JuNoWriMo

For the last month, all of my projects have been on the back burner. All except one. I’m proud to announce that I’ve completed the JuNoWriMo challenge; to write 50,000 words during the month of June.

I’ve also completed the first draft of an entirely new novel, one which I hadn’t planned on writing until I had two of its prequels under my belt. But events conspired to make this the novel I was most prepared, and most motivated, to complete.

Now, 50,000 words is hardly a complete novel for the genre – High Fantasy – that A Lion’s Tears belongs to, but it’s a good start. The draft reached a total word count of almost 54,000, and I’m adding to it daily. My planned total word count is somewhere around 80,000 words or more, between fleshing out scenes, adding a new character, and expanding upon some character relationships.

Now for some background on the novel. A Lion’s Tears is based on about a year’s worth of roleplay on a Wheel of Time themed Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) called A Moment in Tyme. That said, it is neither fan-fiction nor a roleplay log – it has evolved into a new and complete story in a unique fantasy setting. However, fans of the Wheel of Time novels may find familiar elements in the story for that reason. I also credit the Japanese comic book series Pandora Hearts for much of my inspiration.

Irovel, the heroine, possesses a double-edged gift – her voice can sway anyone, even command them to obey. But the sorceress Glietta wants that power for her own. Irovel must choose between hiding what she is or protecting those she loves – a choice made harder when the sorceress bewitches one of her closest friends.

Please enjoy the second draft of the first two chapters of A Lion’s Tears. All feedback, comments and critiques are welcome at this stage, and if enough of you like it, I may release more chapters this way in the future.

 

Flash Fiction

When I was younger, short stories were beyond me. Every idea I had was for an epic adventure, spanning hundreds of pages if not several books. Few of those were ever completed, however, and most of them never even outlined. Why? Because I had difficulty writing such a long project when I hadn’t yet mastered the smaller section.

Whether it’s a short story or a chapter, a writer needs to be able to break down his ideas into simple chunks that have internal cohesion and completeness. I often gripe about the first chapter or even the first paragraph of a story containing so many Capitalized Nouns that there’s no way I’m going to be able to put anything in context without having read the auther’s previous work. Chapters – and short stories – shouldn’t be like that. They should be relatively complete, introducing new elements one at a time, not in a pseudo-expository infodump. It’s ok if you mention one or two things which won’t be explained until later, but don’t do it all at once, all right?

On to the point then; there’s an excellent tool out there to help you master the art of the short story. It’s called Practice. The almighty Practice has the power, if you serve it well, to grant you that elusive writer’s perfection that we all seek.

So how do you practice? The best way for me is to participate in one of the many short fiction contests being run all over the web. Many of them are short; entries can be written in an hour and revised in ten minutes. Some are longer, requiring a month or so of preparation, writing and revision.

Participating in contests and flash fiction exercises is a good way to get a benchmark of where your writing stands. Writing to a prompt is good for discipline, helping you to teach yourself to focus on the details which are important to your continuity. They can also help you take that much-needed break from slaving away on your manuscript; I like to have at least two main writing projects to work on at a time, as well as several goals to accomplish around the house, for when you just need to get up and stretch your legs.

Getting your work out there by participating in contests can do a lot of things which writing in your notebook can’t. It can help you bring traffic back to your blog, where readers who liked your entry can find more. It can also increase your network of friends and potential alpha readers for your larger projects. And finally, it can help you prepare and polish sections of your actual manuscript, such as this little excerpt below, which is my entry for Becca J. Campbell’s Flash Fiction Contest & Giveaway, as well as being a character sketch for somewhere in book two of The Pegasus Wars. Enjoy.

—–

He awoke to searing agony.

It was dark, and he couldn’t immediately determine where he was. He reached down toward his leg, where the pain was coming from, to find that a large shard of metal had embedded itself there. Had it hit a vein? Panicked, he tried to find something, anything on his console that would light up, let him see how bad the damage was. Moving made the shard twist painfully in his leg, but he managed to ignore it somehow.

None of the master controls worked. Had he lost reserve power too? No; he was cold, but not the cold of space. His oxygen pump must have been working as well, or he would never have regained consciousness.

He had been certain that the last shot fired at him was going to burn him to a cinder. His commander had ordered him to flank the enemy, and he had rushed to obey, darting recklessly across their line of fire. Then he had seen the other man pass him, abandoning him to the mercy of a dozen Tesaad fighters. Had he made a mistake? Angered the man in some way?

It didn’t matter. He felt lightheaded, and he could taste blood in his mouth. Reaching below, he felt his seat, sticky and wet. His heart pounded in his ears, frenetic, then slowing, and he felt his consciousness begin to crumble. He had been sold out. And now he would never know why. A rasping, frantic laugh was the last sound that ever crossed his lips.

 

Recognition

A website I help with recently ran a short fiction contest. Being the wife of one of the judges, and a contributor the the site, I didn’t bother writing an entry for it. Only, apparently I did. My short story, Two in Blue, received an honorable mention in the contest, even though I never submitted it. I guess it pays to have writer friends who pay attention.

Frankly, I hadn’t even written it with the contest in mind – as I mentioned before, it was done by the afternoon of the day I dreamed about it. Technically, it even qualifies for their next contest - I’m not holding my breath though, ha. In fact, I’m certain I only got the mention because of a low volume of entries for the contest. So this post is equal parts self-congratulation, encouragement for you to enter their next contest, and announcement of my newest project.

Ausslag is the story of an interstellar prison/work camp, and one of the inmates there. Jeide, a smuggler and a thief, only wanted a shot at the fabled treasure of Ausslag, but like many thieves before her, she was caught and thrown into the prison itself. Now she must either endure life as a prisoner or discover a way to escape, and she must still discover whether Ausslag really holds a treasure after all.

