When the Wolf Comes

Sechin Tower

@SechinTower

Let me tell you about my disastrous December. One of my uncles died after a long, painful battle with cancer—the passing was a welcomed relief to him. Another uncle went to the hospital with sepsis following a surgery. A sister lost her apartment and had no place to go. My mother was scammed out of her entire life savings and was almost evicted. Obediently following Murphy’s Law, my car had a minor breakdown and my laundry machine burned out and filled the room with stinking smoke. (These mechanical troubles were certainly not emotional blows, but my bank account was already suffering after a month of disaster management.)

It never rains but it pours.

I’m sure we've all hit rough patches like that, where we wake up every morning wondering what fresh calamity awaits us that day. Eventually, I found myself becoming philosophical about the whole thing, and I took strength, as I often do, from literature and books.

This time around, I looked to Norse mythology. The Norse were a people who understood hard times, and they believed that even their gods were doomed to suffer and die. What’s more, their gods not only knew that they would eventually die but also the exact manner of their horrible, violent end. The carnage truly begins when Fenrir, the titanic wolf, appears in their hall to lead a pack of monsters to slay Thor, Odin, and all the rest.

Emil Doepler [PD US Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

For all their pessimism about mortal existence in an uncaring universe, the ancient storytellers did not advocate giving up. Rather than waste time bemoaning their fate, the Norse gods prepare themselves by seeking loopholes in the prophecy, training to respond to the conflict, and enjoying what they had while they had it. Even though they knew they couldn't win, they were ready to fight hard.

My own troubled December was no Ragnarok—in fact, considering all the wonderful people I still have in my life, it doesn't even qualify as a dress rehearsal. The wolf has not yet come for me, but his distant howling still prompted me to question a few of my assumptions. I realized that many of my priorities had been a little out of whack. It made selecting a New Year’s resolution easy: I’m resolved to remember that if something doesn't help my family/friends, my fellow human beings, my health, or my writing, then it simply doesn't matter.

By Seney Natural History Association (Female Gray Wolf) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Of these priorities, my gut tells me that the writing is the thing I neglected too much during 2013. It wasn't because I procrastinated, but rather was because I failed to fight hard enough to do what I believe I was put here to do. In 2014, I’m going to take inspiration from the Norse and fight the good fight.

I can't change the rules of mortality, but it is my privilege to defy it, even if only for a short time. Therefore, when the wolf comes, I’ll be waiting to hit him on the nose with at least one new novel. That’s my resolution for this year.

Be good, and dream crazy dreams,

Sechin Tower is a teacher, a table-top game designer, and the author of Mad Science Institute. You can read more about him and his books on SechinTower.com, Facebook, or Twitter.

Think like a Writer

Sechin Tower

@SechinTower

In a recent post, I made an argument for including creative writing in school curricula. Here’s another advantage: everybody, regardless of their profession, can benefit from thinking like a writer.

I’m not saying that all students should aim to become novelists any more than a P.E. teacher would suggest that all the kids in her 5^th period class should set their sights NFL careers. Nor am I trying to argue that it’s the only proper way to think: people should never stop experimenting and weighing evidence like a scientist, or sequentially calculating results like a mathematician, or seeking causes and connections like a historian.

Creative writing isn’t the only window through which one should view the world, but it’s at least as valuable an approach as any other. Everybody can benefit from practicing the habits of mind required to be a writer.

For starters, writing demands knowledge. Anyone who’s ever written a novel will testify that stories are ravenous beasties that will gobble up everything you ever thought you knew and then come back for seconds. For any given piece, a writer might need to delve into the history of the French revolution, or current trends in emergency medicine, or Creole table manners, or the predictions to be tested by the CERN particle accelerator. You might even have to investigate all of the above—I’d love to read that book!

A writer must develop an insatiable curiosity about the little wonders all around us—the color of a sidewalk after a rainstorm, the texture of a dandelion leaf, the crooked finger on the bus driver’s right hand. Fully half of this knowledge will never be useful, but one never knows which half. “Write what you know” is absolutely true, and therefore you can never know enough. A writer must be a compulsive collector of ideas and experiences, and that’s a good way to live.

