War of the Possible Future

Free on

Smashwords 

Smashwords

Hey, I put up a story on Smashwords, but I accidentally set it "Make my book free". Sure, it's really easy to change, but I decided: Why not? So I'm going to make "War of the Possible Future" free until such time as...well, until such time as it isn't (probably the next time I put stuff on Smashwords). We'll see how it goes.

If you like this, why not try the other three titles I just uploaded?

Smashwords

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Surfing The Blur

Let us begin with a digression: I have to report that my daily writing streak is pretty much in tatters, but for a good cause. Travel is hard on writing, but easy on fun and great for thinking. I’ve spent the last two weeks on impromptu travel ‘round these parts, mostly in Bangkok, meeting lots of old friends and making lots of new ones as I circulated amongst the bars and sights. As for writing? I made a conscious decsion to focus on people and let writing rest for a moment. Quoth I: There’ll be plenty of boring stretches of time that can be filled with glorious writing when I get back. Lo! I was correct, for here I am. Here’s the takeaway: Isolation is Bad for the writer, but trying to write with a lot of people around isn’t very helpful. Telling stories with a lot of people around, though?

Yeah, there’s the benefit right there. Each of those impromptu stories will almost certainly get a showing in writing as well. Because that’s all there is to it, this thing Writing: Tell a lie, then make it True. Blur the edges of reality, define the blur as a better reality--’better’ in this case to be read as ‘more interesting’--and then surf that blur with your audience until they’re having too much fun hanging on to notice when you’ve wandered them into unreality. The blur between unknowable fact and blatant fiction is called Truth, and all I need to do is construct a good enough lie to get people to believe in that Truth. 

That sexy, sexy Truth.

Productivity

I came back and read Dean Wesley Smith’s article where he discoursed on Production Schedules. I thought to myself: Why haven’t I thought to do that yet? Well, that’s what I’m going to do, in any case, because it’s so blindingly obvious. I’ve been organically developing a writing and publishing process, so this will be a good way to tie it all together. So far I’ve been writing “by series”, that is, I write such that I’ll fill out a 5-story series for ease of publishing. I think some actual calendar planning would help that out, and it’ll keep me professional to actually set a deadline for something besides these articles. And I’ll be able to brag more easily with hard data, so’s I can point at the wall calendar and say: “QUALE, MORTALS! Productivity is Afoot!” Of course, it might be spelled Quail, in which case mortals will have a jolly chuckle at my expense. Rude.

Writing Schedule

So really it comes down to coming up with a reasonable schedule that won’t get screwed up by overreaching. I had to sit down and think up what a normal day of writing should look like, mere desultory tapping away at the keys, no major effort of will involved. What I’m looking at is about 2500 words. Obviously, there’ve been days when I’ve written more, there’ve been days when I’ve written less, but on any given day that I’ve had to myself and haven’t lazed around like a loser, that’s a fair estimate of output. 

What writing do I want to schedule, then? I have two types of product, the short story and the serial. I want to write and publish at least one serial every month, for obvious reasons. That’s 12,500 words, or 5 days. Looking at the writing numbers, I should be able to write a series (five short stories) every 10 days, so we can put that down for two a month, or 20 days.

Publishing Schedule

Ten short stories and one serial every month, 25 solid writing days, which leaves 3-6 days for Publishing. I’m including these articles (about 800 words each) in Publishing, so that’s a couple hours of one day. Formatting 13 (10 stories, 2 series, 1 serial) titles and making 13 covers will eat up a solid day, but I’d schedule two because I usually try something new with each cover for my education and don’t like being rushed. Writing blurbs and putting everything up on Amazon and Smashwords is not actually that time-consuming if you’re in the zone and properly organized, so that’d be a half day. Any extra covers and formatting (such as a completed serial book or a 10 or 20 story pack) would be done sometime in there as well. 

All the Publishing stuff would happen at the end of the month, and the titles published the previous month would be announced during the publishing phase of the next month. They’d be sure to be up on most of the sites by then. I’d probably just make a big ole’ “Monthly Releases” announcement post on this site with all the covers and blurbs, and maybe schedule some individual title Twitter announcements throughout the month.

Strategy

If this seems a trifle quixotic, it might could be. But it seems like it should work, if I’m not lazy, if I’m, if you will, a Professional . As always, it really depends on my writing output, just sitting in a chair and typing the ideas down instead of sitting around doing nothing. I’m certain that actually having a schedule of some sort will at least motivate me to stick to it, if only to avoid that depressing whir and whistle of deadlines rushing by, like a falcon without a nest, et cetera.

