This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two (one remaining) short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 3 Result
Nothing to brag about this week. There is a persistent “romantic” myth that the best art is made by suffering artists. In my own experience and in discussion with others I’ve found this to be utterly untrue. For myself, when confidence flags, so does my work, both in quality and quantity. This was not a week filled with confidence, and my productivity reflects that. So it goes.

Goal 1:
The bright point this week was that after quite a bit of struggle, a scene took an unexpected turn giving me fresh insight on what-is-going-on. In other words, a minor breakthrough. Even so, my feeling as I sat down to write this progress post was that I had added very little to the manuscript. As it turns out, my progress was better than I thought. I have now added 13,640 words to the manuscript out of my 20,000 word goal. That’s 68%, and time-wise I’m at the halfway point, so there is still hope.

Goal 2:
Nothing accomplished here! I was determined to make progress on the novel before tackling a new short story…and I got stuck on the novel. I’ll try to do better in Week 4.

I find that each new writing project is a challenge, as I try to figure out again the process of creating a story.

Back at the end of April I set out to write a short story in one of my preexisting story worlds. I had no characters, no plot, no theme. So I did brainstorming sessions, and I tried writing bits of story just to see what might be there. Eventually I had a complete draft. I’m never quite sure how this happens, and it doesn’t always happen, but it did this time. 9900 words. Much longer than I’d hoped, but it was the first story I’d managed to finish this year, so that was something.

I sent it off for critique, got comments back that were mostly minor and full of encouragement — and then I didn’t look at the thing for a month because… I don’t know why.

When I finally started working on it again, things went in an unexpected direction. My tendency is to underwrite first drafts, so second drafts are always longer, but this story was the opposite. One comment from the beta reader was that the opening pages could be shortened, so that’s where I started and, painlessly, just by striking out excess wordage — an excess that had become suddenly obvious — the story was 500 words shorter. So I went through the entire manuscript and did a similar prune, striking out phrases and sentences. This took it down to around 9200 words.

Next I started looking for scenes to cut. Right away I found one that was clearly unnecessary. It involved a subplot/problem that contributed to a character’s difficulties without contributing in a meaningful way to the climax of the story. So I reduced it to a sentence and got rid of a few hundred words.

I found two or three places with repeated information and consolidated those.

I found a short scene that existed just so I could convey one piece of information. That information could be easily communicated in one sentence of dialog in a different scene, so that’s what I did.

I trimmed and trimmed and trimmed, one or two words at a time, and the story didn’t suffer for it. It got better. And of course not everything involved cutting words. I added them as needed to clarify character and motives, but the net word count kept dropping.

The last one hundred words were really hard, but I finally found a two-sentence paragraph that had been made irrelevant by my revisions. When that was gone, I only needed to get rid of a few more words, and then I was done. I’d brought the story down to my goal of 8000 words.

This is the first time I can remember cutting a story this hard, which just goes to show that every story is different. I’ve got at least three more that I want to write this year, along with finishing the novel. I have no idea how I’ll manage any of it, but that’s always the case.

I guess I’ll know when I get there.

This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two (one remaining) short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 2 Result
Way back in May I wrote a novelette, which I then ignored for all of June and into July, but on July 4th — perhaps because I had just sent a story off to market and felt inspired — I started working on the revision. My goal was to cut it from 9900 words to 8000 words, and after working on it for all of July 4th and most of July 5th, I managed to do that, ending up with a much stronger story. But none of this effort counts toward my Clarion goals!

So…

Goal 1: This was an odd but ultimately successful week for the novel. From Sunday through Wednesday I did several brainstorming sessions, blocking out much of the action and dialog in an extremely rough and nonlinear form. Then on Friday evening and for most of Saturday I worked on making those scattered pieces coherent. The end result? I have now added 9,135 words to the manuscript out of my 20,000 word goal. 46% in two weeks, which is an excellent pace for me.

Goal 2: I spent time brainstorming a short story which may be the second short story I do for the write-a-thon. But I also blocked out the basics of a project that will likely be a novella, and which I’m very excited about — but that project will have to wait until after the write-a-thon.

