So. My first attempt at publish-worthy prose is steampunk, or at least the type that's Victorian-revivalist, set in a not-too-distant future. The original concept story I wrote a few years back was actually cyberpunk, in style as well as setting, but as I began reworking it, weeks and weeks back, I felt like it needed something to give it flavor and offer some small basis for a social dimension. Thus "Proxy Bloodsport" became "Darwin Colossus."
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Contacted My Prospective Beta Readers Today...
Sent out my "wanna participate?" email. Very interested to see who writes back in the affirmative.
-Rich
-Rich
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Fitness, Mental and Physical
Went to the Magic City Writers group meeting last night, and the critique (not of my work this time, we rotate) was a bit more contentious than it's been in the past. Here's hoping it settles down for next time!
Tonight, in addition to (at long last) work on getting Darwin Colossus suitable for Beta Reader perusal, I'll be heading to the gym. I've been an avid follower of Tim Ferris's 4 Hour Body program, and it's worked well for me, both in terms of adding muscle mass, and reducing the relative stoutness of my tum. After the chaos of the past few months, Amy and I have returned to an exercise program, and we're flourishing for it.
Not coincidentally, I find it much easier to write (and to write well) when I'm doing a better job of taking care of my body. Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing podcast fame did a pair of episodes on the subject of staying healthy lately, and her advice is good--I highly recommend it.
I think there's something that needs saying on the subject of writerly mental health, too. Not just in the staying-out-of-the-rubber-room sense (important though that is), but in the sense of regulating one's input, one's "diet." One of the maxims of writing is that you have to do a lot of reading as well. Any writer planning on getting published needs to be familiar with the big authors, both historical and up-and-coming, in one's genre. Read a lot, and read widely. For that matter, listen to podcasts like I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses regularly. Good advice I've heard is that for every hour you spend writing a day, you should try to spend at least an hour reading. You want to know the material you'll be both compared to and competing with, know the trends, know the tricks of the trade, and get a feel for what consumers of your product (because that's what it is, after all, if publishing is the goal) are expecting and demanding.
Another part of writerly head-health is attitude. As an example, it took me a long (long) time to get over my posture of scarcity toward my own work: "This is my Magnum Opus, my only golden perfect snowflake of an idea. If I screw it up, I'll never have another chance." The Writing Excuses guys, as well as just growing older and perhaps a little wiser, helped me through this, and now writing isn't nearly the angst-ridden chore that it used to be. Amy noticed (me sitting down to write used to herald great tension and grief in the house, which didn't give her or me much incentive to encourage it), and my output has improved hugely, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. An attitude of plenty ("I'm learning more and getting better at this all the time, and I've got great ideas spilling out of my head") has made all the difference.
Strive for health: the image of the starving, alcohol-addled writer suffering for his work in a garret may be romantic, but it's a hellacious way to make a living.
-Rich
Tonight, in addition to (at long last) work on getting Darwin Colossus suitable for Beta Reader perusal, I'll be heading to the gym. I've been an avid follower of Tim Ferris's 4 Hour Body program, and it's worked well for me, both in terms of adding muscle mass, and reducing the relative stoutness of my tum. After the chaos of the past few months, Amy and I have returned to an exercise program, and we're flourishing for it.
Not coincidentally, I find it much easier to write (and to write well) when I'm doing a better job of taking care of my body. Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing podcast fame did a pair of episodes on the subject of staying healthy lately, and her advice is good--I highly recommend it.
I think there's something that needs saying on the subject of writerly mental health, too. Not just in the staying-out-of-the-rubber-room sense (important though that is), but in the sense of regulating one's input, one's "diet." One of the maxims of writing is that you have to do a lot of reading as well. Any writer planning on getting published needs to be familiar with the big authors, both historical and up-and-coming, in one's genre. Read a lot, and read widely. For that matter, listen to podcasts like I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses regularly. Good advice I've heard is that for every hour you spend writing a day, you should try to spend at least an hour reading. You want to know the material you'll be both compared to and competing with, know the trends, know the tricks of the trade, and get a feel for what consumers of your product (because that's what it is, after all, if publishing is the goal) are expecting and demanding.
