Category Archives: writing

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I’ve just been tagged in The Next Big Thing, a way for writers to share their upcoming projects, by my friend and writing teacher Merridawn Duckler, an accomplished writer and senior fellow at The Attic. You can read her post about her upcoming work here.

What is your working title of your book?

The Last Firewall. For a long time it had a pretty generic working title, but then I had a contest on Facebook to name it. Given a three sentence summary, my niece came up with this title, which I’m quite happy with.
Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’m writing a series of novels set in the same universe. Each tells a unique story, but the books are set ten years apart. Part of my goal is to explore the future of technology: What will the work look like in 2030, 2040, 2050?
The idea for this particular story came from my love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Matrix. I wanted to blend the two in a cyberpunk story. 
What genre does your book fall under?

I called my first two books (Avogadro Corp and A.I. Apocalypse) science fiction, but readers labeled them technothrillers. There’s a fine line where the technology is believable and not too distant, where a book can cross from science fiction into a technothriller. The Last Firewall is set in a future where robots and artificial intelligence are commonplace, and although I think it’s a realistic prediction of what life will be like in twenty-five years, I suspect readers will label it science fiction.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This is a great question. The protagonist is a nineteen year old woman, who is smart, independent, and scrappy, but she gets in over her head. Whoever plays her has to be able to be strong and vulnerable at the same time, and because of the age, she’s doing to be someone who is just up and coming now. Any suggestions?
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When a flawed nineteen year old girl is all that stands between a powerful AI and its quest for world domination, she must come to terms with the power she’s always had but never known.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m represented by Bernadette Baker-Baughman of Victoria Sanders & Associates. This is a change for me as my previous novels were self-published.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It took about nine months from the time I started until I typed the closing line, and then I’ve had another year of editing since finishing the first draft.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

It has elements in common with Ramez Naam’s Nexus, older cyberpunk like Hardwired and Neuromancer, and modern stories about artificial intelligence like Daemon and my own A.I. Apocalypse.  

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

In fact, if you look at a lot of the classic cyberpunk stories, like Neuromancer, Hardwired, and Snow Crash, they have female sidekicks that are fascinating characters, but they just never get front-stage. I wanted to write a modern cyberpunk Buffy.

This week and next, please check out some other fantastic writers who will share their projects with you:
  • Brad Wheeler is the author of Fugitives from Earth, a classic space opera novel. Another indie writer here in Portland, he’s also one of the founders of NIWA, the Northwest Independent Writer’s Association. Check out his website. 
  • Tonya Macalino is the author of The Shades of Venice series, and another local writer. She also teaches classes on marketing and platform building for authors. Check out her website. 
  • Gene Kim is the author of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win, a novel about business and IT that programmers and ops folks will love. Check out his website. 

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I wrote my first novel in about fifteen months, and I didn’t even know what I was doing. I wrote my second novel faster: in a year.

But by the time I’m done, it will have taken me about two years to finish my third novel.

What changed?

My day job.

For eight years, I did a combination of strategy work, data analysis, and program management. I telecommuted most of the time, and although I had a painful number of 6am meetings, I was free to manage my own time. I kicked butt in that role too, delivering over fifty million dollars of value to the business.

Then I decided to switch jobs (even the best job can get repetitive over time), and went back into web development.

The roles themselves are very different. In the first role (strategy & management), the impact to the business is not in direct relationship to the hours invested in the job. Picking the right ideas and effectively executing them meant that I could have a tremendous impact in a very small number of hours.

Software development, on the other hand, is effectively a sweatshop for smart people. At a given level of effectiveness, twice as many hours will produce twice as much output, and half as many hours invested will produce half as much output.

The other major difference between the two jobs is that I telecommuted for the first with relatively flexible hours, and had to be in the office at set hours for the second.

Telecommuting saved me an hour a day of time not spending driving, getting gas, etc. A flexible start time meant I could start thirty minutes later. In my old job, between those two, I could get ninety minutes of writing time before I went to work. (Anyone who is writing knows that getting consistent, daily writing time is absolutely crucial.)

