"He Was the First Man Among Us"

Robert Jordan, mega-bestselling author of the Wheel of Time series, has passed away at age 58.

Wow. I feel guilty about all those jokes I made about how the Wheel of Time never ends. Jordan began the series in 1990, and was working on what was supposed to be the twelfth and final volume when he died yesterday. I was aware that he'd been diagnosed with a blood disease, but I always liked to think he'd manage to finish it.

I know that, according to his blog (the server is, understandably, experiencing difficulties due to traffic, so it might take a couple of tries), he had made audio tapes and outlines. Last weekend he told his family members the ending. So it seems as if the book will be written after all... by someone. But he will never get the chance to finish his life's work.

I am actually quite upset about this. Sure, I'd criticized the books in recent years, but so have lots of people. But that doesn't change the fact that his books were my introduction to fantasy. I can't really think of my high school reading years without remembering the Wheel of Time. My dad and I would compete to be the first one to buy the new book when it came out. I think we've been reading since about 1994. That's thirteen years.

I can't help thinking that the worst part about it is him not getting to finish what had become the definitive work of his career (and arguably the definitive high fantasy work of the 1990's). Frankly, it terrifies me on a personal level, more than I expected. I'm always putting off writing, pushing it back. This isn't the time to go for the novel, I'm too busy working to write, I've still got plenty of time. Time, time, time.

But it's all bullshit, isn't it? I know many of Robert Jordan's millions of readers will spend this evening flipping through one of his books, in memoriam. It's a worthy thing to do. But not for me.

I will be writing.

Memento mori...

Sketchy Rejection

I know there's no point in analyzing the whys and hows of rejection letters, because you'll just drive yourself crazy for no reason. But I just got one today that I felt was sort of sketchy. I sent the story exactly three months ago, and on their site it says not to inquire about the status of your submission until three months have passed. Fine. Sure. I just got a form rejection e-mail on THE DAY three months was up. I don't know why I feel iffy about this. I shouldn't. Except that it is a little coincidental. It makes me think a) it wasn't even read, and their system is just programmed to spit out rejections at the 3-month mark, or b) it was read ages ago but a reply wasn't sent until the very last second. Which is also obnoxious because that's three whole months I could have been submitting elsewhere. Now, you could argue c) they were considering it, but I highly doubt it because of the form. Not that I expect magazines to send personal rejections. I don't. But the past two places that had a story for-freakin-ever at least sent a note.

I'm not usually the oversensitive writer-type who reads too much into her rejections. However, I don't think I'll send there again. If F&SF can respond in eight days with comments that show the story was read, smaller magazines can. And that is all I have to say about that.

I haven't been getting form rejections lately, anyhow. So yeah. NEXT.

It's A Mystery!

The story I'm currently writing has elements of mystery, and so far I'm finding it tough to plot. This could be because, in the past, my stuff hasn't relied heavily on plot. The thing is, I've read lots of mysteries, so I don't see why they don't rub off on me. If I didn't like scifi/fantasy slightly better, I'd probably read a lot more mysteries than I do. The only series I really keep up with regularly are Anne Perry's Victorian mysteries and the Stephanie Plum books. And (wow, this makes me sound like I have no life) I have been known to watch 3-hour blocks of CSI reruns on SpikeTV (5:00 CST-8:00, just after Star Trek Voyager, just before the evening movie). I have become quite good at spotting plot holes in those. Which isn't particularly hard with a show like that, since the plot hole is usually "Shut up, Grissom would TOTALLY have seen that! Lame! I call foul!"

Some people must have a knack for plotting mysteries, otherwise they wouldn't write them, right? My theory is that's just not how my brain works. Therefore I've concluded I have no choice but to work backwards. Right? I have to figure out the outcome I want to have, and then hide bits of it that are slowly revealed through the action. Do mystery writers go backwards, or do ideas just come to them intuitively? I wonder. Personally I can't just start off making stuff up and trust that the plot twists that I subsequently come up with will make sense. So, backwards it is.

