Blackadder: “Well, the plan is cunning in its simplicity. Tonight I ride for home -…”
Wilfred Death: “I say strike now, while the iron is hot!”
Blackadder: “But it isn’t hot.”
Wilfred: “Isn’t it?”
Blackadder: “No, it’s just warming up. But, when it is hot, we’ll strike.”
Sean the Irish Bastard: “What? Are we gonna have to wait till summer?
Blackadder: “No, no. When the iron is hot.”
Three-Fingered Pete: “What iron?”

I don’t have an answer to this one. I’m just rambling, so if you’re looking for guidance, piss off. Well, okay, that was a bit rude, but you shouldn’t keep reading if you want to learn anything of value.

Every year for the last three years, I have contacted literary agents in hopes of landing “the bid deal.” As hundreds, perhaps thousands of other writers, I have been unsuccessful.

I’m thinking sooner or later, I’m going to have to admit that I am an acquired taste. And not an acquired taste like coffee or wine, more like that stuff your grandmother put on your nails to stop you from biting them, but you kept biting them anyway, not because you particularly like it, but because you were just that stubborn. Or maybe that was just me.

Right now, I have a reasonable offer from a small press. It comes with an advance and everything, which his better than some of my other author friends have gotten. I’ve bought stuff from the small press before, and they make a good product. There will even be some minimal marketing of the book. The only problem is the amount of the advance.

Now, I know I should be flattered to get an offer on this book, as something is better than nothing, and a lot of the books out there get nothing. However, I’ve discussed the amount with an author friend who thinks I could sell to a much larger market.

I have to admit though, I’d like to go for it. I like the idea of working with an editor, and learning how to make my work better. I like the idea of being able to go to small cons and sit on author panels. I guess I’d just have to decided is a bird in the hand worth two in the bush… A parable I always thought sounded a little bit rude.

This is just some dog. No one knows why it is here.

Times like this, I wish I took better notes.

I just started my rough chapter fourteen. My young protagonist is at school. I can’t remember what day of the week it is, and I can’t remember which class he has first.

So, now I’m going to have to go back through previous chapters and try to figure out where he needs to go next.

In a way, this kind of reminds me of those anxiety dreams I had in college. I’d wake up, and wonder why I’d registered for five classes, but I’d only been going to four. Then I would realize the final to class five was in ten minutes. I would go there, and I wouldn’t be wearing pants. I always found those dreams silly because that only happened one in real life. Okay, twice. I did alright on the finals though.

I might consider giving real money to someone with a good answer to, “How is your novel coming along?”

I know the people who ask this question are trying to be nice and involved in my life, and I’m glad that they do ask for that reason. I just never feel able to produce a satisfactory answer.

I could try for literal, “I’ve written 500 words today and 5000 words since the last time I you asked.” Or I could go for dramtic, “I haven’t killed myself yet.” I could go for self-deprecating humor, “I haven’t killed myself yet, so better than the last one.” I could go for humor, “I outsourced the entire thing to China. They kicked out a great book in a few days, but now I need a translator.” Or I could go for polite, “Great! thanks for asking.”

I usually opt for polite, but any way you slice it, despite the long hours I spend on my work, I don’t feel like I’m doing much. Writing just takes a lot of perseverance and patience. According to the big pros, if nothing’s happened after a few years, stay the course, you’re not ahead of the pack, but you’re not lagging behind either. According to this survey by Jim C. Hines, 11 years is not a bad goal to shoot for.

So, I guess the moral of this story is that you should take time to have a glass of wine, relax, and enjoy life. Your big break might not even be on next year’s calendar.

As a writer, I often find myself researching things which I suspect will get me placed on some kind of watch list. This morning, for instance, I am going to find out how to build an electromagnet strong enough to demagnatise a hard drive, pretty innocuous compared to some of the things I’ve been researching, like chat logs of groups wanted by the FBI, but something that might turn some heads.

Mostly in doing research like this, I am trying to build a veneer of plausibility. For instance, after I study electromagnets and figure out how my character built his, I will probably not be able to duplicate it. Then again, I’m not a motivated fifteen-year-old. I have a friend who’s an engineer, and I’m pretty sure he will say, “That wouldn’t work. However, if you use these different materials…” at which point I will zone out and start thinking about something else. Not every detail has to be perfect, just good enough so that the vast majority of readers don’t question it.

