Blog

Sometimes, when you look into the mawing abyss of the universe, and you feel that maybe you are sending bottled messages into the ocean, and no one is responding to your query letters, well, then the universe will send you a way to make you feel included.

In my case, that is the dozens of students that I’ve seen today who want help without about everything under the sun. So, it does matter that I exist. And I shouldn’t be having any time to think about the silence of the submission.

The mystery of life? Sometimes you can have no rain, and it can pour AT THE SAME TIME.

Off to faculty luncheon. Will nod and smile a lot.

I have yet another new rule. You may remember Schaff-Stump’s First Rule of Writing:

THOU SHALL NOT SEND OUT CRAP. (which boils down to multiple drafts, multiple readings of the work by others, going with the gut instincts of which suggestions feel right to implement, and feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. which does not mean holding on to a work until it’s perfect.)

Well, here’s Schaff-Stump’s Second Rule of Writing:

DO NOT BE DISTRACTED BY THE SHINY.

What on earth does that mean????

Continue reading “Don’t Be Distracted by the Shiny”

Horus is the last of the Ennead. He is the child of Isis and the re-assembled Osiris, and primarily his role in Egyptian mythology is to retake the kingship of the gods from his usurping uncle Set. There is a pivotal moment in that battle where Isis tries to help Horus, and Horus gets mad at her and that could symbolize some cutting of the apron strings. Horus does gain ascendancy over the pantheon.

Now, here’s where things get a little confusing. Horus and Ra are often conflated, so Horus is also associated with the sun, and is also associated with ruling the gods. The thinking is that Horus was absorbed into an earlier version of the pantheon and since he was a ruler, the combining of Horus and Ra was easy. Ra is represented as an old man, Horus as a falcon headed god, and usually the combined Horus Ra is falcon-headed as well. That’s why in the Klarion novels, both Horus and Ra will be raptors.

***

Now that we’re finished with the Ennead, we should talk about the duality of Sekhmet and Hathor. Many pantheons around the world love duality. Who doesn’t like, say, Parvati and Kali? So, next time, get ready for drunken dancing and lots of blood.

The day started off inauspiciously, with a small auto accident. I scraped a woman’s mirror, and I have called to get it taken care of. Ironic that I have an accident when my facilities are at the best they’ve been while I’ve been driving for a while.

Coming up VERY soon: Horus. Utena. Iron Man.

***

But I have to post this, which is the first letter I’ve ever gotten from a fan for a published work. I will reproduce it as accurately as I can, and since it’s from a 10-year-old, well, there will be misspellings. I am charmed and humbled at the same time.

Continue reading “My First Fan Letter for Published Work”

Walter Jon Williams, the man who changed how I write, is kind enough to weigh in on his writing process. If you would like to change the way you write, you should visit the Taos Toolbox page on this site.

***

Tamago: Do you have a regular drafting process, or does your drafting process vary from book to book? (If it varies, please keep one project in mind as you answer these questions.)

Walter: Normally I start at the beginning and work through to the end, following an outline I’ve carefully constructed beforehand. Sometimes, though, I’ll start by writing several key scenes, then string them together afterwards.

Tamago: Which part of writing–drafting, revising, critique from others–do you enjoy the most? Why? The least? Why?

Walter: The most fun part is the most creative part, which is coming up with the idea, developing it, and constructing the outline. Drafting can range from tedious to enormous fun, depending on how close I am to my original inspiration. Some books are a joy to write, and some are a slog, and I don’t know which is which till it happens.

Redrafting is generally enjoyable, because I get to rediscover earlier parts of the work. The critiques can be fun, because I get to see my friends, and the comments are often useful.

Tamago: What is the longest time it’s taken you to complete a project? The shortest time?

Walter: I think I’ve written a short-short in one sitting. But that’s not hard.

The longest I’ve taken on a book was two years, but then the book was more than twice as long as my average book, something well into George RR Martin territory. It was a horrific experience, and I never want to do it again.

