[On Writing] Logistics behind a Title

Yesterday, I wrote the final lines of my erotica short with horror elements and superheroes entitled "Pages & Play Things". I'm positive about this project as it started with a less of a bang, but as I continued writing I've rediscovered the way to translate my thoughts in projects, something I have been fearing given my absence from writing for a long time. 

Two peculiar things happened with this project. First, I had to fiddle with the story itself and first write 2,000 words before I finally heard the story click with me. And the second has to do with the title itself. If you have talked about writing with me, you will know that I start first with the title. The title is the name of the story and when I sit down to talk to the story, let it come to me, I like to know who I'm talking with. After all, my mother has taught me not to speak with strangers. 

When I don't have the title, I don't know the story. "Pages & Play Things" I think captures the subject matter of the story (a special book, which exists in defiance to the cultural and technological background of its story world) and the genre, a mixture of the erotic and nefarious. After all, Eros and Thanatos walk hand in hand. 

Before the story received this title I started with "Big Powers in Small Tights", which played with the super hero elements heavily, the eroticism of tights and the humor of my main character. Eventually, I decided to down play the humor and dial up the erotic heat and re-titled to "Teamwork", which in the context of the genre should more or less speak for itself.

Although this title is now perfect for creating the steamy images I want to elicit from the title alone, I wasn't  all that happy how it disconnects from the actual plot. The crux of the story lies within the intense diametrical oposition of the protagonist with his teammates. By that time I thought that maybe I need to hint at the plot, so I settled for "The Book That Wants to Play", but as I fitted the title in my mind, my writing devoured all the humourous bits and substituted them with weird, budding elements of horror, so I had to lose the B-movie vibe. 

As I penned the ending and logged into Facebook to announce how happy I felt at the completion of this one story, I didn't feel the title was right and as I wrote the status update "Pages & Play Things" rolled off on the keyboard. What do I think the perfect title should be? 

I think it should convey the tone of the work (the aliteration hints towards the writig style), should hint of the genre or at the very least the story archetype ("play things" whispers a bit about that) and should point at the focus of the story (the book). Sometimes all three elements can't be incorporated, but a combination of two should suffice. 

Things No One Tells You about NOT Writing

Piece by Alberto Cerriteno.
I'm returning with the image
of the day feel to my blog. 

With much scrapping through the coffin’s wooden lid and elbowing through dirt, the blog has arisen from the yonder to feast on the righteous flesh of those who have succeeded it. Fear its indiscriminate trolling, ill mannered finger pointing and infection-sprouting referral links that will spell your doom.

Long story short, I have graduated from university.

Achievement unlocked: Bachelor in International Economics.

Finally, a writer with the knowledge and understanding of spending habits OR you know, the harbinger of our world economy’s end; whichever comes first I say.

On to the good stuff, eh? It’s been precisely one month, twenty-two days, five hours and forty minutes since my last post (I’m writing this on a Saturday, so it will probably be longer by the time you see it, but I’m not a stickler for numbers). Thankfully, this period does not apply to my sobriety.

During my absence, my blog’s reached 30,000 hits according StatCounter. My gratitude to all image searches and the people, who typed in “rule 34 Justice League”, “naughty time DC” or my favorite “sexy Baba Yaga”. Nothing lights my heart brighter than a quest for a serviceable geriatric of the occult variety. Given the less savory searches, I think I may have discovered a potent niche within visual pornography. 

Although I have been boldly going where no writer desires to half-step in (reality) and my ten tireless digits have slaved over the keyboard, I have been writing non-fiction, rather than what I really wanted to write. Priorities demanded I secure a juicy diploma and a steady income, so I don’t feel as if I have betrayed my purpose as a writer. If someone preaches that you have to write no matter what, then you should shoot said person in the face, because if writing causes unnecessary pain (after all the expression goes ‘suffering for’ and not ‘from’ your art), what’s the point in doing it.  

Regrets aside, I have learned a few things about not writing, which I think no one mentions as valid lessons for writers. Sometimes you have to not write and tackle other obstacles, but the moment you return to your writing projects, you will come head to head with several issues. I believe that most writers should prepare psychologically for these challenges.   

You Become the White Rabbit.

Everyone knows the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, the perpetually out-of-time tiny fluff ball of fucker in a petticoat. You become him. I became him (minus the petticoat) and I still haven’t repositioned my posterior with the intent to create. By now I should have finished with detailed prep-work for a novel series in the works for the last two years concept-wise.

Yes, prep-work for some doesn’t qualify to prance around with a status ‘full-fledged writing’ (though I protest the second-class citizenship some writers attribute to prep-work). Yet, for all intents and purposes, prep-work is writing.

What in the seven hells happened?

My space-time-continuum healed itself, which is a very fancy phrasing to explain slapping a band aid on my schedule, where the writing used to be and allow for my routine to change. I have unlearned the lessons about discipline. I have forgotten the sacrifices, their importance and I hop around much like the White Rabbit, constantly out of time. Perhaps Lewis Carroll could have given the bunny an organizer, but either way, be prepared to fight for your right to write all over again.     

You Have Drunk from the Waters of Lethe.

In Greek mythology, the waters from the river Lethe caused loss of memory. Now substitute drinking the waters from a hell river with watching television as a favorite pastime and you’ve got yourself a writer in abstinence.

During the months in preparations for exams, I had long periods of ADD (I’m only tentatively ascribing the condition to myself), where I couldn’t sit down to write. Naturally, my brain did its best to hide all writing tools (as if it prepared me for a treasure hunt) and erase their user instructions. I’m struggling with this mildly humorous, mostly self-serving post.

Sentence variation, masculine verbs and active voice? What were they? Coming back from a long spell of not writing will most likely mean that you will have to teach yourself your style from the ground up. Unless you are exceptional, then I hate you.

Your Mind Is a Sleeping Beauty.

Wait, what?

Yes, your mind, though in all honestly it’s just the part in charge of writing, which has slipped in a night gown, under the covers and has forgotten to set its alarm clock. Cue the handsome love interest.

Not only did I forget how to write, I forgot how to think as a storyteller. Don’t gasp. I’m still a storyteller, just a pale clone. It happens, when you don’t practice. Writing is not riding a bike; you don’t mount the keyboard and start from a saved checkpoint. Hearing the story, spinning the story, shaping the story into a fresher take on whatever plot you are rehashing from the mono-myth takes more time than you have grown used to.

