September 12, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: Interview with Scott Driscoll

As part of my lead up to #NaNoWriMo2016 and November’s month of literary madness, I am continuing my series of guest interviews. Today, we are speaking with the always intriguing Scott Driscoll.

Scott is an award-winning writing instructor at UW Continuing and Professional Education, is a well-known journalist and editor, and is the author of Better You Go Home, a literary novel which takes the reader to Prague shortly after the Velvet Revolution. (My review can be read here.)

I have attended several seminars offered by Scott through PNWA, and have always come away feeling inspired.

CJJ: What books influenced you most as young reader?

SD: Like most children, I liked any story that fueled my imagination, such as Aesop’s Fables, Grimm Fairy Tales, and the like. Somewhere in middle school I discovered a preference for realism and actually read, and was fascinated by, Moby Dick. I distinctly remember going to class and sniffing the palms of my hands, convinced I’d somehow got ambergris, which never really washes off, on my hands. Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men also impressed me greatly at that age. I found American social realism (aka naturalism), such as anything by Drieser, dreary beyond belief.

CJJ: How did these books influence your early writing?

SD: The dreary books I was forced to read in adolescence and as a young teen led me to conclude that you had to be pedantic and stuffy to be a writer and that turned me off to writing fiction altogether. The exceptions would be Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and E. A. Poe stories. Those were exciting. What I didn’t realize until later is that I was looking for a voice that spoke to me. I really didn’t hear that voice until I encountered French existential novelists like Camus and Jean Genet (especially in The Thief’s Journal, a fictionalized memoir). Compared with potted stories like de Maupassant’s, these took me into what felt like a word wilderness, where you could easily get off trail and run into danger and I loved that feeling. I also discovered and loved Dostoevsky and Kafka. There was a darkness and urgency and psychological depth in that writing that I could not find in American authors, until, in college, I discovered the novels of Norman Mailer and Edward Abbey and now I had a voice that was raw and stories that were more about the psychological life of the characters and less about managing a plot. Not that I had anything against plot. It was the raw power of the words I needed to fall in love with first.

CJJ: You have said elsewhere that “Writing for me is about applying form to the mysteries we suffer.” Can you expand a little on this idea?

SD: I borrowed that phrase from Wright Morris. On my blog site I wrote about the first time, as an adult, I tried to write fiction. I was 21 years old, taking a break from college, living in Darwin, Australia and working warehouse and restaurant jobs to save money so I could travel on. With time on my hands, and a depressing lack of anything better to do, I essentially locked myself in my boarding house room, sat under the paddle fan, and spent several hours writing nothing. What I lacked, I realized, was not the ability to write, but knowledge of form. Without an understanding of story structure, I would churn out a stream of words that was nothing more than a verbal outpouring of my inner angst, the kind of sophomoric, I realized that day, drivel that excites only high school English teachers, who are grateful for any grammatical verbal pyrotechnics. Without an understanding of form, I could not begin to solve the mysteries I knew were locked up inside me.

CJJ: You have also said “Any story that involves a quest – and that is most stories – starts with a disturbing event known to writers and film-makers as the “inciting incident.” What is the most important thing for an author to consider when creating this event?

SD: It took me a long time to accept that any story with any kind of plot must start with a disturbance. But once you accept that, what does it really mean? A disturbance, as in, someone gets mugged, a bank gets robbed, aliens land, a shark throws a vacation resort town into chaos? If it’s just event for event’s sake, anything is possible and nothing is particularly meaningful. Rather, an inciting incident must disturb a balance that pertains in the hero’s world, and must do so by working against a deeply held value, so that the hero, we can be sure, will not shrug it off as simply bad news but rather will be forced to react in a way that will further endanger the balance in that familiar world.

Better You Go Home Scott DriscollCJJ: When did you first have the idea to write “Better You Go Home,” and how long did it take to complete it?

SD: In 1994, three and a half years after the Velvet Revolution, I went to the Czech Republic to track down family that my Czech relatives in Iowa had stopped communicating with. I found the village, the farmhouse, met some people, but had been too cheap to hire a translator and didn’t get beyond discovering that there was some unspeakable mystery, some “inciting incident,” that had created a rift in the family. In 1999, armed with better information sent to me by a cousin who’d followed my lead to that village, and armed this time with a translator, my father and I went back to this village and heard stories, and reviewed records, and I learned enough that I felt I could write a novel with this family mystery at its heart. At the time I had quit writing fiction (needing to make money) and started instead writing for magazines, and between that and teaching and being divorced and raising a child, I really didn’t have time to write a novel (but stayed up late virtually every night reading everything I could get my hands on related to the topic). A couple years later, needing to get back to fiction, I started in pretending I was writing chapters, but really just produced fluff based on my research. From the time I began writing chapters that could stick, and publication, ten years went by.  I had told my wife—we married just before the time I got serious with this novel—I’d have it done in two years. Our son likes to remind me that he was ten when it was published. I remind him that I was busy. But, really, honestly, it took so long because my early understanding of the story lacked the form that would allow me to finally tell the story. Much of my groping in the early years could have been circumvented had I discovered that form early in the process.

CJJ: Once a new work is in progress, what are the main hurdles you have to overcome in laying down the first draft?