Details exist to help the story along. Beyond that, they don’t have to be perfect. Sure, hopefully the reader will learn something from what you’ve written, but if they are really interested in that topic, I hope they pick up more than a fiction book.

Recently, I read Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW: Wake. I don’t usually read “serious” books, and I wasn’t sure what I’d think of Wake, but I had gotten to know Sawyer through his excellent information on writing. I found the book fascinating, and I learned a lot about Shannon Entropy, Information Theory, and cellular automata. However, when Sawyer wandered over into my field of expertise, Computer Science, I could tell that he was making up a lot of it as he went along. Still, I was okay with that, because I was reading a story about characters, not a Computer Science textbook.

***This post was edited for Sunday morning grammar.

Stephen King writes a thousand words a day minimum. Ian Fleming wrote three hours a day before going for a swim and spending the rest of the day in the bar. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote for exactly forty five minutes a day before going to his job reading gas meters.

I may be a little mixed up on that last one.

I have a much humbler goal. I try to sit down and write, one or twice a day. My goal is 500-1000 words, but if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like my writing makes real money, not the money you can live on. Not even the money to buy a bus ticket.

However, some days, I don’t even make that. Things are busy with my day job, or I have to do some side job for anther writer or I have to help someone with their website or I have to deal with personal stuff. Some days, I even get too tired at the end of the day to write. Occasionally, I even want to relax or have fun.

I used to think that this was the end of the world. Writing is, after all, hard work, and only the dedicated survive to get published. But in the end, I figure it’s all about happiness. If the writing’s not making you happy, go find something else to do for the night. At least you tried, and it will be there tomorrow.

Things we read are almost always in two points of view, the first person, “I swallowed a fly,” and the third person, “The man swallowed the fly.” There is, however, that weird in-betweeny thing called the second person. “You swallowed a fly.”

I’ve tried to read pieces written in second person, but when I read, “You swallowed a fly,” I generally think, “I did? When did this happen?” They leave me feeling very uncomfortable.

Generally, it’s a good rule to stay away from this form in journalism and fiction. I’ve already covered the fiction part–remember when you swallowed the fly? But I also believe a journalist would rather say, “The GAO’s new report is shocking,” than, “You will be shocked at the new GAO report.” The first phrasing may imply how the reader should feel, but the second phrasing tells the reader how they will feel.

Second person, however, is acceptable in many places. In advertising: When you walk across the plush carpets, you will marvel at the old world craftsmanship of this quaint, three bedroom home. In songwriting: You and I travel to the beat of a different drum. And, in everyday conversation: When you listen carefully, you’ll hear it too.

So, when I saw yesterday that I had used the second person several times in my post on the subjectivity of humor, I thought about editing them out, as if I were a journalist. However, I decided not to. Because I’m not writing for a magazine, I’m having a conversation with you.

Last night for my book group, we read Headcrash by Bruce Bethke. To me, Headcrash is one of the funniest books ever written. It is raunchy, crass, and unhygienic. Just reading it made me develop a small rash. In 1995, Headcrash did something that almost no humorous books ever accomplish. It won an award, specifically, the Philip K. Dick award.

When the final vote was cast, we were rather split on our opinions, four likes to three dislikes. The amazing thing was that some of the likes and dislikes cited the same reasons for their respective opinions.

For instance, Headcrash is a great example of retro-futurism. It takes place in the Internet of today as all we World Wild Web pioneers thought the Internet would be when in grew up. (Instead of the haven for B2B networking and pictures of grandchildren that it has become.) In Headcrash, superusers live in a virtual world of fast cars and faster women that puts Grand Theft Auto to shame. To me, remembering what it was like to daydream about the future of the web in 1995, that’s really funny. To someone who didn’t get on the Internet until much later, that aspect was just a big question-mark.

Some people say that humor is all about showing someone something they don’t expect with the right timing. Other people say that humor is always about class warfare. But, to me, humor is about context. It’s a lot easier to enjoy the tongue-in-cheek comments in Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother if you remember being a fifteen year old computer enthusiast than if you are in charge of teaching immature young adults. Just as you are more likely to enjoy Headcrash if you’ve ever hooked up with a person on a MUD without knowing for sure if they were a man or a woman. As the Bard said, “I’m from the Internet. Such things happen.”