Tamago: In what ways, if any, has your writing process changed over time?

Walter: I’ve grown a lot more organized. I always had outlines, but now my outlines are a lot more detailed, with the big scenes all set out.

And I’ve also got better. There’s a good deal less anxiety when I run into a problem, because I have more skills to deploy.

Tamago: Do you work alone, or do you participate in a critique group? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages to your approach?

Walter: I’ve worked with one critique group or another for thirty years. The only disadvantage to working with a critique group that features four or five full-time writers is that the pages add up, and you have to devote a lot of time to reading your colleagues’ work. But then most of my colleagues write pretty good stuff, so that’s a minor complaint at best.

Continue reading “The Writing Process and Walter Jon Williams”

Oh writing. Sometimes you are a pain in the ass, and you are drudgery, and you are pain, and it’s hard to get things to come out right.

But not today, baybee. Actually, last night, two of the characters at the end of the chapter 3 rewrite came alive. There’s some improvement, sure, but they are there, solid. And today, Lucy sprang off the page like she’d just been waiting for me to write her.

Don’t let anyone kid you. The writing zone is like the runner’s high. That’s not to say your work is great, and that’s why you’re joyous. It’s more to say that you’re feeling it, and joy is the reason you’re writing. And this is what I’m looking for. Joy. Among other things.

Rock on, little keyboard.

***

This weekend, I’ll be at Demicon in Des Moines. Reading from the new novel Sunday at 11 am. If you’re around, I’d be happy to see you there.

The SEED students come from Central America and Haiti to study agriculture and take the skills back home to do good things with them. Recently, they had a national conference on our campus, which regrettably I was unable to attend.

These students come to us with virtually no English, so they spend a lot of time with us over here in ELA, and their skills build, some of them amazingly.

Jaime Santos, one of my students from last semester, well, he produced this for the conference. It should make you think why it is vital for these exceptional scholarship students to take their skills home and make their countries better.

These are my students. I am so proud of them.

Another Australian, Dinesh’s unique writing voice takes me back to the pulp 30’s. And I mean that in a good way. Here’s his answers to some questions.

***

Tamago: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Dinesh: I seriously thought about it as a job when I turned seventeen. I wrote my first story when I was nine, so I guess since then the desire was incubating.

Tamago: What genre do you like to write in?

Dinesh: Fantasy and science-fiction.

Tamago: Which writers (books, movies) have influenced your writing?

Dinesh: Writers: Roger Zelazny, George RR Martin, Robert Jordan, and Veda Vyasa. Movies: none!

Tamago: What are you working on right now?

Dinesh: I’m working on an epic fantasy trilogy based on music and a cross-genre quintet (five books) set on Earth and five planets.

Tamago: Some people would describe your writing like 30s pulp or movie serials. What attracts you to writing with a high space opera feel?

Dinesh: I write in many different styles. The story demands a certain style. If it is a scifi adventure flick that would dictate a fast/showy type writing, if it is a poignant literary piece that dictates a slower, leaner and more crisp type of writing. To me it depends on the story, just like a song: if you sing a love song maybe it’ll be slower paced, if you sing “nightclub” song it has a faster beats per minute.

Generally though, I’d say my style is somewhere between a mixture of Robert Jordan and George RR Martin. Because those guys are my greatest influencers!

Tamago: How did you come to apply for Taos Toolbox?

Dinesh: I’ve always wanted to go to a real life writing workshop hosted by *real* full time writers. There are lots of writing courses hosted by nobodies – that’s irrelevant to me. I need to model myself on people who are actually full time writers. That’s what I want to be.

Tamago: What advice would you give to a writer attending a workshop for a first time?

Dinesh: Be happy. Be cheerful. Be passionate. Be helpful. Be friendly. Give more than you take.

Tamago: What is your dream writing project?

Dinesh: A complete cross collaboration. I love comics/graphic novels, magazines, web comics, blogs, video… so I’d like to engage a few others in the field to execute on a multi channel approach. I write the story, somebody else animates it, somebody else does the graphics for a comic, and maybe even an audio version.

