New SF Magazine

I was catching up on the stuff in my feed reader today and discovered that a new SF magazine, Lightspeed, is coming out in June, and John Joseph Adams will be fiction editor. I think this is exciting news. Guidelines will be posted in December, and they open to submissions in January.

First Outside Author Pep Talk Knocks it Out of the Park

A couple days ago, I wrote that, while I enjoy the pep talks that famous writers put together for Nanowrimo participants, they often feel out of touch with what I think the month is about:

Today, I eat my words. Jasper Fforde gets it. His pep talk, the first I’ve received this month from an outside author, is one of the best things I’ve read about the idea of practicing writing. I’m hoping Nanowrimo will post it on their site somewhere, but at the moment I can’t find a link.

Here are his opening sentences:

I once wrote a novel in 22 days. 31 chapters, 62,000 words. I didn’t do much else—bit of sleeping, eating, bath or two—I just had three weeks to myself and a lot of ideas, an urge to write, a 486 DOS laptop and a quiet room. The book was terrible. 62,000 words and only twenty-seven in the right order. It was ultimately junked but here’s the important thing: It was one of the best 22 days I ever spent. A colossal waste of ink it was, a waste of time it was not.

He goes on to explain exactly why it wasn’t a waste of time to write 62,000 words that then get thrown away. Very much worth tracking down and reading.

Wednesday Comics

Wednesdays have a holiday feeling for me lately, because I’ve gotten back into the rhythm of going to the comics store once a week. I was lured back by the lovely retro-newspaper Wednesday Comics, which came out once a week for 12 weeks in full color, looking the way you wish the Sunday comics page looked. Though those were lovely eye candy, most of the stories inside ultimately disappointed. What’s made me stay, however, is that comics have amazing range. Sometimes poignant, sometimes badass, sometimes just fun. I love the genre-bending that tends to go on. I love hanging on the slow progression of a story that comes out in serial, and then rereading it in a big slurp when the whole thing has come out.

I read and write in a lot of forms, and I find that sometimes I need to change my focus to give me a fresh feeling in a world that’s pretty dense with words. Comics have been doing that for me lately.

I just got home from the comics store clutching Cinderella: from Fabletown with Love–for those who aren’t in the know, we’re talking here about Cinderella, super-spy, and it’s everything I hoped it would be. There’s a nice interview with Chris Roberson, the writer, here.

But I’m far from the only one who feels the magic of Wednesday. Paul Cornell, at the awesome Clockwork Storybook blog (chock full of writers so cool it makes me want to cry), writes, in the post I linked at the beginning of this paragraph:

That Wednesday feeling, where one hangs around I Fanboy (I hope they note I’ve dropped the comma I kept putting in their name, like they were the fan equivalent of I, Claudius), Millarworld and other forums, waiting for the first reviews to wander in, when one can pop into a comic shop, and actually see it sitting there on the shelf (right next to the Avengers titles, hmm, that’s good) is just one of the many lovely things about writing comics. … I think the feeling is quite an ancient one, akin to what Conan Doyle and Dickens and all the other writers of serials for magazines must have felt.

(As an aside, Cornell’s talking about Black Widow: Deadly Origin #1, which he wrote, and which I also picked up this week. (It’s easy to sell me a comic–just write one about a badass female super-spy or assassin or warrior.))

I think he’s dead on with his analogy to the old serial novels. When I’ve read books like The Three Musketeers, I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to get fed the thing chapter by chapter, to get the story in nibbles and then reread in gulps to make sense of it, to speculate excitedly with my friend about the surprises to come. Those stories work better that way. They’re epic, too big to read quickly or alone.

Comics have this quality, too. I look at Sandman sitting on my shelf, or Y: the Last Man, or any number of others, and I think about what huge, weird, and lovely stories these are. Long live the serial, and all hail Wednesday.

Nanowrimo Uncertainties?

I’ve noticed a lot of uncertainties about Nanowrimo in various blog posts appearing in my reader. I generally agree with all these people. Nanowrimo is asking you to write a lot of words, not necessarily good words, and what does that mean at the end of the month?

I particularly like Rhonda Eudaly’s post about steady, sane word counts. One of my big epiphanies this year had to do with the value of clocking regular 500-word days.

This is my fourth year doing Nanowrimo, and I have to say I had my doubts about adding another pile of words to the big pile that’s already in the drawer. None of my previous three Nanowrimo novels have been anything I wanted to show anyone. Frankly, if you’re shipping your Nanowrimo novel straight off to a publisher at the end of November, I think you’re insane (it’s of course different to send out a novel you wrote in three days… heh). And, yeah, you can edit, but I don’t think my previous three Nanowrimo drafts are even editable–I have other novel drafts that are.

This year, I had the goal of producing an editable Nanowrimo draft, but I’m not yet sure if that was a good idea–I’ll report back at the end of the month. I got the wacky concept that it might be possible because I do feel that my 3-day novel drafts have been editable, and it’s just weird if what I write in three days is better than what I write in a month.

