Script Frenzy

I didn’t participate in Script Frenzy this year, which makes me sad, because I participated both previous years the event has taken place. A sister event to Nanowrimo, the trick is to write 100 pages of screenplay in the month of April. My participation in Nanoedmo, compounded with reading for the Million Writers Award, left me unavailable for Script Frenzy at the start of the month.

But… Considering that these are the last hours of frantic writing for this year’s noble participants, I wanted to say congratulations to everyone who took a shot at frenzied writing this month. Here’s to the win!

And those of us on the sidelines can still support the Office of Letters and Light, and the Script Frenzy event specifically, which can always use our support and certainly deserves it. And there’s always next year…

Short Story Month

Dan Wickett from the Emerging Writers Network is treating May as Short Story Month, meaning he’s hoping to read and comment on 100 short stories in the next 31 days. I like his method–every day he plans to read one story from an online journal, one from a print journal, and one from a collection. I love the concept, but I don’t think I can keep up with him. I’ll stand in awe, and will try to do my part. Around here, it’s short stories most of the time, anyway.

The List

I am someone who learns the hard way, and so, while I suppose I could put together a list of things to look for while editing based on books or classes, I do it based on real-life experience. Doing a revision with the help of an editor is a painful process, despite my deep appreciation for the editor’s time and advice. Part of what’s painful is that I have to break through my illusion that I can deal with everything on my own. When I get edits, my first reaction is to make excuses (“I would have caught that if I’d done one more edit on the story before turning it in” or “That’s only there because this is a stylistic departure for me”). But that’s nonsense. If I want to grow as a writer, I have to swallow my pride and see what I can learn from the edits.

I recently had an editor point out a few words that I use as crutches. The typical excuses jumped to mind, and I decided to do an experiment. For about two months, I’ve been working on an agonizing, sentence-by-sentence revision of a hard science fiction story. The sections of this piece that I’ve managed to finish represent the most polished writing I’m capable of creating on my own. I checked this target of obsessive revision for those crutch words the editor had pointed out. They were there, and I had to believe that she was onto something. Her suggestions weren’t just about the particular story she had edited (though they certainly helped it). They were suggestions that I could apply to my entire body of work.

I can almost always pull out some universal suggestions from a good set of edits, and that’s where I get my revision list. The things that have caused me pain are the things that go on the list–I’m not one to just waltz through a piece and check the transitions. I need to know why I’m doing what I’m doing. Painful revisions and nasty reader comments are the source of the things that I check for. I seem to need that turmoil to understand how to make necessary changes to my work.

I’d recommend that every writer make a revision list based on criticisms. My experience is that it’s a good way to transform what can be a negative experience (the pain of criticism) into something that I can appreciate (a general lesson that improves my writing as a whole).

Camp and Creepiness

I like H.P. Lovecraft, as you may guess from the picture at the top of the page. I’m fascinated by how he possesses the ability to scare, mixed with this incredible silliness that inspires people to make stuffed Cthulhu dolls and giggle at the idea of souls getting swallowed. Witness this excerpt from his story “The Outsider,” which my husband and I have decided is impossible to read straight:

Fancying now that I had attained the very pinnacle of the castle, I commenced to rush up the few steps beyond the door; but the sudden veiling of the moon by a cloud caused me to stumble, and I felt my way more slowly in the dark. It was still very dark when I reached the grating–which I tried carefully and found unlocked, but which I did not open for fear of falling from the amazing height to which I had climbed. Then the moon came out.

Most demoniacal of all shocks is that of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable. Nothing I had before undergone could compare in terror with what I now saw; with the bizarre marvels that sight implied. The sight itself was as simple as it was stupefying, for it was merely this: instead of a dizzying prospect of treetops seen from a lofty eminence, there stretched around me on the level through the grating nothing less than the solid ground, decked and diversified by marble slabs and columns, and overshadowed by an ancient stone church, whose ruined spire gleamed spectrally in the moonlight.

Once he starts hitting “abysmal”, “grotesque”, “bizarre”, and “stupefying”, things just get a little silly, and the story feels campy. On the other hand, I’m interested in how Lovecraft pauses here to try to lay out the character’s state of mind. This is an important moment in the story, since a key part of the horror involves reversals of the character’s expectations. So, the character believes he has climbed a long time, but is actually on the ground. Lovecraft lingers over this, making sure that the reader understands the implications of the surprise. There’s a lot that’s good about this. But his barrage of adjectives also make the moment comedic.

