Blast From The Past Post #3

How I Became a Writer
(Original post date February 1, 2013)

Nobody just sat down one day and decided "I think I'll slam my face on the keyboard for months at a time until Microsoft Word tells me I have 50,000 words." Although I've heard of people (mostly girls aged 13-16) suddenly deciding they want to write, most usually give it up after about the first page or two once they realize writing is hard and it's too much like homework.

However, most dedicated authors you hear about had really bad lives (don't quote me on them, these are just what I heard) like JK Rowling was buying Christmas presents for her daughter from thrift stores, A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh) had an abusive father, Lewis Carroll had a bad stutter, J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) was rumored to be psychologically stunted.

It's like you have to have a dark past in order to write.

"Mom, give me a black eye. It'll make me a famous writer someday."

But nah, that's not the case. One of my favorite authors, John Flanagan, started his career by writing stories for his son.

A good way to help keep you writing is stop and think about what got you writing in the first place.

When I used to tell people how I became a writer I would start it when I actually began writing a novel at around 14, but a couple of years ago I realized it actually goes further back than that. I must have been anywhere from 6 to 8 years old and I started writing these little stories called Hearts and Stars. It was about a girl who was friends with a talking dog and cat and other stuff. The sun and moon also talked, and were in love with each other, but were never allowed to see each other. Throughout the whole little pages I glued on shiney metallic hearts and stars, hence the name.



Have you considered killing off a character?

I've mentioned being homeschooled before. A big part of teaching kids is trying to grab their interest. My brother and I have always been really into videogames, and around the point where our dad decided we were going to be writing some papers we were playing Diablo 2 (I was 12, though I could have sworn I was younger) Our homework was to write letters to Charsi (the blacksmith in Act I) in-character about our adventures.


She was awesome.

I don't remember an awful lot about them, but I do remember having an absolute blast.

I've always been quick with my wit, though my source needed some work. Usually I quoted something from one source or another and it was rather applicable, but never original. As I got older I was able to from a good sense of humor and managed to come up with a lot of my own comebacks and additions to a conversation. Problem was, people would laugh and then ask "Where did that come from?" Not so much a rhetorical question (to the effect of "Oh you're such a card!") as much as it was Wikipedia asking "Source?"

They'd always asked it, but it was only when I'd started coming up with my own material that it began to bother me. I didn't want to be thought of as a parrot of television shows. I wanted to prove that I could come up with something entirely original.

I found this in writing.

I was in the range of 13 or 14 when I started writing my first novel, Carda's Cloak. I wrote it entirely by hand, so often that I started to cramp. I'd managed to make about 100 hand-written pages over the course of what felt like a year or two, but was probably closer to six months. Edits were hard, since I had to erase large chunks and hope the edits filled the same amount of space. I'd even changed the main character's name at least twice, going through all of the pages, erasing, and rewriting it by hand.

I later realized that writing would work much faster if I used the computer. I could add or remove whatever I wanted much faster. So I began transcribing Carda's Cloak all into Microsoft Word. Problem was, there were too many things I wanted to change. It was like writing a whole new story. Even as I rewrote it I began to realize something that Stephanie Meyer couldn't: Writing an entire novel based on a ten second dream I had was a mistake. I scrapped it, though I still have the original hand-written version sitting somewhere today and, more surprisingly, the Microsoft Word version that, apparently, hasn't been touched since 2005.

I was 15 when Metroid Prime was released, and I got way into Metroid (before that I still loved the original Metroid and Super Metroid, but fandom was a whole different thing before the Internet as we know it today). Trying to find more Metroid, I stumbled across a website called Metroid Galaxy (now defunct) and, at the time, they were recruiting for the Metroid Role Playing Forum. I thought to myself "Metroid and writing at the same time? Awesome!"



And that's why all women today wear space helmets to feel sexy.

So I joined and, with everyone's help and encouragement there, they molded me into the writer that I am today. There's no possible way I could even begin to show my appreciation, and all the times I've attempted to sound a lot like the written equivalent of a drunk-dialing at 2 AM, slurring "I love you man..." into the receiver.

Somewhere between Carda's Cloak and the start of joining the Metroid Role Playing Forum I started a novel called Langoria. I was about 16 to 17.


Not to be confused with Eva Longoria.

It was later renamed to Angel Queen. Angel Queen is probably the point where I could actually call myself a writer. This was the one I really dedicated myself to. It was the first time I actually considered publishing. I worked on that one until I finished it, 50,000 words, and then edited it several times and called it finished in 2008. After that I was really excited to start on Book 2, Angel Grey. Though rather thin at 32,000 words, I finished it in a year and hopped right into Book 3, Angel Fall, in late 2009. I only got about 3,000 words in when a certain group of kids took up residence in my brain: A werewolf, a witch, and a vampire.