I recently polled people at the Codex Writers community about the effect their day job had on their writing. In particular, I wanted to know whether it was beneficial or not to have a writing job as your day job. It was a small sample size, and I interpreted open-ended to place them into these categories, but I still found the results interesting.

  • The respondents universally agreed that limited job hours and stress helps you as a writing, while having an all-consuming or soul-sucking job really hurts writing. 
  • Furthermore, for people who mentioned it, they found that menial jobs that allowed them to think while they worked, helped them significantly.
  • Respondents were split as to whether a writing job is helpful or harmful when it comes to creative writing projects.

Case Votes
Writing job drains you 6
Writing job helps you / is fine 8
All-consuming job drains you 5
Limiting job hours and stress helps you 7
Soul sucking job drains you 5
Menial jobs help you 6
Menial jobs hurt you 1

The lessons that I take from this:

  1. It’s tremendously helpful to be able to telecommute, because it puts time back in your pocket.
  2. It’s ideal to have a job where achieving business goals doesn’t have a 1:1 correlation with hours invested. Ideally you’d want to be able to be a star performer and still do it in less than full-time, freeing up time for writing.
  3. Short of that, limiting job hours is helpful, going to part-time if necessary, although it’s important to remember that what you really need are blocks of time to write. Freeing up thirty minutes here or there isn’t enough to get into flow.
  4. Stress and all-consuming mental jobs will drain you, such that even if you have the time to write, you still may not do it.
  5. The effect of writing in your day job is dependent on the person, and you need to experience it to know what effect it will have on you.
What are your thoughts?

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Several years ago, before I’d published any of my books, I read Charles Stross’s essays on the publishing industry.

His essay on writing income, in particular, was quite discouraging to a new would-be writer. 
My favorite author, a good mid-list author, could just barely scrap by on his writing income. And it turned out the writers have the highest income inequality of nearly all professions. He quotes from a research article “The top 10% of authors earn more than 50% of total income, while the bottom 50% earn less than 10% of total income.”

Fast forward a few years. While the economics of the traditional publishing industry has stayed much the same, the economics of the indie publishing industry are very different. 
The ratio of inequality may still exist, as there are many people self-publishing, but in terms of absolute terms: the number of writers capable of being supported by writing as a full time career has grown.
Here’s why:
A Bigger Bite of Pie
Self-published authors get a bigger bite of piece with every book sold. The exact figures seem to vary, but on average, traditionally published authors get about 60 cents for every book sold.
By comparison, when selling indie-published ebooks at $2.99 (a common price point, and the medium that self-published authors tend to sell the most in — see my essay on pricing), authors get about $2.00 per book. 
A traditionally published author would need to sell 125,000 books to earn a $75,000 income, while a self-published author could earn the same income selling 37,500 books.

More Slices
The number of books many readers buy is limited to a portion of their disposable income. At $10 each, traditionally published books are expensive.
With the exception of non-fiction books that address a niche topic, most books are fungible. That is, a reader wants to read a book they’ll love in genre X, and any of thousands of different books will fulfill that need. (I differ from Stross in this regard, as he says books are non-fungible.)
If a reader who is budget limited can buy indie-published books at $2.99 as compared to traditionally published books $9.99, they will buy more of the less expensive books. 
They can afford to buy 3 times as many, therefore, the total number of books purchased is greater.
Not all readers are budget limited, but if we assume that half are, then we’re floating the entire book market by 50%.
Conclusion
Since the indie-author’s royalty per book is higher, and their books are priced such that readers can afford to buy more books, the total royalties available to indie writers are about 4 1/2 times greater than that available to traditionally published authors.
Even if indie authors are subject to the same income inequity as their traditionally published brethren,  the economics will still support five times as many writers being supported by writing indie books.
If the income inequity is better or worse, then this difference will be magnified or diminished. Also, to be fair, we should realize that the traditional publishing industry supports a great many jobs (editors, proofers, designers) that don’t exist or are greatly diminished in the indie portion of the field. So we can’t look at it and say the indie movement is growing jobs as a whole, merely that it’s growing writers as a portion of that industry.
If you dream of being a full-time writer, it’s never been a better time to do it.

