We have entered the darkest time of the year, and while the sun occasionally bursts through the dark and gloomy overcast skies, the monsoon months have arrived. The eternal rain has set in, which I don’t mind as much as some folks do. Rain in the winter means plenty of water during summer, which can be very dry here in the Puget Sound basin.
But we’d prefer the snow to stay in the mountains where it belongs. Something about the slightest dusting sends the Pacific Northwest into a panic.
I write every day, no matter the season. However, December is a busy, scattered time for me, with a lot of random cooking and partying. As far as writing goes, it’s a month of inspiration racing up the steps, ringing the doorbell, and then running away.
Thus, I make notes of those random thoughts. At some point, I’ll be able to focus well enough to wrestle the Kraken that is my current manuscript, into shape. I’m still plotting the second half of this novel. Last week I managed to cut out two novellas and a short story’s worth of words out of the NaNoWriMo mess though, so that was fun. (Not.)
In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying a little downtime, reading and playing games. So, what have I been reading? Magazine articles mostly.
I’m an indie and am responsible for the success or failure of my books when it comes to marketing, which is not my strong point. But as always, the overall trends of the publishing industry interest me. What follows are the teasers and links to the more thought-provoking things I read this week.
Here is an article that is not recent, but is pertinent to our era of publishing, of writing blogs and publishing as an indie. Read the story here: Skills and Strategies | Understanding Plagiarism in a Digital Age – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
BBC: From memoir and self-care books to comic novels, writing about our flaws and imperfections has never been so popular. But can failing ever be a success? Lindsay Baker explores this question. Read the story here: Is failure the new success? (bbc.com)
BBC: Audiobooks are having a moment. As they soar in popularity, they are becoming increasingly creative – is the book you listen to now an artform in its own right? Clare Thorp discusses this phenomenon. Read the story here: The rise of the books you don’t read (bbc.com)
So, what else is going on in the publishing industry? Let’s have a look at the articles that caught my eye this last week:
NEW YORK, NY (AP) — Book publishing in 2023 was a story of cooling sales and rising conflict, marked by legal action, protests, censorship and the impact of forces well beyond the industry. Read the story here: 2023 in books: Protests, bannings and rise of AI helped shape the story of publishing – ABC News (go.com)
AP NEWs: The nation’s largest publisher and several bestselling authors, including novelists John Green and Jodi Picoult, are part of a lawsuit filed Thursday challenging Iowa’s new law that bans public school libraries and classrooms from having practically any book that depicts sexual activity. Read the story here: Publishing industry heavy-hitters sue Iowa over state’s new school book-banning law | AP News
NBC NEWS: Yahoo News reports that there has been a years-long surge in LGBTQ fiction sales. Read the story here: A ‘renaissance of gay literature’ marks a turning point for publishing (yahoo.com)
Publishers Weekly: This year’s Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), which ran November 25–December 3, drew 857,000 attendees, up from 807,000 in 2022 and 828,000 in 2019. While the fair always attracts several hundred U.S. librarians, who attend to buy Spanish-language titles, more U.S. publishers went to the fair this year than in past years—a sign that business between the U.S. and Mexican markets is growing. Read the story here: Guadalajara Book Fair Attracts More Americans (publishersweekly.com)
Also from Publishers Weekly: A confident mood prevailed among independent booksellers over this November holiday sales weekend. (…) Sales data from Circana BookScan showed that, in a year in which overall unit sales of print books are down 3.3%, sales were up 1.4% for the Thanksgiving week ending November 25, over the comparable week in 2022. Read the story here: The Holiday Season Looks Promising for Indie Bookstores (publishersweekly.com)
So, there you have it, the articles that caught my eye this week when I was sitting at my computer and pretending to work. Now, I suppose I should go and release the Kraken—or at least get to work on that outline.
Credits and Attributions:
Cover of November 6, 2006 issue Publishers Weekly, © 2006 Publishers Weekly (Fair Use). Wikipedia contributors, “Publishers Weekly,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Publishers_Weekly&oldid=1180527918 (accessed December 10, 2023).
We who write fantasy invent people and give them lives in invented worlds. Their stories involve them doing invented things. Unfortunately, there are times when we realize we have written ourselves into a corner, and there is no graceful way out.
