Writing What You Know and Researching What You Don't

Beginning writers are often given the advice "write what you know." It's not a rule, not by a long shot. It's advice.

And it's not even advice that applies  long-term.

It's training wheels.

When you're starting to write, you have a lot of brand new considerations to make. You're learning to balance craft -- storytelling, grammar, narrative, pacing, character, dialog -- and the best way to do that is to do. That is, write. And if you're spending the majority of your time researching, then you're not writing.

Further, it can become hard to parse if your story isn't working because of craft issues or because you're writing about something you clearly have no experience with. It's best to eliminate variables to help diagnose the problem. In this case, eliminating places, careers, time periods, situations, etc., that you're unfamiliar with, means that the problems that are left are probably craft problems.
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So once a writer reaches the stage where her writing feels solid enough to take on research . . . well, that's a brand new, fabulous can of worms.

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Research: it's like spinach for writers

You need to know what you're talking about. There it is. The reason we say "write what you know." You need to know what you're talking about. If you've experienced it, all the better. If you haven't, then you need to research it to make it something you know.

And there are three layers of knowing to consider: details/mechanics, emotions, and cultural/social structures.

Details and mechanics can always be researched. Start with a Google search. Read articles on the topic. Read books on the top (or the relevant parts of books on the topic). Visit the location. Visit museums or reenactments of the time period. Watch/read fiction with a similar setting.

You can find Writer's Police Academy events put on around the country -- very popular with mystery writers for obvious reasons. They walk writers through some routine procedures, let them learn what it feels like to be handcuffed, answer questions, and the like.

Of course, technical details can be gleaned from reading-research or watching-research, but nothing beats the real thing for the sensory experience. The smell, sound, taste, and feel of the thing/place can instantly make fiction real, regardless of how well we can "see" it.

Emotions. The way people react in certain situations and the ways they process information, grief, etc. -- those are much harder to do direct research on. The best research on this count is life experience. The more situations you've encountered in your life, the more you know about your own reactions and the reactions of others. Some can be discerned through people-watching, and some through really engaging with fiction, but nothing beats life experience.

Have you ever read something where the character's emotion seems totally off base and you just have to wonder, has the writer ever actually experienced the death of someone close to them? or falling in love? had their heart broken? been cheated on? lost a job? been told they had a life-changing diagnosis? been in combat? or whatever the situation is. Research/experience is important here too.

Not to mention social structures. Different social groups have different structures and rules that determine how people act. Be aware that characters from different backgrounds will act differently, whether it's a cultural, generational, or linguistic difference. I've seen good writers fail miserably while attempting space-based military science fiction. They love the genre and have a grasp of the science, but absolutely no experience with the military, and it killed the realism of the character interactions in that particular setting. Can someone who's never served write good military SF? Probably, but it'll take a lot of research and the help of experts.

Research makes writing stronger. Like spinach.

But like Popeye, you don't apply the spinach directly to the problem, you ingest it and let it work through you. Don't dump research directly into the writing, let it work through you. Let it become part of your character building and creative process. Let it become part of your body and brain until you use it unconciously.

And beware the infodump-disguised-as-dialog route. That's a bit like swaping coats and expecting facial recognition software not to find you. Savvy readers will be able to see right through that disguised research dump.

But research that's well incorporated can heighten the reader's sensory experience. Do you know what a morgue smells like? I don't. Not from personal experience. But a well-written scene could transport me there even if it's not an experience I really want to have firsthand.

Research: it's like entering the Fire Swamp

Do you know someone who's been "doing research" on their novel for years? When you ask how the writing's going, they tell you about this or that resource they've found and how it's inspiring them, but updates on the actual writing of the story are much more sparse.

Research, as wonderful and necessary as it may be, can become a Fire Swamp for writers that prevents them from reaching their ultimate goal: the writing.  Patches of lightning sand to suck you in and suffocate you. Spouts of flame. R.O.U.S.s that creep along in the shadows, tailing you, wiggling their ugly noses to stay on your scent.

The Fire Swamp is absolutely not someplace you'd like to build a summer home, but it is a place you could live quite happily for a while . . . so long as you get out before one of the three great dangers of the Fire Swamp does you in. Or rather, kills your chances of completing a project.

It's the twists and turns of research that suck you in so that you never feel like you've reached the bottom, that you know enough, and can stop researching. It's the spurt of flame that destroys one idea, so you move your feet quickly and start down a new path of research you didn't expect to go down in order to flesh out a second idea. It's the creeping doubt that you're not getting it right, you need to know more before you can proceed or the critics and experts are going to eat you alive.

You may have to traverse the Fire Swamp of research. Just remember, once you go in you can make it out.

But why bother doing deep research at all? Because Wikipedia is a wonderful place to start research but a horrible place to end it.

Moving beyond Wikipedia

Wikipedia, a horrible place for your research to end. Yep, it's worth repeating.

Wikipedia can't tell you what a morgue smells like. It can't express to you on a scale of 1-10 how itchy and uncomfortable a Civil War uniform is. It can show you pictures of the coast of Ireland or the Amazon rain forest or the Southwest, but it can't tell you how the air feels on your skin in those places or the wuzziness of altitude sickness in a desert is like. Nor is it going to differentiate between technical detail and day-to-day details of certain occupations.

