My First Con As A Writer

I mentioned last week that I was planning to attend GenCon. Living on the north edge of Indianapolis makes me a local, so it's really a no-brainer for me to hit up this convention. I don't to go to a lot of the bigger ones held on the coasts. Simply too far for me to travel (without scheduling some sort of vacation). I've been to GenCon before, but this is the first time I can honestly say I attended as a writer.

Perhaps that's being a bit disingenuous. I mean, I've always been a writer. It's sort of like saying this is the first time I attended GenCon as a white male (which is almost equally unique in the crowd, mind you). Still, while I may have been a writer at heart before, this is the first time I attended with an eye looking out for ways to improve my writing.

I checked out the book booths, mainly out of curiosity. Someday, maybe I'll get one. A friend suggested that I should have carried a stack of cards with a free Smashwords code on the back and handed them out to all and sundry. Plenty of folks were doing that, too. I guess I fail when it comes to shout-it-from-the-rooftops marketing. I'm still a little embarrassed about my books. Not that I'm not proud of them, just that I don't feel comfortable "forcing" them on people. I wrote what I enjoy reading. I think other people might enjoy them, but I'm a reader first and foremost. I know that not every book is for everyone.

That's a terrible sales pitch, am I right?

Ah, well. It's not all about sales. Even if I sell exactly 0 books from today onward, I will still look back on this time with pride. Publishing a book is an accomplishment, even if you sell nothing. I don't care what anyone else says. It's a Cool Thing You Did. Period. We wish to make it more than "cool," but you're starting from a basis of cool. It would probably serve writers well to remember that.

I promise I didn't just spend GenCon musing about all the marketing things I'm not doing. I attended panels and readings as well. Pretty much anything with Brandon Sanderson. (Though I found out about two other panels he was on that I missed. They were late additions and I didn't hear about them. Bad fan/author!) And I promise that I didn't spend these entire panels thinking about how much better all the folks up there are than me. Brandon was sitting there, gushing about how awesome Patrick Rothfuss is at prose, decrying his own prose as "merely passable," and I'm looking at my shoes thinking: What chance in fel do I have?

Sounds like a common case of Writer's Guilt. Symptoms: uselessly stacking yourself up against anyone and everyone and finding your own work wanting by comparison. It's an illness that likely shares more with Delirium Caused By Spontaneous Fever than Excessive Dosage of Truth Serum.

The comforting part was when I realized I understood pretty much everything they were talking about. If you've ever attended a writer's panel, you know that they can slip into jargon pretty easily. For such smooth written communicators, writers aren't always great and verbal communication. There are a lot of common constructs used to describe complex creative writing ideas. These get bandied about with a certain carelessness that can render a listener baffled at times.

It is perhaps a credit to me when I say that I followed all of the jargon. I even found myself anticipating a remark or nodding when a panelist picked up exactly where I would have. I have no proof on any of this, so you'll just have to trust me. I felt like: These are My People. I *get* this.

So yeah, attended GenCon as a writer. First time. That means something, right?

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#ROW80 - Con Bound

The rest of this week is going to be pretty full. I'll be at GenCon mostly, taking in the sites and hitting a few events.  I don't expect to do a lot of writing the next few days. I will, however, be attending a Writing Excuses podcast live, as well as a couple other events with Brandon Sanderson. As such, this is sort of a work trip as well. Really the first time I've gone to the con with a learning purpose in mind.

Let's check out the goals:

• Lesson Learned - StoryBundle exists. I need to get in on it. That is all.
• WIP Porgress - 4/5 pages. One short, but things haven't really settled yet. After this GenCon week, my schedule will be more regular. I'm actually pretty happy I got the 4 done, coming off of a 1 page week. I'm sitting on page 64... need to finish the chapter before next week's check in.
• Blogging - 3/3 here. Only 1/3 on the gaming blog. Still have a personal post to do. Blogging suffers when time flies, but I'm glad I was able to at least hit one of my blogs.
• Reading - Still working on the Rothfuss book. Shouldn't have any problem finishing it by the end of the round.