I remember a writing exercise on the Internet, whose objective was to write ten story ideas in one go without a break. Nothing simpler than writing the core idea, the story’s backbone. Ten backbones. Pretty easy, right?

The first two or maybe three pose no challenge. However, they are the most obvious ones, the ones your imagination has seen done elsewhere and cached for a quick use later on. To access your mind’s full capabilities as a storyteller, you have to dig deeper, which is something I’ve to repeat once again.   

My personal lesson with not writing boils down to ‘one step forward, two steps back’. I have not fallen beyond salvation, but I’ll have to scrape the rust off my tools.

What are your stories from times, where you had periods of not writing?

E.B. White on Writing

Who: E.B. White

Written: "Stuart Little", "Charlotte's Web" and co-wrote "The Elements of Style" with Strunk

What did he say: I'm actually featuring a letter in its entirety he wrote a young girl with the aspirations to become a writer. I won't comment on it, because I completely agree.

"At seventeen, the future is apt to seem formidable, even depressing. You should see the pages of my journal circa 1916.

 You asked me about writing--how I did it. There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed. I must have written half a million words (mostly in my journal) before I had anything published, save for a couple of short items in St. Nicholas. If you want to write about feelings, about the end of summer, about growing, write about it. A great deal of writing is not "plotted"--most of my essays have no plot structure, they are a ramble in the woods, or a ramble in the basement of my mind. You ask, "Who cares?" Everybody cares. You say, "It's been written before." Everything has been written before. 

I went to college but not direct from high school; there was an interval of six or eight months. Sometimes it works out well to take a short vacation from the academic world--I have a grandson who took a year off and got a job in Aspen, Colorado. After a year of skiing and working, he is now settled into Colby College as a freshman. But I can't advise you, or won't advise you, on any such decision. If you have a counselor at school, I'd seek the counselor's advice. In college (Cornell), I got on the daily newspaper and ended up as editor of it. It enabled me to do a lot of writing and gave me a good journalistic experience. You are right that a person's real duty in life is to save his dream, but don't worry about it and don't let them scare you. Henry Thoreau, who wrote Walden, said, "I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." The sentence, after more than a hundred years, is still alive. So, advance confidently. And when you write something, send it (neatly typed) to a magazine or a publishing house. Not all magazines read unsolicited contributions, but some do. The New Yorker is always looking for new talent. Write a short piece for them, send it to The Editor. That's what I did forty-some years ago.
Good luck. Sincerely, E. B. White"

What's your story about advice early on in your career?

Anton Chekhov on Writing

Who: Anton Chekhov

Written: "A Marriage Proposal" (play), "The Cherry Orchard" (play) and "The Lady with the Dog" (short story) among many others.

What did he say: He has said a lot about the process of writing. Chekhov had been very vocal and seemingly adored to theorize about writing. There are quotes on writing that exceed the length of a paragraph. I've taken it as my mission to show the shorter, but still impact-full snippets.

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." 

"My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying."  

"When you describe the miserable and unfortunate, and want to make the reader feel pity, try to be somewhat colder — that seems to give a kind of background to another's grief, against which it stands out more clearly. Whereas in your story the characters cry and you sigh. Yes, be more cold. ... The more objective you are, the stronger will be the impression you make."

What do I think: 'Show don't tell' is as old as the game itself, but the quote shows the advice in practice. The use of so few words also encourages that the number of words is of little consequence. Rather pay attention to how you use them. 

I can't say whether we really lie in those two parts, but it stroke me as pretty interesting, because in my own experience, writers tend to rework the beginning and the end multiple times and with enviable intensity. 

'Colder' will also provoke you to worldbuild better. I have noticed that secondary worlds fall flat, because only the minimal has been done to elicit an emotion. This is where 'show don't tell' works on a macro level as well. If you will have a segment of a society suffer in your secondary world, you better strive to compete with real life as far as cruelty is considered. 

Is crying enough to convey tragedy? What sells misery?  

Oscar Wilde on Writing

Who: Oscar Wilde

Written: "The Picture of Dorian Grey", "House of Pomegranates" and "The Importance of Being Earnest" among others

What did he say: He's the minimalist so far. His quotes are snappy, witty and easy to commit to memory, for when you want to come across intelligent.

"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."

What do I think: All three create a narrative about the dangers of mediocrity and the virtue of writing with an edge. Making impressions demands grabbing the attention and 'excess' here comes quite handy. These quotes actually tie with a quote of Twain about the regret of not doing things. Write dangerously is a concept I have yet to explore in its entirety, but I agree in testing ones limit. 

How far can you go? How far have you gone?     

Mark Twain on Writing

Who: Mark Twain

Written: "The Prince and the Pauper", "The Adventure of Tom Sawyer", "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "A Double Barreled Detective Story" among others

What did he say: He said a lot, but most of his quotes have been written in the context of his letters to various people. The only straightforward advice given on writing is this:

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” 

This second one that I enjoyed very much comes from his letter to W. D. Howells. 

"Well, my book is written--let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell." 

What do I think: 'Very' is not my crutch word per se. I think that 'very' has been clubbed to death so that no one uses it as much. I could be wrong. Do editors edit 'damn' out these days? I think we have well passed the point of desensitizing here. I'd say that the principal 'avoid crutch word X' is full on force, though I think that it's way better to be proactive with weeding these out rather than troll your editor. Of course, Twain seems like a joker. 

I love the second quote because it paints such an apocalyptic picture. Beauty. That is how I feel, when I finish a project and I believe that this is the prime reason, why so many people get caught in the revisions game or why series have proven to be so enjoyable. 

What do you think about Twain's quotes?

  

Ernest Hemingway on Writing

Expect a lot more radio silence, until the end of June. Though I will try to add at least some posts. I have been thinking a lot about writing, since my creative energies have been redirected to other projects in my line of work and social life rather than fiction writing. A lot of writers have also been thinking about the craft of writing.