Consider Wikipedia on par with asking your spouse or neighbor or co-worker, hey, have you ever heard of such-n-such, and then discovering that they have a good passing knowledge of the thing. Conversational knowledge. They can give you keywords and point you in the right direction as you continue to research and read things by actual experts that is more in depth than a Wikipedia article could ever be (and eventually you can contact those experts, more on that later). Whether those are news articles, journal articles, or books.

And no, not all those resources are going to be free.

Well, not free on the internet. But if you have a library card, you can bet your ass they're still free. You just have to do some work and carry your butt down to your library.

Only have a popular library in your town? No access to a research library (usually a university library)? Actually, you do have access to huge libraries even through a tiny little small town library. Most public libraries are connected to a state-wide network that connects both city and university collections. In Michigan it's called MeL Cat, the Michigan eLibrary Catalog. What you can do with that website catalog is take your library card, the one from Podunk Town, and use it to check out books from the University of Michigan or Michigan State University or whoever has the book you want. And best of all, those libraries will deliver the book to your local library for free. You pick it up and check it out using your regular old library card.

If you have access to a system like this (and again, in Michigan you almost always can get access and I have to imagine other states have similar systems), you can get access to serious, vetted, in depth resources, some of which would be expensive -- or impossible, if they're out of print -- to purchase on your own.

All you have to do is be patient and wait for them to be delivered. Use that time to write the next scene. You know, avoid feeling like you're building a summer cottage in the fire swamp.

When/how to consult an expert

In the Roundtable Podcast interview "20 (more) minutes with Jeanne Cavelos, the host remarked that Jeanne Cavelos had several appeals for help listed on her website's front page. One of which was for experts in scientific fields she was not herself well versed in, and another appeal states, "My main character is bipolar (manic-depressive). If you are bipolar and don't mind sharing some of your experiences..."

I agree with the Roundtable Podcast host Dave Robison about the absolute remarkableness of reaching out. As writers who are creating whole worlds in our minds or who are perhaps hard pressed to carve out time alone to do the writing, the idea that we then need to reach out to others is . . . tough sometimes. Such an easier route is to just jump on Wikipedia and call it done.

Jeanne Cavelos urged writers to do research, "whether to make the setting more real, the science more real, or the magic more real." And divulged that when she started writing she didn't want to ask for expert help because she felt embarrassed to not know.

She also shared what she's found to be the best way to approach an expert: gather as much information about the subject as you can before you approach the expert -- asking them to give you a crash course in the topic isn't useful or polite -- so that by the time you're reaching out to them they know you "just have some questions that only a person can answer." Even mentioning the time she contacted an expert in manhole covers after reading the book the expert had written.

Yes, an expert in manhole covers. There are all sorts of people out there with specialized knowledge.

It reminds me of an Anne Lamott essay in Bird by Bird where she recounts becoming obsessed with figuring out the word for the wire thingy on top of a champagne bottle. It's called a wire hood, by the way, but gaining that knowledge led her down a path that eventually had her on the phone with a monk who worked in a vineyard. Her point in the essay was that researching by reaching out to speak to experts makes writing more communal (which Wikipedia cannot do -- although  admittedly, she was penning the essay before the rise of Wikipedia).

"Sometimes I think I know the answer and I just want to confirm it," Jeanne Cavelos says in her podcast interview. "And many times they [the experts] volunteer details that are incredible that I want to incorporate in some way into the book. That's one way primary sources and experts can really help you, providing these details that you can't imagine and you can't find in a book. As writers, we tend to believe we have pretty good imaginations, but really the truth is often way stranger and more interesting than we can imagine."

I once heard from a paramedic who said he'd been prepared to see weird stuff when he'd worked in New York City, but hadn't truly seen weird shit until he started working the same job in Cleveland. And no, I couldn't imagine the details. Not without asking someone who'd actually been there.

Small Press Publishers, the Tiny and the Mighty

Recently I've had the pleasure of appearing on the Odyssey Writing Workshop's blog in a "Graduate's Corner" post, discussing the merits and might of small press publishing. The small press doesn't necessarily have the reach or the flashy . . . well, the flashy anything, but it can take risks on niche titles that might not be as well-represented by large publishers.

You can read the whole blog post on the Odyssey Writing Workshop blog, where I praise Chizine and Small Beer Press (of course I mentioned SBP, because I'm a total Small Beer Press fangirl), as well as discuss some of what was important to me as I built World Weaver Press from passion into press.

Odyssey Writing Workshop Application Time

It's that time of year again! Odyssey Writing Workshop (which I continue to highly recommend) is accepting applications for the summer 2013 workshop session. They take only 16 students per summer for a six week, five-day-a-week workshop, lecture, and writing experience that's unlike any other. I'm both an Odyssey graduate and an MFA grad; and in many ways, Odyssey was a more useful experience in regard to my writing -- it was definitely more personalized, more intense, more ripe for having personal breakthroughs, and understanding my genre.

This year there's even some full and partial scholarships to be scored for the program.