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I frequently see authors panic when they discover that their years-long labor of love has appeared on a bit torrent or other filesharing site. Reactions range from tear-filled “How could they?” to more pragmatic “How can I get that site taken down?”

Not all authors reaction this way, but most do, especially new authors.

Don’t panic. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, it may help you sell more books. Here’s why:

  • Some people are looking strictly for free content. They’ll read any books they can download for free. They go to bit torrent search engines or sites that like books that have been pirated, and they get stuff that sounds good. They are extremely unlikely to buy a book if it’s not available illegally. They’ll just go read something else that’s free.
  • Some people buy books. They have an ecosystem that they love, whether that’s Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords, or Kobo, and they buy content in that ecosystem. They’re extremely unlikely to forego buying a book just because it happens to be available on a pirated content site somewhere.
  • A tiny percentage of people, probably far less than 1%, do fall into the category of people who will download for free if they can, and buy otherwise. But this truly is minuscule.
What does this mean?
First: It means that pirated copies are of your book are not likely to cost you very many sales at all, because few, if any, of the people who download pirated copies would have bought it.
Second: If your book is good, you’re likely to get additional word-of-mouth advertising from pirated copies. Just as with paid copies, a small percentage of readers, probably about 1%, will tell others what a good book you’ve written, either through face to face interactions, social media, or blog posts.
Third: If your book has been pirated, congratulations! Someone thought it was good enough to share. And many more people will now read it! (Surely you want people to read it, because if all you wanted was the money, there’s easier ways to make money.) Rejoice and celebrate: people like your book and they’re reading it, and that will drive sales.
Does this mean I want everyone to steal my book? 
Definitely not. I’d like to have enough legitimate sales to support myself as a writer. But I’m pretty sure most people will buy it, and that’s enough for me. Even though authors who have given their books away for free online (Cory Doctorow comes to mind) are making it as professional writers, so clearly the free availability of a book doesn’t preclude making a living from writing.
I do have a request:
If you download pirated books, support your favorite authors by recommending their books: tell friends, post on Twitter and Facebook, and write blog posts about it. Words cost you nothing but mean everything to authors.

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I read an interesting comment on a blog recently, although I can’t remember where, that made the point that as the pace of technology accelerates, we’re going through massive shifts more and more quickly, such that it becomes exceedingly difficult to predict the future beyond a certain point, and that point is coming closer and closer as time progresses.

A writer in 1850 could easily imagine out 100 years. They might not be right about what society would be like, but they could imagine. Writers in the early 1900s were imagining out about 75 years, and midcentury writers 50 years, and so on.

I’m writing now, and I enjoy the act of grounding my society in hard predictions, and it’s hard to go out beyond about 25 years because pending changing in the technology landscape are so radical (artificial intelligence, nanotechnology) that it’s really hard to conceive of what life will be like in 50 or 100 years from now, and still have it be an extrapolation of current trends, rather than just wild-ass guesses, e.g. a fantasy of the future.

If it really is harder to extrapolate trends out any sort of meaningful distance, I wonder if that exerts a subtle effect on what people choose to write.

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A fellow author recently asked if he should have one blog where he consolidates all of his interests, or different blogs for his different audiences, since they are pretty disparate topics with little overlap.

It’s a dilemma with no single right answer.

One point of view says that the most loyal fans come about on single author blogs. That is, Brad Feld has a rabid set of fans, while something like GeekDad, with a dozen different bloggers, won’t ever be able to inspire such a loyal group of fans.

The thing about single author blogs is that they almost always shift topics over time. A person’s interests change year by year, and five years later they may be onto an entirely different set of topics. Yet it still works. We like to follow people.

By comparison, a topic oriented blog is just that: a topic. The reader’s interest in that topic may wane, and they’ll stop following. I’m no longer reading TreeHugger or the other environmental blogs I used to read. Yet I’m still reading Rebecca Blood, a blogger I met once and emailed a dozen times, and who has some very different interests from me.