The link between horror and comedy has often been observed. Here’s a spot I can point to as a clear example.

No More Teasing

I should just tell you which 10 stories I selected for the Million Writers Award Notable Stories list, and stop being coy about it. I’m happy to discuss further–leave a comment, and I’ll reply or post about it.

1. “Lowest Of The Low” by Keith Banner, in Still Blue Project

2. “Retardo” by Rachel Maizes, in Eclectica

3. “The Dead Kid” by Gillian King, in Carve Magazine

4. “Maxwell Treat’s Museum of Torture for Young Girls and Boys” by Carole Lanham, in On The Premises

5. “The Diary of Li Na” by John Lowry, in Apple Valley Review

6. “The Small Door” by Holly Phillips, in Fantasy Magazine

7. “Swimming Pool of the Universe” by Nick Cole, in Atomjack

8. “The Behold of the Eye” by Hal Duncan, in Lone Star Stories

9. “Flyaway Dreams” by Bryan S. Wang, in jmww

10. “When My Girlfriend Lost the Weight” by Matt Getty, in FRiGG

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Editing

March was Nanoedmo (National Novel Editing Month). Yes, I know it is April, but the effect of Nanoedmo still has not left me. The idea of Nanoedmo is to spend 50 hours in one month editing. The idea’s obviously inspired by Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), which calls on participants to write 50,000 words in one month.

This was my first year attempting Nanoedmo. Nanowrimo has always appealed to me much more. I’ve always loved the act of producing a first draft way more than I like the act of producing second and third drafts ad nauseum, and I’ve written before about how an important part of my maturation as a writer has involved learning from editors what to do after producing draft 1.

Nanoedmo was a profound experience for me. I did not make the 50-hour goal–I did not quite make half that many hours. But it solidified for me one growing realization: my reluctance to spend time editing is the main thing standing in my way right now.

The first big hurdle of writing is to learn to write, instead of spending time thinking about writing. I’ve gotten through that. I write all the time. And I’ve learned to get all the way to the end of a draft (in most cases) before moving on to something else. I remember the moment when I learned that I needed to do this. I was flipping through a writing notebook, and realized that I had dozens of stories that lasted exactly a page and a half and trailed off. Clearly, at a page and a half in, I hit a crisis of confidence that causes me to abandon ship. I realized that I had to survive that crisis come hell or high water, or I was never going to get off the ground with anything. So. Great victory there. But…

I now have tons of finished first drafts that need a lot of work. And my reluctance to edit has nothing to do with thinking that editing’s not needed. Believe me, I know it’s needed, and I’m pleased with the results when I do put in the time. But I’m sitting on five completed novel drafts, a completed screenplay, and countless short stories because editing’s not the fun part for me.

Nanoedmo kicked off what I hope will be a lot of editing this year. I’m toughing my way through a deadly edit that I started in March. It’s a hard science fiction novella that I think’s got great potential. It needs a rigorous edit to make sure that the science makes sense and to smooth my various (and numerous) writing tics. I’m about halfway through. It’s satisfying, but hard to keep going. That problem with a confidence crisis about a page and a half into a first draft seems to hit about every two paragraphs in a second draft, especially since my usual trick in a first draft is to just turn off my mental editor, and that doesn’t exactly work when I’m editing…

One of the issues for me while editing is that I have trouble setting goals that work. For producing first drafts, I know about how many words I can write in a given time period, and so I have a decent sense of how long a draft should take. So far, with editing, all bets are off. I can spend an hour on two paragraphs. I can spend days working out some logical issue, and then breeze through a thousand words in an hour once that is solved. I can spend an hour rewriting a single sentence.

I am forever proposing series of posts, with dubious follow-through, but I’m going to start a category on editing. There are many specific things that I am learning that may be useful to others. There’s a lot of stuff out there preaching that one should edit. However, I am always looking for things that explain how to edit–I’m converted to the idea that I should. To get started, check out the Nanoedmo site–it’s got some helpful pointers on editing, and links to more.