SD: That depends. If it’s a short story, I will usually allow myself to have a crude idea based on a situation that sets forth from a known inciting incident with a disturbed character but without a known outcome, just set forth and go, knowing the real story will emerge in the re-writes anyway. With a novel, it’s worth doing more planning.  Once you have your premise, the first hurdle you have to overcome is finding a basic story structure that will naturally lead to a surprising but inevitable outcome. Then you work on your characters, that is, you start with characters in mind, but now you have to imagine how the events required by the story structure you have imagined will be causally connected to the characters’ needs and wants and fears and expressed and hidden desires. Without causal connections you just have meaningless events. Once causal connections are asserted, you encounter another hurdle. The characters begin to morph according the logical requirements of the causal connections you have asserted. Without a strong sense of the story structure, things can quickly morph into an ugly, hydra-headed monster, ie, chapters screaming to be thrown away.

CJJ: What are you working on now?

SD:  Two things. First, a collection of connected stories that show a young couple starting off careers and family and that show how that trajectory unfolds over the years. For my raw material, I am using stories published years ago, but that I felt never broke through to their bigger potential. Will I achieve that now? Let’s just say, I know a whole lot more about writing now than I did then. I only hope that I can recapture the immediacy that can easily get lost behind a command of technique. My second project, still in the planning stages, is a sci-fi time travel novel. This will be my first attempt at a popular fiction genre. I was put up to it by an editor friend. My wife was intrigued by the idea of me writing a novel that had the potential to make some money. Having handed over an 18,000 word treatise, that covers my idea for the story nearly chapter by chapter, I am now excited to get to work.

CJJ: What books can you recommend for new writers who are just beginning to learn the craft?

SD: The best book on craft, generally, is Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway, now in its ninth edition. That said, Story by Robert McKee, though written for screenplay writers, contains the best craft talks, with illustrations from films, on plot and character and scene that I have ever come across. I would definitely start with those two, then add Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham, as an enhancement to what McKee has to say. Then, they should all get their hands on What If, the third edition, edited by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. (Do not let Amazon trick you into buying the inadequate first edition.) This book is full of mini-lessons and exercises for writers who know about craft but need practice.

CJJ: Where can people find your classes and seminars this fall?

SD: In fall 2016, starting the first week of October, I am teaching one section of Literary Fiction I, the introductory course, and one section of Advanced Fiction Writing, a course intended for writers of both literary and popular fiction who’ve had experience with taking writing classes or who have extensive writing experience. Both classes are offered through the University of Washington in the Professional and Continuing Education department. If interested, folks should go to www.keeplearning.uw.edu and look for these courses, or, if they have questions, seek more details at www.pce.uw.edu. They can also email me at sdriscol@uw.edu. I also teach a summer workshop class and that is posted on my blog site. http://www.scottdriscollblogs.wordpress.com.

  • In the meantime, I am a guest editor reviewing manuscripts at the fall 2016 Write On The Sound conference and will be at the Edmonds, WA site on Saturday Oct 1 and Sunday Oct 2. On Nov. 10, I will be a guest workshop leader at the November meeting of the Skagit Valley Writer’s League, held in Mt. Vernon, WA. Those interested can peruse their web site for more information. In May, 2017, I will be a workshop leader, lecturer etc. at the Write On The River conference held in Wenatchee, WA

 

Scott, thank you so much, for being a part of this little series on the craft of writing. As always, you are a joy to talk to!

scott-driscoll1 Scott Driscoll can be found 

 

 

 

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September 9, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: Interview with Terry Persun, poet and author

Today we are continuing a series of interviews with published authors who are also instructors. They write in a variety of fields, and each approaches the craft from a slightly different point of view. Because they come from such varied backgrounds, I have gained a great deal of knowledge of writing craft from attending their seminars.

As it’s Friday and I often post poetry and flash fiction on Fridays, we are talking with Terry Persun, a poet and novelist who resides in the Northwest.

51eyfcn4pzl-_sx331_bo1204203200_CJJ: You write in three areas, poetry, nonfiction, and fiction. Your fiction work ranges through three sub-genres, Sci-fi/fantasy, mystery/thriller, and mainstream/historical. As are many poets, you’re well-known for questioning the political, spiritual, and cultural status quo.

How does your poetic bent shape your non-fiction and genre novel work?

TP: What an amazing question. I often think about how my poetry helps to shape my novels, but seldom my nonfiction. So let’s start with novels: much of the best poetry is about image, and the same goes for the novel. An image (showing not telling) can create an emotion that will stick with the reader. Poetry allows me to practice that. Even when you’re discussing cultural elements, an image is more important than abstract words like horrific or painful. A poet must know how to show those abstractions. Think about the last time you saw an image of a child in a war zone, it’s much more impactful than being told that there were several women and children killed in the attack. Even which image is important—movie directors know which angle to take. As for nonfiction: I think pacing and word choice stand out the most. In a poem, I can create a line break or a stanza break, similarly with nonfiction I might create a new paragraph or move the article from prose to bulleted copy. Again, an image might be best in nonfiction as well. For example, instead of saying, “Make sure your enclosure is leak proof.” I said, “Using the proper sealing approach will eliminate the concern of having grease oozing out of your enclosure.” Seeing the grease oozing out of something is much more impactual than telling someone to provide better sealing. There are probably many more things that poetry brings to my writing that I may not be completely aware of.

CJJ: You have published five poetry collections. I own one of them, And Now This. These poems resonated with me, as my father was also a WWII vet. These poems deal with the effects of your father’s wartime experiences on your family during the 1960s. Battle related PTSD is also a theme in my forthcoming novel. Reading your poetry made me feel less alone in that experience, and helped me develop my protagonist in the initial stages.

You seem to have an instinctive gift for meter in your free verse. One of my favorite opening passages of all time is from one of the poems in this collection, from the opening poem,

First Memory

I’m standing in the corner,

Crying.

