It's Well Written Wednesday today, and even though I should be doing my goals post--it's September and aside from jumping for joy that summer's over, I'm up to my neck in goals...--I'm going to talk about something else. Something writing related. 

I briefly, with what felt like utterly no success at all to me, tried the Three Day Novel challenge this holiday weekend. And I looked at my calendar for the next couple of weeks. And then I decided to spend a couple of hours just messing about on the internet. Because. 

Shush you. 

Anyway, I stumbled on this post on Mental Floss, about the best parents in fiction. With full understanding that clicking on something on Mental Floss is about like falling into the pit that is TV Tropes, I read it anyway. Parents in literature are definitely a soft spot for me. I deeply identified with Elizabeth Bennett as a young woman for a whole lot of reasons I'm sure my lovely parents would rather I not admit to. I loved books about orphans, and children who strike off and go their own direction. 

I have parental issues. I was writing in something approaching a professional way for about five years before I realized I was worse than Disney. My characters almost never have parents. Generally, they've been dead quite a while. They were utterly unfit, they didn't care, I could keep going but you get the point. I realized if I ever got published I was probably going to have something to explain there. My dad's an avid reader, and my mother's been a psychiatric nurse since almost before that was actually a thing. 

Here's the thing. I was a difficult child, for all of us I think. Oh, I didn't run off and drink or do drugs. I didn't get suspended from school or pick fights. I was shy, and withdrawn even with them. I don't think I ever actually liked to be touched, and I have trust issues that exist in my head so far back I'm not sure it's possible for them to be anybodies fault, even if those always worked that way. Which they don't. 

I seriously doubt anyone who tells me they have a perfect relationship with their parents. How can you? We're not little seed-podlings. It's no different than roommates assigned by a computer. If your parents have done their jobs right you should disagree on all kinds of things, because you should have learned to think for yourself. And in doing that, since you didn't have their experiences growing up, all kinds of things have to change. If you're any age between 12 and 40 and you can't tell me one thing about your parents that drives you absolutely insane you're lying to someone. For your sake I hope it's just me.

So that list I linked to, of all the great parents in literature. It's a little idyllic for my taste. I like Mr Bennet, who is so engrossed in his books he misses things he really shouldn't and makes crappy decisions because they mean he gets peace. I even like Mrs Bennet, despite her drama and hysterical tendencies--in small doses. I like Narcissa Malfoy because let's all agree, without her Draco Malfoy would have turned out even more screwed up than he did. 

Parents are people too, outside of their job as parents. They should be in fiction too.

ppssst. Come back Friday. We're talking about TIME TRAVEL. 

Cross-posted from The Art of Procrastination.

I'm going to try to be clever about taking critique. 

Well, I'll probably avoid striving for clever. You know what they say about clever's failure-mode. 

There's no good, sure-fire way to make yourself ready for critique. You work on anything--a piece of artwork, or a short story, or a novel--to the fullest extent you're able, and then you turn it loose on the world. Hopefully, if you're serious about it, you've turned int loose on a small section of the world the first time. A couple of friends from writing group, or some other people you trust to give you an honest opinion that doesn't crush you. As writers we talk a lot about the importance of getting critique.

We don't talk so much about how you're supposed to give it. And that's a little sad, because I think they're actually more linked than people tend to assume. There's an art-form to giving someone an honest opinion about their work without getting their back up. I speak from experience, I've failed at this a few times in my life. Thankfully not nearly as frequently as other people have failed at it in my direction. And maybe that's part of my dues as a writer, developing a thick skin and learning to take the good suggestions no matter how much they piss me off.

I'm not gonna lie, if you're in this writing thing for the long haul you need that skill.

But you need the other one too, you need to learn how to critique other people's worth without making them get defensive and discount you. So, I'm going to give you a short 5 point list that I try to keep in mind every time I look at a new piece. 

1) Stay Positive! No one wants to hear their stuff's crap. Especially if it is. Find something nice to say. At least equally as often as you have a critique. 
2) Don't pull your punches. If there's something wrong with a piece of work, it doesn't help anyone to keep it to yourself. If you've got a problem it's likely other people will too. There's a little danger here, if you can't tell your own soft spots, but you'll learn in time.
3)Remember what you're reading. There are different conventions for different genres. Things that work in a Romance novel don't always work in mainstream fiction, or Sci-Fi, or Fantasy, or more or less anything else you can think of. The reverse is generally true. And I'm a big one for touting that the days of writing expressly to genre are dead, sure. You should still remember who the audience of the thing you're reading is. 
4)Read slow. If you're not in the mood, stop and go back later. Imagine how much effort that piece of work has taken, and try to give it it's best shake possible, just like you'd want someone to do for you.
5)Try really hard not to be pedantic. This one should be fairly self-explanatory, but it's actually much harder than you'd think. One of the pitfalls of being a writer is our love of words, and--obviously--sometimes we get carried away. Okay, if you're like me your general state is sort of carried away. Whichever. Potato, potato (If anybody gets that joke I will be unreasonably pleased).

