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Autopilot Disengaged

25 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Yesterday, I set my brain to percolate on the chapter I’m writing in Beneath a Wounded Sky. I know it’s working because my autopilot has been disengaged.

We all have one. For instance, I have to pay close attention to where I’m going until I get at least 5 miles from the house. If I don’t, say, because my wife and I are discussing last night’s movie, the autopilot kicks in and we end up taking the exit for the transit station I use.

I am very dependent on my autopilot in the mornings. I’m an “early bird” at work; I come in at around 6:15am. I do this because it gives me a good chunk of time before all the damned meetings start up, and it also means I get to leave earlier, and can have some daylight at home to do chores, etc.

But at 5:20am, going through the routine of ablutions and departure prep, I need that autopilot, and when my brain is silently stealing processing power to percolate on a problem, I end up with a broken routine. I forget to shave, or I forget my bus pass, or I leave my mobile on the credenza. At critical points in this book, I’ve had arrived at the bus stop only to turn around and go home because I’ve forgotten something critical.

This morning, as I was reaching into the medicine cabinet, I really didn’t have a clue what I needed to do next. Shave? Brush my teeth? What did I just do, and what comes next? Have I done everything I need to do?

As annoying as this is, it’s a good sign. And already the dam is starting to crack. I won’t give any clues away, but this is a transitional chapter in Beneath a Wounded Sky, and the way through it needs to feel right. I’ve already figured how all the characters are feeling at this point, and that’s a big hurdle; now I can start putting them in motion.

Now…where did I leave my pen?

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Obligatory Coffee Rant

24 Jul 2012 by KRAG

I live in Seattle, and we have a reputation for loving our coffee. I’m no different, however, I am not a purist by any means. I can’t tell if you brewed it with tap water or distilled water or filtered water or Artesian spring water, and unless your tap water is really awful, I bet you can’t either.

I have my favorite brands of coffee—Torrefazione Italia is the best I’ve had, but hard to find; Caffe D’arte is a close second, but not available in stores—but they’re so expensive that I only get them from a barista. For everyday brewing, I buy in bulk, try to get fair-trade beans of good quality, and grind it myself as needed in a good burr grinder.

But where I can make a huge difference is in the brewing.

I’ve tried almost every brewing method. I’ve tried brewing it cowboy-style in an open saucepan (toss in an eggshell to make the grounds sink), which I do not recommend, and for years we simply stuck with our standard drip-maker and a small Braun espresso machine.

On the more esoteric side, I’ve tried one of those vacuum-siphon brewers. Aside from the sheer coolness of watching it work, and the drama it imparts to the ritual cup of coffee, it only delivered a mildly better brew than standard drip coffee makers. High-maintenance to use, a bitch to clean, it also was so fragile that it broke after only a few days’ use; a disappointment, but not a tragedy, as I’d already made my decision that it wasn’t worth the trouble.

For pure outlandishness, I have also tried the Presso® espresso maker, which works solely on muscle power. A hand-pulled demitasse is pretty cool, and it cleans up pretty easily, too. It wasn’t expensive, and it’s very solidly built, so I’ll keep it around.

But, for the best cup of coffee you can brew, I say you can’t get better than the old-school, low-tech, tried-and-true method of the French press. We use a Freiling press (pictured top) that has double-sides of stainless steel, so it also acts as a thermal insulator, keeping the coffee warmer, longer. Put your burr grinder on “coarse” and brew up a cup. Steep it for 4 minutes (longer if you need a slice of coffee instead of a cup), keep the press on the table, and serve as needed. It is never bitter, never harsh. My wife, who gave up coffee because it upset her stomach, can drink it again, now that we brew it in the press.

Another win for low-tech!

k

Posted in Food, Low Tech, Seattle | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Percolation

24 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiNo, not coffee (though as a Seattleite, I have my opinions on that, too). Mental percolation.

Today, I pulled out my pen and pad, and read through the last bit I wrote yesterday. As I was reading I realized that I didn’t know where I had been taking the scene. Going further back, I read more. Still, no clue as to where I was going.

You might think that, after yesterday’s post about outlining techniques, I have it all down on paper, but even a detailed outline won’t tell you everything about a scene. I may have a five-page outline for this FC:V, with chapter breaks and notes on POVs, but there’s still a world of difference between that and the words and action in an actual chapter. The outline gives me the plot, but it doesn’t give me the subplots, the little “side trips,” or the variations from the original that pop up while I write a novel. It will give me the main characters and their general thoughts, but it won’t give me those subtle interactions or the conversational threads that are the fabric of the book.

In short, I knew where I was going, but didn’t know what road I had been paving to get there. 

Today, therefore, is a “percolation” day.

A percolation day is a day with more thinking than writing, where I remind myself throughout the day of where I want to go, and let my subconscious mull on the exact path I want to take.

It’s a strong tool. I use it to retrieve old memories (What’s that actors name?), figure out the answer to a question (Where are my keys?), or solve a problem (What is really happening in this scene?) It’s also a useful tool when I’m just starting to flesh out a story idea; percolation taps into creative processes that work best in the background, where the noise of language and logic is silenced, and where symbols and concepts can be swapped freely.

