Let That Thing Fester

The title of this post is so awesome that I feel like the post itself isn't going to live up to it.  I actually thought of saving it for another post on the subject but I'm going to go with it anyway.  I'm having issues finding time for this currently, and I 'm not proud of it.  I know I’ve been absent lately but I have been doing the job of three people at my day job (literally) and cramming for my Air War College Exam.  The good news is we have enough people back at work that I can get back to just doing my own job and I got the results back from my exam, which I passed with an excellent!  I’m only one test away from finishing now, so I’m buckling down to get through it and then I can refocus on finishing the edits for Clear Ether and get it out to some beta readers. 

Writing Advice for the New Novelist (Revisited)

I decided to take a look at this advice to see if it was still valid after more than a year of learning.  I tweaked it a little and added a bit here and there.  If you have something you think I'm missing I'd love to hear it.

• Choose your voice for the story and be consistent.   I think most authors will tell you to avoid present tense, so past tense is the most common method.   Third person narrative is the most common, but books are also written in first person, Twilight by Stepanie Meyers is a good example, and second person, Halting State by Charles Stross is a good example of this form, but is fairly rare.  There also variations on how to use the third person in the form of omniscient, objective(primarily used for news reporting) and limited, which can lend itself to a narrator that is unreliable.  Unreliable just means you only see what the character sees and feel what the character feels, whether it’s a true representation of reality or not.  Third person works very well if you are changing the narrator.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_mode

Feeding the Idea Machine

When someone meets a writer it is a common theme that it goes something like this:

“Oh, you’re a writer?  I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I just can’t seem to come up with any original ideas.”

I think most of us can relate to that before we actually took the plunge.  Not all, a few of you Stephen King types out there that were born to write probably never questioned the process, but a lot of us have felt that anxiety of coming up with something interesting enough to invest the time in for a novel length book.  The funny thing is writers don’t struggle with this at all once they become writers.  Most people I have ever talked to or read something they wrote about the subject all have the same theme:  coming up with ideas is the easy part. 

Confessions of a Gaming Addict

Is there an addiction label for people that play MMOs?  Game-a-holic, em-em-o-holic, vidyict…someone will pen one better.

Hi.  I’m Todd and I’m addicted to playing massive multiplayer online games.   They’re great as an entertainment option.  I could justify playing a game vs. watching a show on the TV, but they don’t add any real value to life.  I look at people with hobbies that are productive and I’m jealous, but I rarely indulge in that kind of self-flagellation.   I deal with it just like a do when I have a task that has to be done that’s not particularly enjoyable – I put my head down and plow forward until it’s done.  I usually just let those fleeting feelings of guilt wash through me until they pass, then hit the power button on my computer and fire up another round of gaming.

Post Human Reality - Uploading Personality

I frequently joke that I’m going to live forever, like in Futurama.  Nixon is just an immortal head in a jar.  Maybe, in another 50 years, we might have the technology to upload our personalities to the Cloud -- that nether of internet space.  I wonder what that would be like.  Tron is one of my favorite movies, but the “people” of that world seem human enough.  But is that even remotely close to what it would be like?

If you change dramatically, internally, fundamentally, are you still you?  You may have a distant memory of your former self but would how would you contemplate that?  I wanted to say how would you feel about it, but that doesn’t even have the right context anymore.  Feelings are for humans.

Why Do You Do That Thing You Do?

How do you pick what to write about?  Do you have a favorite genre?  Do you read more than one genre or do you stick to one type?  I think most of us have interests that lie in many areas.  I love to read science fiction, but I also like paranormal romance and historical fiction and some fantasy.  I like scientific books on cosmology and books on how to write better.  Does that necessarily translate into what I will write about?  The short answer is probably. 

Prognosticating 50 and 100 Years Ahead

There seems to be a lot of people making predictions these days about the future.  I love this stuff. Always have.  I made a future timeline when I was maybe 13 that went a hundred years into the future.  It was fairly detailed, and I think I still have it somewhere.  I need to find it so see how we are doing.  I also did a self-portrait of me at 53.  That is almost dead on, except I thought I would have a little more hair on top. These things are fun to do and they help us science fiction writers have a baseline to project from in our worldbuilding.

Charlie Stross broke his down nicely into categories and I am going to follow suit.  So, here I go, putting on my thinking cap.  This is an extremely long post.  Just warning you now.

Beginnings are Hard

Getting the beginning of a story right is hard.  Oh, it’s not hard to start a story; it’s just hard to get it right when all the dust settles. 

When you finally get that idea that’s been percolating for weeks or months all ready to go you have no trouble putting words to page.   The first draft, especially the beginning, seems to flow.  Partly it’s because it was the kernel of an idea that got you started in the first place and so you know how it starts.  You might even know how it ends.  The middle part seems like the hard part initially because you need to stitch it all together and keep the story moving forward with meaningful drama to fill in the holes.  But you muddle your way through the middle and then hit the final stretch, which, by the way, seems to go on and on.  You think you’re almost at the finish line but it’s like someone keeps moving it away from you.  Finally you cross the finish line, and it’s a victory, although it’s short-lived and less spectacular than you thought it would feel.  You know you still have a mountain of work ahead.