Finally, Moving Back Into My Groove

Well, that was fun and it got me to thinking. Time to get to work on more writing. I have a bunch of novels in the hopper. What to do next?

My husband has a pet product that would probably be a good idea to pursue. This was one of his ideas and he seems to have finally settled on a plot. Now, Lee is the gadget guy, and he has this fabulous space ship envisioned with fabric drive and hydroponics and, well, everything.

And Phoenix, the artificial brain that drives this craft and its eclectic command crew. He has armor and little fighter craft and weapons all picked out. That's what he does best. He had the crew, of course, when I got there.

But I'm the one that fleshes 'em out, gives them voice and history, makes them work together. I've written probably twenty chapters on these folks already, but he kept changing the story he wanted to tell. Time at last to put all these interesting folks together, from the ugly amphibious alien deathly afraid of cats to the tiny Captain, leader by default.

Can't wait.

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Answers for Yesterday

Most did better on the classics than on the others. Here are the few remaining answers for those that missed 'em.

1. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
3. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
   
4. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Again, I was surprised; admittedly, I could have ensured it by naming Mowgli.
   
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by the Baroness Orczy
   
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, my personal favorite of that talented family.
   
7. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (which I would not have figured out myself)
   
8. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Hopefully, I'm not the only one who thinks of it as a classic.
   
9. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I could, of course, said Dorian Gray, but that made it too easy.
   
10. "A Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Alan Poe (I know it's a story; sue me)

So, now you know the kinds of classics I favor. Kudos to Roy and The Mother for getting so many of these.

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Carrying on the List From Yesterday

See, you all probably thought I'd give you all the answers today. Haha, not so fast. I'll be the first to say that I would have struggled to determine some of these books from the first line, but I do know my characters. And, besides, I got the idea from Relax Max. Again. So, for all the ones not guessed, I'm going to provide character names and let you try again. If there was a character mentioned in the first line, I'll assume it wasn't enough and add a second character.

1. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.
3. Hank Morgan
4. Father Wolf and Akela
5. Marguerite St. Juste
6. Catherine Earnshaw
   
7. Pierre Arronax
8. Time Traveler and Weena
9. Basil Hallward
10. Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Alan Poe (I know it's a story; sue me)
    

And, yes, I'll be doing the same on my other blogs, Ask Me Anything and Rocket Scientist.

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Ten Lines from Ten Classics

Relax Max did this on his blog and I enjoyed it, even though I did poorly guessing the classics. A large part of that is that I have very eclectic tastes in books (not necessarily the "classics"). However, I do like a number of classic books and stories. So, this is my take on the same exercise, using classics I love (and you know because I took the lines directly from my own ebook reader):

1. Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'
2. On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
3. It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about.
4. It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips.
5. A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.
6. I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary neighbur that I shall be troubled with.
7. The year 1866 was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon, which doubtless no one has yet forgotten.
8. The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.
9. The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate scent of the pink-flowering thorn.
10. The thousand injuries of Fortunato I have borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.

So, work and author, if possible. Note I will doing the same thing for my favorite (not necessarily classic) science fiction/fantasy works on Rocket Scientist and my favorite books-that-don't-qualify-as-either on Ask Me Anything. I think this is fun.

Oh, and I'm back.

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I Will Be Back

Sorry, folks, work overwhelmed me and I've been putting in the hours at home the last two nights. More blogging will have to wait until Monday because I'm going out of town to dial-in land and I'm not dedicated enough to try to do the blogs from there. So, come Monday, I hope to be back in the swing of things now that my paper is DONE and my work stuff is finally tapering off.

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Swamped

Swamped at work and it's spilling over into home. Until I get my upcoming paper done, I'm going to have to step back a bit from some of the blogs. Hopefully, that will happen this week.

I'll be out of town next weekend, though, so it may be a bit before I can get back into the groove.

Bear with me.

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Keep Your Details Straight

When I write a short story, I frequently write it in one sitting. Maybe a couple. If I can't remember the color of a character's eyes or what I called her pet tiger, it's only a few "page ups" away. Keeping track of characteristics and familiars and skills, etc. generally isn't that difficult.

That can change when you write a book, especially if, like me, you have large casts of characters. I can remember their characteristics, of course, what makes them characters. But, over the course of the weeks, months, even years it takes me to write them down, I can forget eye colors or ages or even names. Actually, I have a real problem with names. It's a considerable failing.

Few things jar an interested reader like having a familiar change from Wistful to Weapon (or worse, back again) before the book is over. Someone left-handed should bloody well stay left handed. Scars and limps should stay where first described. Short people should stay short and old people should stay old.

With my first novel, which had a substantial ensemble cast, I actually wrote up a who's who, which kept familiar names straight and who was married to whom - very important when having a group of mates off to rescue their other halves. I'm including it with the book because, on the very few times I've run into things like that in a book, I've appreciated it, especially if, as I did with Curse of the Jenri, the book bounces from one character's part of the story to the other.

With only a few characters, of course, it's less important. But I have cheat sheets for the ones with big casts, including height, gender, talents and alter animal for my shapechangers in Beast Within and special skill in the group of characters in The Guardian.

I suspect, for those who favor plot-driven books, rather than character oriented novels, especially those with a tight plot, similar notes might be used to keep all the threads carefully groomed, leaving no strands dangling in the end.

