Writerly Wackiness

I'm an exam and a paper away from the end of the semester and having time to make a substantial post again. So close...

In the meantime, as you've likely guessed, I've briefly emerged for shameless self-promotion. You can now read my story "Sea of the gods" in BayCon's Progress Report 3. 

Sorry to be posting nothing but pimpage lately. Soon there will be substance. Soon. But in the meantime, my story "The Sins of the Living" is part of the latest podcast at Tales to Terrify, along with other stories by some other fine horror-writing folks.

Three more weeks until the semester ends and I might actually have time to be an active blogger again. Emphasis on the might part given the way my crazy schedule goes.

In the meantime, I've briefly surfaced for two quick bits of cheery news:

1) My story "Sea of the Gods" was accepted by BayCon to appear in their next upcoming progress report. They were originally going to publish only one flash piece in a progress report, but lucky for me, they decided to publish a second one.

2) And my opera-singer-meets-the-zombie-apocalypse story "The Holy Spear" from Black Static 25 made Ellen Datlow's full list of honorable mentions for The Best Horror of the Year, volume 4. 

Now back to those looming end-of-semester deadlines.

And I resurface yet again! Only briefly, though. For this post, I'm turning my blogging space over to Lindsey Duncan, author of the contemporary fantasy novel Flow, which has just been published by Double Dragon Publishing. And she's a darn fine short story writer to boot.

So while I run off to do more grad school work, here's Lindsey talking about character dynamics:

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Since Barbara has kindly me offered me space on her blog, I wanted to talk about character dynamics and interaction between three main characters … using my recently-released novel Flow as an example.  (There are arguably slightly more than three main characters in Flow, but this in case, I’m speaking of the protagonists, the characters who have positive interactions – mostly.)

Groupings of three characters are very common in fiction, whether the classic love triangle or other configurations without a name.  One theory I encountered gives an obvious reason why.  Draw a line between two characters and you have only two possible dynamics:  how A reacts to B and how B reacts to A.  This can be fine in short fiction, but doesn’t offer enough variety for a novel.  (As always, exceptions exist – though in man-versus-nature stories, nature becomes a character.)  Add a third character, and you have six potential dynamics.  Add a fourth character, and you have a much larger number … one that gets unwieldy except in the most skilled hands.

So three characters is the ideal number to generate interesting interactions – without overwhelming the reader.  In Flow, my two viewpoint characters – Kit and Chailyn – are joined by Hadrian.  He was meant to provide them with further assistance, and I knew before I started writing that there would be a level of attraction between he and Chailyn, frustrated by the polar opposite nature of their outlook on life.  She finds herself confused and saddened by his cynicism; he, in turn, is frustrated by her trust and optimism.  And as Kit’s story progresses, some of their interaction revolves on how to deal with each discovery – invisibly pivoting around that third point, although she is not directly present in these conversations.

I already knew how Kit and Chailyn would interact, and because they meet multiple chapters before Hadrian entered the picture, I had time to explore their individual dynamic.  Despite some points of friction, the two build trust quickly and serve as mutual tour guides – each explaining their respective worlds to the other.  To face the challenges the novel throws at them, they have to be united early on.

The interaction I hadn’t considered when beginning Flow was the final pair – how Kit and Hadrian deal with each other.  In many ways, the two characters have a lot in common:  cynicism, a certain snarky sense of humor (oh, how I love snark – even just the word!) and some problems with authority.  But these are qualities that, when shared, don’t lend themselves to peaceable contact.  Unsurprisingly, the two have a lot of verbal sparring, mutual suspicion, and guarded reactions.  At least initially, most of the hostility is on Kit’s side, while Hadrian is avidly curious and perhaps understands why the two women might not appreciate his inserting himself uninvited.  But that pendulum swings as the story progresses …

Had I stuck with the two female leads, I would have had a relatively simple dynamic – with its own tension and variety, but resulting in only a single thread.  Also, I would have been left with some balance issues.  To have two characters in a constant state of harmony or friction can become boring, but a loss of tension can drag down the whole story.  With the addition of Hadrian, I could switch up where the points of tension happened.  Kit and Hadrian might have reached an understanding (an interaction almost sibling-like, perhaps) at the same time Chailyn and Hadrian clashed over their opposing views.  Having three characters at the center of the novel allowed me a wide variety of possibility along various characters arcs, from suspicion to trust, from blind trust to real friendship, and from mutual bewilderment to … well, I say no more.