My thought is that over the short term, topic-specific blogs are better. But over the long term, just expressing all your interests in one place is better.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on having one blog or many.

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From Victim to Hero:
Joss Whedon’s characters
Scott Allie (editor in chief, Dark Horse Comics), Rhiannon Louve, Kara Helgren, Anna Snyder, Todd McCaffrey
·      Q: How do you feel about Joss’s portrayal of River, in terms of her presentation as a victim?
o   AS: These are things that are done to her, from an outside presence. She doesn’t have a choice. She had no participation in her victimization. By the end of the series, her programming is something that is not externally triggered, but she embraces and uses.
o   RL: There is being the victim of a crime vs. a victim mentality. Joss’s characters are victims of crime who do not embrace a victim mentality, but instead rise up and fight.
o   K: Ophelia (Hamlet) was used as a pawn by everybody, and essentially had no control over that. Shakespeare implied that she saw drowning as a way out. By comparison, River saw another way out.
·      Q: Joss took a lot of heat for Dollhouse. Characters were so victimized: treated as pawns and prostitutes and were traumatized.
o   AS: Echo had some free agency. She signed on the dotted line so they could do those things to her. It complicates the notion of victimized. Women who are in abusive relationships, there is a transitional periods, on their way out, they sometimes go back. They are choosing to go back into a victim. They need to own their situation.
·      Q: Was Joss glorifying victimization by making a whole cast of victims?
o   RL: I didn’t feel that way. I felt empowered by the show. He explored philosophical sexual ideas that were ahead of their time.
§  AS: Joss has been exploring prostitution throughout his shows.
§  K: Showing people freely talking about sexual themes: people are not always comfortable with this. Sex is a part of life, a basic need of human beings. Some people just felt this was an exploitation. It was calling attention to the victimization that does happen. We don’t see these things, we try not to think about them, but they are happening all the time. And that’s hard for people to swallow.
·      Q: Inarra
o   AS: They are in control of their client base, their money, they have political power. It’s clearly not victimization.
o   TM:
o   RL: It’s hard to have a character that is traditionally feminine and still powerful. And that’s what Inarra is.
o   K: She is in control. She’s a sex worker, but she’s not a victim. River is the victim – because she has things done to her that she doesn’t want. The companion guilt is very wealthy and powerful. She knows how to fight. She’s able and capable. Whereas River is victimized to such an extent that she doesn’t even know how to control herself.
·      Q: Regarding Dollhouse: even if it could be done, could it be done ethically? Is there anything that can be done without victimization if people are desperate to sign that control?
o   RL: This is what makes Adele such an interesting character. First you think she’s the villain, and then you don’t. Adele is at the center of how the LA dollhouse was run.
o   K: Adele will get shit done, if it needs to be done, but she has a caring nature to the dolls.
o   Audience: The dolls in the LA dollhouse were still treated as human beings, while the Washington dollhouse treated them only as tools.
·      Q: Where does Echo become a hero?
o   RL: She starts out as either a hero or a terrorist. She’s back into a corner, and she’s coerced. Her personality starts to carry over from personality to personality.
§  SA: Is this what makes her a hero?
o   K: When she’s in her terrorist days, she’s Caroline, not Echo. As Echo, she starts picking up pieces of other personalities she’s had programmed into her.
·      SA: Dollhouse explores identity, without answering anything. We can all make different conclusions.
·      SA: We see female characters put in a victim role. They are put through some kind of horrible sexual ringer, to rise up from the ashes. Is it exploitive? Is it emotionally honest? (talking about Tomb Raider game)
o   TM: It’s a default state for a male writer to say that if I am going to put a female character through the ringer, it’s going to be through rape. But there are other tools. There are things that can make you lose your will to live faster.
o   K: Originally the backstory was that she lost her father. Now this is being retconed. It’s a shorthand for something more complicated. And it trivialized the event.
o   RL: Bringing it back to River, there’s nothing about sexual victimization. It’s not about sex. It’s a female character, and she’s rising up from her oppressors, and it’s nothing about sex.
§  Even if you don’t go to a story about rape, it’s about being married against their will.
§  Even things that are written now, for children, have that trope.
o   K: Using either rape or forcing to marry: you’re taking free agency away from a woman.
o   RL: forcing to marry is something that is still happening in the world today.
·      Talk of playing to strength. There’s victimization, but then how do you deal with that.
·      Women are victimized by taking away their free agency (e.g. control over their body, their mind, their relationships), and that almost never happens to men.
o   It’s the shorthand for a female character.
o   A male protagonist is usually more complex.
·      SA: Choice being taken away from the protagonist is a common trope.  But that’s not always true: Ripley in Alien. Linda Hamilton in Terminator. On the other hand, you have Catniss in Hunger Games, where everyone is essentially a slave.
o   Gender is not an issue in the story of Catniss. It’s not about a young women rising above, it’s about a person rising above.
o    SA: All genre fiction is about taking support structure away from the protagonist.
o   AS: But female and male characters are treated different. You don’t see nearly as many kidnapped male characters (unless they are children). You don’t see men sexually victimized. The method of removing choice and agency is different. A wider range for male characters vs. female characters.
o    