Another part of writerly head-health is attitude. As an example, it took me a long (long) time to get over my posture of scarcity toward my own work: "This is my Magnum Opus, my only golden perfect snowflake of an idea. If I screw it up, I'll never have another chance." The Writing Excuses guys, as well as just growing older and perhaps a little wiser, helped me through this, and now writing isn't nearly the angst-ridden chore that it used to be. Amy noticed (me sitting down to write used to herald great tension and grief in the house, which didn't give her or me much incentive to encourage it), and my output has improved hugely, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. An attitude of plenty ("I'm learning more and getting better at this all the time, and I've got great ideas spilling out of my head") has made all the difference.
Strive for health: the image of the starving, alcohol-addled writer suffering for his work in a garret may be romantic, but it's a hellacious way to make a living.
-Rich
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Life, In The Way; Current Reads
...I am not dead. I have not forgotten about anyone or anything. :-)
It's been a little dramatic the past pair of weeks, as things around the Miller household had to be put on hold for health and recovery reasons. That issue appears (touch wood) to be receding as a concern, so I'll be getting back into revisions and beta-reader mailings this week, and possibly weekend.
The next meeting of my local writing group is coming up next Wednesday, so I've also got to get the current piece read and critiqued. Gonna be a busy weekend!
I'm also going to start doing mentions of books I'm reading and/or enjoying, because a huge part of being a writer is being a reader as well. Here goes!
I snagged my e-copy of Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear right on release day (3/1/2011), and devoured it over the course of the next several days, which were too crazy-full to do any writing, but not so much as to preclude reading. I don't mind saying that I have a bit of a man-crush on Patrick Rothfuss: his previous book (his debut freaking novel) affected me more powerfully than anything else I've read in fiction. Thinking of some scenes still arouses strong emotion, and I've read The Name of the Wind something like five times. In any event, the emotional peaks of Wise Man's Fear weren't as stratospheric for me as in Name of the Wind, but the storytelling was at least as strong, showing that Rothfuss isn't/wasn't a fluke, or one-hit wonder. The one question I have left is how in the world the rest of the story, knowing what we know, can be tied up in the one volume of the trilogy Rothfuss has left? Can't wait for the final installment.
I'm currently listening (via Audible.com) to The Runelords, Book 1: The Sum of All Men, by David Farland. Farland's a new author for me, but his books were recommended strongly in a few episodes of Writing Excuses, so I had to check them out. Fascinating worldbuilding, and the story's definitely sucked me in.
Finally, I'm embarking on a reread of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, an amazing novel, and one that's a bit of a touchstone for me. I love Miéville's writing: his wordsmithing, his worldbuilding, his theme play, philosophical groundedness, the whole gamut. Perdido Street Station is arguably the work Miéville's most famous for, though he's received a lot of well-deserved press lately for works like The City and the City and Kraken. John Scalzi, today, named Perdido Street Station his #1 novel of the past ten years (in lieu of his own most-famous work, Old Man's War, which recently won a Tor.com "#1 Novel of the Past Ten Years" poll). I completely agree with Scalzi on this: more than anything else I've read (including The Name of the Wind) I read Perdido Street Station (indeed, any Miéville) and think, "Hell's bells, I want to write like that!" His stuff is lush, challenging, fiercely intelligent, and oscillates between gutter-filth and transcendent glory with aplomb. Not a bad pole-star to sail by, though the trade route I follow must ultimately be my own.
More soon!
-Rich
It's been a little dramatic the past pair of weeks, as things around the Miller household had to be put on hold for health and recovery reasons. That issue appears (touch wood) to be receding as a concern, so I'll be getting back into revisions and beta-reader mailings this week, and possibly weekend.
The next meeting of my local writing group is coming up next Wednesday, so I've also got to get the current piece read and critiqued. Gonna be a busy weekend!
I'm also going to start doing mentions of books I'm reading and/or enjoying, because a huge part of being a writer is being a reader as well. Here goes!
