Orycon 34

Orycon is coming up.  Orycon 34.

My relationship with the convention has changed a lot over the years.  My first (unofficial) time, a friend and I went downtown and snooped around on a Sunday afternoon while everyone was packing up and closing down.  I think it was one of the early cons, Orycon V or maybe '84.  A Dr. Who mini-fest was playing in one of the rooms.  My friend said we couldn't go in there without a badge.  I picked up a free Buckaroo Banzai headband.  I still have it.  I'm not sure if those were being handed out to promote the 1984 movie, or if they were leftovers after it had already come out.  You'd think I'd be able to date it.  Nope.  That was in the 80's, and that was a looooong time ago.

Years later, I got an official membership and tried out the writer's workshop.  Back then the convention had a lot more editors showing up.  Different time, different economy.  I got a lot of encouragement from two people I respect to this day:  Dean Wesley Smith and Gardner Dozois.  I ended up being invited to a small writer's group.  I had no idea what wonderful relationships would grow from that group.  I don't see Mary Rosenblum and Mike Moscoe (aka Mike Shepherd) as much as I like.  Orycon is the one place I can depend on seeing them for at least a few minutes.

As I began to show up more regularly, I made some convention friends I looked forward to seeing each year, and I put up art in the art show.  I even made some sales there. 

Later still I became involved in helping out.  It started so innocently, organizing the Child Care room.  I graduated to the writer's workshop.  C.S. Cole took over for me and now runs an amazing ship.  I briefly became involved in Programming, then faded away as my work load at home and the day job ate up what little time I had to devote to it.  I still help when I can, but sadly, not as much as I'd like to.

Which brings me to this year.  I'm a panelist.  I have some e-books out.  I have a teeny, tiny micro-publishing company.  I've published a couple of short stories, with one still in the pipeline for a really great magazine.  I can't wait to announce that when it happens.  I have to decide soon whether I should try to put up something in the art show again, and whether I should print up promotional materials.  It's not as clear-cut as you might think.  I used to try to make professional connections and break in with my writing.  Now the whole writing world has changed, and I have all these great friends ... mainly I want to just hang out and listen and learn and give hugs to long-found friends.  Promoting my cover art and writing doesn't seem natural after spending so many years as a member of a community.

But there are always the new kids, and some of my buddies might want to have a look at what I've been up to lately, I guess.  

It'll be interesting and fun, as it always is.

House of Goats

It sure sucks to live here.  Bleh.

I started work on a new simple life book, "House of Goats."

I'm having way too much fun with this.   I remember all the mistakes I made when we first moved out into the country very well.  You know the stuff I'm talking about, the stuff I started blogging about, with mouse nests in the ceiling, and goat escapes, dog escapes, sanity escapes ... the good old days that just won't stop happening to me.  The question my kids keep asking is how close to the present will I write into this?  I have no idea.  I keep getting new material every day, like my ongoing obsession with January gardening, which is somewhat reminiscent of my late evening gardening where I contemplated gardening by torchlight to extend my gardening day.  

I'll write until I find a good stopping point, I guess.

Latest Kami-brained scheme--raising chicks in my mini-greenhouse on the deck.  I'll let you know how it goes.  It could be full of awesome, or fail to the max.  Either way, I suspect that little greenhouse will never be the same again.

Heck yeah chickens will go into the book.  The House of Goats just wouldn't be complete without The Smartest Chicken in the World.

Some links to peruse:

Scott William Carter has started a new blog series about writing.

Dean Wesley Smith writes about agent agreements.

Hard-Boiled Mystery Writer Robert B. Parker, RIP--died with his boots on (at his desk)

FYI, on Dean's page, you'll notice that the Agents Know Markets myth post has 96 (or more by now) comments on it.  Good stuff.

Silver Thaw

I'm working on a story with silver thaw in it. We don't have any right now, so I'm working from memory. I've decided I don't like working from memory as much as I used to. Making stuff up is harder now too. Why? Because I'm aiming for specific rather than generic or false details. It's tough! I think my writing has improved hugely since I took the master's class, but it's harder now too. Oh sure, I get immersed in the writing and everything. But I spend a lot less time typing when I'm in the midst of a description, and more time with my eyes shut tight, trying to squeeze the right details out of my brain.

