In the face of darkness, high stakes, and horrible odds, you can save yourself and the world
Sorry, sorry.
Saturday night after The Avengers, I fell ill suddenly, and I am still playing the catch up game. I have an upper respiratory infection and an ear infection, which is making it a challenge to stay on top of the planet. But I have finals this week, so I am in the office. Whatcha gonna do?
At any rate, it has been a miserable week for writing, BUT I will get back on the horse once my balance improves.
So, what about The Avengers then? Insert spoileriffic free cut here.
E.C. Myer‘s first novel Fair Coin is a wild ride through wish after wish. This debut novel demonstrates a mastery of writing that has been honed through a variety of short stories. Here, Myers shares his writing process with us.
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Tamago: Do you have a regular drafting process when you write a book, or does that process vary from book to book?
Eugene: I always start with the same process, but it might be necessary to try a new approach once I get farther into the draft. My default method is to work out the major plot points and characters ahead of time. By the time I start writing, I might have scattered notes about character traits, bits of dialogue, plot ideas, a few scenes—not in any organized sense, like you’d find in an outline, but just fragments of ideas that I may or may not refer to while I write and which help guide the draft. This isn’t too different from how I would tackle writing a short story, though I might have even less figured out in advance for a shorter piece.
My third novel is an example of when my process changed considerably. It had too many characters and too complex a back story to keep everything in my head. I also had difficulty deciding what to write next during my writing sessions, which wasted the hour or so I set aside for them every morning. So I finally decided to try outlining every scene in the book, and it was exactly what I needed to move forward with that particular book. I returned to my old ways for the next novel.
Tamago: Do you write by yourself or do you write in a writing group? What do you see as the benefits of the method that you choose?
Eugene: A bit of both. I’m lucky to belong to a terrific writing group called Altered Fluid, and I also have a number of other trusted beta readers, but I don’t share my work—or even talk about it much—with anyone until I have completed a solid first draft on my own. All my first readers are smart people with unique writing strengths, areas of expertise, reading interests, experiences, and perspectives. Their critiques help me see if the draft is working the way I hope it does, for a wide range of readers, and shows me where I can make improvements in rewrites.
I think it’s helpful to know people who can not only tell you that a draft has problems, but can express what they are and offer suggestions for fixing them. Writing can be very lonely and frustrating—ultimately, it’s just the author and a blank page—but it’s so much better when you can talk with others who understand what it’s like. The communities I’m part of provide an invaluable support network when things aren’t going so well with writing or submitting my work, and it’s also great to share in everyone’s successes. Good news, even when it isn’t your own, can be a powerful motivator to keep going when you’re discouraged.
Another side benefit is that I often get to see their stories and novels before they’re published. As a fan of their work, I get a thrill from reading manuscripts before anyone else, and I’m honored that my friends value my feedback. And critiquing other people’s fiction absolutely improves my own writing.
Man, I am geeking out.
Unless you’re living under a rock, you probably know that Avengers is coming. And yes, while I am trying to do my best to be a calm, cool, intellectual professor for today, while I am trying to put in a concentrated effort on chapter 6, which will spring more or less from my head, fully formed, like Athena, while my outward demeanor is ripple free, inside I am squeeing like a weather alarm on test day.
It wasn’t quite this bad with Thor. Maaaannnn, I was up for Thor, but I could be all intellectual about Thor. Witness:
I have just turned down a full-time administrative position with Kirkwood. I will remain an ELA Coordinator who teaches two classes on a 201-day contract.
While I didn’t know what shape upper administration’s offer to me would take when they finally got back to the English department about our proposal, the offer they made me was a great deal more work for a tiny bit more money. And while I would have liked to have done better for the college and the ELA program, a savvy employee must also respect herself and the work she does.
Therefore, nothing changes. I will continue to do the job I do with the time I have. As we gain more staff, this will help anyway, so perhaps the need for a full-time administrator will fade.
I still have the same great boss, the same great coworkers, and the same great support staff I had earlier today. I still matter to my students. I have a flexible job with awesome benefits, with the protection of a strong union. This means that I will be able to keep writing books, rather than having to scramble for evening times to do art. And I am not an at-will employee. And I don’t have to be in the office all day. And I can still get professional development. What a great job I have!
Only my pride is suffering. I feel a bit dispensable and undervalued at the moment. I believed I was thought to be a more valuable player than I apparently am, and I suppose as soon as I get over myself, things will be fine.
So, yay?
I’ll admit that there are a couple of tropes that capture my imagination. I’m a sucker for a hero overcoming odds. I love the villain reversal into someone worthwhile. And, here’s a deep one…
I like time travel and multiple realities.
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Done wrong, this can be a real horrible cliche, sort of a surprise reveal of an evil twin at the wrong moment. Done right, and you get awesome stories. Like Back to the Future. Or Fair Coin.
E. C. Myers first published novel landed on the io9 summer reading list and was called pure crack in a review there. Well, yeah. The only reason I didn’t finish the book in one sitting was that I had to go to a meeting. I looked up and like 3 hours had passed, and I was thrilled I hadn’t noticed.