Update and Apology

Sorry to everyone who might have wondered if I had fallen off the face of the earth. I haven't but I wouldn't blame you for thinking that because I have been twenty shades of overbusy the past week or so.

First I was disheartened with that feeling that most if not all unpublished wannabe writers gets at some point. You know the one, where you wonder if you're one of the clueless know-nothings who think they really can write but are just deluding themselves horribly.

I'm not saying I'm necessarily entirely cured, but I have reached a compromise ont he one novel and moved on. Slowly, since it involved an appreciable rewrite and sucked away my rather impressive momentum.

However, last week, on Friday, a friend pointed me to a romance editor (publishing house) who was critiquing "pitches" and suggested (since it's well established my marketing skills are pathetic) I try pitching something. Since my third novel, the one I wrote in a white heat last year, is the closest thing I have to a romance, I pitched it. The editor found it sufficiently intriguing that she asked for a synopsis and the entire book. Which means that the novel I'd had in a surprisingly-good-for-a-first draft form needs to be clean and polished, um, now. The editor has vowed to address all the pitches by 9/3, so I'm setting that as my deadline.

So, this weekend, I needed to work twenty-four hours of overtime (from home), handle a teenage birthday/sleepover AND a seven year old birthday AND finish the chapter I was working on for Cat's Paw and COMPLETELY do a first level polish edit on Tarot Queen.

For the record, I did all that - and that's with my husband conking out at six during the teenage-a-thon (which might be why I got so much editing done after I was through with day job work).

But, that's also why I haven't been visiting commenting on blogs and writing any myself. And, since I still need to do my Tarot Queen run through with Lee this week (and I have a few more extra hours at work to put in), it will be a bit longer before I'm at my blogging best.

Try to bear with me.

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So Much for Euphoria

The thing about flying, really flying, is the fall if you tumble.

I remember what Henny Youngman said,

"If at first you don't succeed . . . so much for skydiving."

Clarification: My euphoric and meteoric trip through the writing stratosphere was shot down painfully. I may take a bit to recover. It's bad enough now I'm not convinced I will.

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I So Love Writing

I haven't been putting much here on the blog recently. There's a reason for this. I've been working on the novel instead. I love, love, writing when the story's right there, when I know what I'm doing and where I'm going.

It's even better when I know my characters so well that the dialog is effortless and the direction obvious. It's my first sequel and I wasn't sure how to write it so it had a different tone, a different perspective from the first one.

I am having so much fun. I hope you don't mind that I'll only pop in here and there.

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Collaboration

I've mentioned before that I write with my husband. In our particular case, writing together means I write it, then read it to him and we discuss what needs to be changed. If it's "my" idea, I get to decide the big decision. If it's "his," he does. Except, if one of us hates something, we can each veto.

You'd be surprised how often a veto actually comes into it. And several ideas that were veto material have been compromised away from what either of us thinks is optimum to reach an agreement (if not an approval). Lee is not fond of dark things and hates torturing characters he likes. Pity because that's kind of part of the deal for novels.

I have to be convinced the characters, stories, etc. make sense. Lee does that too and frequently points out something I missed.

So, why am I mentioning this? Well, for the last week or so we've been wrangling. Ever since I had the idea, I've been wanting to give the prime character from my first novel (Beast Within) primary amoebic meningitis, only let him live through it in the sequel. My husband has hated, ever since I got the idea, inflicting parasites on the shapeshifter who becomes a dragon. HATES. IT.

No explanation or protestation was enough. No clever cure or redemption was sufficient. No need or drive was justification. He HATED IT. Period.

I'll be honest. I was thinking I couldn't find something else that did what I wanted:

a) deadly
b) adversely affecting the brain, preferably with delirium, hallucinations and or involuntary body movements
c) non-chemical so that our talented healer couldn't just cure him and be done
d) uncontagious so everyone else didn't have it (though I wanted them to wonder if it were)

Fortunately for me, The Mother was kind enough to point me toward arborvirus forms that cause meningitis/encephalitis or even combinations. Since it's a vector, it's still not communicable. And, although my original intent was to have one character do something clever, I thought of a different clever way of curing it that used actual medical science (if only to repay The Mother's patience with my magical healer).