So, while last week could be considered "red" in terms of goals, this week was more "yellow." That's the right path back to "green." Right now, though, I've got to run to practice. As much as coaching cuts into, well, everything, I think I get a lot of inspiration from it. Our head coach said yesterday how he's always claimed that each week feels like a full season in and of itself. He was explaining how you'll get hit with all the ups and downs, successes and failures, and it can be tough to step back and see the bigger picture. I thought it was a pretty accurate description. At the end of the week, there's definitely this sense of triumph, like: "We made it!"

Before I run, here are the word counts:

• Since last check-in: 4,022
• New Fiction: 1,307
• Round 3 Total: 33,736

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GenCon 2012!

This weekend marks one of the most exciting weekends in tabletop gaming. Everything from Scrabble to Dungeons and Dragons (and a fair bit of nerd culture, as well) will be represented. I don't get to make it out to a lot of cons (curse the Day Job! Also, coaching in the fall makes travel really tough), so when there's one close to home, we take a staycation.

GenCon Indy is this weekend in Indianapolis, IN. Since we live just north of the city, we'll be attending as much as possible. To make matters more tantalizing, one of my favorite authors--Brandon Sanderson--is the guest of honor this year. I've got tickets to attend pretty much everything he's involved with.

The focus is tabletop gaming, but writing and story-telling is an integral part to most games. Authors and books will be well-represented. It's a pretty awesome time and I love Indy. The city knows how to do a con.

I'm going to try to tweet on my @MattHofferth account. I'll be hanging out with a group of friends downtown, taking in the sights and playing games. If you happen to be attending as well, and want to meet up or introduce yourself, feel encouraged to send me a DM through Twitter. I'll probably be all over the place, but we'll see what we can do. Or, if you just happen to bump into me, you'll probably be able to recognize me as the tall blond guy with a red World of Warcraft hat. It has my gaming name, Fulguralis, on the back.

Okay, so that won't make me stick out. My wife's brain wave cat ears might, though. Of course, these could be super popular, who knows? Like most cons, a lot of folks will be in costume. We're hardly unique looking among fellow nerds.

We're really excited about this weekend. Getting to meet any readers, fellow gamers, or simply lovers of all things nerd would be icing on the cake. I don't have a booth or anything (not nearly that cool), but we do tend to end up at the RAM Brewery. The place is usually packed, but the beer is totally worth it.

Like I said, I don't get out to cons much. This is really the only shot I get, so we'll be living it up. I'll try to post some pictures up on here, even if they're unrelated to writing. We'll see how it goes.

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On Piracy

There was a big scandal out among the Interwebs last week, when a bunch of writers banded together to take LendInk offline. One of my buddies at work shot me a link to the story over at TechDirt. Belong to any group for long enough, and you'll probably find a reason to be embarrassed. (As I've mentioned before, I'm Catholic. We've had entire decades of embarrassment).

LendInk is basically a social networking site for folks with e-readers. It helps facilitate lending between readers. The key word there being facilitate. The site simply acts as an intermediary, hooking up two people so that sharing becomes a snap. It does not sell books or give away books or in any way deliver books. It's a peer-to-peer site, similar perhaps to music sharing programs of the past.

Think Napster. The problem with Napster wasn't the sharing, but the copying. It allowed one legitimately purchased copy to become many more-or-less legal copies (probably emphasis on the less, but I'm no lawyer). E-music devices didn't possess the inherent sharing capabilities that readers like the Kindle support. Sharing with a Kindle moves the file from one device to another, deleting it on the original. It is one copy to one copy, a different paradigm.

I feel like I need to proclaim my stance on "piracy." It's a hot button topic among pretty much all content creators in the digital age. It is just too easy to share information these days.

First of all, I want express displeasure with the term itself. Piracy implies stealing. Stealing requires an item to exist in one location and be moved to another (usually forcibly and without the consent of the owner). "Internet Piracy," however, is closer to copying. The original item still exists where it originated from, and it also exists somewhere else. Heck, it could be copied without the owner realizing it.

Stealing is a "bad" thing, most of us can likely agree on that. I mean, it's one of the ten commandments. It directly harms someone. It is bad news in most every culture that I'm aware of.

Copying, though? It's a bit more nebulous. Sometimes it can be bad, sure. When you copy something someone else did and try to pass it as your own (plagiarize). But what if you copy something and then turn it into a joke (parody)? Or copy something and add a bunch of your own work on top? Or just copy to pass forms out in an expedient manner (assuming you have the right)?

