The likes of Matt Kressel, Paul Tremblay and Hal Duncan have done a better job of relating this past week’s World Fantasy better than I can. Suffice to say I attended no panels yet feel no guilt for that, I had some stomach issues that didn’t keep me down for long, and the parties were without peer. I caught up with some old friends and made some new ones. The weekend was a great time with the Altered Fluid crew, a few of which had some excellent readings that I did attend.

So, in short, a haiku summary:

No panels for me

Aussie beer and Advil don’t mix

Start rainbow with red

I’ve been a fan of Faulkner’s work for some time now. His body of work is such that it’s taken me years to get through a good chunk of his stories. I’ve never considered him a spec writer, even though his story “A Rose for Emily” qualifies as horror of the highest level, especially considering the era. While reading “Collected Stories” recently, I found another piece by Faulkner that delves into the realm of speculative fiction: “Beyond”. Some will probably read it and roll their eyes at what has become a common spec trope (no, I’m not saying what it is, go read it!). But, for its day, and with Faulkner’s finesse thrown in, I really enjoyed it.

That’s it. I’ve felt guilty for not posting recently, a consulting gig has kept me away from writing and doing much of anything else for three weeks now, and I felt I should at least make an attempt. Said gig ended yesterday, though, so now it’s back to the real work of the next few months.

I’ve been doing a home improvement project these past few weeks, and the process has got me to thinking about tools. That Black and Decker mouse sander; it looked like a toy when my parents gave it to me a few years back, but that thing has saved me so much time and energy. Laser levels, jigsaw, drill press. I’ve used them all over the past month. And when it comes to modeling, forget about it. I’ve got enough files, knives, and airbrushes to populate a small hobby shop.

Ever since reading King’s “On Writing”, I tend to think of writing habits and tricks as tools. He builds on the whole metaphor of a toolbox throughout much of that text. I won’t go into the details because I think most writers are at least aware of that book, but if you haven’t read it do yourself a favor and pick it up sometime.

In that light, I picked up a new writing tool recently. Outlines. To me the word conjures images of small junior high school desks and desperately trying to think of a research paper topic. But, it seems that there are writers who swear by them.  I prefer the so-called “organic” approach, where the writer gets an idea and some characters in an initial situation and then simply writes and sees what happens. That isn’t to say that I don’t have an idea of where my stories are going; I usually have an idea of the final scene of a story and writing becomes an exercise in seeing if I can get there. My novel started as a Coca-Cola and Fritos induced dream of the final chapter, but the path to that final scene was completely unknown to me.

As such, I’d never given outlines much thought. But then as I began to edit more and more stories, I discovered what I called the “post-outline”. I started it with my novel; took it out and did a chapter-by-chapter and scene-by-scene breakdown in outline form. I was surprised how much easier it made it for me to think about the piece and what I wanted to change in it. Everything’s right there in front of you.

“Well of course it’s right there in front of you, dufus,” some of you are saying. It’s just one of those things that never occurred to me until I actually did it for myself. It’s a great tool to be able to read through a story’s outline and move around single-sentence scene descriptions to see how they mesh in different ways. It also allows me to move around scenes, something that was verboten in my mind before this process came along – chapters were constructed as such and not to be tampered with. In the past two weeks I’ve had a major breakthough on one short story and in my novel revisions, because I now allow myself to move scenes around, because I can see the bigger picture all at a glance.

Since I discovered this for myself I have found out that it is in no way an original idea (I’m just great at re-inventing the wheel). Evidently Nancy Kress has been quoted as saying that a novel’s first draft is nothing more than a wordy outline, and at ReaderCon this year I attended a panel on storyboarding that put forward the outlining method as a good troubleshooting tool for completed pieces. The ReaderCon panel was also especially helpful with my chapter stigma. Simply don’t use them, they say. And after using the outlining method, and seeing how Dan Brown constructed “The Da Vinci Code” with what are essentially sequences of scenes and no chapters, I can see the merit.

So I have a new tool. It’s not as shiny as the airbrush I purchased last month, but hopefully it’ll be just as useful.

As of this past Tuesday, July 10th, Sybil’s Garage is open for submissions for the next issue. Send us something!