So, the pen and paper went away, and I pulled out my outline. I’ve changed a lot, as I’ve been writing Beneath a Wounded Sky, and have deviated from the outline at several points, but re-reading the original outline is still helpful. The original outline still has the excitement of that new idea, and the purest rendition of the roadmap I envisioned, so even after I hare off on a wild tangent, I can use that original outline to course-correct back toward the goal.

I’ll keep that outline at hand, today, and use it to keep the problem fresh in my mind. By this evening, then, I’m pretty sure I’ll know how I want to finish off this scene and close the chapter.

Percolation, baby…Percolation.

k

Posted in Fallen Cloud Saga, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Freewheelers and Tactitians

23 Jul 2012 by KRAG

I know, I know; it doesn’t have the same ring as Swoopers and Bashers, but when it comes to outlining, Freewheelers and Tacticians describe the two major approaches.

When I used to go to conventions, Freewheelers were the ones on the panel who would say something like, “I just put my characters into a situation and then I see what happens.” No outline, no synopsis, nothing like a roadmap. Just whip up some characters, plunk them into a dilemma, and off you go!

To its credit, Freewheeling is a very organic method of writing, and is very well suited to the “Swooper” technique. Plot twists are created on the fly, and ancillary characters pop up ad hoc. It’s a quick-start method and works like a charm for many, many writers. But its strength is also its weakness. In my discussions with Freewheelers, they’ve admitted that Freewheeling can lead them up dead ends where, despite their best efforts, they’ve essentially written themselves into a corner. In such situations, the Freewheeler has to throw out a large section of the work and go back to a pivotal point where they should have zigged instead of zagged.

As you can tell, I am not a Freewheeler. I am a Tactician, and I find the Freewheeling method bewildering.

Tacticians write outlines. Short story or Novel, if it has a plot, it has an outline. The level of detail in the outline can be pretty high, and Tacticians often have trouble knowing when to stop outlining and start writing. This method is as bewildering to Freewheelers as theirs is to me. “What do you mean, you know how it’s going to end before you start?” they ask. My response is always the same.

Ever read a book that just falls apart at the end? Where suddenly things happen in a blur or characters do something entirely out of, well, out of character? Or where the action just fizzles, as if the writer got bored and had to wrap it up? I’ve read plenty of books like that, and I’m pretty sure they were written by Freewheelers.

I want to know how my book ends before I start because I want to make damned sure that it’s got a good ending, from the start. Also, as a Basher, I don’t want to waste the time (or if under deadline, can’t afford the time) it takes to go back and rewrite two or three chapters when I end up in a literary cul-de-sac.

There is a hybrid method, though. I saw it in action, and I’ve adopted it for use in developing ideas and writing synopses for unwritten works. It’s called The Hardy Boys Outline, and it’s dead easy. Back in the old Hardy Boys books, chapters had a title that basically told you what was going to happen. You could read the chapter titles and get a really good idea of the entire plot. The Hardy Boys Outline is just that. Here’s how it works.

Jot down your character names and a phrase that describes them. Then start writing the chapter titles. For example, “On the Hunt for Jessie” or “Captured!” is all you write, and that’s what the chapter will be about. One colleague used to put them on yellow-stickies so he could rearrange them or pop a new one in between two others as he developed his plot.

I used this method to outline Books II-V in the Fallen Cloud Saga. It helped me define the arc of the series, and the scope of each novel. I went on to write a detailed outline of each book as I began them, but that’s me.

k

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

In Brief

20 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’ve never considered short stories to be a money-making proposition. The days of ten-penny-a-word venues for genre fiction are gone; you’re lucky to find even a penny-per-word, these days. But short stories are still a really good way to explore a new technique or try out an idea. Some of my novels were born directly from a short story, and many ideas I’ve used in novels I played with and refined in short stories.

But if I were to add up all the money I made from published short stories, I might have enough to buy a couple weeks’ worth of groceries. If you subtract all the money I spent on postage, paper, and ink, in trying to get them published, we’re talking about a fancy dinner out for four. That’s a lot of work for very little coin.

So, I’m bringing them online, where they can hopefully be read by more people than ever saw them in print.

Check out the Short Subjects page in the Writing section. I’ll be bringing more online as time permits.

k

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The Good, the Bad, the Idiotic

20 Jul 2012 by KRAG

There’s a lot of chatter on the blogs about bad reviews and what to do about them (like The Misfortune of Wondering). Bad reviews are a fact of writing life; they cannot be avoided. You’ll get them from critics, from readers, from family and friends, and at times, from fellow writers (those are the worst). But no matter the source, there is only one acceptable response.

What is that acceptable response? Well, it isn’t is to fire off a flaming bitch-fest where you call the reviewer an illiterate berk and question his paternity. Despite the immediate satisfaction this activity provides, it is definitely not the way to go. If you must, write it and then delete it.