I think piracy is a terribly prejudiced term. It does not accurately reflect the potential crime. Still, it is what we have.

Second, I feel that we need to consider the outcome of piracy. Who does it harm? How does it harm them?

Generally, the case is made that content creators are harmed. That they lose sales due to piracy. This seems pretty hard to prove (one way or the other), yet most folks just accept it at face value. People are making unapproved copies, obviously that's bad. Or is it?

Authors rely a lot on worth of mouth. I think most would agree that it is the primary sales drive behind any and all stories. You can do marketing, sure, but word of mouth kicks corporate marketing in the teeth any day of the week (and twice on 50-shades-of-grey-day). There are plenty of cases where piracy promoted word of mouth. Again, it's hard to prove, but what if the author was earning more because of piracy?

My point here is that I don't see a whole lot of hard data on how piracy actually affects sales. We have whole lot of opinions, but not a lot of logical thought. And we all know the saying about opinions.

Finally, I think we're asking the wrong questions. Perhaps instead of spending so much time trying to stop piracy (like we've all already agreed that it is blatantly bad in any and all cases), maybe businesses should spend more time discovering why people pirate in the first place. Oftentimes, it has to do with availability. People can't find it in the store they shop, the format they need, or for the price they expect... so they turn to piracy. If there's one thing humans have proven in the last 2000+ years, it's "where there's a will, there's a way." We exude that principle as a species. It's what has catapulted us to the top of the food chain.

Sometimes, I want to scream at content providers: "If you would just make your content easier to buy, people would pay." Or, as one of my favorite movies puts it: "People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come" (Field of Dreams).

At the end of the day, I adopt a pretty tolerant view of piracy. My biggest hurdle is exposure, and anything that helps that is probably a good thing. If someone were to nail me down and ask, "how do you prevent piracy?" I'd try not to get peeved at the term. Then, I'd explain that I do it by trying to make my content as widely available as possible. I try to communicate clearly where it is available and for how much. I try to give a reader options. Don't want to pay? Check out my specials. There are plenty of ways to get my book that don't require money, or require less money. I'm constantly looking for new ways to provide content. Sometimes I'm hindered by my small scale and pocketbook, but that's okay. That can only improve with time and exposure (so long as I provide good content). If people are driven to piracy, then I look first to myself... what need of my customers am I not reaching? What platform? What price point?

Putting money where my mouth is... a friend directed me to another article on Lifehacker. This one talks about a site called StoryBundle. As a gamer, I'm quite familiar with the humble indie bundle on Steam. It's a great idea, and StoryBundle brings that to books. Awesome. Great way to increase exposure, and they allow folks to "pay what you want." How can you not like that price point? As soon as I can, I'd like to get my books into one of those bundles. It's a cool idea.

And so is LendInk. I guess that's the overriding point here, if there is one. I would love to see more tools given to authors to help with exposure. Options are great. I would be giddy if someone reads my book and enjoyed it enough to push it on a friend. Or, if they'd heard such good things that they went out of their way to find someone to lend them the book so that they could try it.

All this is figured from my basic belief that if you, as a content creator, create quality content, people will pay for it. It may be a bit of an uphill battle to establish yourself, but dedicated fans will pay. They want to see you succeed as much as you do, a lot of times. I know I feel that way about my favorite content creators. I'll go out of my way to buy stuff from them, especially if I know they benefit directly. I want them to continue to make music, write books, design games, or make movies.

Perhaps that belief is wrong, but it's the one I'm operating under, at least until I'm presented with some solid proof otherwise. As such, piracy doesn't seem a big issue to me. If I'm being pirated and not making money... then apparently my content isn't good enough. I should spend my time getting better, not getting angry.

This is just my opinion, though. You do what works for you.

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#ROW80 - It's Always That First Word

I'm still in the midst of football two-a-days. That means I work for 13 hours, come home, and my brain is done. Only two more days with this crazy schedule though. Thursday represents the light at the end of the tunnel.

