This one goes around and comes around. I’ve never participated before. This time it comes via Patricia Burroughs and Pati Nagle. The sample is from the rough draft of a novel roughly completed a few weeks ago, which I’ll call WIP #1. I’m supposed to be revising and augmenting this now, but I’ve started another novel instead. 🙂

The Meme:
1. Go to page 77 (or 7th) of your current ms
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating.

Here’s mine:

“What languages were spoken there?”
“Laoan.”
“Is that like Chinese?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The cult that held you, did they stockpile weapons?”
“There was no cult. I wasn’t held. No one stockpiled weapons.”
“How did you get back to the US?”

Two days ago I started brainstorming a new novel, a near-future thriller. It’s a mash-up of some ideas that came to me while writing short stories, and of course there’s no guarantee that it will go anywhere. Maybe I’ll abandon it in a week. Also, I have doubts that a general audience will find this sort of book — if it turns out to be as I envision — credible, coming from someone with an old-fashioned, feminine name like mine. But whatever. I’m kind of excited about it because I’m seeing a lot of potential. So — onwards!

Back in early May I sat down, determined to do a quick read-through of the sort-of finished first draft of the current novel-in-progress. I seem to have gotten distracted when I was halfway done.

Well, there was the soft-launch of Book View Café’s new ebook store–that took some of my attention. And there was a short vacation to the Big Island. Oh, and there was a new short story that needed to be written.

Three weeks later, there’s no point in continuing where I left off reading, because what I’m trying to achieve is a complete overview of the story. So it’s back to the beginning for me. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you missed my prior post, there is a $2-off coupon for The Dread Hammer good at Book View Café. Please spread the word if you’re so inclined, and if you haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, well, now is a great time!

DAY 1: You really need to write a new short story. Don’t get anxious about it. It’s not going to be that hard. It’s the second in a series, after all. You know the protagonist and the story world. So just figure out a plot!

Yeah, okay. But I think today I should work on the website.

DAY 2: You really need to do some work on that story.

Okay, okay! I’ll do some brainstorming. Some random writing. That’s good, right? There! That’s like a thousand words, with ideas and everything! Good enough, for now.

You only spent an hour on it.

And your point is?

DAY 3: Go do some more brainstorming on the story. Develop those ideas you had yesterday. They’re good!

They are good. And random writing isn’t too hard. I can crank up my word count easily this way. Hold on, I need to check my email. Hey, I wonder if anybody responded to my post on facebook? Hey look, I’ve done two hundred words already. Only eight hundred to go. Why don’t more people talk to me on twitter? I am too working. How about if I set an alarm to go off ten minutes from now, and I won’t stop writing for those ten minutes, no matter what stupid ideas I type! Huh? You want me do another ten minutes?

DAY 4: Okay. You’ve got a lot of useful ideas from your brainstorming sessions. Now you need to put together a coherent backstory, so you understand what’s going on.

Can I write by hand?

Whatever works.

Okay, I’m writing by hand.

Are you done already?

DAY 5: That was a pretty good job bringing together the back story, and you’ve got a good grasp of the plot. But there aren’t any scenes. Let’s just see what happens if you try Write-or–

Noooo!

—Write-or-Die. It doesn’t matter what you write, just get some words down.

Okay, okay! There! Thirteen hundred words – though they’re not the right words.

Better than nothing.

DAY 6: Time for you to start the actual story.

I tried. I’m not getting anywhere.

Try this: break it down. Write out a goal, a theme, a concept, and then a short plot summary.

Uh, okay. Maybe I can do that…

Hey, it’s been a while. What are you doing?

I’m writing the story! As soon as I started on the plot summary, it just happened! I found myself writing the story, with scenes and everything! 2700 words!

Cool!

They’re not the right words.

Never mind.

DAY 7: Okay, you’ve got all the parts figured out, you’ve got everything you need to pull together a solid draft. Go for it!

I don’t feel like writing today. I AM trying! There. I did the opening. That’s the hardest part, right? And it’s enough for today.

DAY 8: Let’s pretend yesterday didn’t happen. Today you’re going to sit down and make this story real—

Leave me alone! I decided to take my laptop into a different room and now everything’s working. I know what I’m doing. I’m into it…

There! I’m done! A solid draft and it’s good! Whoa … did nine hours just go by?

Congratulations on finishing the draft! Tomorrow, you revise.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today I’m contemplating both what I want to work on next, and what I ought to work on next. I don’t really want to look back at my January 1st goals right now, because I suspect I’m drifting well off that track while also falling behind.

Once, I had great discipline and focus, and I would work on only one project at a time, refusing to consider another until the first was done. I don’t seem to work that way anymore. In theory flexibility is good, but I’m not so sure that’s true in this case…

…because right now I have four projects in mind – and that’s leaving out three others that I’ve contemplated working on.

First, what I ought to do: the novel I’ve been writing on and off since September now has a sort-of complete draft. I need to expand and revise until it’s sufficiently whole to hand off to a beta reader.

Next: Last fall I wrote a novelette set in The Nanotech Succession story world, and featuring the character Zeke Choy from The Bohr Maker. It’s scheduled to be published at Analog in the fall. I want to write two more stories involving Zeke, so it’s past time I tackled story #2.

