Category: On Writing

Acceptable Terminology

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One thing I’ve been doing with Theadia is playing around with the terminology of things. Considering it takes place at some unknown point in the far future, I’ve decided that I’m going to experiment with some technological terms so that perhaps some of it is anachronistic while other terms are more generalized.

Computers, for example will rarely be referred to as ‘computers’ (the term just feels so 80s in my head even though it’s universal these days) but rather as things like databases, tablets and monitors. The same with phones; the tech has changed just enough in my story that I don’t see them using cell phones as we know them, but more like mini-tablets as we do know them. They don’t take a call but answer hails. My terminology is supposed to hint at familiar devices that have slightly different names and appearances than what we’re normally familiar with. And to be more nerdy: the internets are less about websites and social media (though they do exist here) and more about useful connection points to what you want or need to do at that moment. And yes, that does in fact include reading social sites and reading news feeds. The same, just slightly different. [Part of this is to underscore the way our two heroes view their work and what will happen to them in this story; the tl;dr is that their jobs are such that they understand what’s under the hood here and see their tech in that way.]

Do I really need to do this? Well, not exactly, but it’s part of my worldbuilding that I enjoy playing around with. I did the same with the Bridgetown Trilogy — there were cars (‘transports’) but there were also driverless lorries and such. It’s just part of the background color that makes the story a bit more real and intriguing.

Hrrmm…

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Yeah, I think I’m more than a bit out of practice when it comes to writing bigger stories. It’s been far too long since I’ve written in this style, I think. But I’m being patient and hoping that it all works out eventually. It’ll come back to me.

Over this past week I’ve been trying to write an all-new chapter for Theadia that introduces an important secondary character, but I know that this very rough draft is coming out a little, well…rough. I know I could do better, and I’m thinking I might need to give this another go-round before I move on to the next chapter. I think I’m more annoyed that my word count plummeted to about three hundred words a session when usually they’re an easy eight hundred or so. [It doesn’t help that I’ll find myself easily distracted by music and, er, blogging things like this.] But I’m not giving up.

I’m reminding myself that I’ve been in this situation several times in the past, where my word count can fluctuate at any point in time, where I might struggle to get a single scene done one day and breeze through another one the next. It’s just how the writing biz is. And no, I’m not going to use AI to help me, as this is actually my favorite part of writing! Heh.

I’ll get through it, one way or another.

More on not holding back

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The last time I talked about this sort of thing was four years ago in this entry, but a lot of things have changed in my life since then. I wrote that entry in the first year of the pandemic, about a year after I’d been forced into heading thirty miles west into the office, ten months after I’d originally come up with the idea for Theadia, and six months after I quit that former day job.

Reason I bring it up is that I’ve been talking with some coworkers at the current Day Job about personal things and surprisingly they all say that I’m probably the most got-their-shit-together person they’d ever met. Which is kind of mind-blowing, considering my past. Ask me how I was four years ago, and I’d say that I was in a much better place than I’d been even a few years before that, but I still had a hell of a long way to go.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I work on the Theadia rewrite, because I’m once again at the point where I feel I’ve still been holding back. I’ve just gotten so used to doing it over the last couple of decades for varying reasons. Getting my emotions under control, ensuring my mental and emotional health (and in the process my physical health) was no longer going haywire because I’d just been reacting to everything for most of my life.

So now I’m thinking: yeah, maybe it’s time to trust myself a bit. Far past time.

What does this have to do with my writing? I think it’s that I’ve always felt that my payoffs weren’t as grand as I want them to be. I mean, other than the epic roundup at the end of The Balance of Light where the fate of everyone is held in the hands of two characters, Denni and Saisshalé. I love my books but there’s always this feeling that I could have gone so much further with them plot-wise. Raised the stakes more. Sometimes I feel my personal avoidance of conflict in real life infiltrated the conflict in my books to some degree.

But it’s here and now, and I’m definitely not as avoidant as I used to be. And that’s another reason I want to rewrite Theadia: I can make this story a lot bigger, grander and stronger than what it currently is.

I don’t want to hold back this time.

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.

Coming close to the end

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As of this week I am revising the most climactic scene in Act III of Queen Ophelia’s War, which means that one, I am coming close to the end of the book, and two, that I am on schedule to get this thing out into the world by late spring! Woohoo!