My hands are not my own,

They’re trembling.

This passage drops the reader straight into your young reality, unapologetically showing the life you had then.  Because they are free verse, the lines don’t rhyme, yet they are poetic and speak to me on a level that the prose in a novel rarely does. I also love the opening passage from another poem in this collection, In the Story of My Father.

What advice would give budding poets in regard to meter and phrasing their free verse?

TP: Language has its own music. Even prose has music to it. It’s my assertion that the best prose can often be broken into poems. In classes I sometimes will take a Hemingway paragraph and create a poem from it. Having said that, the number of beats, the number of syllables, where you place commas or choose to create a complex sentence, all have an effect on the final work. What I advise new poets is to first of all read a lot of poetry—especially the kind you’re trying to write. Notice how much of a breath you need to take, where natural and unnatural breaks might occur (use both), and where can you end a line that leads a reader in a false direction. Poetry infused prose can only make it better.

Doublesight--Terry PersunCJJ: One of my favorite fantasy novels is Doublesight, in which you created a world populated by shapeshifters. Zimp is a wonderful character, and I like how you portrayed her growing into her responsibilities.

You have opened your Doublesight world to fans to create fanfiction in, via Kindle Worlds.

How has the work offered by others in your world affected your view of Zimp’s world, and has it changed your direction in anyway?

TP: That’s a tough question to answer, because anything written in that world changes the way I see it. Once it’s opened to other interpretations, each character becomes deeper and more mysterious. I start to see the character differently and wonder more about him or her. It also lets me see how others view the story, the time period, the characters. I become more interested in the world as others work in it. My hope is that it’s fun and expansive for the authors as well, offering them another viewpoint to explore, another idea to examine. Plus, every Doublesight story uploaded into Kindle Worlds helps to market all the other books in the world. This cross-marketing will eventually help each author gain a new audience for their own books.

CJJ: Your video course is quite extensive, and I’d like you tell the readers what the course entails, and how they can take it.

TP: I believe you’re talking about the “Make Money Writing” course. You can access it through my website or through Youtube. I have taught that class quite a bit and is often standing room only. I’ve been freelancing for 20 years and working with freelancers on the magazine side for another 20 prior to that. I know how magazine editors think, what they need, and how to reach them. I also know how to help a writer find their way into freelancing. In the course, I run through how to decide what to write, the parts of the magazine, the editorial calendar, how to touch base with editors, and the main types of articles they need for their publications. I’ve consulted with several major magazine groups about their editorial packages, as well as how to move copy through their company so that they don’t waist time and end up with the best possible pieces to publish.

CJJ: I’ve attended several of your seminars at the annual PNWA conference and enjoyed them immensely. You’re based in the Pacific Northwest and have taught many classes all over the region. Will you be offering any seminars over the next year?

TP: I will be at the PNWA Cottage in September teaching a course on working with Amazon’s 12+ platforms for writers (go to PNWA.org for the list of classes), then at Rivers of Ink in October where I’ll be one of their Keynote speakers and also teach a class called Use Your Writing as Marketing. In November, I’ll be in Kauai for their annual Writers’ Conference where I’m teaching Self and Independent Publishing, and will be working one-on-one with attendees interested in a variety of methods of publication. I was involved in three other groups/conferences earlier this year. I am always willing to come up with a program if there is enough interest. Just let me know.

Terry, thank you so much for your insights and advice, both here and at the annual PNWA conference.

I highly recommend Terry’s works. His poetry is deep and thought provoking, and his novels are fun and fantastic.  His books can be found on Amazon at:

tpersun_the_mug_shot_pic_b-w_400x400Terry Persun on Amazon Author Central

For any of you who are interested in attending his seminars, or looking into his video course, you can find him at any of these places.

Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/TerryPersun

Website:

http://www.terrypersun.com

Twitter: @TPersun

Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/terrypersun/ 

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1219743.Terry_Persun

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=AAIAAAAwxc8B6UnSc6LNvK9rhZHPutf5VEgswes&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile_pic

On  Monday, Scott Driscoll has agreed to join us here.

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September 7, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: Interview with Lindsay Schopfer, author of The Beast Hunter

Today is the kick-off post for a series of four interviews, featuring writers who are not only working in the craft, they are teaching it. As part of my lead up to NaNoWRiMo, the next four posts will feature a different guest instructor who has kindly agreed to talk about the craft of writing.

The Beast Hunter, Lindsay SchopferI’m welcoming Northwest author, Lindsay Schopfer to the blog today.  As a long-time fan of his books, and especially The Beast Hunter,  I was curious about how he approaches his work.

CJJ: Are you an outliner or do you write as you think it?

LS: I like to think of myself as an organic writer, as I let the story grow naturally as I write. That’s the way that my mentor, Steve Charak, taught me. His mantra was “just get it down” and it’s served me well. Of course, it often means that I end up having to do extra revisions to make everything tie together in the end, but to be honest I actually prefer editing to first-draft writing, so it really works out for me.

CJJ: How many drafts did The Beast Hunter go through before you had it ready to publish?

LS: The Beast Hunter was something of a special case since it began life as an online serial. Each episode went through three or four drafts before being posted, and then the entire piece had to be reworked at least three times before I was satisfied with the novelization.

CJJ: A critical aspect of every story is the story arc. How has your experience in writing for the stage and developing screenplays shaped your approach to writing fiction for readers as opposed to viewers?