I tried to finish Angel Fall, but Crystal, if you've read the book, is a rather insistent character. After some back and forth I finally caved, slapped Dusted together in roughly 6 months, and went back to Angel Fall.

But I couldn't leave Dusted alone.

Although my records say I last worked on Angel Fall in January 2010, and I started Dusted February 2009, Dusted was here to stay. The Langoria Trilogy was, officially, dead.

Although Angel Queen was the first novel that made me say "I want to publish this" Dusted was the first anything I had ever written that made me think "I can publish this." Dusted had some kind of magic, a spark, that made me realize this was a great story and that people would not only read it, but would enjoy it.

So I wrote it, beginning to end, and it was an amazing trip. I made some edits, and, over the course of a year or two, built up the courage to share it with people who could help me polish it. It would be a little while longer before I managed to gain courage to start sending it to an agent (with a big push from Cynthia Hand, of which I mention the story Here)

 

 

Here's the rejection letter I got (with the name removed):

 

Thank you for sending me a query letter describing your work. After careful evaluation, I have decided that I am not the right agent to represent your work. Please do not take this rejection as a comment on your writing ability. Given the large amount of submission I receive, I can only properly represent material that greatly excites or interests me. Since this is such a subjective business, I am sure another agent will feel quite differently about your work.

I wish you the best of luck finding representation with the right agent and good fortune with your writing career.

 

Nice of her to send a response, even if was generic.

 

Anyway, I was reading some articles about getting published, and self publishing, and one in particular that my dad sent me gave me enough motivation to say "Stuff that!" to the publishing business, get Dusted published for Kindle a week later, and here I am today.

 

I've got a new novel in the works. It's nearing completion and will need some revision, so it's still a way off. The roleplaying forum (I prefer the term "Collaborative writing forum") is still alive and well today, though they've since moved away from being specifically Metroid-oriented and have renamed themselves Reality's Exile. I even still participate. If you're interested, or at least curious, you can find them Here where they are currently trying to recruit some new members.

 

So, there I am.

Blast From The Past Post #2

I Have An Idea Mr. Writer
(Original post date August 20, 2012)

I've heard of writers bugging people about stories they should write, but I never thought I'd be one of them. I think the first was when my brother said I was a writer, and a woman started talking to him about me writing a biography of her.

Since then I've had a couple of people either offer me their ideas, or tell me a more general idea that I should write.

Really, it's like seeing a guy in a straitjacket, in a padded cell, beating his head against the wall and you say to someone, "Hey, that guy doesn't have enough crazy, I think I'll offer him some crazy."

I'M A WRITER!

If a writer was short in ideas, they wouldn't be a writer now, would they?

I have so many ideas in my head that they're competing for attention. I can't get 20 pages into a new idea before something else jumps into my head and starts rearranging the mental furniture. I eat and I work and I lay in bed, all the while these ideas are becoming more and more detailed, which really only makes them worse.

As of this very moment I am working on two separate manuscripts, and a massive collaborative-writing project going with at least twelve other people, and I have four other ideas in my head vying for attention. I don't just mean vague ideas either. When I say ideas I mean worlds, characters, plots, scenes, beginnings, endings, dialogue, rules. All of these, for all seven ideas total, are going at the same time.

I don't have room in my head for your ideas.

Hey that idea sounds like a pretty goo-

Even if I did, though, I wouldn't ask for your story.

Don't take it the wrong way, though. I'm not saying because I hate it, quite the contrary, I love hearing about other people's stories, I wouldn't ever ask for it for several reasons. Probably one of the biggest is because I would never make it right. It's your story, you should be the one writing it. You know all the ins and outs of the world and characters and plot. I'm in the dark, stumbling around.


That actually makes for a good comparison. Asking someone to write a story for them is like putting them in a dark room in your house that they've never been in before. The light is turned off and you're trying to direct them to the other side of the room because you know it so well. You can't touch them, steer them, or give them a flashlight. All you can do is talk to them. Guess who's going to the hospital?

"A blog made us do it!"

A writer, no matter how good, can never tell your story for you.

Second, how do writers get started? We certainly don't think to ourselves, "Oh hey, I have this awesome idea, I should tell Benny to write it!" We decide we are going to write it, and we do, and then we all cash it in and jump into our giant swimming pools of money and dance on our solid gold toilets.


You knew I was going to use this picture again.

This all doesn't even take into account money, really. What happens if you do take someone's idea, write it, and it becomes a bestseller? How would that split?