This was originally posted on Independence Day 2013, but in this tainted year of 2017 it’s more important than ever to recall the sentiments in these images, so I’m pinning this post to the top of my blog. Happy Fourth of July!

In early May I visited Washington DC for the first time. It was a fantastic trip, and though I still haven’t managed to blog on it, I thought I’d post a few photos to celebrate the Fourth of July.

From the Roosevelt Memorial

From the Jefferson Memorial

…and another from the Jefferson Memorial.

At the Jefferson Memorial

This year I’m participating for the first time in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, which runs from June 23 through August 2. The goal of the Write-a-thon is to raise awareness of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, along with money that will go toward funding next year’s workshop. Participating writers set their own writing goals and strive to meet them; supporters provide moral support and a donation if they can. If you’d like to donate, please visit my participant page.

Writing Goal 1: add 20,000 words to the “The Red: Trials,” my novel-in-progress.

Writing Goal 2: Have two short stories in solid draft. Short is a keyword. Novelettes don’t count.

Week 1 Result
On June 22, one day before the official start of the write-a-thon, I finished the draft of a short story. I’m bending the rules a bit, and calling that the first of the two short stories, so I’m already 50% of the way to Goal 2! Wednesday and Thursday mostly went toward polishing this story. I’m going to have one more reader look at it, but hope to send it to market Monday or Tuesday.

And the novel? Well…on June 17 I finished the first major section of the story, and then realized my outline was wildly out of date, and that I had only the fuzziest idea of what would happen next. So progress stopped while I considered everything, and contemplated, and brainstormed, and worked on other projects. That process continued through most of this past week. Then on Friday I put together a new style of outline for the next two sections of the book. This clarified things, and I was suddenly able to start writing again. Friday and Saturday combined produced 3600 new (albeit rough) words, 18% of my goal.

I have a strong suspicion I’ll be cutting a lot of wordage out of this section on second draft. This is rare for me. I tend to underwrite the first draft, not overwrite. But for now the object is to get a complete first draft, so…onward!

Cover art for “Through Your Eyes” by
Dallas Nagata White (click image to view large version)

Update: July 19, 2013
This promotion has ended, but the ebook is presently available for purchase at Mythic Island Press LLC for $1.25.

My short story “Through Your Eyes” was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction‘s April/May 2013 issue. It’s never been generally available — until now.

“Through Your Eyes” is a prequel story to my newest novel, The Red: First Light. Right now, I’m offering an ebook copy to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter.***

To get your copy, just fill in your email address and a name in the “New Book Alerts” form at the top of the righthand column, or if you’re using a feed that doesn’t show the column you can go here to fill in the form.

After you submit the form, you’ll get an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Once you do that, you’ll get a thank-you email that includes the web address where you can download both EPUB and MOBI (Kindle) versions of the “Through Your Eyes” ebook, which also includes an excerpt from The Red: First Light Note that it usually takes ten or fifteen minutes for this email to arrive.

My newsletter doesn’t go out very often. Generally I send it when I have new publications to announce, so you won’t be spammed. I hope you’ll sign up. It’s the best way I’ve found to stay in touch with readers.

*** The download is also available to current subscribers. An email has been sent explaining how to get it. If you’re a subscriber and didn’t get the email, please check your spam folder.

I’ve been running some online advertising for The Red: First Light. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried this, and for this book I think it’s been a worthwhile exercise. If you noticed the ad, PLEASE let me know in the comments, and if you remember where you saw it, I’d like to know that too. I’m really curious, about it because I know that we (me) tend to use the “mental ad block” so that we just don’t see what’s there.

Anyway, I was talking to my daughter, Dallas Nagata White, a few days ago. She looked at the ad, clicked on it, and was not remotely impressed with my landing page, which was just the page on my website that talks about the book. She felt the page didn’t convey anything about the feeling, the flavor of the book. I think my response was something along the line of, “Yep, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t really have time to do anything.”

