Yet another busy week up here within sight of the Middle of Nowhere.  That’s to be expected.  Around here, summer is an incredibly busy time.  It’s the time where we knock out all of our major projects for work and outside of work, we spend a lot of time at the garden.

On Monday, my father-in-law had heart surgery for a prolapsed mitral valve.  It was repaired by robotic surgery, which is cool and really minimizes the recovery time . Everything went well and he should be home by the time this entry is posted.

At the same time, the concrete for our new driveway was finished.  We should be able to park a car on it today and fill in the gaping holes with soil tomorrow (I hope).

On Tuesday, did yard work and did some partial filling of the holes left behind by the work done on the driveway.  In retrospect, this was an incredibly stupid thing to do as I lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 pounds due to sweating.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday – a whole lot of progress on stuff at work.  Pretty impressive considering all of my co-workers are gone leaving me about the only person here.  On the home front, I got a ton of writing done on Chapter 22 which I think is coming along just fine.

Speaking of writing – I’m going to toot my own horn.  My VP-buddy and fellow writer Cath posted a blog entry about what you can learn from your fellow writing peeps and she used my story, Genie Memories, as an example.  So head on over there and check it out.  And I do promise to write up an entry sometime soon on how I write action sequences, specifically fight scenes because a lot of people do find those hard to write.  I’m lucky in that regards.

Nope, not coffee.  We’re talking about writing here.

A lot of writers talk about letting your work age or percolate for a while.  In On Writing, Stephen King calls it ‘letting the book rest’ and recommends you go do something else – kayak, jig saw puzzle, whatever.  Just put the piece in a drawer and don’t look at it, no matter how tempting it is.

How long it sits varies by piece and person.  Books should probably sit in the drawer for a while, but even scenes can benefit from this.   When is the right time to pull it out?  Back to King :

When you come to the correct time, take your manuscript out of the drawer. If it looks like an alien relic bought at a junk-shop or yard sale where you can hardly remember stopping, you’re ready.

Case in Point : I had Monday off and decided to write the entirety of Chapter 21.  This is one of two chapters I’ve been eagerly anticipating so writing it was easy.  The problem is that it didn’t work.    For the damned life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

So I set the piece aside.  Went for a walk with the dog.  Surfed the web.  Went to martial arts practice and that’s when it came together.   While chatting about the past weekend’s events, it struck me how to fix the chapter.

Info Dump.

Believe it or not, it can work in a novel, provided it is presented at the right time and in the right way.  Placing it in Chapter 21 means that if the reader has gotten this far, they’re going to stick with me for a few pages of info dumping because it’s the right time.  And the right way was a conversation between two ‘friends’.

I came home, picked up the piece that looked completely wrong and alien, and started writing it the right way.

So I’m pretty happy about that.  Unfortunately, it has set me back a bit.  I believe I said I’d finish Genie Memories by the end of July.  Sadly, that isn’t going to happen and I’m not too happy about it.  I really wanted to hit this goal but things came up, inside and outside of writing, that just flat out prevented it.

I won’t set a goal for finishing it just yet.  August is essentially a non-writing month.  Students start coming back to campus in the next week or two, meaning we have to hammer down on all of our projects, prep for training, etc.  I’ve got some vacation dates so I’ll be able to make up some of it, but I’m suspecting September will be when I can crack down hard on the story again.

Who knows though?  Maybe percolating for a week or two will be just what I need.

One - Received a 37 day rejection from Strange Horizons for Korl.  I’ll have to look for the next market later tonight.

Two – Members of the SWAT Team walked past my office.  They claimed to be surveying the Library as they’ll be using it in the evening next week for some tactical training.  Room clearance, etc.  I was half tempted to ask if I could sit in and watch.

My brother’s explanation is : “Overdue Library Books – It’s Serious Business”.

That writing gig I mentioned a couple of days ago?  Here it is :

AISFP 2.0

Starting in August, I will be writing for Adventures in SciFi Publishing.

Adventures (AISFP for short) is an award winning podcast and websites focusing on the science-fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction  industry.  Over the course of some 100 or so shows, the creator (Shaun Farrell) and other hosts have interviewed a huge range of authors including Neil Gaiman, J.C. Hutchins, Margret Weis, Tracy Hickman, just to name a few.

For my part, I’ll be doing book reviews to start.  It’s a hard gig, to be honest.  I have to read a book, break it down, then write up a review on said book.  The first piece should show up in early to mid August and I’ll most definitely link to it once it’s live.  I’ll be joined by fellow VP XIII alumni Brent Bowen and a host of other extremely talented folks.  I’m very much looking forward to it.

Subscribe to Pod Cast (iTunes)

AISFP 2010 Promo (Audio, Click Play to Listen)

“Oh, so you write too?  What do you write?”

“Science-fiction and fantasy, mostly.”

“Ah.  You should try some real writing.”

The above is an actual conversation I had with a visiting professor today.  I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.  I suppose I could have been snarky and comment that ‘Professor’ is sometimes a synonym for ‘Pompous Ass’ or quoted one sci-fi author who once said, “Don’t annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they’ll do to you.”

But I didn’t.  Instead I solved his problem and sent him on his way, came back to my desk, and did some thinking.

This is not the first time I’ve heard this statement.  The Print on Demand press PublishAmerica once said ‘the quality bar for sci-fi and fantasy is a lot lower than for all other fiction … They have no clue about what it is to write real-life stories, and how to find them a home.” Given that PublishAmerica once accepted Atlanta Nights, easily the worst written book of all time (dude – one chapter was written entirely by a random word generator program), I’m don’t know how much weight to give to their opinion.  Do a Google search, you’ll find quite a bit more.

I’m not quite sure what causes people to have this sentiment.  Maybe they just don’t like sci-fi/fantasy.  That’s fine.  I’m not a fan of romance but you won’t see me saying that it’s not ‘real writing’.   It is real.  Formulaic, maybe, but it’s still writing and given that that genre is devoured, I’d say people like it.

Perhaps these people feel that every book must fit into the shelf at a coffee shop or an art house or force you to pause and take a sip of your latte while having a grand revelation about life, the universe, and everything (spoiler – it’s 42).

Who knows?  Here’s my  belief :

One – Not all writing has to be grand and glorious and lead you down a path to an epiphany.  Sometimes it just has to be entertaining.  That’s the sort of stuff that I write and the stuff I enjoy reading.  I live every day in reality; I’m not terribly keen on spending my free time in it.

This is not to say that Sci-Fi and Fantasy doesn’t make you think.  Hell no.  There are hundreds, thousands of short stories and novels that do that.  The really good authors can do both, blending the lesson with the entertainment.  Some day I hope to be included among their ranks.

Two - Fantasy (and by some definition, Science Fiction) is essential to human existence.  Don’t believe me?  Look at ancient cultures.  How much of their folklore revolves around mystical events or other-worldly beings?  How about fictitious creatures?   Crack open the Bible.  Believer or not, you will find some fantastic elements within that tome.

In every case, the fantasy that exists is because our ancestors needed something to be explained so that they could make sense of it and continue on living.  It’s human nature.  And who knows?  Somewhere down the road, we might find out the answer.  The impossible might become reality.

Three – Well … I don’t have a three.  So I’m going to leave you with something my friend Kurt passed my way :

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

- G.K. Chesterton, Writer (1874 – 1936)