Another one bites the dust

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I'm going to abandon the story I've been writing for the last couple of weeks. The decision will dent my chances of hitting my target for the number of stories I want to write this year. But I can live with that.

I learned to my cost with a previous story that it is not a good idea to take a break while in the middle of writing. This time that derailed me again but, looking to the positive, it stopped me persevering with a tale that now looks unworkable.

It's all part of learning how I go about writing which, if I'm honest, it is a pretty chaotic process.

That may not be a bad thing. I've read a lot of books about how to do the writing thing and the advice they offer is very different. It has struck me that what all those authors of those books are laying out is how they go about writing.

There's no single process that everyone should follow to success - though there are tricks of the trade that are worth knowing.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that it is important to discover how you work rather than do what works for others. Though it might be worth trying what they say if only to eliminate what doesn't work and get a sense of all the ways it can be done.

However, it might be just success that convinces me I've found my way to work. The last two stories I've written have felt a lot better than almost anything I've done and I wrote both of them in a pretty chaotic way. Instead of working it all out and sticking to that plan I'm setting off and adjusting as I go along.

Other writers have said that you never get the trick of writing a novel. While writing one you only discover how to write that novel. There might be something of that for the different way people approach short stories. As always though I'm wary of routine. Feeling like I'm on top of a subject is usually the moment when I faceplant and show the world what an arse I am. And as I am often heard to declare: I'm not disorganised, I'm spontaneous.

By contrast, many of the other stories have been pretty mechanical and I was getting a bit tired of going through those motions just to turn out a story that wasn't great. And didn't enthuse me. I needed a change because I could see that writing was going to be a grind if I kept up with that method. And this is supposed to be fun, right?

Which brings me to the story I've abandoned. One of the many tricks that is supposed to turn those ideas into workable stories is find out who has most to lose in the cast of characters you have assembled and then make all the action revolve around them.

I did that and the story sucked. All the life in it, and my enthusiasm for it,

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died on its arse. In working out what should happen the original impetus drained away. I ended up with a story that had no tension or conflict in it and was for far away from my original conceit that it felt like someone else's work. So, I gave up on it. Which is a pity because I've spent a long time trying to put it together. Like, months.

The story I have picked to get working on has instantly enthused me and got me thinking about how it can all work out. During my commute this morning I got it into a pretty good shape and know what is going to happen. All I need to do now is pick the main character and get on with it.

Slartibartfarst, I feel your pain

I'm sure I've written before that you only find out what you need to know when you are writing a story. I often find that progress on a story screeches to a halt when I hit a deep pothole in the form of a missing detail that, it turns out, is crucial to the world I'm imagining. Perhaps I should not celebrate that lack of foresight too much but it's surprising what trips me up.

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Take as a for instance a story I have just finished. I worked out a way to crowbar in a key part of the plot only to bump up against the realisation that, to do that, I needed to know the names of the months in this imaginary world.

That's not something I've thought about before. I did commit a few cycles to this problem because I like the world I've invented and I wanted it to have that Colgate ring of authenticity. Plus, with an eye on the very long term future, I wanted it worked out if it ever became a novel. Yeah, right.

So, I looked into why Earth months are called that. This is what I found.

January - after the Latin for door ianua (Janus/Ianuarius).
February - Latin - Februum - purification. The ceremony was all about washing and cleaning. Februatio (Lupercalia) was the full name.
March – Latin - Mars - God of War - not for the God but for the fact that it marked the start of the military campaigning season.
April - This one is a bit of a mystery. Thought to be from Aperire, Latin for "to open" but meaning buds and flowers rather than doors. April was sacred to Venus/Aphrodite and might be related to her Etruscan name Apru.
May – Greek goddess Maia.
June – Roman goddess Juno – goddess of marriage.
July – for Julius Caesar.
August – for Augustus – lots of the events that led to his rise to power happened during this month.
September – Septem – seventh - because it used to be the seventh month.
October – Octo – eighth - because it used to be the eighth month.
November – novem – nine - because it used to be the ninth month.
December – Decem – ten - because it used to be the tenth month.

To be honest, it all gets a bit dull once September heaves into view but the general feel is gods, goddesses, numbers and an Emperor or two. Interesting but no cigar. There are lots of other ways though that the Wikipedia has detailed for those that are interested. I am so I had a look and a lot of it is about gods and goddesses but there are other things there too - Sikhs have a day celebrating when a god leaves its Earthly existence. That could be useful.

Minor factoid. Almost all the domains for the months are owned by do

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main management companies.