So, there you go. Compromise. Everyone's happy. And, though I haven't gotten a lot done this weekend, I've now updated it so I can move forward. And with my collaborator still a willing partner.

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Storytelling and Communicating

I had one of those weird/confusing conversations I occasionally have with my husband where he says something I just don't understand. It's ironic. We both have an excellent track record with communicating with people, but, when it comes to each other, it's like a different language.

Today he said, and I quote, "Storytelling isn't communicating. It's art. Art has nothing to do with communication." He said some more stuff along those lines, but I don't remember them all. My eyes were rolling. He was trying (I believe) to bring forward that I didn't have to please anyone else with my writing; that no one had to get it to be worth my while.

While I appreciate the supportive sentiment (expressed because he really doesn't like an aspect of my latest book), I don't agree on many levels. First off, of course storytelling is communicating. It can be art, too, but storytelling is, first and last, a way of communicating. True, it can be art and anyone who's ever sat, breathless, at the knee of a master story teller knows they aren't all the same. It's a gift. But art, in my opinion, is about communicating something too, expressing something the artist, whether musician, painter, sculptor, writer, etc. wanted to say. The viewer/listener/reader may not get that same something (or all the intended something), but, in my opinion, without that communication, it's not even art. Even if what's communicated is just "I'm beautiful."

Good storytelling is art, made all the more difficult because we can't use our voices and inflections, our hands and dramatic pauses. We have to put as much as possible on paper, using language and the music inherent in the words themselves because, in general, we can't be there to read it the way we envision we'd tell it.

Some of that is technical - knowing punctuation and pacing, vocabulary and expression, but some of that is art, knowing just that right lilt at the very end that cements it all in place, or finding the words that breathe life into a character's dialog, that makes a reader smile or laugh out loud. The art, in my opinion, is really where the writer touches a reader, bringing some aspect of the book to sufficient life for the reader to care what happens, to feel something about what is only paper, ink and imagination. For events that never happened and people who never existed to matter deeply to the reader, so much so that the book, those events, those characters become part of the reader's psyche.

Fancy shmancy imagery and a million dollar vocabulary can be tools to do that, but they can't do it alone.

For that, you need art.

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More on "Greatness"

Yes, this is another topic I've discussed before but my good friend, The Mother, pointed out a pertinent article so I had to jump in with it. In this case, the article is all about six great novels that were originally hated. Now, I discussed earlier how hard it was to determine what is/was great when something first comes out. This article brings that view into focus.

What amazed me, however, is that I literally didn't like a one of them. Now, I know people who like one or the other of them, so I'm not saying they're not great. I'm saying they didn't speak to me (The best thing that ever happened to Tolkien, in my opinion, was Peter Jackson, but that's just my opinion). but that sparked a few other trains of thought. One of which falls from my much earlier assertion that "classic" is largely determined by time. But, it occurs to me not every book survives through time because it touches people even today, that is says something timeless.

Some books are classics largely because they mark changes in the written word, set precedents, demonstrate key qualities in the written word, or even effect social change. Beowulf, for example, is unlikely to speak to the average student. What makes it worth teaching in school, (which is probably why it is still in print) is that it is one of the earliest examples of a story documented in English or a form of it. Chaucer also set a precedent, and though I can intellectually get into what makes it worth examining, it doesn't touch me.

Some books or stories are firsts in some arena or another. Some make tremendous use of language, set a new trend, typify a movement, or changed the kind of characters we, the readers, would accept. Some challenged social mores or prejudices. Some brought social disgraces to the light of day.

Now let me be clear. There are many classics taught in school that can still touch today's audiences, that are timeless, even if they do one or more of the things that I alluded to in the previous two paragraphs. Poe, for instance, comes to mind. Or Washing Irving. Or Shakespeare. But there are, in my opinion, some works that probably would have wandered off into obscurity if they hadn't demonstrated some teachable thing or another.

Having said that, there are a number of classics that don't disappear because, generation after generation, people find themselves compelled by the original works, even though they don't do any of the things that would make them key elements in academia. They have stories or flights of imagination or characters that speak to people generation after generation, even if the original audience thought little of them, even if the writing will never be "classic". Even if they're full of flaws.