Considering how little free time I've had, I was actually able to squeeze in some decent work on the goals. Let's take a look:

• Lesson Learned - I wrote a bit about passion and how I found some inspiration while watching the Olympics.
• WIP Progress - Only finished 1 page. The weekend was busy, and I don't have time during the week. I was lucky to squeeze that one in. I knew this was going to be a fail this week, and it's bugging me, but I need to be patient. My schedule clears up after Thursday, and then I'll be back in the saddle.
• Blogging - 3/3 on the gaming blog. 3/3 here. August just started, so I owe a new personal post, but there'll be plenty of time for that. I'm glad I hit this goal, because I wasn't expecting to.
• Reading - Still working on The Wise Man's Fear. After I finish it, I'll need to catch up on some Writing Excuses podcasts. I like reclaiming as much of the "wasted" commute time as possible. Audiobooks and podcasts are a must.

The WIP is suffering, but I expected as much. And when I did get the chance to spend some time with it, I wrote (what I think is) a pretty good page. What's more, it was fun. Sometimes, I think I forget that writing is fun for me. That may sound odd, but when you're staring at the blank page at the start of a writing session, you know what I mean. Perhaps it's how folks feel right before they jump out of a plane. It's always that first word that seems hardest.

After that, things flow. The muse wakes up. Writing shifts from "work" to "fun," sometimes without me realizing it. At the end of the session, I find myself excited and smiling. I can't wait for the next session... right up until I remember that blinking cursor and blank screen. It's an odd sort of cycle.

Anyway, time to get back to work. Here are the word counts:

• Since last check-in: 3,311
• New Fiction: 348
• Round 3 Total: 29,714

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Olympic-Sized Passion

It wouldn't be the first time I've been sitting in front of a TV and said: "They should do this for books." Watching the Olympics, I find myself intrigued by the athlete's rise to the top. There are some great stories out there.

One common thread that many of us can related to is passion. Olympians develop a passion for a sport, and then chase after it with reckless abandon. I can't help but feel I bit jealous.

I know, I know. I could totally pursue writing in the same manner. Or could I? Would there be any social support for someone who drops out of school to go train for years... in writing? Who goes on sabbatical to focus solely on writing? Who attempts to raise a whole bunch of money to pay for writing?

The side of the Olympics that I think is given short shrift is the money side. How much money do you suppose goes into each Olympian? Just from my own experiences as an amateur athlete, I can make a guess. And it isn't a small number.

I've always had a bit of a problem with the whole "starving artist" image. I do not believe that one need starve in order to pursue a passion. The Olympians certainly don't starve. They do, however, rely on a whole bunch of help from people that believe in them.

In older times, there was a patronage system for supporting the arts. Artists were developed on a patron's dime, and then flaunted. There were a whole bunch of flaws so the system as well, but when I hear some of these Olympic stories, I think that they basically had sport patrons. A lot of successful authors also had this kind of support along the way. It helps to be able to shut out the distractions of everyday life, and really focus on honing a set of skills.

I guess the point is this: Passion is expensive. Especially an Olympic-sized passion. And the network needed to support such a passion only serves to make the achievement more amazing in my eyes.

So cheers to all the patrons out there. You may go by a different name -- Coach. Trainer. Parent. Mentor. Friend -- but you help turn passion into reality, and that's pretty cool.

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Less Than A Point of Deductions for Irrelevancy

Here's a quick bit of mildly interesting rambling. I'm not sure how I'll tie it to writing or reading, but I figure this is something most folks can appreciate. Apparently, there's this whole thing called the "Olympics" going on. Right, I know, crazy.

There's just enough time between Olympics that I've almost always found myself in a completely different stage of life when each is occurs. In a way, they sort of mark the passage of time.

Also, it's the only time where I turn on my TV and say, "Yeah, sure, I'll watch women's field hockey. I mean, the US is playing." Then, by the end of the match, I'm yelling at the TV: "That should be a free shot! Totally dangerous sticking! Bah!" Like I know what I'm talking about.

Gymnastics is the worst. By the time we've gotten through the team competitions to individual all-around, everyone is a judge. I'm sitting there thinking, "Well, she'll lose 2 tenths for that balance check, but the difficulty is high so it should factor out, right?" And, "1.58572343 deductions! Rough crowd." And finally, "If she doesn't get less than a point taken off, then there is no justice in the world."