In 2019, I had accomplished many important things with the 3 months of work I had cut from that novel. The world was solidly built, so the first part of the rewrite went quickly. The characters were firmly in my head, so their interactions made sense in the new context.
So, in 2019, I realized the novel I was writing is actually two books worth of story. The first half is the protagonist’s personal quest and is finished. The second half resolves the unfinished thread of what happened to the antagonist. Both halves of the story have finite endings, so the best choice is to break it into two novels.
And a “passel” of short stories and novellas.
I think of 
I still had no idea there was a wider community of writers in my area, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have felt worthy of gate-crashing one of their meetings.
The next book I bought was in 2002: 
Finishing off the resources from the official NaNoWriMo store is Grant Falkner’s handbook, 
Damn Fine Story
Many local libraries offer a service where one can submit a question and have it answered by email. If that isn’t an option and we’re feeling ambitious, you can check out eBooks on any subject.
Here is a link to the great Neil Gaiman’s absolutely wonderful, infinitely comforting, yet utterly challenging advice for writers: 
In 2010, I gained a wonderful local group through attending write-ins for NaNoWriMo. Nowadays, we meet weekly via Zoom, as some members are now living far away from Olympia. My fellow writers are a never-ending source of support and information about both the craft and the industry. We write in various genres and gladly help each other bring new books into the world. But more than that, we are good, close friends.
Food scenes serve as transitions between events. The act of dining occurs, but the conversations are the point of that scene. This is an opportunity to rest and regroup.
I’ve read many unforgettable fantasy books. One that shall go unnamed stands out, but not for a good reason. The author gave each kind of fruit, bird, or herd beast a different, usually unpronounceable, name in the language of her fantasy culture. She must have spent hours devising that hot mess of fantasy foods.
In my current work in progress, my people have a melding of familiar European and New World ingredients for their diet and do a lot of foraging. Fish, maize, and potatoes are essential staples, as are beans and wild greens. For a good list of what this diet might entail, visit this link: 
Also, my first drafts are not written linearly. I write what I am inspired to, skipping the spots I have no clue about. I fill in those places later. Even after completing the first draft, things will change structurally with each rewrite.
It wasn’t exactly literary brilliance, but it gave my idea a jumping-off point. I just began telling the story as it fell out of my mind. Surprisingly, I discovered my word count averaged 2,500 to 3,000 words daily. By day fifteen, I knew I would have no trouble getting to 50,000, and by November 21st, I had passed the 50,000-word mark.
But I took that incoherent mess apart, and over the next ten years, it became three books: 
It helps to check in on the national threads each day. Look at your regional threads on the national website to keep in contact with other local writers. You will find out when and where write-ins are scheduled.
Included in this mess were ten dreadful poems, along with chapters 7 through 11 of 
Conferences are excellent places to make good connections with other writers. You meet people you can talk to about every aspect of the experience of writing as well as craft. No one’s eyes glaze over when you try to explain your main character’s inner demons and you find people with struggles similar to your own.
Some new writers are completely fired up for their novels, obsessed. They go at it full tilt for a week or even two, and then, at the 20,000-word mark, they take a day off. Somehow, they never get back to it. These writers will continue to write off and on and may participate in NaNoWriMo again.
Cooking is my love language. I have many tips and ideas for getting word count and having a proper family feast. As a dedicated writer, I know how to plan for all aspects of life.
How to get inspiration? That translates to getting a story idea. I used to think up nifty situations and wondered how an average person would deal with it. That’s the good ol’ what-if set-up you find mostly used in sci-fi stories. The problem with focusing on the cool idea is that usually the characters who have to deal with it become rather cardboard. That’s fine when you’re a young writer or producing a first draft. Slap it down and keep going. You can come back later to beef up the character, add description details, and so on. Whatever the idea is, get it out of your head at any cost.