So much easier to look around and see and smell and feel. I'm in the library right now in a slate blue corduroy chair with tan piping that supports me like firm flesh--cozy and creepy at the same time. A totem pole towers against the pale yellow wall, ignored by library patrons studying their laptops. The wood and varnish scent have faded back to almost nothing under the smell of the carpet shampoo they use around here. Everyone is in a cushy chair except a lean man in a black and green windbreaker with a beat up old Mac. His finger pushes wrinkles up his forehead and I wonder how can that be comfortable, bracing your head on one finger. He looks like he's working and that things aren't going well, but he's calm, determined, the kind of guy I'd want fighting to protect me from bad guys. I bet he has scars from all his battles both real and cyber.

It's so easy compared to trying to remember the scent in the air from a silver thaw, and how the ice looks at night, and the sounds--I want to say it kind of crackles, but I'm not sure anymore. Maybe it only does that during the day when the pale sunlight focuses through it like a lens and warms the branches underneath.

Challenging, but doable. I sure wouldn't mind a silver thaw coming along, though. It would really help me out. I can't wish for it because it causes too much trouble for folks lucky enough to have a job right now. If it just happens to happen, then I'll squee.

Will Type for Chocolate

After a couple of months of not exercising, I'm on day 3.  Oh.  My.  Gawd.  I alternate full and light workouts, and so yesterday's workout wasn't so bad.  I'd even be willing to put in writing here and now that it was fun and pleasant.  But the soreness!  I get to giggle at myself all day long, especially trips up and down the stairs when my legs start whining.

C.S. Cole has observed, and I agree, that exercise helps hugely with creativity.  A friend of mine just got a Wii, and her painting exploded.  (No, not literally--sheesh!)  When I took the master's class, our instructors spent some time talking about how physically demanding writing can be.  (Seriously, it is.)  Think of it as a reverse-toll in terms of cardio-vascular health.  To head off potential problems with blood clots and stroke, and to keep weight from ballooning, writers need to eat right and get some aerobic exercise.  Also, to keep the mind sharp, no drinking alcohol before or during writing.  (Makes sense to me so I've adopted this habit or rather non-habit, though I do miss sipping wine while writing in the evening.  I've also added no snacking during writing.  Not only does snacking make my keyboard gross, but it leads to mindless eating--lots of calories with no enjoyment because I'm not paying attention to the wonderful experience of eating.)  Writers also have to have some serious strength and endurance in their hands, wrists, neck, shoulders and lower back.  It's good to have balanced fitness, but weakness in these areas in particular can literally end a writing career when, after a hard push, the writer suffers a catastrophic failure or an overuse injury.  Carpal tunnel syndrome is just the tip of the iceberg.  Try writing while flat on your back in constant pain, or without the use of one of your shoulders.  It can be done, but would you produce as much?  Might you perchance develop a monotone of subject matter, or plot, or characterization if you were in constant pain?  

Stuff to think about.

So I have a date with Jillian today (oh Jillian, how I love to hate you.)  I'm also depriving myself of chocolate until I get my Nano novel written to The End.  This has been remarkably motivating.  I knew I consumed some chocolate every day, but I had no idea how much.  Trader Joe's brick pieces.  Chocolate-covered raisins from Costco--accept no substitutions.  Hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows.  Ice cream with chocolate chips or chocolate cups; we're now out of vanilla ice cream.  I think by the time I finish the novel, I'll have dropped a few pounds from lack of chocolate alone!

Chocolate, chocolate, how you torment me ....

Emotional Settings

One of the things I had emphasized to me over and over again at Kris and Dean's Master's Class is the importance of setting. I had that lesson taught to me once again, but from a different source.