Wuthering Heights comes to mind. I'd hate to have to teach the novel. It's full of unlikable characters, less than stellar writing and improbable action. I read it a dozen times growing up and I have it on my ereader so I can read it again when ever I want because, though the characters are unlikeable, they are compelling. The book is up to its eyeballs in passion and emotion and, if you get caught up in it, it can wring you out.

A dozen other examples come to mind like Jane Austen or H. G. Wells or Edgar Rice Burroughs or Arthur Conan Doyle or Collette Or Dorothy Sayers or, yes, Georgette Heyer.. Stories and works where characters touch us, or our imagination takes flight or we see things in different ways. Sometimes we're amused. Sometimes we're touched. Sometimes, our minds are intrigued and forced to think about things differently. Different fans of the same book can often find different reasons for being compelled.

Frequently, these are the books we return to over and over again. Interestingly enough, these are also the books that are least likely to die, even if curriculums change or better examples come into place. Why? Because they are introduced to the next generations not by teachers as books required for school, but by people who love them as the reasons they love to read.

In my opinion.

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Fiction Philosophy: Apathy

The other day, I was talking about violence, noting that bad guys and good guys might both indulge in violence, even killing/murder, in my fiction, but with distinctions as to what was or wasn't acceptable. But, there's something I often find even harder to justify than murder: apathy.

Often, I find characters far less sympathetic or appealing if they are completely passive, if they stand idly by as bad things happen to others, even though that is a frequent occurrence in real life. If they cower in fear rather than stand up for the "right" thing, I often find myself contemptuous though that is one of the most common reactions to oppression and brutality. Even characters who wander through their stories reacting to or having their decisions made by what happens around them rather than actively shaping or directing their own actions leave me, well, uninterested.

Truth is, I'm more likely to find a principled assassin appealing than such a character. Why? Well, for one thing, the assassin is, for whatever reason, taking a stand, deciding his own fate. I can respect that even if he's not a nice person. But I have limited respect for a character that allows him- or herself to be buffeted along by fate and circumstance without lifting a finger to help himself, help others, even do something that would change his or her fate.

Part of it is that, all too often, such characters take no responsibility for their circumstances. Fate and environment are blamed for all their troubles, and their own unwillingness to do anything to change the situation is completely overlooked. The excuses are legion. "I couldn't make a difference anyway." "I had no choice." "What could I do?" "It wasn't any of my business."

Part of it, too, is that apathy is so human, so common, so prevalent that it is part and parcel of almost every (if not every) horrible wrong that has ever been done. Apathy isn't necessarily evil, which is one reason it's so insidious - the practitioners do not engender hatred so much as contempt and pity - yet it is a vital element in the spread and effectiveness of evil.

Apathy is the ultimate enabler of evil. It is the enemy of change and progress. It is the protector of the predator as it leaves those most weak and vulnerable unshielded. Apathy is the tool of the manipulator because those who refuse to take action are always looking for excuses for their lack of action. It's easier, by far, to dismiss those oppressed or in need by believing they are unworthy (druggies, illegal aliens, lazy, devious, stupid, common, heathens, racially inferior, mentally incompetent, incapable [as women frequently have been called], sly, self-serving - they've all been used) than to take a stand and correct an egregious injustice. The path of least resistance is an ugly one.

So, you won't find many of these types in my books, not as a protagonist or even antagonists. Actually, I try to limit the number of apathetic characters as much as possible because, hey, I don't like them. The characters I'll focus on in my books are people of decision, even if they don't begin that way, who have morals and values and stances, who are willing to pay the price to do what they see is right.

It seems like a small thing, but, when you look at the history of apathy, of the harm it's caused, it's really not so small.

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Associative Logic

I'm going to date myself and ask who remembers the TV show (not the recent movie I haven't seen) called "The A-Team"? The leader would light his cigar and say, "I love it when a plan comes together." That's kind of how I feel.

See, I'm not a plot person. I'm a character person. Time and time again, I jump in with situations and characters I like and meander about until I stumble over a plot. Yeah, yeah, pathetic. There's a reason I don't write mysteries.