Finishing this one does feel a bit like how I felt when I finished Diwa & Kaffi…a sense of satisfied completion mixed with an eagerness to move ahead with the next project. In a way, QOW is a very personal book in that I’d written it during the pandemic and post-leaving the Former Day Job, but there’s also the fact that one of its themes is about the willingness to completely change one’s life, and how far one might go to achieve it. I kind of feel like this is my way of signing off many parts of my old life and embracing where I am now. I’m ready to move on to the next chapter now.

This is also one of the last standalones I’ll be working on for a while, and that’s something new to deal with as well. I’m eager, almost impatiently so, to jump back into an extensive created world again, this time with Theadia. I’m ready to move on to that style once again, to the point that I’ve been preparing myself for it over the last month or so.

We’ll see where this new universe takes me…!

here we go again

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So the other day while I was at work, I’d started playing around with ideas for Theadia, and I started thinking: well, as much as I love it, I still feel I’ve left a lot out. Too many moments where important things happen but only seen from one person’s oblique points of view. Conflict with muted payoff. Too many actions that lack the backstory other than “…then this happens but no one yet knows why” that deserve a much deeper examination. In other words, it’s great, but it certainly could be a whole lot better. And I want to put in that extra work to make it the best.

In other words, this is exactly what I’d done when I’d rewritten The Phoenix Effect as the Bridgetown Trilogy. It went from something that was good and I’d turned it into something great that I’m proud of.

In other words, Theadia may end up another large-scale, extended-cast trilogy if I play my cards right.

Sure, I still need to finish off Queen Ophelia’s War first — I think I’m about two thirds of the way there, so I’m on schedule for that one — but I’m already starting to do the pre-writing paperwork for Theadia now. Extended storylines and subplots for certain characters. I may not know how to successfully write a space opera, let alone write characters that serve part of a military role, but I already know that this one isn’t going to be a dense war-in-space story, and nor is it going to be a uber-savvy tech-nerd story either. It’s its own thing in its own reality, just like the Mendaihu Universe. And I think I’ve gotten pretty good at creating that kind of thing. And those are the things I love writing.

Will this end in tears? Who knows. But I’m willing to put in the work.

Breaking out of the comfort zone

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(image courtesy of Bocchi the Rock)

I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to push myself out of that comfort zone I’d been in for years. Why was I even there in the first place? Was it about trust? Self-trust? Embarrassment? Worry? One or many of these things? Well. Most of it’s all gone now, at any rate. All I had to do was free myself from the self-imposed chains.

I think the last time I felt this way was when I’d started The Phoenix Effect back in 1997. A new part of my life had started and the road was relatively clear. It was a choice to say yeah, let’s get this writing career started. I can do this, and stick to it. But let’s face it, I hadn’t really adjusted all that much since then. Sure, I had the confidence to self-publish and all that backstage nonsense that goes along with it. But there had to be more. I knew I was holding back.

This is where I feel I’m at now. Pushing myself out of a comfort zone once again, not quite sure where it’ll take me…but trusting myself enough to know what I’m doing. Time to take more chances and look past the boundaries. Knowing I have people who’ll have my back. And knowing how to move forward with minimal blind flailing.

A lot of this will be new to me, but I’m ready for it. And I’m willing to learn.

I’m allowed to make mistakes…

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…but I’m not allowed to see every mistake as a failure.

Writing a scene that ultimately does not work for the novel is not a failure. Dealing with inconsistencies and continuity errors is not a failure. Sometimes writing is rewriting and revising and trying a different tack. I’m allowed to be worried that my project is still a mess that needs a lot of work, but it’s not a failure if I’m willing to do that work to make it better, no matter how long it takes.

Putting a novel project aside for a while with the possibility of it being trunked is not a failure. Sometimes the end result is simply not what I’d hoped it would be, knowing that I could do so much better. Or maybe that I’ve just lost interest in the idea now that I’ve let it percolate for a while.

Hitting only a few dozen words a day instead of a few hundred, or even a few thousand, is not a failure — nor is it a mistake. Not giving myself enough time to write every now and again is not a failure. Distraction and wasting time is not a failure, but an issue that can be fixed if I put my mind to it.

I’m willing to make mistakes. Failure, at least for me, is not even trying in the first place.