It’s not enough to simply observe and know, because a writer must weave all these things into something new. How does a treasure-hunting crew in the Caribbean navigate international banking laws? If a vacationing detective found his hotel room burglarized, whom would he call first? What effect would an electromagnetic pulse have on a cell phone? Failing to answer questions like that could result in phony characters and yawning gaps in the plot.

On top of all that, the story must form a cohesive whole inside a reader’s mind. This is one of the most challenging tasks in any profession, and it cannot be accomplished through sentences fragments or text-message contractions because the slightest bobble could break the reader out of the delicate cocoon of willing disbelief. Creative writing is more than just making up stories, it’s the science of how the human brain makes sense of the world and the art of structuring words to expand that sense.

In my class, the idea that creative writing is really about refining human experience and ideas usually doesn’t win over a lot of students right away, but that’s okay because we have a whole  semester for me to show what it mean. I start by giving them free rein to pick their topics, and for many of them this is a first. You didn’t like Holden’s view of the world in Catcher in the Rye? Okay, give me your view. Sick of writing essays about history? No problem, just make up your own history. Or your own future. Within a few weeks, one by one, they get sucked into their stories, and they start to find that they need to search out more from the world around them than they had ever needed to in the past.

It’s not as important to me that they become novelists as it is that they learn to think like writers. At least, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 

Be good, and dream crazy dreams,

Sechin Tower is a teacher, a table-top game designer, and the author of Mad Science Institute. You can read more about him and his books on SechinTower.com and his games on SiegeTowerGames.com

Neil Gaiman and Chinese Sci-Fi

Sechin Tower

@SechinTower

Last week, renowned author Neil Gaiman gave a speech for The Reading Agency in which he defended the idea of books and libraries in the digital age. His argument hinges on 3 points: 1) books are crucial to our development as thinking creatures, 2) it doesn’t much matter what a child chooses to read so long as that child grow up passionate about reading, and 3) librarians are essential because they’re in a unique position to introduce new books to readers. His words are inspiring and profound, and definitely worth reading in their entirety.

To support his position, Gaiman recounts an experience he had at a Chinese science fiction convention. He approached one of the organizers of the event and asked, given that the People’s Republic has traditionally frowned upon fantastical fiction (and even went so far as to ban stories about time travel), why is China now suddenly so interested in sci-fi?

The answer given to Gaiman was startling only in that it came from the mouth of a government official. The event organizer stated that Chinese technologists have always excelled at implementing other people’s ideas, but not at coming up with their own. So they created a task force to examine creative professionals in science and industry around the world and discovered that they all had one thing in common: imaginative fiction. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. to see that reading inspires imagination, and imagination means creative problem solving and new ideas that drive our world forward.

The idea that imaginative literature is more than mere escapism is certainly a validation for someone like me, whose greatest joy is writing about robots and jet packs. And I don’t think it’s just science fiction that can take credit, because fantasies, thrillers, and all other genres can serve equally well to get us thinking, predicting, and imagining.

Once upon a time, I visited China and had an experience which might confirm the notion that fiction improves us. I was a college student travelling abroad, and two friends and I decided to take a detour for Tai Shan, a mountain famed for its amazing sunrise vista—and the seven thousand steps one needed to climb to see that sunrise. We had trudged along all day and into the night, and we were so tired that we felt ready to give up. We went so far as checking into an inn and taking off our shoes.

Only a thousand steps up, we were already beat

Then a funny thing happened. The three of us had been passing around a book about a dragon slayer—I think it was by Barbara Hambly, but it was so long ago I can’t even remember the title. The important thing was that the protagonist was both brave and clever, and we started talking about how he would never spend the night in an inn while the peak awaited. We agreed to emulate the hero’s courage by pressing on for the top that very night, so we resumed our march in the dark. We also decided to be wise like the hero by improvising warm ground covers and stools so that we wouldn’t freeze on the rocky ground as we waited for dawn. We made it, and we didn’t even die of hypothermia in the process (which was a real, if remote, danger).

The sunrise on Tai Shan had not been oversold by the generations of Chinese philosophers, poets, and artists who praised it. As the first vermilion rays crept into the sky (China’s pollution has added some amazing pigments to the celestial pallet), I realized that I was seeing it through my eyes, and also the eyes of all those poets who had put its beauty into verse. At the same time, I saw it as the dragon slayer in our shared book would have seen it: a reward for hard work and sacrifice. And as Bilbo might have seen it: the promise of a new day and new adventures. And as Mr. Spock might have seen it: a roiling mass of fusing helium atoms, all the more beautiful for being measurable and understandable.