I Know What You Mean

This morning, at the school where I volunteer, I was one-on-one with a kid who'd been pulled out of class because he wasn't able to focus on his essay test. They were supposed to be writing a five paragraph essay. He'd written five headings and topic sentences, on five different sheets of looseleaf paper, all of which he'd discarded. I told him that if he'd spent all that time writing instead of doing the same sentence over and over, he'd have half an essay. So he pulled out a fresh sheet, figured out his three main ideas, and started again.

And then it hit me. It's not that he's screwing around: it's that there's just something daunting about a blank piece of paper. It stares at you, daring you with its whiteness. You can put anything there, but will it live up to what you could have put there? You start. You erase or delete. You start again. The blankness is what's scary-- once you get rolling, the words begin to flow. At first it's just a trickle, but then you find yourself typing faster, like a stream building momentum as it winds down a hill.

He stops after the third paragraph and says, "I don't know what to put in my paragraph about rappers."

"Which rappers? What songs did they do? What albums do you like? What are their lifestyles like? What cars do they drive?"

He stares at me. "Where'd you get all those ideas?"

It gets easier, believe me. Or at least a little.

Tags: writing

Writing Progress

All right, I'm officially 18,612 words into my new work in progress. It is sadly lacking in the title department, but I can tell you that it has a heroine named Claudia. And a hero (foil?) named Jack. Who will have sex but not end up together. So there. Because it's my story and I can write it how I want. No one ever ends it that way, which makes me want to even more. I just knocked out 3,000 words and am pretty pleased with myself. I've been so busy lately I haven't gotten anything written.

18,600/75,000
(24%)

Tags: writing, novel

Festive Christmas Rejection

No, seriously, I just got my best rejection ever-- on DCDS: The Short Story. Strange Horizons actually took time to send me a personal e-mail with some good feedback suggestions. I think they had the story about 40 days. It was my first time submitting there. They said try the print prozines just in case, because someone might bite on it (though I think I've already got most of them). I like that it was more than a form rejection, and was surprised that the editor had also perused my website. It really gives me a good opinion of them as a market.

They're right, really. The story is not very tight structurally (composed of alternating past and present scenes, at least one of which I know could go, but then it would screw up the alternating, so I left it in) and it's too long. It's the length that makes it a problem, as most places prefer stories of 3-6K words. I've tried paring it down, but I can't seem to do it without losing bits I like. I will definitely ponder it more, but I'd rather send it a couple more times and spend my time finishing up a few others I've been working on. I'm not wedded to every single one of those scenes... half of them are in the novel anyway.

I have one or two more stories that are very close to being ready. Mike is always bugging me to submit more, and I know I need to, but my definition of "ready" is very picky. Anyhow, I am going to plug Strange Horizons. I really enjoy the stuff on their site, and will submit to them again.

Short Stories

Since I decided I couldn't deal with finishing NaNoWriMo this month (yeah, yeah, yeah, dismal failure, I know), I am in the middle of two short stories. I'm writing them both at the same time, which is actually convenient in this instance because they feature the same characters. It's a world I've been writing in, if you can believe it, since the fifth grade. Of course, there have been plenty of developments, changes, new names, longer outline, etc. But I figure I've been writing stories all my life about a witch named Emma, and I find she's still got a lot to say. The one is from the point of view of another character in her life, and I am close to 2,900 words and trying to pare back. I think a large problem with the stories I've sent out is length. For example, I've gotten several (albeit nice) rejections on Dangerous City, Dark Skyway, which runs about 8,500 words. A lot of magazines won't go over the 4,000-6,000 range, so basically the shorter the story, the more options you leave open for yourself. In case you could not have predicted this about me from my blog, I have this problem with wordiness.

Yeah.

But I am REALLY AIMING for 5,000 words on this story. Seriously. And the second one, geez, I would like to go for 2,500-3,000 and keep it very, very short. A snippet of life, if you will. I can't believe all the sites out there dedicated to those itty bitty 100-word drabble things. It is impossible for me to tell a story in that amount of words. Impossible. And yet people do it! Amazing.

