It started with socks

A few days ago there was a wonderful post about socks at Tears Run South. Well, not so much about the socks themselves as how the author is particular about mismatching them. The commentary filled up with all of these delightful submissions from readers with their own peccadillos. Today, Ellen over at ellenbest24 continued the theme with her own post.

In the grand bloggery tradition of jumping on a neat idea, I figured I’d do one of my own.

I hold on to the bed when I go to sleep. Specifically, I must have a hand on the edge of the bed or I won’t fall asleep. It all started when I was just a wee laddie sleeping on the top bunk in the room I shared with my older brother. You see, me and he had busted the bed rail during a full-out rumpus and propped it back in place to hide the crime. We even got away with it for a few weeks.

A few weeks of terror! Every night when I went to bed I knew that there was absolutely nothing to save me from a five foot somnolent drop to my death. Out of self preservation I slept as far away from the drop of doom as possible, hugging up against the opposite rail and holding on to the edge of the mattress so I knew I was safe.

Now decades later, as a (passably) mature adult, you will still find me attached to the edge of the bed.

What fun oddities do you have?

Chapter Art

When I was a kid I devoured science fiction. L’Engle, Asimov, Bradbury, Chalker, Heinlein… I could fill up an entire post with these names but I think you get the picture.

Something that was very common with those older works but is rarely seen now was chapter art. I loved these little greetings, these foreshadows by woodcut.

I am planning to have chapter art in each of the Ages of the Seed books, and the style of it will vary by the genre of the books. Weavers is a fantasy setting and my illustrator (the incomparable Mareta Pettigrew, who still needs an artist’s page so I can send people her way when I brag about her) is doing pencil/ink drawings reminiscent of those old timey woodcuts.

Below is the art for the first chapter of Weavers. I love the feel of it and how it sets up the scene so well.

What do you think of chapter art? Do you miss it as much as I do?

Weavers_PateMeetsTam (2)

Alarm, a 9 minute tale

CRACK! My dream explodes in red fiery pain. My waking mind is engulfed in it, drowning in it.

CRACK! My ass burns, so hot where I’ve been struck that it feels cold.

CRACK! The paddle strikes me higher, across my lower back. The icy fire spreads like liquid poured on my skin.

CRACK! I struggle to get away and discover I am bound. My arms pulled together behind me and strung to my neck, my legs immobilized by his weight.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! My back, my shoulders, my arms are seared with living fire. I scream and hear nothing, my mouth filled with fabric bound in place by a leather strap. The taste tells me they are my panties, soaked by my juices and his ministrations mere hours ago.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! My ass roars with pain as he returns his attentions there, striking my already inflamed cheeks over and over. It’s no longer on fire. Fire is not hot enough to describe this sensation. I squirm, desperate to get away but there is no escape.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! My thighs, my ass, my arms, my legs, my shoulders, my tail. The paddle strikes randomly, obscenely, anywhere, everywhere. There is no escape. I squirm desperately, like an animal. I cannot dodge. I cannot predict. I cannot even flinch away for the strikes are irregular. Chaotic.

CRACK! One final massive blast across my ass completes his assault. My backside glows from neck to knees. I am one fiery slab of tingling, living pain. I feel every inch of me pulsing along to my frantic heartbeat. He lays down atop me, grabs a fistful of hair, forces my head to one side. He slides the fabric gag from my mouth and quickly replaces it with a fleshy one of his own. His tongue explores my mouth frantically, beautifully, desperately, pushing inside me in welcome violation. After an eternity far too brief he withdraws and lays tender kisses across my lips.

“Good morning, beautiful girl” he says. “That was your new alarm clock. Are you awake now or should I hit the snooze button?”

Freshmen writers suck. Like a lot.

It is heartbreaking to see the stylings of academia as provided by a first year college student.

This article goes out to college freshmen (also freshwomen and freshalternatelygendered). Your writing is horrible. It affects your grade in a huge way. Huge! Not only because I can’t understand whateverthefuck you are trying to say and have to grade accordingly, but because you are personally offending me in multiple ways and I carry a grudge.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

I will teach you.

