06.01.13
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May 2013 Stats

In May, I:

Read

  • The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (for the third time)
  • More of Howard Waldrop’s Other Worlds, Better Lives and Charles Tan’s anthology Lauriat, though I didn’t finish either.
  • the current issue of the SFWA Bulletin

Wrote

Edited

  • short stories for individual clients

Also

  • did a written interview with Charles Tan, where he asked about Fish for SF Signal (1400 words). Read it here.
  • set up a Free Fiction page where you can find PDFs of my stories.
  • got involved, again, in a controversy concerning the SFWA. I’m now assisting with (not on) an advisory committee on solutions. I can’t say more yet, but I do think they’re headed in the right direction.
  • quit an editing job that wasn’t a good fit for me (they wanted me to do a lot of work for what amounted to less than $5 an hour, and no matter how much I need the money, I don’t have time for that).

Overall, I

Wrote 2,700 words of fiction, and about 8,000 of non-fiction. Edited and read much less than I would have liked. Spent most of my time this month on dealing with life stuff: financial, medical, child care, job hunting. Important, and ultimately getting better, but time-consuming. I don’t feel I’ve accomplished much during the last 4+ weeks, which is disappointing.

June will be better, though. I can feel it.

Advice for June:

Get out of the house. Write somewhere new. Library, coffee shop, park bench–as long as it isn’t where you normally write, give it a try. Changing our circumstances changes how we think, and putting yourself into a new place often puts you into a new mindset. I left the house a lot this past month. I walked several miles a week, spent time at a lake and at parks, wandered through our annual summer festival, and you know what? By the end of the month, I’d figured out what I wish I’d known at the beginning.

Looking for past stats? Read January, February, March, and April here.

05.30.13
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When We Think Different is Brave

I use Pinterest for a couple of reasons. It’s a think-ahead, a place to put ideas for things I want to own, because I tend not to be an impulse shopper. I like to know that if I’m spending my money it’s on something I’ve wanted for awhile, not just to fill a void at that particular moment. I use it to collect book covers I like, so that I can be inspired when I’m designing. There are recipes for drinks and food, some of which I’ve tried. There are also reference boards, with links to info on types of shoes or knife blades or the fancier ways to knot a tie.

While it isn’t the sum of human existence, it is an example of something I’ve been pondering for a while.

I’ve noticed that a lot of writers curate collections of “characters”. Photo reference for costume, inspiration for writing–there’s nothing wrong with the idea, on the surface. I have boards of images for reference. I’ve been collecting one for my Mythos noir story, so that I can get the prices, clothes, cars, and buildings right when I write. Visual models are great for adding true detail to a story when you’re no longer (or never were) in that time or place.

The problem is, many of these boards are filled with women or people of color, and labeled things like “fierce female characters” (or “fabulous”, or “tough” or “strong”–something implying they’re acting in a way that the bulk of the population wouldn’t). When the images are of women in armor, appropriate (or not) to their native land, then okay, an armored up person of either gender, of any race, is pretty fierce. They’re ready for battle, and as long as we’re not talking about chainmail bikinis or something like this*, it’s a segment of the population I think we can rightly label as impressive.

But what about a woman wearing a traditional hat, the same as any other woman in her part of the world? How about one standing outside, smoking a cigarette? Or a little girl standing in front of a bed? How about a woman who is laughing, carrying a baby, or the thousands of other images you find labeled the same way?

What makes all of these women similar is that they are doing perfectly normal things, without being afraid to do them. And we think of that as “special” and “strong”, because we expect women and people of color to be afraid, to blend in, to be unseen and therefore not making a target of themselves. Anyone acting differently, even if it is to simply be themselves in an unflashy but unafraid way, well, we call that “brave”. We decide that it’s fierce and strong and bold. We mean it in a good way, don’t we? We’re proud of their courage, we salute the fact that they’re not just bowing down… but that’s because there’s still an expectation that they should.

It’s a tough situation because as long as there are people who oppress anyone who stands out, then it can take bravery to be different. But we shouldn’t be encouraging a world where that’s true. And we definitely shouldn’t be writing new worlds where that stupid idea gets perpetuated.

