Friday, June 27, 2008
Just because it’s fun for you, Tristis, doesn’t make it fun for the rest of us.

As an unpublished writer, I’m used to rewriting without the feedback. It’s easy: Take the scene I really had fun writing, clean it up and make it better; then maybe do that again; and again one last shot. Ta-Da! Happy with myself.

Putting stories up on this site means that I get some responses, either in ratings or reader hits (not comments, no never those). I’m not sure what it really means to have hits on my stories, but as long as I keep getting them, I’ll keep putting something up. The ratings are a little more information.

Somebody thought “Carol 1” sucked. Nobody else posted that rating, so I take it to be that the story was not “bad” so much as not to somebody’s taste.

The same cannot be said for “Carol 6” (or as I like to call it “Carol and the Caveman”). For me, this was just a fun little romp. I knew it was rough, but what the heck?

Then I got the first one-planet rating. “Hmm,” says I. “Is it too rough?”

I read it to my wife. She got confused. She thought there were several “bad guys” due to my narration having different terms for the caveman. But she’s an accountant, and therefore her abilities as a reader of SF are suspect.

I read it to my creative-typesinger-songwriter friend. She got confused. She said the tone of voice threw her off. She also said she lost track of what was happening. She said some other things, but it was late, and I was already thinking about how it would completely lose its true-crime flavour if I lost the Sheriff’s commentary in the narration.

I don’t have regular access to the internet yet -due to the flood damage of my home -and when I went back online it was only for a few minutes to check email and the reader responses (and change a draft story of Father Bedford to “published”). Four responses. All single planets.

“I know, I know,” says I. “But I’m not going to like it!”

It took me seven or eight stabs at this puppy to get the rewrite happening. And in the end, what worked was starting with a blank file and telling the story again from scratch, first,until I wasthrough the part that seemed to me to be the worst offending – BTW that’s all just guesswork. I don’t really know what sucked, only that sucking is what it was doing.

There were some points that I needed to keep for continuity in the book. There was somephrasing and dialogue that I kept, and the sequence of events during the story remains the same in the rewrite. What is different is the tone. The narration is much less personal, and the POV moves from Carol (sorta) in the present to Deputy Harris (with whom she has a prior relationship) in the past tense to Bernie for the back-story, back to Harris and then shifts to the present tense and Carol.

Enh. It might work.

It’s better to use Harris than the Sheriff for arming Carol. Harris would more easily succumb to Carol’s command and hand over his gun. He would also more easily comprehend that the normal rules do not apply. I don't want him tobe too accepting, though.All these events are taking place in a few days and weeks. Weird should not yet be commonplace.

Do I like this version as much? – It has lost itsmimicry of crime books narrated by police types, and it’s longer, and it’s got action on the part of minor characters instead of highlighting the prowess of Carol, who needs to be more than just a bragging warrior in a teenager’s body.

Still. It does make the armed crime-fighters of Monee look like more than boy scouts in need of adult supervision. It might be more real.

Speaking of that: There is not a lot available through Carol’s perspective in explaining anachronistic hunter/gatherers on the rampage. She does good to give him a scientific category (however off the mark it might be) instead of calling him what she really wanted to: “Captain Caveman”

Posted by Tristis Ward 2008-06-27 22:18:19

Monday, June 16, 2008
Griping and getting a grip on this book

First: I want to explain that it is much easier to post stories than blog entries on this site.

I’m still not moved back into my downstairs (flood damage), so I have to carry the computer to the internet or move the files to my laptop.

You’d think I would choose laptop, wouldn’t you?

Nooooo, no no no. The laptop is a Powerbook 2000. It is a fine computer, but alas, not intel and therefore sans PC (the program Virtual PC is just too big for its memory). Because IE is not available for Mac - at least not my Mac, in order to post to the blog I NEED to be running in PC.

So. To post, I have to start up my virtual PC on the big computer through a program called Parallels. We only have the basic memory with this iMac, and Parallels will only let the PC have a percentage of that, so Windows runs a little slow. Okay, not that slow. But it is slow starting up. Then I have to drag my Mac rtf file into Windows, open it in notepad, save it as text with no code (how the hell do I convince notepad not to call it an rtf when I "save as?" I am constantly having to copy/paste into a new text file!), then copy and paste it into IE. When it’s in there, I have to review it again for waylaid code. It’s a humungous pain in the ass.