Who: Ernest Hemingway

Written: "A Moveable Feast", "For Whom the Bells Toll" and the classic "The Old Man and the Sea" 

What did he say: Hemingway has said a lot about writing and what I've come to recognize as a powerful way to communicate urgency is the use of short sentences to the point I sneak in some sentence fragments. Here are two official quotes from his book on writing.

“Writing is something that you can never do as well as it can be done. It is a perpetual challenge and it is more difficult than anything else that I have ever done.” 

“I think you should learn about writing from everybody who has ever written that has anything to teach you.”

What do I think: I agree with both quotes. Writing is an art form based on continuous improvement as all art should be in the first place. Given the writers' predisposition to ferocious self-criticism, it's no surprise that the act of writing remains challenging. I think the second quote has more relevance now more than ever, because as readers and writers we are in the position to choose among a multitude of writers to learn about the craft. What I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the quote. I strive to learn from those, who through their words have provoked a change within my micro-cosmos. 

Do you share Ernest's opinion?    

 

[Monday February 20th] 8 Things I Learned About Deadlines

Who wins now? EH!

It’s been a month and I’ve nearly forgotten how to blog, which is funny, cause these days you can’t make me shut up. Work has been a bit crazy and my fingers ache from the constant tap, tap, tapping on the keyboard. Then I had to bounce around doctors for awhile, which further added unnecessary stress [nothing too serious with me] and then came news from the frontier to the West, where mother is working right now. In between all of this I’ve been pretty silent, because I’ve been chasing deadlines.

What advice about deadlines will tell is that you have to stick to them. What advice neglects to say is that you have to be extremely realistic about the number of deadlines or at least I’ve missed the guidebook to deadlines some way along the way. If there is a copy somewhere that no one needs, my e-mail is in my bio [just saying]. The gist of this post right now is that I’ve been an incredibly naughty boy and expected unrealistic things from myself.

As you might suspect already, I want to be on top of everything and it’s not been happening as planned. I edit for Tales to Terrify, I write and I review [though I thought I had stopped for good] and then I have several other big as hell blog initiatives, which more or less have fallen in the background. Top that with a full time job and university and you have yourself a basic recipe for chasing deadlines all the time. Here are the lessons I learned chasing deadlines and failing some times:

1] Write down everything connected to your project and deadlines. Most of the time, you will work in tiny bites of time. Managing fiction for a podcast has taught me that a big project is a clockwork robot rather than a brontosaurus, meaning that it’s a ticking organism with so many parts that take minutes separately, but letting them slip through the cracks of your mind will come back to bite you. This can easily apply to writing, which I learned after forgetting a few stunningly beautiful ways I could have employed in my latest story.

2] Newsflash: Life’s unpredictable, so you’d better learn to predict situations that will suck your time and be beyond your mortal control. Although doing what you love may offset the depression of having a job that suffocates you or [insert anything unpleasant you have to deal with every goddamn day], you have a real life with real people and other real things. Real life doesn’t like to be ignored. Hell to the no, girlfriend. Real life’s like a kitty cat, a bad kitty of imminent doom that poops on your head for no good reason.

If I hadn’t spent two weeks with intense pain, because of a bad back, I’d probably be on time with most of my deadlines. Plans mean nothing, when you are an unwilling component of this sick algorithm that is life. It’s a crucial skill to know how many projects you can undertake, which you are sure you will bring to fruition even if your life crashes in pretty painted flames of devastation.

3] You are not a time table. As much as I’d want to conquer the Internet and have hot men throw their jockstraps at me, I discovered that I can’t do everything. This is the basic mistake that I do time and time again. I assume that just because I have a free slot in my schedule and yes, I do have a schedule, I can put something in there.

So what happens, when you realize that your schedule has tasks that have you type and read for what feels like eternity and your brain says, enough is enough. Naturally, you crave some sort of outlet, be it skimpy books in pink covers [I stopped reading those, when I discovered that the skimpy pink books came only in female fantasy editions rather than gay fantasy ones] or reality TV [either classy and/or campy for me, please] coupled with as many TV series as I can watch. Maybe you are one of those weird people that go outside and talk to people, fleshy bits to fleshy bits. In translation, work will not be done. Work that needs to be done and you can’t complete, because you are exhausted. Plan activities that will allow you to recharge your batteries or I tell you that you’ve got a first class ticket to Burnout Land. PS: It will not be pretty. It never is and it’s the fastest way to hate something with burning passion.

4] You are responsible for your guilt. If you assign yourself too many deadlines, you don’t meet, because you sought to take a rest, you get your high and then what. Guilt that is what. The wrist-slitting guilt that has you all tossing and turning at night, accusing you that your careless ways are what will always separate you from those that have succeeded in their career. So unless you want to flirt with a sharp set of razor blades and set yourself for low self-esteem and failure, why not cut yourself some slack and what you are realistically able to complete as projects.

5] A deadline does not mean waiting for the last possible moment. The Internet is full of memes, where students consider their teacher’s deadline a challenge to see how late they can start with their paper. Don’t be that douche that purposefully starts at the last minute possible. I’ve done this stunt a couple of times and I’m far from proud with myself. Plus, apart from the inevitable guilt you will generate, your work will be sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. So do yourself a favor and start as early as possible.  

6] Don’t expect people you’ve put on a deadline to remember their deadline. Through my work at Tales to Terrify, I learned the hard way that delegating tasks and expecting them to be done isn’t as innocent as it seems. I did that. I trusted the powers that be that everything will be honky-dory and forgot about the deadline. Guess what. This came back to bite me, cause shit happens to the people you collaborate with. They get sick. They get involved in some sort of life conspiracy and the last thing on your collaborator’s mind is your deadline.

7] Talk with your collaborators about updates. If you want to avoid feeling like an idiot, negotiate with your collaborator how you as the one with the request will proceed in regards to the deadline. Set a few check point dates that will ensure that you get all the updates needed without coming off as a panicked, desperate ninny. You also get the bonus of psychologically engaging your collaborator so that even if suddenly something comes up that will cause delays, your collaborator is way more likely to warn you, even though in the greater scale of things your deadline matters. Of course, I’m referring to all the projects that run on good will rather than money. When money is involved, people tend to be a lot more organized.

