I Should Be Writing

All Write! Pin-Ups: Highway To Hell

You can’t stop ALL WRITE! Pin-up month! The examination of Pratchett’s inner fantasy life continues with this tour-de-force illustration by comic artist extraordinaire Daniel Warner! Sometime, a girl just has to kill some orcs. On top of a unicorn. With a shirtless elf. We’ve all been there, I think.

The glory of menial tasks

Tonight I conquered Mt. Laundry, and as I was folding, my brain quietly worked out my writing melancholia and what I think may be behind it. Who knew that fretting over wrinkled t shirts was so helpful?

Of course, many people know this. Your brain likes to quietly work on problems, not be attacked constantly by your stupid, conscious mind.

Your conscious mind is Pinky, and your brain is, well, Brain. It works best without Pinky badgering it all the time, NARFing and crying. So when your babbling conscious mind is thinking, “Fold the shirt, experience guilt at wrinkles because the clean clothes were crumpled in the hamper for so long, resolve not to let it happen again while secretly knowing it will happen again, wonder why we still have socks for toddlers in the kid’s drawers, and why does she keep stuffing her feet into them?” your unconscious mind is finally free to take over the world. Or at least work through that plot snag you’re struggling with.

People wonder why their best ideas come in the shower, or when they’re driving. It’s the same thing. Your conscious mind falls into “routine mode” and the blessed silence lets your brain work.

So I know it sounds like a waste of time to leave your desk and your wip for a walk, or to make (and enjoy!) some tea, or to do some housework, but really, it’s best for your brain to have this time to actually work without you asking it where you’re going to find a live chicken and a tattoo parlor at this time of night.

ALL WRITE!: Birthday Wishes

My birthday was Saturday, and one of best presents I received was Natalie’s rendition of the ALL WRITE cast celebrating it. I just had to share!

More Books: The Alchemist and The Executioness, The Third Bear

First, I finished The God Engines last night. I had some questions about some things that Scalzi did with his narrative (namely never revealing whether the “rooks”–think “companions” in Firefly–are male or female – he used no pronouns and no revealing gender-specific body parts during a somewhat graphic sex scene), and it was quite dark, but I enjoyed it and it made me think. Recommended.

The Alchemist and the Executioness: This is not on the pile of books, as it’s Audible-only, but it’s worth a mention. I’ve been looking forward to this novella set since I heard about it, and it’s not disappointing at all. I interviewed Tobias Buckell and Paolo Bacigalupi about it so you’ll hear from them on a later podcast. But I am well into it, and it’s amazing. They both are excellent storytellers, and while I enjoy the beautiful worlds they create, and the fantastic job the narrators do, I feel a slight despair that I’ll never be that good.

This is two interwoven novellas, The Alchemist written by Bacigalupi and The Executioness written by Buckell. (From Audible:) It is a world where magic is forbidden – yet practiced in secret every day. But each small act of magic exacts a dreadful price – for it brings the bramble, which chokes farmland, destroys villages, and kills with its deadly thorns. In this world, an alchemist believes he’s found a solution to the curse. But will the cure be worse than the disease? And a woman is forced to take up the mantle of her father, the Executioner. But it will not be the only death that she faces.

I’m not done yet, but I am always looking for the next opportunity when I can listen-it’s not for kids, but mostly because it’s a grown-up story, not because of sex, bad words, or violence (yet) – although the Executioness’ first execution is rather graphic. I am starting to think that a master storyteller is one who can make you care about anything. Most fantasy writers think that they need to put a HUGE threat such as a dragon or an evil wizard in their books, but it’s the true master who can bring forth the threat of a malevolent thorny bush and make us care. Interestingly, often the dragon or the evil wizard is a higher class trouble, while the bramble touches everyone, affects everyone, and is harder to kill than one dragon or one wizard. (Of course, I live in the US South, and we watch kudzu choke our vegetation at a rate of one foot a day, so even though bramble is much more dangerous, I can relate.) Recommended.