What is serious writing? Even if it’s comedy, it’s the writing you take seriously. What you want readers to admire, no matter the genre. That is all well and good, but you will find that what you think is good isn’t always what readers think is good. Got nothing to do with what you’re writing or how well you write it, it’s just the way it is. So don’t take yourself too seriously; you can take your writing seriously, of course. The idea is that the writing will get better for readers each time you go through a manuscript and revise and edit it. How many times you go through it is your decision. It helps to get someone else’s eyes on it at some point, especially if you are new at writing. You can look at a map but until you get to your destination you can’t be sure that map is accurate and you’re going the right way. Sounds like another thing I learned.
I started reading a long time ago. Started writing soon after, making up my own stories which I thought were better than the ones I read. I borrowed here and there – and in later writing had to tone it down so as not to sound like the sources I borrowed from (sci-fi authors, mostly). You develop your own style eventually if you write enough. So write a lot; you don’t have to show it to anyone. I like to try writing in different styles, too. I like trying to have characters speak in different ways, some slang, vernacular, accents, different levels of education, just for my own amusement – which is cruel, I’ll admit. But trying different things is good for a writer. Read different styles, too, and try to imitate them. Read the juicy parts aloud, let them get stuck in your head. Consider what is special about the style the author uses. Compare and contrast with other authors you read, and with your own writing. Most of all, read a lot in different genre and different writing styles. How much you absorb from that differs for everyone, but try it.
Finally you have a complete story (or novel) from beginning to end and the plot is satisfying, characters compelling, dialog crisp, and so on. What next? Read and revise at least three times, but put it away at least a few days between each reading (a month is optimal; go get some coffee). Yes, I know you’re eager to get into it again but make yourself wait. Go to your slush file and work on that erotica. Now back to your masterpiece. Try to read it as a reader who’s never seen it before: what would the average reader think and feel in this scene or on that page? You’re no longer thinking of how to write the story so now you focus on how someone you don’t know might understand it. (Sure, go ahead and correct those pesky mistypes as you find them. No rule saying you have to do that in a separate pass.) I like to look at scenes in isolation: every scene should do something, even if it is “only” showing a character’s personality. I read dialog aloud (or, recently, have my computer read it to me); I catch a lot of mistakes and sloppy or weak sentences that way. Run spellchecker until it’s about to fall off the rails but understand it is not actually reading and still will miss errors. You must read your manuscript with your own eyes and ears more than twice. Look for pet-peeve errors (e.g., I type ‘form’ a lot when I mean ‘from’; obviously the spellchecker will not catch it because ‘form’ is correctly spelled, just the wrong word). I run a search for them. Most importantly, never ever hit “replace all”!
Stephen Swartz is the author of literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and contemporary horror novels. While growing up in Kansas City, he dreamed of traveling the world. His novels feature exotic locations, foreign characters, and smatterings of other languages–strangers in strange lands. You get the idea: life imitating art.
By just doing that, I will have 50,000 (or more) words by midnight on November 30th.
Be willing to be flexible. Do you work best in short bursts? Or, maybe you’re at your best when you have a long session of privacy and quiet time. Something in the middle, a melding of the two, works best for me.
A good way to ensure you have that time is to encourage your family members to indulge in their own interests and artistic endeavors. That way, everyone can be creative in their own way during that hour, and they will understand why you value your writing time so much.
Writers and other artists do have to make some sacrifices for their craft. It’s just how things are. But don’t sacrifice your family for it.
But we all know infodumps are an insidious poison, so how do we apply this backstory without losing the reader?
Character A is a shaman, a fire-mage smith and warrior, and is slated to be the next War Leader of the tribes. His shamanic purpose is to unite the people, both the tribes and those citadels who have turned tribeless. He is the chosen champion of the Goddess his sect of mages serves, and his success or failure will determine her fate.
This void is vital because characters must overcome fear to face it. As a reader, one characteristic I’ve noticed in my favorite characters is they each have a hint of self-deception. All the characters – the antagonists and the protagonists – deceive themselves in some way about their own motives.
In his book, 
The story follows a group of 
However, when the antagonist is a person, I ask myself, why this person opposes the protagonist? What drives them to create the roadblocks they do? Why do they feel justified in doing so?
We must remember that the characters in our stories don’t go through their events and trials alone. We drag the reader along for the ride the moment we begin writing the story. They need to know why they’re in that handbasket and where the enemy thinks they’re going, or the narrative will make no sense.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 