When I’m not writing, sleeping, or doing things on a computer, I need a hobby, and that hobby is watching television.

I find television writing very interesting because in many cases, the scripts are written by committee, and even when a single person has control, they are still subject to changes made by directors, producers, and actors. The fact that they produce anything palatable at all is a miracle, and when they miss the mark, they make for glorious train-wrecks.

Lately, I’ve been watching That 70s Show, the last season of which was a glorious train-wreck, and I noticed a phenomena which I have seen a few times in fiction. They play fast and loose with internal consistency. They do things that make no sense just to be funny. They even unapologetically  make fun of their mistakes. Still, as long as they kept making funny episodes, I didn’t really care. (Though I admit I watched the last season just to see the train-wreck pull into the station.

I pick on That 70s Show, but it isn’t the the only comedy show/novel/movie/play I’ve caught playing fast and loose for a quick laugh. So, the feeling I’m getting is that is you can be funny enough, you get a bit of a pass on making sense. Many times, I’ve told people that I will risk the hallowed rules of writing, Chekov’s gun, et al, for a cheap joke, but I often agonize over how far to go.

I’m currently 24,000 words into my latest (forth or fifth?) re-write of my work-in-progress. I’m really being pulled between my desire to tell a good story, tell a funny story, and make it seem natural and flowing–feedback from my critique group is that the story seems forced and rigid. I’ve even stopped going to my critique group because the story is causing a bit of a metaphysical crisis for me. I have this feeling like the way to tell this story lies deep inside my soul, not in external advice.

All I can do is keep writing and hope the answer comes in the next 24,000 words, or the 24,000 after that.

This weekend was both wonderful and harsh. In many ways, I feel like one of my characters right now. I had a wonderful time at my Paradise ICON workshop. And I had to watch a wonderful woman pass away.

On Thursday morning, I was asked to help out ICON, the local science fiction convention. They needed someone to pick up Jim C. Hines from the airport and take him to lunch, and since Catherine Schaff-Stump and I were the only two writers doing the workshop, could we take care of it? I was overjoyed.

On Friday, we started the workshop a little early so we would have time to pick up Jim. As we’re leaving the hotel to pick up Jim, I get a phone call from Stephanie. Her grandmother, who has not been well all summer, is in the final stages of death. Stephanie is going to spend the rest of the day in the hospice. I tell Stephanie that I can drop everything, but she insists she will be fine, and I should keep on my schedule.

Catherine and I picked up Jim, had a nice lunch a Zoey’s Pizzeria with lots of great conversation, and returned to the hotel. Then Cath and I finished the critiques. At this point, it was around 2 PM.

I drove to the hospice and stayed a couple hours, watching as wonderful a woman as I have ever met going through her last stages of life, barely conscious, as Stephanie talked with relatives on the phone.

That night, our friend Cat was celebrating her 50th birthday. Stephanie had really wanted to go to this, and had also wanted me to go with her, so I ditched the con to go along.

The next day, Stephanie plans to visit the hospice in the morning and join me in the afternoon. I go and hear Adam J. Whitlatch and his friend Gabe talk about martial arts in fiction with Jim C. Hines. Then as part of Paradise ICON, I get to sit in a three journeyman-level guest lectures from Jim C Hines, Stephen Erikson, and Sarah Prineas.

The lecture from Jim was about using stereotypes, and it was just about like every other interaction I had with Jim. He’s highly personable and easy to get along with. His lecture was more of an in-depth conversation.

The lecture from Stephen Erikson was intense. He came in and in an hour filled my head with information. He had some great definitions for things I had been doing by instinct. We also talked about process, and Stephen’s process blew my mind.

We finished up with Sarah Prineas. I’ve met Sarah a few times. She’s just a really nice lady. Cath nailed it when she said Sarah reminds you of a favorite teacher from high school. She talked about “Protagging,” her theory about what makes a protagonist a protagonist. Very interesting stuff.