Jeff VanderMeer is a magnificent, surreal fantasy writer. The Third Bear is his latest short story collection. I haven’t had a chance to dive in yet, but knowing what I know of his work, I won’t be ignoring this one. From Tachyon: Highlights include “The Situation,” in which a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast); “Three Days in a Border Town,” where a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating City beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata,” following an oddly-familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening,” in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and a wounded talking rabbit.

Chimerical and hypnotic, VanderMeer leads readers through the postmodern into a new literature of the imagination.

Books, and reading, and more books.

Confession time. In today’s Internet age, we (I) are easily distracted, entranced by shiny devices that play games and movies and music, and an IM is a tiny shot of dopamine that our brains crave much more than any stupid learning given by BOOKS.

That said, a writer needs to read. It’s not just a “what’s happening in my genre?” issue, but it’s a deeper, subconscious issue where your little brain learns vocabulary and turn of phrase and storytelling. If you don’t read, you can’t write. On a basic level, not reading labels you a massive hypocrite in that you expect others to pay money (and/or that much more valuable commodity, time) to read your books when you can’t be bothered to invest the same. We (I) also encourage our children to read, and bemoan the illiteracy of children (either literally or figuratively in their OMG LOL txt msgs), but are still easily distracted by the shiny ourselves.

I’ve got my Goodreads lists and my piles of shame, but something else has been happening lately. It’s an embarrassment of riches; publishers, authors, and publicists have been sending me books. So many books I’m drowning. And I still have my pile of shame. And I still go to the library. And yet, I don’t read very much…

So I’m working to change this, but I also want to blog about the books I receive. I may never get to reading/reviewing them, or may never get to interviewing the author, but I do want to blog about them. So I’ll be starting on that.

The tiny pile on the right is my latest taking from the library. The pile to the left of that is just a sampling of books I bought or asked for as a gift (this year). There are plenty more of those. The two other stacks are books that have come in. Do you see my angst?

So first I’ll blog about my library books. Sometimes I grab books at the library I haven’t purchased yet, or nonfic that looks interesting. I haven’t seen Scalzi’s The God Engines in stores, so I grabbed it when I saw it. And Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us had been reviewed on NPR recently and I was intrigued.

Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this — and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given.

Tephe knows from that the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It’s what he doesn’t know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put — and that the tests he will face will come not only from his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely…

Author John Scalzi has ascended to the top ranks of modern science fiction with the best-selling, Hugo-nominated novels Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale. Now he tries his hand at fantasy, with a dark and different novella that takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling.

Say your prayers… and behold The God Engines.

First three chapters review: I’m hooked, loving the tension and evil fantasy elements taking place. Will keep reading.

---

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas—the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

First chapter review: Intriguing. I’ll keep reading if only to figure out if he can tell me how to motivate the kiddo…

Books, and reading and more books

Confession time. In today’s Internet age, we (I) are easily distracted, entranced by shiny devices that play games and movies and music, and an IM is a tiny shot of dopamine that our brains crave much more than any stupid learning given by BOOKS.

That said, a writer needs to read. It’s not just a “what’s happening in my genre?” issue, but it’s a deeper, subconscious issue where your little brain learns vocabulary and turn of phrase and storytelling. If you don’t read, you can’t write. On a basic level, not reading labels you a massive hypocrite in that you expect others to pay money (and/or that much more valuable commodity, time) to read your books when you can’t be bothered to invest the same. We (I) also encourage our children to read, and bemoan the illiteracy of children (either literally or figuratively in their OMG LOL txt msgs), but are still easily distracted by the shiny ourselves.

I’ve got my Goodreads lists and my piles of shame, but something else has been happening lately. It’s an embarrassment of riches; publishers, authors, and publicists have been sending me books. So many books I’m drowning. And I still have my pile of shame. And I still go to the library. And yet, I don’t read very much…

So I’m working to change this, but I also want to blog about the books I receive. I may never get to reading/reviewing them, or may never get to interviewing the author, but I do want to blog about them. So I’ll be starting on that.