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Kung Fu vs. Wire Fu
Are your fight scenes realistic? Do they work on the page?
Steve Perry, Kamila Miller, Dave Smeds, Blake Hutchins, Steven Barnes
Orycon 34 — 2012
·      DS: The first thing, when doing an action scene, is to get intensely into the viewpoint of my character. How is the fight seeming to them. What are the threats to them. See it from the viewpoint of the expert. In doing this, it makes it accessible, regardless of whether the reader is familiar with the combat or not.
o   I know unarmed combat, but mostly I write about armed combat. There’s some cross over in terms of what people are aware about in fighting, but the techniques are different.
·      SP: I go for wire fu. Real fighting is boring. Someone gets hit, and you don’t know what happened. You want to write for it to be entertaining.
·      KM: I try to pull in the point of view really tight. In the beginning, I tried to do it like a movie: choreographed. But for writing, what’s important is the impact on the character.
·      SB: every fight has its own story arc. Look at Sylvester Stallone: every fight is a 3-act story.
·      BH: When I write a fight scene, I start with grounding in the sense. That makes it exciting. What is the scene meant to show? It is real jeopardy, or show competence?
o   What does it feel like to feel outclassed?
o   What does it feel like to be hit?
o   What does it feel like to be tricked.
·      SB:
o   Fight scenes are like sex scenes. There’s a lot going on, but what’s important is what it reveals about a character. A character should not come out as the same person.
o   I start by asking myself who is this person at the start, and who they are at the end. Either they change, or they learn something about themselves, or they reveal something about themselves.
·      Pet peeves?
o   KM: The dude who wades through the battlefield hacking and slaying.
o   DS: Karate kid: where you take someone with almost no training, and they can beat people who have been training for years.
o   SP: Tom Cruise. A 5’8” guy can’t play Jack Reacher, who is 6’5”.
o   SB: In PG and PG-13 movies, when people are fighting other people far more capable. There should be ripping eyes and going for the groin.
·      What do you love?
o   SB: The fight scene in From Russia with Love in the train cabin.
o   SB: Peter O’Donnell wrote the best fight scenes ever.
§  He’s put people in a situation they could not possible win.
§  Then convince you they have to win.
§  Modesty Blaze books
o   You find the people who do know this stuff. You have the scenes express something: somebody’s loyalty, their tolerance for pain, the lengths they will go to.
·      Get the original episodes of the Green Hornet with Bruce Lee. He’s genuinely good. The last few seasons are the best because they bought up people he could really fight against.
·      Guilty Pleasures:
o   SP: Green Arrow on CW: the kids aren’t watching this, so they just go wild. “kill them all”
o   SB: Wild, wild west
o    