Odyssey 2013 announcement:

Make a quantum leap in your writing this summer! The Odyssey Writing Workshop for fantasy, science fiction, and horror writers will run from June 10 to July 19 in Manchester, NH. Participate in the program that has led 58% of graduates to professional publication, with their work appearing in top magazines and published by major publishing houses. Challenge yourself and pack two years of learning into six weeks of intense work. Four-hour classes five days a week, an advanced curriculum, daily writing and critiquing assignments, weekly stories/chapters due, in-depth feedback on your work, personal guidance from Jeanne Cavelos, former senior editor at Bantam Doubleday Dell and winner of the World Fantasy Award, and guests Nancy Holder, Holly Black, Adam-Troy Castro, Jack Ketchum, Patricia Bray, and Sheila Williams. The early action application deadline is January 31, and regular application deadline is April 8. Four scholarships and one work/study position are available. Read more here: http://www.sff.net/odyssey/workshop.html

Odyssey writing workshops charitable trust announces winter 2012 online classes

The following is the press release I'm passing on from the Odyssey writing workshops charitable trust. And to be totally honest, I'm more than half interested in the "Secrets of Literary Agents" class.  The following was sent by Jeanne Cavelos and all the "I" references should be attributed to her, not me here on Speak Coffee:

Last winter, we had a huge response to the three online courses we offered.  Writers from all over the world applied; only fourteen were admitted to each course.  Using the latest technology, we were able to interact with each other in live class meetings and exchange homework and critiques.  Students were committed and enthusiastic and worked hard, taking their writing to the next level.

For seventeen years, Odyssey has pursued its mission to help developing writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work by holding its annual six-week, in-person workshop in Manchester, New Hampshire.  But two years ago we expanded our mission, taking the teaching techniques that are so effective at the workshop and adapting them to create online classes.  We have worked very hard to ensure that our online classes are of the same quality and caliber as our in-person workshop and that they deserve to carry the name of Odyssey.  Courses provide a supportive yet challenging, energizing atmosphere, with class size limited to fourteen students.

This year, I'm excited to announce that we are again offering three different online courses covering some of the most critical issues for developing writers:

Showing versus Telling in Fantastic FictionCourse Meets:  January 4 - February 1, 2012
Instructor:  Jeanne Cavelos
Application Deadline:  December 8, 2011

Perhaps the first rule most writers hear is "Show, don't tell."  Yet in my experience, few writers actually understand the difference between showing and telling.  Even fewer understand that showing and telling are not two opposing possibilities, but two ends of a spectrum offering a range of subtle gradations.  To write with power, a writer must know where on that spectrum he should be at every moment, and he must be able to control the levels of showing and telling.  The skillful manipulation of showing and telling can make settings vivid, bring characters to life, put the reader in the middle of the action, and convey powerful emotions.  We will study examples of the successful and unsuccessful use of showing and telling.  We'll also discuss the special necessity of showing in fantastic fiction, and the challenges of doing so.

Secrets of Literary AgentsCourse Meets:  January 9 - 23, 2012
Instructor:  Lindsay Ribar
Application Deadline:  December 13, 2011

The best chance a developing writer has of getting an agent is to query someone who has become an agent only in the last few years.  Such an agent is still developing her list of writers and is actively looking for new writers to represent.  Because of this, I felt the best teacher for a course on getting a literary agent would be just such an up-and-coming agent.

In Secrets of Literary Agents, junior agent and author Lindsay Ribar reveals everything authors need to know about getting and working with an agent.  The right literary agent can help shape and build an author's career.  The wrong one can sink it.  In this course, Lindsay will explain why you need an agent in today's market and what an agent can do for you.  She will show you how to identify qualified agents appropriate for your work, and how to figure out which of those are the best candidates to approach.  You'll learn what agents are looking for in a query, a synopsis, and a novel opening, and how many submissions yours must compete against to get an agent's attention.  Lindsay will take you inside the minds of agents to reveal how they evaluate projects.

Lindsay will also prepare you for working with an agent.  She'll explain the contracts between agents and authors:  clauses to avoid, clauses to insist on.  You'll learn how many authors an agent represents and what an average day is like.  She'll let you know what is reasonable for an author to expect of an agent, and what is unreasonable, and how to build a positive, long-term relationship with an agent.  Lindsay will also discuss changes and trends in the publishing industry, particularly those involving fantasy, science fiction, and young adult literature.  Which sub-genres, publishers, and editors provide the best opportunities for new writers?  What is the role of e-publishing from an agent's perspective?  And how are these changes affecting literary agents?

Narrative Structures in Fantastic FictionCourse Meets:  January 25 - February 22, 2012
Instructor:  Bruce Holland Rogers
Application Deadline:  December 29, 2011

Award-winning author Bruce Holland Rogers finds structure one of the most useful guides when writing a story.  Often he will start a story with no more than a subject and a structure, and it will take him to fascinating places and leave him with a satisfying, unified story.
Structure can provide a story with unity, and it can give an author direction. If you ever get lost in the middle of writing a story, or you can't find the right climax, this course is for you.  Bruce will teach you how to identify and use powerful strategies, modes, and structures.  While most writers have a strong sense of what genre or sub-genre they're writing in, they have little sense of what type of structure they are using, if any.  This leads to muddled, dissatisfying plots.  Bruce will lay out a fascinating array of various structures, beginning with flash fiction structures, moving on to short story structures, and finally covering structures for long narratives.  Bruce will discuss the requirements and goals of these various structures, and how they can be developed with originality and emotion.

