I’m guest blogging on RJ Sullivan‘s blog today, nattering on about “The Story Behind Brutal Light”, wherein I tell the epic tale of how I pulled together enough neurons to write a novel, all the failed previous attempts, and how chucking most of that previous work helped me write the book published today. Do stop by and natter at me!
Tag Archives: writing
Top Ten Ways to Know When a Series Should End
This is inspired, if you can call it that, by a panel I was on at ConClave.
Top Ten Ways for You, If You’re a Writer, to Know When Your Series Should Have Ended
10. If you had to ask, it was two books ago.
9. Your main character, who started out with fairly little power, can now eat mountains and crap rainbows.
8. Your main character, who used to just eat mountains and crap rainbows, can now go toe-to-toe with Chuck Norris.
7. Your readers openly express hope that any prophecies regarding the upcoming destruction of your fictional world come true as quickly as possible.
6. You base your next major series-changing revelation on whatever the defacers of your series’s Wikipedia page have come up with.
5. The most popular fan-written ‘slashfic’ story for your series is ‘Any Character in This Series-Slash-Wheat Thresher.’
4. You’ve been given enough money to retire to your own personal tropical island, which you’ve already populated with zombie dinosaurs and singing pirates for your personal entertainment.
3. Your characters have run out of prophecies to thwart and now spend most of their time thwarting each other with paddles.
2. You’re dead and even that hasn’t stopped your series.
1. The shark you jumped sued you for animal cruelty.
The ants come marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah…
Yes, yes, I know. I skipped my federally mandated Update last week. I was away in strange, Internet-challenged lands (known here as “The Thumb”). Then I came back, and went away again. And again.
It hasn’t all been sunshine and toad-licking, though. I’ve been hacking away at a short story to be submitted to an anthology, which has taken much longer than I expected to settle into acceptable form. But it’s finally (almost) there, and it will be winging its way onward soon. I also polished up an older short work, Fabulous Beasts, and submitted it to a magazine. So, appendages crossed and all that.
I’ve also been working on the book trailer for Brutal Light. I’ve got the images picked out and arranged, and am trying to make a final choice on the music. Have to say, I’m having a lot of fun with Windows Live MovieMaker…
And if that wasn’t enough, I’m working on a website specifically centered around Brutal Light. This main GaryWOlson.com site will have all the info, of course, but as my career progresses, my new stuff will always displace the old, and I’d like to have a site hanging about where Brutal Light will always be front and center.
Then there’s the outline for the sequel I’m really really trying to get back to…
The Source of My Ideas
I know where my ideas come from.
They come from the murky insides of my head, from the hole where I pour all the things I read and watch and think about. There are things that have been added recently, and things that have been fermenting for as long as I can recall. Many of these things have been in the soup so long all rememberance of where they came from before have eroded away, or become grossly distorted. Many of these things have combined with other things, becoming something else entirely.
They can see out of the hole. They know what’s going on, out in the Cartesian Theater where my illusion of consciousness and control hangs out, working the controls of the body. Sometimes, when something flashes across the stage, it draws these things. Makes them want to come out.
Other times, I have to reach in and haul them out, whether they’re done fermenting or not. The best bits are never quite ready for their showtimes… but I pull them out anyway. They come out in my words and my stories. In truth, they are also still in the hole, looking for new things to join to, to congeal with, and to ferment in.
That’s where my ideas come from. That’s why I read the strange things I love to read, knowing that even if I never consciously use what I read, it will still be down there, somewhere, becoming something else. Something that will one day come, willing or not, into words and light.
Scheming into 2011 (Part Deux)
Back in January 2011, I posted this blog entry on my plans for the first half of 2011. They were, in summary:
– Submit Brutal Light to another publisher
– Submit True Places to another publisher
– Submit Onyx Fire to a publisher
– Outline my next novel (either Minions or the sequel to Brutal Light) and get started on writing it
– Write a new short story
– Rework an old short story into saleable form
– Submit my short story Fabulous Beasts to a publisher
– Worldbuild for an as-yet-unnamed dark fantasy/sf environment
Now that six months has passed, I thought I’d revisit this and see how I did. First and foremost, of course, I did submit Brutal Light to another publisher, and they accepted it for publication. This of course made my brain spin, and threw me onto a new track altogether for writing plans. (Well, that and some personal circumstances that have nothing to do with this.)
While I did manage to submit Onyx Fire to a publisher, I never got around to sending True Places anywhere. In fact, I’ve decided to shelve True Places entirely for the time being. There’s just too much I’m dissatisfied with in it, beginning with how it’s about a third longer than it needs to be. One of these days I’ll take it off the rack and retool it, but not now.
I have started outlining the sequel to Brutal Light (tentatively titled Starless Midnight), much as I said I would. I started the ‘new short story’ indicated above, but have not yet gotten far with it, and I’ve neither retooled the old short story, nor have I submitted Fabulous Beasts anywhere.
Why not? Well, aside from my personal circumstances and being thrown for a happy loop by having Brutal Light accepted for publication, I’ve been at work learning the business end of writing. I’ve expanded and polished the material on this website. I’ve taken a seminar on self-promotion for writers (the publisher does some, but other bits fall to me) and outlined some rough plans for what to do as publication day (12/1/11) approaches. I’ve expanded my contacts on the various social media platforms (and yes, I’m gonna be on Google Ploosh, very soon now). I’ve cut or modified some things I had going on that threatened to compete with what precious time I have available to write. In short, I’ve been at work re-orienting my head from being a writer hoping to get his book published the first time to a writer aiming to get published again and again.
That said, I’m ready to list some tentative goals for the second half of 2011:
– Editing Brutal Light into its final form for publication–once I have an editor assigned to my book, this will be my top priority until it’s done
– Finish outlining Starless Midnight, then write and write and write and write…
– Finish two new short stories – one the story I started back in January, the other a new one for a recently announced anthology
– Submit Onyx Fire to another publisher (should the one that has it now reject it)
– Continue networking and making publicity plans for Brutal Light, and then following through on those plans (something that will take more of my time as December approaches)
I’m looking forward to an amazing (and hectic) second half of the year!
30 Days of Writing #29-30: Think About Writing? Tag Writer You Like?
29) How often do you think about writing? Ever come across something IRL that reminds you of your story/characters?
It comes up fairly often, as in several times a day. I could be thinking about details of a particular character either on the way to or coming back from my day job. I could think of a plot twist during a meeting. I could be trying to get to sleep when I start thinking of a setting, only to not be able to get to sleep because I want to think about it some more. It just keeps coming.
As far as In-Real-Life reminders of my writing… I want to say yes, because I’m sure it’s happened before, but I can’t summon any specifics right now.
(You know what? This ’30 Days’ thing is almost over, so I’m just gonna answer the last thing so I can move on to something different in this blog.)
30) Final question! Tag someone! And tell us what you like about that person as a writer and/or about one of his/her characters!
Right. Imma taggin’ Eric Burns-White, who some of you may know as the guy behind Websnark. I first met Eric through our mutual Superguy connections, and as we both wrote for that list, I came to be more and more impressed with his storytelling skills, the clarity of his prose, and the depth of his characters. (Even moreso on rereading that material, ten years or so later–it stands up extremely well.) The projects he worked on after moving on from Superguy showed his tremendous worldbuilding ability–when I earlier, in answer to another question, admitted I needed to work on that aspect of my work, I was thinking of Eric’s skill at this as the thing to aspire to. He makes it look easy, even though we both know it ain’t!
(This ends the 30 Days of Writing. Please tip your waitress on the way out.)