"I wrote it."
"But I came up with it!"
"But I wrote it!"
"But I had the idea for everything!"
"BUT I WROTE IT!"

I honestly don't know how cowriters even get along without strangling each other.

So maybe, instead of asking your writing friend to consider writing this brilliant idea of yours, try it yourself. There's nothing quite like it, and you may find yourself in a straitjacket while people are telling you their ideas before long, too.

Blast From The Past Post #1

Hey! While I'm busy this summer I have found myself lagging behind on my writing. Since I'm so busy I thought I'd dust off some old blog posts, fix the picture arrangement a bit, and reuse them. For the next month enjoy some oldies but goodies!

Growing Up on a Farm
(Original post date August 8th, 2012)

No two farms are alike. No matter how many farms you go to, things are going to be done differently.

I was about 10, when we went from a small town to the countryside. For the first couple of years we had nothing but our little dog and cats (as well as cats that came with the house. You always have cats come with a house.)

I can't remember anything exactly, but eventually we got a couple of cows. They were bottle fed. If you've never bottle-fed an animal you're really missing out on something. Your hands get all sticky, and you're not sure if it's drool, milk, or a gross combination of the two.


Eventually, we got some pigs. Luckily, they were weaned, so we didn't have to deal with feeding them. Everything a pig sees, it wants to eat: birds, grass, roots, slop. I've seen them dig up and eat pieces of coal, I've seen feathers leftover from a bird snacking on their pellets and was too slow to get away. Pigs are kind of scary, really. The only thing that outweighs their scariness is their deliciousness.

We named him Kevin.

We've raised a couple batches of pigs and cows, as well as sheep, but what are the most prominent in my life are goats and chickens.

There isn't a lot to chickens except that every time you think they've set the bar for stupidity, they not only raise that bar higher, they get stuck on it, hang upside down for a hot summer day until their head turns purple, and then when you try to rescue them they beat you across the face with their wings and scream at you until everyone else is in an uproar. I've seen chickens die in ways that would make the creators of the Darwin Awards sputter. But they're delicious.

Stupidly delicious.

We keep most of them for their eggs, and let them free range most of the year. They'll kill anything green they have extended access to. The chicken run looks like a miniature setting for a Mad Max movie. Oh, and they poop. They poop like crazy. Anything they can get themselves over they'll poop on. The area right outside the barn and chicken coop is like a minefield. Except there's so much poop all you can do is avoid the extra liquidy bombs. Even my cats step in it once in a while and scream "Eeeeeew! What the #%&^% is wrong with you!?" (my cats swear a lot).

If you're trying to get a vegan friend to eat meat, get them a chicken. By the time that thing is ready to dress out and cook, you'll have to fight your friend off to keep them from eating the chicken's raw heart out of spite.

That's not to say chickens are all bad, they're quite a source of entertainment. They like to make a racket when they run, which causes a ripple effect and sets the rest of them off cackling. Seeing their interactions with the cats is like seeing a small, furry and feathered adorable war going on.

I've got a Buff Orpington in my sights, repeat, a Buff Orpington.

Goats could almost be an entire thing of their own. Let me start by saying they test everything: your fences, your patience, your sanity, your car's hood. Our first goat managed to jump out of the bed of a pickup truck and run around, avoiding three people, for an entire day, while its front and back feet were hobbled together. After that we've had goats press through spaces smaller than you'd expect a goat to be, squeeze through every little imperfection in your fence, and be sneaky enough that sometimes you're not even sure if they're getting out or not. I remember one conversation in particular:

"Uhm, is Garrett supposed to be in with the girls?"
"What? Noooooo!"

Goats are magic, and I don't mean the good kind of magic either. They're warlocks, and they know it. They're incredibly smart, too, and twice as stubborn. I've seen goats save up their poop so they can drop their smelly little marbles for you to watch them roll off the milking stand, just because you put her up there, or they try to poop in the milk you're collecting. They'll put their foot right on the edge of a milk bucket and tip that thing right over, otherwise. I've had goats step on my feet, and it took me a couple of years to finally realize they were doing it on purpose.

They're kind of jerks.

Goats are a ton of fun though. Slash is our oldest goat, and she adores people. She'll rub her face on your leg, like a cat, or bring her hoof up to touch you with it to get your attention. There's something of a rivalry between us and her, where she slowly tries to escape from the pasture. The moment she know she's been seen, though, she usually heads back in.

What is good-magic about goats, is when they have kids.

