So...

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

February 15, 2010 -- 5:08 a.m.

Well, I was planning to cover the rest of the panels too, but my laptop decided to finally breathe its last gasp and die. I'm glad that it waited until my novel was done to do that.

I'll take it to a shop for repairs. Hopefully they can make it work again or at least get the data off. Most of my stuff is backed up, but some of it isn't.

Hope love, and laptop malfunctions. Naturally this will cut down on my blogging for awhile.

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Round-up

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

November 9, 2009 -- 11:41 p.m.

I've been busy playing catch-up on some blogs I've fallen behind on lately. Here's some old entries that I feel are of note. I think most of these are links from Nathan Bransford's round-up, so give him the credit.

The Rejectionist blog held a contest for writing the funniest form rejection. The winners are here. Let the musical zombies of awesome be heard.

A comprehensive study of the price wars by Nathan Bransford, who explains why some people feel cheap books are be a bad thing, especially for new authors and independent booksellers. Well, we'll see how it all plays out. There have been book sales before without the world ending.

Publisher's Weekly decides that they don't need to wait for December to announce the best books of 2009.

Author Natalie Whipple offers tips for finishing that horrifying first draft.

Likewise, Janet Reid offers advice for the equally terrifying query letter.

And screenwriter Johny August offers seven things he learned from playing World of Warcraft.

WRITING PROMPT #10

TITLE: The Wall Fell
GENRE: Any
TYPE: Setting

Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell.

There is power in stories about separation. Because though people fear death and pain, they also fear being seperated from their loved ones and their families. I've always been amazed when I watch shows like Survivor how intense the reunions with the contestants are with their families. I mean, they've only been separated a month, and yet they sob like children lost in a mall. Part of that, I suspect, is the reality television head space, but there's more to it, I think. I've always been a person of solitude, so I doubt I'd react that way. I am more comfortable on my own than with other people. But who knows?

Think about cultures. Alien cultures in sci-fi and fantasy literature usually have great distinctions, because they are "planets of hats," with just enough definition to make them alien and strange, or very familiar. A planet full of Nazis or communists or warriors. To some extent, this is just because of the limitations of form--hard to paint every culture in broad strokes with only a few pages of description. After all--it's not as if we need to know that the fierce blue-painted warriors are also advanced connoisseurs of escargot. That gets sidelined by the plot, for good reason.

But the strange thing is, often there's no such thing as "culture creep." Planets are divided by space and nations in the fantasy world are divided by distance and travel methods, so there may be some explanation, but usually there are similarities between different peoples, even those who hate each other. Loan words in the enemy's language, similarities in government, etc.

I want you to think about whatever speculative cultures you're working on. What stops culture creep? What stops cross-pollination and acts as a wall between your peoples? Is it a desire for purity? Governmental restrictions? Are there cracks in those walls, people while relish the culture of their enemies at the risk of being labeled traitor? Nobles, especially conquering ones, often have a separate culture than their subjects. What are the walls that keep them apart? I read once a book where the theory was that people are defined not by who they are but by who they are not. I am not a popular girl. I am not athletically gifted. I am not one of those contemptible fools that surrounds me. Their sense of what they are not is stronger than their sense of what they are.

Is there any way you can play on the separation anxiety of your hero? Most stories involve journeys, both physical and internal. What walls stand between your hero and his people? What makes him an outcast? Can he break through those walls?

If you don't quite understand what I'm getting at--I certainly don't, I tend to ramble when I get philosophical--do this instead. Create a culture separated by a wall. Who built it? Why? Do the two peoples want to reunite or stay apart? Why? What will be the consequences if the wall comes down. Despite the jubilation when the Berlin Wall fell, I bet it also caused thousands of personal conflicts as people reunited and found their expectations shattered. Who does the wall falling hurt? Who does it help?

Get writing.

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Yeah!

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

My computer's back from the shop with brand new, shiny anti-virus software. The novel's fine. I've started over from the beginning with the goal of packing it jam full of shiny new adjectives, too. I'm ignoring the word count and pretending that this novel won't balloon to 200,000 words in the process. Hopefully, it won't.

It feels so good to write again. To go back to a familiar world. My self-confidence has been kind of shot lately, I don't know why, so it's good to be back to things I'm actually good at.

In the meantime, my swimsuit hasn't come yet and there's another person throwing a birthday party at the exact same day as me, so I'm likely to end up with a lot of food and no guests. Oh well.

Low expectations are the key to happiness.

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Blarg

Posted by Unrepentant Escapist

August 27, 2009 -- 1:37 a.m.

I finally figured out what had my subsconscious up in arms. The moon, of all things!

I wrote a scene so that the moon was still full nine days apart. Okay, yeah, that was an error, but couldn't my subconscious have just pointed that out to me rather than let me writhe for days in agony, wondering what was wrong? That was the unsolvable error? That was the reaosn for my writer's block? The freaking moon?

Today was a good day. Until my computer shredded everything I had worked on. I finally hammered the emotional scene into a shape I liked but...BAM! It's gone. And I can't remember a bloody thing I did. I heard a strange whirring sound and tried to save but it died a moment before the little blue bar crossed the screen. Curse you, little blue bar!

I don't know why auto-save failed. But I'm almost ready to chuck this laptop out of my window. It's impossible for me to remember to save things myself when I'm drowning so deeply in Rachell's world.

I'm trying to look at it as an opportunity to create a new and better revision, but it's hard not to be discouraged. I worked so hard.

Writing Prompt (no number, because it's not an official one): Write a flash-fiction (or longer, whatever) horror story involving a frustrated writer and a supposedly "innocent" computer.

Oh well. Time to relax and cuddle up with some episodes of House. I've been having the most delicious dreams about Hugh Laurie.

(Though sometimes I wish Cuddy would just kick him in the groin, just for the sake of strong women everywhere.)

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