Tags: writing

Thirteen Things About Me & NaNoWriMo

1. I suck at it. Or at least I do this year. I feel like I have been massively busy with class and other things. Therefore I am 6,000 words behind today.

2. But I have a massive catch-up strategy I am employing today.

3. Last year I won. My novel was called Dangerous City, Dark Skyway. It is currently stuck in the re-write process, and I must admit, a little stalled.

4. This year's effort does not have a title yet.

5. My main character is named Claudia Nuevos. She is a con artist who basically seduces men and steals their ships. She decides to go after the richest man on the planet, and gets rather more than she bargained for.

6. It takes place on a moon called Calliope.

7. I'm writing in first person, present tense, which is odd for me, because I usually only use it for short stories. I'm trying for sort of a chick-lit tone. Except in scifi.

8. My name on the forum is Jedisluzer. I haven't been posting much, though. When I get caught up, I probably will.

9. I shamelessly took two days off for the election. That was what screwed me. Before that I was caught up.

10. I think there are a lot of people who do NaNoWriMo and don't take it seriously. For example, there are forums where people play stupid games to pad their word count. I don't get involved in any of that. For me, it's more about forcing myself to write a LOT. All at once. Every day. Because my goal is to become a professional, and NaNoWriMo helps me to enforce a writing schedule on myself.

11. The widget on the left under my picture and profile link very handily tells you how much I've written -- and how far behind I am.

12. For example. This entry so far has been 330 words long. And it took me just a couple of minutes to write. If I get on a roll, I ought to be able to get a lot done today.

13. The Democrats are in the House! Whooooo! And the Senate! (OK, sorry, and apologizes to anyone reading this who does not feel the same way, that just slipped out...)

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Tags: nanowrimo, thursday thirteen, writing

3,620

Only about 1,500 words behind, and off to work. Hmph. I like my characters though!

Off and Running And Doing Crappily

Well, I have written 1,750 words so far, which means I need to do two days worth of writing today because I am behind in NaNoWriMo. I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been beaten. I went to work last night, my first night shift in almost two weeks, and I felt my body crash at about 10:00 and was a zombie by the time I left just before midnight. On a good note, looks like $170 Thursdays are back (at last, we can retire and give up this life of crime!). I am working Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, to make up for the shifts I missed last weekend. Hopefully, by the end of it, I will be able to do that thing where I throw all my hundreds and twenties on the floor and roll in them. I slept amazingly well all night, probably because the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and I was curled up under a pile of blankets. It seems to have taken care of the rest of my cold.

I must write today. I must write a lot. And I must outline, because I need to have some document in which I pull my ideas for this book together in one place. I had some good ideas yesterday. I am going to try and write in more chronological order than I wrote my first book... which is now, go figure, suffering from timeline issues in the editing process.

Jolee is running races around me. He runs out into the living room, then he turns around and runs back through the hallway and into the office, pops up onto the back of the futon, then kicks off and runs back out of the room and down the hall, continuing on the same crazed trajectory. Wash, rinse, repeat. Haha.

Overwhelmed

Trying desperately to not have a cold, finish 3 papers, and decide whether I am capable of doing NaNoWriMo. Strangely, I can breathe better this morning than last night, and the drugs should have worn off by now. I have taken tons of vitamins. I have kept myself hydrated. I am drinking juice. I have had eight or nine hours sleep the past two nights. So maybe I am not going to have a cold after all. It's a dangerous line my body is walking. We'll see what happens. If it were up to me, I wouldn't go to work today. But then, it is nearly impossible to find people to cover day shifts, and they most likely will NOT take pity on me and let me not come in. I just have to disinfect myself and try not to breathe. Sure, that's a piece of cake, not breathing for four hours.

Remember when I had the stomach bug a couple weeks ago, and I said, "Don't go to _____ for lunch"? Yeah. Don't go there today either. In no way does this equate to a real and useful warning, because I am a semi-anonymous blogger. So if you live in New Orleans and work in the CBD, you'd better not go out for lunch at all, just to be on the safe side. Your waitress could be me.