Then I was off to the hospice for another couple hours. Much of the same. A few relatives had come to join us, Stephanie’s aunts and one of her great uncles. I spent a few hours there, and then I took Stephanie for a quick bite at McDonalds.

Back at the con, we attended Jim C’s reading, new material from his upcoming Libromancer sequel. Then we joined Cath and Jim at the bar for drinks–Cath had invited Stephanie, thinking she could use the release. We kept things loose and let people drift in and out. After Jim and Cath excused themselves, I ended up talking classic television with John Jackson Miller for about three hours. John writes Star Wars comics and novels, and I think he was just happy not to have to dodge questions about the Disney buyout.

We arrived home around midnight to find that grandmother had passed away earlier that evening. In the morning we discussed what we should do. At that point, I was emotionally drained enough that I didn’t really care much what I did, but Stephanie told me I should go. I really wanted to go to at least one panel with my old friend Lars Pearson, and Catherine had a reading in the morning.

After Catherine’s reading, I grabbed a soda from the consuite, and sat in the conference room where my reading was to be. I really didn’t expect much from a 1 PM reading time, especially with the Mindbridge Foundation meeting, which many of my friends belong to, opposite my time. However, Adam and Jess Whitlatch made it, along with a friend of theirs whose name I should know* (I’ve only seen him around various cons about 100 times.) And at the last minute, Stephanie showed up, which made me very happy.

I went home right after my reading, and decided to write about my weekend.

*It was Steve Todd.

For someone whose books are funny, I write some nasty things. Some people have told me this is a mistake. Some people have told me this is awesome. I don’t really have a choice–it’s just the way I see the world, as inseparably funny and tragic.

There are also roots in this if you look at what I love to read. I read all the funny authors–Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Christopher Moore, and Douglas Adams, but I also like grittier authors, like Max Allan Collins, David Weber, Chuck Palahniuk, and Michael Chabon.

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die.”
Mel Brooks

I’ve always found that Mel Brooks quote a guideline for what I find humorous. It is a constant reminder to me that humor has its roots not only in surprise but also in brutality. In Minion of Evil, Dave is killed by a pool cue to the head. But I can’t resist taking it a step further. I show Dave sticking his finger into the hole in his head. (This scene is also partially an homage to The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai.) Many people thought this was too gross, but I felt it was right to show.

His pinky slid in to the first knuckle without any resistance at all, after that the hole provided more difficult, but he kept at it and made it to the second knuckle. He thought it would hurt, and it did, but not as much as pulling out a nose hair. He found it more disgusting than painful. Still, he felt compelled to continue. Finally, his pinky was all the way through his skull. His palm rested on top of his head. Out of curiosity, he wiggled that finger a little, putting pressure on his brain.

The other sene that really bothers people is in Fangs for Nothing, when I let Vinny kill an innocent, turning a silly situation into a tragic one.

I struck, and drained Kenneth Donahue to the point of death. Fear and adrenaline tinged the sweet ambrosia of his blood. His heart started to slow, and then he closed his eyes, never to open them again. I had killed my first human.

I rolled off from him and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. What had I become? I was now truly a monster, a dead thing that murders innocent men in the night, and I had Brad to thank for my transformation. What a dick.

I felt like I had to show Vinny having real, serious consequences to being a vampire. He’s not a sparkly “vegetarian.” He’s a killer with fangs. No matter how warm and fuzzy he sees himself, he cannot fight his true nature. Like a bee, he has to sting. Or maybe it’s just a warning about peer pressure.

I turned down a really nice job offer the other night. An editor I know is looking to start his own small press and wanted me to have a key role in the operations, everything from editing to PR work.

I felt bad, but I had to turn him down.

It’s an issue of focus. My goal is to be the best writer I can be, and that doesn’t mean spending a lot of time reading other people’s slush, or going to events and being social. It means a lot of sitting in front of a keyboard and making stuff happen, usually not good stuff, but if you do enough and scrape off the bad, things start looking better.

Honestly, I have been wondering if small press is really the way to go. I used to think that they would be the next-generation gatekeepers, but from my experiences with a publisher, I wonder how many of them are really up to that role.