But, like all my good thinking, most of the writing and planning and putting things together is done by my subconscious, frequently without giving my conscious process much information at all. So, I'll be wandering about in my novel, putting in this detail and that detail for no discernible reason when, bam, I add one more quirky little unrelated detail and, suddenly, the whole plot comes together addressing all the big things I wanted to say, but also putting all the other pieces together so they'll actually work (and usually incorporating those details I'd stuck in earlier without having any reason for it).

It happened with my first novel, where my original situation drove me to add details for no apparent reason, like Layla's severe morning sickness and Tander's resistance to healing magic. Then, I threw in a few kittens to perversely adopt Tander as a familiars (when he was happy as a straightforward swordfighter) and suddenly I had an explanation for his magical resistance, had a method for him to find Layla when she was kidnapped later in the book, etc., etc. Everything fell into place.

Well, I'm writing a sequel to my second novel (my first sequel) and I had a few scenes here and there, wanted to include this and that and take the near invincible central characters in the first one out of the picture so some of the other characters (central to this book) could find their own strengths. But I've been going slowly, working this detail and that detail, but unsure how I was going to tie it all together and in what order, what pacing.

So, I've been reading completely unrelated books and, as usual, that left my subconscious to wrestle the problem until, just today, I figured out how to use a new detail that just, ping, ping, ping, put everything into place.

Now, I just have to write it.

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Fiction Philosophy: Death Part 2

So I was discussing what was worse than killing someone on the last post, but it begs the question, if killing people is, on the whole, a bad thing, what circumstances make it acceptable? It's a question for almost any writer who's going to go beyond picture books or homey stories where no one gets hurt. Killing, the ways and means and whys, not the mention the whos, is one of the ways we separate the good guys from the bad guys, though not the only way. Some of the ways I mentioned in the last post are useful, too. But, frequently in adult fiction (and even some YA), killing is done by good and bad guys. As a writer, you should know the lines your characters will and won't cross.

So, what's acceptable, justifiable homicide?

Self-defense? It's hard to argue that one, but it's not particularly simple either. Self defense could be shoving your keys in a rapists eye socket or throwing a grenade at an attacking phalanx of soldiers. But, whereas the first is pretty clean-cut (depending on whether people presume that protecting one's virtue by force is acceptable - which I certainly do, even if they aren't planning to kill you afterward), the second is harder to define as "self-defense." Defense, surely, and undoubtedly one or more of the phalanx would kill you as an opposing soldier, but you don't know who will be attacking you personally, who will be attacking your fellows, who is rushing forward but just as scared and reactive as you are.

And there's always the question of how well you've gauged a threat. Many say (in law enforcement) that anyone who enters your bedroom while you're sleeping in it is a threat. Truly, most people who just steal prefer that you're not around. People who invade occupied homes at night are frequently rapists or killers. But is killing them when they enter your bedroom self-defense or paranoia? If you wait until they attack you, your shotgun might not save you. It's a pertinent question for a novelist, for a character. And note that the answer may not always be the same. If you have a world where people are routinely captured and sold for slaves, you might be less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt than if you lived in a world where murder is all but unheard of.

Defense of others. This seems pretty clear, too. Someone slides a knife to a child's neck, readers are unlikely to get upset if a sharpshooter gets the bastard in the eye. But it can get complicated, too. It's nice when people are clearly evil and a threat. What if they're drug pushers or child beaters, but not actively doing so at the moment? What if the person you have to kill is an innocent, an infected person who could contaminate a community? What if both sides are slimy? What would you do if your wife or husband or child were threatened? Would you kill someone else, even someone who wasn't involved? Would you develop weapons or diseases or poisons?

For their own or the greater good - Would you kill someone who begged for release? Would you sacrifice someone to feed a crowd (including yourself)? Would you sacrifice a soldier or a worker because saving them put others in danger? What if it was to obtain a key goal rather than protecting people per se?

Revenge/justice (noting that many who indulge in revenge see it as justice) - at what point is it acceptable. Is it ever acceptable? If he's beaten you for years and he passes out after a night long drinking binge, is it okay to kill him? If you find out he raped your daughter, can you kill him? If someone failed to protect you or someone you loved when they should have, can you kill them?

Money and power. Frequently, at least for me, this is a dividing line. It's hard to be a protagonist if you'll kill for nothing more important than money or power. But it's been done, and done well.