More information about our online classes can be found here:  http://www.sff.net/odyssey/online.html
If you've visited the Odyssey site recently, you may need to click REFRESH on your browser to see the new content.

PLEASE NOTE:  Those application deadlines are coming up soon!  If you would like to apply for more than one course, you must apply separately for each one.

If you're ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them, you'd be welcome to apply to our online classes and learn the tools and techniques to take your writing to the next level.

Summer Writing Workshops

Summer Writing Workshops: good for the writing, bad for the blogging.

Last summer I chose to do the six week, intensive Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop.  This year I chose to return for the one week alumni workshop.  It was good to go back, meet new people and see old friends.  It was good to get a refresher of the kind of craft concerns Odyssey can ferret out and address.  I took three stories to workshop, two of which I felt were nearly done and one of which I thought needed a lot of work -- now I feel the exact opposite.  The first two need a lot more exploration and the last one I now have a clear path to traverse, one through which I can bring out the story with more ease than expected.

Getting ready for this workshop, I wondered if I had been smart to sign up.  I wondered if I was plain workshopped-out after three years of MFA, during each of which I participated in a summer workshop.  And in truth, I had many moments when I told myself -- and complained to my friends -- that I needed to get out of the classroom as a student.  At least for a while.

Having another workshop experience turned out to be fine. More than fine when you consider it altered my attitude about several pieces of fiction which I've been working on these past six months.  But I am more than happy to take a break from the workshop for a while.

Perhaps, in a year, I'll miss it.

Recovery: an addendum to the Odyssey workshop experience

I thought I'd shared all of my Odyssey Workshop related insights on this page, then I looked at a conversation I had with a friend over the internet in the months following my six weeks at Odyssey and realized there was more to share. It is an intense process that changes how you think about yourself and your writing--even changes how you read.  At workshop and upon return, there are bound to be growing pains.

I've heard it described as a "boot camp."  I've never been to boot camp, but I have played varsity sports.  Odyssey is like pre-season. You're learning the skills and building muscle memory and creating endurance.  It's rigorous.  You push yourself to the limit and you fall asleep exhausted each night.  Before regular season starts, coach gives you a long weekend off and you tell all your friends you'll meet up with them and then never see them because you fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the day.  But making varsity doesn't mean you feel like you're good enough for varsity yet. You screw up. Other players are smother, quicker, already know how to work with teammates you've just met. The first time you touch the ball in a real game isn't to make a pass, it's when you foot foul and lose the ball to the other team.

When I got home from Odyssey I slept. I woke up the next day, made coffee, sat down on the couch and fell asleep before the pot had finished brewing. Four hours later I woke up.  My incessant need for sleep lasted about three days. I thought that was the "recovery" period which was discussed while I was at Odyssey.  But then I couldn't write. This was something I was prepared for because so many people had told me about it.  So I made myself write--I felt very righteous about this, btw--even if I knew it was drivel, at least I was maintaining momentum. I thought I'd beaten the "post-Odyssey low," the one that people talked about with sad, compassionate faces in low, reverent tones.  

I read 15 books in under three weeks--a pace that, for me, meant I was spending almost every waking moment reading. It turns out this was my withdraw. I wanted to write but couldn't, so I self-medicated with books.  It was painful. The books that didn't live up to my Odyssey education nearly got flung into walls in my disgust. But then I ended up reading some extremely well written books. They were doing all the things I'd been taught at Odyssey and avoiding all the pitfalls I now recognized in lesser books. I despaired. I was certain I'd never be as good as those writers, so what was the point?

These were symptoms of the "post-Odyssey low" which I wasn't prepared for.  

Just like everything else, I was sure it wouldn't happen to me--I was still writing after all. But sometimes the low takes the form of not writing, and sometimes it takes the form of not believing in yourself.  But eventually you get yourself back together--or you give up on writing altogether.

Thankfully, I read some novels that were neither amazing nor crap. They made me feel neither sad nor angry. They made me feel like I, too, was a storyteller who could succeed. But I still wasn't able to write anything I was proud of, even if I was out of my death-spiral of self-loathing.

It was December, five months later, before I was ready to tackle a rewrite of a story I'd workshopped at Odyssey. And it wasn't until January or February that I'd finished a rewrite I wanted to show someone. (The rewrites of the rewrites are almost done as I write this in May). I wrote during those five months. Came up with a couple short stories (one of whichI threw out) and plotted a novel which I partially wrote and then restarted from scratch.

I kept working with my Odyssey classmates (online, now that we'd scattered across the world once again), worked with a new mentor, and finished my MFA. Being able to talk with others about what you've learned and how to implement it is an important part of Odyssey recovery.

There are Odyssey students who never recover. They stop writing and don't publish. As with everything, recovery is a choice, you make it happen, or you let it slide.  Most students who've chosen to get over this lull and recover have published.

Photo credit: gorjan123

Odyssey workshop deadline approaches, and my neighbors go crazy; events that are, sadly, unrelated

I attended Odyssey in 2010.  Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop is a six week, intensive writing workshop for those who are serious about speculative fiction. There's an application process, a huge time commitment, a steep fee, and almost unlimited possibility for growth as a writer.