Maybe the connection here is that, as humans, we love to judge. It's pervasive in every culture. Sure, our particular opinions may vary widely, but we're united in the sense that we form those opinions. The Olympics are not only a great reminder of the global diversity that exists, but also that there are a lot of basic things that we share as humans.

As writers and readers, we already know this. Look at reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. We're handing out gold, silver, and bronze for a spectacular performance. And, at the end of the day, it may be the books that "win" are ones that capture best our shared humanity.

Just a bit of thought food I'm munching on this Friday.

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#ROW80 - Two-A-Days

Well, football season has started. For most of the players and coaches in the state of Indiana, this means two-a-days. My schedule is currently Day Job from 8-4, practice from 4-9, squeeze in what I can. The day is so exhausting, that I'm not really pushing myself to write any fiction. I need to be dialed mentally in to football (first weeks generally require the most teaching), so I'm pretty finished by the time I get home. I did write some last weekend, and I'm going to try to write some more this weekend. Two-a-days will end next Friday, and then I'll be back on a somewhat normal schedule. Until then, the goals are pretty much on hold.

In all things, you have to know your limits. Burning yourself out does no one any good, least of all yourself. Here's something pretty cool I can say, though. Because of tracking my goals through ROW80, I know that I've been working steadily to further my writing career for four rounds. That's 320 days of work (and I've not really taken off the time between rounds, either). A couple weeks isn't going to hurt me in the grand scheme of things.

Do what you can. Work within yourself. There are times when you can't force creativity. 13 hour days will do that. Anyway, goals will be quick this week and next. Word counts will be low, but that's okay.

• Lesson Learned - Writing is like Football.
• WIP Progress - Knocked out 3 pages over the weekend. Not terrible.
• Blogging - 2/3 on the gaming blog. 3/3 here. And I knocked out the personal post. Not bad.
• Reading - Finished the Jim Butcher novel. Still making progress on the Patrick Rothfuss audiobook.

Word count:

• Since last round: 3,957
• New Fiction: 910
• Round 3 Total: 26,403

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Writing is Like Football

On my gaming blog, I've often drawn parallels between pixels and pigskin. Considering one activity is populated by "jocks" and the other by "nerds," you'd think wouldn't have much in common. Yet, when you participate in multiplayer gaming, a lot of the team principles I've learned over the years through sports come in handy. On the flip side, sports could probably learn a lot about preparation by analyzing gamers. When was the last time you heard of a footballer pulling a 36 hour workout session, straight, with only hot pockets and mountain dew?

The Indiana High School football season started yesterday. Teams across the state are holding their first practices this week. For the team I volunteer for (Go Shamrocks!), we've begun a tradition of the first day obstacle course. It's basically a torturous romp through the woods with activities dreamed up by psychotic coaches. Probably sounds awful, but I swear we make it as fun as it is grueling. By the end, we're just as tired as the kids, and everybody feels like they deserve one of those "I survived" T-shirts.

It's great for team building.

Apart from that, we try to address the mental component of football along with the physical. In between activities, we have classroom sessions, not where we go over the x's and o's (plenty of time for that as the season goes on), but where we talk about leadership, perseverance, and goal setting.

It was during the goal setting session that I wanted to stand up and talk about writing. The head coach was talking about how important goal setting is, and how studies have show that successful people set goals. More importantly, the goals they set are logical and obtainable, but not easy. They are adaptive to reality, yet still absolute. They are fundamental to how winners operate.

For instance, perhaps a kid wants to be an all-state player by the time he graduates. That kid will have a whole lot better shot at succeeding if he also has a stable of smaller goals, stepping stones to help him get there. As a sophomore he should set goals for improvement in the weight room, and compete for a varsity spot anywhere he can. He probably won't be a starter on offense or defense, but there are a whole lot of spots on Special Teams that often get overlooked. He would commit to excelling in the classroom. The very best players are both athletic and smart (I know sometimes it doesn't seem like it with football... but there's really a lot to process on any given play.)

The point is that the player needs to set smaller goals to help him achieve the larger ones. That's the best way to succeed. Plenty of schools have spent oodles of money (at the collegiate and professional level) figuring this out. There are whole programs devoted to sports science.

I sort of wanted to stand up and say, "That's what authors do with writing."