Viewing that sunrise through all those different lenses didn’t distract me from the majesty of the event, but rather multiplied my appreciation for it. Fiction helped me see reality more clearly, and it helped me reach the peak of the mountain, both figuratively and literally. This, I think, is only one part of the power of books. I wholeheartedly agree with Gaiman’s argument, and I wish the Chinese great success in their public campaign to stimulate imagination.

How about you? Has a book ever inspired you to do something? If so, I’d love for you to leave a comment below to tell me about it.

Be good, and dream crazy dreams,

Sechin Tower is a teacher, a table-top game designer, and the author of Mad Science Institute. You can read more about him and his books on SechinTower.com and his games on SiegeTowerGames.com

Progress and Regress on Mad Science Sequel

Sechin Tower

@SechinTower

Several months ago, I completed the Mad Science Institute sequel. Then I decided to scrap it and start over. The bottom line is that I’ve now completed a superior version, with the big change being that it features only Soap’s side of the story instead of alternating with other points of view (POVs) as I had done in Mad Science Institute. It’s got 95% of the awesome stuff that my first version had, but delivers it in 65% of the pages (which works out to almost 1.5 times as much awesomeness per page!).

I’ve found that a story can potentially go in any number of directions as it’s being developed. I usually start with a roadmap for the plot, but my characters invariably grab the wheel and we end up exploring new territory together. I say that like the characters have minds of their own because sometimes it feels like they do. That’s fine with me: my characters are encouraged to guide my stories because the process reveals who they are.

Will Soap stick around on campus for her date with Brett, or will she fly to Arizona to investigate the cyborg lab? Will Dean rush in to fight the bikers working for his nemesis, or will he hang back and call his buddies at the FBI? Those are questions for the characters to answer, and it feels like only they can decide those things. I, as the writer, get to decide which questions to ask by putting the characters into situations where they have to make those decisions. I can ask a hundred different questions to tell a hundred different stories, but it’s probably best not to ask a hundred different questions in the same story. It comes down to deciding which ones need to be asked in this particular book.

In the case of the Mad Science sequel, I decided that the questions I wanted to ask about Soap and Dean didn’t mesh as well as they had in the first book. In Mad Science Institute, it’s about misfits finding a home, and they both have that in common even though they come at it from completely different directions. In the sequel, it’s about Soap venturing out into the bigger world and discovering who she is, while Dean’s portion of the story was about grappling with grief and depression. It just didn’t match up. I want to explore both those situations, but I eventually realized that they needed to be explored separately.

What will happen to the Dean portions I removed? Well, he’s still in the book and throwin’ punches at bad guys. A few of his chapters I gave to Soap, and it was amusing to see how she overcame the same obstacles in different ways. Mostly, I think I want to save Dean’s portion of the adventure—or, at least, his character arc if not the actual plot details—for a future sequel. I’m even thinking I might do other novels with different POV characters—maybe Victor, Angela, Choop, and more. But first, at least during her freshman year, the series is going to stay with Soap because she’s got the most growing up (and blowing up) to do.

So, that’s the status of the new manuscript. Unfortunately, it will be a long while yet before this book finds its way to print, because publishing makes glaciers look like cheetahs. Finishing this manuscript has also coincided with my needing to find an agent, so that introduces a few more variables. I feel like a total rookie for not having recognized the needs of the story earlier on, but at least I can honestly say I’m pleased with the final result because it’s better, faster, and deeper than the first one.

For all you writers out there: am I the only one who’s ever gotten deep into a project only to want to start over? How do you avoid or cope with that? For you readers: would you prefer lots of cool details in a novel even if they’re a bit random, or would you prefer a more focused story? I’d be interested in your opinions.

