C what I did there?

Sometimes, I’m still amazed at how hard this writing gig can be. After recovering from the bronchitis I had last fall, I had several huge projects I wanted to get finished this summer.

Things have not worked out so well. Mistakes were made.

My first mistake was slogging through the re-write I was doing when I got the bronchitis. Once I had recuperated enough to finish, my creativity was tapped out.

Then, I immediately jumped into the next project on my schedule, a MINION sequel, instead of the next project I wanted to work on. This was a huge mistake, killing my creativity and ending with me throwing away 10,000 of 12,000 words written.

The thing is, I really want to do a re-write of the one science fiction story I wrote about five years ago. I have a friend who is editing a science fiction imprint and I’ve really wanted to work with him. Of course, just finishing a book is no guarantee he’ll want to print it, but I just thought it would be fun to submit something to him. I’ve been agonizing for weeks about dropping the sequel and working on this project.

This morning I gave myself permission to work on the science fiction piece, and I ended up taking on the MINION sequel with new vigor.

Seriously. WTF, brain.

That’s not a DemiCon. That’s a demi bra.

I had a great weekend at DemiCon, The Des Moines Annual Science Fiction and Gaming Convention. The author guest of honor this year was David Weber, who has written more books than most people could conveniently eat.

Like most conventions with “big” authors, I found this years’ DemiCon a little less intimate than other years. Weber’s fan club, The Royal Manticoran Navy was there in force, and in uniform. They’re a great bunch of people, but they do kind of guarantee that any talk with the author will be attended by at least 30 people.

Most importantly, I got a chance to catch up with my Iowa author friends, Adam J. Whitlatch, Lettie Prell, Mary Wilson, Lars Pearson, and Catherine Schaff-Stump. (I’m almost afraid to name-drop here, because I’m sure I’m missing someone.) Some of the best parts of the con are hanging out with people who have similar interests.

Oh, and how could I forget, I got to see a live show of Hor-riff-ic. There are a lot of riffers out there, but Hor-riff-ic makes me laugh the hardest.

Looks like a bit of a hippie, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So there this guy, Russell Blake, who’s written a bunch of bestselling novels. I’m not familiar with his work as I don’t read thrillers. In his most recent blog post, he talks about why authors annoy him. Honestly, I can’t argue with him.

He talks about how a writer friend–whom I assume will not be an author friend after he reads Blake’s post–disparaged some of Russels works because his characters did not have an arc. He then snarkly, and appropriately, points out that the (probably former) friend in question does not sell as many books as Mr. Russell Blake–who I know only through this blog post, but his seems like an interesting guy. I would definitely have drinks with Blake, especially if he’s paying. Okay, so maybe I just like drinks.

In his post, Russell talks about how his friend will riff about the “rules” of writing. About character arcs and adverb use, about archetypes and climaxes. However, Russel prefers to write a good story, something new and exciting, a ripping yarn.

I have a bit of a different theory. Those rules are great for people who are starting out. However, once you develop your style and you know what kind of story you want to tell, they become less important. A good writer doesn’t depend on rules. A good writer knows himself, learns from the rules that others follow, finds out how they can help his work, and moves on.

Or perhaps I should say, fortune does not favor he who has the thickest and best-organized rulebook.

Then again, I sell less books than anybody, so what do I know?

Yesterday, I put the finishing touches on a draft of my book PANIC NO MORE. I started this most recent draft in October, and I’d expected to be done a lot sooner. However, I did not have the easiest time last winter, bouncing between illnesses.

The worst part about finishing this draft is not being finished with the book. I know I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, but I’m pretty sure on this one it simply needs more work. Maybe time and a good reading will convince me otherwise, but right now, after X number of revisions–I don’t even remember–I just don’t feel like it’s there.

There are, however, good aspects to this. The manuscript is in much better condition that it was. And now, I can start a new project. It’s well beyond time I work on a sequel to MINION OF EVIL, and I’m looking forward to working on something a little more silly. I might even take a couple days off to catch up on my reading.

After I work on another manuscript for a while, I’ll come back to PANIC. And it will probably make a whole lot more sense to me.

Yesterday, I was reading through some critiques I had gotten back from my group. One person complained they didn’t know whether I was trying to write a comedy or something more serious. To this, I say, “Good.”

While my first two books might be considered comedy, I like to think they are somewhere beyond the norm, and they would look silly sitting next to 100 Mother-in-law Jokes, and other things that sit on the humor shelf in the bookstore. Minion isn’t quite Horror. Fangs isn’t quite Urban Fantasy.

In my new book, Panic No More does this as well. I did not sit down and say, “I am going to write X genre.” I just sat down and said, “I want to write a book with computer programming and Pan in it,” and I let it be what it wanted to be.