The tiny pile on the right is my latest taking from the library. The pile to the left of that is just a sampling of books I bought or asked for as a gift (this year). There are plenty more of those. The two other stacks are books that have come in. Do you see my angst?

So first I’ll blog about my library books. Sometimes I grab books at the library I haven’t purchased yet, or nonfic that looks interesting. I haven’t seen Scalzi’s The God Engines in stores, so I grabbed it when I saw it. And Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us had been reviewed on NPR recently and I was intrigued.

Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this — and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given.

Tephe knows from that the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It’s what he doesn’t know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put — and that the tests he will face will come not only from his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely…

Author John Scalzi has ascended to the top ranks of modern science fiction with the best-selling, Hugo-nominated novels Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale. Now he tries his hand at fantasy, with a dark and different novella that takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling.

Say your prayers… and behold The God Engines.

First three chapters review: I’m hooked, loving the tension and evil fantasy elements taking place. Will keep reading.

---

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas—the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

First chapter review: Intriguing. I’ll keep reading if only to figure out if he can tell me how to motivate the kiddo…

On Perfection

Humans, as a rule, do not trust perfection. We do not trust the easy way out. We do not respect those born into money; we love the “poor to rich” stories. If we actually meet the “perfect” mate, we assume there’s something deeply wrong on a fundamental level. (I watched an episode of Kim Possible with my daughter and when Kim found the perfect boyfriend – cute, interesting, engaging with her friends, dying to take her to the prom – my first thought was, “Oh, he’s so evil. Just wait.” By the end of the episode? He was a robot. An EVIL robot.) When something is handed to us free of charge, we are suspicious… what’s the catch? What’s wrong with it?

This is hitting me in every place right now, fiction, business, etc. Conflict is key in fiction, the world doesn’t want a story where a protag wakes up in her mansion, goes to her job where she gets a promotion and a raise, meets a guy out at lunch and falls for him, and then goes out on the perfect date (meaning you don’t have sex- also something we don’t trust receiving too easily) and then goes to bed. Snoreville. We need a scrappy story with some conflict, some rocks thrown at the protag. We want to step on the anthill to see how the ants react and then see how they rebuild.

Also, people don’t trust free or cheap items. I had a friend who says he sold more books when he upped the price from $5 to $10. The key to retail is finding the sweet spot of “Oh, it’s only a dollar? Must be crap, then,” and, “Hell, I’m not paying THAT much!” Selling (or giving away) stuff online is tough in this aspect.

If you asked someone, they’d probably tell you that free stuff is their ideal, but really, we don’t trust free stuff. We don’t trust perfect people. If there’s no conflict at all, no indication of having to work for something, we do not respect it, we don’t like it, and we don’t trust it.

All Write! Pin-Ups: Dragonrider

ALL WRITE Pin-Up month continues! Natalie Kelly, one of the super-talented people I’m working with on Fables of the Flying City–she did the awesome poster I gave away at the launch, and is coloring the graphic novel–gave us this fantastic portrait of Pratchett flying on a dragon. I’m tempted to make it her permanent means of transportation.

Treading water- just barely

I’m trying to get my novel edited. Besides the paying work deadlines, it is my only priority. Hence no blogging or podcasting.

I have gone through the horrible angst of, “this is nothing but derivative tripe,” and have reached the point in creation that Connie Willis refers to as “The f***ing book.” It is only my knowledge that this is normal that keeps me going.

I’m not on twitter much. I’m not on chat much. My priorities right now are a) family, b) paying work, c) novel. Usually in that order. Sometimes I eat.

I’m not dead. I’m not going away. But this edit is taking much longer than I thought it would, and it’s dragging me down, physically and mentally. I’ll be back soon. I’m sorry.

All Write! Pin-Ups: Vengence!

July is ALL WRITE! Pin-Up Month, and we’re kicked off  by nothing  less than the fantastic artwork of  Josef Komenda! Feel free to leave you appreciation of this fine work of art in the comments.