Alright, small monstrous things, go and do. I'll see you again on Friday.

I mentioned yesterday, over at The Art of Procrastination that I spent my weekend wading through the slush-pile. And it's totes not all I did this weekend, mid-edits and two chapters from the end of a book, but it was a large part of it. 

I try not to be insulting about the slush pile, in public anyway. I fail, pretty frequently, but that's another matter entirely. The fact of the matter is we've all been there, and it's a learning process. There are a lot of things I think most of us learn with experience, as we collect that folder of rejections and see what works and what doesn't. Still, I'm pretty sure we'd all like to skip a bit of that. So. Just for you, I've got a pithy ridiculous list of tips (because it's me, I don't know what else you expected).

1. Follow the bloody instructions!
Literally nothing as a reader is as annoying as having to wade through extra stuff you're not going to accept anyway. I know it seems cold, but if I've asked for something in a specific format it's for a reason and I don't have the time or the impetus to decide if you're special enough to be exempt from that. Nobody likes to be ignored, so don't set yourself up for failure by ignoring an editor's requests.

2. Nobody cares.
This one's a little cold too, but it's the truth. Unless you're submitting to a religious publication, I don't want to know about your relationship with whatever your deity of choice is. Unless I'm asking you for an anthology of poetry I don't want to know every place you've been published in the last six years. Unless it's immediately, inherently relevant to the thing you're sending me I don't care. If your cover letter rambles I'll probably skim it at best, and be less inclined to give your submission the kind of attention you'd like me to give it. 

3. Nobody's story is good enough to survive not having an ending.
I've touched on this before, but it bears repeating. A lot. We've gotten some clever, wonderful stories we'd have been happy to publish, until they took a short sharp turn to the left and went off the cliff. Look at your plot, and imagine you're telling your best friend this thing that happened to you in the coffee shop down the block. How many times would they hit you if you walked off where your story ends? Then for the love of all things fluffy, fix it before you send it out.

4. Develop a relationship.
There isn't a publisher out there who doesn't have a twitter account, and a facebook, and... ours included. Hunt them down. With an account with your name on it, because I sure remember that stuff, and I'm sure other people do too. Especially independent or small press publishers. Reply to their tweets, create a relationship, even if it's based around pithy Star Wars one-liners. Find out if they have a mailing list you can be put on. Make yourself a real entity, a person who could possibly be depended upon for content. It's a foot in the door that will cost you minimal effort and no money.

5. Look at the date.
Up there, in the corner, that you wrote when you finished your final draft? How long ago was it? If you haven't changed, demonstrably, as a fledgling writer in the last two years we're gonna have to talk. If you finished that story four years ago and you're still sending it out with that date on it we really have to talk. Unless your Steven King...No, scratch that. Even Steven King changes as the years go by. If it's more than two years old give it another draft before you send it and change the bloody date on the thing.

6. Shotguns are good for hunting, not submissions.
We got a submission for The Golden Fleece. To the wrong email address. I stared at it for a good two minutes, utterly poleaxed. Not only did you not bother to actually read our guidelines, you didn't even look at them. Your sending me a story when you don't know what you're sending it to. You don't know who you're sending it to. In what wacky parallel universe do you live where crap like that works? Do you offer short-term vacation visa's, because I'd like to go visit somewhere my stuff could be published because I scatter-shot all over someone's inbox. 

7. Know your market.
This should fit under that first tick up there, about reading the instructions, but apparently it's a separate thing. I don't understand people sometimes. It should be self-explanatory. Not "This journal is for unpaid dental assistants who like Anime. Gee, maybe they'd like my story about an old man coming to terms with his eventual slide into uselessness in the nursing home." Maybe they would, but probably not. If it's a publication for children your story needs to feature children--this is a strict rule, because small ones are less plastic with that whole suspension of disbelief thing. My seven year old still has to constantly check with me to make sure things are fiction--and for the teen market there's a little more play, but not much. There's not a teenager alive who thinks 40 year old dudes are cool. Unless they're Johnny Depp...and I'm not sure he's even still in his 40's so clearly he's a special case. 

8. Don't be a d-bag.
Yeah, this is another of those self-explanatory ones. Here's the thing. In a book, you can get away with having a truly despicable main or point of view character. Maybe. If you're really good. You can sort of...Stockholm Syndrome us into liking them for other reasons. I'm not saying it's a thing to aim for, because its damn hard to pull off, but it can happen. For a short story market you've got like 2 pages, tops, and arguably like 2 sentences to hook the reader. There's not time to convince me Jack is a really great guy to spite the fact he talks about women like Ian Flemming's more misogynistic cousin (I say this with the full understanding I'm judging Mr Flemming entirely by the existence of a character named Pussy Galore and not having ever read a Bond novel).