Another advantage is allowing two of the characters to discuss the other in her (or his) absence … though that often says more about the speakers than the third party.  Of course, the trio don’t exist in isolation:  they encounter other characters throughout the course of the story, and again, having three characters gives me a range of possible responses.  Where two may concur – sometimes – three rarely have the same outlook.

Overall, I feel that having three central characters made the core of Flow stronger.  In a novel that for me was so much about the characters, each individual helped to illuminate the other two.

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LINDSEY DUNCAN is the author of contemporary fantasy Flow, just released by Double Dragon Publishing.  Flow follows the water-witch Chailyn, on dry land for her first mission, and Kit, a contemporary teen with mysterious powers, as they seek the man who killed Kit's mother ... a goal which catches the interest of the darkest of fairies.  They must also deal with the Borderwatch, a zealous organization that hunts fairies and has been in a cold war with the water-witches for decades.

Flow can be found here:

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-936-9

Wow, it's been a while, huh? I guess it's time I stop with the "I'll blog more, I promise" stuff and accept the fact that a regular blogging routine is probably not going to happen for the duration of my time in grad school. When it comes to establishing priorities, there are just too many things that win out over blogging at present--fiction writing, classwork, day job, musical endeavors, exercise, and sparing some moments to remind myself that I have friends and family.

Oh, and sleep. Precious, precious sleep.

That said, I can at least promise two upcoming posts: some story pimpage later this week, and later this month, a guest post by writerly compadre Lindsey Duncan, whose contemporary fantasy novel Flow has just been released by Double Dragon Publishing.

In the meantime, how the hell have you all been? 

Yup, it's that time again: the end of another artificially imposed construct approaches. January 1 may be a fairly arbitrary marker for the start of the new year, but it does serve as a convenient measuring stick for looking back and taking stock of where I've been and where I'm heading writing-wise.

So with that said, let's take a look at 2011--not as epically awesome as 2010 was for me on the writing front, but not a bad year.

Novel Progress
Ha! I said "novel progress."

There was lots of valuable brainstorming and jotting down of notes and ideas during 2011, but otherwise, revisions on My Big Fat Epic Fantasy novel took a back seat to a great many other things. Hopefully that will be remedied in the near future.

Short Stories
Stories written in 2011 include:

• "Demon Dreams," a 6,700-word fantasy piece that's probably going to end up being even longer once I finish revising the dang thing
• "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen," a 3,800-word Norwegian folk tale-ish fantasy story that sadly has only racked up form letters at the few slush piles it's visited so far. I had my hopes up that this one would get a little more love.
• "First Date in the Horror Aisle," a goofy little 2,800-word YA-ish science fiction story (despite the title)
• And a 1,000-word comedic superhero flash piece that's probably too heavy-handed to sell anywhere

My one writing goal for 2011 was to do better than my paltry 2010 output of only one new story, so I can definitely check that off as achieved. I wish I had gotten more done, but trying to balance writing time, day job, and grad school was tough. But now that I've gotten the hang of that being-a-student-again thing, I'm going to strive for a better balance once the spring semester starts. In the meantime, I need to take advantage of winter break and get writer-me into gear.

Of story sales and SFWA...
While I had several stories published this past year in some rather lovely places, I wasn't nearly as successful with sales as I was in 2010, both in terms of total number sold (9 stories in 2010 vs. 5 in 2011) and sales to pro markets (3 in 2010, zilch in 2011).

Acceptances in 2011

• "Unlucky Clover" to Beyond Centauri
• "Mr. Fluffy" to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind
• "The Holy Spear" to Black Static
• "The Cycle of the Sun" to NewMyths.com
• "Dumping the Dead" to The Best of Every Day Fiction Three

Published in 2011

• "A Song Never Tasted" – Daily Science Fiction, Jan. 14, 2011
• "God's Gift to Women" – Daily Science Fiction, March 7, 2011
• "Final Report" (audio reprint) – Beam Me Up!, episode 258, April 23, 2011
• "Dumping the Dead" (reprint) – The Best of Every Day Fiction Three, May 2011
• "The Deepening" – Aoife's Kiss, issue 37, June 2011
• "Unlucky Clover" – Beyond Centauri, issue 33, July 2011
• "Mortis Persona" (reprint) – Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction, Lethe Press, August 2011
• "Mr. Fluffy" – Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, issue 5 & 2011 Untied Shoelaces of the Mind Anthology, September 2011
• "The Holy Spear" – Black Static, issue 25, Oct-Nov 2011