No, I said PEER review

I spent most of this weekend reading for other people, something I enjoy doing and I’m getting better at.

The first thing on my  list was a short novel by Adam J Whitlatch, an expansion of his “Weller” short story. This is the 2nd full-length novel I’ve read for Adam. They’re both shaping up nicely.

The other piece is a 10,000 word sample from Catherine Schaff Stump who wrote a wonderful little book called Hulk Hercules Professional Wrestler. We are going to workshop one another’s pieces during Paradise ICON, a workshop which runs concurrent to my local Science Fiction convention.

Now, I just have to find time for my own work.

If you look over the evolution of the vampire, you see an interesting phenomena. Over the years, the vampire has gone from the monstrous Nosferatu to the mysterious, tragic character of Count Dracula, to the homoerotic Louis and Lestat of Interview with the Vampire,to the sparkly teen heartthrob Edward Cullen.

Because of the adverse reaction to Twilight, it seems like a lot of people are writing off vampires lately. This is, of course, silly. There are still plenty of awesome vampires out there as long as they can keep it in their pants–yes, I’m looking at you, Laurell K Hamilton*.

Here’s the thing. I don’t really care. I liked vampires before Twilight. I liked vampires before Anne Rice’s vampires, and I will continue to like vampires. I will not grow tired of vampires, and I don’t care if a vampire book doesn’t “bring something new to the table,” as long as it makes with the fangs and the biting and the blood. Some people might say that’s a plebeian attitude. I say it’s a level of awesome they will just never understand.

* And seriously, LKH, you do know there are men out there packing less than 8 inches, don’t you? Don’t you?

I’m doing what may be the final re-write of my book Panic No More, about Nick, the son of a formerly prominent family who is harassed by the Goat God.

I think this is my fifth re-write of this book, and part of the reason why I’ve never been satisfied with it is I never quite started it off right. I had lots of good ideas, but I could never quite nail down the first scene.

Then I had an epiphany. I was so worried about what other people would think of my beginning, I forgot to write what I wanted to write. I had done all the things that the books on writing tell you to do, but I wasn’t really happy with it myself.

I was trying to eliminate the long front porch and get quickly to the character interaction, and jump immediately into action, saving the backstory for later. And the more I did all of those things, the more I didn’t like it.

So, instead of jumping right into the action, I started over 150 years before the story starts. And I think it worked. I like it, at least. Here’s a taste:

In 1852, Nick’s Great-Great Grandfather Clayton Earl Baker moved from Philadelphia to Iowa and made his home in the newly-founded state capitol of Iowa City, which he believed would soon become the next gateway to the west, a bustling metropolis which would rival St. Louis in size. He was wrong, of course.

 

The capitol moved on in 1857, but by then Clayton had set down roots, sinking his entire fortune into a factory which produced his patented dental instruments and anesthetics, and building Baker House, an expansive Victorian home, which rivaled many eastern estates in its opulence if not its size.

Picture unrelated

On Sunday, I really wanted to write. I didn’t rush into it though. It had been a while, and I was afraid my juices might not be properly flowing. On the wisdom that sometimes the anticipation is more rewarding than the actual consummation, I purposefully did not write for most of the day.

I often fail at creative endeavors before noon anyway, being more of a night person.

I sat down in the early afternoon, and put finger to keyboard, only to have to spend the next forty minutes dealing with a broken printer and trying to figure out how to reset the default fonts in Scrivener, which I forget how to do every four weeks. After that, I spent twenty minutes having a mini-breakdown. Then I had a coffee.

For some reason, every time I sit down to write, I am nearly paralyzed with the worry that I will have somehow forgotten to write like I write, and will end of with a Dan Brown novel, or John Grisham, or someone who is simply not me.

Finally, I was ready to write, and, to my amazement, I seem to still be capable. I’ve been averaging 900 words a day ever since. This might not seem like a great deal, but, for me, it means as many cylinders are firing as are ever likely to.