Category: creativity

On creating new characters midstream

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Okay, so Captain Will Dewar in Theadia is definitely not Space Pirate Captain Harlock, but the gif was too good to pass up, heh.

Anyway, I’m kind of stuck on how to write Dewar, as he’s a relatively new character unlike nearly everyone else in the novel. But in the process, I’m reminded that this also happened back when I was writing A Division of Souls; originally Christine Gorecki was merely a name of an old friend that Poe mentioned during a tense moment to ease Caren’s distress. By The Persistence of Memories she’d acquired a major role.

So why Dewar, anyway? Again, he was originally a one-off, someone mentioned in passing during a conversation between a few flight captains, someone known as being gruff and not entirely friendly but someone who could be trusted. As it happens in this particular revision/rewrite, I need to expand his role as someone willing to take extremely dangerous chances in order to help the main characters achieve their goals.

But who is he when he’s not in uniform? What kind of civilian would he be? Well, I kind of see him a bit like Alan Ritchson’s take on the Jack Reacher character: ridiculously well-built, surprisingly intelligent, yet a bit of a quiet loner. He’s not all that easy to rile up, but you don’t want to be in the same area when he is. I wouldn’t say he has a strong sense of justice, but more like a strong drive to ensure the right thing is done, and done correctly the first time. He craves competence.

All this thought and brainstorming, just for a secondary character! Well, this is why I loved writing the Bridgetown trilogy so much: every character in that universe has a backstory and a reason for being there, and that’s exactly the kind of writing work I love doing. [Why yes, I’m definitely anti-AI when it comes to creativity, why do you ask?] While I do have some idea of who Dewar is and what he’s about, I’m still a bit vague on his reasons for being who he is and why he does what he does, and how he relates to the other characters.

Well, that’s something I’ll need to keep plugging away on, isn’t it?

Theadia and…Knitting?

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It was supposed to be a one-off joke that most likely wouldn’t have made it into the finished version, but somehow it’s become an all-encompassing theme within this project. And to be honest, I’m totally fine with that because it works perfectly!

Theadia has numerous knitting and crafting references littered throughout. The three main military space ships we see are pins (small one-person fighters that serve as the front lines), needles (two-seaters working as artillery) and stashes (boxy, bulky troop transporters). The main setting is a well-off planet and space station called FairIsle (named after the Shetland island known for its knitting) and the planet’s central capital is Beam City (a weaving tool). And so on.

So why knitting, anyway? Well, originally it was a nod to A’s craft projects — she’s made numerous scarves, fingerless gloves, toys and baby clothes over the years, and that’s her creative outlet while mine has been writing. Something we both enjoy immensely even when we’re doing something else like listening to music or watching TV, or more more recently, even despite the constant and sometimes destructive interruptions of our cats!

The more I leaned on this little in-joke, the more I realized that it was a perfect metaphor for the project itself: every single event is interwoven with something else that happens elsewhere. Whether it’s a character’s refusal to act or another’s fearless action that changes the course of history, their actions are not just about their own world.

Reminding myself that weaving is the main structure of this entire project is what’s helping me in this new revision/rewrite. Whatever new scenes I’m working on have to not just tie in (har har) with the plot in general, but have to, in some way or another, cause or influence a change down the road. So by the time we’re near the end of the story, we have a whole tapestry of events going on about to lead to something unexpected yet extremely important.

Not bad for a one-off joke, yeah?

[EDIT: Yes, I am aware that the header gif I used is actually crocheting and not knitting. It was the one I found online that looked best! Heh.]

On being unconventional

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I’ve said this before: Theadia is an unconventional hard-SF story. It’s not entirely about the spaceships or the combat or the high levels of tech intelligence. It’s more about the characters that are put into that world, whether they want to be there or not. I’ve also said this before as well: Theadia is about doing the right thing when no one else is bothering. But what it’s not is completely uber-serious or heavy on the military grimdark and the perils of deep space.

I love writing unconventional stories. They appeal to me and my mindset. I mean, come on: I’ve been listening to indie music since the mid 80s. My favorite stories are the ones that don’t go in the direction you expect. I’m a sucker for books and movies where you can tell the writers did their homework in weaving the plots in all sorts of unexpectedly creative ways. It only makes sense that my own writing leans the same way.

While I’ve been talking about how Theadia‘s sprawl is somewhat similar to the Mendaihu Universe, I’d say characterwise it’s more similar to the Meeks sisters in In My Blue World. There’s certainly a huge world out there (in this case a galaxy) but the story is mainly about these main characters I’m writing. I always love the idea of that dichotomy: a tight focus within a larger landscape. To me it gives the background life, and in the process our leads get to act or react accordingly to it.

