Month: January 2013

Ah. There you are.

I made it through this year’s holiday season not doing the whole dysfunctional thing. Not one day did I have the my family isn’t a Hallmark family blues. Largely, it was because I was employing that zen trick called working on a project, but it was also because I didn’t attend any big gatherings by which I needed (felt like I needed) to measure myself. We call this progress. Also, you might remember that I was GRATEFUL because a health scare turned out to be…nothing. I take from this that the isolated Christmas isn’t too shabby for my psychological well-being.

So, the small bit of blues I’m feeling now? I’ve just finished a book. That always happens. I’ve just gone back to work and am rattling around mostly empty hallways while my fellow faculty enjoy another two and a half weeks vacation. I used to bitterly resent that, but now they give me money to ease the pain, and it does. 😛 Still, there’s that tiny funk that makes me want to eat some bread and go to bed.

***

Which means it’s time for me to think a little more upbeat about what I have coming up this month. This weekend, which is only one day away, is another weekend to just hang and write. It is my hope to get the novella in shape for some betas, and then next week, it’s the new project all the way, from now until completion. So, yeah.

I plan to be gone for the three weekends following: friends in Minneapolis, a madrigal dinner in Ames, and a trip to Vegas for a women’s writing retreat. We will be spaing and writing, and NOT critiquing, which I think sounds okay.

So there are some good things coming. And some good writing and research coming up.

***

It looks like it could be a really interesting year. This year, I will go to the following conventions: Wiscon, Convergence, and Icon. These are the big three I usually frequent.

I will also be attending a writers retreat in Las Vegas and another retreat in Colorado. Of course, I will be inviting all of you to Paradise Icon in November, which I will be putting together.

And there’s the big trip, the service learning trip to Viet Nam for two weeks in June.

Bryon and I are also eying Disney for next Thanksgiving.

***

I plan to continue my movement toward expertise hours. That’s my way of measuring writing success. So far, I am on target. At the end of 2 years, I have completed 1228 hours. My original goals was to have completed the remaining 6000 hours in time to retire, and when I started in 2010, I imagined that to be 10 years. I don’t know if I’ll make the retirement goal or not, but I should make the expertise goal. I am actually 28 hours ahead, because I need 600 hours a year to make that goal.

And I have merely had one short story published this year: Mark Twain’s Daughter from Paper Golem. Lots of work behind the scenes.

Osteoarthritis and make-over stuff get their own posts, eventually.

***

So, to the blues, I say why? Look at what you got going on? Why would you find time to be down? You’ll be going cool places and meeting interesting people, with lots of time for that work/life balance. Be grateful for what you got. Keep writing.

Of course, I could just be getting moody/broody for the next book. I have been known to be a bit of a method actor. Then again, I hope not. Or it could be a LONG year.

And…we’re back.

I’ll be plugging away here at Kirkwood until school begins again on the 22nd, and consequently a little more active in my journal life. Today I’m getting teachers and so on organized for the next semester.

***

I’m working on a couple more interviews, so hopefully I’ll have those up for you soon. And expect a lot of research to pop up here, as we are beginning a new project, and I need to find out about, in no particularly order:

Solomon
Egyptian history, specifically what happens when Islam comes into the country
Egyptian gods
Venice in the 1840s
The Borgias

I think that’ll do for starters.

If you know of any good sources in any of those areas, I’d be happy to hear from you. I’ll do my own research, but you know, if something springs to your mind as definitive, tell me about it.

One of my favorite writers, Christopher Barzak, was kind enough to let me interview him about his process. If you haven’t read Christopher’s work, please do. His work is like lace, or snow.

***

Tamago: Do you have a regular drafting process, or does your drafting process vary from book to book. Can you describe it to us generally, or at least for one project?

Chris: I don’t think I have a regular drafting process. It’s been different for each book, though I do have a somewhat regular drafting process for short stories, I think. I generally start a story after I’ve been hooked by a voice or an image or a scene that I can hear or see (or both) in my imagination. I can’t say what sparks these voices or visions, to be honest. Sometimes it’s mysterious to me. Other times, though, I get hooked on an idea that I think of in response to something else. Like, for instance, a recent novelette that I wrote was a retelling of H.G. Wells’ short novel, The Invisible Man. I read the novel as a young person, and last summer I decided to reread it.

I was struck by how much Wells pokes fun at the rural villagers who make up a large part of the cast, in the village of Iping, where the Invisible Man seeks refuge in the Coach and Horses Inn for four months as he attempts to create a serum that will reverse his invisibility. Wells really caricatures rather than characterizes the villagers, and he especially pokes fun at a maid who works in the Coach and Horses, Millie. The side characters struck me as an adult reader. I didn’t find myself laughing as much as I did as a teen when I read the book. Making fun of them or treating them as objects of comedy because of their rural/village background felt needless and cheap. So I got the idea that I wanted to give Millie, the put-upon maid, a chance to tell the story from her point of view.

To do that, I reread the original novel three more times, took notes about specific scenes I wanted to revisit in my story, and also add notes for several scenes that I would be inserting into the story, scenes that didn’t occur in the original book. Then I started researching the time period and the setting, which was turn of the century West Sussex, England. I went so far as to seek out a book of slang from that region of England at the turn of the century, and to study the phrasing that locals would have used in a variety of exchanges and conversations, to get a sense of how they spoke. As I studied that book, I started to hear a voice of a young woman. It was after I felt like I’d absorbed enough local color and lingo that I felt confident in my ability to mediate the voice of the narrator. Then I was off. I had a general arc for the story because it’s a retelling, and I knew what I wanted to add to the original that would change how the original is read. Once I had the voice, I was able to go forward with the telling. I wrote a draft, then revised for language and nuance, and showed it to some trusted readers for feedback. Did some more slight revisions, then submitted it to the editor Jonathan Strahan for his online magazine, Eclipse. He took it. This year it was published and also selected for Gardner Dozois’ Year Best Science Fiction.

Continue reading “The Writing Process and Christopher Barzak”