8] Content first, publication later. To continue my thread, I’ve always started projects even before my involvement with Tales to Terrify, where I relied on people’s content. A normal person would be cautious enough to arrange the deadlines for the contributors long before they are needed. It’s way easier to schedule something that you have rather than something that you have promised to have. I, on the other hand, assume that everything runs on fairy magic, so I had a few close calls, but lesson has been learned. Everything can happen and a good deadline chaser knows that time is a stretchy, gooey thing that runs through the fingers.

   

[January 3rd] Scribblle Me This, The Writing Intentions

I have been thinking about the writing experience from 2011 and can say that I failed, when it came down to documenting my progress. Of course I don’t suffer from the illusion that I did all that much writing in the first place, but at the same time I can confirm that I’ve completed several flash fiction pieces, several short stories and one novel revision, which is not what a busy bee writer should have achieved. 

Oddly enough, this the title of this is "Writer's Block"

This year I start with better plans, because I believe that improvement lies within better time management, better understanding of how your life can take a turn for the worse [in terms of actual opportunity to write] or enter dead waters. Right now, I know the course of my year in a sequence of ‘green’ and ‘red’ zones right until July, when I’ll most likely graduate. If things go my way [and I get enrolled in a long distance Masters program], I’m pretty sure the rest of my year will be clear to me as well. Given all these factors, I planned for the following:

1. Complete revisions on “Crimson Anatomy” based on beta readers feedback in time for the Angry Robot open month as well as initiate an agent hunt, because it’s not all smart at all to place all your eggs in one basket. Project Timeline: January 1^st – February 29^th.

2. Complete revisions on “V is for Virus”, my futuristic super villain novel, which I’m happy to say is completed as a draft and pretty well sketched in my head, so I’ll have a very pleasant go at the revisions. Contrary to “Crimson Anatomy”, the concept for “V is for Virus” as well as the feel, the voice and the overall arc in the series have remained constant for more than a year, which is usually a good sign with me. Project Timeline: November 1^st – December 31^st. The reason for this particular timeline is because I will split the current draft into two and then have a go at writing my first 100,000 word manuscript, which oughta be hectic.

3. Start a new novel project. I’m indecisive as to which project to select. I’m tempted by the possibilities. It’ll be either my YA novel “Airboy”, whose first draft is not completed and not up to scratch at that [though I will probably have to speak to an architect to help me with the main mystery object], my high concept secondary world fantasy “White” or a retro-futuristic super hero tale of emancipation “Super Powered House Wives”. Project Timeline: August 1^st – October 31^st. This will have to happen after my European tour in late July.  

4. In general, I have written down to complete and sent to publication twelve short stories in 2012, one for each month, which I think is believable aspiration. I’m keeping tabs on three to four anthology projects at the moment, so that guarantees a third of this goal to be fulfilled. I think the main focus will fall on finishing “Lungs”, which is around 60% completed. I’m not happy with how “Rabbit Heart” turned out as a short story, so I see a novella potential in the premise. Project timeline: focus on March 1^st – Middle of May [final exam sessions begins at that point and I will be writing a thesis, so I don’t think I will have much time to consider writing anything longer].

These are the goals, which I know I can finish in ideal conditions. This means work, school and personal life remain a constant. Since they are ideals, I realize that I will manage around 60% of what I have planned, this meaning that I probably won’t reach “V is for Virus”, but it never hurts to aspire to great success, right.

This may make me appear slightly crazy [for more than one reason], but at the same time I’m curious. Do you have plans for your writing?           

[January 1st] And in the Spring I Shed my Skin

NB: I know it's far from spring, but these lyrics from "Rabbit Heart" by Florence + the Machine sum up how I feel about New Year. 

I’ve waited for January 1^st to write my End of 2011 post, because I needed to have this year behind me, if I am to discuss it. Of course, I missed on yesterday, because I prepared my short story “The Woman Who Wanted to Play Miss Havisham” for submission to Pandemonium: Stories of Smoke. I’m excited, because this will be the first proper SFF story with Bulgaria as setting I am sending out to do the submission rounds. It gives me a great thrill to have written it and include some social commentary on my own.

Most of all I have wanted to wait until January 1^st to include this cheeky picture, which does a splendid job at summing 2011 and my experience with it.

 I’m also playing Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” to emphasize how thrilled I am to say a very literal ‘Fuck you’ to the past year.

Theoretically, 2011 should have been a good year for me. I’ve landed a long term job position with all the right benefits and most importantly, steady income to help my family move along. I’m extremely grateful for finding a place in my current firm. The money ensured that we not only needn’t have wondered how to provide all the basic commodities and pay bills, but that I could contribute to paying off debts my family had for the better part of the last decade. We are not completely in the clear, yet, but I can’t stress how relieving it is not to fear the days in the calendar.

I’ve seen my wonderful, talented, loud-mouthed, wise-cracking, tough-as-nails sister through her toughest academic year, the high school entry exams, which in Bulgaria creates a shadow economy of private lessons. This is so because the education system fails to prepare pupils for the exams, which is why parents are forced to sent children to private lessons. Sometimes the monthly total exceeds what the minimum wage here is. Fortunately, my sister had teachers, who understood our situation and charged less. Now, I’m seeing my sister through her first year in the high school of her choice and I’m relieved that the next five years will be quiet in general.

Because I have steady income, I allowed myself the pleasure to plan and after years of intense wanton I realized my dream to visit a convention, which turned out to be the best experience in my life as a geek. I felt insane to be amidst all the talented people at Fantasy Con and give a handshake to the numerous people I have made acquaintances with over Twitter. It’s been madness for me and I’m immensely proud that I planned this trip on my own, executed it on my own and did not get fatally lost in the UK, which right there at the end constituted a real possibility.

As you can see, some of the big things in life are improving, yet, all of the above, I did alone. I had to work on a full work day, care for my sister [including all bureaucracy surrounding her exams, taking her to her lessons, jumping hoops, checking her homework and be for her in all her moments], work towards my Bachelor in Economics and in the meantime devote myself to the SFF community by reading, writing, reviewing and joining conversations. I still have to do all these things alone. My mother has been working on the other end of the country, while my father has disappeared completely from our lives upon the divorce. It’s my grandparents, my sister and I with me being the only adult within the age to do most of the bills and be the parent figure in my sister’s life.