If you write speculative fiction and you've thought about applying to Odyssey but are on the fence: do it.

It's worth it.

The application deadline is April 8 (that's a receive by date!).  I waffled a lot while thinking about applying.  First there was the fee to apply, which made me wonder if it was a scam --  it's not, if you're willing to take my word on it, but it is a means of cutting back on the number of applicants so that this very small operation isn't overwhelmed with aps to read.  I also kept thinking I'd apply next year, when I was done with my MFA and had time to write and finish a speculative story.  The speculative short story idea dropped into my lap accidentally (turns out I couldn't keep my genre from showing at workshop like I thought I could) and I got angry enough to apply (more on that story on that here), and the experience was wonderful.  I'm so excited I didn't put it off til next year which we all know can indefinitely become next year.

This workshop is not about dissection. It does not open up your story like a frog in biology class, then walk away with the stomach gaping and the liver pinned to a board. This workshop is about surgery. It identifies the cancerous masses in your story and removes them, closes up, then starts the patient on a course of follow-up treatments. If you're not cool with someone discussing ways to fix (i.e. change) or possibly re-write your story then maybe you shouldn't apply.  I've posted an entire page on my experience and assessment with the workshop.

My neighbors, however, are not gaga over the chance to learn story structure and resolve narrative weaknesses.  They are batshit crazy over St. Patrick's day, Guinness, and cheap beer -- green or otherwise.

At Western Michigan University, the students take their drinking holidays very seriously.

Starting at noon when I opened my windows today, the noise and the clad-in-green-tee-shirt foot traffic has steadily increased.  The party attitude would be present regardless of the weather, but the fact that the temp has broken sixty degrees for the first time in weeks helps a lot.

I'd say that it's a great time to gather real world dialog without leaving my apartment, but the dialog mostly sounds like:

Dude: I'm gonna get piss-ass wasted.
Girl: I've gotta be at work at five.
Dude: What? Why? Call in drunk.

So maybe not all that useful.

I will not be going anywhere. I will be holed up inside, tolerating the noise and not getting on the road with any of them. Previous observation of antics in this neighborhood leads me to believe that by 9:30 PM the fights in the parking lot will start, yelling and/or fist fights, (usually they begin around 2:00 AM) and by 10:30 or 11:00 things will be quiet again -- not even 21 year-olds can sustain 12+ hours of intoxication and partying.

And finally some absolutely fabulous geekery and British humor.  Love.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Grab-bag

Iconic face of Rosie the Riveter poster died recently. I really wish I'd known this story, ya know, before she passed away.  She was a Michigan factory worker and seeing as her service is being held in Lansing, I'm betting she lived in Michigan all her life.

Odyssey Workshop has a new podcast up online from editor David Hartwell's 2010 Odyssey Workshop lecture on titles, titling, and using pseudonyms (Podcast #43). It was great because I find that a lot of writers worry about how to title or when to use a pseudonym and it seems like something the knowledgeable people in the industry don't want to talk about--perhaps it is more tedious than other aspects, but here we have a guy who's been an editor in the SF/F industry for over 40 years and he's willing to talk seriously about the small stuff.

The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop is now open to applications. As is the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop (early admission deadline: Jan. 31; regular deadline: Apr. 8). Both are great workshops.

One of my Odyssey workshop classmates (or Odfellows, as the alums are called), put out a novella (40,000 words) for Kindle titled Nocturne: Son of the Night.  I haven't read the whole thing, but my understanding from the first chapter is that it's a high fantasy vampire world.  40k is an awkward length to sell to a publisher -- it's about half as long as a novel and a about 20k too long for all but a couple magazines to deal with (though as I understand it, it might be the kind of thing BlackGate would serialize).  You can read the first chapter on Smashwords or buy at amazon.com.  And maybe even buy at Samshwords if you need non-Kindle formating.

I got my cats a "cat bed" so that they would stop sleeping on top of my cloth suitcase. They seem to have mixed feeling about the bed, so I doused it in cat nip and now Rosie's all about it. Ash is currently sleeping in the old box lid on my desk. I guess they'll never be happy until they have the ultimate house for cats.

Kristen Lamb has had a great series of posts of the last week about dealing with "Crappy Excuse Trolls and Procrastination Pixies." The posts are long, but it's worth scrolling back to her Dec. 31 entry to catch the entire week's notions of how to behave better beyond the New Year's Resolution.  This awesome picture is from her blog as well.  It's a "Rare Photo of Actual Procrastination Pixie Disguised as a Hamster Cage that Needs Cleaning Instead of Doing Edits on Novel."   Love it.

Over at Third Coast, Nathan Norton posts his thoughts on Resolving to Remain Resolute with Regards to Writing Resolutions.  Nathan's post, as always, is insanely witty.

Speaking of which, my New Year's Resolutions are sorta holding. I've already finished reading one novel--another freebie download from eHarlequin. What can I say? I'm a sucker for free books that you can read quickly. And the writing 500 words a day goal? ... well I have written everyday, which is a start. Haven't really broken the 500 mark every day though and that's worthy of a demerit.

In the spirit of all of the writing is what I love posts I've read and *ahem* written myself, I bring you this from The Onion:

I guess you could say I have always had a love affair with the written word. The simple, solitary act of contemplating the white expanse of the blank page, and then putting pen to paper and seeing where the words take me, is my one constant solace in an otherwise turbulent world. Yes, I must admit it: I am only truly happy when I'm writing.