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So You Want to Be a Writer
Richard A Lovett, Amber D. Sistla, Karen Azinger, Ken Scholes
Orycon 34 — 2012
·      AS:
o   My writing time is so precious that when I drop my kid off at daycare, I don’t even leave the building: I sit down outside the door, and start writing.
·      KS:
o   The most important thing I can do is write.
o   At a book signing, I can sell maybe 3 or 4 books
o   At a con, I can sell maybe 4 books
o   So the most important thing I can do is write.
o   When a book comes out, people will read it, and they’ll publicize it.
·      RL:
o   If it’s sunny, I’m looking for things to do during the day. And then I’ll write at night.
o   C.S. Lewis always wrote in the morning, and then went for a walk in the afternoon.
o   6 hours of writing in a day is a hard drive.
§  KS:            I consider 3 to be good.
·      Q: Do you have agents? How important are they?
o   KS:
§  For my NY stuff, I have an agent. They have boilerplate contracts with all the publishing houses. I reap the benefits of what Jim Butcher has been able to get, because we have the same agent.
§  For my short stories and small press stuff, I do it myself.
§  Don’t get tangled up in writers. You have to practice your craft until you have a publisher ready material.
o   RL:
§  For my non-fiction work, I don’t have agents. Usually publishers approach me. Would they get me a better deal? Maybe. Would it be 15% better? Maybe not.
·      Q: How much time do you spend writing vs. rewriting
o   KS: Much more writing, but I’m notorious for really good first drafts, perhaps from so much time spent on short stories.
o   KA: I tend to take about nine months to write the manuscript. Then I give it to my alpha readers (about nine people). I wait to hear from them. Then I take their comments into consideration, and doing a global edit. I tighten it up, increase the tension, kick everything up a notch. “they passed the building”, goes to “they passed the thatched-roof cottage”. Then it goes to my editor, and identifies copyediting, but also, for example, asked me to focus on three chapters that needed rework.
o   AS: With novels, because they are so long, if I am a third of the way through, and I see a problem, e.g. that something needs foreshadowing, I don’t make the change then. I just make a note. Then later, I can go through and do all the notes in one pass.
·      Q: What do you like most?
o   KA:
§  Holding the book in my hand
§  Having people read it
o   KS:
§  I won an award in France last year, and this year they’re asking to fly me out there. That’s exciting.
§  Whether I get a letter from a fan or win an award, it’s feels good.
o   RL:
§  Being able to do what I like to do. I can pick the assignments I want to do. If its fun, it’s worth writing about.
·      Q: What’s your least favorite thing?
o   KS:
§  I don’t like flying.
§  I get tired of seeing the same thing over and over ahead. Like having to read galley proofs.
§  Colleagues can get snarky.
o   KA:
§  When I am doing the global edit, I get tired of working on it.
§  When I get feedback, and someone says “this doesn’t work”. Sometimes I know how to fix, and that feels good. Other times, I don’t know, and I hate that.
o   AS:
§  Rejections.
o   RL:
§  Lede panic.
·      Q: What if it’s not the right length?
o   RL: I write it to the length it needs to be, and then I edit it to the length required.
o   KA: Even more than word length, it’s got to be really good. If it is really good, they’ll help you get it to the right length.
o   RL: Don’t pad. It really sucks.
o   KS: My first novel was 130,000 words, and they bought it and wanted four more novels too.
o   KS: I start with the end in mind. I imagine a 130,000 word book, in a 3 act structure, and allocate out the word count. And I know early on whether I’m running hot or cold. It’s less wasteful than writing 200,000 words and then editing down to 130,000.
·      Q: Is there anything you wish you had known before choosing writing
o   AS: I just wish I had more time to do it. I wish I had started before I had kids.
§  Just do it now with whatever time you have.
o   RL:
§  In non-fiction, I would have learned what PAC journalism is like. It’s not fun, and I didn’t know. Publishers are sheep, and it’s really frustrating. They are trying to follow the trend. If you buck the trend, they don’t want it. If you follow the trend, it’s not the trend by the time you’re done.
o   KA:
§  Pitching. In the beginning you send your query letter out, and get a ton of rejections. Instead, go to a writing conference, and sign up for face to face pitches.
·      Write a pitch that focused on the main character, a different one that pitches the main problem, etc… Come up with five different pitches. Try them all. Watch their faces… you can tell when they are turned off. Switch to the second pitch. If necessary, the third pitch. What I found was that my fourth pitch was the most effective. I started with the fourth pitch for all of the successive pitch sessions, and I used it with my query letters.
o    KS:
§  If I did anything differently, I wouldn’t be who I am now and where I am now.
§  In the last five years, I got a five book contract, and gone full time as a writer, and lost eight members of my family, and gained two members.
§  What’s important in writing? There’s no secret handshakes, no magic bullets. You can go to cons, and you can meet people, but unless you have a novel, and a good novel, nothing else matters. Producing work doesn’t just yield you a finished work, it makes you a better writer.
·      Q: Choosing indie publishing?
o   AS: You’ve got all the jobs. Even if you farm it out to other people, you are in charge of it. There’s no money coming in during the very beginning. (as opposed to getting an advance.)
o   Annie Bellet: Don’t choose. Do both.
o   KS: I haven’t done indie publishing yet, but I will. And I’ll use my contacts from traditional publishing (editors, cover designers) to get it done.
o   RL: I did my first work, and it was a collection of pieces previously vetted through Analog. Collections don’t usually make a lot of money, so there wasn’t much risk,
o   KA: I had a five book deal with a publisher. And they were awful. But I finally escaped. I would recommend doing it yourself.