Sometimes I feel trapped by all of this. Sometimes I feel remorse for feeling the first, because I have weathered a lot with my family as a unit. There are ties that run deep, strong and more powerful than I would wish them to be, because they make the possibility of a fresh start all the more complicated. Between running between these two absolutes, I have come to loathe the job that I have. I worked in the customer care department as a call centre operator and the stress led to health complications I never thought I’d be subjected to, one of them being quite the weight jump. I’ve bloated. Severely. Thankfully, I switched departments and now I’m in office heaven with so many funny, filthy-mouthed and dirty-minded peers. However, because 2011 had to be awful, a quick succession of small scale disasters happened, which I’m afraid almost broke whatever was in charge of sanity. I’m getting better, but I have never stopped asking whatever the fuck runs the show ‘haven’t you had enough’.

It comes to no surprise to say that my writing, reading and involvement in the SFF society has been minimal. I closed Temple Library Reviews, because I felt burdened by the whole thing. As always, I came to see myself as not one to fit in that mould for I set out to achieve goals, which could not be reached given the nature of my efforts. 2011 turned out to be a year of endings spring saw me part ways with Apex’s The Zombie Feed, where I worked for less than half a year. I’m extremely pleased with the results I had promoting Mark Allan Gunnells’ novella “Asylum” and Paul Jessup’s novella “Dead Stay Dead”. However, I did manage to become an assistant editor to Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s anthology project “Space Battles”, which comes out next April, and have engaged on a new editorial position, though I’m not at liberty to disclose the complete details as of yet.

On the writing front, I set out to edit “Crimson Cacophony” [now “Crimson Anatomy”] and I did to the point that it has been sent to beta readers and have critique to carry me out through a new round of edits. Other than this, I haven’t achieved anything worthwhile in terms of new words written. Projects have been started, projects have been finished [less often that I would like to], rejected or not edited to be sent out to venues, though I’m surprised I even did all of this. I even have two short stories accepted, which ought to be released some time this year. 

My reading has been disorganized and purposeless. I can’t even track the books I have done. Once I closed Temple Library Reviews, I announced it the year of Reading Unwisely and I think that this is perhaps the one goal that I realized to the fullest of its potential. I have, even so, reviewed for Innsmouth Free Press, The Portal, Rise Reviews, Pornokitsch, The World SF Blog and contributed non-fiction for Beyond Victoriana.

This past year gobbled me up, minced me with its teeth and spat me out. Given my crap track record, I have no reason to hope that 2012 will be any better, but I have my hopes, I have my plans and I’m a firm believer in the power of change. Even if it is only a principal change, I revel in the moment, when in less than a fraction of a second 2011 ceases to exist and then it’s a brand new year. I don’t live so much for the promise of the year being better as I do to bury the corpse of the last year.

All that shit above, hey, that was last year. The calendar is burning in the hearth, the evil has been exorcised, the bad is forgotten, the hard drive has been defragmented and the good has been backed up for the shitty days of the Blue Screen of Death. So I’m happy, fresh and the awfully archaic naïve and hopeful person, who has no place in this world, but here I am and at the moment, I feel like 2012 will be like this:      

     Art by Tsvetka aka Ink-Pot

[December 15th] Shoot Your Writer's Ego, Wallow in Self-Pity

I feel as if I'm wearing my insides out in such situations.

 I’ve had some time to think this through. For the reason that I can adorn any situation with far too much drama than it’s needed, I choose to stay away from personal topics on this blog, but I’m beginning to grow confident that I can present some ‘real life’ experience in my posts. It’s a good time as any to dispel some of the mysteries that surround my person [believe it or not I’m a prime suspect of being a sentient cat with the ability to type in QWERTY].

Since this story is more of a moral, which has a lot to do with writing, I think it’s best shared here out in the open. As you can see by all the ‘I think’, ‘I this’ and ‘I that’ sentences I’m all self-conscious about what happened at my day job, so here’s hoping that you don’t think ill of me [and you can definitely recognize how too many episodes of Downton Abbey have left a mark on my turn of phrase].

My office job for the past three months [I switched departments before attending Fantasy Con this year] has me writing eight hours per day. It’s simple writing with a simple purpose and a low level of importance. This means that as long as I manage a lot of it everyone is happy, but here comes the ‘but’ thing. Being a writer among non-writers can be deceptive of how good you really are and because my writing [influenced by my fiction-writing style] used English a bit more imaginatively my mistakes either have not been mentioned to me or could not have been pointed out to me by non-native speakers, which my day-to-day superiors are. What we have is a recipe for a big ego [being constantly asked to translate words and how to best write a certain phrase] with no safety net [so far there is no challenger on the front].

Since I pride myself in being this good in English [though I’m sure this blog post is filled with God knows how many imperfections, which I’m not picking up no matter how hard I try], it’s fairly easy for me to get my head stuck in the clouds. I love receiving the praise, not for the sake of attention whoring, but because I associate my childhood with weekends spent inside the house scribbling words ad infinitum. I think I had to write Thursday more than a hundred times to get it right and remember it. I still hate this day, when I mention it in English, mainly because of my ordeal learning it. My friends used to play outside. I had a dictionary and one hell of a mother, who fits the profile of the constantly ridiculed cliché of an Asian parent. I’m not regretful. I didn’t think much of being in the same private classes with students two-three years older than me. I just love English and when I’m praised, I feel validated to the point I may develop a bit of an ego.

Thankfully, that ego got shot down Tuesday, when the editor in charge of the sales copy team I’m working under [new set of duties for me] had me brought over to discuss changes to the first website copy I had written. Oh boy was it a humiliating. I can’t understand how a person [my editor is from Texas, so I’ll call him Editor Tex] can say that he likes what my material and at the same time chop down every sentence I have written and rephrase until you can’t tell it has been written by me.

Editor Tex is an awesome person, by the way. I can see that he is indeed trying to help me and where he was able to explain why the changes in some expressions was needed [words with negative connotations of any variety should be replaced with words that on a subconscious level are all about sunshine and smiles] I immediately wrote those down. However, there were changes, which I didn’t understand. Editor Tex couldn’t provide an exact answer as to why he made them and went on to explain how there are subtleties to language use [the purpose of the editing session was to teach me those], but without really presenting an argument for the changes in sentence structure.