The story should be equivalent to the length of Damascus by the time it’s complete. Though it is unrelated to Damascus or my larger project, A Thousand Stars, it does take place in the same science fiction universe.

 

Short Stories

As I promised I would, I’ve finally put Damascus, my award-winning short story, up on the website. Unfortunately I was never sent a copy of the final edit, so there are a handful of inconsistencies between it and the published version. Simply click the link above to read it, and feel free to leave a comment if you like it/hate it/wish there were more of it, etc.

In addition to adding Damascus, I’ve put up another short story, which for now I’m calling Two in Blue. Two in Blue was inspired by a dream I had on Sunday morning just before waking, and was written in its entirety within 24 hours of that dream. Rather than serving any specific purpose, Two in Blue was more of a personal exercise, both in turning a dream into a working story, and in expressing a thought entirely in metaphor. Again I welcome all comments, even negative ones (my husband, for example, hated it – and that’s ok).

Finally, an update on my novel; I’ve worked through some story revisions for the first book of A Thousand Stars, and I think I’m at a point where I could start writing it again. I had to reconcile some very important plot points, and decide whether to keep or throw out much of my later outline when I discovered a major continuity issue in the original outline. I’ve been thinking about posting up the current drafts of some of the early chapters to get some feedback on them, but I haven’t decided yet. Maybe if I get a little more blog traffic.

So anyway…what are you still doing here? Go read something fun!

 

Trudging Along

It’s been very hard to make any progress on A Thousand Stars lately, much to my chagrin. Usually I can get work done, but lately I’ve just felt very tired, dizzy, and sometimes a little bit queasy while sitting up. I’ve made lots of progress on projects around the house that don’t require concentration, but it really is frustrating not being able to think clearly. I think what I’m looking at is something called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, but these doctors keep playing musical chairs with me, so it’s hard to get a diagnosis.

On the one hand, it’s hard not being able to write. On the other hand, it’s helped me to see from some new perspectives (I’m always adding to my collection of those). First, the perspective of somebody with an average IQ. Growing up, people always told me I was smart, but I didn’t really see them as unintelligent, so I thought they were just being nice. Now I realise that I was measuring my intelligence against the adults around me, and not my classmates. With this perpetual brain fog I’m in right now, it’s hard to remember the words I want to use, or to put together as complete a sentence as I am accustomed to. Or more importantly, to hold the details of an entire novel in your head at once. Even parts of my own novel which I made a note to go back and work on later look fine to me now. So I apologize to any of you with an average IQ who has ever had anyone tell them ‘you just don’t get it, do you?’. Because seriously, it’s a lot harder to make mental connections when your brain isn’t working as quickly as someone with, say, an IQ of 140.

The other thing I’ve come to appreciate is how somebody who seems perfectly healthy could faint from a little stress. Not that I’ve ever fainted – I’m fairly fit compared to most sufferers – but in researching my own symptoms I’ve come to understand the mechanisms behind sudden faints. Although I don’t have any characters for A Thousand Stars who would have the trait, it’s a nice little tidbit to tuck away for a future project.

Now if only I could get this brain fog and the queasiness in my stomach to go away and let me write…

 

Resolutions

I’ve always thought the idea of a New Year’s resolution to be a little silly. Maybe it’s just me. A year is a long time to focus on just one goal, or even a set of goals, before you know what’s in store for you.

First of all, there’s the accountability. Who’s keeping track of what goals you set for the future? Your friends? Your mom? No. You have to keep track of something like that for yourself. Have you ever tried sticking up a note next to your workspace to remind you to do something? How long does it take before that note, so obvious at first, becomes just another ubiquitous bit of background? Maybe if there were an app that reminded you of your resolutions each month, it would be possible to remember what you resolved last January. I seriously have no idea whether I even made a resolution last winter, let alone whether I made any progress on it.

Second, how do you know when you’ve accomplished your goal? Say you set a goal to spend more time with somebody, or less time doing an unwanted activity; did you measure the hours you spent doing it last year? “More” or “less” are pretty vague quantifiers. If you’re going to set a goal, you need to get specific. Even if you say “I’m going to lose weight”, does your resolution specify how much weight you’ll have to lose to be successful? Or what your action plan is to accomplish the goal? If your resolution doesn’t include these specifics, you might as well save your breath, because you’ll never know whether you succeeded.

Last, the timing. Once a year is an awfully long wait to set a goal for self-improvement. I understand the significance of starting with a clean slate at the beginning of a new year. It can be a powerful motivator. But if you slip up, it can backfire on you just as powerfully. Once you’ve botched an “I’m not going to do x or y this year” resolution, that’s it; you don’t get another fresh start until the end of the year. And if you think of something in say, March, that didn’t occur to you in January, you’re not going to want to wait nine months to get started; you want to begin right away, while the motivation is fresh. Goals and resolutions should be an ongoing process, constantly refreshed and reevaluated to see if they’re accomplishing what you intended them to.

So I’m not going to make a New Year’s resolution tomorrow night. I’m going to continue as I have been doing – setting goals day by day based on what I see is most important at the time. I’m not going to say “I will finish writing ‘A Thousand Stars’ this year” or “I will publish three stories” or anything like that. If I do, then I do, and why stop there?

 

Ahh, Publicity

My science fiction short story Damascus was mentioned in an article on the UVU Review! I stumbled upon this article quite by accident – it also features a photograph of my handsome husband, standing with the rest of the Warp & Weave staff. He’s being promoted next semester, which unfortunately means that I won’t be submitting the sequel to Damascus anytime soon. Glad I got the first one in while I still could!