Well then. About the book: The first hundred pages are done. This is roughly a third of the book. It is a first draft, but it’s pretty filled out for one (my typical first draft is full of dialogue-only sections), so I don’t expect the page count to be radically different by the second go.

I got me a set of worries around this story:

Are there too many characters?

Are there too many background characters who have too much detail and therefore look like even more characters?

Is there too much angst over the shared lives problem? Is there not enough angst?

Is the pace too slow? – At a third of the way through the book, should people still be popping up with mystery and mayhem all around them?

Should I put in the harder stuff? Should I not?

Have I given away too much about the Wizard? Should it be a mystery, anyway?

Have I neglected Juste and Na’Atal for too long?

Juste was supposed to have a big story all her own, but I keep putting it off. It is dark and violent and completely separate from the other stories. She only connects with the rest in the last third. I’ll probably end up writing her stuff in big batches. Once she gets going she can be as fun as Carol and Cecan to write. Of course, if I put in the detail of her story, I am going to really beef up the book. First, this hundred-page point would be at about 150. The book could get to 400 pages.

Am I still writing a book?

I keep thinking this would make a better comic.

Decisive aren’t I? Maybe it’s because it is 1:30 in the morning. I need some sleep. First, though, I have to post this. The crack-filler guy is going to be here in the morning and I don’t dare run the computer at all until the dust settles. Good night.

Posted by Tristis Ward 2008-06-16 06:56:38

Saturday, June 7, 2008
Grit or Action?

My poor warrior Carol seems to have lost her uniform. She’s got no weapons and she’s suddenly sixteen. Being a hero is hard sometimes.

Take this little adventure she is about to have. I started writing a joining scene (getting my girl there from point "lost" to point "saving the world"), but it exploded onto my keyboard the first day I trieditand did not let up until my fingers were in knots.

Posted by Tristis Ward 2008-06-07 05:11:36

Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Understanding reader trends (or not)

What's with the Fish tale?

So, I post this little tale. I think it's kind of funny. It's part of the whole mess that happens when a god betrays its creations, but it's also an origin for one of my minor characters (Dancer is not the best name ever, but his parents had their reasons).

Now, I don't know how people choose or find stories, and I don't know how well they like what they read of mine (Because there are no comments. This one reader rated the first "Carol" story with a single planet. Harsh, but I can live with it. My stuff's not for everyone.)

It seems, though, that consistently twice as many people read part 1 of the fish tale over part 2. It could be that pt 1 sucks and so they lose interest, I suppose, but there seems to be some consistency in the rest of the posted stories. Fish tale pt 2 is, in fact, the only one that lags behind. I just can't figure it out.

Does pt 1 feel self-contained? Do the cusswords or the references to New York attract more attention? I dunno. There's nudity in pt 2, does that help?

[As a side note, I shouldn't really complain. I was unsure whether I should even post pt 2, because there's a scene where things get a little dicey family-reading-wise. I left it in because it was part of the culture clash that's happening all over. I have another situation coming up, too (not involving fish) where I have felt the need to ask locals if they think it should be posted here. I don't post sex, but there are certainly some challenging circumstances.]

I am pretty excited about how many readers (or at least checkers) I do get. Four months ago you'd damned near have to submit promises in writing to see my stuff. This experience of anonymous readers who owe me nothing gives me a certain drive.

The book is at about the eighty-page mark. I am starting to wonder how much readers will tolerate the unanswered questions. How long (or short) should the introduction of this terrible situation the Janus gang finds themselves in continue? Would an editor tell me to "get on with the action already?"

Really, there is some getting on. It is only that the increments are all over the various stories. Carol is about to rise to the challenge, and Father Bedford is catching on to his role pretty well. The problem is that there are also more players to introduce and their confusion and turmoil has to be laid out. Believe it or not, I'm being brief here. I'm leaving out most of the minor characters.

I have no doubt I will need to trim a lot of stories out. It's just so darned much fun putting them all down on e-paper. In the end, this might be the only place where the whole circus can be seen (assuming - and hoping - there is a published novel at the end of the line).

So who's left?

Well, Cecan, one of my all-time favourite characters is about to emerge. He has a couple of short episodes before becoming "part of the team" in Silver's stories.

The Blue King and White Queen get their moment in the sun. Of course, it's a little ill and they'll never be the same afterward. She is from some of my oldest stories. She and Carol are only beaten out by the barely referred to "Lig" in age, and Lig's a ship.