Then out-of-the-blue last night Dallas called me up and said she’d created a digital painting to be the background of a new landing page. Given that I have only a few days left on my current ad run, and that I wanted to see if a new landing page had any effect on sales, I put aside what I was working on and dove into designing the page layout. It went up at midnight. Take a look at it here. It’s more spectacular anyway!

Like nearly everyone else, I have no idea what it takes to sell books — but I’m willing to try new things.

Please let me know if you’ve noticed the ad!

This is a press release from Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates. They’re getting the word out on an upcoming anthology of military science fiction. If you’re a writer interested in contributing, there will be an open submissions period. If you’re a reader interested in the range of military science fiction, stay tuned!

Since 2001, the role of the military around the world has drastically changed as conflicts have raged in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The decade long war on terror has highlighted changes in how war is conducted, and the violence has impacted millions of soldiers, civilians and families across the world. Yet, in the United States, the general public and those who serve rarely cross paths: only a small fraction of the population protects the country and fights on their behalf. As the soldiers return home, it’s vital that we understand what they did, and why it matters.

War Stories, co-edited by Andrew Liptak and Jaym Gates, will be an anthology of military science fiction, containing stories that emphasize the cultural, social, political and psychological repercussions of modern war. The anthology has been acquired by Jason Sizemore’s Apex Publications and will be funded through a Kickstarter campaign.
Read the rest of this entry »

I missed Patty Jansen’s post when it came out at the start of May, but finally discovered it today, and recommend it if you’re interested in a thoughtful look at hard science fiction. The post is called “There are girl cooties on my space ship — on women writing hard SF.”

I’m not a fan of the term “girl cooties” because, going by my personal experience, it vastly over-simplifies a complex dynamic in the hard SF genre. That said, Patty had a good reason for using it. Her post starts with a description of her encounter with an editor who admitted he was reluctant to consider a hard SF novel written by a woman: “I hate to say that, but yeah, that is a problem”

(My own hard SF novels were sold at or before the turn of the century — a different age.)

But beyond this experience, Patty has a lot more thoughts on the subgenre, including the very thing I’ve gotten so agitated about lately:

Books are about people and the perception that hard SF is only about tech and not about character is rubbish.

Absolutely.

There is also blunt discussion on the gender ratio of hard SF readers, which leads to this:

A book that doesn’t sell fails to reach the right audience, never mind the gender. How about we stop trying to push books to the same old, same old group who supposedly don’t read women, and try to engage a general audience? In other words, pull the space ship that is hard SF into the garage and give it an overhaul. Get rid of the retro shit. There is certainly none in any of my books.

I strongly believe that if you want to sell a broader range of hard SF you need to step outside the current narrow audience with the narrow marketing messages.

This is an interesting point to me because, you know, marketing. The idea, in part, is that most hard SF books have “gendered” covers that say “this is for dudes.” So take a look at my books — the covers are there on the left; scroll down to see them all. With the exception of The Red: First Light I don’t think they’re aimed at a particular gender — and of course they don’t exactly sell in great quantity either.

So now I’ve got something else to cogitate on. There will be more to come on the subject of hard SF, but in the meantime, do go read Patty’s post.

For no particular reason, I’m putting The Dread Hammer ebook on sale for $2.99 until the end of the week — but only at my webstore.

The Dread Hammer is a fantasy novel, but it’s not “fat.” The print version comes in at a spare 214 pages, so no long-term commitments here! But if you like this one, there is a second book, Hepen The Watcher.

Here’s one reviewer’s conclusion about The Dread Hammer:
“It is the amount of heart this book has that really sells it for me. It is a book that falls into the gritty fantasy label for sure, but with a certain amount of sweetness.” —Fantasy Review Barn

And from an enthusiastic reader:
“Richly developed characters drive the action of the novel and lend it the feel of an epic fantasy without the page count. The book’s hero, Smoke, is an almost mythic figure: complex, powerful, and conflicted. Smoke’s relationships are filled with turmoil, passion, and deeply human moments. Smoke’s vulnerability serves as an excellent contrast to his power.” –Jared Nelson

Find the book on sale here. Scroll down to read the opening.