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Writing with all your senses
Orycon 34
Annie Bellet, K.C. Ball, Adrian Phoenix
·      How to do it?
o   KB:
§  Pick one of the five senses that isn’t ordinarily used in writing, like taste or touch, and focus just on that sense. Do a 4-5 page writing experience.
§  Try to imagine having another sense. And write about it. Do it without referring to existing senses.
§  Flash fiction is a beautiful way to experiment with writing technique. Do a piece under 1,000 words in which I experiment with someone who only has one single, e.g. smell.
o   AB:
§  Use all five senses every two pages. Do it consciously. It takes what you as the writer see in your head, and communicates to the reader.
§  All sense is a character opinion: a chair feels differently depending on the character, e.g. too small, makes their back hurt, etc. Instead of saying the “air smells like coffee”, it could be “the irritating odor of coffee wouldn’t go away”.
·      KB: What’s wonderful about that is that it doesn’t just establish the scene, but it tells you something about the character too.
§  Making the bridge between character and sense is probably the biggest difference between being rejected and making sales.
o   AP:
§  Unique way to use sense: the taste of bile in his throat. The tang of fear.
·      Question: generic vs. specific
o   AB: You need to be specific: exactly what is the color of the sky. Has the coffee been sitting on the burner too long?
·      You have to dare, you have to go big. Don’t be timid.
·      We want to draw people in, make them feel that it is real, but at the same time, we don’t want to pull people out of the story by being too clever with words. When they are done, the reader should be saying what a great story, not what a great writer.
·      We have senses beyond the basic five:
o   E.g. we can sense gravity, which way is up.
o   We can sense where our limbs are, even when our eyes are closed.
o   We can sense infrared, e.g. you can tell where the sun is with your eyes closed.
o   You can tell compass direction by where the sun is.
·      Q: Particular writers that demonstrate this well.
o   AP: Stephen King
o   AB: Stephen King short story: old man reminiscing about being a young boy and talking about the sense of time, how a summer would stretch on forever. He didn’t use a paragraph break for three pages: he mirrored in writing what was going on.
o   KB: Stephen King is a master: he can take a very ordinary situation and turn it into a story. Tommy Knocker: he starts the chapter saying a character is going to die, then makes you fall in love, and praying he isn’t going to kill them, and then he does.
o   James Lee Burke
o   GRRM Game of Thrones
o   Sand Kings
o   With Morning Comes Mist Fall
o   Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son, is amazing when it comes to playing on senses.
·      Read writers who are widely read. Read out of your genre. Understand why people read them. Especially people with multiple books. Word of mouth and marketing may sell a first book, but it will never sell a second book unless the first is good.
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