My initial reaction to all of this was: Holy flying cow from Jupiter, can I string one sentence together correctly? It was as if I had never studied the language, as if the sacrificed hours had amounted to nothing. I fully realized that this is needless dramatic gut response, but at the time I couldn't help it. Thankfully, I kept repeating myself that this is not about me, but about the writing. At the same time, how I can separate myself from the writing, when my English is my work. It's my grand work, which has lead to this individual ones. All so complex on an emotional level. 

I don’t know what to make of this situation. To the people I have confided the situation, I’m to ignore some of the more perplexing changes Editor Tex makes as to a matter of taste and to take away what I do find useful. Another individual told me that to her Editor Tex abused his power as an editor, providing destructive-rather-than-constructive critique. It’s tricky territory to be in as I greatly respect editors and I’ve grown comfortable receiving bathed in red works I have given to readers with far superior understanding of the English language. It’s just proof that a language is so rich that it always gives you more to learn and I’m happy to learn. But I can’t deny that sitting there for closely 45 minutes [all spent on a page and a half] humiliated me in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend. I don’t hold anything against Editor Tex and I certainly can’t imagine having anything else than a verbal discussion. Yet, having to sit there and hear the editor wonder how he can make sense of my sentences, because my phrasing was so off and in real time… Far from pleasant. If there ever was a version of the SAW franchise to do with writing, then my experience would qualify.

In short, I’m grateful that I work in an office, whose superiors are invested in helping their employees work to developing their skill sets. I’m big enough a boy to understand that there is no chance I will nail this sort of writing from the first time around. I’m also grown up enough to admit to myself that I’m far from being the best, never will be and that the best I can hope for is constant improvement [but given that I shut up, shoot down my ego and get cracking]. I will have to grow thicker skin, because fine tuning how a non-speaker uses English so that it convincingly mimics a native speaker [while living in a non-English-speaking environment] is going to be tough, humiliating and humbling. No other way around it.

I’ll leave the floor for you guys. Do you think I’m a whiner? What are your nightmare stories connecting with editing sessions?

[November 24th] On Writing Longhand and the Importance of Words

I’ve not spoken about writing in a long time, because I consider the craft of writing as a rather personal experience. My main understanding is that every story is different and every writer is unique in his/her thoughts, inspirations and techniques are strictly individual. From where I’m standing, I’d rather not dish out advise. There are plenty of websites, which provide you with countless posts on the technical aspects of writing. Magical Words serves advice like a petite French restaurant; compact portions sculpted to beauty. Chuck Wendig overtakes the table as an Italian seven course meal, calorie rich and dripping sauce.

In that metaphor, what am I? I’m just a story in the kitchen and I’m fine to be one. Recently, I had to switch from writing on the keyboard to writing longhand, because my day job demands me typing. The implications are two-fold. First, my fingers are already tired from hitting away at the keys and second, my brain associates this time of writing as a chore*. Writing as an act and a process, sitting down and typing words, grew to be tedious and my ideas, no matter how bright and shiny and witty suffered, when it came to give them shape. 

Write or Die is an excellent software, if your brain has already swollen with the pregnancy of a story, which your fingers desperately want to deliver, but not when your story has its own umbilical cord tied around its neck. I needed c-section and writing longhand functioned as such**. Yes, now everything is a thousand times slower. Yes, I have to actually make more time to write the same amount of words I crank out for an hour. But. The big But. I place the right words, I add texture to my story I can’t do when facing the white screen or race with my fingers, because everyone types faster than they write. Sometimes it’s all about the physical presence of the notebook that helps me get my idea out. 

I’m feeling a bit guilty that I’m choosing impracticality over efficiency, which doesn’t make sense. It’s irrational. This sense of guilt is stupid, because it implies that you’re racing against something or someone. Is writing a race? Well, kinda. It’s a race against death. Everything is racing with death. Everything knows that it’ll lose a race with the big, underlined and bolded THE END; it’s more of a matter of how much gets done. This brings me down to the devil: quantity and boy do we know about quantity. Word counts, word meters and the month of the word count tracking NaNoWriMo***. 

Quantity is a fixation. In “Booklife” Jeff VanderMeer pins this quest for wordcount as a goal that is hollow, pardon, I’m paraphrasing from memory. VanderMeer spends some time to the importance of the right words and his points are excellent. While I understand how setting a goal, which has to do with getting a set number of words down, helps track progress, this is a ‘surface’ progress. First drafts become our arenas to suck and fail, but I feel as though advice to allow yourself to fail during first drafts is misinterpreted as ‘suck, but just get it out, doesn’t matter how much you do suck’. In my mind, this conspiracy theory emerges, where this predominant attitude about sucking has joined this fetish for metric measurements in a craft, which is not meant to welcome math****. 

The right words matter even in a first draft, because later on, during revisions, you’ll find that you have a solid first draft that needs little modifications on a linguistic level. That the prose actually helps you find the right direction for the story and relatively ease your journey in the land of Edits. Sometimes you can suck too much to know how to fix a story. And all the time you saved dashing through your first draft [and more] will go into your editing. 

What do you do when crafting first drafts? Do you stop to think or go where the hands take you? 

----

*I’d like to take the opportunity to distance away from my brain as we never have seen eye to eye on a various subjects. 

** I disturbed myself with this metaphor, so I will stop with it. 

*** Dudes, I’m far from criticizing NaNo for anything else. I still believe in its key value, to tech persistence and consistency when writing. 

**** I hate math, so there you go.

[October 20th ] Phantasm Fornication and Peroxide Buns

Totally unrelated image. It's called "So That's Why They're So Fuzzy".

It’s been long overdue. I have been considering talking about process porn, because I love the process behind each individual work. The origins; the roots, no matter how far from the crown of a story, song or vision are add a new layer of meaning to it. Further satisfaction to what you already love.

While I don’t know enough to talk about writing as a craft or have read enough of the right books to discuss movements and impact on the genre community, I know enough of myself and the byzantine railroad tracks laid in my head to talk about creativity and how a story comes together on a connectional level.

Here’s process porn behind the opening story in the Lungs cycle, DOG DAYS ARE OVER.