LS: You can get away with a lot of things in a script that you can’t do in a novel or short story. For example, all the setting description in a script is purely functional, it isn’t meant for the audience and will never be seen by anyone but the actors and crew. Also, interior description is almost totally missing in a script, unless you’re writing something with a lot of monologues and soliloquies. Because of this, I’ve noticed that I tend to write stories that focus more heavily on action and dialogue rather than elaborate set pieces or internal struggles.

CJJ: You have designed several role-play games. When you visualize an event and set it in a scene, do you see it through the character’s eyes, or through yours as GM/narrator?

LS: I’m still pretty new to the creative side of gaming. My primary experience in designing role-playing games has been developing a set of rules for a game that takes place in the world of The Beast Hunter. Currently, these games are hosted by myself and are exclusively for active members of my street team. When it comes to the storyline, I usually don’t have any specific scenes in mind for each gaming session. I’ll come up with a few instigating events, and then let the players chose where to take the story from there. It’s a lot of fun to share in the creative process in such a spontaneous way, and everyone seems to have a great time. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that some players will actually put themselves into more difficult situations rather than do the simpler thing, and I sometimes wonder if it’s their inner storyteller that wants to introduce conflict to the story, rather than simply “winning the game”.

CJJ: You are a musician. Does poetry come into your work? How does music shape your writing?

LS: You’re making me sound like quite the Renaissance Man! To tell the truth, I don’t think my music affects my writing very much. I recently started playing lead guitar in a band, but we’re just playing for ourselves right now. While I’ve dabbled with lyrics in the past, I prefer letting my guitar do most of the talking. I will say that I have some selective tastes when it comes to the music that I listen to when I write, but I haven’t seen much crossover between my musical and creative writing endeavors.

CJJ: You have a series of classes coming up in the South Puget Sound area.  Can you tell us a little about them?

LS: I’ve been wanting to do more with indie bookstores in my hometown for a while now. Through a happy coincidence I happened to connect with the owner of Browsers Books in downtown Olympia, and we’re currently looking into doing some kind of regular writing class in the store’s upper room. On September 15 we’ll be hosting a free workshop called “Making the Most of Your Writing Time” to gauge local interest. My hope is to eventually have a regular class featuring a combination of my most popular workshops, peer critiques, and free-writing time.

CJJ: How can people connect with you as a writing coach and also with your online writing course?

LS: While I’d love to do an in-person writing class, I realize that most people who are interested won’t be able to come to it. As a result, I’m developing an online variant that works via Google Hangouts and Google Docs. I’m still working out the details on this, so if you have any ideas of what you’d like to see in an online writing course, feel free to let me know.

>>><<<

Lindsay, thank you so much for your candid answers. I hope My local area authors will seek out your classes, as I have found you to be an instructor with a sense of humor.

Lindsay SchopferLindsay Schopfer can be found:

Lindsay Schopfer’s Author Central page at Amazon

Lindsay’s Website

Lindsay Schopfer on Facebook

Lindsay’s Blog

Follow Lindsay on Twitter: @LindsaySchopfer

Next up we will have an interview with Northwest poet and author, Terry Persun, who has agreed to talk poetry and prose!

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September 5, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amgrateful: Celebrate those who labor in the service industry

Stylized drawing of a maid on a Works Progress Administration poster via Wikipedia

Stylized drawing of a maid on a Works Progress Administration poster via Wikipedia

Today is Labor Day in the US. This is the day we honor those whose labor keeps this country running. Over the course of my life, I have worked in a wide variety of jobs.

Child care was always an issue. Sometimes I had subsidized child care, which was the only reason I could work. Later, my kids were latch-key kids, the older ones taking care of the younger. My uncle also cared for my youngest daughter until she was about 10.  Because I had that child care subsidy when my youngest was not yet of school age, I was able to live without government food stamps, and was able to support my family relatively well.

1970s-80s –

  • automobile detailer
  • a field hand for a (now defunct) multi-national Christmas tree company
  • photo lab tech
  • waitress in a bakery and a deli worker

During the late 70s and early 80s I worked for the J. Hofert Company (Christmas trees) and absolutely loved the work. It was outdoors,  and only paid $3.25 an hour, and it was seasonal, but I was able to work a lot of overtime during certain seasons, as field hands were as hard to get then as they are now.

1980s-90s –

  • a hotel maid
  • a photographer’s assistant and darkroom technician
  • a bookkeeper, and an office manager

Sometimes, especially during the Reagan years and up to 1996, wages were low and jobs were scarce.  I held two, and sometimes three, part-time jobs just to keep the roof over my children’s heads and food on their table. Trickle down economics never quite trickled down to my town. I was divorced in 1997, and oddly enough, things became much easier, and I was able to get by with only one job, even while raising my last teenager.

2000-13 –

  • a bookkeeper, tax preparer, data entry.

In 2014 I began writing full time, and have no regrets.

None of the jobs I held were glamorous, but I worked with great people, many of whom are still my close friends. My favorite job was as a hotel maid at a large hotel in Olympia–the work was hard, but I enjoyed it for 12 years. For most of the 1980-90s, it was my weekend job that I kept along with my bookkeeping job because the hotel was a union shop.

I worked every weekend and every holiday and yes it was not easy, but it was what it was. My kids were good and supportive and knew I was doing my best.