Usually it's late February to early March when they give birth on our farm. There's still snow on the ground, and the cold has a kind of silencing effect with the world, so it's just you and a goat in labor. Unless they're a new mom they usually do fine, and it's almost like Christmas to see how many she will have and what they will look like. We've had some real anomalies for fur color thrown at us sometimes, we've also had moms that we didn't think were pregnant, then had a couple of kids, somehow. Doesn't matter what happens, there's always a "wow" moment every year.

Sometimes, you have losses. Idaho winters are pretty harsh and cold, and sometimes we don't get to the kids in time. But we have had some kids you'd think were brought back from the dead. I've seen kid goats, their bodies stiff and cold, be revived and grow up completely normal and healthy. Our method to warm them up involves floating them in a warm sink full of water.

You ever have one of those moments where you just sort of wonder "What in the world am I doing?" but it's in a weird, good way? Yeah. Goats float. So you're trying to keep their body in the water and their head above it. There is a tiny goat, floating like a pool toy, in your kitchen sink.

You're never bored on a farm, nor are you really rushed. It's slow and peaceful in a lot of ways. Sometimes I can just pull up a chair and watch the animals as the sun sets, and it's pretty zen.

Until I see Slash eating the lilacs.

Something I Wrote Ten Years Ago

I don't even remember writing this. Anyway, enjoy!

The world is my videogame.

            Every morning I wake up and put on my Clothes of Cold Resistance +2, this is followed by the loading of the level known as Bathroom. After I have completed that level I go through a couple of other pointless levels, they’re mostly for extra powerups but I don’t need them right now. I stumble into level 5, Kitchen, and acquire item Cereal, this isn’t in my inventory long since I combine it with another item I find called milk, together these create a single, but powerful, item known as Breakfast. Thanks to Breakfast my Strength and Constitution have both gone up a point.

            After an hour it is time to make coffee for Player One and Player Two before they wake up, this gives them +2 Speed and makes them immune to sleep effects. Due to the experience of making the coffee I level up. I learn new feats called Resist Boredom and Pour Liquid.

            Player Three, known as my brother Rob, comes back from the world map and informs me that the goats have gotten out! I rush outside there they are! I wait for things to get all blurry, indicating battle mode, but it never comes so I unsheathe my Battlestick and wait for my time bar to rise so that it will be my turn.

            It never comes, and my legs are getting tired from holding myself in a dynamic pose, so I run up and grab one of the goats, taking it back to its pasture. The loading time was horrible.

            I gain experience but then realize I forgot to put on my Coat of Freeze Resistance, I’ve been taking Ice damage this whole time! I look down to try and see how many hitpoints I have left but I can’t see them, up, down, left, right, there doesn’t seem to be a display. Well, I figure perhaps you can’t see them in the world map; I already tried opening the menu anyway.

            The day goes on, some days we travel in a car to town, why we don’t just take the airship is beyond me, other days we just sit around and do nothing. Good thing I learned my Resist Boredom, I use the feat and find a book to read.

            It’s ten minutes to bedtime and I use item Toothbrush, I have gained Resistance to Plaque for twelve hours! I walk up to my bed and wait for the “Sleep?” text to come up but it never does, what kind of video game is this? I climb into bed and fall sleep expecting a little piano tune to play.

            Tomorrow is another day, another set of levels in the video game of life.

What I Read in 2015: Second Quarter

 Or: Will the Wind Ever Stop?

I lost track of the months here, so I'm not going to bother since there aren't too many books here.

Outpost by Ann Aguirre

This was a bit of a filler book, enough that it makes me hesitant to read the final one. The first book, Enclave, spends a lot of time making the main character badass, a lot of traveling and realization of new places and things. Outpost spends the entire time nerfing the main character's badassery (dresses and trying to fit in and hugs and kisses and panicking) as well as keeping her in a single area. The main squeeze character also spends his time emoing and staying away from her, this "OMG what if he doesn't like me anymore? Oh wait it was just a misunderstanding" business actually happens twice, and I think it only exists to force the love triangle on the readers which, again, doesn't work because her choice is clearly stated throughout books one and two. It is obvious to her, to him, even to guy #2. It wasn't a bad book exactly, but I did find the story dragging a little and with a touch of disappointment that it wasn't up to the same quality as the first book. Overall I'll have to read book three before I decide of Outpost was really worth reading or if I should have just stopped at book one. I still highly recommend book one, however, as it stands alone very well.

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

This one is going to get "For fans of Harry Potter!" thrown around, and I actually have to agree. Imagine if, instead of Harry not knowing anything about magic, he was instead told how horrible magic was and how evil wizards were, and then was thrown into Hogwarts where he believes he's being held prisoner.

That's the premise of The Iron Trial.