If it works, it’ll work great. And hey? If it’s actually impossible, it’ll still be just the right lie I’ll need to tell myself to surf the blur to possible.

This version of Professional Edition will last until April 6, 2012, updating every Friday. Site design subject to change as I learn by doing. Like what you see? Spot something unprofessional? Feel free to comment!

Writing Short Stories

Enough about business already! It bores me, because it’s just not that complicated. Simple but hard, it appeals to my battering-ram mind. Yah, yah. Why don’t we chill out? With something complicated but fun: Writing a short story. The allure of the short story is easy to explain. For the reader, it’s a neat chunk of story convenient for reading on the go or in the course of a busy day. For the writer, it’s a great way to get a single concept on the page and get on with life. As a reader, I don’t read all that many books, but I boil through short stories like a boiler that is boiling on...extra boil? What? Leave it, the point is I Like Short Stories, and here’s exactly how I write them when I’m on top of my game (Why did he say boil?) Shut up. 

Step the First: Titles

Yes, I’m using the plural. We aren’t LITERARY (heaven help us), we’re in this for the long haul and we’re going to be writing a passle of stories, sirs and madames. You’re intelligent folk, so you’ve got a big slew of literary and pulp references swirling around in your brain, just combine that with the world around you and come up with five sexy evocative titles. Trust me, you’ll eventually use them all. Or if you don’t Ben Godby will steal them and sell the story that results to a magazine. Everybody wins!

So, here’s the first five titles that pop into my head:

-Beer Anchovia, Titus, and Thou

-The Fake and the False

-Leave Now and The Truth Will Follow

-Moorsian Invasion

-The Knives of Iceland

If your titles aren’t as Sexy as those five at first, don’t worry. I’ve had a lot of practice with titles. And sexy. Still, any title you made up will be evocative for you, and that’s all we need right now. You can always change it after you finish the stories, which is what you’re trying to do, remember? (Close the porns and get back here.) 

Part the Second: Ready Set

Now the fun begins. Create five blank documents in the text editor of your choice. I use FocusWriter because it has a convenient sessions feature so I can hotswap between documents. Name them according to the five titles you just came up with, and put the title at the top. LOOK AWAY FROM THE SCREEN! And do not think about Word Count or how long any of these stories are going to be. They can be any length, cats, so long as they’re Finished. And they will be, later. For now, we’ve got to prepare. Look at your titles and write down the first image that comes to mind in the appropriate document. By ‘image’, I mean Character, Blurb, Setting, Dialogue, Sentence, or Plot. Whatever floats your boat, just write it down as you come up with it. Remember that nobody’s going to see this.

Here’s the five titles with the images I came up with as I did this:

Beer Anchovia, Titus, and Thou

Planetary siege in a desperate war, aboard the requisitioned and hastily repurposed spaceliner Anchovia, a ragtag crew attempt to construct a still and keep their sanity amidst a steadily disintigrating chain of command.

First person?

The Fake and the False

Gentilia Lake, the unfortunately named con artiste, competes with the Grim Ghast for the souls of the gullible people of Lambutan. Can she save them from Hell by giving them heck? 

Leave Now and The Truth Will Follow

Gentilia Lake appears again, amongst the sheeple of Nazawrath. But when a wolf in sheep’s clothing strikes terror in the hearts of the people, she discovers that serial killers are harder to fool than she expected.

Bloody belt.

Moorsian Invasion

The Moors descended on rhinoceros-back, pillaging as they came.

The Knives of Iceland

King Jeoffrey the Ironhearted had yet to complete his submarine the day the water disappeared.

So...so thirsty. But hey, a series!

Part the Third: GO!

That’s really all you need to do. Just keep brainstorming in images until one of the titles grabs you by the balls and forces you to write it, then just sit down and actually write it until it lets go. Clear a space, don’t drink any beer, eschew sugar of all varieties, eat healthy, and just roll into the tappity-tip-tip-tappity-tap-tap until your fingers stop of their own volition. You know where the story is going, and know why you’re leaving if you stand up from the keyboard. If it’s because you’re scared, sit right back down and face the words you’ve brought into the world. They’re looking up at you with their big eyes pleading for FOOD and mommies. Do not leave them to starve in the computer. When they grow up they’ll kick your ass. 

I’d start with the Gentilia Lake story, myself. 

The dank swamp glittered in the rising sun as Gentilia Lake crawled out of it, her hair hanging down in tentacles of slime...

This version of Professional Edition will last until April 6, 2012, updating every Friday. Site design subject to change as I learn by doing. Like what you see? Spot something unprofessional? Feel free to comment!