Start with this: stop collecting pictures of women or people of color under the banner of “brave”, if you don’t know their story. Instead, give them accurate labels. Write down the real reason that photo moved you. “Woman wearing a hat I would never wear” or “little girl wearing a dress that took her mother hours to make, far more than my mom would spend on me” or “I wish I was brave enough to wear those earrings without being afraid someone would laugh”. At least then you’re admitting what you really think, and giving yourself–and others–a chance to consider that truth.

Note: I left out the women athletes, actresses, artists, musicians, or activists–people who we know something about. Though it’s more accurate to call someone strong when you know their personality, my point was about incorrectly labeling images without context. You want to say Joan Crawford, Frida Kahlo, Sigourney Weaver, Octavia Butler, Hazel Ying Lee, Bessie Coleman, or Elsa Avila are strong? Yes, I’m sure that they are. But we know they accomplished things that most people–regardless of gender or race–don’t ever do.

*Not “viking woman”, as the tag I found it under said, but Skyrim cosplay. In case that wasn’t obvious.

05.29.13
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Haiku for Procrastinators

Without a deadline

Words pile up in advance of

A reason to be.

—

I always know I

Should be writing. I never

Forget that I’m not.

—

I think if I wrote

You would see my heart beating

In letters, and love me.

—

I want to be so

Much more than a person who

Hasn’t yet written.

—

All of my stories

Are nothing but dreams, without

Words on the page.

—

All of my dreams are

Stories I haven’t told you

But one day, I will.

05.27.13
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Spring Cleaning

This has been a slow, quiet, weekend. Not the bad kind of slow and quiet–where you’re anxious to do more but feel trapped into doing something else, or worse, nothing at all–but the good kind that feels like a long stretch after a nap. The weather has been lovely, blue skies and warm without being hot. I’ve had the front door open most of the weekend, letting fresh air in. The child has been great: letting me have quiet time when I wanted to get work done, going with me to run errands or walk outside, snuggling up to watch Adventure Time… he even let me extract a huge splinter from his finger (first time I’ve had to do that), and while it was in so deep I ended up having to cut it out with a pair of scissors, he held mostly still and let me do it.

We did the quarterly laundry run to wash ALL THE THINGS (which is different from the weekly trip to the much-closer laundromat for just clothes and such). Every so often I like to have cleaned all of the blankets in the house, and to run the giant shark through the wash. I got some writing and editing done too, tidied the apartment, and even updated my website. (What do you think? Can you find everything? Free Fiction is new, and About Me is updated.)

With the new box spring, my bed is comfy again, and I’ve actually been sleeping.

This is the first time in about a month I took a break from job hunting. I’m very near to getting a day job, I think. I’ve put at least 30 hours a week into this job search (I know because I tracked it like it was a freelance job, so I could be sure I was working as hard as possible on it), with looking for open positions, writing a new cover letter for each resume, researching companies, and interviews/tests. I’ve signed up with the local temp agencies, and tested very well (typing speed, MS Office products, etc). After not getting any bites for a few weeks, I revised my resume, and that’s helped a lot. I’m now “under consideration” for a dozen positions; I was one of two candidates left for one job when they picked the other guy–an internal hire. I got into a final interview for another job, when we discovered they put the wrong hours in the ad.

I don’t take those setbacks personally. It’s like submitting a story–you can have the best, most wonderful, story ever, and it still won’t fit every market. Sometimes you have to revise it before it sells. Be polite, accept your rejections, and keep trying. I will end up with a good job eventually. I am qualified for the jobs I’m applying to, enthusiastic, and everyone who’s met me seems to like me. I was polite about the hour mix-up, so that place is keeping me in mind for their next open position.

Feeling confident about that, I spent this weekend getting other things done instead. I still have a lot to do, but the more I can get organized at home, take care of little things that have been bothering me (like my previous website theme), the easier it is for me to go forward from here.

And now? I’m finally going to organize my files. I even to get to play with my label maker.

05.23.13
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Innsmouth, 1939

I am, as I usually am, writing on a couple of different pieces at once. Though I have the plot outlined for my Mythos noir story, “The Night Hours“, I’m taking my time writing it because the research is so important. Noir is about a lot of things*, including a focus on setting. It has to feel gritty, slick, and damp… sexy, and hopeless, all at once. To build that kind of world, I have to combine HP Lovecraft’s Innsmouth with enough real, late 1930s, set dressing to convince you this all could have happened. There’s so much visceral and emotional information you need to buy into for a noir story to work. You can’t relax into it if the little details aren’t right.