I read for the Endeavor Award. When I read a really good book, I may give a review on my blog if I'm so inclined, but generally I don't review books. First of all, reading is a very subjective sort of thing. What one person may enjoy, another may loathe. I'd much rather be accused of singing praises of a book everyone else hates or doesn't get, than be slamming a work that may be perfectly enjoyable to the vast majority of folks. I'd be hurting the author's feelings for no good reason--I'm not a paid critic so it's not my duty to point out a particularly putrescent piece of fiction--and I may deprive someone of a good read if they take my advice and avoid something they might have enjoyed. In other words, I'd rather err on the side of encouraging folks to try something I liked than go the negative route and tell people to stay away from reading no matter how bad I think a book may be.

But I digress.

This last book I read lacked setting and visceral details almost entirely. People and clothing were described on a fairly regular basis, and dripping blood, but other than that, the characters lived entirely in their own heads. Maybe that was the point. But it wasn't a very gratifying read. The action fell flat because no one felt or reacted to pain, unless it was emotional pain. The characters have scenes set all around the world, but I didn't hear turns of phrase change, and the landscape--they might as well have stayed in the United States. Any details about England, France, Wales, Russia, Italy ... I had to fill in myself based on my knowledge and experiences.

I don't want to fall into this trap.

Dean told us that he used to have a problem with too little setting in his writing. After being admonished about this many times, he finally got mad and overwrote setting in the opening of his next work. The first reader response? He nailed it.

They also reminded us in class that many of our favorite books on the class reading list were extremely setting heavy books. I remember the feeling of being in a southern swamp while reading one of the books and loving every drip from the moss and every whine from a mosquito. All the while the author had me sitting on the edge of my seat. Why?

Because the book engaged my senses while injecting opinion into every detail. I loved or hated the character's surroundings based entirely on whether the author wanted me to love or hate them. I was along for the ride.

So despite the weak book's best efforts through (overwrought) dialogue and action-packed scenes (in which people froze or ran or used telepathy a lot) I was bored and feeling like I was watching a poorly written, plotted, choreographed and filmed movie. And despite the strong book's pages-long lovingly-described scenes with little dialogue or action, I was never bored. In the weak book I was told that a character's eyes gave people chills. In the strong book, a look from a suspected killer from across the room gave me chills.

Note to self: Make every description count, and don't be shy. Setting can make or break a story.

Don't Look! Writing w/o looking at the screen

... still writing ...

... still working on Orycon programming ...

... still working on website ...

... but at least my website, kzmiller.com, is live and updated.  It's just a little thin at the moment.  Let me know what you think.  Really.  I don't mind negative comments at all, especially if they're richly deserved.  Besides, it's not like I'd be stuck with teh suk if it does stink.  I can make changes all by my lonesome, without any webmasterly help (for the most part) so it doesn't cost me money, or very much time. I plan updating it fairly often, so your comments may be put to use pretty darned soon, especially if they point out something particularly heckle-worthy.

Bear in mind I may ignore your advice.  I'm mean that way to everyone, so don't take it personally. 

**A big thank you to S. & C. for your help in getting my website back!  That change of software really threw me.  Now I have control over my website again.  Yay!**

My Nano is coming along.  I'm averaging about 3600 words a day, with over 18,000 words written as of tonight.  But I haven't had much time to put together a short story this week.  I'd like to do that tomorrow, and get it sent out in the mail by Monday.

For all that I'm writing along at a decent pace, my DH is rather easily staying ahead of me.  This while only being able to type with two fingers.  Seriously.  I could trot out some excuses, but actually, it's a matter of dedication and speed of thought.  A couple of times now I've had to step back from what I'm writing and play in hot water for a while, whether it's dishes or taking a bath or whatever.  I've also done some gardening (thank you utility dudes for the free chipped pruning debris!) as that gets me out into fresh air.  Fresh air and exercise help keep my writing from getting foggy and inbred.  Working upstairs on my laptop helps too but I've already developed a favorite spot (on the loveseat) so I haven't changed perspectives very often through the device of changing sitting position and changing what I'm staring through when I look up from the keyboard.

Speaking of looking up from the keyboard ...

