Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, Characters, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, novels, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 27 Aug 2012| 2 Comments »
You’ve heard it before; my big deal when I’m writing is to “Write, don’t edit.” You know…don’t put off ’til tomorrow what you can put off for months, right? Well, now that I’ve finished the writing bit, I can’t put it off any longer. I have to sit down and do what I’ve successfully avoided.
Editing is hard; everyone knows that, but why? I mean, why edit at all? Just run that puppy through the spell-checker and send it out, right? Wrong. Seriously wrong. (more…)
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing on 24 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Main production on Beneath a Wounded Sky is now complete!
That’s right. The last swoosh from my fountain pen is on the pad, and the first draft is officially done. This weekend will be busy, as I transcribe the last few chapters from longhand to disk, and start working on all those <?> items scattered in there.
And then begins the painful process of editing.
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, Characters, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 23 Aug 2012| 2 Comments »
The end of any writing project is an emotional time for me, and the level of that emotion marches in lockstep with the amount of time I’ve invested. Be it poem, short story, or novel, there is a point at which it’s time to say “goodbye.”
With novels, it can be a tough period to get through. As a kid, I was always labeled as “too sensitive.” I was the easy target for gibes and teasing. I’ve grown a tougher hide in recent years, but it’s just a façade. I still feel things deeply, and goodbyes are never easy. (more…)
Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, Characters, cherryh, creative writing, eddings, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing on 22 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Folks, we are literally days away from completion of the first draft. It’s been a looooong time coming, I know. My readers have been exceedingly patient and very encouraging. My thanks and appreciation to you all.
In the last days of any project, I get rather manic. Okay, “testy” is probably a better word. “Obsessed” probably fits in there, too. All right, go ahead and add “hard to live with.”
I want to do nothing more than call in sick, stay home, sip whisky, and finish the damned thing. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Low Tech, Writing, tagged books, e-readers, ebooks, Kindle, novels, Writing on 21 Aug 2012| Leave a Comment »
Just as today no one will ever go into a store and thrill as they unfold the triptych of the latest Roger Dean album cover, so too, in a short period of time, no one will go into a bookstore and stop as they smell that rarefied combination of pulp and fresh ink.
Like it or not (and I don’t) we are moving toward a world in which sales of physical books will be a niche market, like vinyl LPs are today. Most of the trade in these items will involve used books and take place in small, dust-filled shops where these throwback items will eagerly line the shelves, their worn spines and faded gilt lettering displayed to their best advantage. Like potential adopters at an animal shelter, we will wish we could take them all home, but we will not be able, and will have to satisfy ourselves with saving just one or two.
A plethora of experiences and rituals will be lost to this, the Kindle generation. Technology will enhance their lives in many ways, but in this one arena, they will be the poorer for it.
Posted in Writing, tagged Beneath a Wounded Sky, creative writing, Fallen Cloud Saga, FC:V, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 20 Aug 2012| 1 Comment »
One word that readers use a lot to describe my books is “cinematic.” I take this as a good thing, since it usually means that the books are easy for them to visualize, which means they’re really in there, with the characters, immersed in my world.
One technique I use to achieve this came to the fore this past weekend. I mentioned before that I was starting an “action” section of the novel, and in this case I mean “action” in the usual sense: a set piece with lots of moving parts.
Whenever I have such a scene, whether it’s a fight, a chase, or a battle, I always find it helpful to map out the action. I’m a very visual person—I can process information faster through a picture than I can via a block of text—so sketching out my scene on paper is a great help. I am not good at drawing, so we’re not talking masterpieces here. We’re talking about line drawings, sketches that block out the basic elements (see example). But even this rudimentary type of drawing is enough to do a couple of important things.
Posted in Writing, tagged creative writing, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips on 17 Aug 2012| 3 Comments »
Here’s a writing tip I have found immensely helpful.
All of my books have either an historical setting, deal with a non-Western culture, or both. As a result, there’s a lot of research that goes into my writing. Books and books of research. It is not uncommon for me to read five to eight tomes of anthropological or sociological non-fiction, and fill up several reporter’s notebooks before I even start to write.
But even with all this preparation, when I get down to writing, there always comes a moment when there’s something I do not know, some question comes up, or I cannot recall some detail. What was the phase of the moon on 17 Sept 1895? What sort of plow was in use during the 9th century? What does camel milk taste like? It doesn’t matter how much you know or have read about a topic, you simply don’t know everything. So, what to do?
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 