I can already tell that this is going to be the start of something bigger, so I don’t mind spending the time. My Innsmouth is economically depressed, as befits Lovecraft’s description, and the years after Black Tuesday. It hasn’t got WWII to really bring the money back in, but the fishing is good, the rent is cheap, and a lot of people who couldn’t make a home somewhere else are starting to settle there. But it’s still a weird place, under the surface.

There’s the expected mix of boarding houses, secretaries, busboys, and messengers; all part of a migrant population which ebbs and flows like the tide, and from whom the occasional missing person isn’t really missed. The weather isn’t great: constant fog, dense rain, snow and sleet and slush in the winters. And too often, the strange things get ignored, because it’s easier than focusing on something you can’t control anyway, when you’re barely getting by yourself. The First Church of Christ (Deluge) teaches that the Flood got interrupted, for example, and will be back again soon to wipe us all of the face of the Earth. How weird is that? But they give out bread on Tuesdays, and host a free fish dinner on Fridays, so their congregation is always full.

It’s Fall in Massachusetts, in 1939…

Music is the biggest source of daily entertainment, with a record player in almost every house. We just lost the great Tommy Ladnier. The Duke Ellington band is popular, and so is Benny Goodman’s, but Count Basie is starting to catch up. Jazz, blues, and swing abound, blend together, and influence each other greatly. The major touring bands are predominantly white-fronted, playing more swing than jazz (timed for the foxtrot and other couples dances), but the smaller clubs are either still in the midst of their jazz uprising or starting to play “jazz revival” style–and more importantly, people of color play in, and front, many of those bands. Wilder Hobson’s American Jazz Music and Frederick Ramsey / Charles Edward Smith’s Jazzmen are published, and both try to convince the world that Dixieland is the true jazz. Dizzy Gillespie has joined Cab Calloway’s band, Charlie Parker is developing Bop, Louis Amstrong is starting to be considered “too commercial”, and Nat “King” Cole is using only a jazz trio–piano, guitar, and double bass–instead of a big band, and though he hasn’t yet given up playing piano to focus on his singing, he is doing the occasional vocal set in between instrumental pieces. John Hammond has arranged the first of two performances of “From Spirituals to Swing” at Carnegie Hall.

Listen to Ladnier’s I’ve Found a New Baby
Continue reading →

05.21.13
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Editing Tips #3: Who’s Telling the Story?

Before I can edit I story, I have to know a few things. I have to read it over to get a sense of the author’s voice (editing means making the story better, but that doesn’t include making it not yours anymore). I also need to know where the plot ends, so that I can shepherd the opening and middle bits along to their conclusion in a logical way*. But the most important part that I need to know, that I have to be absolutely clear on, is who’s telling this story.

That isn’t the same as identifying the main character, or even the narrator. Think of it this way: in order for you to be reading the story, someone from that world has be telling it to you. Ignore the author; unless it’s an autobiography, the author is just the vehicle. They’re the medium allowing the ghost of your dead husband to inhabit their body in order to tell you where he hid the family valuables. The storyteller is going to be the character that gets the story to the writer.** This is the character who lives all the way the through to end, sees everything that happened, or gathers the information from everyone else.

Sometimes they’re easy to find. A story that begins in the first person, and doesn’t end with the narrator’s death, is probably told by that narrator. A story which features more than one perspective can be harder to reconcile, so you need to read carefully to find the common thread. The person who was there in each scene, or the one who could have talked to everyone else, and gotten their stories.

Sure, not all tales have a single teller. They should, but it’s so much easier to go the “third person omniscient” route, and make your narrator God. Sees all, knows all, lazy fucking storytelling. Yeah, people do it. (But not you, right?)

Say I have a story where a single narrator is travelling through the jungle. It’s first person, narrator uses “I”. I know whose story it is, and it doesn’t change. Now what? Knowing that this is Bob’s tale means that I know where certain things should happen in the plot, because that’s how it would happen to him. When he’s talking about going through the jungle and discovering a camp, he’s describing the trip, the weather, the beat-up road… what comes next? It should be his view of the camp as they come up on it. If it’s anything else, a piece of the later story, and then the narrator goes back to describe the setting, it’s going to feel out of place.