All this is just part of the bigger problem of world building and how to make it cohere or sound convincing enough for the length of the novel or short story. There are some times I really like doing it, sometimes when it is much easier to do than at others. Oddly, I find it easier to do for fantasy rather than SF settings. I'm currently wrestling with a problem for a stranded group of colonists. What do they use instead of matches? Answers on a postcard, please.

Lonely as the grave

You can do all the planning you want but you only find out what you forgot wh

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en you get on with the job. And so it has proved with the story I've decided to write this month. I've got it plotted, the list of scenes written and the main characters sketched out. The POV shifts are going to be a bit of a bugger but I'll confront that during the writing of the thing.

But I was getting on with it and realised that I'd neglected one key part of it - the psychological effect of isolation. In particular, how astronauts and other colonists would get on when suffering under extreme duress for a long time. How that is handled is a key part of the story and I need to understand it better for the story to work - or at least be plausible.

One of the key elements seems to be displacement - so those who are isolated tend to blame those who sent them there for anything that goes wrong. And, importantly, it does not solve the problem. I guess its related to attribution error that humans are prone to making. So if I trip it's because of a bump in the pavement but if you do it then it's because you are a clumsy idiot. That kind of thing.

There's also the stress of living with the same people for a long time. Their habits become annoying, you feel simultaneously crowded and lonely. No way to get away but no novelty either. There'd be a need for this stress to be released, perhaps regular sessions with a psychologist or counsellor who could help to defuse them.

That last is important. Variety - essential to stopping people going nuts with bo

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redom. They need plenty to do. I guess this comes back to super-ordinate goals. Give people an over-arching threat and they'll pull together and ignore their differences. There was the famous Robber's Cave experiment by Muzafer Sherif in 1954 at a boys camp which divided then into two factions - the Rattlers and the Eagles. The experiment emphasises their differences and provoked outbursts of violence that then evaporated when a larger problem (a super-ordinate goal), namely the breakdown of the water and food supply, presented itself.

There is also a need for a different kind of leader at different times. Early on the group would need a charismatic leader who could show the way and lead. They'd have to be confident, outgoing and arrogant to get things done. Later on though the colony would need someone much better at looking after people's feelings. Someone much more concerned with morale than action.

Bad knights

Why does anyone trust the Jedi or anything they say? Why are they seen as the guardians of the galaxy. Who says? They did. Well, Obi Wan did. But I'm not sure. They could tell us anything and, via the power of their mind tricks, we'd believe it.

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Unless you are a Toydarian or a Hutt it is hard to resist being persuaded. We know they work on the weak-minded and to that Qui-Gon Jinn adds that the greedy (for which read Watto and Jabba) can resist too. But, note, that is only resistance. Not immunity. For any sufficiently powerful Jedi surely even that reistance could be overcome.

The Star Wars universe shows us it can. The for instance comes in Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 2: Episode 5 (the Genndy Tartakovsky TV series) where Padme's Captain Gregar Typho falls foul of Yoda's mind manipulation despite, you'd think, having a sound and strong mind. This scene of crude trickery triggered this train of thought and made me think rather less of Yoda.

Given all this, surely everyone would be suspicious of any negotiations carried out with the Jedi present. If they came to my planet I'd have them chained and locked up before they could say "Sith". Also I'd have the meeting filmed and watched elsewhere by independent witnesses to ensure no tricks were pulled. Any race that was immune would surely become the instant choice for a negotiator or diplomat. Droids? They might be the ones you are looking for.

It'd be great to see some Jedi try to cope in a setting where the mind tricks were off limits. Where suspicion of any use of force powers made them act like mere mortals and cope without. That'd teach the smug sonsabitches a lesson or two. Force your way out of that why don't you.

Back in the saddle

So, it's taken a while but I'm getting back in to the groove of writing and reviewing. I've re-activated my links to OWW and racked up a few favours so folks will, hopefully, take a look at the stuff I'm posting.

It does feel like I'm coming back to it from a long way away. Last year when I was in that creative surge I had made several friends via OWW and it was easier to get stories reviewed. Now, I'm going through that process of finding sympathetic reviewers again.

I have just finished one story off and hope to do a flash one before the end of the month to put me back in contention. It does mean that, sometime this year, I'll have to write two in a month rather than one. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

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Anyhoo, what has surprised me is how much happier I feel now that I've got back into writing. I've always resisted that slightly arch declaration that "I have to write". I know I choose to do it but the rightness of that choice has been brought home to me these last few days. It could be coincidence though as getting back in to it has gone along with the best period of success I have ever had in submitting stories and getting them accepted and published. It's not just payback that is a bitch. Irony runs it a close second.