Daily Science Fiction became a SFWA-qualifying market this past fall, making 2011 the year that I finally reached active member status. I don't feel like much of a pro, though. Just another would-be writer slogging away, occasionally achieving a small enough scrap of success to feel like I might one day achieve awesomeness, but mostly just adding to my rejection collection and banging my head against the same old wall of why-can't-I-do-better-than-this frustration.

Wow, that last bit was a downer of a sentiment to ring in the new year with. Here, have a Muppet chaser:

My first semester working toward my masters in library and information science is over, and I feel confident in saying that I totally rocked it. I was pleased to discover that, twelve years after finishing my undergraduate degree, I haven't lost my Nerd-Fu.

On the downside, first semester craziness combined with Ye Olde Day Job seriously cut into my fiction writing time. I did, however, find my fiction writing life creeping into my grad school life in fun little ways.

How do I love Scrivener? Let me count the ways . . .

I bought Scrivener several years ago for novel writing. When putting together a lecture for TNEO one summer, I discovered that Scrivener was also great for collecting and organizing research for that. So when it came time this semester to turns lots of research into a presentation for a group project in my Human Information Behavior class, Scrivener once again became a handy tool. And then came my final paper for that same class. In addition to using Scrivener for organizing my research and turning it into a paper, I discovered that Scrivener had an APA style template. From my undergrad days, I was used to writing papers in MLA format, but the MLIS program requires APA format, which was new to me. Scrivener saved me huge amounts of "how exactly am I supposed to format this again?" time on the APA learning curve.

It's just like a short story, only it's mostly plot with very little setting and character development . . .

At first, I was a little apprehensive when faced with the prospect of writing a 15-page research paper for the first time in over a decade. But then I thought, "Hmm, 15 double-spaced pages in 12 point Times New Roman font with an inch margin all around--that's roughly the equivalent of a 4,600 word short story for which I've done lots of background research. Piece of cake!" On the downside, years of focusing on the style and rhythm of my prose made the paper revision process go a little slower than it might have otherwise. Without the fiction writing experience, I probably wouldn't give a damn about using the same sentence construction twice in a row in a research paper.

This one time, at writing camp . . .

Human Information Behavior, where we studied how people search for and process information in a broad number of contexts, was a fascinating course. Several times I found myself drawing on writing-related experiences as an example of information-seeking behaviors and how library and information science professionals interact with users in their search process. One example was the judgmental you-frighten-me look I got while checking out a book called On Killing for research purposes and how that kind of attitude can dissuade people from using the library. And as an example of the Principle of Least Effort, where someone consults a known resource instead of investing the small bit of extra effort needed to get what they know would be a better quality answer, I mentioned the weird phenomena I sometimes saw of individuals asking very specific research questions in a writing forum where it was unlikely anyone had expertise in the area in question, and then balking at suggestions to consult resources more likely to actually provide an answer to their question.

The geek is strong with this one . . .

My other class this semester was Information Technologies, where we got to learn some basics about web design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, and other fun stuff. The class seemed like it was a struggle at times for several folks, but I was safely in my geek comfort zone. I already knew how to create a website with HTML going into the class, and I picked up the rest of it pretty easily. Two of our projects involved creating an "information resource" on any topic of our choosing, so I created a site called So You Want to Write Speculative Fiction? And for our final project, we had to create a site using WordPress, so I tested out a redesign of my writing website. 

And there you have it. Now to check off more items on my winter break to-do list, which includes paying attention to this blog again and rediscovering the fact that I'm a writer.

Originally published at Barbara A. Barnett. You can comment here or there.

This blog is conducting a test of the Livejournal Crossposting Plugin. This is only a test.

Wow, a month between posts? I'm slacking on this whole blogging thing worse than I thought. I don't foresee that changing until the semester's over, so it may yet be another month before I surface again. In the meantime, rest assured that I am alive and occasionally glancing at what folks post, but mostly buried in work and paper writing and project doing and, dare I say it, pecking a little at short story revisions here and there.

Say hello to issue 25 of Black Static, folks!