All that said, I think a lot of the debate about Nanowrimo misses the point. Some of this is encouraged by the Office of Letters and Light itself, when, for example, they make deals with companies like CreateSpace and FastPencil to give authors printed copies of their Nanowrimo novels. I think this suggests that at the end of November, you’ve written a novel that’s ready for publication, and that publication is the goal.

There’s also the matter of the Nanowrimo pep talks–don’t get me wrong, I love these things. They’re short essays by famous writers who give invaluable insights into the writing process. However, I’m always struck by how little they relate to the experience I have of doing Nanowrimo. They’re great information for the rest of my writing–but they feel out of place with what I understand Nanowrimo to be.

Part of the reason I’m not sure about trying to produce an editable novel this month is that Nanowrimo has always been a simple confirmation of my love of writing. It is writing for writing’s sake. It’s about the joy of a climbing word count, and the feeling of flow as my fingers move and I become immersed in my own imagination. It’s about characters speaking through me even if what they say is dumb.

All year, I edit and struggle and wrestle with acceptance and rejection alike. Nanowrimo is about me and the page, and the holiness of the act of creation regardless of what is being created. (And to clarify this point, I think the act of creation is just about always great, but this is completely unrelated to whether whatever’s been created should be shared with the public–I think our culture is sick with the idea that artistic creation is only valid when we’re paid for it or become famous for it or when some number of people read our immortal prose).

The first year I did Nanowrimo, I was in journalism school, feeling beaten down, wondering if I’d made some kind of terrible mistake thinking I should make a go of this writing thing. Nanowrimo reminded me that writing is fun. Sadly, it’s so easy to lose sight of that.

People get encouraged in our society to confuse their jobs and their hobbies. Most hobbies can be jobs. Chess players can become chess teachers, or try to make a living off winning tournaments. Writers can sell novels. Martial artists can open their own schools. That’s great, but one pitfall of wanting to convert the hobby of writing into the job of writing is that there’s a barrier of soul-crushing rejection between you and your dream. Events like Nanowrimo matter because they remind me of why I have the dream in the first place.

Nanowrimo is this beautiful place where all that’s needed for success is a big pile of words. It’s a fantasyland, a place I love to visit, an event I wouldn’t miss for the world. At write-ins, you ring the bell of success just for making word count, not for writing anything good or publishable or having anyone like what you wrote. I do it once a year to refresh my memory of that place, to carry it in my heart as I return to the effort of revision and submission.

I believe the attitude Nanowrimo brings is the foundation for continuing to produce new words. But that’s only step one, baby. I am good at new words. Really good. I am still learning about revision, an entirely different skill.

The new words are the first step. I think a lot of the uncertainties I’m hearing are coming about because many Nanowrimo participants don’t realize that the new words are only step one. More experienced writers feel nervous that the event does little to acknowledge steps two and beyond.

If you go to a Nanowrimo event, you will find that many of the novels being written are utter silliness. People will cheer for you if you describe an utterly silly premise. This tells you something about what’s going on here fundamentally. This is about joy and fun–not pressure and not professional writing.

I promise to do my next post on something different.

Nanowrimo Off to a Slow Start

Yesterday, I had a crisis of confidence and didn’t get off the ground with my Nanowrimo novel. By “didn’t get off the ground,” I mean, “spent my allotted writing time surfing for new web series.” Crisis of confidence seems to have been caused by the latest in a string of rejection letters.

I try to have a good attitude about rejection letters. The truth is that the only way to be sure I won’t receive rejection letters is to leave my stuff unwritten or sitting in a drawer, which would be counterproductive to say the least. Writing and submitting stories for publication requires I perform a strange sort of mental misdirection on myself. I have to do my best to edit the story and make it as good and publishable as I can. Then I have to send it out and have no expectations about the result. A lot can go wrong between steps one and two.

What I realized yesterday is that I got steps one and two tangled up somewhere along the way. I’ve been learning a lot about revision and have been sending out stories more ambitiously. I’ve gotten some “good” rejection letters, too, where the editor has let me know my piece almost made it. That’s all great stuff. None of it means, however, that I can start having expectations about what the result will be when I send out a story–that seems to be the road to depression.

This morning, I did manage to start my novel, and had the experience that Nanowrimo always gives me. I got caught up in putting the words on the page. That’s the only remedy I know to the disappointment of rejection. A rejection letter means that my work won’t be published in some particular place. As far as writing itself? Nothing can stop me (except myself…).

Nanowrimo, with its relentless attention to the simple production of words, is a great wakeup call to me every year. It reminds me that I write for the joy of writing. I like getting published, absolutely, but I can’t allow the business side of things to distract me from the reason I do this in the first place.

I’m only 560 words in so far, which means I’m starting out behind–to stay on schedule, a novelist needs 3,334 words by the end of the day on November 2. Still, it’s nice to have things moving a little.

Nanowrimo Begins Tomorrow

It’s been another long hiatus here, but I wanted to take a moment to post that I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. As always, good luck to everyone else participating, and to anyone making the time to write in any form.

