smart stubborn that molds itself into the right shape to get through the obstacle. That sees the obstacle as a challenge all of its own.

That is to say, it's not doing the work that's hard, it's getting the work in the first place.

And being rejected a million times plus one is not the same as being rejected every time.

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I am fascinated by the idea of human colonization of Europa (and Ceres). It just seems like it'd be fun to be from a small-town moon (minor planet).

Anyways, if there's life there I say we eat it and steal its Unobtainium.

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500 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die" - in progress (~9/100)

It's Not a Hobby

Here's what this blog is about: Writing.

Specifically, my writing. Every day.

Not for fun, although it is. Not for a writing group, although I have a couple. Not for a pick up line, although it does work as such. In short, it's not a hobby.

This is writing for professional publication by a professional writer. That is, it's a blog about my chosen profession, and how I intend to make a full-time living at it.

Here's what you'll see on the blog everyday around 5-7PM (my time). At the bottom, you'll see the daily word count target: Yes, No, or OK, and the current project status. In the body, you'll have something about writing and something on some other topic as it occurs to me. There will be pictures. And maybe a podcast.

Every day, unless I'm dead, I will write at least 250 words (1 handwritten sheet) of fiction. That's the absolute minimum. In a full day's writing, I will write at least 2000 words (or finish the story). Half-day is 1000, and Better Minimum is 500.

Writing this much is Easy, if I sit down and do it. The hard point is writing that much and writing it well, and keeping on writing it better and experimenting and making it bigger, smarter, faster, thicker. More elegant. And using fewer adjectives. Anybody could do it, who can type.

But since I'll sit down and actually do it every day, whether I want to or not...It's Not a Hobby.

But it's a great way to live.

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The introduction is over, and I finished up the first Big Peril Scene, a running battle through the crumbling streets of a post-apocalyptic world. Introducing the metaphor zombies (although they're not called zombies, because this is the Far Future after a singularity apocalypse). I think my idea is fresh enough to justify using zombies. It's not just "The reader's bored! Send in the zombies." Now I get to introduce a couple of Earth characters as they meet Our Heroes the Space Scouts. Fun.

Oh no, zombie! Why did I use my voodoo stylus...

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2000 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die" - chapter eight (~2/25)