9. No, you can't have any more!
Do. Not. EVER. Ask. For. Critique. Ever. Ever ever ever. Like seriously, even if by some small miracle they've offered it before. You aren't Oliver, shuffling up to the table for another bowl. Or you certainly don't want to be. Aside from being seriously unprofessional, I promise with a small press they'll remember, and be seriously unlikely to consider future submissions you send them.

10. "We're drift compatible!"
Everybody tells you to find a crit group. I know. I know. But here's the thing. A crit group, or a couple of friends you're comfortable making a little circle with--even if it's a triangle--will do more for your writing than nearly anything, except possibly a decade of time and a published mentor. Not only are you likely to start learning the things you do wrong--and stop doing them--I promise learning to edit other people's work and give constructive critique will make your work immeasurably better. There are tricks for this, but that's a discussion for another day. The short version is find people you respect as creators, who understand what you need out of this relationship and are marginally willing to give it to you.

Alright, that's all I have for wisdom to impart, mes enfants. I bid you, go and create. Vite vite. 

I'm taking a break from staring with baited breath at the kickstarter --do you see what I did there? Yes, I know I'm shameless--to manage a Well Written Wednesday post about books.

Well, a specific book. 

I've long been a big fan of Midsomer Murders. I'm not quite the fan my mother is--but then few people are. Still, somewhere ages ago I realized the show was based off a series of books written by Caroline Graham and I set about trying to get my hands on one. I don't know if any of you have ever fallen in love with a British writer or series, but the distance between the US and the UK never seems to be worse than when you want a book that's apparently not in print here. (someday I will likely go on a nearly vulgar rant about Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency)

My parent's managed it long before I did, and suddenly this week, to spite the ridiculous pile of things I should be reading, I started Death of a Hollow Man. 

So. Early reactions. Caroline Graham's command of language makes me feel vaguely bereft. The way she manages the detail through all the different character's eye is wonderful. And while I have an eerie feeling at this point that it might get tiresome later on, for now I still find it invigorating. 

And my strange thought is entirely wrapped up in constantly wondering if it's going to happen exactly the same way as the tv show. And if all the interweavings of the characters are going to stay the same.

Hopefully, again to spite the epic level of other reading I should be doing, I'll have an answer for you next week.

I'm trying my hardest not to turn Well Written Wednesday into "This is everything that's wrong with the slush pile."

Because seriously, there is so much wrong with the slush pile.

Anyway. We're going to talk about Oath-breakers.  Yeah, alright, I get nobody likes a liar, but that's not precisely what I mean. I mean oath-breakers in fiction. When you sit down and write, when you tell me a story, you're making a promise. Maybe it's not blood on the dotted line, but it's still a promise. 

"Hey, you. This thing I'm telling/showing/sketching out for you, it'll have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It'll have a purpose as a story--maybe not a higher one, but whatevs, it'll still be a purpose--and it'll do all the things it's promising to do before you get to the end. We cool?"

Because when it doesn't do those things? There are whole lands of failure devoted to stories who fall down on those. The kind you need a sixteen-mule-team and a magical compass to navigate. Stay away from magical failure land, storytellers. Stay far far away. 

It's not hard, just actually freaking finish your story. Finish it the way it should finish, after you've begun. Finish it like it's the last story you're ever going to tell, and it should hold up to the light of the ages, eligible for reprint in the Ancient Gazette when we're winging our way toward Andromeda Prime in a thousand year's time. 

One of the joys of the internet is the fact I can be in two places at once.

Hopefully not so much in the creepy way displayed in the painting there.

For a few months now, on this blog I've been trying a rotation of theme days. Miscellaneous Monday, Well Written Wednesday, and Sci-Fi Friday. I fail about as often as I succeed. Ask any newspaper columnist ever about how not-simple repetitive content is.

But this week my themes line up, between this blog and The Art of Procrastination, so I'm cross posting. They will be as ships that pass in the night. Seriously, stop looking for ice-bergs, it'll be fine.

Yes, alright. I'm being lazy and trying to write four blog posts this week instead of  five. So what? Were you--amorphous internet people you--going to offer to write one of those for me?

Didn't think so.



Anyway, it's Wednesday and that means we talk about things that are well-written. Or not, as the case may be.

There's been a sudden increase of slush pile in my life lately. And I know what writers think and say about the dreaded Slush. Let me tell you about the Slush from the other side.

Golden Fleece Press isn't by any means my first experience with a slush-pile. I've had plenty of occasion in my life to read things that should never have seen the light of day. I once reviewed a romance novel that has forever become my yard-stick for fail on a level I can barely articulate. It was long, and awful, and shaped about eighty percent of my views on the usefulness of historical accuracy in entertainment.