For the first time, I spent some time planning my story before the beginning of the month. I’ve always treated this event as more about writing for the joy of it than producing something publishable, but the result has been a bunch of drafts that I’m going to need to burn before I die. In this case, I’m wondering if I may get something I can work with after the month is over.

I have many other things I’ve been wanting to post. With luck, that’ll be on the way in the days to come–procrastinating on my NaNoWriMo goals may result in more frequent blogging…

3-Day Novel Finished

Complete at 37,000 words. There are places where the draft could benefit from being filled out some, or even a great deal. I try to plan these things so they can grow up to be full novels someday, and there’s a lot here that could still be explored.

Still, it feels good to have reached the end of the story for now. I was having my doubts earlier today.

The ending took my completely by surprise, and came quite a bit sooner than expected, which didn’t hurt anything.

I’d also like to thank Dylan Rhymes, whose album Dead Famous has allowed me to survive the last 5 hours. I think it also had a major and hopefully good influence on the tone of my ending.

That’s all for now. Time to rest, eat, and remember my name.

Slowly Gathering Steam

I wrote about 15,000 words today, which is about what I did on Sunday of last year. However, I’m still 4,000 words off my goal, which is feeling significant since I’m struggling so badly to keep up. I like the way my story’s shaping up, but I’m nowhere near as deep into it as would be comfortable. I need a monster day tomorrow to get to the end, but I have a lot of faith in the power of desperation. I’ve got to call it a night, because I’ve started writing sentences that really make no sense.

Comforting Words?

From the survival guide on the 3-Day Novel contest website:

For most, the first day is the toughest. Veterans are almost unanimous in their belief that if one even gets out of the starting gate on the first day they’re doing well. There may be a lot of “window staring,” pacing, wishing to be anywhere else. It may be best to just keep in mind no one knows anything the first day.

I remember Day One being tough last year, but this year it seems much harder. The day’s almost over and I’m hovering around 5,000 words. I take a moment to notice that, on any normal day, I would be delighted at having clocked 5,000 words. For the 3-Day Novel, that’s not nearly enough.

I spent a lot of time this morning refining my outline, because I felt I needed to get more of a handle on the plot before I could plunge in. The writing proper has gone hideously slowly (considering the circumstances) ever since I began it. To make matters worse, a Facebook buddy of mine who’s also doing the contest keeps breezily posting stuff like “10,000 words in. Having a dinner break.” I just about had a heart attack this morning when I sat down to get started at 8 a.m. and saw he was already something like 4,200 words in. Note to self: stay off Facebook. It’s not a race. (And I am glad the contest is going smoothly for him this year).

What has caught me totally off guard today: I have this powerful and constant urge to have a nap. I’ve had something like three naps today. That’s extremely strange for me–when I’m sick, my husband has to engage in some serious cajoling to get me to lie down even when I can barely see straight.

I’m hoping the contest’s comforting words are correct, and that I hit more of a stride tomorrow. The amazing thing about writing is that experience often seems to help only in the sense that it tells me I can get through whatever thing I’m taking on. The actual shape of the experience always seems to be different. Every novel is new, every project is new. No 3 days writing can ever go the same way.

Here’s hoping for at least a couple thousand more words before bed–and 6,000 or so would be nice

Reading for Virtue

I love reading and spend most of my spare time doing it, but I’ve been wondering lately what it means to read for virtue. There are books I want to have read, but that I don’t enjoy reading, usually classics of some sort. What’s going on when a book is a slog?

In many cases, I end up feeling rewarded by the book even though it wasn’t “fun.” For example, I’ll confess that Ursula LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness was not a pleasant reading experience for me–I couldn’t stand Genly Ai, who is, unfortunately, the main character. I’m so glad I read the book, however, because the world-building was incredible, and I loved Estraven. LeGuin’s exploration of gender in the book was fascinating, as was her use of invented folklore.

Another example, more recent for me, was Samuel R. Delaney’s Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. When I first picked up the book, it blew me away. The prologue seared me. Unfortunately, the rest of the book was paced quite differently. I stuck with it because the book has incredible prescience–though written in the 80s, it describes something very like the Internet. Delaney is also amazing at world-building (maybe this is a theme for me), at describing settings, and at inventing believable alien cultures. He plays a language game in the book that rips apart conventional notions of gender. The plot, however, moves slowly. Delaney ends up resolving the book with respect to the main character’s knowledge, but leaves other major threads unresolved. All of this was unsatisfying to me, and difficult to get through. Delaney’s afterword was one of the most incomprehensible things I’ve ever read.

In both these cases, I’m glad to have read the book, but I wonder what it is that can make me find value in world-building, say, and yet makes it hard for me to keep the pages turning. As a writer, if readers came to me with a problem like that, I would blame myself and revise more. As a reader, however, I still tend to blame myself–in the case of these classics, I tend to assume that I’m missing something. What’s the deal with this discrepancy? I’d welcome any comments on how to think about this.