ReaderCon 18 was this past weekend, and a good time as always. I found myself doing more socializing than attending panels this year, but still got some good information from the people in the know. A few things that I learned and/or was reminded of:

1. Evidently I take offense at a college professor not knowing the difference between a second-person POV, and a third-person POV which happens to use the word “you” a lot. It bothers me enough to make me walk out on a panel, and then be teased about it for the rest of the weekend.

2. An editor/writer that you admire will sometimes reject your story even if he likes it.

3. A re-write can do wonders. I heard Leah Bobet read her piece “After the War” from Sybil’s #4 and was blown away by it. (It also happens to be a wonderfully done second-person POV). I remember when it was first sent to the magazine I was one who argued AGAINAST taking it (not for quality reasons, but some political and historical ones). The printed/read version addressed all of my qualms and really touched me as a veteran.

4. Evidently I am not the only writer who is a little freaked out by potentially having their stories critiqued by a puppet. (“Crap, she has the sock puppet out. That thing just doesn’t get my subtext.”)

5. Even after TWO FREAKIN’ YEARS, those who play Mafia at ReaderCon will not let me forget that I helped out Johnathan Lethem in a particular game. Come on guys. Two years. Seriously.

That’s all I got. Much better coverage can be found from Matt Kressel, and Paul Tremblay. I’ll add more posts here as I find them.

“I hear you just finished your writing degree,” she said and took my pulse.

“Yeah. Finished a couple of weeks ago. At The New School,” I replied.

“Hmmm,” she said and nodded. “I got a creative writing degree there about ten years ago. Now I do this for a living.”

Isn’t an acupuncturist supposed to make you feel relaxed, not cause you to question your life decisions? I guess I should get used to it.

But other than that, things are going well. Had a graduation party over the weekend that Matt Kressel was good enough to post some photos of. I got some very cool gifts that will help immensely with the writing process: an illustrated Strunk and White, a retro ink pen, a ream of printer paper inscribed with the touching words “get to work bitch!”, and – what every writer needs – several bottles of excellent quality tequila.

I think I’ll get to work…

Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one:

A 37 year old guy who hasn’t made one red cent on his writing decides to quit his full-time, well paying job, and work on his writing.

The punch line? Not really sure yet. See, it isn’t so much a joke, a story, or even an anecdote. At least not yet. It’s what I’m doing. Last week I put in my notice at my job. I’m taking a few months off to write.

Next week I take my final class for my bachelor’s degree. After 16 years of work, off and on, I am finally finishing. I go back and forth between being embarrassed about how long it has taken, and just being relieved and feeling like it’s a major accomplishment.

The past several years I’ve been focusing on creative writing and literature classes. Not the most practical courses for someone who works in the computer field, but it’s something I wanted to do. Much like taking this time off. It doesn’t make sense, but this is one of the few times in my life where I’ve decided I want to do something for myself and am actually following through with it. My life has been a series of things I have to do, need to do, and just happened to do.

No one should get the idea that I think I can make a living as a writer just yet. But I do want to give the impression that my writing has improved in the past year or two and that what I’m doing now is pretty good. And if I’ve just spent all this time and money (holy crap, the money!) on this degree, I owe it to myself to spend a few months doing the writing thing. While I’m writing, though, the resume’s will be going out as well.

Two more weeks at work and then it’s all about writing. Models, household stuff, photography, but mostly about writing. I’m going to go back to the Stephen King plan of 2,000 words a day 5 days a week (Stephen actually recommends 2k words EVERY day, but I think everyone realizes he’s a machine). I’ve got a couple of short stories to finish cleaning up, and two agents are waiting for me to send them the first fifty pages of my novel “Copper and Kerosene”. After that housekeeping is done — and I’m actually going to try to get a lot of that done within the next few weeks — then I’m starting my second novel. Hell, I figure that the only thing an agent would like better than a finished novel is two of them.

Money is going to be tighter, and Kristen will probably freak out a few times (but she’s happy for me and said it’s a great idea; further proof that I picked a good woman, or maybe a good woman picked me) but that’s nothing that hasn’t happened before. I get to spend some time focusing on what I want to do, what I think is important for me, and I plan on enjoying it for however long it lasts.

So, a 37 year old guy who hasn’t made one red cent on his writing decides to quit his full-time, well paying job, and work on his writing.