Third, I want to start plotting another Puzzle Lands book.

And fourth, I want to start plotting an entirely new novel using some ideas developed in recent short stories, and see if that goes anywhere.

I post this stuff here because putting it out in public may provide some motivation for spending more time on writing and less on peripheral things.

One thing’s for sure though: * I Must Write Faster *

This week, “Nightside on Callisto” is available for reading online at Lightspeed Magazine — or you can listen to the podcast!

This is my first-ever story to be podcast, so it’s exciting.

Please check it out! And check out the great illustration by Galen Oara.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I stopped writing short fiction at the end of the last century, but last fall I took it up again. The second story I wrote, “Nightside on Callisto,” has now become my first original short fiction to reach publication since my 2000 Nebula-award winner.

This feels like a very significant milestone for me.

Look for “Nightside on Callisto” in the May issue of Lightspeed magazine, now available here as an ebook. Lightspeed is an innovative short fiction market. Please support them by purchasing a copy of the magazine!

Many science fiction and fantasy writers will agree when I say that it’s a lot easier to write about a fictional place, then to put a story in a real world, present-day setting. It’s true that in a fictional world you have to go to the trouble of making up the details, but as long as you’re consistent, who’s to say you haven’t got it right?

But when you set a story in the real world, readers expect your story world to have a sense of place that reflects reality—especially if they’re acquainted with the reality of your setting from personal experience.

If you live in the place where your story is set, no problem. You might even be okay if you’ve visited the place long enough to get a real sense of it, and to understand where things are, and what the local customs might be.

But what if you’ve never been to the place where your story is set? And what if lots of other people have been there? Then it gets scary. You’ll be eager to throw in details because details will give your setting a personality and a sense that it is real; but at the same time you’ll want to withhold every detail you can so that no one can catch you having the traffic moving the wrong way on a one-way street, or azaleas blooming when they don’t grow in that city. In the end, it will be a balancing act.

I might be especially sensitive to this issue of “sense of place” because I’ve lived nearly all my life in Hawaii. When writers who don’t live here set stories in Hawaii, their settings often ring false to me. Even among writers who do live here, it sometimes seems like they’re setting their stories in some shared, idealized, imaginary Hawaii, rather than the real thing.

So am I advising you not to set your story in some place unfamiliar to you? Not at all! My rule is, if you can pull it off, go for it. But if you do, consider having someone who does know the place take a look at your story before you finish the final draft.

Most of my novels have been set in made-up story worlds. The two exceptions are Tech-Heaven, which takes place mostly in California and parts of South America, and Limit of Vision, which takes place mostly in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. I felt pretty comfortable with the settings used in Tech-Heaven, but Limit of Vision was another matter entirely. I was worried. I did my very best to portray a realistic setting. I had some leeway, because the story is set a few decades in the future, within a rapidly changing country. Still—I’ve never been to Southeast Asia. I was taking bits of things I knew and brewing whole settings out of them. So I went looking for someone from Vietnam to read the manuscript for me, and I was lucky enough to find a student in the English department at the University of Hawaii. Working from her feedback, I adjusted a few odds and ends, and felt much more confident in the story I was telling.

My most recent venture into reality has been a short story set in Manhattan. I’ve been there, once, fifteen or twenty years ago. Not enough to give me a real feel for the place at all! So I ran this story past a native. I’ve learned some inconvenient things from her critique, and the story will need adjustments to do a better job of rendering a sense of place. But in the end it will be better for it.

Of course, getting-to-know-the-setting is a great excuse to travel. If only I could figure out how to finance that level of research…

The short story I talked about a few days ago has undergone some revision. It’s crept up in length (of course) and is now 5,900 words. I would have liked it shorter, but I’m not going to complain too much. It’s “done” to the extent that if I don’t rustle up a good beta reader in the next day or two, I’ll probably give in to the temptation to just send it off un-vetted.

The protagonist of this story is proving rather troublesome. He’s in my head, lobbying for his own novel now that I’ve messed up his nice life — and I have to admit I’m tempted, despite all the other projects I’m supposed to be working on.

Last night I finally put together a complete draft of a new short story, finishing around 1am–and given that I can almost never sleep past 6am, I’m tired!

The story has a very near-future setting. I won’t make any judgments yet on its quality–it’s much too soon for that–but I did enjoy working on it, and I’m pleased to have a first draft.

Since last fall I’ve written four stories. Two were set in preexisting story worlds, and they were fun, and fast to write. The other two, including this one, are set in original worlds with characters that I’m making up as I go, and writing them has been a battle.

So I guess I should write more stories set in the worlds I already know?

And on the second subject of this post, I’m still looking for reader reviews! If you missed my prior post, I’m trying to get to twenty Amazon reader reviews on both the Puzzle Lands books, The Dread Hammer and Hepen the Watcher. The review count is creeping up. As of this morning The Dread Hammer has six reviews and Hepen the Watcher has three, but I’ve still got a long way to go. If you do review the books, check in here and post a comment to let me know, and you could win more books!

Thanks for stopping by.