Nanowrimo 2009

For anyone who hasn't heard of Nanowrimo it is a month long novel writing competition. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month and anyone who does so wins. Oddly enough there are prizes this year apart from self-esteem. You can get a free copy of your book if you win.

I plan to revive this blog for the month of November to keep track of my success and failure, because good luck posting it on the forums.

Action words

It is generally accepted that any proper story should include a bit of fighting or general action-doing. Problematically neither I nor many other writers seem very good at action-doing. It might have something to do with our tendency to hide alone in dark places and write for hours on end scribble-typing away. I think movies did it. When we think action we think movies and images. When we write with movies in our heads we end up with stage directions instead of a good fight.

To that end I made a list of all the words that turn up in action scenes so far as I know. It helps...somehow.

A
B
C: Cut, claw, clench, close, circle, crash, crunch, clink, catch
D: Duck, dance, dodge, draw, dive
E
F: Flinch, fall, face, flail.
G: Grab, growl, grate
H
I
J: Jump, jab, jar
K
L: Leap
M: move
N
O
P: Pull, pick up, punch
Q
R: Run, rise, race
S: Side-step, skip, spring, spatter, shoot, smash, stab, slap, slam, swing, slump,
stumble, strike, struggle, scream, spin, spar
T
U
V
W:Whip
X
Y
Z

Not THAT sort of fantasy

It’s great being a fantasy writer. How can magic and adventure ever be boring? Fantasy writers can probably produce some of the dullest stuff on the planet, but it cannot be boring to write. If it is, you are doing it wrong. If you are a hermit like any good writer ought to be you will not have encountered the horror of being a fantasy writer. Sadly most cannot afford that and the problem with being a fantasy writer the possibility of accidently mentioning it in –gasp- public!

Now, if everyone did as they ought and read fantasy it would not be a problem. Sadly, the world tends not to be as it ought. Most people do not read fantasy; Most people do not seem to read much of anything at all aside from magazines and newspapers and those books on the best seller’s lists. (I know, insulting people is bad, but they make more money on those books then I ever will, therefore I may insult them if I like.)

Most people I’ve talked to do not even know what writing fantasy even means. It happens to everyone:

Stranger/Friend: “What are you doing?”

You: “Oh, just a little writing.

Stranger/Friend: “For school.”

You: “Nah, part of a novel.

Stranger/Friend: “A novel. Can I read it? What is it about?”

You: “Oh, it’s fantasy.”

Stranger/Friend: *blank look*

“…I see.”

And thus the nice interested person never speaks to you again. It is good way to get rid of unwanted company but nothing else.


I thought the peculiar looks and confusion meant a dislike of daring heroes going on quests. I assumed it had something to do with the deeply rooted hatred of elves. It turns out only writers know that hatred. I don’t often write about daring heroes because they are far too sarcastic to make obliging characters, but I could deal with people thinking I did. After a few questions I figured it out. People don’t assume fantasy means daring heroes, they assume it means sex. (Disclaimer: I do not write about sex. I do not hate people who do. I do not plan to stage riots against them. I’m just not the sort of person who writes about sex or romance, it gets in the way of my plotlines.)

Therefore, my recommendation to those of our daring number planning to admit that they write fantasy: don’t say you write fantasy. Tell people what you write about. Tell them that you write about elves, or questing heroes, or insane hell-bent necromancers planning to summon the dark forces to aid him in the stopping Gnomish Liberation Front. Tell them about what you write, not the genre. Genre matters. Genre makes every difference in the world sometimes but they don’t know that.

Blog closed - unclosed

Yep. No more blog. Don't seem to be updating, so no point in pretending I am. Bye now.

---
I'm back.

Writing about nothing about writing

The danger of being a writer is that as writers we are supposed to write about the world, and if we become completely involved in writing then writing becomes our world. At that point we are writing about writing, which means we are writing about nothing because there is at no point a proper subject matter. At this point we build our subject matter, and it looks rather silly because it has no grounding in anywhere but our own heads. We take it apart and try to figure out what went wrong. Once it is taken apart we find we have no glue and therefore we are left without any subject matter at all.

Therefore we buy black hats and wander about at cafes talking of how we cannot speak. Happily this gives us subject matter and so we hurry off to write about our experience. We send it off and everyone loves it because they are having exactly the same problem, so they write the same thing. At this point we aren't writing about art, but writing about writing about art...or something down the line.

Now to be serious: Draw the line at some point. If you are to write you must love more then writing. Do not quit your day job, become a mathemetician, go for very long walks, or work in the garden. There is no harm in loving writing and if you do not you ought not to write. But I love writing too and I say that those who see it as the singular aim of life do it great harm.

Of course they say that us fantasy writers are foolish and dishonest fools, so I suppose I cannot do much good here. If I'm writing about writing does that mean I'm writing about nothing right now?

The Gutenberg Project

Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. - http://www.gutenberg.org

I love the Gutenberg project and it deserves all the attention and support we can give it. Therefore, attention. Any book with an expired copyright falls into the knowledge commons, and anything in the commons is candidate for this collection.

Drawing lines and Artistotle

Since I ought to be writing a paper on Aristotle right this is a most fitting topic. His writing on ethics discusses Eudaemonia (how to life well as a human being). I am discussing how to write well as a fantasy author. I should point out that I am not discussing either how to sell your writing.

Steve Thorn's comment on my previous article reminded me that I tend to sound like an extremist at times. I am very much for the history and precedent of things, so much so that a book can be spoiled for me is I think they have written about elves in the 'wrong' way. Still not sure what the 'right' way is, but according to my tastes it isn't that.

< utterly meaningless)----------------------------------------(completely unoriginal >

The best place to be, for life or writing or both, is somewhere in the middle. I tend to balance in a rather more peculiar way. Half of the things I write would be utterly meaningless without the other half which happen to be completely unoriginal. I'm not really sure that is the proper way to go about it though.