DOG DAYS ARE OVER: This story is already written in a second draft, though there will be a third edit to add barbwire to an already sharpened edge. What I love about DOG DAYS is that I had no fucking idea what to do with it. At the time Lungs came out as an album, I had a lesser connection with this song and I initially had the intention to write a standard secondary world fantasy story about were-creatures.

Because I didn’t know what to do with it, I dropped the story down as possibly the last to start from the cycle. Time passed and as COSMIC LOVE failed to impress editors [it still does], Lavie Tidhar criticized that I wrote about America [COSMIC LOVE took place in the US as you got] and that I should be writing about Bulgaria instead. This is the one advice that still burrows in my head to be honest and one that I am taking very seriously as pretty much of my identity is formed by the scars I’ve received in this country. Scars from my nationality and the reality caused by my nationality.

I thought about doing a Bulgarian take on Fables at the time. The idea is still here in my mind, stored in a bright backburner, but this was not to be the fate of DOG DAYS ARE OVER. No, what I have in this story is not Slavic fairy folk. Rather a ‘bun’* who sleeps with the ghosts of Bulgarian men through the ages, only to feed upon them upon their climax. That’s the concept and the world I would tread in.**

I followed that image to its natural conclusion and DOG DAYS ARE OVER turned out to be my first speculative erotica piece that justifies the sex as a tool to tell the story and reveal the character, Nikoleta. I thought I reached a new level and yes, I guess I did, but at the end of the road, I knew I missed something.

Months passed and I saw a show running on my TV. Produced and starring people, who came from abroad to live in Bulgaria, it was called LOST IN BULGARIA and two lines from just a single episode resonated: “The American dream is to make it big and live well. The Bulgarian dream is to leave Bulgaria”.

Nikoleta ran. She always ran and I knew that she was right for herself in all the decisions she made in regards of her body and the things she did to herself and other people were not a form of self-punishment. No, sex was a tool and I knew that this ‘Bulgarian dream’ was the goal. This is why I want to go through a third edit, because these are the bits that translate the story into a squid of emotions that chokes on your mind, rather than a series of images.

How? Well you have to read the story to find out.

PS: Do share your stories. Also, do you like this? Do you want me to continue?


*- ‘Bun’ is the Bulgarian slang word for ‘bimbo’. These girls are the Bulgarian fashionistas, the source of inspiration of too many a dumb blond jokes and also overlap with the sluts. The Bulgarian ‘bun’ [the actual pastry] usually has a sweet cream feeling [much like an elongated donut, but not as fluffy] and we usually call say that ‘bimbo-buns’ are ‘buns with no filling’. The ‘bimbo-bun’ is characterized by their duck smiles and have such fake hair that I call them The Peroxides. I’m sure you want to see what they look like.

Here’s Brunette Bun [they come in brunette, blond, ginger, black and multi-streaked *gasp*]:

**- I’m sure that there is something metaphorical there, which implies that I hate my country. This is a misconception. I don’t hate or loathe my country. I simply hate the vast majority of people living in it.

[August 18th] First Sale: What does it mean?

I'm going for a simplistic piece. I'm a writer. It's me and the words.

Last Saturday, I’ve hit a milestone in my path [‘career’ sounds too presumptuous at this point] as a writer. My dark fantasy short story “Hurricane Drunk” has been accepted by the editor of Arcane Magazine for their second issue. Writing these words still feels a bit weird. I’m used to the rejection routine; send a short story and receive a rejection.

I literally had to reread the acceptance email to understand that I’ve done it. I’ve sold a story. To a magazine [awesome one at that]. A paying venue. It’s a simple thing that has happened. Someone said yes [though not just anybody, I always aim high]. Yet, this ‘yes’ resulted in a complicated emotional response. At first I roared [though in reality I probably sounded like a squeaking rodent, which found cheese heaven], I felt as though I have conquered the world. It still does.

Publication. One word and a thousand victories attached to it. It’s saying, ‘yes, I’ve been paid to have my short story appear in venue X,’ to the people, who ask ‘have you sold anything’ and try to belittle your craft. It’s receiving appreciation. It’s verification that you can do it. It’s the hope that this is just the beginning and that if you invest further, you may reap more. For me publication has an additional meaning.

It means that I’ve crossed the language barrier. It means that I get to slay my greatest fear in the face. Writing in itself is hard. Crafting stories in any language challenges the mind and has no exact regulations other than the obvious grammatical ones. Writing in a language that isn’t yours raises the bar and makes it ‘nigh impossible’ to an artistic soul with a paranoia [*clears throat*].

All the rejections I’ve received whispered to me ‘the editors can sense that you are slipping on a skin that is not yours; they can tell; they know and they will not have none of that.’ I don’t live in an English speaking community. I have no sense of how the language is spoken on a day to day basis. I’m not immersed in the cultural undercurrent connected to the language. How am I supposed to recreate the authenticity of the language, if I’m not exposed to it? This is the question, which burrowed between the lines of every paragraph I wrote.

I understand that I’m fretting over technicalities, but a story can’t live on a ramshackled stage. It doesn’t work, when the writing itself ejects you from what’s going on the page. This first sale proves that all my love for the English language comes across in my sentence structures and word choices and equates me to other writers at least on a technical level [bearing in mind that every writer has his/her unique voice].

What the first sale isn’t, is a law that states that from now everything will be fine and dandy. As people say, it’s easy to get published. It’s hard to stay published. The first sale is a promise of what may happen. Whether it does happen or not depends on the individual. Needless to say, I’ll work towards establishing my name in a niche. It seems possible, now that all doubts and fears are slumbering in their cave.

May 30th: You are what you read

Wonder Woman as a Star Sapphire. Brought to you by the "We want to see Wonder Woman in a more revealing costume" party.

I’ve been reading a lot lately. Not books, though I’m trying to return there. No, these days I have super heroes on my mind, which is why I’m inhabiting comic books. I admit that I’m in deep in research for my current novella Bad Thought Catalog, one of the early works in my super hero alternative Earth. The potency of this alternative Earth is quite tantalizing – to the point I’m tempted to not finish this project.

In the last week alone I think I may have devoured twenty to thirty issues, including DC’s spanning Blackest Night and Brightest Day events. I also followed Zatanna and several of the newest Batman series, including the delicious Batman Inc. and Batman: Arkham City. From Marvel I’ve finished the Utopia event and started Daken Dark Wolverine, X-23 and X-Men: Prelude to Schism. What binds these volumes together is that they tell the stories of those few with superhuman powers and their attempts on survival. That’s the obvious part, pitting these individuals against impossible odds and seeing violence.