I suppose this is partly why I’m still an indie author that’s self-publishing rather than going the pro route. I may have once had rose-tinted dreams about getting my novels released by a big name publisher, but the more I thought about it over the years, the more I realized that avenue felt more restrictive to my own creativity. I don’t know how to write commercial fiction, let alone genre fiction that would sell commercially, and I’m not sure if I’d be able to succeed if I managed to learn.

I just write what I enjoy the most, regardless as to whether it’s highly popular or not. And I’m quite happy with taking that unconventional route.

Artificial…?

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(Image courtesy of Ghost in the Shell)

I’ve been reading a few social media or blog posts lately opining how AI has infested many creative fields like invasive critters, taking all the fun and the jobs from those who’ve been in the field for ages doing the actual lo-fi work the hard way.

You can always tell the pro-AI people: they have this weird salesperson optimistic shine to them, telling you how awesome it is to be able to create a novel — a whole freaking novel, even if you’ve never written one before! — just by typing in a few prompts! You can even put in a few more prompts and get a cover! You put in the ideas, the computer does all the hard work! It’s awesome! You’ll have more time for raising more bitcoin!

Oddly enough, they remind me of my worst ever job as a telemarketer at a call center, trying to sell toll-free 800 numbers back in the early 90s. Trying to push something that ninety percent of your targets don’t want, hoping that ten percent will think this is the Best Idea Ever, and you’ve made your sale. [And now you just need to get ten more in the next three hours so you can keep your job.]

It also reminds me of Virtual Reality. Remember that, from the early 90s? It was supposed to be the Next Big Thing then, back with all those crisp images that made the internet under the hood look like an amazing science fictional universe, and we’d all be Johnny Mnemonic with Thompson Eyephones, flying through digital space and opening up files and hacking through firewalls with disembodied computerized hands. Never mind that the real under the hood looked…less so. More 8-bit than CGI, really.

There’s something not entirely real about it all. Not exactly Uncanny Valley unreal, but more like you can definitely tell the difference between the messy and tactile yet endlessly fascinating real world, and the AI world that’s just a tiny bit too shiny and perfect but not quite working to spec in small yet obvious ways.

I’m reasonably sure that this too shall pass, just like VR did, just like those smart glasses and other fiddly bits of hardware that get a huge sales push and vanish a year or so later. They won’t go away, I think…they’ll still have their uses here and there. They just won’t be sold as The Latest Tech Toy You Must Own. The overwhelming reaction of AI art has been a resounding ‘meh’ from most non-tech people anyway, and most artists are pissed off about it for obvious reasons. And as a writer myself? I’m secretly laughing that most AI-created stories are easily spotted, absolutely terrible and lacking any kind of humanity within its pages. We’ll still have a few people trying to make a fast buck by generating a handful of these, but they’re few and far between and they’re not doing as well as they think they are.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used a few low scale AI art generator websites now and again, just for the fun of it, just to see what it does and what level it’s at. If it wants to stay, I think it still has a long way to go. It might create an eye-catching picture…but with colors slightly too pastel, the smile a bit too Aphex Twin, minor but crucial details completely missing, or perhaps an extra limb or finger bending in strange ways. Plus, it currently takes up a huge fuckton of processing power that’s not healthy for the environment.

We’re still better off going old-school and doing the hard work, even if it does take a bit longer and sometimes costs money, to be honest. The end results are still much more pleasing and long-lasting.

Days away from social media

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(Art source unknown, but borrowed from this Medium article)

It’s been a little less than two months since I closed down my Twitter feed, and I can’t say I’ve missed it all that much. Sure, I still pop in from time to time for a minute or so, just to ensure I don’t lose access and to check in on those I follow who aren’t online elsewhere, but other than that, I stay well away.

I’m still on Bluesky and Threads, but even then I don’t stay for too long. Again, maybe for a minute or so. I spend more time with my east coast friends on our shared Discord, to be honest. My Instagram these days are mostly pictures of our cats Jules and Cali. Weirdly enough, the most time I’ll spend on social media is to watch some lawn care reels on Facebook, because they’re a lot of fun and surprisingly calming to watch.

That was the whole point of this detox, really…it wasn’t to take a vacation away from social media but to recalibrate my brain so I’m no longer beholden to it. I still feel like I could better use my time during breaks at work, but I’m not really beating myself up over it. I feel less stressed out, for starters. I feel less inclined to give into a daily rage about whatever nonsense is going on in the world. I’ve found a healthier social balance and I’ve decided I’m going to stay there for a while.

Does this give me more time for writing? Sure! I’ve been doing a lot of world building work for Theadia during breaks and slow times at work. I can get through a good chunk of revision work on Queen Ophelia’s War on a daily basis. I can zip through my daily 750Words. All this, and still have a bit of time left over to relax with non-creative fun things! Time management for the win!