Details matter.

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Finding Time

Of all the challenges I face as a writer, there is nothing that stands in my way more than a general lack of time.

I love writing, can edit on the fly, am always cooking up some new twist, some new take on something. I love characters and research and dialog and the whole bit.

But when to do it? I work full time, as many writers do, have three children, down to the ankle-biter size, have a labor-intensive husband who needs a modicum of attention, a busy blog presence, a reading habit and more than my fair share of hobbies, including jewelry-making, crocheting and embroidery. Finding a few hours where no one's demanding anything of me, where I don't have something that *needs* to be done or where no one will *need* my attention is, well, challenging.

And, with my writing, I tend to get immersed. That can mean being sucked in where thirty minutes just won't cut it. I rarely sit down to write and get up after doing less than a few thousand words. And, if I do, I either got interrupted too soon or I wasn't really ready to put it on paper.

Blocks of time, of course, are hard to come by. The only advantage I have is that I'm a night owl, rarely in bed before midnight, and frequently much later. Of course, I have to get up before six.

Which means I write at the expense of sleep.

But at least I'm writing.

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Do Your Research

Now, I'll admit, I love research. History, science, engineering, psychology, medicine, weaponry, architecture, I love it all. I love to find out stuff. It's great. One of the good things about loving to learn and writing is that one fits tidily into the other.

Ironically, since I mostly write fantasy and science fiction, I need very little for my writing. Having said that, if I use science, it's sound. If I describe weapons, I can visualize the weapon and know how it's used (if I haven't used it myself). I understand the basics of combat. I understand geography and geology. If I have armor, I know what type it is and its limitations.

Why?

Because nothing yanks you out of a story like stumbling across something that's patently untrue. Even fantasy. Definitely science fiction. Absolutely history. If you write a novel set in the past, you'd better know your period and well. Know the clothing and the terminology, the customs and mores. Knowing historical facts is not enough.

Now, a writer could say, oh, well, what are the odds. . .

Well, see, readers know the darnedest things, particularly voracious readers. What's more, the same people prone to read fantasy are the ones most likely to know weaponry and terms and magical mores. People reading science fiction probably know more than their fair share of at least basic science. These are the folks you want to read more of your books. Yanking them out of your story, however clever it is, with mistakes that a little research could prevent is not a good way to build an audience.

Heck, I closed the door on Tom Clancy not two chapters into Patriot Games because he had a fact (with no real purpose I could see) wrong and I happened to know it off the top of my head. Also the book was bothering me, but that's another story. Haven't been tempted to read him since. Note, however, that he's managed to be successful without me. But it's not the sort of thing one can count on.

Of course, to minimize your research, if it doesn't give you the same thrill it does me, you can keep things general, no specifics, no details. Still, many readers are put off by the lack. But, in my opinion, better to keep it vague than to fill the book with glaringly inaccurate details that set the knowing's teeth on edge.

Take a few minutes. If you don't know if the word "allergic" existed in Regency England, look it up. You can find that data (Dictionary says it became part of the language in 1910, so no). If you think you can have a geostationary satellite hovering over the north pole, look up orbital mechanics (you can't). You want to use nuclear fuel in your space ship? Make sure you have a good cooling system and the right fuel.

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Back 'Er Up

Apparently, this week, I'm going through some of those niggly little details that aren't so much a part of writing except that, if you don't do these things, your writing may suffer. My plan is to get the bulk of these out, at least the ones I know, this week and dive back into writing on Monday.

Why? Wel,l because I was reminded yesterday why this is so important.

See, I was happily messing around on my computer when it started to lag, bad. I rebooted. When it came back up, I had a near coronary because it was making ugly sounds, grinding sounds, sounds like the hard drive was dying in an ugly way.

And I didn't have the hard drive backed up because, well, the backup software won't work unless I can make a "startup diskette" which is irksome because this computer has never had a diskette drive. But I digress.

I was frantically looking for another backup program, wondering how long it's going to last when the computer grinding moves up and adds a growling, then a loud bang following by and ominous rattling.

But my computer is still going. I can't shut it down fast enough. My husband pulls it apart as we try to find whatever failed and realize, happily, that my CD drive has killed my Diablo II disc inside. Shattered it. Happily because that's readily replaced.

What it reminds me, however, is that writing demands backing up well and often. And multiple places. When I had my *$*#^&@ Vista computer, I was using Office 2003 which was, unfortunately, not compatible. At one point, Word crashed and not only did I lose the work I was working on right then, it erased it from my hard drive. Ten chapters, gone. I had to rebuild the first few chapters with bits I'd put on line for friends to review. The rest I pulled together over months because it was so disheartening.

Take a moment to take that in. Ten chapters.

Even before that software nightmare. I've managed to accidentally copy old files over new ones, failed to save so that a day's work (if not more) was lost. I'm absentminded, but I'm also aware that there are software vagaries, hard drives that can fail, jump drives computers don't read any more. At any given time, the bulk of my writing is on four different drives, two jump, two hard. All the work I do day to day is on two jump drives. Every so often (every few days) , I coordinate them so they're in sync, then I back the files on both hard drives.

Overkill?

All the inconvenience of backing up and having your work in multiple places is, believe me, far less irksome than losing a file you were working on once and for all.

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