One of the things I learned about my own writing style in the master's class is the disadvantage of reading what I'm typing.  The advantage is that I tend to read somewhat aloud what I write as I type, just as I read aloud silently in my head when I read.  (This is a slow way of reading, but I get to enjoy the sounds of words on the page that way.)  People sitting close to me while I write will sometimes hear me vocalize deep (and quietly) in my throat, talking out the words on the page as well as reading them.

This is good to help me capture the sounds of words, but ...

But the flow of my writing stops and starts depending on things like typos.  I also get distracted by the look of the words on the page.  I worry, independently of how the word flow feels, about things like paragraphs being too thick or thin.

Visual appearance and typos are important, but allowing those little pixels on the screen dictate my writing to me while I'm in creative mode isn't always the best way to get at the right words.  When I mentioned this to Kris, she smiled and let me know that she often doesn't look at the screen at all.  Her gaze will wander around the room, and she'll be seeing in her mind's eye.  This, I believe, lets her tap more deeply into her imagination.

I gave that a try a few times during the class, and I think I'll give a try here at home from time to time too, especially during very visual moments in the story.  I just have to make sure my fingers are on the right keys, otherwise I won't be able to read what I just wrote!

I hope all my fellow Nanoers are doing all right out there!  Keep writing!

Looking Over the Rail: Life Course Changes

Not much progress on the website. I'm a writer, not a webmaster!

Oh well.

Back to stuff about writing. One of the tough things about any kind of work or really anything is how to enact necessary changes. Dean Wesley Smith put it very nicely in the master's class--life is like an ocean liner. It can't turn on a dime. My corollary--you personally can turn on a dime, but it'll involve jumping ship. What does the ship represent? Family. Job. Home. Financial and social obligations. Your life as you know it, and all the ties that connect you to the world around you. The more you're willing to give up, the faster you can change.

A fast change isn't necessarily a good one, though, and it may not be lasting. In fact, you may crash and end up managing nothing but the damage you've caused yourself and others (if they don't abandon you entirely--and financial institutions will of course haunt you.) You'll have escaped into a storm, not the future you wanted. Going back to the jumping ship analogy, you have a moment of freedom--freefall--scary and exhilarating and, if you're that sort, fun. Then you hit the water. Slam. Culture shock, as in your own personal culture is no longer accessible and you're a stranger in a world completely alien to you. Shock from damage. Damage you cause yourself, financially, emotionally, maybe even physically (but I thought living in a cardboard box would work--why am I having to deal with frostbite?) Shock as you realize that big change is hard, and that now you have to swim. Staying afloat isn't a stasis situation anymore. Or, if the ship was sinking, at least it was sinking slow and now ...

Some people deal with shock better than others. They can run away to Europe and start hitchhiking, just getting by, and never look back on their old lives. They can ignore their family and work sixteen hours in their office every day, only surfacing for junk food, and not suffer from the resentment, or ensuing divorce, or the guilt if a child gets hurt and they don't notice for three hours. Each course change a person sets has positive and negative effects, foreseen and unforeseen. The bigger the change, the more effects there will be. If you can't deal with those side effects, you may try to climb back onboard. But the ship may have already gone on its way. Even if it hasn't, it may not be possible to get back on unless someone throws you line. And if you do make it, you can bet your status on that ship will have changed.

I'm not saying if you need a big change, don't jump ship. But consider how much you can handle, and whether or not you're willing to lose everything. A slow change may be more manageable, and more sane, and you may be able to adapt more easily to those unforeseen circumstances as they come up.

Sometimes there isn't a choice. Sometimes a lifestyle change is what you need to save your life, or to give yourself a shot at a future you want to live to see. Maybe those two things are the same. And maybe your ship has run aground and the only way to move forward is to get off. Anyway, as a model this works really well for me. I'll look at my decisions in a whole new way. Maybe it'll make me a more effective writer, and a more effective human being.

Master's Class: Kidnapped by Pirates

When you've been through a life-changing experience, it can sometimes be hard to convey what happened, what's different now that you're back home, etc.