Edited to add: OH NO! The cat just sneezed four times in a row. We have the SAME COLD. Poor us.

Thirteen Things I Love About Sailing

You'll have to excuse me, I'm on another of my "wishing I was at summer camp" binges. I really think I might try to find a way to go next summer. I think it's time to face the fact that I can't go more than 2 summers without being at camp. Doesn't matter which camp. I am just one of those people. If you are one too, you understand.

Anyway. So I learned to sail at Camp Little Notch, worked on staff there for 2 years, then worked at Sail at Raquette Lake Girls Camp for another two years, then was Head of Small Crafts at Camp Matoaka in '04. I love me some small one-design boats and dinghies.

1. The cool water of Adirondack lakes. The crisp air rushing by.

2. The creaking sound that a boat makes when it heels over.

3. The fact that I can never remember what a particular piece of rigging is called, because I've worked with so many Brits that it is forever ingrained in my mind as the kicking strap, or the "kicker." Americans call it a boom vang, but I had to go look that up just now.

4. Flipping a Sunfish on purpose.

5. And seeing who can right it fastest. (Me. Despite weighing 30 pounds less than everyone else.)

6. It reminds me of Swallows and Amazons.

7. The smell of wet rope. I know, ew. But I do.

8. The smell of mildewy life jackets. (I might be kidding here. But I might not.)

9. I know what everything is called. Every part has a name. A rope is never just a rope. There is great comfort in this.

10. How a fiberglass hull feels under bare feet-- all warm and sloping.

11. The slap of tiny waves against the bow.

12. My sailor's tan. I MISS MY SAILOR'S TAN. For those of you not in the know, a sailor's tan is sort of like a farmer's tan... dark and with distinct lines. It comes from being out there all day, every day. It is usually recognizable by thick flip-flop lines on the feet, very brown shoulders cut off by a life jacket line (I know people who sail on larger boats don't necessarily wear life jackets, but I think if you are zipping around in a Laser or something where you're practically touching the water, you ought to have one), a fat line on the wrist from a waterproof sports watch, a fairly pale chest area, and a faint board shorts mark. Oh, fine. I don't really miss it because it is ugly. But then, I do.

13. Maintenance stuff. Like tying knots and setting out bumpers and making sure the mooring buoys are nice. And bailing. I secretly enjoy bailing. And going through a toolbox to find an extra bit, a pin or pulley or something, that matches the one you accidentally dropped in the lake. Fixing things. Boat soap.

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Indecisive and Flighty

My short story got rejected from Andromeda Spaceways, after spending ages in their third round. Sigh. And I worked THE ENTIRE weekend. Granted, I made over $520, but you know that feeling you get the day after you run a long distance, like 5+ miles? My legs feel like that. I was at work for 12 hours yesterday. My body hates me. And my first class of the semester is tonight.

Now it's noon, and I've been up for three hours and still can't figure out what to do with my day. Going through one of those "my writing sucks" phases. Well, not exactly. It's more like a "I need to start over completely because everything I've written so far sucks." Part of me thinks what I need is a good round of blowing up Sith in The Game (see "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic"). But that would be far from productive, albeit full of fun scifi goodness.

Considering going to a coffee shop with the laptop, just to get out of the house. I get in a rut when I just sit here all day, hardly bothering to get dressed. Except that John Scalzi, whose blog I greatly admire and respect (his political opinions always seem to mirror mine, and his snark is so intelligent), makes fun of people who write in coffee shops. Ever since I read that, I feel sort of guilty for liking it.

But J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a coffee shop.

I like Harry Potter, maybe I'll re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Do I have ADD? Seriously?

This is the last straw. I am going to CC's on Magazine, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. And while I am there I will DISABLE WIRELESS. So there.

Tags: writing, rejection, waitressing, KOTOR, useless

Running With It

I'm supposed to be finishing my novel. I know this. Everyone I know knows this. I don't think it's that bad a book, for a first attempt. I'm not sick of the characters or the story, necessarily...