Small Beer Press

At the turn of the year, I was doing a series on publishers’ catalogs. It’s been a while since I did such a post, but the short version is that there are certain publishers who come out with lines so well-selected that I want to read literally every one of the books they’ve published. Small Beer Press deserves such kudos, and I’ve had a niggling guilt in the back of my mind for months that I started this series without getting around to posting on this great publisher.

The Story:

As is often the case with great small publishers, I was introduced to Small Beer Press by an excellent local bookstore, Pandemonium Books and Games (in Central Square in Cambridge, for those living in or visiting the Boston area). I first encountered Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, a mind-blowing zine that I’ve written about here before that immediately entered my “purchase on sight” category. This zine is put out by Small Beer Press, and I just wish it came out more than twice a year.

Because of the zine, I’d been thinking about reading one of the press’s books, but hadn’t gotten around to it. Then, shortly before Christmas, the lovely Julia (an occasional Pandemonium employee who is always the source of deep hurt to my wallet whenever I see her) shoved Sean Stewart’s Mockingbird into my hand and told me that I must buy and read it at once. Julia informed me that Tyler, Pandemonium’s owner, had once said the same thing to her, and had guaranteed that if she didn’t like the book he would return her money. I bought the book, and proceeded to rant about Mockingbird to everyone I knew for the next three weeks. I am more of a short-story reader than a novel reader, but that book kicked off a streak of novels that continues to this day. It reminded me of how great it can be to be immersed in a fully-realized world. It is about voodoo and pregnancy. It is amazing.

Small Beer Press is kind enough to offer a number of DRM-free PDF free downloads. You can find them by poking around on the site. So, it’s possible to check out what they do without spending a dime. Then, of course, you should give them a lot of dimes so that they can keep giving us great books.

Stats:

This is where it gets fun. I just want to point out that these editors seem to love lists the way I do. They offer a number of packages that appeal to the collector in me (and that are now on my wishlist). You can find them on this page, but they include “Every Small Beer Press Book So Far” (all 26 books published in the line, not including chapbooks, for $299 in paperback or $314 in hardcover), “Small Beer Press 2008″ ($69 for all 5 paperbacks published in 2008, retail value $84), and “The Whole Small Beer Press Ebook Package” (20 books, a few issues of the zine, and some extras, on a flash drive, for $99.95). I’ve also always been amused by the LCRW subscriptions page, which includes, in addition to the usual boring deals, offers such as the “Insurance” subscription, $402 to get 4 issues of LCRW, a good chocolate bar with every issue, a random chapbook, and the feeling of pride at having paid the office insurance bill for the year.

Publishers/Editors: The press was founded in 2000 by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link. Jedediah Berry is assistant editor.

Number of books in series so far: 26 (Not counting chapbooks or LCRW)

Number of books I’ve read: 1 (Not counting LCRW. But, yeah, I’ve got a lot of (great) reading ahead of me.)

Feature summary: Attractive books, great paper, quirky sense of humor, writers that play with the borders between genres.

Fantasy Magazine

A couple of days ago, I wrote about Atomjack, one of two online fiction magazines that really stood out for me when I was reading for the Million Writers Award. The other standout was Fantasy Magazine, which I had not read before. I tend to prefer science fiction to fantasy, and so generally prefer magazines that publish both, or only science fiction. Fantasy Magazine had me re-evaluating that position when I found myself crazy about all three of the stories its editors nominated.

They suggested:

Story 1: “Erased” by Elena Gleason
http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=512
Story 2: “The Small Door” by Holly Phillips
http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=546
Story 3: “His One True Bride” by Darja Malcolm-Clarke
http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=617

Of these, I put Holly Phillips’ “The Small Door” on my final list, but it was a very close call that again came down to personal preferences. A few themes emerged as I read through piles of stories. One of them was that I am really interested in stories that investigate the dark side of childhood. “The Small Door” is an excellent example. The story of two children’s morbid fascination with a neighbor (classic theme), it’s got an atmosphere of dread that is tempered by a current of sweetness. The end has a satisfying “up” note, but it’s far from a happily-ever-after conclusion. I like stories that really take on the complexity of childhood, and this story does that well.

“His One True Bride” asks an important question: What if God is real, but he can’t be trusted? The story doesn’t flinch, and the essential horror of its central question comes out clearly not only in gruesome physical imagery, but in the main character’s mental state.