End of year review – future inspiration

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[Image courtesy of Saekano]

If there’s one thing that always worries me about writer’s block, it’s that I’m terrified that I’ll lose interest and nothing will inspire me to write. Outside inspiration has often been a big driver for me: coming up with In My Blue World while listening to ELO, Meet the Lidwells! from reading a ton of music biographies, and so on. But sometimes I’ll go through a spell of nothing quite resonating with me, and I always find that worrying. It’s like I want to write, but I don’t know what to write about.

I mean, it’s not as if something has to completely inspire me, far from it. But the issue, I think, is that it would often tie in with my state of mind at that moment. I’ve had low points in my life where I just stopped writing for months at a time. I’ve had busy points in my life where I just didn’t have the time. I’ve had rebounds where I was ready to write again yet had to relearn how to do it to my own satisfaction.

In writing Diwa & Kaffi, however, I realized that waiting for inspiration to strike might be good if you’re surrounded by that well, but sometimes you just have to push through and find it for yourself. Allow yourself to latch onto something unexpected. Stretch out and get out of your comfort zone a bit and see what resonates. I never thought I’d write a space opera but here we are with a nearly-complete story entitled Theadia. I never thought I’d write a romcom but that seems to be on the docket for 2024.

And that’s what I’m planning to do in the new year: go some place I haven’t been before, just to see what happens.

Creative…privilege?

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So some AI-leaning techbro this week posted something on social media about artists, writers, musicians, etc., having the unfair advantage of “creative privilege” because they allegedly came to their craft with some gods-given blessing, and it’s unfair that the rest of the non-creative world has to actually, y’know, work at it, and it’s all unfair that we creatives have that advantage.

Or something like that. Either way, he’s currently getting roasted in response.

I’ll be honest, my first reaction to this complaint was that it kind of reminded me of high school. It reminded me of being a non-sports kid in a school where most extracurricular funding went to the boys’ football team, no teacher wanted be an advisor for school plays so there weren’t any, and the funding and printing for the school newspaper got pulled the year before. So me, my friends Kevin and Kris, and a few others, decided to use our creative privilege to edit and put it out ourselves, using Pagemaker on the school’s Mac and the gracious help of the printing class teacher who ran a few hundred copies off on printer paper and collated them for free. We used our creative privilege by figuring out a workaround and doing most of the work ourselves. Sort of self-publishing it, in a way. And it was a success! We kept it going the entire year on a consistent basis, got several other students to write articles, and kept it alive when no one else bothered.

If there’s such a thing as creative privilege, it’s the ability to move past roadblocks and obstacles. There’s no One Right Way or One Weird Trick They Don’t Want You To Know to do it either, because it’s different for everyone. It’s what works for you, and it’s most definitely not just about finding shortcuts, either. Running a complicated algorithm that essentially mashes up other people’s creative works and then slapping your own name on it is a shortcut, and a dishonest one at that. Figuring out your own style and voice takes hard mental and emotional work, and you need to put in that work, because those who see the end result can definitely tell the difference.

A good example: remember those music mashups of the early 00s? Some of them were amusing and entertaining, and I have a collection of them in my music library. But there’s a big difference between what’s known as the “A + B” mashup (one song over the other with minimal separation or creativity) and the actual DJ mixing (seamlessly sliding one song’s separated vocal lines onto the instrumental of another song). This so-called “AI art” and “AI writing” is, for the most part, the former. And it’s not artificial intelligence, despite the label it’s been given. The computer is merely running software and mashing up different parts the user chose, that’s all; any ‘mixing’ is also the computer doing a bit of barebones touch-up. And yes, you can definitely tell the difference.

So my answer? Sure! I’ve got creative privilege, and I’m proud of it because I worked hard for years at it! I may not be raking in the money and the prestige, but I’m still getting the occasional ebook sale and that’s pretty damn cool in itself. That’s all I’ve really wanted.

And I’m sure you can make it happen as well. You just need to do more than run an algorithm, have the computer do the mashup work, and say ‘there, it’s done’.

Ready to go again

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I’ve been away from my WIPs for quite a long time, to be honest. Longer than I’d planned, but I’m okay with that. I had my reasons. But now I’m ready to get back behind the keyboard and set off on another adventure.

It just so happens that I finished up another one of my Great Reread sessions of my own work (for sequel-idea or WIP-finishing purposes) as of last Saturday evening. I finished the session with the Bridgetown Trilogy primarily to psych myself up for writing MU4, and in hindsight that was a good idea. The current version of MU4 that I’m working with resonates with the previous three novels yet stands on its own quite well, and that’s exactly what I was hoping for.

And what about the other projects? Right now I have Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War on the front burners, and Sheila Take a Bow and Walk in Silence (the book) on the back burners. And I’m fine with that. I’m not worried about not having anything brand spanking new to work on — I think I’ve finally grown out of that particular hang up. I have the stories I want to tell, and I’m ready to start writing them. And if anything new does eventually come along, well, that’s what the 750Words site is for, right?

