Married to a Mannequin

I've been reading (and commenting) on a lot more writer's blogs than usual, lately, which means I've been thinking even more about the particulars of my craft. One of the things I don't blog about often is relationships, mostly because I'm a semi-private person, but also because I don't consider myself a great authority on all things love. Recently, though, it occurred to me that there was one particular place where these concepts intersected.

A friend recently remarked that their relationship had evolved into sort of a one-dimensional one. Their significant other only had one thing they liked to talk about, and it wasn't how infatuated they were with this particular friend, nor was it (after a long time had elapsed) quite so interesting to talk about. At the same time, this sig. other was (and is) incredibly good-looking, and therefore still retains a good portion of the appeal they once did.

What a vague and pronoun-laden paragraph that is.

At any rate, I realized that my friend was, in a way, married to a mannequin. Their sig. other only had one gear, one focus, and getting them to deviate from that was far beyond difficult. I realized that I have read books (and stories) that were exactly this same way.

Think about it for a second. Have you ever picked up a book based on how attractive its cover or blurb was, then during the reading of said book realized that there wasn't a whole lot going on in the story? It's one-dimensional because the characters are cardboard cut-outs, or the plot is a paper-thin journey down Cliché Lane? I certainly have, and it's a pitfall I struggle to avoid with my own work.

Yesterday was a big day for me in terms of writing because I finished the first draft of my third novel. The fanfare was mixed, but mostly I celebrated this milestone in my head. One of the big support-drivers was that a (different) friend had agreed to read the draft once I had finished it, and I finished it far ahead of the schedule I laid out for myself. I emailed the draft to him yesterday afternoon, and it was brought up shortly thereafter because this particular friend has been instrumental in the crafting of that story.

He wanted to ensure that I had thoroughly used some of his ideas (those being a character-based twist, where someone in the story is revealed to be more than previously thought). I had. But I was also worried that, throughout the course of the 108,000-some odd words, I might have strayed away from the character development focus that I hold so dear. Had I, somewhere in this first draft, allowed it to evolve into a pretty exterior with only one gear?

I don't quote my WIP's very often in my blog but, after a recent post by Design Kitty, I feel encouraged to do so. Here's a spot of character development for your perusal, minus context:

Hours later, Tysane fell to the cot exhausted but overtly satisfied. His quick breaths eventually slowed and deepened, and before long Laurel realized she was just watching him sleep. She ran her fingertips over his scarred and muscled chest as it rose and fell, fixating over the power this man contained.   A deep sense of calm spread over her limbs and mind, but it shattered when Laurel started to wonder how long it would last. She didn’t hate this man any longer, but was that all? Were they still enemies, or had they become something different entirely?   What she felt for Tysane wasn't love; it could never be something as pure or natural as what others described, not if it was inspired by the Darkwalker's compulsion. Even so, Laurel treasured the feeling. It meant more to her than a mere coupling ever could.   But it was wrong. It could not last.   She stood only to retrieve the bottle and the cup. As Laurel poured the dregs of the blood wine, tears fell from her face to mix with it.   "We shouldn't be doing this," she repeated sorrowfully under her breath.

Is the situation too obvious? Is it one-dimensional, hollow, fake, or wooden? I know that sometimes life imitates art, but does life or art imitate crappy/classic 80's films where a mannequin comes to life only to care about one thing?

Have you seen this type of thing, whether in your own writing or someone else's?


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Trapdoor Books Mayday Puzzle Contest

Trapdoor Books, being the self-proclaimed publisher of "geek fiction," is very enthusiastic about puzzles and things of that nature, and they've enlisted TheGriddle.net to build some book-related word games.

Simply complete one of the puzzles, email your solution to Chris at Trapdoor, and (if your solution is correct) you will be provided with a "secret code." Provide this code in the Special Shipping Instructions when you order a book (The Ninth Avatar, The Magician of L'hasa, or Cyberkill) from the Trapdoor website, and your order could be free -- or you could win a free Kindle, Nook, or Touch Reader.

Full details on the contest (and links to the puzzles) can be found here: http://trapdoorbooks.com/?page_id=2288

Feel free to email me directly with any questions. Thanks for your support!


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Love the Product, Hate the Process?