A character who is only really important in the next book will make a cameo in this one. Of course, there's like a hundred cameos in the book. I just can't help myself. People who are essentially background characters, foils and cannon fodder get names and jobs and feelings. I don't know how I expect readers to tell the difference between the proverbial "red-shirts" and the newly emerging continuing characters, I just write this stuff down and hope not to bore or confuse everybody.

Posted by Tristis Ward 2008-06-03 06:15:26

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Order and Chaos

My not posting for days and days is not the same as my not writing a blog for days and days. I've got posting issues.- No, not just that: I've got writing chaos.

I'm left handed. I credit that for a lot of my flexibility. I can write in pretty much any place, using anything and in any order and still see the story unfold as it's supposed to. My offices have always been chaotic, full of funk and junk. That said, the flood damage to my home has made the writing process very sketchy for me.

For starters, the internet connection is in the bottom floor. It was completely gone for days, back temporarily and gone again for days. It is reinstalled as a bunch of loose cable in what is now nothing more than cement and studs with a bed frame as the only surface to hold the computer and a folding chair as the only seat.

I'm not done whining: When I am not down there shivering in the dampness to get my few minutes of connection while my cats roll in the dirt the health officials tells us is full of bacteria, I am sitting at the kitchen island on a stool my wife convinced me would be "better if it was shorter" giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome and a headache from being far too close to the monitor I know radiates carcinogenic rays.

All around me are the things I rescued from the revenge of the river. My books are stacked pretty much everywhere (I knocked over a plant onto one pile of them. Don't think that doesn't create anxiety in a book collector) mixed in with antiques, my stereo and CDs, computer stuff, the comic collection I have now been inspired to just hand over to my nephew to give me some damned room, and all the neat little items I could never do without but which are now in the way everywhere.

My mother-in-law is big in the local church and hit me up pretty hard to "purge my junk" so we could clean up the place and donate to the church yard sale (what did she expect us to do with all that space downstairs when the crisis was over - buy new stuff for it?). And the flood recovery people have been doing a combination of making me wait on them for days and loudly ripping my place apart for hours at a time. Their prices keep going up and the damage keeps getting worse (EMO condemned one of our house's main support pillars) and insurance is no longer covering everything.

Just a bit more: I lost my workshop to a spare room last fall. To make up for it, I get to convert the garage into a workshop/drawing studio. My garage-to-studio conversion is still going on (shingles are up, so it does not look so much like a shack). I can't afford a contractor for that project, so it's piecemeal work whenever I can with whatever I have on hand, and now I have to get the rain gutters cleaned at least by tonight. Stupid trees.

It turns out I don't handle chaos as well as I thought. I'm not sleeping, and it is really hard to write. What's more, the stories seem kind of lost for movement. All the characters are stuck in a holding pattern. I'm writing way more "doomed material," that is: material that's too bland or fluffy to make it past the editing stage.

This leads me to wonder what is going to happen when this mess is over. Because of the changes we're making to the house, I made an offer (without coercion) to move the wife's desk into my office (Dianna's an accountant). I did put my foot down about not having to change how I keep it. She only gets the space for a desk, a filing cabinet and the promise that I won't stack things there - oh, but then she told me she just loved the light green of her friend's kitchen for the walls. I've stubbornly stuck to bare wood trim and white primer for years, but really only because I didn't want to have to move my stuff out, and seriously, since I'm no longer drawing down there, what do I care?

Maybe I should care. Maybe this is only the beginning and she is going to say my skeleton collection doesn't go with the green walls or that I can't put in another bookshelf because it makes the place too crowded. Can a Virgo accountant share an office with a Capricorn writer? Can order and chaos find balance in the midst of a curio collection pinned stacked and hung on moss green walls?

But maybe order is going to win out, anyway. Maybe I will come out the other side of this flood mess with a new appreciation for the streamlined neatness of nearly empty places, and the rebuilt office will look like a generic, model home exhibit of a den. I might be forced to. I suspect my mother-in-law did make off with some stuff. That great portable pancake grill is no longer on the ottoman, and I haven't seen the mattress for the hide-a-bed since my brother-in-law left last Sunday. Also, the cats got into the stacks and something fell with a crash, although we can't see what, I'm sure it was mine.

Tra la la. Life goes on. I can accept this, I'm sure. I can always take up writing in the studio.

Posted by Tristis Ward 2008-05-28 18:59:57