Or if I'm having dinner with family and friends, or a new and interesting acquaintance I happened to meet that week and hit it off with. I'm pretty happy then, too.


But for me, it always comes back to the writing: the discipline, the stamina required, the unrelenting determination to give voice to my innermost thoughts, thoughts that illuminate the cracks and crevices of the human condition. That is my only satisfaction. That and watching a really good movie on late-night TV, like Suddenly, Last Summer. That's a great feeling, especially when you haven't seen the film in some years, and you discover anew just what it was that you loved about it in the first place. I also enjoy canoeing and windsurfing when I get a free weekend down at the beach.


And Frisbee. I love Frisbee. (read more)

The more I read about the publishing business the more I think ahead. This is good, right? Maybe. It's hard to tell when your tell your friend, "hey I'm thinking about this and this, what's your advice?" and her advice is to stop thinking so far ahead and write the damn book. Then there's things like this very interesting guest post about author branding on Sierra Godfrey's blog. And the post says yes! think about it now!

I know, I know. Those of you out there who are plugging away at writing your book or maybe just sticking your toe in the writing waters are probably thinking...look, I just need to get this book written, find an agent, get a book deal, etc. etc. and then I'll worry about a public image. I've got time for that. Publishing is a slow business.


You're right. The book should be priority number one and publishing IS slow. I got my book deal a few months ago and my book won't hit the shelves until 2012. But let me tell you, when all the good stuff starts happening, it can happen fast. And you'll be thrust from "writer" to "Author" with a capital A in a moment's time.


That's great news. You won't really feel any different (though you'll be excited) and writing will still be just as difficult (believe me.) But the change means your blog, website, twitter, facebook, etc., you know all those things you've been doing to build your platform/presence, are now your brand.


So if you've spent your time on your blog bashing books you don't like, cursing like a sailor, or only posting pictures of cats in doll outfits (or even *gasp* not blogging/tweeting/pick your poison at all), you may have to do a major overhaul or start from scratch. You don't want this stress when you're going to be facing the new stress of being contracted, editing and writing against a deadline, and figuring out all it means to be a paid author. So why not get your brand in place NOW?

And then I'm like, aha! gotcha Roni Loren, I comprehend now. (read more of her guest post).

Lastly, I am in love with Lightspeed magazine!  All SF, all online (although they have other formatting options if you're interested).  They have a really intriguing layout/look--both clean and enticing.  And they're publishing a range of writers, lesser known folk and then, last month, Ursala Le Guin.  Though I could tell it was a Le Guin story because I finished it and went huh?

Why apply to Odyssey?

This weekend my bit about why I applied to Odyssey Writing Workshop appeared on the Odyssey livejournal.  The prompt begins:

The Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop has been called an MFA in six weeks and a stepladder to professional publication. Fifty-three percent of Odyssey graduates go on to get their work published. But what, in particular, drives writers to apply to the program? And how do their expectations for the workshop compare to the reality of attending? We asked Odyssey graduates:
Why did you first apply to Odyssey? How many times did you apply before you were accepted? Did you get everything out of it that you were expecting? How did it differ from your expectations? 

TheLiz from Home is Where the Cat Is read the post and said "I love your first line!" In the interest of full disclosure I should state that my original answer to the question was slightly different. I originally wrote:

I applied because I was pissed.
Can we say that on the Odyssey Livejournal?
Okay, I applied because I was ticked off.

Apparently, we can't say that on the Odyssey livejournal. :)

Read my reply and others.

Odyssey Workshop Online

Each summer Odyssey offers an intense, six week writing workshop on the campus of St. Anselm College for speculative writers whose work is of publishable quality or approaching publishable quality. The online workshops don't have nearly the depth or breadth of information as the summer course, but they provide a much more focused discussion for those who would like to brush up on an area or who would like to investigate without making the big commitment of time and money that going to the summer workshop involves. I've been to the summer workshop and highly recommend it. I haven't participated in an online workshop, but I heard good things about last winter's online workshop from people who participated in it. The following comes from the Odyssey Workshop press release:

ODYSSEY WRITING WORKSHOP ANNOUNCES WINTER 2011 ONLINE CLASSES

The Odyssey Writing Workshop, one of the most respected programs for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, is offering three online writing classes this winter. Each class is focused on a particular element of fiction writing and is designed for writers at a particular skill level, from beginners to professional writers.

For sixteen years, Odyssey has pursued its mission to help developing writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror improve their work by holding its annual six-week, in-person workshop in Manchester, New Hampshire. But last year, using the latest technology, Odyssey expanded its mission, taking the teaching techniques that are so effective at the workshop and adapting them to create online classes. Odyssey Director Jeanne Cavelos explains, "We have worked very hard to ensure that our online classes are of the same quality and caliber as our in-person workshop and that they deserve to carry the name of Odyssey." Courses provide a supportive yet challenging, energizing atmosphere, with a class size limited to fourteen students. While courses are designed for adult writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror, interested writers of other genres are welcome to apply.