But.

Today this character just popped herself into my head, and I'm going to run with the idea and see if puts itself together into a somewhat reputable short story. It just feels so refreshing to be excited about something new.

In other news, I just reopened the cut on my right thumb again, and I'm so annoyed. I cut it at work yesterday afternoon, slammed my hand right down on the blade of the lemon slicer. I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON THAT THING TERRIFIES ME AND I CUT MY LEMONS BY HAND. I hit my thumb on it pretty hard, so the problem is the cut is quite deep, though thin enough that it closed right up... only to reopen twice in the intervening 24 hours because I need my thumb to do things like open the blinds and do the dishes.

So yeah. Stupid lemon spider.

Tags: writing, writing process

Feminism, Star Wars, and Writing

There's a very interesting Livejournal community dedicated to feminist discussion of SF/F. It spurred me into an examination of my own novel, which I'm going to run with.

Once I met a guy at a party, and we got to talking about Star Wars. He asked me what my favorite part was. I have always had sort of a theory that you can tell a lot about someone by their favorite part in Star Wars. I said, "This might sound kind of weird, but it's when Luke is standing on Tattooine looking at the twin sunset." He said, "No way, me too!" Just that one moment. No action, no special effects. For me, that moment has always been the epitome of what science fiction/fantasy (and Star Wars) means to me: a glimpse of possibilities, the appreciation of being a small person standing on a world made of sand, the knowledge that something is out there. Anyhow, I ended up breaking up with the guy because he was, well, too much of a dreamer for me... but the scene remains.

I took some stream-of-consciousness notes on my novel this afternoon, a list of questions and missing scenes and things I need to emphasize better. I've had these characters kicking around for years. (I think I have a complete list of planets in the system on looseleaf paper dating back to when I was fourteen. This also why the character of Ari remains fourteen; even though I've grown up, I didn't want to lose that.) The crux of the matter being this: I love Star Wars. But it always bothered me that there was so much of this galaxy far, far away that Lucas left unexplored. Or rather, just ignored. Where were the people like me in Star Wars? Princess Leia was a pretty cool female character-- she was opinionated and she could shoot. But why the hell was there only one of her?

I wanted the characters in my novel to be people I would want to read about. I have four female main characters. They take turns having scenes. I figured, since I have four women, not just one, they will actually have distinct personalities, unlike most SF (how I detest the "token beautiful young genius" who appears in every ensemble cast of males to sleep with the hero). My failed rebellion against the evil government is a girls' club. I've got the behind-the-scenes computer programmer who is suddenly put in charge, the space jock who doesn't care about much of anything except getting her impounded ship back, the sophisticated bomb maker who wonders when the glamour in the whole rebellion thing disappeared, and the tagalong teenaged former waitress with paranoia and an attitude. The characters you'd expect to hook up don't.

I have a feminist vision myself. I want this to be reflected in my writing. The fact remains that I'm not writing a deep thought-provoking type of novel. I'm writing a soft sci-fi space opera adventure. I'm keeping it sort of campy; for instance, I've got a bomber who is attacked the morning after a one night stand and has to nakedly kill a bunch of assassins. I'm trying to have humor and also to have some deeper thoughts about war, people, and the vastness of space. But mostly it's a noir adventure in a corrupt city.

I just really want to accomplish what I'm trying to do. Is the simple fact that my characters are there enough, in this genre? I want to believe it is.

Tags: science fiction, fantasy, star wars, writing, feminism, dcds

NaNoWriYe

That's right, I've decided that I'm not going to finish my novel unless I go all NaNo on myself. So, henceforth, I will be doing at least 1,000 words a day. I figure, this is a really easy total to enforce. It doesn't take very long. It's just a little chunk. This is Novel Writing Year for me. The reason I feel an urgency to get back to writing every single day is that I've been frustrated lately with how little writing I've done in the last two weeks. I feel as if, in my head, I'm all ready to write, and then the actual sitting down doesn't materialize. I had some projects due for grad school this week, and the training for my job has pretty much been eating my life. Plus it was Mardi Gras. It's also a problem that Mike is so busy-- he's in his last semester of law school and is Editor in Chief of a journal that's trying to play Katrina catch-up by putting out two issues at once. So when he is home, of course I can't write, because I hardly ever see him.