However, neither is it acceptable to write a reasonable, point-by-point rebuttal to the critique, noting how this scene is obviously an allusion to Homer’s “The Odyssey,” depicting the character’s inner journey, and how your hero’s deformed limb is a device to mirror Richard III, which should be clear to anyone with an education. These refutations always come across as whiny and insecure (yes, pompous can and often does come across as insecurity).

In short, a response is never acceptable, because (a) you never convince the reviewer you’re right, and (b) because you (the writer) never appear in a good light. A response always makes the writer look silly, pedantic, immature, petulant, patronizing, or just plain stupid. There are as many reasons for a bad review as there are bad reviews. Some people just don’t like the sort of stuff you write. Some may like the genre, but just didn’t like the book. Some nitpickingly comb through any book and tag the writer for any flaw, real or imagined. Some reviewers, including a few professional ones, are bitter, small-minded people for whom tearing down someone else’s work is a way to make them feel better about themselves. And then there are some reviewers who have read the book, considered it with a well-educated mind, and simply found it to be flawed.

No book is perfect. No book will please every reader. No book is immune from the bad review. Just go out on Amazon; even the critically-acclaimed and best-selling titles have bad reviews. I’ve had bad reviews a-plenty. One reviewer panned my entire novel because of one perceived factual error (it wasn’t an error). Another reviewer panned me because he didn’t like the historical Custer, and didn’t want to read a novel with him as a character (this is substantive?) I’ve had bad reviews of every stripe, and responding to these bad reviews is futile, useless, and possibly career-damaging.

The only acceptable response is to read them and consider them. Just like you would consider the feedback from a fellow writer or a writers’ workshop, consider the feedback from a bad review. In both cases, the feedback may be meaningful; the reviewer may have touched upon a flaw you hadn’t seen before. If the feedback is valuable, use it; if not, dump it.

Here’s the crux: if someone doesn’t “get” something you wrote, if someone doesn’t understand that character’s motivation or what that scene really meant, then you screwed up, not the reader. The book is perfect in your head, but it’s never perfect on the page.

k

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My Mr. Fezziwig

19 Jul 2012 by KRAG

Alas, despite my new diet, some memes are unavoidable. This new one, with POTUS supposedly dissing businesses, has come at me from all angles. News, Facebook, emails, workplace chitchat…this argument has been carried into my personal sphere by almost every vector available.

Whenever I am faced with a diatribe, I first like to look into the source a little more. Then I like to give it a little think.

By looking into the source, the first thing I found was that, true to form, the anti-POTUS rank has snipped and clipped the video like an Elizabethan coin. They’ve taken the 5 seconds they want, the 5-second sound-bite they could really give a good spin, and tossed the rest. POTUS says: If you have a business…you didn’t build that.

Well, first, that’s not the exact quote, and second, if you back the clip up by just 2-3 seconds, you see that he’s talking about something else. Watch the whole clip and see if you don’t agree. What POTUS is saying is that hey, all these roads and bridges, if you own a business, all that infrastructure? You didn’t build that. But, of course, that doesn’t take a right-hand spin as well, so it was dropped.

So, all the arguments you hear are not about something POTUS meant, but about a segment of the idea he was presenting. Typical.

Second, by listening to the arguments that were made and giving it all a think, it was clear that what all the furor boils down to is a difference in how we perceive the individual.

Some people see individuals as an island, a rock standing up against the world. For these folks, a person who starts a business is solely responsible for its success or failure. Devil take the man who says otherwise, and to Hell with him who tries to chisel away at the financial gains because they sure as hell don’t share in the financial ruin. For these folks, it’s about the money, and that’s an end to it. They put up the money, therefore they get all the glory or all the notoriety. The math is simple.

Others (like myself), see individuals as part of a larger whole, a member of a society. For me, a person who starts a business is the impetus, but shares responsibility for success and failure with employees, regulatory bodies, and whatever customer base the business targets. And there is a different calculus that separates financial gain/loss with social gain/loss. A good business builds both financial gain and social benefit, grows with the help of the relationships it makes, and succeeds or fails depending on the value it provides. The math is complex.

I used to work for a man who, at the beginning of the “mission statement” era, said to us, “Our mission, our purpose here, is to be in business next year. Our goal is to keep us all employed.” He understood that, despite being the man who had the idea, the man who put up the money, we were all part of a team, a team that included his employees and his customers. We were a small society, providing mutual benefit. He recognized that though his financial risk was higher, we all shared in it. Employees trusted that their paychecks would clear, that the benefits would come through when needed, and that the pension funds wouldn’t be raided. He, in turn, trusted in us to do a good job, to work hard, and to give him value for our exchange. We all worked for the combined benefit. For his entrepreneurship, and for his higher risk, he got more of the gains, and none of us begrudged him that gain.

His goal wasn’t to make a pile of money and bail out with a golden parachute. His goal wasn’t to build his portfolio, or do whatever it took to ensure the dividends his investors demanded, even if it meant stripping companies or firing his domestic workforce. His goal was, simply, to provide income for himself and his family, to provide employment for others, and to provide a marketable service for his customers.

He was not working for himself. He was the owner, but he was not working for himself. We were all working together.

He was my Mr. Fezziwig, and I haven’t seen his like since.

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