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Fun, No Nonsense

Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2014| 1 Comment »

David Farland put out a nice piece last week titled Be Excited, and (unsurprisingly:) that pretty much sums up his thesis. Essentially, he says that the writers he sees who are the most productive are those able to get and stay excited about their work. That hit home for me, not just in terms of quantity, but also quality. I find that my best stories tend to be those I find most entertaining. Granted, I may be biased, but what’s more fun than… fun?

With that in mind, I recommend a short fiction from the September issue of Lightspeed.* Holly Black’s Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind) is everything I love about a story: it’s funny, poignant, trying and triumphant. And fun.

* This story also appeared in the excellent Monstrous Affections anthology edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, which I read on the strength of this piece.

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A Brief Introduction to Resources for New Writers

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2014| 1 Comment »

Writing is simple, right? Writing is considered a basic skill in our society and as such, people often look down on it as, well, a basic skill. Sadly, thinking that you can write an effective book/story/memoir/etc. because you are literate is like saying that because you can run down the block, you have what it takes to do the Boston Marathon.

As always, the devil is in the details. Sorting out those details, by understanding the process and which of the many aspects of art and craft you should work on, is key to becoming (and staying) a writer.

Much of what I read and write is speculative and genre fiction, and a few of my specific suggestions and references are colored accordingly. If speculative fiction isn’t your thing that doesn’t mean you can’t use these references. It just means that you may need to ask yourself questions like, “This is great, but how would an alien sea monkey’s need for interstellar love translate to a tailor in modern-day Calcutta?” All the better to exercise your creative faculties, I say. As you’ll see, though, most writing advice translates well across boundaries.

Here are a few pointers to get you started…

Resources I’ve Found Useful:

It will shock no one to learn that there are also a lot of writing resources on the web; often the problem is sorting through them all. Search for talks, interviews and essays by authors whose work speaks to you, see if their ideas or suggestions offer fuel for your fires. I’ve mentioned some links in previous discussions on writing and creativity already, and there are many (many, many) more. To get you started:

 

Life rewards action…. That story isn’t going to unf*ck itself.
— Chuck Wendig [asterisk mine]

There are all kinds of writers. Fiction vs. not, certainly, but also binge writers, morning writers, middle of the night writers, must have my pencils just so writers, deadline writers and cabin in the woods writers, can only write on used envelope writers, take your pick. Find what works for you.

Then write.

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We All Start Somewhere

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the wake of NaNoWriMo, I thought it instructive to point out Jim C. Hines’s new book, Rise of the Spider Goddess. This is an annotated version of a novel he wrote in his formative years. In other words, it is a bad book. And he’s sharing it, on purpose, for entertainment, for edification, and to help other writers recognize that we all start somewhere.

So, fair NaNo’ers (and others), as you review your 50,000+ word opus, do not despair if you realize that the draft over which you slaved is actually really very awfully bad;) And as Jim says in his introduction to the book on John Scalzi’s Whatever:

Writing a bad book is nothing to be ashamed of, because dammit, I still wrote a book. Then I wrote more of them. And with each one, I got better.

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Seeing Daylight

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 25, 2014| 2 Comments »

Hey, I hit 50,194 words for NaNoWriMo today! The novel still needs work, of course, but I’ve reached my November target. Now I can concentrate on shaping the story… after a little break to celebrate:)

For those of you still at it, keep going!

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Shake Hands with the Unknown

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

What draws a reader into a book? What breaks their connection with the material world and plugs the brain into an alternative dimension? Sure, cover design, a known author and positive publicity blurbs all have something to do with it, but as speculative fictioneer William Gibson argues in The Atlantic, the first sentence is what invites you in.

The First Sentence Is a Handshake – The Atlantic

For William Gibson, author of The Peripheral, a kind of invitation is extended—and readers will or won’t feel what he calls “the click.” But it’s not just about connecting with an audience. In a conversation for this series, Gibson explained how first sentences invite the writer, too: they contain a blueprint for the book that will be written.

I don’t write the way Gibson does, laboring over the first line until it is worthy of the effort the rest of the book will take, but I do go back to it and rewrite. Ahem. A lot.

The article is full of interesting thoughts from the man who coined the term “cyberspace.” For more on Gibson’s method, his views on the proper balance between mystery and clarity, and a discussion of his newest book, The Peripheral, check out the full article at The Atlantic.

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Ursula Le Guin Steals The Show

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »

At the National Book Awards yesterday, our Lady Le Guin accepted an award for distinguished contribution to American letters. In her acceptance speech she went to bat for speculative fiction writers in particular. See this link from Parker Higgins for the full text of the speech.

As NPR reports:

“I rejoice in accepting [this prize] for, and sharing it with, all the writers who were excluded from literature for so long: my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction,” Le Guin said.

She also had some choice words on the recent Amazon-Hachette battle over pricing:

“We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa,” she said. “And I see a lot of us, the producers, accepting this — letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant!”

It just goes to show that writers tend to be anything but boring. Especially writers of science fiction and fantasy.

 

[Edited to add speech text and video links.]

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Bad Writing Advice Explained

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Mary Robinette Kowal, that font of wisdom and Regency fashion tips, has a nice column on bad writing advice.

There’s a bunch of aphorisms about writing that started as good, pithy advice in part of someone’s lecture. Then they got pulled out of context and then misapplied.

Mary breaks down the standards that every beginning writer hears and talks about what they really mean, and when they are useful (spoiler: not always!). Write what you know, show don’t tell, raise the stakes, and kill your darlings, all so often repeated as gospel.

If you’ve ever tried to merge the advice to “write what you know” with the burning desire to write about Martian ballerinas and the prospectors who love them, well, fellow speculators, this is for you.

/totally going off to write a story about Martian ballet… right after I finish my novel!

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How Do People Get New Ideas?

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2014| 2 Comments »

 

Like many of you I’m doing NaNoWriMo and as such I am more than usually interested in questions of creativity and how to help it along. The following is from an essay in MIT’s Technology Review by Isaac Asimov, in which he asks that most fundamental of questions, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”

… what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected… Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring.

And so to you I say (with a nod to Theodore Roosevelt), dare greatly!

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A Better Tomorrow Through Science Fiction

Posted in Likes, Science!, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2014| Leave a Comment »

via Slate.com:
Using Science Fiction to Create a Better Tomorrow: A Future Tense Event Recap

Oh, this looks fun. A recent event hosted by Slate’s Future Tense and Issues in Science and Technology in D.C. focused on ways that imagination in general, and science fiction in particular, can help inspire a better future. Sure, dystopias are all the rage and who doesn’t love a good apocalypse, but people have always enjoyed teasing themselves with frightening things. The key word is “teasing”… that doesn’t mean we actually want to live there.

(Srsly, do you really want a horde of raving zombies standing between you and your pumpkin spice latte every morning? Neither do I. I want to live in a future where disease is manageable, hunger is obsolete, and creativity and innovation rule the day in the best ways. I also want a flying car. Because where are all the flying cars?!)

Check out the October 2nd event, complete with video of speakers like Neal Stephenson, Ted Chiang, Elizabeth Bear, representatives from NASA, DARPA, SyFy and many others, here: Can We Imagine Our Way to a Better Future?

From the tales we tell about robots and drones, to the narratives on the cutting edge of neuroscience, to society’s view of its most intractable problems, we need to begin telling a new set of stories about ourselves and the future.

Related links:
— Neal Stephenson’s article at the World Policy Institute, on the importance of renewing our society’s ability to “get big things done”: Innovation Starvation.
— The anthology Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future.
— For more links to short stories (including pieces from Hieroglyph) and related discussions on this topic, see the final section of the Slate article.

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Fifty Thoughts on Writing

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 2, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Here’s another great piece of writing advice, this time from prolific and award-winning author Seanan McGuire. She gives us 50, yes, fifty thoughts on writing, some on the act of writing and some on being a writer. It’s a useful list. Let’s just say she had me at “You’re going to suck when you start.”
🙂

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