Tamago: As a writer, where do you hope to be in ten years?

Dinesh: Be writing full time in 5 years. In 10 years maybe helping out an existing writing workshop like Taos. Giving back.

Tamago: Where can readers find more of your work?

Dinesh: Damaged Goods at Shortstory.me. Evangeline Vicare at Residential Aliens.

***

Best of luck with that super complicated project!

I haven’t done this for a while, but I think I need to do an accounting of creative endeavor.

From the looks of things, I have one active first draft, one project to finish and polish with how ever many drafts are left into either a novel or a novella, a short story to finish and revise, four books ready at the pitch stage to outline and draft, and seven books to plan, outline and draft.

Man. That’s a lot of stuff. And that’s not all the ideas, but hey, that’s enough for now! Because I’ll be 48 in June, and this could keep me going for well, I’m guessing well into my retirement.

Plans can change if I sell a book, and someone wants more of something I’ve got. 🙂 It’s just a matter of sitting down and writing all this. You can vote for your favorite project, but the Klarion books are the first ones beyond the Were Humans and Falling. Just…get…the damned…things done.

Details below. If you aren’t interested, I’m cutting this now.

Continue reading “Accounting for Creativity”

So. I went to Paradise Lost. At least I think I did, because there are some vaguely hallucinogenic posts from around that time. I decided to go at the last moment largely on the strength of the attending pros, and this left me digging through stuff trying to find a story to take for critiquing purposes. The Poison of thy Flesh is in very early days and while I know the story, I haven’t written and layered the story. Besides, it’s what I’m taking to the Colorado workshop.

So, what to take to Paradise Lost? Well, how’s about The Winter the Troll Danced with Old Nick?

To be honest, the troll story didn’t get a lot of love out there, and in retrospect, that’s a good thing. It’s a very dense story with way too much going on, and not a solid single through line. It wanders a lot, like a pantser first draft. In my case, I had some ideas and I just threw them all down. So, there are some VERY clever bits (like how I get rid of the old school troll and some of the teen troll interplay), but there are also some cloudy bits, boring bits, and downright sadistic bits. It is a story that does not know itself.

I couldn’t have told you that at the time. I was trying to get the work produced under a deadline, before I knew that an agent invitation wasn’t get a book done by a certain time, but rather get a book done to the best of your ability, and send it along then. I was also much too enamored of my research, and wanted to show it off. AND I was still writing through glass at that time, watching my characters through a window, again a sign that I hadn’t spent enough time with the story.

So…before I went to Paradise Lost, I had already begun to make changes. I can see two stories in the piece worth salvaging: the story about the old school troll and Manuel, and the story about Grant and David. I’d like to use the frost elf love/hate thing somewhere down the line, and I’d still like Grant to be involved with Magdalene and the character formerly known as Astrid, but I still think that might be too complicated for one book. So…the pieces I gave to the Paradise Lost crew were just the Troll brothers pieces, and the rest will wait for its place patiently in line.

What kind of reaction did I get? I think most people felt hit with a tsunami. There was a couple of great comments: Whatever you do with this, maintain this kind of YA tone, and there’s so much that’s right about this that we’d be here all day talking about it, so I’m going to focus on what needs work. Yeah, I’d pay good money for comments like that. And I did. 😀

But here’s the take home wisdom. What I had there was probably two or three chapters. I introduced at least 4 complicated concepts and 10 characters in one chapter. I alluded to, but mostly confused readers on points, and one of Walter and Nancy’s cardinal rules is that detail should move the reader forward, not gum the reader up.

And as the critiquers and writers said all these things, Post Taos Catherine nodded her head like a bobble head poodle in your back window. So correct. So, the troll story, which was originally cracked out of another giant story, becomes narrower and deeper in scope yet again. And the writer that I am learns that in order for stories to be intimate, they need to be written under a microscope, not through a window.

It was a useful retreat. I’m thinking about going again, and checking out what it’s like while I’m well.