The punch line? Not really sure yet. I’m working on it.

While the above title is very applicable to modeling, this time I’m talking about a story.

A writing group can be a blessing and a curse. Being in Altered Fluid is definitely more of the former than the latter, considering all of the great writers I get to work with, and all of the friendships that have grown out of the group, but sometimes it can cause issues with the writing process.

Example: I’ve got this story I’ve been working on for, no kidding, ten years, off and on. I pull it out from time to time, work on it a bit, and then put it away for a while. The writing group has seen it once before, and with the recent armada of pirate anthologies coming about, I gave it another go. It’s a piece set on a privateer during the War of 1812. Not pirates, but close, and unique enough that I thought I’d have a shot. The group read it, gave me suggestions, and I ran with it.

That’s when the problems started. While editing it again for submission, I ran up against two issues. One was trying to implement all of the suggestions. For some reason I forgot they are just that: suggestions. Sometimes when I think I’ve got something that’s close, I can get in the mindset that I need to just do what the other members of the group say. Hell, they are published writers, after all.

The second problem was word count. I was two thousand words over what was stated on the submission guidelines. So I started cutting and hacking at it. Completely removed the beginning that I was fond of. Cut down on the ending, back story, etc.

I sent it out. It was still long, but the pub said they were interested in the concept and maybe they’d have room for it.
I just got the rejection notice this week. They liked it, but in the end it was just too long, and maybe it would benefit from putting back the pieces that I mentioned I’d cut.

So I read it. And I didn’t recognize it. What was this? I didn’t write this, surely. Well, the plot was there, but it was so, well, stripped of any essence, flavor, or color. Essentially it was an elongated outline of the story I had originally written, and it just wasn’t as good. I had taken a story that I really liked and tried to change it so that everyone else would like it, and now the only person that needed to be happy with it — me — didn’t like it.

Every writer has seen this, I’m sure. Taking a story you like and compressing it or stretching it, changing characters, plot points, anything, to try to make it fit a market. It is in no way a situation unique to me, but this is the first time I’ve really noticed myself doing it. What’s the fun of being an unpublished writer if you’re not going to write the way you want to?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being as arrogant to say “I’m glad they didn’t want it.  I didn’t want them to have it anyway!”.  That’s crazy talk.  I’d have been happy to make a sale, but since I didn’t, I am glad that I now get a chance to work on this some more.

And so my story goes back into the chest for a little while longer. Not too long, though, as I do really like what I’ve got there, and I’ve already done some tweaking on the previous draft. Already it does a much better job of conveying the story I want to tell, and it is doing it in the way I want it to.

It’s broke for now, but already looking better, and the next time I’ll try to listen to my inner voice a bit more and the outer ones a bit less.

Last Saturday was the previously mentioned Altered Fluid appearance on Hour of the Wolf. A good time was had by all, and we even took some calls from a few colorful characters. You can listen to an MP3 PodCast of the broadcast on the Altered Fluid website.

One thing I took from the show this time – other than the fact that I’m in a group with a lot of damn talented people, but I already knew that – is the real difference there is when hearing a story read aloud by the author. It can lead to a completely different interpretation of the piece by the audience. I still firmly believe that the written words on the page, those the reader encounters when there is no other voice around to inform and instruct them, is the final form of a story and the one that simply must get the tale across. But, after hearing David read last Saturday morning, and after my own reading at The New School last Wednesday when I found myself switching around words on the fly, I’ve come to realize that a story isn’t necessarily confined by those words on the page. If a reading can bring a different interpretation, give the reader a new angle on the story, then what’s wrong with that? At the core, an individuals interpretation of writing and the reading is what the entire process is about. Reading aloud just adds a new dimension to something we might believe we know everything about.

I wonder if Cormac McCarthy will be doing any readings in the future?

No, the title does not refer to a new geriatric remake of the classic Duran Duran tune. I and the rest of Altered Fluid will appear this coming Saturday the 5th on Jim Freund’s show “Hour of the Wolf” on WBAI radio. The show’s on 5-7 a.m. Listen if you’re up, and if not, they will have a PodCast-esque version of the show available later in the day.

This time on the chopping block, Mercurio D. Rivera’s story “The Fifth Daniel”.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, our last appearance is available for download on my Writing page.