Year End Review – Distractions and Detachments

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As mentioned over at Walk in Silence, plans have gone just a bit awry this week due to multiple unexpected PC issues, thus sending the new one to the shop and the old one out of closet storage for temporary work. I’m finally catching up on writing work, though access to my music library isn’t all that doable right now. I’m just going to wait until the new PC returns.

Which got me thinking about what’s been bothering me this year: distractions. I’ve been too easily distracted in various parts of my daily life despite my wanting to avoid them. Staring at my phone during work breaks and elsewhere. Carrying around a small notebook to write some of my thoughts I may have but forgetting to do so. Pulling the usual ‘I’ll do it after I finish looking at this for a few minutes’ which invariably wastes a good half hour. Making life choices but putting them off for one reason or another.

I mean, I’m not trying to be one of those crunch-obsessed people that always has to be working every single waking moment, far from it. I’m totally fine with taking time off for fun things and enjoying life in various ways. I’m just tired of being passive and distracted, is all.

Which lends to the other half of this blog title: detachments.

Things I don’t want to do anymore. Things I don’t want anymore. Things I don’t need to be anymore. Letting go of what no longer works and moving on to something new. And right now I know what new directions I’d like to go in. This is about my writing, but it’s also about the personal as well. Life changes are always exciting and terrifying in equal measure to me, because I love the idea of trying out new things on my own and I’m also afraid of completely fucking it all up if it doesn’t work. But if I’ve learned anything in 2023, it’s that I’ve made my peace with some extremely personal things in my past, enough that I have the strength and the will to leave them behind now. To detach from that part of my life once and for all and look forward.

The one thing that’s kept me from doing so in the past is self-made distractions. It’s getting that dopamine rush of playing with my music collection or watching dumb videos on YouTube or reading the latest dumbass thing on social media. Deciding to make needed changes in my life but never getting around to the follow through. I hate that I’ve always been passive about it and yet I do it anyway because of that small rush, and then I feel frustrated for wasting time afterwards. And if I’m going to succeed in stopping those distractions and excuses, I need to detach.

And I’m now at a point where I’m strong enough to do that. And I’ve already started stepping towards that goal.

It’s time to say goodbye to parts of my old passive life once and for all, and embrace the new.

Even if it is terrifying.

Year End Review – Where I’m Going

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So. Do I have anything big planned for 2024? Good question.

If you’re talking about writing, sure. I’m hoping to get Queen Ophelia’s War finished and ready for mid-year release, as I’ve mentioned previously. And maybe Theadia as well a little bit later, if I get it prepared in time.

But what about personal things?

I’d mentioned very briefly here that one of my new resolutions is to Slow the F*** Down. Part of this is related to the Day Job, in which I’d fallen into the same damn habit I’d always had with most of my day jobs over the years: always trying to finish everything as quickly as possible. And in this case, considering that I’m back in retail, it meant being a fast checker, helping out as many people as possible, and always stressing out when the lines were long. I fell into the trap of thinking I’d better do it because no one else will, and I’d end up just making more work for myself in the process. I’d finally admitted that maybe I don’t need to be like that, considering nearly everyone else I work with goes at their own (often much slower) speed. Doing this all the time only led to exhaustion and certain managers wondering why I would seem overwhelmed.

I’ve since chosen to Slow the F*** Down at the Day Job, and I’m feeling a lot happier about it. I’ve adjusted responsibilities somewhat and admitted there are times when I should ask for help. I’ve found that there are situations that are Not My Problem. And I’ve admitted there are times when I’m just making more work for myself, whether by overthinking it or giving myself overly high expectations. In the process, I’ve learned to shift certain responsibilities to others when needed, and understanding that, unlike the Former Day Job, there isn’t an OMFGNOW deadline.

I suppose there’s more to it than just the Day Job and the Writing Career going on here, but I don’t have the words for it just yet as I’m still trying to get it straight in my own head. There is indeed a bit of final rewiring of thoughts and emotions going on lately, and that in itself has been a long-game process over the last couple of years that I think is finally coming to a close. A lot of it is about self-confidence and self-trust, but it’s also about reining in those overly high expectations that I’d just mentioned.

So if anything, I think 2024 is going to be about Where I’m Going and Where I’ll Be.