I snagged my e-copy of Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear right on release day (3/1/2011), and devoured it over the course of the next several days, which were too crazy-full to do any writing, but not so much as to preclude reading. I don't mind saying that I have a bit of a man-crush on Patrick Rothfuss: his previous book (his debut freaking novel) affected me more powerfully than anything else I've read in fiction. Thinking of some scenes still arouses strong emotion, and I've read The Name of the Wind something like five times. In any event, the emotional peaks of Wise Man's Fear weren't as stratospheric for me as in Name of the Wind, but the storytelling was at least as strong, showing that Rothfuss isn't/wasn't a fluke, or one-hit wonder. The one question I have left is how in the world the rest of the story, knowing what we know, can be tied up in the one volume of the trilogy Rothfuss has left? Can't wait for the final installment.
I'm currently listening (via Audible.com) to The Runelords, Book 1: The Sum of All Men, by David Farland. Farland's a new author for me, but his books were recommended strongly in a few episodes of Writing Excuses, so I had to check them out. Fascinating worldbuilding, and the story's definitely sucked me in.
Finally, I'm embarking on a reread of China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, an amazing novel, and one that's a bit of a touchstone for me. I love Miéville's writing: his wordsmithing, his worldbuilding, his theme play, philosophical groundedness, the whole gamut. Perdido Street Station is arguably the work Miéville's most famous for, though he's received a lot of well-deserved press lately for works like The City and the City and Kraken. John Scalzi, today, named Perdido Street Station his #1 novel of the past ten years (in lieu of his own most-famous work, Old Man's War, which recently won a Tor.com "#1 Novel of the Past Ten Years" poll). I completely agree with Scalzi on this: more than anything else I've read (including The Name of the Wind) I read Perdido Street Station (indeed, any Miéville) and think, "Hell's bells, I want to write like that!" His stuff is lush, challenging, fiercely intelligent, and oscillates between gutter-filth and transcendent glory with aplomb. Not a bad pole-star to sail by, though the trade route I follow must ultimately be my own.
More soon!
-Rich
Friday, March 4, 2011
Had a Great Time with the Magic City Writers Group!
Darwin Colossus got both great reviews and a thorough nitpicking on Wednesday night. It was a great time, and I'm very appreciative of the feedback. Thanks, everyone!
I have some thinking to do re: the story's structure, as well as clarifying some aspects of its flow: what happens when, to whom, and by what motivations certain characters make decisions. Sometimes it's hard to judge the balance one should strike between subtlety (implying) and barefacedness (demonstrating); when leaning too far to the subtle side, it's easy to confuse the reader.
Sorry for the sparseness of updates here lately: health challenges continue to complicate my home life, but it's all about keeping going!
I'm going to make a few of the more important clarity-related tweaks, then send Darwin Colossus out to my beta readers within the next week or so. I also have a few candidates for my next short story idea, and I'm going to flesh-out one of those into an outline/mind map not long after.
-Rich
I have some thinking to do re: the story's structure, as well as clarifying some aspects of its flow: what happens when, to whom, and by what motivations certain characters make decisions. Sometimes it's hard to judge the balance one should strike between subtlety (implying) and barefacedness (demonstrating); when leaning too far to the subtle side, it's easy to confuse the reader.
Sorry for the sparseness of updates here lately: health challenges continue to complicate my home life, but it's all about keeping going!
I'm going to make a few of the more important clarity-related tweaks, then send Darwin Colossus out to my beta readers within the next week or so. I also have a few candidates for my next short story idea, and I'm going to flesh-out one of those into an outline/mind map not long after.
-Rich
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"Darwin Colossus" ready for Group Critique
Went through another set of revisions tonight, and I think I'm about as far as I can go by the deadline for submission to Magic City Writers (tomorrow). The story still needs some tightening and unifying (especially the action scenes), but I'm reasonably pleased, and curious what the group has to say.
Whew! Been hard work, getting it all together, but I'm glad to have a group keeping me accountable!
Good night, all, and I'll report new stuff as it comes up. Probably time to start a new story, soon!
-Rich
Whew! Been hard work, getting it all together, but I'm glad to have a group keeping me accountable!
Good night, all, and I'll report new stuff as it comes up. Probably time to start a new story, soon!
-Rich
Big Revision Day
Got well over half of a full first-draft revision done on Proxy Bloodsport (tentatively renamed Darwin's Colossi), as the in progress box shows. Not much else to say (or WIP quote), as it's late and I don't want to risk getting too sleep-deprived.
More tomorrow!
-Rich
More tomorrow!
-Rich
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