Dear Potential Future Readers:
 
So I'm working on this Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel. If it ever sees the light of publishing day, then you, dear epic fantasy fan, will possibly read it. And several of you are going to raise certain complaints. I would like to preemptively address one of them now:

No, it's not that my female characters never menstruate. It's just that their menstrual cycle is not relevant to the story*. And while you may not see my characters answering the call of nature, it's not that they don't have to. They urinate. They have bowel movements. Again, it's just that those things generally don't contribute to the advancement of story*, and so I don't include them.

Trust me, dear reader, if I ever find that a depiction of defecation, urination, or menstruation would serve to advance plot or character, enhance my setting, or otherwise serve the story, I will not hesitate to describe it. In fact, such things have showed up in my short fiction when relevant. But as far My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel goes, please just assume that my characters take care of their business off-page. I mean, when your first draft clocks in at 118,000 words, the poo really has to earn its place on the page.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go use the bathroom.
 
Love, 
Me

*One helpful comment made me realize that this is probably worth clarifying: when I talk about relevance to the story or advancement of story, I'm not talking about plot alone. If a woman's menstruation or the way a person goes to the bathroom tells me something about a character's personality or the world or the setting, then I consider that relevant, something that advances the story by adding to my understanding of the world and the characters. But showing someone going to the bathroom simply to establish that they sometimes have to go to the bathroom, not so much.

I know I keep threatening to return to a regular blogging routine, but life seems intent on not letting that happen, which is frustrating since not posting regularly tends to lead to hardly anyone paying attention when you actually do post. So even though I may be blogging into a void, here's the state of me:

* School is keeping me busy, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I ever did grant writing. This whole getting my MLIS thing? Good damn decision, I think. 

* Speaking of life keeping me busy, there will be a distinct lack of con attendance on my part for the rest of the year. I had been hoping to attend Sirens and Capclave this month, but there's just too much else going on for me to swing either one. And I'd normally do Philcon in November since it's practically right in my backyard, but I'll be off in Austin that weekend.

* Writing progress! Well, at least there was progress until a damn cold sidelined me yesterday (it's hard to focus or stare at a computer screen for too long when it feels like you have a head full of gauze-wrapped bricks). But before then, I got my short story "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen" revised and sent out the door, and now I'm working on revisions for "Demon Dreams." And when that's done, I think I'll dive back into the never-ending My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel revisions.

* And last but certainly not least: I can haz zombie art? The awesome-looking title spread (with art by Dave Senecal) for my story in issue 25 of Black Static, which should be coming out this month:

In my last moment of resurfacing from the blogging dead, I mentioned that my twisted little flash piece "Mr. Fluffy" would soon be online in issue 5 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. That soon would be now. Behold yet another one of my bunnies of doom! 

It seems I went AWOL on the posting front. Again. But now that I'm here, many things...

SIGNALS
First, a signal boost: Say Yes to Gay YA, where Rachel Manija Brown (rachelmanija) and Sherwood Smith (sartorias) talk about an unfortunate instance of being asked to either make a gay character in their novel straight or remove the character's POV altogether. EDITED TO ADD: Some follow up. And this is where I bow out without further comment other than to say: must so many people resort to needing to cast a villain with a dastardly agenda in the matter instead of considering that it's more likely not so clearcut? 

STUDY
Busy grad school is busy! But despite some initial moments of panic (because that's what I do), I'm settling into the school routine just fine and have started to find a balance between class and everything else I need to squeeze into my days. You know, like writing. Speaking of...

STORIES
Appropriately enough for a writer, there are sevveral things going on in the story department:

* Now available for purchase is the 2011 Untied Shoelaces of the Mind Anthology, which includes my twisted little flash piece "Mr. Fluffy." The story should also be online soon in issue 5 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

* My story "The Cycle of the Sun" was accepted for publication in the March 2012 issue of NewMyths.com! My Odyssey classmates will quite possibly remember this piece as "the orgy story."

* My steampunk lemurs on a dirigible story, "A Red One Cannot See" (originally published in Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle Book issue), has been added to my stories available at AnthologyBuilder  

* And I've finally gotten to work on the revisions for my story "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen," which I got some great feedback on back in July at TNEO. Much like my daily schedule right now, these revisions are proving to be quite the balancing act. There are some changes to make that I think are going to really strengthen the story, but I feel like it would be easy to do too much and totally edit all the life and magic out the story.