I also harbour this nagging fear that my reason for writing is just to prove I can do it. And, once I've done that to Trev's satisfaction he'll pack up and refuse to produce the goods. Time will tell, I guess.

What I do need to do is get some stories in the bag. I'm down to four that are ready for circulation instead of the eight or nine I had last year. If anymore get accepted I'll be in real trouble.

Reading redux

So it wasn't just the James Herbert books that I brought back from the visit to my mum. And over the last few weeks I've been re-reading a few of them. What I find amazing is how present to my memory they all are. Just looking at the covers I can call up names, places and incidents from all of them - though I haven't cracked the covers of any of them for more than a decade. It makes me realise how influential they were on me. The downside is that I'm spotting lots of the tropes that I use popping up in these texts. Hmm. Anyhoo.

Harry Harrison - most of the Stainless Steel Rat series. Still very enjoyable - though very light. The breezy style and insouciant charm of slippery Jim DiGriz sweeps each tale along but what I notice now is what escaped me back then. Even now I can remember

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reading the first page of The Stainless Steel Rat in Miss Ellison's class when I was 10? 11? She gave it to me, Nick Dodd, Mark Sanderson and Des (?) as part of a lesson on different sorts of writing. We all hated Miss Ellison as she closed her eyes whenever she said a word with an "s" in it. I'm not sure why that made us hate her but it did.

What I loved back then was the radical feel of the thing and the sheer confidence that Jim oozed; but now I see how adept HH was at using that style to skip over the holes in the plot and bamboozle the reader.

What is also fascinating is its attitude to technology. For instance, in The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted when Jim and his sidekick need to record some video ready for broadcast they go to a TV studio and use the equipment there. Now, of course, it'd be done with a camera on a phone or a web cam and posted online - etc etc. It shows exactly how stories of the future are mired in the present of their creators. But that's also quite liberating because it was never supposed to be THE FUTURE simply a future which means that pretty much anything goes.

William Gibson - Count Zero. Such a great read. Better, by far, than I remember. Just astonishing in places and so dense with ideas and insights. Now that the net is everywhere some of the supposed changes it documents make it looks a little dated.
- No cellphones.
- Using the net involves travelling to places.
- ICE
- Rampant AIs
- Gods in the net
I had a sense when I was reading it that I was missing something that would become clear as I got older. Well, I am and its not. I guess I'm just too thick to catch on.

Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic. My good friend Carl Berks recommended the first one to me when I was 15/16. I met him via a gaming group that I joined. Reading it again I remember the "watcher-of-the-skies-new-planet" feeling I got having read it. It was also much funnier than I remember. And the Discworld portrayed in the first two books is very different to what it becomes later on in the series. Death is murderous in these books, the Gods are much more present and there are lots of standard fantasy wallpaper to bulk out the story.

Their teeming hordes

James Herbert. There's a name from the past. I visited my folks recently and, as ever, grabbed a few of the books I've left there to bring back home. Three I took were The Rats, The Dark and The Fog by Mr H.

I first read these when I was 11 and, re-reading them now, I'm shocked that I did. What poor parents I had. They are very bloody, gruesome and graphically sexual in some places. Something I'm not sure I would want my kids reading when they were 11. The year I hit 11 Trevor Pickersgill told me what men and women did in bed. For what its worth - I didn't believe him. Though reading the books of Mr Herbert was incontrovertible evidence that he was right.

I remember all his books were a big deal at my school and we regularly used to sit around and read out the rude or gruesome bits to each other. Des, Strawb, Sandra Walker, Jackie Bell and Sniff were all part of that reading group.

The Rats in particular left a mark on me. Even now, if I am on a station platform or anywhere without something to read, then I'll work out what I would do if a swarm of giant rats attacked. My escape typically involves me performing some ridiculous feat of acrobatics to scale a wall, edge out on to a light bracket or beam and reach a point the ravenous creatures would not be able to get to.

What I had also forgotten was how apocalyptic the books were. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people die in each one. In The Fog the entire population of Bournemouth marches in to the sea and commits suicide en masse.

Where they any good? Not really. The Rats had a lot of bounce, I really liked his device of turning the story on new characters and, usually, their gruesome demise, and they all were easy on the eye. For an 11 year old they were great but for jaded old me they didn't quite hit the mark. The third word of opening sentence of The Rats was an adverb for fricks sake. But, hey, who am I to say. The blurb on the books describes them as supersellers - not just bestsellers. What writer would not settle for that kind of success?