This also means I’m ready to start reading books again! Yay! I’ve finally gotten past the reading burnout and the indifference of my TBR pile, and I’m looking forward to catching up with what I have. And I’m also looking forward to looking for new titles again, something I haven’t done in quite a while. I don’t get that burnout all that often, but I’m glad in the knowledge that when it does happen, it doesn’t last for all that long.

I’m ready to go again, and I can’t wait!

Getting started…eventually

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It’s occurred to me that one of the reasons I haven’t been doing any writing work lately — I mean, aside from focusing on the blogs and some Walk in Silence (the book) work — is that I’ve been working on rewiring my head a bit.

I’ve written here before, many times, that I’ve been too easily and willingly distracted by online things: social media, videos, comics, music, and so on. Over the course of this year I’ve been working on fixing that, and I think I’m finally at the point where I have it all under control. I’m not really giving any of it up, I’m just no longer being passive about it. I’ve been here before, I just want to make it last longer this time out.

So what about these new projects that are just…sitting there, doing nothing? Well, that’s a good question. And I have a plan that I hope will work. It might be a Best Laid Plan or it might actually work, but hey, at least it’s a plan: continue with the compartmentalization strategy.

I’m not assigning myself work here, which is the trap I’ve fallen into before. No, this is merely part of the job of being a writer. So for instance, say I have my first ten minute break of the day at work: my current habit is to head to the break room, have a snack, and screw around on my phone for a few minutes reading social media until it’s time to go back. Sure, it might be just fine on its own…it’s a bit of mental relaxation during a busy day, right?

I’m trying to break myself out of that. Mainly because I’m personally bored with the habit. It doesn’t do much for me anymore. [I mean, unless A texts me a picture of one of our cats. That’s always worth it.] I think about my other coworkers: some of them head outside to the upper parking deck. Some of them do a bit of reading or texting or chat with friends who are also on break.

My plan before was to change it up and go straight into writing something longhand. Hell, I even have a small notebook that fits perfectly in my jacket pocket! But once I’m on break….? Nothing comes. I’m right back there, futzing around online. Which means that I haven’t quite mastered the approach. What I need to do is prepare myself for that ten minute writing session! So how about this: let’s say I’m scheduled for that ten minute break at 10am. So to prepare for that, I can think about what I want to write at that time by, say, 9:45. A fifteen-minute prep time while I’m ringing up customers. I can definitely think about my writing while at the register, I’ve done it loads of times. So by the time I do go on break, I’m ready and prepared to pull out that notebook and do a bit of work!

To change it up, why not change the setting as well? Go up on the roof, head outside, go somewhere for that ten minutes. And I’m sure that by the time I get this preparation down, I can use all that extra time during my half-hour lunch using the same process to add to the word count.

Will it work? Well, who knows? But it’s worth a shot, right?

Once more in B-Town

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So I’m caught up with the rereads of my current WIPs and I’m ready to get started on the rewrites and revisions of those, which leaves me with one last major task: to reread the Bridgetown Trilogy once more to prepare myself for writing MU4.

Thoughts so far:
–That first chapter with Nehalé Usarai holds up really well after all these years. I love that it hints at the ‘slow build’ of the entire trilogy: quiet and static at first, and slowly growing in intensity and ‘volume’ until the end where you’re left breathless and with a feeling of ‘oh shit this is not going to go well for a lot of people in this city, is it’. I wrote it that way on purpose.
–Sure, the introduction of Caren and Denni uses the classic ‘waking up from a bad dream’ trope, but my writing has been all about using those kinds of tropes and twisting them in different directions. They were not dreaming but visiting their separate lumisha dea — their place of spiritual inner peace — and the visits were not so peaceful this time out. I was lucky in that by 2015 I was intimately aware of the ins and outs of this trilogy so I knew how to make tropes work to my advantage.
–Would I change anything, years later? Maybe? I think I could have beefed up a few character descriptions here and there, maybe make a few of them more dynamic, and fix a few grammar and word choice mistakes, but storywise? Nope. I’m definitely proud of this work. I did exactly what I wanted to do with it and I’m thrilled with the results.

One of the reasons why I return to this universe is that I simply love being within it. It’s the one where I spent this much time, energy and thought: unique characters, detailed maps, an alien language, a spiritual belief system, even a way to travel long distances. It was my own take on the science fiction genre, and I saw it as a way to have fun with the creative process. I could take as deep a dive into it as I wanted, and I certainly did, many times over. And I knew that once The Balance of Light was done, I’d be done with the trilogy…but not necessarily the universe itself. I always knew I’d come back to it, one way or another.

Once I’m done with the trilogy, I’ll of course read what I have so far of MU4 and go from there. I’ll most likely have a much better grasp of what I want to do with it, and what I should do with it.