However, there is a different similarity between all superhuman volumes. Something in their structure; in their blueprints, which installs familiarity. Their stories are centered around the characters, with their heroes and villains given the word to narrate. While the art captures the color and movement, serves the violence and fulfills the obligations of what the descriptive prose does in fiction, the written word is used sparingly [or not so sparingly, if you look how winding DC monologues and dialogue can stretch in Blackest Night/Brightest Day] either for the protagonist to narrate or for characters to converse.

The use of words in comic books is interesting to observe, if you’re a writer in a different format. First, all narration is philosophical in one way or another. Either dramatic, minimalist reflections of one’s self as seen in X-23 or haunting observations about the world, which bind the panels together into a coherent and moody experience as often done in the Batman series. It adds flavor to the otherwise multispectral action. Yet, enough exposure to those and you can smell the cheesy smell of melodrama, which makes the good boys’ talk of honor corny and the villains’ vitriol tiresome. Not that there is anything bad about it. Enough cups of tea for everyone as I like to say.

The dialog is another interesting thing. It serves a multitude of functions. When short, it offers the quick wit and repartee comic book heroes and villains are known for. When long, it calls for taunts, rants and threats – all over the top for pathos’ sake – during battles, which I find all very imaginative, yet not at all realistic [though I don’t really look for realism, when the guys I root for all have a fetish for flamboyant spandex]. Of course, when not stirring the old pot of emotions, dialogue can be found info dumping. What I hat in comics is how, sometimes, page after page blisters with speech bubbles, all crammed with back story, tactics and future plans. It just shows the limitations of the format, in the sense that when a story arc has to run in the course of five to six issues writers can’t afford to be subtle. The careful foreshadowing and gradual supplement of information are not suitable.

Yet, all these imperfections and unique traits are what make superhero stories memorable and what we associate with superheroes and the comic book format [though I do realize that every different story told as a comic book comes with its own specifics]. It’s also what I’ve taken to what I’m working on at the moment. I’m not sure that I want my story to echo all those great stories being printed as comics, as I’m writing prose and really that’s a different beast.

It has me thinking that you as a writer is what you read [if you didn’t know that already] and this begs the question. Do you read the type of story you want to tell or do you avoid doing it as a means to ensure that you are not copying? Both choices hold their dangers. You either get to see what can be done with a story trope by those before you and go down a well trodden path or trust the ignorance is bliss policy and either do wonders with the genre or murder the story. What do you prefer?

Process Porn, Organic Writing & Post-NaNoWriMo

Since I will take you into the land of writing [where fantasies come true], I've decided to set the mood with illustration of La Fontaine's Fabled by David Kawena

As promised, I will talk about my experiences with NaNoWriMo and the discoveries I made about my writing process. For starters, the end is quite fresh in my mind and I learned from it that I experience burnouts, when I conquer the middle [the place that temps me to quit, which I’ve done with two projects]. I beat the challenge. I feel satisfied with what I’ve achieved and then: who cares about the ending? I know how it ends… On to the next one, now please.

This is why this NaNoWriMo I pushed the last five to seven thousand words to descriptions of what is supposed to happen rather than showing it. It’s storytelling in its crudest sense. Like when you relay what happened in a cool movie to a friend, who is interested in it, but not enough to go watch it. Is it cheating NaNoWrimo? Perhaps, but it’s story telling nonetheless and it got me through the end, no matter how underdeveloped it is.

Lesson: After a month, I develop burnouts. Here, I think that I can develop a short story for a week or so and then return to the long project. Dave Brendon does this, but then again he is in the middle of an epic, so I guess that for him it’s a valid approach. What do you do to manage the burnouts?

It’s no secret that by the time I hit 20,000 words I had plot-wise finished my NaNo project. I just came to a certain point, where I couldn’t push the story any more. I stalled for two-three days and the epiphany hit me. I was done. The story was written. Not the actual story, but the gist of it. The main plot arc.

I went back to the drawing board, figured out what needed to be done and dived right back in. This time around I had the basic subplots lined up. The second time around I knew the story, so I could focus on the characters and I made some subliminal progress there. I may actually produce worthwhile to read characters… Can you believe it?

I still ended the NaNoWriMo and if I had not sketched out the last scenes I might have gotten a 65,000 word novel that was with better character development, basic arc and basic subplots. It’s novel-like, but it’s not a novel. It will be a novel, when I sit down and revise it.

However, this is an interesting process of layering. It’s not the strict linear approach, but not the chaotic ‘write the scenes you want’ approach either. I would have called this the weaving technique, but today I found this article by Juliette Wade called Sequence Outlining.

Here is an excerpt:

In sequence outlining, you start with events first and worry about calendar later. Often I start with a list of questions or suggestions that come directly from my sense of the demands of the story. Such as:

• Someone has to be the target of an assassination attempt.
• Sorn has to be part of some nefarious plan to influence the voting.
• Tagret has to learn that Selemei wants to expose his mother to the public eye.
• Tagret has to do something bad in order to save his girl from the candidate Innis.

Then I put my mind on how these things can be ordered relative to one another, and relative to other events I have in mind. I ask myself, "what would be the worst time for this thing to happen?" So for example, the worst time to learn that Selemei wants to bring attention to his mother would be just when Tagret realizes his mother is up to something that would put her in serious danger if she were to be exposed to scrutiny. That gives me a hint for another event, "Tagret realizes his mother is up to something," which I can then look for a place to add. Of course, I know that it must happen right before "Tagret learns that Selemei wants to expose his mother to the public eye." The two events now have a required relative sequence.

Technically, this is about outlining [I actually kind of outline in the same way, but not as focused as Wade does it, for I learn about my story as I write] and how you can arrange your scenes in a correct for the story sequence, but the principle is organic. You start with the main points and build upon them, which is what I do with my writing.

This is my process porn. I will most likely have to go through a few rounds of revisions, do a chart to get the plot write, bang my head to get the characters develop their own distinctive voices and then a heap of other things, but I trust that this is enough for me.