A lot of people, when you tell them you've written a novel, look at you with awe. Putting down 50k+ coherent words is as unthinkable to them as running 40 meters in under 5 seconds. It's something they hear about others doing, but don't chase after themselves.

One of my goals was to publish a novel. I didn't do it by just saying "I'm going to publish a novel." I did by setting smaller, stepping-stone goals. Writing a page a day. Editing a chapter a day. Researching self-publication for a few hours. Learning formatting and cover design. Those were all little goals.

This sort of approach came naturally to me, and I think have my long history with sports to thank. I've learned how to accomplish things that, at the beginning you think, "Yeah right." I'm no stranger to grueling obstacle courses. And, really, isn't "obstacle course" just another way to say "writing?"

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The Curtain

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It's a favorite saying of mine, originating in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz. I think it can be applied to so many different situations. There are plenty of things in life that, I'll admit, I really don't want to think too hard about where it came from. Perhaps that makes me a bad person.

For instance, when I'm having a nice steak at a local restaurant, I don't want to think about the cow that was killed to create the meal. I know it's a controversial issue, and I don't really want to get into all that. Let's just say there's a certain amount of guilt that goes with being human. You either come to terms with it, alter your behavior, or it eats you.

I'm Catholic. Guilt is nothing new for me. That, and everyone experiences guilt differently. What works for me probably won't work for everyone else. But I digress.

What I wanted to do was relate this idea to stories. The more I learn about the craft of writing, the more I recognize certain techniques in my reading. I'm starting to wonder if chefs have the same phenomenon at restaurants. Do they sit down, look at a plate, and immediately dissect the ingredients? Do they take a bite and say, "Ah yes, nutmeg. I should use that more in my own dishes?"

There's a certain amount of innocence that one can never regain. The more you learn, the more the magic of the world fades. Generally, we call this "maturing." Maturing as a writer, chef, or human being. It's all just a nice way of saying "loss of wonder."

Maybe this sort of musing explains why I gravitate toward fantasy novels. I want to believe there is something more. College trained me as a scientist, that doesn't mean I stopped wishing for magic. It just gets harder and harder to find in the real world. There's nothing better, then, than losing yourself in a novel where magic really happens.

Still, I have to be careful. The more I learn, the thinner that curtain gets. I see shadows of the man behind. His loafers peek out from underneath the obstruction. I know I'm catching glimpses, and part of me wants to know. If I want to reproduce the magic, it is probably a good idea to consult and learn from the magician. But knowing a trick ruins its mystique.

UNLESS -- and this is the cool thing about writing -- you consult the magician and learn that there is no trick. It's real magic.

The fact that there are basically no hard guidelines to succeeding with writing fiction is something that can be infinitely frustrating. It can be infinitely comforting at the same time. Crazy, huh?

Whaddya mean I had a brain this whole time?! Can someone check this guy's Wizarding License? Bah!

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#ROW80 - Day Jobs Suck

Busy, busy. That's me. Usually I try to squeeze in writing at work during a break or lunch or whatever. Recently, that's been nigh impossible. The Day Job has really ratcheted up, and I hate every second of it. Soul sucking. Like a Dementor.

I think I did all right with the goals, though. Let's look:

• Lesson Learned - I wrote a bit about the metaphysics of shapeshifters in my world. Also, a patronus charm does not work at work, much to my dismay. I don't think I had a happy enough thought.
• WIP Progress - Exactly 5 pages this week. That puts me on page 56 of chapter three, and 18k words into the novel. Not a bad place to be. I'd been writing fast in previous weeks, but that doesn't mean I can slack off.
• Blogging - I made a conscious effort to improve on this goal. I hit 3/3 here and 3/3 on the gaming blog. One post here consisted pretty much of a picture and nothing else... but it was worth it. I need to remember that every post doesn't have to be 1000 words. What can I say? I'm a writer. Pictures feel like cheating. Need to hit my personal post this upcoming week. Not much July left.
• Reading - I've started the next of the Rothfuss series I'm listening to on Audible. I also started reading the next Jim Butcher book as I catch up on the Dresden Files (I'm on Blood Rites). So yeah, I'm good on this goal as I've got two stories going, both 1st person POV. Good stuff. Although part of me is jealous because they are both excellent writers. But I've written about that one before...