Be good, and dream crazy dreams,

Sechin Tower is a teacher, a table-top game designer, and the author of Mad Science Institute. You can read more about him and his books on SechinTower.com and his games on SiegeTowerGames.com

Letting Go

The other day, someone asked how finishing a trilogy felt.  Sad came to mind although I wasn’t sure if that was exactly what I meant.  Empty is more like it, I guess, but I feel that way after any book, so finishing a trilogy isn’t all that different for me.  It’s one of the reasons that I make like a shark and keep moving on to the next project.  In truth, I didn’t feel quite as sad/empty after SHADOWS because I knew there was more to the story and yet another book to come.  (But I was plenty grumpy; just ask the husband how relieved he was when I started WHITE SPACE.) With MONSTERS now out, there’s a certain finality, a true closing of that chapter, and I feel the end—and loss—of this series much more intensely than I thought I would.  I wouldn’t say it’s more than my standalones; I know that I always wonder what happens next for all my characters.  But leaving this series is definitely tough—and more so, now that it’s actually on shelves. 

I’ve never finished a trilogy before, so I really wasn’t prepared for just how intense the ride and loss are.  Notice that word: finished.  Once upon a time, back in my Mechwarrior days, I was on tap for a trilogy; I’d even written the first two books and was looking forward to the third.  Unfortunately, the line disappeared beneath my feet (or my keyboard, as it were).  That happens.  Imprints go away; licenses aren’t renewed; publishers fold.  I remember being sad then, too, but in a different way because I really wanted to finish this character’s story.  All I could think was, whoa, there she is, little Katana Tormark, with only one friend left to her in the whole wide world . . . and it just so happens that he’s also the psychopath who murdered just about everyone she ever loved.  (God, I loved that psychopath to death.  Jonathan was a gas, so flippin’ fun to write, because he was so perverse.  I mean, we’re talking really really perverse, and in the most deliciously seductive way.  When I was a forensic shrink, I paid attention.)

Talk about an unfinished life.

The same thing happened to me with a character arc and set of stories I was developing—and had already set up in previous novellas—in the Star Trek: SCE series.  Never heard of them?  I’m not surprised.  SCE was e-book only (with compilations released in paperback a year later).  The series editor, Keith DeCandido, understood the importance of e-books before they really caught on, and so the series fell victim to the fact that there just weren’t many platforms and the experience wasn’t so hot.  I think you could read them as pdfs or something; I know I squinted through several on my first little Palm Pilot.  (And how times have changed; go back and watch the first two seasons of NCIS, and see Kate poke her Palm with a stylus.  A decade ago, that was hot stuff.)  Anyway, that series was ahead of its time in so many ways, and was eventually axed by Paramount, even though the paperbacks did fine (and, in fact, the one in which my two-parter, WOUNDS, appeared did extremely well in paperback, and still does pretty fine, all things considered).

Anyway, because Paramount pulled the plug, the fabulous four-book arc I was planning and set up in the WOUNDS sequel/follow-on, GHOSTS never got off the ground.  So Elizabeth Lense remains strained on Earth, a character in limbo—and still pregnant, by the way—and now I’ll never know what happens because I can’t write that character’s story anymore.  She belongs to Trek, not me.

But these ASHES guys are my characters, my babies.  So I guess what we’re talking about here is when and if you finally let go and a character—or characters—leaves your life, which isn’t all that dissimilar to letting go of a kid, a sort of go forth, young man kind of thing.  Some author-parents are better at tolerating that empty nest than others.  Me, I fill the emptiness with other stories and new kids to worry about.  But I can see how, as often happens, writers want to revisit these characters and the story to which they’ve got this incredibly intense attachment.  I’ve certainly read blogs where writers talk about how they wish they could’ve written a fourth book (or more), only their publisher wouldn’t take it, or whatever.  Conversely, I’ve seen a few reviewers’ blogs—not many, but some—where they say, up-front, that they hope that an otherwise fine writer moves on to something new and different.

I’m only talking about myself here, but I think I can understand both sides to this story: the desire to continue versus the need to let go and leave the story as it stands.  I even understand the calculus of an editor or publishing house.  Clearly, if there truly is more to say—or a series has velocity and a writer has the enthusiasm and more story to tell (I think we all know series where there was no more story, but the series was doing so well, that people just kept coming back to that well; and, conversely, how a series was left to quietly die by a house when the story wasn’t even close to being done)—then, yes, writing that next book makes sense.  In a traditional house, you might even have had that discussion with an editor ahead of time, maybe as soon as you realized there was more to say and do.