When Helen walks into the room and sees a crime in progress, there are a million ways to describe that. The easiest, and worst, is to tell us things she couldn’t possibly know.

Helen saw her friend Mary, hands tied, kneeling on the floor, obviously afraid that the masked man was about to kill her.

How exactly is that obvious? Helen can’t know what Mary is thinking, and there’s no description of the other woman’s face, body language, or anything else that would tell us. She could be afraid that the masked man will steal her jewels, rape her, torture her to get the location of the Maltese Falcon, or even be obsessing about the fact that her new carpet is getting dirty. But the author knows what Mary is afraid of, so let’s rewrite it to say that:

Helen saw her friend Mary, hands tied, kneeling on the floor. As tears rolled down her face, a masked man stood a foot away, his gun pointed at her head. Helen wanted to cry out, but was afraid the man would kill them both.

We still have the same characters, we get a little more description (because we’re seeing what Helen is seeing), and we have the threat of death. You can even take out that last line and leave it ambiguous; the audience will certain pick up on the fear and tension here. Depending on the rest of the story, the death threat could have already been expressed, or left as implied. But this way, you’ve removed a place where someone might wonder, “How does she know?” You cut out a chance for the readers to lose their interest in the story. Instead, you keep them in the moment, in that room with Helen and Mary, wondering what’s going to happen next.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, our readers look for that storyteller. We pick up a book and we expect it to be told to us. This goes back to our childhood experiences of being read to before we read ourselves, and further back to our cultural experiences of oral storytelling. We exist in a society that encourages active telling of tales (through music, tv, plays, movies and other performances). It’s even in the way we describe how we take in a show: we read a story, not “a story was read by us”. We consume entertainment; we create advertising to portray it as energetic, in your face (or your ears), actively trying to push an experience on you.

We bring that perspective to reading, and find the teller in the story. If you know that ahead of time, you can make sure you’re choosing who that narrator is, and how they transfer their tale to the reader. You can make sure that it flows smoothly, the voice is consistent, and there’s no place where the reader wonders, “How would they know that?” without finding out by the end. You can make clear the path from teller to reader, so nothing stands in the way of them enjoying your story.

Or you can hire an editor to help you with that.

* Logical doesn’t mean straightforward. It means that it has to fit whatever rules you’ve decided apply to your story. There’s always rules, a framework, the physics of the thing. We’ll talk about that another time.

** I don’t mean in a metaphysical way, whether you ascribe to pantheistic multi-ego solipsism (aka “World as Myth“) or not.

05.16.13
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Crime and Television

I prefer British tv, most of the time. It succeeds for me because it’s stripped down, character-driven. Writing is the primary focus, followed by acting, and then somewhere farther down the line comes all of that “production value” stuff. It lacks the shiny veneer of most American shows, where being pretty, slick, and smooth are more important than being smart.

As you’d expect, a lot of what I watch is speculative fiction. There’s Doctor Who, of course. It’s campy, light, and only sometimes serious, just enough to keep it grounded while mainly being fun. I liked Primeval when it was on. Same kind of thing: entertaining, quick, impossible science but not distractingly bad, though I admit that it never got as serious as DW (occasionally) can be. But it had dinosaurs, which always makes me happy. Red Dwarf, the original series, is hilarious. The first three seasons of Being Human were well done. Season 1 of Misfits is shockingly good, (though goes downhill almost immediately after) and is similar in feeling to Attack the Block. Black Mirror is the only anthology show I’ve seen that comes close to being what Twilight Zone and Outer Limits were on their best days.

I like comedies, too: Black Adder, Black Books, Coupling, IT Crowd, Doc Martin. Quick, witty dialogue delights me. And I thought Downton Abbey was good during the first two seasons. But I what I really enjoy are the police procedurals. I love the psychology of the characters, I love seeing modern takes on noir–because they’re all in living in noir worlds. The hero isn’t going to wake up one morning having solved every crime there is. They take the small victories when they get them, choose their battles, fall sometimes, but keep getting back up again. They push forward against the dark, even when the dark is pushing back against them. Continue reading →