There was another one that involved badly conceived time-travel and characters even biblical-level plague would have been too good an end for.

I once rather stupidly, in the annals of my life squiring writers, offered online assistance to literally anyone who wanted help with their novel plot. What followed was three hours of incomprehensible, werewolf-themed shenanigans I will never get back and I feel their absence keenly.

These are the worst cases. The hyperbole--great spaghetti monster in the sky do I wish it was--infused funnies. The truly bad. But we all have ideas that die on the vine, or that should die on the vine. Apparently there's a knack for learning which ones those are. I can sympathize with that, even if I'm doing it backwards and sideways over my rolled eyes because just why.

What I can't get, I refuse to get, are the misplaced submissions. Why would you relegate yourself to the slush needlessly? And also we said it was a journal for children. Have you met children? They're the little things we used to be before life taught us there were worse things than spinach and math homework. We wanted Bunnicula, not Pet Cemetery.

Alright. Rant over. Maybe later I'll spill into all the ways YA is the deadest vibrant market I've ever beheld.

Fingers crossed next week's round of slush will be from people who once held an affinity for celery-desiccating bunnies.

I vaguely recall, a couple of days ago (alright, so it was nearly a month and that's how lost I am) that I was going to stop missing days, on this whole blogging thing.

I'll wait until you're done laughing.

We're getting closer to the point where I can be honest about that giant project in the background that's eating my life. Granted, I'm relatively sure everyone who actually reads this thing already knows about it...

But we're not quite ready for launch yet, and I'm keeping quiet until we are. 

It's Well Written Wednesday and since I'm allowed to talk about writing (spuriously) I'm going to talk about what it feels like to have an 'author's' life on the internet anymore. 

There are currently, on that nifty little panel that Google gives you to pick which username you want to sign in with, eight choices. My to-do lists in Wunderlist consistently exist about a half-step away from being utterly out of control. I am either responsible for--or nearly responsible for--four blogs, three twitter accounts, probably more like twelve email addresses if you count the non-google ones, one web forum I have utterly failed at for months, and three websites. Not counting the giant PROJECT OF DOOM I'm not actually owning up to yet I've got Nano, some involvement in First Book, my own writing career, a position as the Enrichment Coordinator for my son's school, the Book Lover's Bazaar coming up in September, and another nine and a half weeks as a full-time childcare person.

Arguably, at the end of all of that I should be talking about the impending crash, should I?

But I'm fine. Not even pretending at fine, I'm actually fine. Sure, there are moments where it feels a little big. Like tonight, when I signed out of Google for a second and got slapped in the face with way more directions than I needed right then. There's a sort of constant cloud of things that haven't made it on a to-do list yet swimming around in my brain, and I'm still having dreams about the PROJECT OF DOOM that basically equate to my brain getting caught in circles because I'm spending a lot of time staring at the same information is sixty different ways. 

Someone mentioned Camp Nano, next month, the other night and I just laughed hysterically. We won't tell anyone I was laughing because it should be 'oh god NO' but I will absolutely, I nearly promise, be writing something. 

Welcome to life as a modern writer. I'm decently hopeful it's not like this for everyone.

So. Much. Work.

Literally. I have absolutely nothing useful to say today. It is 10:43 at night, I am exhausted, and tomorrow is the last day of school. Also, my to-do list is still incredibly long.

Don't worry, soon enough there will be big announcements, and all will become clear.

Also, I solemnly swear there will be a nifty, awesome Sci-Fi Friday this week, if I have to hunt down an actual robot for it.

I finished my first, official edits this week. Well. I say 'finished.' I never actually feel finished, but it was deadline (I had a whole hour and thirteen minutes to spare, it was fine). 
Which has left me staring at the calendar, determinedly not thinking about the few days of freedom I have left until the summer starts. 
And wondering what to do now. 
So, in deference to that, this is all you're getting for Well Written Wednesday this week, and I'm going to go do something fun. I suggest you do the same.

And dear god, don't fall into your 'old projects' folder, whatever you do. 

“A book's a strange thing. It's ideas, feelings. It's fragile and complicated. You can't make them like refrigerators or cars.” 
                                                                                                   ― Étienne Davodeau, Les Ignorants

I got my first professional edit letter this weekend. And I was all set to tell you about how that was going for Well Written Wednesday. Not that I had the first clue what I was going to say yet. That was the plan.

And then Maya Angelou died Wednesday.

I spent most of Wednesday and a good portion of today trying to find something to say about that, and at this point I think I'm just accepting that brevity is the soul of wit. 

She's one of a very few select writers who get credit for getting me through my teens with a manageable, almost normal, amount of angst. Someone who made me understand the power of a universal story, and the visceral reality of the human condition.

My world was a better place for her being in it. That's probably the nicest thing you can say about anyone you don't actually know.

Photo from here under this license.