In 1993 things were easier. As a bookkeeper/office manager, I had earned $7.50 an hour (two dollars over minimum at the time) and worked less than 30 hours a week with no benefits whatsoever. I drove for an hour each way, morning and afternoon, for that job. As a hotel housekeeper in a union shop, I made $8.50 (three dollars over minimum) and worked about 20 hours a week, giving me enough from the two jobs to live on and provide for my children. I was still legally married to my third husband, but he was seldom in the picture. The marriage was a shield that protected me from having to date the men my friends kept trying to set me up with. (See? Everyone has a story out of a soap opera, right?)

For all the years I was married to my 3rd husband (13 long years) no matter what other job I had, I kept my weekend job at the hotel. I kept it because I always had that to fall back on, and I could work full time whenever the other jobs went away.

At the time I worked there, my hotel was affiliated with S.E.I.U. Because of the union, we who did the dirty work earned a little more than maids, housemen, and laundresses at other hotels. We also had a few benefits, such as paid sick leave, up to two weeks a year paid vacations, good health insurance, and a 401k, to which our employer matched our contributions.

We were maids, the lowest of the low. No one is lower or of less social value than the person who cleans up after other people. We would have had nothing more than minimum wage without the union.

Not every union is good, and not every union is reasonable. But while I don’t agree with everything every union does and stands for, I do feel gratitude that my family and I were protected by a good, reasonable organization during those years that were such a struggle for me. Every worker deserves that his/her employer treats them with respect and a fair wage in return for their labor.

I write books now, and the world is a different place in many ways. Even so, someone must do the dirty jobs, the work that no one else wants. I have nothing but respect for those who work long hard hours in all areas of the service industry, struggling to support their families.

Look around you, and see the people who make your life easier, by being there every day doing their job.

Every one of them is a person just like you, a living, caring human being with hopes, ambitions, triumphs and tragedies. Every one of them has a story and a reason to be where they are, doing the task they have been given.

Say a little thank you to all those who take your unintentional abuse when you are stressed out and “don’t have time to wait,” or are upset by things you have no control over and need to vent at someone who can’t or won’t fight back.

Give a little thanks to those who do the dirty work and enable you to live a little easier.

Parts of this post were previously published in Sept of 2015.

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September 2, 2016 · 6:45 am

#flashfictionfriday: Ode (to Writer’s Block)

Quill_pen smallOnce again, I am embarking on a new project, and struggling with getting the idea down on paper. Therefore, it’s time for me to face the demon that haunts all writers–that moment when you have the brilliant idea, and know what you have to say, but can’t find the words. I will defeat this demon by embracing it into submission, as I do all who oppose me. (Did I just say that? Oh, well. It’s out there now.) I will write, no matter how hokey and lame my prose is, because revisions are my friends, and I am not afraid to write garbage. I just need to get these ideas down and on paper before I forget them.

Several years ago, while suffering in similar circumstances over Valley of Sorrows, I wrote this woefully over-the-top, somewhat lame, free-verse ode to that sad condition, and I published it here on this blog then.

Ode  

What beauty is this, that lies sleeping near my heart?

‘Tis word—and word should tumble from my pen,

Not lie locked within the chamber dark and inky.

Where hides the key to free thee from thy prison?

Oh, lovely word, spring forth from the trap that is my mind,

Set thee down upon this paper, word.

Let me hold thee, and from thee let me form the dreams,

The hopes and fantasies that fill my eyes and blind me to all but thee,

Oh word! Fill my paper with thy bounteous delight,

As you fill my head with longing, and my wastebasket with scrap.

Ode © Connie J. Jasperson 2016

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August 31, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: the hyperlinked Table of Contents

When I read an ebook, I like to be able to easily navigate within the story by using a hyperlinked table of contents. This is also called a “Smart TOC” (Smart Table of Contents) and every one of my ebooks has one. A Smart TOC easy to create when you are formatting your ms for publication. The only difficult thing about creating one is, it’s time consuming. In my experience, it’s best to just sit down and get it all done in one session so you don’t lose track of where you are in the process. Therefore, I pick a time when I know I will have two or three hours cleared to do this because I get distracted easily. I don’t want to be called away from this task in the middle of it.

First make your table of contents. For ebooks you don’t need page numbers. Page numbers are like prisoners—they just weigh you down, and have no meaning as ebooks don’t use page numbers to navigate.

Once you have your final manuscript proofed, you should turn it into two separate manuscripts, one for the ebook, and one for the print book. This post pertains to the ebook manuscript.

If your book is a novel, your print manuscript will most likely not need a TOC as most large publishing houses don’t waste precious pages on such things. Technical manuals and textbooks must include a TOC.  As an indie, every page you can do without when publishing your novel in paper form will keep the final cost down and make your paperback more affordable for your prospective reader. Very few people will pay $18.99 for a book by an unknown author.

ref_TOC_screenshot1

The first thing you want to do is create a bookmark.  First highlight the words  “Table of Contents” and then go to your ‘Insert’ tab.  Click on ‘Bookmark’ in that ribbon. Type in the words ref_TOC

Then click “Add”.  In every ms it is important to name the Table of Contents bookmark exactly that, including the underscore: ref_TOC, because that’s what Smashwords looks for and it is simply a good practice to have a uniform system for naming files.  See the next picture for how it will look:

ref_TOC_screenshot2

Now it’s time to bookmark the first chapter, or the prologue if you have one. This particular book will be called Billy’s Revenge, so the initials BR will be in all my bookmarks in this ms.  Billy’s Revenge doesn’t have chapters but is broken into eighteen parts. Scroll down to your prologue or first chapter and do it exactly the same way as you bookmarked the TOC, but for this ms I will name it BR_prt1. (Billy’s Revenge Part 1)

You will name yours with your manuscript’s initials and the word prologue or chapter 1: MS_chapter_1