Day Job is calling me back, so I'll keep this short. We'll go straight to the word counts:

• Since last round: 3,273
• New Fiction: 1,643
• Round 3 Total: 22,446

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The Metaphysics of Shapeshifters

I'm working on the second book of my Spirit Binder's series right now. Shapeshifters feature prominently in the story. For those who may not be readers, my brand of shapeshifters involve a smattering of animals.  As the series name might suggest, the basis of my shifters is more spiritual.

Shapeshifter theory in my world centers around the existence of a Spirit Binder. That is, someone with the supernatural ability to bind spirits together. Typically, this results in the pairing of human and animal. One of my main characters, Kiara, is a prime example of this. She is paired with the spirit of a wild cat. This pairing grants her a few supernatural abilities, as well as allowing her to alter her form into that of, you guessed it, a cat.

Now, I didn't need to be super specific in my first book, but just because something didn't make an appearance in a novel doesn't mean it wasn't given a whole lot of thought. In fact, my experience with fantasy writing so far has turned out something like 100 words of research/theorizing for 10 words used in the story. This isn't to say I'm actually over-writing by 90%, just that I get a bit into my mythos (as I imagine most fantasy authors do) and don't end up using a whole lot of the brainstorming debris. A good analogy might be a tornado of ideas, a whole bunch of boards and nails and whirling around that somehow accidentally build a house. The construction process is hardly efficient, and there's a whole bunch left over when I'm done.

Does that analogy work at all? Maybe not. Oh well.

Anyway, in the first book I asked a question that I never really answered. Matthias, one of the vampires, asks shapeshifter Kiara what happens to an item if she's holding it in her hand when she changes. It's a great question, and for anyone who's spent time playing a Druid in World of Warcraft... not an original one. It's a bit of a on-going joke about Druids (who are shapeshifters in WoW)... where do they put their weapons when in bear or cat form? Not to mention nightmare seal form...

I wanted to answer the question in the second book. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to work it in yet, but I'm going to try. I have plans.

It actually took me a bit to answer the question in my own head. A lot of the shapeshifting I've seen of late ends up leaving the characters in the nude. Clothing does not survive the change. If any of you are True Blood fans, you know what I'm talking about.

I am not writing an HBO-level novel. That is, I didn't want a whole lot of nudity. Not that I'm particularly averse to it, or anything, just that it causes a lot of uncomfortable issues at a character level. You get the cliched scene where characters end up naked and embarrassed and someone needs to bring them clothes or gawks. I just didn't really want to go there.

Still, avoiding an annoyance is a poor reason to chose to write a certain way. I'm sure worse decisions have been made, but I wanted more behind my choice. I wanted to understand why.

Now, I don't want to ruin the surprise in here. If you're a reader and would rather wait until the novel is out... do not proceed to the comment section. For anyone else, if you'd like to know look there. For those of you seeing this in your RSS reader, I apologize. I'm really not trying to force anyone to click through.

I will offer this somewhat vague explanation: I wanted a solution that somehow melded with the fact that this power descended among ancient Samurai warriors. The spiritual aspect of my power lent me certain leeway that a more scientific approach wouldn't have. I chose not to worry about things like the conservation of mass, for instance. (Though I did attempt to describe the character as somewhat resembling their animal of choice. I didn't want a big dude turning into a mouse, for example.) The key is in what the character believes, deep down in their soul.

I'll leave a comment with more info on my choice, but feel free to chime in/discuss. Doesn't have to be my world....

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Inside Joke

It may be that only those who have read my short story, The Only Sparkle, will get this one, but the comedic value makes it totally worth it. Saw this on Failblog a couple days ago:

I suspect she may be a vampire.

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#ROW80 - Crazy Eight

This week finds me continuing to weather the heat. I've surprised myself a bit. My process has turned out to be more adaptive than I would have thought. More on that in the goals....