Image from Wikipedia

Dorothy Parker is quoted as saying, "I hate writing, I love having written." Ira Flatow mentioned this recently in an interview with E.O. Wilson regarding his first foray into fiction, Anthill. I was so shocked by this quote, that I actually tweeted @scifri to ask who was responsible for such a quote, because either they were misunderstood or they needed to find a new career. They responded with a similar Google search to mine (linked on the actual quote, above) to illustrate that it was a true quote, not some crackpot throwing words at a wall to see what stuck.

I'm still a bit shocked. Well, I'm a little bothered about it, actually.

I love to write, you see. What this quote says to me is that being finished is more important, or better, than doing the work. That the work is not fulfilling, only the end product is.

I can understand this for various circumstances. Take moving, for example. While I don't enjoy the lifting and carrying of boxes, furniture, and other miscellaneous objects, I do enjoy having moved into a new place, and it's all well and good to be done moving. Or travel; it's nice to arrive at your destination, but driving/riding/flying there can be incredibly tedious. Or war; peace is great, but it's a costly battle to get there.

But writing? Aren't I, as a writer, supposed to enjoy the act of writing?

Granted, we all have our good and bad days at the keyboard. Sometimes I find myself frustrated with a scene, or character, or entire project... but that doesn't make me hate the act itself. Of course I enjoy finishing it, a feeling of accomplishment at the end of a project (the opening of the champagne, if you will) is a great one to bask in when it comes along.

I guess I feel like "hating the process" implies that one doesn't take pride in their work--only when they finish their work. Only when they have a complete, tangible object which they can tout and brandish does one find satisfaction. Perhaps it's too early in my career to fully comprehend this attitude, but it sounds like a jaded and broken one to me.

I don't want to discourage anyone from writing. Quite the opposite; I want them to glean a similar satisfaction from the act that they receive from the product. So, I am not saying that if you love the product yet hate the process that you should give up writing. I am saying that you may be conflicted in your motivations if you take the quote too seriously. Too many of us are stuck in jobs and careers that we hate, which I believe is why many of us turn to pursuits that we love, like writing.

For my own part, I earnestly hope that I never love the product more than the process. I know I keep saying this, but it's the best response I can think of for this case: if writing wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it.


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The Earth is trying to kill me... (reposted from 2008)

Image from www.twolia.com

"Happy" Earth Day, everyone, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Me, I'm quite certain that the Earth is out to eradicate every last one of us. I don't think we should be celebrating it - we should be putting plans in place to get it before it gets us.

I'm posting this little "essay" here instead of [OSC] because it's a more secular approach to our current situation, meaning I'll leave God out of this particular discussion ... for now.

If you think about it, no matter what we do the Earth is somehow responsible for our deaths. Judging by how many people die per day this shouldn't be a secret. If we don't die from the looming and imminent threat of "global warming" we might die of hunger; I heard on the news this morning that the pursuit of cleaner burning fuels is using up farmland previously employed for food production. According to a world food organization over 100,000,000 more people (one hundred million - not exaggerated) need food now than 6 months ago. So is there a balance to be found in this global warming crisis? NO! THE EARTH IS GOING TO KILL US EITHER WAY!

Not to mention the various disease epidemics that are constantly nipping at our collective heels. AIDS, various Cancers, Heart Disease, The-Superbug-Flu, Kuru, and that's just the beginning of the long list of ways we can die from the Earth polluting our bodies with its "food" and "water." We're corrupted by all kinds of tasty trans-fats and saturated fats (both mono- and poly-, for crying out loud) as well as bacteria and viruses that latch onto us like an underfed dog at a deli counter.

And then there's all of these "natural" disasters. Earthquakes in the Midwest! That's almost scarier than Hurricane Katrina and the South Pacific Tsunami put together! Volcanoes are just waiting to erupt, tornadoes plague our heartland, it has been snowing like cats and dogs here in Colorado for hundreds of years now!

So celebrate this "Earth Day," if you must, and plant a tree in New Orleans like President Bush. As for me, I'll be planning the Exodus to Mars just as soon as I can get this "terra forming" concept worked out without using products and raw materials from Earth.





This post was meant to be mostly satirical but does contain a fact here and there. Happy Earth Day.


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Things have a way of ...coming together

Today is the annual and official "bring your brat to work" day. Since I can't bring my dogs, I opted to stay home instead. It's not that I don't like children... I just don't necessarily like them while I'm trying to get some work done. Let's just say they're not my intended audience, either.

As for what I've been working on lately, I passed 90,000 words in my current WIP, Scions of the Shade. This is a huge milestone, and I have a couple of nagging worries about how it's performing, but I'm hoping to have a first draft of the manuscript finished by the end of May. I'd say the end of April, but we just closed on a house so all I can really see in my immediate future is a lot of lifting and carrying. And stairs. Tons and tons of stairs.