I found myself thinking serious thoughts last night... about writing, about inspiration, about some stories I did in college in particular. Mostly about my weaknesses, one of which is a tendency toward the lack of revision. I am one of those writers whose work has been so self-edited before I let anyone see it, I almost resent it when someone tells me to rewrite. I thought about some things I maybe regret. The characters I was writing then (you can see some of the short stories I'm talking about here) were very close to me, probably too close. On the other hand, I want to bring more of that into my novel; just because it's a science fiction adventure doesn't mean I can't try harder to really, deeply get into my four characters. I also thought about a writer I was working with then, who was the first person to ever rip my work apart and tell me to start over, instead of just handing me an A. I learned that writing is hard and writing is being pushed.

I did finish a flash fiction story (at least, I think it's flash-- it's just under 1,000 words) at the laundromat Sunday night. I'm not sure I want to send it anywhere, because it's kind of sensitive. I don't know the etiquette of how long you should wait before submitting anything Katrina-themed. On the flip side, lots of people may be doing this and editors are already sick of it...

And Asimov's has had one of my stories for two months. Can't they just reject me already so I can get on with it? This is the part of the writing process with which I am not patient enough.

Why People Aren't Authors

You know, before this fall I thought, "I'm a good writer. Lots of people are good writers, much better than the crap that's in print. Yet they aren't published. Why the hell not?" I mean, I have read some horrifically crappy novels. We're talking major publishing house and the sentence structure is embarrassing.

I will tell you why many good writers are not published. It's HARD. My main problem, sifting through my so-far-unfinished novel today, is there's so MUCH of it. And I only have 60,000 words so far, which is very short. I shudder to think what the authors of my favorite 800-page fantasy tomes go through. It's not like a short story. I forget what I've written. I lose track of the timeline. Are we in today, or tomorrow? Hell, maybe this happened last week, I have no idea. Recurring themes? Forget about it. I don't even remember where my characters are. I still have at least five major scenes to write, many more to flesh out, and then comes the editing. And from the research I've done on the submission process, no wonder there aren't many people who do this. It's sort of like hazing.

I wonder if I will get weeded out.

How did this come up? While doing some brain-killing work on my outline, I ran across the following sentence of dialogue: "'And as soon as they pull the records,' added Jesov, 'they'll find out we’ve been using them to get into the shuttleport. They’ll seize the ship, if they haven’t already.'"

Which is a fine sentence were it not for the fact that Jesov was killed in the previous chapter. Oyy.

Tags: writing, dcds, novel

First Rejection Letter

Well, my first grown-up rejection letter. I used to enter and win contests when I was in high school. Let's just say I took several years off from actually sending my work anywhere. But now I'm back, and I've gotten very serious about this being what I really want to do. So yeah... The letter was a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot about it.

I hear from the online community that your first rejection from JJA at Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is something of a genre rite of passage. Haha. So here's mine, and now "Dangerous City, Dark Skyway" is off to some lower markets at which it might actually have a hope. Though, do they always say that there is "nice writing here, along with some good world building"? I don't think they have to say that (?).

I won!

Last Day of NaNoWriMo

And I have 4,800 words left to write. I took several days off for Thanksgiving, and wasted time yesterday by making a lovely banner for my novel, because everyone else's on the NaNo forums looked so cool. So here I am racing to get this done by midnight, or hopefully, by the end of the afternoon. I have even deprived myself of the new Harry Potter movie till I finish. Wish me luck... here goes!

I managed to write my easy 1,667 words per day during the first two weeks. But in the end, didn't we all know it was going to get done Larrystyle, which means twitching with caffeine and with frequent breaks for trashy television and beers, utterly at the last minute? Yes. I think we did.