• Lesson Learned - Processes can adapt on their own. I wrote earlier this week about my recent strange experiences. It's been a pleasant surprise.
• WIP Progress - Knocked out 8 pages. Pretty much in two large chunks. It took me about a half chapter to get back into the narrative style (and boy will that half chapter need edits), but since then, the story's been flowing.
• Blogging - This will only be 2 posts here, and I only posted 2 on the gaming site. I knew this was my stretch goal going into the round. Blogging is sort of the first thing to suffer when I have a time crunch. I'm not unhappy, but I did not make this goal. Hopefully this week will be better.
• Reading - Finished The Name of the Wind. The only downside right now is that the scope of the story is truly epic. There's not much in the way of tying up in the first book. In fact, I'm not sure any of the story threads were resolved. Definitely a cliffhanger book, but such things are common in epic fantasy. I'm going to wait for my wife to catch up, and in the mean time I may read the next Jim Butcher novel on my list, sticking in 1st person fantasy.

So I was 3/4 on the goals this week. Considering I'm exceeding my WIP goal, I'm not too disappointed in the scarce blogging. I'm not ignoring my blogs, and really it's been a quiet couple of weeks. I've never wanted to blog just to blog. That is, I always try to at least write about interesting things. I have a personal journal for the boring stuff. Also, the amount written is basically the same, so it's not like I've slacked. Just redistributed the scarce goods of "time and energy."

(I suppose I should mention that I also posted 5 times on the high school football blog that I run for the team I help coach. Usually that site is only getting a couple of posts per week, but it was a busy week. There were a lot of pictures, but the articles also took some words and energy. I don't count them for the challenge, as I try to maintain more of an editorial role there, getting content from others, but I actually did some writing this past week. Still, I'll leave it out of the count to be consistent.)

Just going to keep on keeping on for next week. Here's a look at the word counts:

• Since last round: 5,130
• New Fiction: 2,655
• Round 3 Total: 17,530

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An Adaptive Writing Process

Gene Lempp wrote a nice article on the ROW80 website Monday. In particular, I appreciated his "adjust, adjust, adjust" sentiment. Flexibility in goals is something I personally struggle with. I'm very much an A-to-B-to-C type of person. That is to say, I enjoy making lists that I then act on in order.

Marriage has taught me many things. One of the toughest early lessons has been that, well, not everyone is like that. Apparently, there's a whole segment of society out there that, um, doesn't make lists. I know. Blew my mind, too. I'm still not sure the notion has sunk in.

(If you're not a list person, you're probably laughing at me. Like, "Well, duh. Of course not everyone is type A." Only fellow list-makers can understand. Even entertaining the thought of living without lists is so foreign and scary to me, that it's practically unthinkable. How do folks like that accomplish anything?! I can't explain it, but it exists. Like the platypus.)

It makes sense, then, that my writing process reflects my generic personality type. For my first two novels, I've basically written them a day at a time. I'm not a huge outliner, but I do make a general timeline to start each book, then I knock off the scenes like items on a list. I start at the beginning, and write straight through to the end. The revise, revise, revise.

I'm about 3 chapters into my third novel, and recently I've had to become more adaptive. This summer has been a busy one for me, and writing time has been hard to come by. Previously, I'd been able to reliably squeeze in an hour or so each day. Writing in small daily chunks made sense. It worked for me. And, perhaps more importantly, it worked with me. It was a type-A writing process.

My goals have remained unchanged. I still want to average a page per day of new fiction. Not to mention my blogging goals. The problem with this summer is that I can't rely on squeezing in that hour. Some days, it's simply not there. Instead, my process has adapted of its own accord.

I've never experience this before. I didn't sit down and think, "Gee, I really need to adapt." I had my goals. I didn't allow myself to shrink away from them, despite a busy schedule. That means I had to make hay while the sun shines--or--take advantage of the windows of time that I do have.

Recently, I've been writing in larger chunks. Several pages a day have become the norm. What's more, I don't even really notice it. It's like subconsciously I know I won't get to spend as much time with the story as I'd like, so I need to get it all out now. I'm writing a lot faster. I'm writing complete scenes in one sitting.

I'm also making a lot more mistakes. Previously, I would edit the prior day's page, then write the next one. Now, I spend entire days editing sometimes... but I add enough that I'm still netting a page of new fiction. I find that I'm naturally writing around a scene, and then going back to fill in some of details.

It's all really odd to me. My writing process has adapted to fit my needs. Have any of you writer types experienced this?

Gene's advice on adaptation is solid. I suppose I just wanted to add my own lesson: sometimes it's enlightening to let your Muse have her way. You might be surprised to learn that you can operate in a different paradigm.

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