I'm the kind of person who likes to have some structure to my life. It can be a little bit of structure or a lot of structure, but preferably a mix. If I need to practice piano earlier in the day than usual to accommodate something that can only be done later in the day, I like having that flexibility. But if I didn't have my piano lesson at the same time every week, I'd have a hell of a time planning around it and remembering when I need to head out the door (note to self: you need to leave in about 45 minutes for this week's lesson).

But trying to maintain any kind of structure to my days this summer? Didn't happen. Too much flux, which is one of many reasons I've been so scattershot about blogging the last few months. Hopefully, though, September should bring a touch more stability with it. Classes for my MLIS program start this Thursday. Regular weekly choir rehearsals start up again next Wednesday. My last day at Ye Olde Day Job was a week ago; I'm hoping to find something part-time and library related, but in the meantime, there's a freelance database project I'll probably be taking on. And with all of those things set, maybe I can get back into something resembling a regular routine for writing and exercise, both of which I'm ashamed to say I've been mostly neglecting lately. Bad me. Bad.

Related to all of the crazy flux in my life right now, trying to answer the question "What do you do for a living?" at my grad school orientation last week was far more difficult than it used to be. "What do I do? Up until a few days ago, I was a grant writer for a theater company. Why did I leave something that sounds so cool? Well, working in the performing arts was cool, but fundraising made me miserable, and I really loved the two years I spent working in a music library, which is why I'm pursuing my MLIS now. Why didn't I stay at the music library job? Because it was a temporarily funded project, or else I would have. No, I'm not going to be a fulltime student now. I'm hoping to find a part-time library job, and I'll probably be taking on a freelance database project.  Oh, and I also write fiction."

Postcript: in keeping with the spirit of randomness, is anyone else having issues with LJ's new text editor for posts? This entry got rid of all the spaces between paragraphs when I first posted, and then only the space between the first and second paragraphs on subsequent edit attempts. And with the last entry I posted, every time I selected text to put behind a cut, it moved the text before the cut text to after the cut. Damn it, LJ, I shouldn't have to keep tweaking the HTML in order to get simple entries to look normal.

( Spoilers lie ahead... )

*taps the blog mic*

Is this thing on?

So, yeah, I’ve been rubbish about posting lately. Life has been consumed by a big busy combo of workshopping craziness, vacationing, trying to finish things up at Ye Olde Day Job before my last day (two more weeks!), and preparing for that whole wacky grad school thing I’ll be starting in September. There has been precious little time for writing, which makes me cranky.

As for the aforementioned workshopping craziness, that would be TNEO (aka The Never-Ending Odyssey), which I attended last month, and it was all manner of awesome. Awesome people, awesome feedback, and awesome moments of writing-related light bulbs going off. Like three-act structure. For some reason, I always had the hardest time getting a firm grasp on three-act structure, but this time it finally clicked and I could finally see where I had (unknowingly) used it in some of my stuff.

I had two short stories and a novel chapter critiqued at TNEO this year, and I’m totally stoked to get the revision work underway on them. It’s easy to walk out of critique sessions overwhelmed by feedback overload, especially when you get conflicting opinions. But this year, there was so much consensus as to what was and wasn’t working in my submissions and so much helpful brainstorming that I feel like I know exactly what I need to do and won’t be bogged down trying to sort through conflicting reactions.

One really helpful session we did at TNEO was a plot breakout technique. Each person presented a plot they wanted help with, after which we would do about a half an hour’s worth of brainstorming that involved lots of adding and rearranging and deleting of various plot elements, done with index cards on a board. I was looking for ways to strengthen Act 2 (now that I know where Act 2 is!) of one of the major plot threads in My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel and got lots of great ideas, including more characters to kill (always a plus in my book). My collection of index cards ended up looking like this:



That big mess o' cards down the middle would be Act 2, with Act 1 to the left and Act 3 to the right.

Now if only life would settle the hell down and let me get in some more writing time, I could make better use of all that crazy awesome brainstorming!

Rising from the blogging dead for a brief moment of pimpage, which will be followed by a full-fledged, non-pimpage post in the next week or so. Promise.

So, the pimpage: Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction, which includes my story "Mortis Persona," appears to be out now. The anthology includes a lot of other great stuff, so please do check it out if you're so inclined!