I've never read anything by Holly Black and I've wanted to, but having Cassandra Clare as a coauthor made me hesitant because I am not a fan of her Immortal Instruments one bit (her LotR fanfiction that she tries to pretend doesn't exist is, however, hilarious)

It was a really good book and had a twist ending that I didn't see coming, but felt a little under my maturity level, which doesn't happen too often. I'm not exactly picky with my YA fantasy books. Still, I really enjoyed it and will be waiting for the sequel to drop in price before picking it up.

Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer

Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard.

What could possibly go wrong?

An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard Merlin…and not, y’know, die or anything.

Scott Meyer is better known for his webcomic Basic Instructions, which I have run into off and on over the years, but never found it interesting enough to follow. This was only something I knew about after reading the book.

It's part Jumper part general wizard schooling, and part nerd. I really enjoyed it. You get exactly what you are expecting and the only reason I haven't gotten the sequel is that I feel swamped in enough books as it is, but I will definitely be considering it.

The Good, The Bad, and the Furry by Tom  Cox

This one is part cat book part autobiography about the guy who runs the Twitter account @MYSADCAT I don't read a lot of nonfiction (this is maybe one out of four or five in my lifetime) but it is very interesting. It's not all cats all the time, which makes it good. Despite being the modern era it does have a sense of country living in the 70's. It also has plenty of well described characters and scenes. I am currently looking forward to his next book.

Penryn & the End of Days Trilogy by Susan Ee

I read the first two books at the end of 2013, and could have sworn I wrote a review of them.

Stupid brain!

Angelfall was a book that I wish I had written. An angel apocalypse. It blew me away that this series was indie published and hasn't been picked up by a big-name company. It is only one of two series that I originally bought as ebooks and enjoyed them so much that I purchased regular copies of (the other being Under the Never Sky) Here's the description of the first one from Amazon:

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with Raffe, an injured enemy angel. Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco, where Penryn will risk everything to rescue her sister and Raffe will put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

The last book, End of Days, finally came out. I only managed to get a page or two in before I realized I needed to go back and read the first two, I'm glad I did because each book begins right where the previous ones leave off with no timeout for exposition. It's one of those trilogies you need to read back to back in one sitting when all of them have been released.

How would I describe book three however? Merely okay, maybe a bit disappointing, but what I wasn't expecting was goofy.

There's some weirdness, I think about 20% of it was devoted to time travel filler. Penryn and Raffe travel back in time to another dimension using a person as a portal by sticking them with a sword. It wrenched me out of the story a little. Penryn also has the same exact problem that the main character in Outpost has, that of being a lovesick teen worrying whether the guy likes her or not after all.

The ending fell completely flat on its face and too early to have wrapped up nicely. I get the feeling the author got tired of writing it. Still, there have been worse endings, and the first book I enjoyed enough to be okay with the ending of the third, so it balances out. I would still recommend it to people.



I'm sure I've forgotten some, but most of my free time has been dedicated to getting Dusted published in paperback, working on The Crystal Witch, religious studies, and an entire month of free time raising some orphaned kittens (which will likely feature in another post sometime). That, and as the weather warms up, I'm going to be busy with other things.

Other...very productive things...

When You Use a Word Too Much

Sometimes I read old blog posts of mine.

I was trying to get something smug or egotistical, but you get this because the Internet is weird.

I was reading Writing Yourself Into a Corner when I kept coming across a word. That word was "However." A few times it was okay, but after a while it started to bug me, eventually reaching the point where it was like a slap in the face. Seriously, go to that post press Ctrl + F and type "however" into the search box. I use it eight times, twice in a single paragraph!

I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but occasionally I get stuck using the same word over and over again. I was guilty of using the word "just" all the time when I wrote Dusted. I didn't let it bother me as I wrote, but afterwards I did remove about 2/3rds of them. I either removed them entirely, or else replaced them with a substitute when removing it didn't work.

These days sometimes I can catch myself using a word too often. When that does happen I don't stop using it, instead I go do the bottom of the manuscript and make an Overused Words section, which I also use for entire phrases, and keep writing without worrying I'll miss it when the manuscript is finished.

I don't have my Editing Hat on while I'm trying to wear my Writing Hat.

Don't be this guy.

Dusted Now Available in Paperback!

I'm proud to announce that, after three years on Kindle, Dusted is now available in paperback!

Dusted has so many uses!

A doorstop!

Especially for cat pee-marked ones!

A bookmark!

For itself!

A hat!

Stylish!

 A fridge deodorizer!

So much absorbance!

A house for your banana!

Wow!

 Take Dusted wherever you go, it's waterproof!*

*not actually waterpoof. Though it would be hilarious to see the attempt.

Buy it now!