See the picture below:

ref_TOC_screenshot3

As long as you have the chapter title highlighted, click “insert Hyperlink” on the ribbon. On the left of the menu, you want to click Link to:  Place in this Document.  That will bring up your bookmarks. Select ‘ref_TOC’  and click OK.  This will turn your heading blue, which is called a ‘hyperlinky’. You will need to test it, so press control and click on the link. This will take you back to the table of contents heading. Once you have used the hyperlinky it will turn purple.

ref_TOC_screenshot5

Now that you are back at the Table of Contents, highlight either Prologue or Chapter 1, which ever you are starting your book with, and click “insert Hyperlink” on the ribbon. Again, on the left of that menu, you want to click Link to: Place in this Document, which will will bring up your bookmarks. Select the bookmark for your first section, either prologue or “MS_chapter_1” and click OK.  That will turn it blue. Press control and click on the link. it will take you back to the heading of your prologue or the first chapter. Once you’ve used a hyperlinky, it will turn purple.

Scroll down your manuscript to the next chapter, and highlight the chapter heading, just as you did the first time. Repeat the steps you did for the first section.

Do this for the entire table of contents, always remembering to link your chapter heading back to “ref_TOC”, and test each link as you go.

As I said earlier, creating your hyperlinked table of contents can be time consuming, and it requires you to pay attention, but it is a simple process and makes your ebook a nicer experience for the reader.

ref_TOC_screenshot6

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August 29, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: the craft of Indie Publishing: the manuscript

Book- onstruction-sign copyIn every manuscript, there will be inconsistencies, and no matter how hard you and your friends comb it, some will slip through.

You are about to publish your first book. The manuscript is as pristine as human eyes can make it. However, to ensure this, the wise indie will follow these steps, in this order:

First, as they are writing the manuscript, they will create a list of made-up words and usages that are unique to their manuscript. This is called a style-sheet, or in some circles, a Bible. The author will refer back to it and update it. They will supply the editor with it, who will also refer back to it and update it, which will ensure that fewer inconsistencies make it through to the final product. Once the manuscript is submission ready, the wise author will:

  1. Have it professionally line-edited (yes, this does cost, but it is SO worth it)
  2. Have it beta read by people who read in the genre you write in
  3. Have the final manuscript proofread by a professional (again, this has a cost attached to it)
  4. After it is proofed, the wise indie author will make use of the narrator app that comes with MS Word or use a free app such as Natural Reader. Read along with it, and you will spot the inconsistencies.

I made use of all these steps for my most recent manuscript, The Wayward Son, and still, the narrator app helped me locate several small inconsistencies, one of which (lighting versus lightning) could have thrown a reader out of the narrative. (There is no such thing as a lighting-mage in my books, although I do have lightning-mages.)

My global search list to correct inconsistencies found by Natural Reader narrator app in final MS for TWS:

  1. Andresson/Andreson (found 0)
  2. Lighting/lightning (found 2)
  3. Stefan/Stefyn (found 1)
  4. Abacci/Abbaci (found 0)
  5. Sparing/Sparring (found 0)
  6. Jerika–change name to Erika (found 3)
  7. Johnny/Jonny (found 1)

Despite my best efforts, some of these inconsistencies (those I marked in red) were found in the ARC and have been corrected. I accept that it’s possible that other inconsistencies will still exist in the published book, but not because I haven’t done due diligence and made every effort to eliminate them.

The Wayward Son, a companion book to Forbidden Road, has been uploaded to CreateSpace and is set to launch on September 15th.

Indies who want their work to be looked upon as professional will follow these suggestions. We can’t afford to be less than diligent with our process of preparing the manuscript for publication, as the industry’s reputation rides on our finished products.

Because the publishing industry as a whole holds indies in such low regard, we must ensure what we produce is a book the reader will like or dislike based on our work, our style of writing and the story we are telling. We owe it to our potential readers to give them a well-edited book, written with attention to the craft of writing AND publishing (yes, publishing is a craft) as well as with the passion of an author with something to say.

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August 26, 2016 · 6:45 am

#flashFictionFriday: Science Officer’s Log

Today’s flash fiction was inspired by the recent announcement of the  European Southern Observatory‘s discovery of a roughly Earth-sized planet orbiting our nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri.  Planet Proxima b is larger than Earth, but could have liquid water on its surface. Proxima Centauri is around four light years from us. It’s a small red dwarf with a radius of around 60,000 miles (97,000 km), which is around 14% the size of our sun. It  is estimated to have a mass of around 12% of that of the sun, and is 1.4 times the diameter of Jupiter.

Science Officer’s Log

  • Week: 15
  • Month: 4
  • Day: 15
  • Year: 47 (Post Earth Era)
  • Logged by: Jamal Baines, Acting Science Officer

Last week our ship arrived at a three-star system, and stopped at the edge.  I’m not sure why we’ve stopped because, before they disappeared, no one thought to warn me it was going to happen. It’s been two weeks since the adults who used to run things disappeared. Not sure what happened, but I don’t think they planned to leave.

I’m fourteen now, so I should be an adult about things, but I miss my mom.

The internal system is functioning as it should. Maybe we were supposed to stop here. The telescopes are observing the dwarf star of the trio, and I’m logging the information as it comes in. I just don’t know how to interpret it yet.

From outside, our ship seems like an immense moon or a small planet, but it’s an asteroid ship. We’re self-supporting so things are pretty complicated. When I first joined the science pod, Dr. Abrams told me that because we live underground, we’re safe from radiation and most stray comets.