But I also think—and, again, I’m only talking about myself here—that, after doing what you set out to do, you have to be able to step away for a little while and just wait a bit.  Be patient; let things settle down and all the emotions even out.  Sure, it’s hard.  It hurts.  You feel awful and even worse when people tell you how much they love what you’re doing (and you’re convinced, as I am so often, that you’ll never write anything half that good again).  But it’s a little like deciding whether you’ll call your kid every week, or leave it up to your kid to decide what she wants.  I have two kids; one likes to touch base every week; the other is perfectly happy to talk for hours, but she’s also fine with zero contact for a good long while—and that’s okay.  I’ve left all that up for each to decide what fits best.  I’m confident they’ll talk to me when I want, and vice versa.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that if and when a writer feels the need to revisit a series . . . maybe it’s wise to decide if that’s what the series wants and needs, whether you self-pub or go the traditional route.  Obviously, it’s a lot easier to jump into another book if you self-pub; you don’t have to wait for someone to decide it’s okay. 

But . . . hold on . . . wait a second: are you doing it because the series is just begging for another book, or you are?  I’m serious here.  See, I said good-bye to MONSTERS several months ago: there was the writing of the book and then the revisions and then the copy-edits back and forth.  A lot of months of getting myself all worked up and then crashing every time I finished the book (again) before picking myself up, blowing my nose, and moving on.  Now that it’s hit shelves . . . I’m having to really focus on not looking over my shoulder, not longing for that series—which feels so much more polished (because it is) than the miserable specimen of a book I’m currently drafting for the first time—and not giving in to the idea/temptation/desire to go back to characters I adore and lives with which I am so intimately familiar.  It’s a real struggle.

Now, is there another ASHES book (or two or more) in me?  I want to say yes; I even know what the fourth book would be about and where I’d go from there.  But will I write it?  No, not now and for more reasons than just one.  First off, I have other people/characters/kids I care about, and their books to write.  But I also understand that returning to the trilogy right this second is seductive because it’s familiar and I’m so comfortable with these kids.  Yet I’m not totally convinced that, at the moment, they’ve picked up the phone; that they’re actually dialing and trying to connect.  Before I return, I need to be sure that they’ve called me because they need me . . . not the other way around.

So, for now, let’s say that the next move is up to them.  

***
Before you go: don't forget to enter the Goodreads giveaway for both a signed copy of MONSTERS and a nifty ASHES backpack stuffed with some nice survival gear.  Give my kids a home, why doncha?

Oh, and in the spirit of moving on . . .  a bunch of you chimed in on those profile pics (and thanks; it was interesting to hear how people respond to a picture).  Anyway, as you can see . . . I've changed the pic because, honestly you really do want to stay away from my cheese.

 

Going All Joe Friday

By now, I think we've established that I don't "do" vacations well.  I never know I'm supposed to be on vacation unless my husband tells me.  I simply can't vacate my life because writing pretty much defines me these days and to the point where I no longer feel as, well . . . sheepish when people ask what I do.  Until fairly recently, I always qualified: Well, I'm a child shrink.  Started out in surgery, went on to child psychiatry, and did prison work, too . . . but now I, uh . . . well, I write YA novels.  Today at a wedding reception and then a little later on at a high school graduation thingamabob, I flat-out said I was a writer.  No qualifiers, no explanations.  No feeling this need to apologize.  OTOH, I didn't even realize what I'd left unsaid until the husband pointed it out.

Now, for those of you who wonder why I might have felt a little embarrassed or sheepish or whatever . . . really, it's not that hard to understand.  I mean, for heaven's sake, I went to school for ten trillion years to become a doctor which is--let's face it--kind of a tough go.  In the early days of my gradual slide into full-time writer-dom, I felt like such a frigging fraud.  Everyone's working on or written or had an idea for a novel, right?  And I think that by saying I was a doc first and a wannabe writer way, way second, I was protecting myself from what I thought was inevitable failure--because I couldn't really do this; my stories were so damn bad--and trying to have it both ways: hanging onto a hard-won accomplishment and something that gave me an out just in case.  So it's only been very recently that I've given myself permission to be a writer.

I don't know if that still feels tenuous to me or not, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that it might.  I'm always thinking that all this could disappear tomorrow, or the books I've published must be a mistake, a fluke, a snafu on a cosmic level.  That, someday, someone's gonna wake up--DOH!--and realize that, no, no, there must be some mistake: that Bick character, she is outta here.