Also on the agenda is a Podiobooks version of Thomas Redpool Goes To Hell. I've been out of the PB spotlight since some time last year, when I had to have The Ninth Avatar taken down. That was a good thing, though, because it was due to the Trapdoor Books acquisition of said novel. I've wanted to do another project for them simply because of the amount of exposure they get; I may not have seen a lot of feedback on the audio version of 9A, but I saw quite a few downloads of it.

In regard to that particular project, the audio was (I'm sad to say) a bit lacking in quality. I'm not the greatest narrator in the world, and I feel like I owe a bit more effort to Thomas than the bland approach previously taken. To that end, I've enlisted the help of an audio producer to listen to the "demo" and help me improve the sound as much as possible before I record the whole thing and release it into the world. I'll keep you posted on the status of that in the coming weeks (months?) so stay tuned.

Last week's Interview with Kristan Hoffman went very well (here are the links for Part 1 and Part 2, in case you missed it). I enjoyed chatting with her, and then her readers through the Comments.

Also last week, there was a review posted for The Ninth Avatar entitled "Killer Zombie Army With Horns." Avid book blogger and friend of Trapdoor Books, E.L. Fay, seemed to like it for the most part, with a few interesting criticisms that I appreciate. If you're interested in reviewing the book, please let me know, as I'm open to all opinions, comments, and criticisms.

That's about it. Typing is a little difficult today because I sliced my finger open cutting a bone in half for Suki, but now at least I match Micah (she has a bandaged finger from slicing her own while preparing a fantastic spaghetti dinner and roasted garlic). Back to work.


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On Writing Scenes

Sometimes it's easier to "speak in analogy." My friend Gabe does it far better than I, but occasionally I am successful at comparing something to something else. Recently, I compared writing a novel to building a house, but today I'm going to compare something more bite-sized: Scenes.

Image from Failblog.org

Writing scenes is somewhat like drawing mazes, to me. You have a starting point, wherever your story is, and you have an endpoint, wherever your story is headed. The writer's job is to create the best path between, one full of twists and turns in most cases.

Over the weekend, I worked a bit on Scions of the Shade and had to write a scene in which a ship passes through some very dangerous waters. The state of the story necessitated that at least some of those on the ship would survive when it came out the other side, lest the entire plot be over with, so I had my starting point and my ending point. What made the scene difficult to write was making sure it had a purpose.

I couldn't just describe a tense night of navigating where nothing really happened -- what would be the point of the scene if I did that? No, there had to be some trouble, some kind of obstacle to endanger the crew and passengers. Otherwise I could have simply glossed over the whole passing with summary, somewhat like, "They made it." Where's the fun in that?

No, I had built up that this particular stretch of waters was an incredibly dangerous one. For them to make it through unscathed would be a miracle, but it would be a boring miracle. Not much different than a person commuting to their job. The roads are dangerous, but unless we see how dangerous they are, there's no point in describing the trip. Of course, this doesn't discount from the fact that the ship makes it safely to the other side. Even if the reader assumes that's going to happen, it's the "getting there" that really carries their interest.

This reflects quite a bit on fiction as a whole. Years of watching G.I. Joe has reinforced that "the good guy will win," but we are curious to know how exactly he does that. Will he outsmart the villain? Will he sacrifice himself to achieve the goal? Unless there's something interesting and distinct about the path between points A and B, the path might as well be the same as the image above.

So, craft your scenes with care and attention to their purpose. If a scene doesn't reveal or reinforce something about the plot, consider revising it or taking it out entirely. Capture our attention by making your scenes worth reading, then string a whole bunch of them together in a coherent and chronological series of events, and you have a novel.

Blam-o.

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Interview with Kristan Hoffman, Part 1 (of 2)

Last year, when I submitted to the ABNA, I was lucky enough to connect with some of the other writers with the same goal. One of them was Kristan Hoffman, a writer of Young Adult and New Adult fiction. The quality and emotion in her novel, The Good Daughters, immediately caught my attention, and her award-winning web series Twenty-somewhere helped even more to hook me on Kristan's very relatable writing style.

Kristan was kind enough to interview me about life, writing, getting published, and The Ninth Avatar. The first of two posts is up on her blog, here, but make sure you check out some samples of her work while you're there. It's not Fantasy, but it is fantastic.