Often who we kill is as important as why. What would it take to kill a kid? If you can think of something, you're more original than I. A pregnant woman? And old man in a wheelchair? No matter how planned, is killing a drug dealer who hung around schools somehow more virtuous than taking out a teacher?

Murder is often seen as a black and white thing, but, in my opinion, it's often not. In fact, for novels involving violence, walking that line between what is morally right and morally wrong may be as tenuous as figuring out what kind of killing is acceptable and what isn't.

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Fiction Philosophy: Death Part 1

As I have the majority of the JD Robb "In Death" books on my e-reader (and I'm a fan), I've been reading through the series recently, even though it's not a genre I read frequently. I love the characters, particularly all the characters, even Eve, though Eve least of all. I could explain why, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

What I wanted to talk about was violence and morality. When reading Divided in Death (potential spoilers if you were wanting to read it but haven't), there's a conflict between Eve (the main protagonist, homicide detective) and Roarke (one of the most appealing - if improbable - characters ever written), where Roarke discovers that federal agents were listening in when Eve's father raped and beat her repeatedly, even listened in when she killed him in self defense (at the age of eight) and did nothing to help. Roarke would like to slow roast said agents over a slow fire. Eve is absolutely aghast that, though she knows he's killed in cold blood before, he would murder people again.

Now, there's a whole blog post about what is and isn't justifiable with regards to killing someone. And Eve definitely knows this because she's got nearly half a dozen under her own belt and they generally don't bother her much. I'll probably get to where I discuss that, too, but that's not what I want to talk about either.

What I want to discuss (because it's what I was thinking about as I was reading this particular installment) was if there really were "fates worse than death." Now don't get me wrong, I'm against murder (in general). I think death is heart-rending when someone with a full life ahead of them is cut short or when the death is needlessly painful, humiliating or lingering.

But death itself doesn't scare me much. I also don't feel too terribly bad if people who do horrible things, who promote or ignore horrors done by others drop dead. I've never pretended to be anything other than pro-capital punishment not because I'm convinced that it will stop the next fellow, but I know for a fact it will stop the first one. Can't escape from or get paroled from death.

I'm not a proponent for torture or painful deaths (though I can appreciate where those would be justice) mostly because that kind of thing can readily be taken too far. I'm satisfied that someone who has done something truly heinous won't be doing it again.

What does this have to do with fiction?

Well, because my attitude is part and parcel of my fiction. I write a great deal of fantasy/science fiction and I won't lie. It's violent. Many people are killed outright, yes, by my protagonists, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest, even though there are lines my characters won't cross. They tend to be pragmatic about death and, though part of the reason has to do with the environments I make for them, part of it is a direct reflection of my own pragmatism. In many ways, I have a very Eastern view of death.

But, for good guys to wander about fantasyland with a trail of corpses, I have to believe there are crimes that are more heinous than killing someone outright, or I'd have nothing but victims and bad guys. I do and it's reflected in my novels.

Rape, for instance. I've mentioned before that, while I can think of half a dozen perfectly legitimate reasons for killing someone (and a few that aren't as legitimate but frequently used), I can't think of a single excuse for rape. Nor, if given a choice, would I choose rape over death (bearing in mind that death doesn't scare me). I figure, if he'd kill me before, chances are he was going to kill me anyway - might as well save myself an unpleasant experience.

Causing pain for enjoyment or expedience or callousness, also, in my opinion, worse than killing someone outright. I'm not talking about sending your kid to bed without dinner, but there are many torments out there, physical and mental, where killing would be far more humane.

People who traffic in people also get the "worse than murderers" badge pinned. Slavers, like rapists, largely don't live to the end of the book and that's a conscious choice on my part.

And, admittedly, it makes a difference to me why someone kills another and how. You kill people by burning them at the stake or bottoms up impalement - no way to make you the good guy. You kill innocent people either because of "what" they are (rather than what they've done) or because you can, especially children, I'm going to think you're scum. Which just goes to show I'll have to talk about what I consider "justifiable" another time.

But, the reason I write that way is because I truly believe some fates are worse than death, that someone could kill another human being and be a good person but that are some things people couldn't do and retain their humanity. Do you write characters with the same viewpoint you have? Or does it change with the circumstances or the venue? What are your thoughts on violence and how are they reflected in what you write?

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