Get in the zone– Author Zone

I am not one to “toot my own horn,” so to speak.

Indeed, were a casual observer to inspect the shelf upon which said horn rests, that person would note the presence of a substantial layer of dust nearly obscuring the horn from view.

But I’m going to pull it off the shelf and let loose one brassy blat of blaring bluster: I am in the zone.

Allow me to illustrate:

The Zone has eluded me for some time now, but at last I have returned to its warm, zoney embrace. That’s right, spellcheck, “zoney.” It’s a word. Look it up.

OK, so it’s not. The squiggly red line beneath the erroneous word is evidence enough, but I forge on regardless.

Back to the whole “being in the Zone” thing. I’ve been somewhat distracted lately, and by “distracted,” I mean, “drooling slack-jawed at the unbelievable beauty of the computer I assembled.”

You heard me. Some assembly was required, and I assembled. What did I tell you? ZONE.

Granted, entering the zone for that moment resulted in by subsequent departure from the zone while I enjoyed being able to see what games were supposed to look like all this time.

(Oh! That’s a person, not a malformed blob of brown-and-grey goo! Now I understand why she falls in love with him!)

But the Zone beckoned once more, and I returned to it, and now I find myself a veritable whirlwind of productivity. Forms to get my dissertation approved? Done. Daily writing goals? Met. Trash? Taken out. Cat? Petted. Recordings for Read Me Free winners? Getting done. Hey, the Zone can only do so much.

(I’m really sorry for the delay, folks. I’m in the middle of a big re-recording blitz right now, as I got a new microphone for Christmas, and I’m going through a backlog of stuff, but you should find narrated segments of your book in your inboxes hopefully by the end of this weekend. That sounded redundant. Zone fading. NO! COME BACK, ZONE! Awesome, back in the zone.)

Most importantly for me, though, is that I finally got around to working on some of the most difficult scenes in The End, the crucial confrontations that determine (almost) everything. I’d been putting them off, writing other parts, until finally it came to the point where it was impossible to write much more without knowing exactly how these scenes would play out. So far, they’re going pretty darn well.

Alright, consider the horn tooting officially over for some time. I will return it to the shelf.

In all seriousness, what does it take to get you into the Zone? What do you do to try to stay in it as long as possible? Is the Zone overrated?

Dealing with rejection

A Long-Winded Caveat

I’ve read, on numerous occasions, that you should stick to a single topic in order to have a successful blog, and that unless you are a celebrity, that topic should probably not be yourself.

There is some truth to this. I have tried to avoid making posts on this blog, which focuses on imaginative fiction, about myself. With a few exceptions, I’ve done just that.

(Possibly more than a few.)

However, I think that when you blog (or write in any capacity) it is impossible to remove yourself from the product entirely. Your experiences, your beliefs, your personality will inevitably influence the writing choices you make with regard to genre, setting, characters, dialogue, etc. In my case, I find myself drawn to fantasy and science fiction, because I have an extremely active and visual imagination. This is then reflected in my writing.

So it was with some trepidation that I started working on this post, and also why I began with this caveat, given that the subject, while near-universal for writers, is also fairly personal in nature: rejection.

Why rejection?

I wanted to write about rejection today because I feel like it is a pertinent subject for writers of imaginative fiction. As I mentioned previously, there is a tendency among agents and publishers to regard IF, especially fantasy and science fiction, as not as meaningful as other forms of literature. While YA has seen the imaginative genres flourish, in my own experience I have seen some pushback against their expansion for adult readers, who ostensibly are too grown up for such nonsense.

The other reason I chose this subject is because, not too long ago, I mentioned that I had received a request for a partial reading of one of my manuscripts, so I felt obligated to let you know the outcome.

(Pauses while connections are made.)

Any of you reading this who are now or have ever queried a manuscript are probably familiar with the following lines, or variations thereof: “It just doesn’t suit us,” “It’s not what we’re looking for,” “It’s not right for us.” None of these are soul-crushing, blistering indictments of our manuscript. Far from it. