End of the Year Update

Well, here we are on the final day of 2012, and I find I’ve been sorely overdue for a blog update, so I thought I’d do one in the form of a year-end progress report. 

My word totals this year finished out at just over two hundred thousand, about half of what I did last year.  I attribute this to several factors:  Spending more time researching and world building for the novel, reading more, and a bit of burnout that set in toward the end of the year.  But I’ve had a good rest over the holidays, and I think I’ll be ready to hit it hard again the first of the year. 

I still think I’ll try to get back to my thousand words a day goal, at least for the foreseeable future, as it is doable, and tends to keep me sharp.  I do think I need to come up with some new story/plot generators, as some of the older methods that I’ve mentioned here in the blog have started to falter. 

Other than writing, as I mentioned, I did start reading more heavily in the last couple months of the year.  I’d decided that I hadn’t been reading enough, and a writer really needs to be a reader as well, practically constantly, so I knocked out twelve novels as of today, including a reread of some old favorites like Tolkien and Crowley’s Little, Big, as well as some new stuff and some Kurt Vonnegut that I hadn’t read before.  I think in the new year I will keep up the reading, trying to allow an hour or two each morning so I can knock out 50-60 pages or so.  Then I’ll spend the afternoon writing. 

My submissions also dropped off in 2012.  In ’11, I pulled off 100 subs, but of course I had a pretty large back catalog I was drawing from, and I also had a lot of flash and shorts from the 400K words I wrote last year.  In 2012, I managed 27 subs, with eleven sales, so a pretty good ratio.

One thing I did a lot of this year was flash fiction, which I enjoy, and will continue to do, but I really want to try to get more work in the 4000-6000 word range in 2013, and with these pieces try to crack more pro markets.  So the sales may fall from what I’ve been doing, but ultimately I think it will be more satisfying in the long run.  I think a good plan will be to devote a week or so a month to writing a short of this length, and the rest of the time I can work on the novel.  That should give me a shot at twelve decent length stories for the year, as well as progress on the novel. 

So, that’s about it.  Time to hunker down and try to add at least a thousand more words or so to those 2012 totals.  Happy New Year!

Heading to Middle Earth

I’m currently on a vacation of sorts, in a much-loved realm, though I haven’t left home. 

I’m talking, of course, of the pilgrimage I take to Middle Earth every few years, in the form of re-reading my favorite novel, The Lord of the Rings.  (and yes, though it is call a trilogy, or even THE trilogy, it is really just one long novel)

I first read TLOTR in the autumn of ’81, at the start of eighth grade, at the impressionable young age of thirteen.  My sister had been hounding me to read it for a couple of years, telling me how much I would love it, but for some reason I put it off.  I was more into straight science fiction—my head was caught up with rocketships and aliens.  But, as summer was slowly waning I was finishing up Anne McCaffery’s original Dragonrider’s of Pern series, and I found it one of those books that I didn’t want to end.  And while it was billed as science fiction, it certainly had a fantasy feel to it, so perhaps a grain of interest in that ‘other’ speculative genre was planted, and perhaps I had that with me a short while later when I was perusing the stacks at my local used bookstore.   It was there that I came across the Hobbit and TLOTR books.  There they were; battered, dog-eared mass market paperbacks with those wonderful 1970s era covers (painted by Tolkien himself—they’ve always been my favorite, and what I’ve always felt were the ‘proper’ covers for the books).  

My hand moved forward, and I picked them up and bought them.  Later, with the darkness of an early autumn night, I read those famous words: ‘in a hole in the ground lived a hobbit...’  I was hooked.

TLOTR was the first real work of fantasy that I’d ever read, and it remains the best I’ve read, and my favorite.  Tolkien’s garnered quite a few imitators over the years, and I’ve read most of them, and they pale in comparison to the rich, deep, majestic world Tolkien created. 

I began the habit of rereading TLOTR every couple of years, always in the fall, for these books just have an autumnal feel to them.  I find I never tire of revisiting the world and the characters; each read brings new discoveries along with the joyous reliving of favorite scenes and passages. 

When the Peter Jackson film versions came out, I certainly enjoyed them, and I’ve watched those several times over the years, but they can never replace for me the reading of the novel.  For one thing, the movies, by necessity, speed everything up, and one of the great pleasures of visiting Middle Earth is to enjoy its coziness and its scenery.  I will readily admit that it is a slow moving novel, but I think in this case that is one of the reasons I like it, because in its indolence is the time to enjoy the beauty of Tolkien’s language, and the world that he painted with those words.   (In the books, I'd forgotten that over seventeen years pass from Bilbo's 111st (eleventy-first!) birthday party to when Frodo leaves the Shire)  Tolkien was a great lover of nature, and this is reflected in his prose.  One really feels each tree leaf and blade of grass as the Hobbits walk through the Shire, or each drop of rain as they lounge around Tom Bombadil’s house on Goldberry’s Washing Day. 

In the House of Tom Bombadil—heh, speaking of slow sections of the book, this is a chapter where even such a slow tale as TLOTR has come to a grinding halt.   It is no wonder they left it out of the movie.  But, I’m glad they did...not because I don’t like the chapter...I happen to love it.   It may be my favorite chapter of the book, and I really can’t explain why.   There is just something so absolutely charming about Bombadil, and something so dreamy and comforting about his home in the old forest.   It both opens a longing in my heart and satisfies it at the same time...I could dwell here in this place for a long while.  So yes, I’m glad they left it out of the film...the movie could not do it justice.  And so it remains a little treasure to be discovered over and over again, only in reading the book. 

I’ve just finished that chapter, and it inspired me to write this, as I wanted to linger in the world of Tom and Goldberry a little longer, before we set out for the barrow downs, and Bree, and what lies beyond.

WorldCon

Just a quick update to inform that I arrived at Worldcon in Chicago yesterday.  WorldCon, for those who don’t know, is the World Science Fiction Convention, this year in its 70^th iteration.  It’s actually my second WorldCon, (I went to Lonestar Con 2 in San Antonio back in ’97), but it’s my first to attend as a writer. 

As I’m still relatively new to the game, I only had one panel appearance, which was yesterday.  I had a story come out in Daily Science Fiction’s Year One Anthology, so I was asked to participate in a reading/signing supporting the book.  I have to say it was an honor to get to read some of my work at a venue such as WorldCon, but I was also a bit nervous, so I’m sort of glad it’s over.  Now I can simply enjoy all the overwhelming craziness that is WorldCon. 

More soon...

Ray Bradbury, RIP

Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite authors, has just passed away.  Better writers than I will eulogize him.  I can only offer these simple thoughts:

Ray Bradbury was the first writer who made me realize that words alone can evoke great beauties in the mind that go beyond the mere meaning of the sentences that they make up.  He made me realize that a writer, at their best, is an artist painting with words, painting great visions on the canvas of the mind’s eye. 

Take the first paragraph of his story, ‘April Witch:’

Into thin air, over the valleys, under the stars, above a river, a pond, a road, flew Cecy.  Invisible as new spring winds, fresh as the breath of clover rising from twilight fields, she flew.  She soared in doves as soft as white ermine, stopped in trees and lived in blossoms, showering away in petals as the breeze blew.  She perched in a lime-green frog, cool as mint by a shining pool.  She trotted in a brambly dog and barked to hear echoes from the sides of distant barns.  She lived in new April grasses, in sweet, clear liquids rising from the musky earth. 

Or the equally great story, ‘The Emissary:’

Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees.  In dark, clock-springs of hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees.  Dog jumped.  Showers of brittle fern, blackberry vine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted.  No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!

I cannot praise enough the way the richness of his words bring me into these stories.  They instill a longing in my heart, but also satisfy in a tangible way that only reading those words can.  There is a dance going on here between the author and the reader.  The author is leading, and providing the music with those magnificent words that delight with every syllable.  Bradbury celebrates both the mundane and the massive.  The little things:  Leaves, flowers, animals, and the large:  Seasons, emotions, and a life well lived. 

As I’ve grown older, I’ve discovered that such a thing is a feat that only certain authors can manage for me.  John Crowley and Gene Wolfe come to mind, or the rare prose of e.e. cummings.  (His poetry does it for me as well)

But Ray Bradbury was the first.  I can’t say that he inspired me to write, but he certainly made me realize that there was something going on in good writing that dwelt beyond the mere meaning of the words on the page. 

RIP and Godspeed, sir!

Dissecting A Story: Way to Blue

Writers often seem to loathe the thought of commenting on their own writing process, and even more so upon their finished stories.  This is probably a good thing, and I for the most part concur.  A finished piece of writing should stand on its own, without explanation or annotation.   It is the reader’s right to discover the charms of the tale on their own, and let the story be what it is for them and them alone.

Still, as a reader, I often times long to know what a writer was thinking when they crafted a particular story.  (I wonder this perhaps even more as a writer as well)  For this reason, I don’t have a problem if an author comments upon their own story.  I just think the comments should follow the story, so the reader has that chance to let the story enchant them on its own first.

Since this is a writing blog, I often comment on the craft of writing, and perhaps offer a line or two of commentary on a story of mine from time to time, but I’ve never really dissected one of my own stories in detail.  I’ve been considering doing this, however, as a exercise unto itself.  I am still in the process of growing as a writer (something I hope never stops, actually), so I think the endeavor might be not only of interest to a few readers, but beneficial for me as well. 

I’ve decided to comment upon the genesis of a recently published story of mine called Way to Blue.  Before I begin, however, I ask that you give it a quick read.  It won’t talk long.  It’s a piece of flash fiction.  You can read it here.

Way to Blue had a twofold origin.  The first was a germ of an idea that I had summer before last for a story about a fairy who falls in love with a mortal woman, and he is so flummoxed he loses the ability to fly.  That idea sat unrealized for quite some time.  While it was certainly an intriguing premise, I just couldn’t move forward with a story about a romance between a fairy and a mortal.  The second half of the origin lay in one of my tendencies to use music as inspiration.  I was shuffling my iPod with such intent in mind and the Nick Drake song Fly came on.  I’ve always loved Drake’s music, and particularly this song, so I decided to write a story inspired by it. 

As I wrestled with myself in that ‘blank page’ moment that all writers fear, thoughts of my ‘fairy in love’ idea came back to me.  I decided this might be the time to try to develop it. 

For some reason, however, a story about a fairy didn’t seem to fit the Nick Drake song.  The song is certainly about losing the ability to fly, at least metaphorically so, but the song is so somber and sad that it didn’t seem to fit a story about fairies.  Fairies felt too ‘happy’ for this song, and also they carry a lot of historical and literary baggage of their own.  Readers expect certain things from fairies, so using them didn’t seem to work.  Fairies certainly fly, but it is not integral to what they are.  I needed beings for which flying was so central that it was at the core of their very being.  For this reason, I invented the winged ‘Cloudfolk,’ beautiful and humanlike in size and appearance, save for their feathered wings with which they flew.  Making this change was the first step in getting the story to flow, for I no longer had the baggage of ‘fairy lore’ holding me back. 

Before I continue, let’s listen to the song. 

Click the play button to hear Nick Drake’s Fly.

Beautiful, eh?  Almost all of Drake’s music is like this.  Drake’s haunting voice and ethereal guitar tunings weave a tapestry of yearning tinged with sadness and solemnity.  I think this song is about someone who has tried and failed, and now wallows in the sorrow it has brought.  He asks perhaps for a second chance (Please, give me a second grace), or at least forgiveness.  He is also perhaps embarrassed by the act. (Give me a second face).  Whatever he has done, he has fallen, literally or metaphorically, far down.  Now he ‘Just sits on the ground in your way.’

Now, he can only ‘sit on the fence in the sun’ and ‘watch the clouds role by, and never deny, it’s really too hard for to fly.”  He contemplates the difficulty of what he has tried to do, and feels only futility in his act of trying, either metaphorically or literally, ‘to fly.’  I love this part of the song.  Who among us hasn’t tried and failed at something, particularly love, something which makes us feel like flying.  I love the particular phrasing he uses in this line of the song.  He doesn’t say ‘it’s really hard to fly,’ he says ‘it’s really too hard FOR TO fly.’  I don’t know exactly what Drake meant by this (I’d love to ask him, but alas, he died forty years ago), but there is something exceedingly eloquent and highly literary in that phrasing.  I also remember the first time I heard the song, I misheard the lyric, hearing instead ‘it’s really too hard, butterfly,’ as if he were addressing the little fluttery, delicate creature of that name.  It almost makes sense that way, too.

The song continues on to its dreamy, languid conclusion.  And thus, back to the story. 

After letting the song play over and over again, I still struggled to begin writing the story.  And then, inspiration, as it thankfully does, hit.  Instead of forcing myself to write this tale from the point of view of Nick, the stranded male cloudperson in love, I recast it and began to write from the perspective of his friend, a cloudgirl named Winny.

From this POV, the tale began to flow, and I finished it quickly.  I didn’t know when I first started out that Winny was in love with Nick, but this soon revealed itself to me, and the tale thus became hers, and not Nick’s.  I always love it when I’m surprised in the course of my own writing. 

