Oh hey there! Doing a fly-by today as I have a rare Friday off. I’m spending this time listening to new releases, getting a few household errands done (sorry cats, but I really do need to vacuum), working in a an extended writing session for Theadia, and just relaxing after a very busy work week.
See you next Monday!
Still working on distraction. I know, I know…but it’s a lifelong battle for me. Well — I wouldn’t necessarily call it a battle per se…more like an avoidance. In this current case, I feel like the new words I’m providing for Theadia are not working because I’m avoiding going any deeper with the story for some reason.
I mean, I’ll admit that a few of these chapters feature characters in positions I’m not entirely familiar with, and perhaps I’m worried that I’ll make a hash of it. But then again, I’ve written about messiahs, professional musicians and magical girls, right? How hard could this really be? Perhaps it’s not entirely about wanting to get it right, but wanting to get it right the first time.
Now that is one of my best and worst qualities, really. Perfectionism in writing is madness, as I’ve already learned many times.
Anyway…the fact remains that I’m going to need to force myself to do a much deeper dive for these characters. The scenes work…but they’re still far too static. I need them to be doing things, not just sitting at desks talking. And I need to take care of this now before I get too far into the rewrite, or else it’s just going to be a literal rewrite: a transcription with a few things changed and some pretty boring added scenes.
So I think what I need to do is get rid of this habit of avoidance. Let myself contemplate what goes on in the minds of these characters. Why are they doing what they’re doing? Who are they in relation to their surroundings? How are they able to do what they set out to do, what are the possible obstacles, and what are the possibilities of them being stopped?
I need to work this out somehow.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So I’m all caught up with the Queen Ophelia’s War spot-check edits and playing around with cover art, which means…I can finally start work on Theadia! WOOOO!
I figured I’d wait out the end of the month just to get a breather and relax a bit (especially since the Day Job has been a bit busy as of late). Why not start fresh on a new week, new day, new month? No real reason other than what the hell, yeah? Besides, it was great to have a few days off from creativity so I could catch up with real life and other things, but it’s time to get started once again.
I’ve been thinking a lot about making my writing sessions a little more stable as well. Not that they’re bad now, but I just want be a bit more dedicated to it than I’ve been over the last few years. I’m pretty good at working on something daily, but I think I’ve let myself have more than a few Don’t Wanna days than I really should have. I also miss getting stuck deep in on big projects, and it’s been quite a long time since I’ve really allowed myself to do that. Especially with a completely new project that has nothing to do with the Mendaihu Universe.
There’s a big world there in the Theadia Universe. Let’s go see what happens in it.
Not gonna lie, I’m totally looking forward to finding some new albums that could get some heavy rotation during my upcoming writing sessions for Theadia. Each project has had its own playlists and/or albums that become their de facto soundtrack, and I’m sure this one will be no different.
The only difference here, I think, is that I want these albums to have more staying power than the ones tied to my post-trilogy work. There are some records that will always be tied in with the trilogy (And You Think You Know What Life’s About, Sea Change, Fantastic Planet, and so on), and Diwa & Kaffi had The Sound of Arrows’ Stay Free, but that’s about it. I’m not trying to shoehorn any albums into this new project, mind you…I’m just wondering if there’s going to be any that will be as closely tied.
Which brings me to my wanting to pay a little more attention to the music I’ve been listening to. I’ve said previously that the last few years have felt more like I’d focused more on acquisition than connection, and I want to change that. And one of the ways to make that happen is to actively return to some of these albums. That’s what I did in the Belfry back in the day: I’d start off each session putting on a specific cd I wanted to hear to get myself in the mood. Sometimes it was a new release, other times it was an old classic. It really did depend (and still does) on the scene I was about to work on.
I have the music library, I just need to choose what I want to hear.
In Theadia, our two main characters are computer nerds. However, I’m trying to avoid as much techspeak infodumping as I can. Can it be done?
That’s a good question. I mean, I’m basing their work background on my own experience at the Former Day Job — basically working behind the scenes as code checkers to make sure system are working the way they’re supposed to work, and to figure out solutions when they’re not. And believe you me, I did a LOT of that over the fourteen years I was there. And if I learned anything, it’s that there are indeed code geeks out there who are not savants but instead kinda sorta know what they’re doing and hope for the best. That is what the leads in my novel are about: they’re good at it, but it really is all held together with sticky tape and dreams most of the time.
This upcoming project is very much like that: you’re probably not going to see the stock characters of the introvert genius who saves the day, but you’ll definitely see the common citizen who’s hoping it doesn’t all go kerflooey at the worst possible moment. I like the idea that the world is not just imperfect, it’s messy as hell, and we’re all pretending that we have it under control. Theadia is about people who aren’t in charge, but do know what they’re doing. Sort of.
Getting back to the question, I do in fact have a few techspeak infodumping scenes, but they’re not the kind you’re expecting. Again, I based it on my own experience: the most common reason for system failure at my FDJ was either someone making a really stupid mistake upstream (or just plain not knowing what they’re doing), or someone forgetting that what works on the shiny and clean test platform will trip up in the messy and chaotic live platform. I have a few scenes not just explaining this, but having my two mains exploit it. The trick isn’t so much hacking in, it’s not getting caught. And if you know how and where to go…
[Image courtesy of aas587 on Dribbble]
I’ve noticed that several of my stories contain travel in one way or another, many of them to alternate realities and different galaxies and universes. It’s something I’d been fascinated by since I started the Mendaihu Universe back in the day. Sometimes the travel is metaphysical: the ‘stepping into Light’ of the trilogy is essentially the inversion of astral travel. Sometimes it’s magical, like the weave in In My Blue World, where special blades cut the lattice between universes and create a temporary connection. And in Queen Ophelia’s War, it’s good old fashioned fantasy magic powers weaving a connection between established portals. [You could say even Diwa & Kaffi focuses on travel, considering tintrite flight is a major theme.]
As for Theadia…? Well, I’m finally going for the gold and using the time-honored hard-sf subspace portal. And this time it’s not just a useful function within the story, it’s an important part of the story in and of itself: part of the conflict does indeed involve travel infrastructure! Because I AM A HUGE NERD. [Well, obviously it’s a lot more than that but I’m trying not to give too much away.] I’ll admit that I’m not going too deep into the physics and the theoreticals of space travel, because that way lies madness. I’m just going deep enough to make it believable, complete with red tape, mismanagement and all that ugly bureaucratic nonsense.
All I’ll say is this: when your giant and well-loved station uses a popular and heavily used subspace gate hub, orbits around its own cozy little ball of dirt that didn’t need terraforming and is a beloved tourist destination, and is celebrating its fiftieth year of independence from its former owners who still aren’t too happy about that, there’s going to be a lot of moving parts that are going to need people who know what they’re doing. Especially when said former owners have been thinking about taking it back by force.
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