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The Halfling’s Court

November 18, 2009 in writing | 2 comments

My friend Danielle Ackley-McPhail, whom I have never met, is launching a new book. Strike that “never met” part: We may have said a few words at Balticon a year and a half ago. Or maybe not; in any case, it never got as far as, well, names or anything. We’ve gotten to be friendly through belonging to the same writers’ group and through Danielle’s writer-oriented Yahoo group. I’ve also gotten to be friendly with some of her other friends in these groups, and it feels kind of strange and nifty to have a circle of friends whom I like but have never met.

The new book is called The Halfling’s Court, and it sounds like a good read. I’ve read some of Danielle’s other books, Yesterday’s Dreams and Tomorrow’s Memories, and I enjoyed them very much. Danielle is good with characterization and descriptions and doesn’t draw back (as I do) from blood and gore, either. The Halfling’s Court, like the other two, blends hard modern times and the Land of Fae. Danielle mixes them well and pours a pleasant tale.

The Halfling’s Court will be launched officially at Arisia in Boston in January, but it’s already hit the ground running (er, hit the air flying?), with a listing in amazon.com and reviews starting to come in.

What an exciting time for a writer! I wish her so much success!

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Avoidance, Part 2

October 4, 2009 in writing | 1 comment

About three weeks ago, I wrote a blog post on avoidance, perhaps otherwise known as writers block. The scene I was working on describes what is, perhaps, the climax of the entire tale, in which Our Hero brings himself to perform a difficult act, the very last thing he ever wanted to do. And moves on. I knew what was in the scene. I had gone over it a dozen times in my head. But it seemed like everything in my life, even the time spent actually at my computer, conspired to take precedence over actually writing the scene down.

I have to confess that I’d half hoped that writing that blog post might open whatever gate was closed and allow me to write the darned scene already.

But it didn’t happen quite that way. What actually happened was that I managed to continue to avoid writing the scene for another week. And then one night while lying in bed not quite sleeping, I went through the scene again. A new character showed up this time–not new to the story, but new to the scene. And when this character showed up, the nature of the scene changed. It got more complicated and interesting, and a lot less dismal.

The next day I started writing. I wrote the pivotal moment in the scene.

Over the last two weeks I have also completed half a dozen scenes leading up to that final scene, detailing Our Hero’s struggle to avoid the act he has been cornered into. And I completed the scene itself, tying the pivotal moment into all that leads up to it. And I even wrote the one small scene needed afterwards. In all, I’ve written well over 7,000 words in two weeks, more than a tenth of the entire novel so far—not exactly fast enough for National Novel Writing month, but probably about as much as I’ve ever succeeded in writing in any two-week period. And hey, you know what? It’s pretty good stuff!

So maybe, just maybe, the scene was resisting me all this time because it wasn’t the right scene yet.

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Blood Meridian

September 18, 2009 in death, writing | No comments

I am reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. By “reading” I mean that I am listening to it on CD, a rather odd and, well, bloody companion to my food preparation and meals.

“What’s it about?” you might ask. It doesn’t have much of a story arc, and so it can be easily summarized. There are no spoilers.  Here goes:

A young man and assorted companions travel through a vast, magnificent, desolate, and wonderfully described landscape, in which they encounter a diversity of people and other creatures, mostly dead. Those that are not dead generally either kill or are killed by them, often in gruesome ways described in the same emotionally neutral yet poetic language as the landscape. And then they ride on.

It’s the weirdest thing, but I wish I could write like this.

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Avoidance

September 13, 2009 in writing | 2 comments

There is no work avoidance like that of a writer faced with writing a scene that compels her.

This scene has chased me for two weeks now. It’s there in my mind when I wake up in the morning. I play it and embellish it and feel my way into it when I’m working around the house or eating my meals. When I’m talking with someone, the scene steals away part of my attention. It follows me to bed at night. It shapes my dreams.

It’s a brutal, compelling, climactic scene. I love it. The emotions in it are raw. Here the protagonist finally faces the last thing he ever wanted to face, and he grows beyond his limitations. I know what the scene must do and how it must do it.

I could, I tell myself, sit down and write at least a first draft of this scene in a couple of hours.

Except that, apparently, I can’t.

In the last couple of weeks or so, I have cleaned and weeded the garden. I’ve hosted six house guests and done at least that many loads of laundry after the guests left. Heck, I even ironed some shirts! I’ve been to the Farmer’s Market, the supermarket, the Whole Foods market, the liquor-store-cum-gourmet market, and the produce market. And it’s not like I haven’t had time at my computer. On the contrary: I’ve sat at my computer for hours. I’ve edited another book I’m working on until it’s ever so much better than it was last month. I have proofread an entire book as a consultant. I’ve written a couple of blog posts, maintained an active presence on facebook, and kept up with all my email. I’ve taken, edited, organized, and posted numerous photographs. I’ve found and ordered cabinet parts, refrigerator parts, and books online. Let’s face it; I’ve done just about everything… except… write that one scene.

Really, I must sit down and do this.

Maybe right now.

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How the creative process works

June 30, 2009 in writing | 1 comment

I was looking for something else entirely when I came upon this ancient artifact from the newspaper comics (probably at least twenty years old; possibly more than a quarter of a century). And it’s even more relevant today than it was back then. They even got the color of the cat right…

how-the-creative-process-works

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