I happened to stumble on a metaphor in the middle of class that makes the explanation child's play.

Remember Hook, the movie starring Robin Williams? Peter Pan's son and daughter have been kidnapped by pirates, and the kids are instructed to write some things down. The daughter refuses, and Captain Hook instructs Smee to give her an F. Which he does. "F?!" she cries. "You gave me an F?!"

The real problem, of course, is not that she got an F but that she's been kidnapped by pirates. And that's what the master's class was like. For a while I focused on the mechanics I didn't have and where I failed as a writer. "F? Zero out of ten points on my revision paper?" Oh my gawd. I thought they'd send me to the remedial class before I could proceed.

Luckily, I figured out that some score on a revision test didn't matter at all. What I really had to pay attention to was that I'd been kidnapped by pirates. And I wanted to be a pirate. Er, writer. I finally began to look at what I did right, instead of what I was doing wrong. From that mindset I could then think about what I left out of my writing (not what was wrong, but missing) and commit to including that piratical, er, writerly stuff.

Suddenly, I began to sail the high seas, battling storms, tasting salt on my lips, deafened by the thunder of waves against the hull that shook through my very bones ...

I didn't give a rat's tail if I got an F on some grammar-related test thingy.

And that, ladies and gents, was what I came home with, and why I view writing, and life, in a different way than I did before the class. Wouldn't you, if you'd been kidnapped by writers?

Things I've learned

Thoughts for the day:

Competent work employs the first workable idea.  A competent craftsman will have practiced his skill up to a certain point such that his work, on first perusal, will leave nothing to offend the eye.  He will use the materials most easily available to him that will get the job done.  And he will put just enough thought into his work so that it's clearly a unique product.

A good craftsman will think deeply to get past the early ideas to find an elegant one.  He will trust that his skills are competent and focus on expressing his ideas and himself through his work.  He will use materials that inspire him and others without being overbearing or gaudy.  And he'll know he's achieved something true to himself when the results of his labor surprise him, not because his work is bizarre, but because his work of art taught him something he didn't know before, and perhaps reveals to others what they didn't know about themselves.

I plan to apply these principles to writing.

Polishing rice to a mote

One of the things we went over in class is polishing a manuscript to death.  It seems I've been doing that.  

I should have known.  I know better than to turn my paint into mud, so why in the world would I do the same with words on the page?  Going over a work is fine.  Going back to fix things that need to resonate with things written later, no problem.  But I've been playing with sentences, even individual words, trying to get that perfect lightning/lightning bug thing going.

At least with my process, that may need to happen on the first draft, because work that I turned in that I thought was some of my best work couldn't hold a candle to the stuff I wrote overnight for the class.  And you know what?  That was true for everyone in the class.

Everyone.

Just think of what we could do with a longer deadline so we could really think things through and no rewriting?

I firmly believe that learning to rewrite words on the page is critical--at a certain stage in a writing career.  Those are important skills, at least in my opinion, if for no other reason than it would be good to be able to respond to an editorial request without falling apart.  On the other hand it seems I've gotten past that stage.  My revision skills went from productive to destructive somewhere along the line.  

My classmates shared that trait.  We are Borg.  (We all had similar problems, and we even came up with similar story ideas until K&D started handing us completely different news articles to write from.)

So it's back to Heinlein's Rules for me, and with a confidence I didn't have before.  I've now had complete strangers, over a baker's dozen of them, tell me my writing is better when I don't polish it to death.  I may write a little more slowly and be more considered with those first word choices as a result.  Or not.  I'm not sure what it'll do to my writing speed.  I'll be interested to find out.

In other news, no news about Brian yet.  We'll be going to the humane society again in a bit to see if he's there.  I suspect he isn't.  They called when a dog matching his description came in last time.  They'll probably call again when another comes in.  But we'll look just the same.  Maybe they haven't had time to give us a ring and he'll be there, fanning his tail and looking very apologetic.  

That would be incredibly wonderful.

Glory in the Details

I'm home.  Still feeling overwhelmed, in a good way, about Kris and Dean's master's class.  