I will make you capable of not earning my wrath (and ideally also avoiding the wrath of the person who is specifically grading your paper).

I will make it easy for you to win.

I will do it in 5 easy steps. Are you ready? Awesome, because I already did it. Here, let me elucidate explain:

Rule 1: Don’t use “I”

Look at the preceding four paragraphs. How did it make you feel when you read them? Like the focus of the conversation was me, right? The focus of your paper is not you. You, represented as “I”, should never, ever appear in your paper. Equally prohibited are “we”, “us”, “me”, or really any pronoun that references anything that is not the actual topic you are discussing. Anecdotal experiences have no place in academic writing.

Rule 2: Make a statement

Your days of regurgitating facts are over. You need to say something with your own voice. Say it in your paper’s title and say it again with the first statement in the paper. Lead strong – you are arguing a point. Say what your argument is right away.

The title of this post is provocative. It irritates you and you want to see more, if only to find something else you can be more offended by. It entices everybody else. “What the hell is this guy going on about? I must see more.” It absolutely caught the eye of anybody in academia. The opening statement of the post expanded and modified the title, drawing people in, keeping them curious, defining the document they were about to read.

Rule 3: No thesaurus, ever

If you open your thesaurus, know that it is an automatic letter grade deduction on your paper. You are presenting facts. Facts are precise. Words that may or may not actually mean what you are trying to say are not precise. Do not ever use a word that you do not understand. It almost always has meanings that you are not familiar with and will (at best) confuse your reader or (at worst) invalidate your statement.

Rule 4: Stick to two syllable words

Look just above Rule 1 above. Why did I strike out “elucidate” and replace it with “explain”? Besides the fact that I was setting up an example for this rule, I mean. It is because ‘explain’ is common, understood. It communicates effectively. “Elucidate” says I am trying to impress people with big words. It says I am concerned with showing you my intelligence rather than proving the validity of my statements. Your paper is not a place to impress people with big words, it’s a place you are trying to get your point across. Get it across clearly and concisely using the most common words possible.

Rule 5: Don’t write like me

All those “I” lines, the aggressive stance, the tone I put into this post… Don’t do that. Ever. Never, never, ever use a one word sentence for effect like I did in the previous sentence. Don’t use repetition for effect like I did in the sentence previous to this one. Don’t write as if you were in a conversation, like I’ve done for most of this post. Don’t use colloquialisms, idioms or pop-culture. Don’t wordify (using words you made up, like “wordify”, or ones that are out of the common lexicon). All of these have valid homes but academic writing is not one of them and they will offend the people grading your paper.

So there…

I just brought your ‘C’ up to at least a ‘B’. Shower me with riches after you graduate and you get your dream job.

The Elevator Speech

At a party last weekend I realized I had a problem. Friends I hadn’t seen in a long time were interested in my novel and I stumbled over how to talk about it. How could I possibly encapsulate all that I’ve worked on and all that I’m planning into a conversation piece that wouldn’t make eyes glaze over and kill that nascent interest? I’d been parceling everything out through narrative revelation and realized I myself didn’t have a holistic description for it.

I really had no excuse for this. I’ve been doing project summaries and carrying them around in my theoretical pocket for a dozen years in my job. I speak of course of…

The elevator speech! (Saw that coming, didn’t you? My teaser titles may need some work.)

An elevator speech is a short and concise blurb about your project that you have ready for whenever a prospective resource shows interest in it. When you end up on the elevator with the VP of Technology and she asks how your big development effort is going you don’t have to think. You tell her exactly what the status is and where it needs help, and you do it in less time than it takes for the elevator to get to her floor.

I generally have three versions ready at any time for projects I’m working and I think the format will work most excellently for writing projects. I’ll take one of my books through this as an example (and because I need to do this for all of the books I have in process). These are all for Unseen, the third volume in Ages of the Seed and the book I’m currently NaNo’ing.

The one liner

A simple statement that encapsulates. It answers the question “What is it”? This is what you give to casual inquiries to judge whether deeper conversation is warranted.