With the tale complete, it needed a title.  I already had another story called ‘Fly,’ but more to the point that didn’t seem like the right title for the tale anyway.  Ultimately I chose ‘Way to Blue,’ which is the title of another Nick Drake song.  I’m very happy with the title, as it is a double entendre of sorts.  On the one hand, it speaks of the ‘way to blue,’ i.e., the ‘way to the sky,’ which is of course for them literally flying off into the sky, but also love.  But it also phonically echoes the phrase ‘way too blue,’ as in ‘way too sad,’ which both characters are at the conclusion of the story.

I got a lot of great feedback from friends and readers on this one.  One of the comments at Every Day Fiction was as follows:  “A charming story about the impetuousness of love. Winny loves Nick, Nick loves Nena, and Nena loves the boatman’s son. All that’s left is for the boatman’s son to see Winny and become smitten in his own case of unrequited love.”  I love that scenario.  It’s reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream or Twelfth Night.  I just might have to write a longer version of this tale, and explore such things!   

Paintings and Prose

My story, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, just came out today over at Every Day Fiction.  It was inspired by the Renoir painting of the same name:

I use many things to inspire stories—music, random collections of words, little snippets of conversation I overhear, dreams—but sometimes I also use images to inspire stories.   These can be random photographs I’ve found in a book or on the internet, something someone posts on Facebook, or in the case of this story, something hanging on the wall of my very own house. 

I’ve always loved Renoir’s Boating Party, and a print of it has been hanging in my breakfast nook since I moved into my house fourteen years ago.  The figures in the painting just look like wonderful people having a wonderful time, and staring into the painting always stirs a longing in me. 

Images can be wonderful sources for inspiration in one’s writing.  Sometimes you just stare into the picture and wonder what the story is, and it slowly reveals itself in your head.  Sometimes the story will have a similar feel as the painting, but sometimes it might take off on a tangent and end up somewhere you’d never expect.  In the case of my Boating Party story, the painting itself is a character, driving the actions of the protagonist. 

I’ve used other paintings as inspiration, and I’m particularly fond of the Impressionists  and Art Nouveau.  Thus I’ve written stories based on paintings by Toulouse Lautrec, Monet, Manet, Mucha,  and Van Gogh.  For the latter I did three pieces of flash based on each of his famous ‘starry’ paintings, ‘Starry Night,’ ‘Starry Night Over the Rhone,” and “Café Terrace at Night.”  Hopefully, these stories will see the light of day sometime in the future.

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh

Starry night Over the Rhone - Vincent Van Gogh

Cafe Terrace at Night - Vincent Van Gogh

All right, time to go write!

Chris



Today's Writing Challenge

My normal target goal for each day of writing is one thousand words.  I usually exceed this, but a thousand is very doable and good for those days when the words just don’t seem to want to come.  It also works out well that a thousand words is the commonly accepted length for flash fiction, which I really enjoy writing these days.   If I can’t seem to get anything else going, I can usually brainstorm up a flash piece and knock it out for the day.  Sometimes they suck.  Sometimes they’re acceptable.  Every once in a while, I get a really good one.  Those are the keepers.

Some days, like I said, I exceed my thousand-word limit.  I easily hit two thousand quite often, and sometimes even three.  I’ve exceeded five thousand a couple of times, and my all time record is sixty-five hundred, which I did on a day when my wife was out of town, and I was in a groove, so I decided to skip dinner and just keep writing until late in the night.

I’ve been getting a lot of writing done lately, which is a good thing, but much of it hasn’t been prose writing.  I’ve picked up a project  to do a rewrite on a screenplay for a producer friend of mine, and I’m also doing some writing for the Bail Out web series (and hopefully, someday, TV series) that I’m also working on as First Assistant Director.  There’s nothing wrong with this...any writing is good writing.  I’m not opposed to continuing to work in screenwriting from time to time, so it’s good to keep my skills up in that area, and all the words count toward my daily goals.   But my first love is prose writing, so want to keep working in that area as much as possible.  Since I know I have some screenwriting commitments this week, I decided that today I would do a marathon prose writing session, and see if I can beat my personal best and crank out seven thousand words of prose today. 

As I type this, I am already three hundred and fifty words toward that goal (blog entries count).  So, here goes.  I’ll report back on how I did. 

UPDATE:  Mission Accomplished.  7271 words in six hours.  Whew!  I'm spent!  Two stories knocked out. An SF piece and a mainstream piece.