We didn't just learn about writing at this class.  We learned about different aspects of a writer's life, from budgeting to marketing, writing pace to contracts and all kinds of stuff in-between.  Some of the more valuable lessons I learned came from watching Kris and Dean react to new information.  They're learning all the time, and voraciously investigate anything having to do with writing craft, business, or their other interests.  

I try to learn about stuff, and I thought I'd done a pretty good job.  Well, sort of.  My sources of information about things like writing craft have been pretty limited, unbeknownst to me.  I'd forgotten a big, very important source of information.  Direct experience.  That means reading (for pleasure first) and then dissecting writing, among other things.  That also means listening to my senses, even if it means snorting dandelion pollen and then sneezing for two days afterward to get a description right.  

I get away from my office from time to time; I've even posted about escaping my desk to write, hopefully not with a note of superiority.  But it's literally been years since I've gone downtown to check out architecture, or savored a hot chocolate with raspberry sauce and extra whipping cream specifically to imbed the sensory information into my head in a way that I can later access for writing.  Taking notes helps.  I'm sure the wonderful staff at Mo's restaurant in Lincoln City thought I was nuts, but I took four pages of notes about the food--how it tasted, smelled, felt, the clientele, the view ...  When I sat down to write the story, I didn't even have to look at those notes.  The memories were right there waiting for me.

And of course there's writing practice.  Writing with a specific goal in mind--to get an effect, or to deliberately include scents on every page, or to express an opinion through character voice without actually stating what that opinion may be.

The different ways to get direct experience are still percolating in.  Until then, I've got to write with what I've got.  Tonight, in fact.  I'm pretty pooped but I could stand to write something that isn't an assignment, as fun as those assignments were.  (Some of them I have to say were ~fun~ assignments rather than fun fun, but I ended up enjoying the results anyway.)

It's good to be home.  I'll miss my writing buddies, but I missed my family lots and I'm all grins right now.  If Brian comes home that'll be even more beautiful.

Before the Long Drive Home

I've had a fabulous time at Kris and Dean's master's class. What an incredible experience. I'll be spending the next few weeks (or years) assimilating all the information I got here and making it part of my writing process.

Actually, I'm still here, technically, but in about three hours I'll have graduated from this particular asylum and can carry on wreaking havoc out in the world at large. Dinner first. And maybe a glass of celebratory glass of champagne.

Later I'll post a blog entry with a list of folks who were here who wouldn't mind a little shout out. I've been privileged to work with some really amazing writers; talented, dedicated, creative, intelligent, and almost as crazy as me though not as dopey unless they want to be.

One of the things that's going to be on my mind will be my writing style. I can't imagine that I could have changed a whole lot in two weeks, but at the same time I feel like I'm living in a completely different universe.

It's always kewl when you get thrown off a cliff and manage to fly. Flap awkwardly, in my case. They say there was a nice warm pool of water to catch me down there, but I didn't want to find out the hard way.

I will go over some of the interesting lessons over the next bit, but I don't want to throw anything out there before I know what I've got. 'Cause, I may think I'm throwing a bouquet of flowers and y'all might run screaming spiders! spiders! and then I'd be all embarrassed right before I started dancing around doing my Kami freaking about spiders dance. Followed by Kami realizing she'd touched spiders and doing the boogety woogety shudder I touched a spider dance.

No word on Brian, btw. I think having him missing has been easier on me than the rest of the family since I've been here all sleep deprived and busy. If it hits like a ton of rocks when I get home, I may whimper about it here. You're all forewarned.

I walked on the beach today. My whole body feels clean but imbued with a living perfume. Incredibly beautiful day today. Pouring rain, sunshine, damascus steel sky. My hair flew around my head and the ocean thundered and sand sizzled down the beach. Five pelicans ghosted through sea spray whipped up into the air by northerly wind.

My DH will be driving in today. I've really missed my family, especially him. I feel like I've got a whole lifetime of words (here's where he'll let out a groan) of words and ideas that I want to share with him.

That's what long drives home are for.