Last winter, Odyssey offered its first online course, Showing versus Telling in Fantastic Fiction. "The class was a huge success," Jeanne Cavelos says. "Using Web conferencing software, we held live class sessions with fourteen students from the US, Japan, and Australia. We had some great discussions, and the students proved that they could commit significant amounts of time and energy to a rigorous, demanding course despite the long distances. They worked intensely on recognizing and manipulating showing and telling in their fiction and made exciting improvements."

This year, in response to demand, Odyssey is offering three different online courses covering some of the most critical issues for developing writers:

Three-Act Structure in Fantastic Fiction
Course Meets: January 5 - February 2, 2011
Instructor: Jeanne Cavelos
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Application Deadline: December 9, 2010
One of the greatest weaknesses of developing writers is plot. One of the best tools for strengthening plot is the act. Plotting in acts creates a more suspenseful, unpredictable, and emotionally satisfying experience for the reader. The strongest plots often have three acts. In this course, students will study plots of a variety of works, and they'll learn how to create their own strong three-act plots.

Worldbuilding in Fantastic Fiction
Course Meets: January 12 - January 26, 2011
Instructor: Melissa Scott
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Application Deadline: December 16, 2010
The most prominent element that separates science fiction, fantasy, and much horror from other genres is the setting. A unique, fully realized, believable world provides much of the appeal of fantastic fiction. Creating a vivid, consistent world is not a simple task. Incorporating that world gracefully into a story is another challenge. Award-winning author Melissa Scott is the absolute expert on the subject, and in this mini-course, she will guide students through the process step by step.

Writing in Scenes
Course Meets: February 9 - 23, 2011
Instructor: Nancy Kress
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Application Deadline: January 10, 2011
For award-winning author Nancy Kress, one principle made all the difference in her writing, transforming it from promising but unsalable to compelling and published. That one principle was writing in scenes. In this unique mini-course, Nancy will explain how to determine the purpose and shape of a scene. She'll discuss the five modes of expression used in a scene, how to find the optimal balance between these five modes for a particular scene, and the importance of dialogue as the heart of almost all scenes. Nancy, an acclaimed writing teacher, provides great insights into the process of creating a scene.

More information about Odyssey's Online Classes is available at http://www.sff.net/odyssey/online.html or by emailing jcavelos@sff.net.

Odyssey's Online Classes pack valuable content into each session and provide assignments that challenge students to take their writing to the next level. The classes provide the tools and techniques students need to improve their writing, along with feedback on their work that reveals whether they are successfully using those tools and techniques.

Cavelos says, "If you're ready to hear about the weaknesses in your writing and ready to work to overcome them, you'd be welcome to apply to one of our online classes."

In addition, the Odyssey Web site, www.odysseyworkshop.org, offers many resources for writers, including free podcasts, writing and publishing tips, a weekly writing blog, and a critique service.

There once was a dragon ...

There once was a dragon who wanted an ice cream cone more than anything else in the world. ...

And then he got one, and it was bigger than his head. And his head, coincidentally, was as big as the rest of his body.

But to tell you how he did it would be giving away the whole story, six weeks of writing instruction, and an in-joke.

Sleep Recovery

In the past 72 hours, I've slept at least 34.

My body still keels over at Midnight and, for the past few days at least, wakes up before 8:00am.  On Sunday, I got up at 7:30, showered, dressed, and made coffee that I never got to drink.  I was asleep on the couch before the pot had finished brewing.  I woke up five hours later nose to nose with the fluffy cat who was stretched out -- also sleeping -- along the back of the sofa.  The coffee was cold.

Monday was a repeat -- except I made it until about 1:30 pm before the nap took over, thus allowing coffee consumption.  This past night I managed to sleep for ten hours, so I'm hopeful that there will be no nap involved.  But I am, for the first time in days, feeling like I'm capable of complicated cognitive procedures. 

In my stupor, I've been reading Tanya Huff's The Enchantment Emporium, which I just finished this morning.  It's fun and witty, and -- once you get over the giant tangle that is the absolutely enormous Gale family, and their slightly incestuous but somehow not-gross relationships -- quite fast paced.  If I hadn't read other stuff by Huff and trusted her to get to the good parts eventually (and to drench the story in witty pop culture references and snappy dialog), then I probably wouldn't have gotten through the first sixty pages of confusing.  Huff, however, delivers.

Huff loves setting her novels in Canada, and this one is no exception.  Set in Calgary, Alberta, the Enchantment Emporium (aka junk antique shop) is a "staple in the community" -- a statement which takes on many meanings as the novel unfolds.

The whole novel was quite fun and precisely what more poor brain needed to unwind and recover.

Tanya Huff also wrote Summon the Keeper, set in Toronto, which I really loved, and the Blood Books which they made into the TV show Blood Ties, which I somehow never realized they made a season two of.  Must go Netflix, now!

I've managed to catch up on two episodes of Top Chef which I've missed while away at Odyssey, but all in all , my attempt to reconnect with television has been disappointing.  Summer TV programming appears to be ... really bad.  I did watch 13 innings of the Tigers-Rangers game on Monday before giving up and yelling, no! no more innings for you! And switching off the TV with much fanfare.  It was probably a good thing as the Rangers scored two runs in the next inning.  Bummer.

Graduation Day

As of today, I'm a graduate of Odyssey Writing Workshop, class of 2010!