Perhaps that's why I have a hard time letting go of work this go-round.  Most writers are always writing, whether they're conscious of it or not.  They're amassing experiences, thinking of a plot point, planning the next scene, stuff like that.  My husband says he always knows when I'm not really in the room because I become monosyllabic if not completely über-quiet.  (To some, I imagine that might be a relief.) 

This probably explains why these past couple of weeks in the UK have felt even less like a vacation than usual because I went for the express purpose not simply of researching the sequel to White Space, the first book in my new series set to appear next spring, but making like a human sponge: soaking up locale and ambience and period details.  Wherever I went, people were enormously helpful, and even more so when they found out that I was working on a novel (which, no, I didn't say; the husband would always blab).  I went all Joe Friday: just the facts, Ma'am.

The experience was all rather overwhelming, actually, just the sheer volume of it all.  I could feel myself trying to remember everything.  I filled up notebooks; I studied arcane books that librarians lugged from storage; I took scads of pictures; if Kodak were still in business, I could be a major share-holder.  Man, my mind got so stuffed with information, I could've sworn those tink-tinking sounds were facts dribbling from my ears to hit the floor.  I completely freaked myself out, thinking that, shit, I'll never remember all this.  Worse, I worry that I'll never assimilate all this material or get to the point where describing something isn't self-conscious. 

Like . . . you know . . . take turning on a light.  You just do it, right?  No one gives a rat's ass about the excitation of mercury vapor in a fluorescent bulb, and unless your story centers around a homicidal maniac who goes around poisoning folks with mercury fumes, who cares?  Unless the quality of the light is important to establishing place or situation, you don't worry about it.

But if you light a kerosene lamp, what's the quality of the light then?  What color?  How bright?  What do the shadows look like?  Is the light from whale oil the same, or different?  Would the color depend on the grade of whale oil?  Would burning whale oil have a scent and, if so, what kind?  Would that be the kind of sensory detail that would "place" a story? (Hint: the answer is yes.)

I remember the author of this one monster of an sf trilogy--we're talking years back--took a perfectly good story and completely ruined it by larding the narrative with so many facts the thing read like a treatise on rocket design, terraforming, and planetary ecology. I'm not kidding; every time I tried to read that thing, I'd glaze over.  My eyes would start to merge at the center of my forehead.  I'd think, Dude, I don't frigging care about the obliquity of the ecliptic. 

Now, though, and for the first time, I could appreciate why that guy and so many writers--even those with a ton of skill--might want to put all that knowledge down just to show you that, see, I know this, see?   When you've gone to that much trouble to immerse yourself in a period and place, it's only natural to want people to appreciate just how hard that is. 

A month ago, I tried plowing through an historical thriller by this very well-published, best-selling author.  In interviews, the guy said that the research for his book took about a year and man, it was clear that he wanted to make damn sure you knew--that, by God, you should appreciate--all those hours and days and weeks and months of effort he'd put into this thing.  That book was so larded with facts, the writing was stale, the words absolutely leaden.  I finally gave up about twenty pages in, when the second chapter actually started out with that kind of deathless dry prose that makes you want to stab your eyes out with a fork: In such and such a year, this and that was formed for the purpose of . . . zzzzzzz.

But.

I know how that writer felt.  I also know what he forgot.

The best research is that which doesn't call attention to itself.  Facts need to melt seamlessly into narrative.  Facts give readers a sense of a place; verisimilitude makes a world.  But a collection of facts is not synonymous with story--unless you're Joe Friday.

Weird Stuff I Have on my Desk

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

In a recent interview, someone asked me about my writer’s desk. They wanted pictures. My desk is in a constant state of clutter. I have books ideas, edit notes, and research piled high. Even though it looks like a complete mess, I generally know where everything is. I’m better organized online, but I am a packrat.
 
A better thing to talk about are the weird things I’ve accumulated over years and KEEP on my desk. While I was gone to the OWFI conference in Oklahoma recently, my husband waited for me to leave town before he cleaned my office. Basically he took the things I had in moving boxes and displayed them so it didn’t look as if we just moved in. I have taken over our upstairs media room and use it solely for my office. It’s like an apartment, suitable for my desktop sprawl so we can keep the rest of our house in order and pretend we are grown-ups. 
 