Thanks Kristan!

Press Release: Epic Fantasy Retold

The world has now been informed, the first press release from Trapdoor Books about The Ninth Avatar has hit the interwebs.

Excerpt:

"The story is told from the perspective of both the evil Carrion generals and their would-be human victims, swirling together an intertwined plot of escalating consequences. The dual perspectives provide the reader with a Hitchcock-like omniscience. In another twist on the genre, the author plans to write both a prequel and a sequel simultaneously for the book. "Readers are interested not only in what happens next, but since the story doesn’t start out with In The Beginning..., there is a fascination with events leading up to the opening of The Ninth Avatar. I want a story that moves in both directions at once," says author Todd Newton."

View the full release here.


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The Ninth Avatar on StoryCasting.com

There's a fun trend going on with fiction works wherein you supply your "dream cast" of characters for a book should it ever be made into a film. A great site that my publisher has recommended (and was kind enough to do the setup work for) is StoryCasting.com. Here, you can find The Ninth Avatar, with the cast I've already suggested:

Sign up for free and submit your own!

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Are Angels the next Vampires?

With the worldwide/smash/blockbuster success of Stefanie Meyer's Twilight Saga, the mythology of vampires has once again returned to "trend" status. Some of us are wondering, "What's next?"

I say Angels...

...and I'm not alone. Danielle Trussoni's first foray into fiction seems to be part DaVinci Code and part Urban Fantasy. I know of at least one aspiring writer who is trying their hand in a similar vein, and I find it to be an interesting take on long-standing mythology.

Urban Fantasy, as a genre, has seemed to surge in recent years, to the point where I can't walk into a bookstore without the default cover of "girl with a back tattoo facing away from the camera while holding a bladed weapon of some sort, big moon in the sky." But I believe that's not entirely what Urban Fantasy is about. The "urban" part implies an alternate world from our own, but a similar one, one we can relate to easily. In fact, this is mostly why I've chosen not to write Urban Fantasy; it doesn't allow me as much of the freedom I enjoy though, say, Epic Fantasy.

Many have argued recently that "vampires," as a concept, never truly fell out of favor. After all, we've had Anne Rice, various trading card and video games franchises, Vampire Hunter D, and numerous other properties to keep the undead in the spotlight.

Angels, much like vampires, have captivated the world for centuries. Their likenesses have been painted, worshiped, and transformed through a kaleidoscope of visages. Just like Rice's beloved Lestat is in many ways different from Meyer's Edward, an angel like Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life is barely in the same universe as Michael from the recent release Legion. Yet these pairings of beings hold something in common that, in the fiction world, can be more important than personality traits: lineage.

Clarence is just as much an angel as Michael while Edward is just as much a vampire (if not as manly) as Lestat. They may live in different worlds but an elf is an elf, a vampire is a vampire, and an angel is an angel. So, if you want to have beings who originate from God's Heaven, bear wings, and interact with human beings on planet Earth, you call them angels ... or, you invent a different world entirely and call them gweezledorfs.

But will an angel fad take flight? No one can predict which direction the market will turn to next. That'll be up to all of you. Unfortunately, few of the Werewolf ventures have proven to be successful (Wolf, Wolfman), and we're running out of old-timey monsters to turn into heroes (The Mummy, Frankenstein). Angels could offer our fiction-hungry minds a few new roads to travel.

I think they're about due for some serious action-adventure, a little falling-in-love, and possibly a sprig of redemption. We'll see.


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Pre-Order from Trapdoor to receive a signed, numbered copy

Buying directly from the publisher has its perks.

The "Add to Cart" buttons have been added and activated to The Ninth Avatar's page over at Trapdoor Books. The first 100 hardcover copies pre-ordered from Trapdoor will each be numbered and signed, so if you want a low number you need to act quickly! (Note, this offer does not apply to Amazon purchases!)

What are you waiting for? Pre-order your hardcover today!


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The Ninth Avatar "In Stock" on Amazon

If you've been waiting for the right time to purchase a copy of The Ninth Avatar, the time has come. The order has been placed with the printer, so in a few short days any purchases can be fulfilled. For those of you waiting for the Hardcover edition, that should be showing up in a day or two.

Browse here to buy the Paperback on Amazon. (There's an Author page for me there, as well!)

The "buy" buttons should also be showing up on the Trapdoor Books site shortly, if you prefer to buy directly from them rather than Amazon.

Either way, let's get this party started.