Unseen is the introductory novelette for the steampunk/noir age of my novel series.

That’s a lot of information with few words. I’ve conveyed the title and genre as well as giving a reference for length. I’ve also related that there are more stories in this vein as well as additional novels. I’ve given them multiple topics they can ask follow-up questions on depending on their interest. If they’re not interested in any of that a longer description is just wasted words.

The Descriptor

This adds status to the statement and fleshes out the description. How is the project doing? Where is it in the process? Where do you need help?

The story follows a young man and the voices in his head as they navigate through an Earth where physics has gone wrong. I’m about a quarter complete and am planning on getting the draft out to early readers for feedback by mid December.

I’ve engaged the story (compared to the book) and communicated progress, completion estimate, current state and that there is an opportunity for their assistance.

The Decimator

The waxing poetic marketing blurb. This is stuff suitable for the back cover and the Amazon description. This tends to work better written, unless you can talk like that guy who narrates all of the movie trailers. “IN a World…” You know the guy.

200 years have passed since the fall of mankind. Life is cheap, brutal and short for the remnants of humanity as they eke out a desperate existence in the deadly Earth their ancestors created. The Cataclysm mankind visited upon itself has taken away its greatest advantage; technology no longer functions in a world where physics is broken.

Life is slightly better for Daeven. Deep in the Burrows he has food, shelter and community, a quality of life that he had thought unachievable. But there is a shadow hanging over Daeven. A darkness that lies waiting in his mind, ever watchful, ever waiting.

Darkness has decided that its waiting is over.

At this point they should be telling me to shut up and take their money.

 

There you have it. The elevator speech, sized to fit all audiences.

Write what you know, otherwise…

You’ll end up on an NSA watch list as I most assuredly have. In the past 2 days I’ve Googled:

  • How long does it take to choke somebody to death?
  • Phosphate based explosive compounds.
  • Flashpoint of magnesium?
  • Rats as biological weapons.
  • Mosquitoes as biological weapons.
  • How can you train a botfly?

Okay, that last one might not have tripped any flags but I’d still be worried about anybody searching for it. Unless they were writers, of course.

What scary/weird things have you been Googling?

Weavers ERF is out the door

To my very great relief I’ve recovered my Scrivener file and all of that crunchy metadata. The compiled Weavers (Ages of the Seed, vol 1) draft is out for Early Reader Feedback.

Technology is grand again. Yay!

ERFs aren’t editing or reviewing. The purpose is to give the author feedback on strengths and weaknesses so they can properly target portions of the story that need work during the 2nd (editing) draft.

Weavers is a 16k word fantasy/adventure novelette introducing the main characters and world of the series’ 3rd age. If you are interested in participating in the ERF just send me an anything (email / comment / contact form / IM / carrier pigeon) with the email you want me to send it to.

Excerpt: Huntress (Makers, AOS vol 4)

From Makers: Ages of the Seed, Vol 4

Why yes, I do have most of volume 4 drafted despite volume 1 going out for draft feedback only this week. Don’t you judge me.

This chapter introduces Cree Chiwa, who is not a very nice person. JS Malpas’ post this morning (Tip #26: Characters Who Do Bad Things) made me think of her. Chiwa does bad things. She’s not the only character in Makers who does bad things but she is the only otherwise rational character who does them because she enjoys them. That was difficult to get my brain behind while I wrote her.

I use a few sources for inspiration when writing her as I (hopefully obviously) have no personal experience with the things she does. In her normal state she is tightly controlled (Arthur Denker from Apt Pupil / S. King). When she loses control she loses it completely and animalistically* (the husband from Shadowfires / D.Koontz). She is also emotionally abusive and controlling in a very methodical fashion (Gregory Anton from Gaslight).

Scene/terminology – Makers is a fantasy setting. Chiwa is in the city state of Rosoph, famed for its trade goods. Weaving/Making/Harping are types of magic in this world.

There is some fairly violent content in this excerpt.

* Wordified – You know what it means, even if spellchecker doesn’t.

Continue reading “Excerpt: Huntress (Makers, AOS vol 4)” →