I don’t know if anyone will ever go outside again, because I don’t know if anyone apprenticed in the maintenance pod was trained to pilot the O.A. Shuttles.

We finally got all the kids together for a meeting, and we have an idea of how to go forward.  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to write here because we didn’t do anything other than deciding who was going to do what. The younger kids are afraid, and everyone agreed we needed the older kids to take charge.

Shelena’s oldest, seventeen, and she is captain. Darius is fifteen, and he’s first officer. They were apprenticed in the bridge pod, so she is most familiar with how Captain Gonzales ran things, and Darius is good at keeping things organized. Shelena knows where all the information is, so at least we’ll have that, and we can continue our education. I got to be science because that’s where I was apprenticing. Sanjay is 17, and is in charge of sickbay, for the same reason. The androids are functioning perfectly, handling the work humans don’t usually have to do, like running the mess hall and the sewage treatment plants.

There are only fifty-six of us old enough to have been apprenticed into the ship’s management systems for any length of time. The others are working in the areas where they were, still trying to learn from those of us more advanced. The pre-teen kids not old enough to have been apprenticed are minding the babies and little ones.

Darius thinks the adults got sucked into a dimensional rift. I guess that’s possible, but I can’t see how. But regardless, we have to support the farms, because they’re what keeps this ship’s environmental systems running. So, just like before the adults disappeared, we’re all taking our turns working in the agrarian pod. Things are pretty easy to work, if you know the controls. So far, we’re all getting along, no quarrels to speak of.

That’s all I can think of for right now. I’ll write more tomorrow because Doctor Abrams always kept a daily log, so I should too.

J.B.

This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface.

This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. Artist’s rendering by This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. Credits: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Science Officer’s Log © Connie J. Jasperson 2016

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August 24, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: consider the scenery

The Garden of the Author, by José Benlliure Gil via Wikimedia Commons


The Garden of the Author, by José Benlliure Gil via Wikimedia Commons

I had an intriguing email conversation with a new acquaintance, a young man I met through PNWA at the recent conference. He was struggling in his writing group, trying to get a handle on  the showing vs. telling aspect of writing. As he writes mysteries, the setting and environment of certain scenes are quite important.

I suggested he view the scene through his protagonist’s eyes.

Every memorable element in a fictional story must be necessary to the story.  In creative writing, this concept is referred to as “Chekhov’s Gun,” as it is a principal formally attributed to the great Russian playwright, Anton Chekhov. He said this with regard to the settings for his plays, but in terms of writing, what this means is that if your characters notice a gun on the wall, someone must fire that gun, or it should be removed from the scene.

It was a neighborhood Dionte was unfamiliar with.  Just as he entered Tyrone’s gate, his phone dinged, a text from Ty. He’d had to leave for a minute, but Dionte should go on in and wait in the kitchen. Both men were on the board of the Community Action Council, but he didn’t know Tyrone well, and wondered where he’d been called off to.

What does Dionte see, and how does it register in his awareness?

He went up the walk, climbing the worn steps of the front porch. Feeling odd at entering the home of a casual acquaintance when he wasn’t there, Dionte reached for the knob and turned it. The door swung open, and entering the small sitting room, he was overwhelmed by the amount of clutter.

Tyrone had no TV that Dionte could see, but most of the furniture in the room was buried under stacks of newspapers and piles of laundry. His computer was partially hidden behind a stack of library books and a coffee cup, half full, sat atop them. A plate with a slice of toast sat beside the keyboard as if Ty had left in the middle of his breakfast.

Feeling claustrophobic, Dionte found the path to the kitchen, unsure now what sort of mess awaited him in there. To his surprise, the kitchen was immaculate.

The incongruity of the pristine kitchen contrasting with the clutter of Tyrone’s living room is all noted mentally. Each thing on our character’s path into and through Ty’s home is an image that registers in Dionte’s consciousness briefly, but is not mentioned again.

Tyrone had said there might be a serious problem, but wanted Dionte’s take on it before he brought it up at a meeting. Wondering what it could be, Dionte sat at the table, looking at the clock on the stove, seeing it was 11:15. He’d gotten the text only a few minutes before. Tyrone had to have been called to somewhere close by, as he’d left his house unlocked. He hadn’t passed Dionte in the front, so he must have left through the back.

The sound of someone coming up the back steps caught his attention, and his eyes were drawn to the screen door.

It’s a murder mystery, so who was approaching? What happened next? And why is the toast by the computer important?

Scenes require a certain amount of description. Let’s say we’re writing a short story about a grandfather fixing dinner for his grandson. He’s had to go out shopping, and now he carries his groceries home in a snowstorm, fearing he will slip and fall. This scene could be set several ways, and here are two, one less wordy than the other.

Snow fell softly. Holding a bag of groceries, he gazed at the stairs leading from the walk to the front door, fearing a layer of ice lurked beneath the pristine whiteness.

OR

He gazed at the icy stairs leading from the un-shoveled walk to the front door, his bag of groceries growing heavier.

Either way works, but personally, I would go with the second.

Pawn_of_Prophecy_coverIn 1982 I picked up Pawn of Prophecy by the late David Eddings. This was an amazing, eye-opening book for me, both as a reader and an author.  Eddings had the ability to convey a sense of place in a few well-chosen words. He put those words into  beautiful, poetic prose. The book opens in the kitchen of a farmhouse with Garion’s memories of playing under the table in a kitchen as a small child.