When I got back from OK, my office looked like someone could really work there. It was like taking a trip down memory lane, too. He hung my awards, recognitions, and B.S. degree. (I write fiction. Of course, I have a degree in BS. Duh.) He also has a section of photos on the wall - fun pics of salmon fishing with friends when we lived in Alaska. I have my writing contest certificates and old volleyball trophies and plagues when I was a player and coach in Alaska. My office is like a time machine now.
 
I tell people that I use toys to keep me plugged into my inner child so I could write YA, but that’s not entirely true. I am NEVER far away from my inner child. Since I chose not to have kids, I’ve never had to be a good example to ANYONE. So my inner child is totally me. Writing YA only gave me a reason to get worse. So the things I have on my desk were accumulated BEFORE I wrote YA.
 
Here are a few:
 
Pog Mo Thoin sign – a gift from my aunt and grandmother. It means "Kiss my Ass" in Gaelic. (Yes, I’m bilingual in obscenit-ese.)

 
Hat collection – My Greenbay Packer cap lights up and flashes & I wear my hardhat & bee antennas to ward off writer’s block.

 
Walkie-talkies – Doesn’t everyone have these on their desk? My husband and I recently used them to trap a stray Great Dane in our backyard to rescue him. True story.

 
Screaming Tomahawk – When you strike it on a surface, it screams bloody murder. I use it for scary scene writing to get me in the mood.

 
Mr Perfect Doll – Pull a chord on his back and he tells me whatever I need to hear. And no, he is not anatomically correct.

 

Diva Dog - This was a gift from very dear friends who thought Paris Hilton and I would have plenty in common once I got famous. The stuffed dog is a purse with a pen zipped into its back for autographs.

 
Okay so I have dished the truth about my office and desk where I write. Now it’s your turn. What is the weirdest thing on YOUR desk…at home or work? I want deets, people. We’re all friends here. I promise not to tell anyone, so spill.

Junk-food for thought...

by A.G. Howard

Now that I've had a month-long break from writing (and while I'm waiting for my next set of edits) it's time to start planning another book. And although I can't officially announce what it is, I can share my crafting process.

 

I'm totally about the visual. My first stage of starting a story is building characters: what they look like, what their GMC (Goal/Motivation/Conflict) will be, and their personalities/names. To aid in this, I have a pinterest board for fascinating faces that fuel my imagination:



Click to go to pinterest board



 

Since my current project is one I started a while back, I've already got the characters lined up.

 

Which means I move on to stage two: creating the settings and world. This is how I feel when I get to start world-building:

 

It's one of my favorite things EVER. Maybe because it's when I really turn my imagination loose and embrace the crazy. Anyone who's read Splintered knows what I mean. Again, I have inspirational pinboards for world-building:



 

But, one of the most fun things about world building is I get to indulge in all the junk-food my wee little brain can digest.

 

I'm not talking cheetos or twinkies (although those do have their place, along with coffee and inordinate amounts of chocolate). I'm talking about horror movies with surreal plots, tons of shock value, and reel upon reel of grotesque eye candy.

 

Creepy critters and disturbing settings work like a defribrillator to my muse, and it's even better if the plot is mainly black and white without too many grays (in other words, junk food for the mind). That way, my brain is free to gorge itself on the visual aspects without having to think too hard about layers or predicting the ending.

Recently I've discovered the Silent Hill movies. Because they're based on computer games, the plots are mainly good vs bad and there is no shortage of gruesome graphics, scenery, and monsters.

Here are two of my favorites from the 3rd movie:

(1) A spidery creature made up of mannequin pieces. The first time I saw it scuttling down the wall, it was SO CREEPTASTIC I salivated. Heh.

I posted a still shot, but if you're brave enough to see the creature in action, feel free to click on the video clip...

 

(2) Mutated rusty-razor-bearing nurses whose faces are a macabre twist of skin that looks like an exposed brain. Since they have no eyes or noses, they react to their other senses: touch and sound, and move in a really jerky manner that makes them even freakier.

 

Watching movies also keeps me attuned to the distinctive movements of the creatures and how they react to their setting, which puts that foremost in my mind as I'm building my own worlds and monsters.