I've made it through the heat and the cold, and the grueling pace, and the early mornings spent in front of a copier. I've made it through the crazy people and those who inspire, through the whiners and the die hards, through loving and hating it, through banging my head against the wall and seeing the light.

I'm an Odfellow now, and a possessor of a crazy little thing called plot.

Getting ready for the sixth, and final week of Odyssey workshop

I slept twelve hours last night. Twelve. On a very uncomfortable bed. And I could do it all again tonight. I desperately need the sleep in order to cope with the stress and sleep deprivation of the past five weeks.

As any athlete or body builder will tell you, rest is as important as training because it is only then that your body can rebuild and strengthen itself to take the punishment all over again.

What I'm really saying is that I went to bed at 8:45 PM last night, woke up at 9:00 AM, and I could probably be asleep by 8:30 tonight if I wanted to.

Working ... slowly

I'm trying to write a short story ... it keeps flourishing into a novel ...

Life in New Hampshire

I'm slightly more than halfway through my six week workshop. I have three observations to share.

One, Writing:  I'm at the frustrating place where I've learned enough that I now know a story idea is not going to work before I write it, but I don't yet know enough to fix it so the idea does work.  Good thing there's another three weeks of class.

Two, Living: I haven't regularly slept on a twin mattress in a couple of years; living in a dorm for a few months requires it.  But in those years I've apparently forgotten the skill of rolling over without losing the sheet.  Every time I turn over sheet, blanket, everything, slides right on off my butt.  Very disconcerting.

Three, Taxes: New Hampshire does not appear to have sales tax.  I bought a book yesterday and the cashier rang me up for precisely the amount printed on the book cover.  It feels so odd to buy a week's worth of groceries, then look at the receipt and see Total $48.32, Tax $0.00.  They really take this live free or die stuff seriously up here. 

Thankgoodness it's Friday

Today marks the halfway point of the six week Odyssey workshop.  I'm.  So.  Tired.  So.  Ti...

Excuse me, there's a lake in my way

I usually like living in Michigan.  It has seasons, it has trees -- not caged trees like Chicago -- and okay, it has a shit-ton of potholes because four months of the year are spent in a continuous cycle of freezing and thawing, but hey, I just bought a new suspension for my car. 

What I don't like is when I try to travel by land to other states from Michigan.  Just about every way you turn there's a lake in your way.

Fun factoid that any good Michigander school child knows: in Michigan you are never more than 78 miles away from at least one Great Lake. 

Right about now I'm looking at Lake Erie and shaking my head.  What I need is a giant bridge from Detroit to Erie, PA.  What I get is the round about route.  South through Ohio or north through Canada land of the 99 cent liter of petrol (ouch!).

One deadline met, a few more coming up.

I've been keeping busy.  Not with what I thought I would be doing but busy nonetheless.  I thought I'd be writing a novel based off of the outline I previously mentioned that I'd written.  That's not happening.  Don't know if it was the outline that killed it (I think not) or the other things I need to do (likelier).

Every time I go to open up that Word document my heart begins to feel like an empty hamster wheel.  Then the document opens and I stare at it.  I breathe a bit.  My fingers don't move.  Then somewhere inside me a fluffy pet rodent comes along and says 'oh! a heart/hamster wheel!' and then jumps in and starts running.  Then I shut down the Word document, kick out the hamster, make some coffee and wait for my heart to return to its normal shape.

So I've been working on other projects.  Including the deadline that I mentioned tangentially on Monday when I posted about "deadline food."  That project is done (for the moment), but I have a few more deadlines coming up this month.

I like the sensation of having deadlines -- especially when they're not school related.  It makes me feel like a working writer -- and as far as sub-definitions of writer go, working writing is the one I want the most. 

I was very happy to have my father swing through town this week on business.  He took me out to dinner and fixed my wireless hub. The hub had been an untamed freak for the past few months.  I'd tried everything I could think of but there was nothing for it so I just went back to plugging into the wall and mooching a wireless signal off my neighbors so that I could check email on the iPod.  Now the wireless hub is tame -- it wears polo shirts with the collars popped it's so tame.

But even more than deadlines and social visits, this month has been marked my two things: attending everything I neglected at the end of last semester, and getting ready to leave town for two months.

I've been accepted to Odyssey this summer.  It's six weeks of daily class, workshop, and whip crackin lifestyle change.  I'm totally looking forward to it.

It's focused on writers of the speculative or what is more commonly known as the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror.  I say writers and not writing  because the workshop has a diagnostic approach/philosophy.  Before I arrive the program director will have already read two completed short stories that I've written.  After we workshop a third short story in the days immediately following my arrival, she and I will sit down and have a one on one chat, diagnose my strengths and weaknesses, figure out a game plan for the next five weeks.

I'm going to be working like mad during that time period (daily class and a story a week?! -- Game face, folks, game face). I won't be blogging from the workshop, but to keep the blog alive I'm working on blog posts ahead of time (now) and using the fabulous "scheduled at" feature to set material to publish at later dates.  I'll still read and respond to comments anyone leaves, as well as post an occasional I'm alive! post or maybe even pictures from the 500 miles of I-90 I'll traverse on my fourteen hour drive to New Hampshire.