Garion’s earliest memories are of being a toddler: the sound of knives deftly dicing vegetables, his aunt keeping him corralled and happy under the table while she works, the sparkle of the gleaming pots and kettles high on the wall lulling him to nap.

“And sometimes in the late afternoon when he grew tired, he would lie in a corner and stare into one of the flickering fires that gleamed and reflected back from the hundred polished pots and knives and long-handled spoons that hung from pegs along the whitewashed walls and, all bemused, he would drift off to sleep in perfect peace and harmony with all the world around him.”

Later, when Garion has been completely uprooted, this passage becomes important, as it describes the place he thinks of as home. In that paragraph, we see the important things in the room, and we have a visual image of it. The child’s sense of contentment and safety that the kitchen represented is conveyed by the impressions of the kitchen instead of the image of it. The detail supports the story rather than impeding it.

The scenery in the narrative must be organic. It has to be purposeful and not just there to fill the space. I like books where the scenery is shown in brief impressions. We see it only when it needs to be there. Sometimes we see it through the protagonist’s eyes, and other times we see the protagonist set in the scene as described by a narrator, but everything we see must be a part of the characters’ experience.

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August 22, 2016 · 6:45 am

#amwriting: breaking the rules with style

a writer's styleMuch of my blog time revolves around grammar and the mechanics of writing. As authors, it’s important to understand the rules of how the language in which we write works, no matter what that language is. Yet powerful writing often breaks those rules, and we are better for having read it.

So why am I always pressing you to buy and use the Chicago Manual of Style?

Authors must know the rules to break them with style.

Readers expect words to flow in a certain way. If you break a grammatical rule, know what you are breaking and  be consistent about it.

Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Alexander Chee, and George Saunders all have unique voices in their writing. Each of these writers has written highly acclaimed work. Their prose is magnificent. When you have fallen in love with one of these authors’ works, you will recognize their voice.

Ernest Hemingway used the word “and” in place of commas too freely.

Alexander Chee employs run-on sentences and dispenses with quotation marks.

James Joyce wrote hallucinogenic prose and at times dispensed with punctuation completely.

George Saunders writes as if he is speaking to you, and is, at times, choppy in his delivery.

But their voices work. They each break certain rules as set down by Strunk and White, but they produce brilliant prose that stands the test of time. Readers fall into the rhythm of their prose.

I will admit, I had to take a college class to be able to understand James Joyce’s work, and I did have to resort to the audio book for Alexander Chee’s work. It’s the hypercritical editor coming out in me, making it difficult for me to set that part of my awareness aside. It’s my job to notice those things.

I can hear you now: these are literary authors, and you are writing genre fantasy fiction or sci-fi. Shall I toss out a few more names?

Tad Williams mixes his styles. His Bobby Dollar series is Paranormal Film Noir: dark, choppy, and reminiscent of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe stories. In this series, he seems to be somewhat influenced by the style of crime authors, such as Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. It is a quick read and is commercial in that it is for casual readers.

Raymond Chandler was the creator of Philip Marlowe, the original hard-boiled, disillusioned, copper-turned-private-eye. His people take center stage, rather than the violence that characterizes so many detective novels of his era.

In his article, The Chandler Style, Martin Edwards writes:  Devising puzzles was always less important to him than style. He said, ‘I don’t really seem to take the mystery element in the detective story as seriously should,’ and joked about solving plot problems by having a man come to the door with a gun  Style mattered much more: ‘I had learn American just like a foreign language. To learn it I had to study and analyse it. As a result, when I use slang . . . I do it deliberately.’  And as he told one magazine editor whose proof-reader presumed to tidy up the Chandler grammar, ‘When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.’

Chandler understood how grammar worked. He knew what he was doing and did it deliberately. He was able to convey (to those who didn’t appreciate his style) why he broke those rules and was secure enough in his choice to continue writing in his own voice.

But Chandler also had to deal with the sort of sniping we all must deal with in our writing groups. Wikipedia says: The high regard in which Chandler is generally held today is in contrast to the critical sniping that stung the author during his lifetime. In a March 1942 letter to Blanche Knopf, published in Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, he wrote, “The thing that rather gets me down is that when I write something that is tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, I get panned for being tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, and then when I try to tone down a bit and develop the mental and emotional side of a situation, I get panned for leaving out what I was panned for putting in the first time.”

Yet, although he writes Bobby Dollar in a Chandler-esque style,  Tad Williams’s Memory Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy is true epic fantasy, with lush, poetic prose, multiple story-lines, and dark themes. It is written for serious fantasy readers who want nothing less than the big novel. The story starts slow, but the powerful writing has generated millions of fans who are thrilled to know he has set more work in that world.

Beginning slow, going off on side quests, writing poetic prose, and gradually working up to an epic ending is highly frowned upon in today’s writing groups, but Tad broke that rule and believe me, it works.

Roger Zelazny wrote one of the most famous fantasy series of all time, the Chronicles of Amber, and was famous for his crisp, minimalistic dialogue, and he was also heavily influenced by the style of wisecracking hard-boiled crime authors like Chandler.

Most readers are not editors. They will either love or hate your work based on your voice, but they won’t know why. Voice is how you break the rules, but you must understand what you are doing, and do it deliberately. Craft your work so it says what you want, in the way you want it said.

GRRM Meme 3If your editor asks you to change something you did deliberately, you are the author. Explain why you want that particular grammatical no-no to stand, and your editor will most likely understand. If you know the rule you are breaking, you will be better able to explain why you are doing so.

However, if I am your editor, you must be prepared to break that rule consistently. Readers do notice inconsistencies.

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