“Erased” is another very interesting premise, well-executed. It’s the story of the narrator’s boyfriend disappearing. The story doesn’t explain the mechanism of this happening, but this didn’t bother even my science-fictional brain. There’s a certain way of presenting strange occurrences as simple fact that can be a real selling point for good fantasy. This story nails that.

A number of stories from Fantasy made the notable stories list. From what I’ve seen, the recognition is well-deserved, and I’m glad to have been introduced to the site. Even in my reading frenzy, I took time to browse around to see what else Fantasy Magazine had to offer. It all looked good to me, and I plan to revisit it now that the frenzy is over.

Belated Story Announcement

I have a story up in Flashquake that I never announced by post, called “Mitosis.” Publishing with them has been a great experience–the editors are class acts. They obviously go out of their way to treat writers well and to show that their appreciation for a story exceeds the amount that the magazine is able to pay. I was surprised at the effect this had on me. They also do great illustrations for every story. I love the one that posted with mine.

“Mitosis” is one of a series of experimental flash pieces that I wrote last summer. It’s the first of the series to be published, but I’m hoping to edit the others into shape and get them out there eventually.

Atomjack!

I said that I might talk about the stories that I selected for the notable stories list for the Million Writers Award. The first thing that comes to mind is how incredibly impressed I was with Atomjack. I’ve loved the site for a long time, and have written about it here before. Atomjack’s editors nominated these three stories for the Million Writers Award:

Story 1: “Monkey Heaven” by Sam J. Miller
http://atomjackmagazine.com/10/monkeyheaven.html
Story 2: “T-shirts, Tentacles & the Melting Point of Steel” by Ben Burgis
http://atomjackmagazine.com/11/tshirtstentacles.html
Story 3: “Swimming Pool of the Universe” by Nick Cole
http://atomjackmagazine.com/11/swimmingpool.html

Now, keep in mind that when I was reading nominations I was sleep-deprived and drowning in words to the point that I wasn’t even sure if I liked fiction anymore. Then be impressed when I tell you that I loved every single one of these stories, to the point that I kept changing which one I put on my final selections. In the end, I chose “Swimming Pool of the Universe.” But both of the others spent some time on my top ten list. I was gratified to see that “Monkey Heaven” was selected by other judges, and sorry that “T-shirts, Tentacles & the Melting Point of Steel” missed out.

Obviously, Atomjack has an overall vibe that really works for me, but I loved each story for its own particular qualities.

“Monkey Heaven” is dark and thoughtful. I waded through a lot of genre stories that lacked a transcendent quality, and a lot of stories that tried to be literary, but ultimately forgot to be stories. “Monkey Heaven” had the best of both worlds: plenty of action, literary value, and serious philosophical chops.

“T-shirts, Tentacles & the Melting Point of Steel” was refreshing to me because it deals with politics without being pedantic or preaching to the choir. It’s funny and well-written, and it doesn’t give easy answers. To me, this was a pleasant contrast to Joseph Bates‘ “How We Made a Difference,” which was nominated by the editors of Identity Theory (and did end up on the notable stories list, though I did not select it). “Difference” also aimed for humor, but I felt that the humor came out self-satisfied, and that the story would appeal only to someone who was already liberal (for the record, I am liberal). “Tentacles,” on the other hand, though political and perhaps liberal-leaning, is going to make anyone a little uncomfortable, which I think is a good thing. And the heroine, a conspiracy theorist, is too whacky to command my complete sympathy, but is too appealing to be completely dismissed. I think “Tentacles” is about the unknown at the heart of politics, and I find that a more respectful position than that of “Difference.” So, “Tentacles” was robbed. By me, apparently, since I could have placed it on the list.

As for “Swimming Pool,” I was swayed here by personal preferences (ultimately, the only way to choose). I’m a huge fan of military SF, and I like “Swimming Pool” for drawing on the tropes and doing something fresh with them. I think the story is a comment on the lasting effects of war, but it does this without being precious, and, again, without providing easy answers. The main character carries the vestiges of a training program in his brain. Though the military has discontinued using the program because of its tendency to stick with soldiers, this particular soldier values its presence.

All of these stories are worth reading, and Atomjack is absolutely worth reading. Only twice in the list of editor nominations did I find myself liking all three stories. I hope to write about the other three-for-three in a future post.