As for an actual setting that has spoken to me, there was a scene in a decrepit amusement park that inspired a deliciously eerie idea for a carnival in my newest project. I can't WAIT to write it. ;)

 

I mean, seriously, with an entrance that looks like this, who wouldn't be inspired to create something terrifying ... or at the very least, to run far, far away.

 

Seeing as I'm a glutton for weird creatures and places, I guess I've found the perfect calling and outlet by writing dark and creepy novels. 
 

A Page From Winslow's Playbook

Okay, I'm going to be completely upfront about this: my brain's been on total information overload.  Not exactly fried, but being the workaholic I am, I haven't taken a weekend to do pretty much NOTHING for . . . well, forever.

Doing nothing wasn't the plan.  Remember: ten days ago, I finished the first pass-through revision for WHITE SPACE.  Since then, I've been cramming in information and beginning to outline the second book in the series.  So I had every intention of hitting the stacks of books I've amassed and get on with it already.

But Saturday conspired to do me in.  I don't know exactly what it was.  Could be that I was still pooped from dress rehearsal for the last symphony chorus performance of the season the night before.  When I woke up Saturday, I was cranky, worried about a couple pages, anxious that Brahms really would have the last laugh.  (Man, this guy was cruel when it came to count and syncopation.)  So I allowed myself to get sidetracked.  Listened to the whole piece again that morning.  Played around on an online site, making sure I had all the notes and the count down.

Then, I opened my email.  Big mistake.  Got into this very long discussion with a friend about the publishing world nowadays, and THAT led me to seek out a couple blogs I've recently neglected, and what THEY had to say made me even antsier because it was so CLEAR that I hadn't thought about some of the stuff they were talking about.  So I read that instead of doing the other reading I should've been doing. (Really, if you could see the mountain of books I'm digesting before I leave for that research trip to the UK in a couple weeks--and I could've sworn I'd taken a picture at some point--maybe you'd understand the fast boil going on inside my skull.  I have got to write a blog post about researching a historical; I just gotta.)

Anyway, when I looked up, it was already afternoon, and I thought, hell, get something done.  I did--there was a whole bunch of stuff, information and whatnot about characters, stewing in my head--but not nearly enough, and I found myself breaking off to go give Brahms another run-through. O.o  And then it was time to exercise and then there was the concert and, yes, we DESTROYED that Boito and gave the Brahms Requiem a real what-for.

Came home.  Drank half a martini.  Ate some cheese and bread.  Had a good cry over a silly chick-flick.  Got midway into Hoosiers, saw it was closing in on half past midnight and thought, Jeez, Ilsa, go to bed.

And then it was today, Sunday.  I'm a good daughter.  Of course, I called my mom, and then my kids called and we all yakked--and when I looked up, it was almost 1:00 p.m.

And I thought, hell.  (Actually, I thought something much stronger than that.)  Because, see, I really wanted to hammer on that outline, but I also wanted to make a cake because doing so always makes me feel like I've actually accomplished something.  There was exercise still to do as well, and then the husband was scheduled to come home from his week-long business/family trip.  We were supposed to go out to dinner.

I had an attack of the guilts like you can not believe.  Honestly, Catholics have nothing on Jews when it comes to guilt.  I was going to slink over to my desk and work.  Just forgo the cake and all that.

But then I saw this: 

And I thought: Ilsa, for God's sake, take a page from Winslow's playbook and cut yourself a break.  Let it go.  Kick back, make your cake, let the day and the weekend go . . . just this once.

So I did.  I made my Sunday cake, Strawberry Bundt with White Chocolate Ganache:

My husband came home just as I was turning it out, and we went to the gym.  He took me out to dinner.  We just got back, and he gave me a fab assortment of fancy vinegars.  [Two of my endearing qualities, he claims: I am a) a cheap date and b) very easy to please.]

So that's that.  I've officially blown off the day and the weekend, something I almost never do.  I've nothing profound to say, although I honestly do believe you guys ought to take a gander at the following blog posts from Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch because I think they raise interesting questions about where we, as writers, might be headed, and in the very near future.  Don't wait for my next post to comment either; if you've got feelings about what they're talking about, let's hear 'em and we can go from there.  I know they certainly got me thinking.

But, for now--this very rare weekend--I've let my overheated brain take a rest.  Pretty much.

I think it's time for a cat nap.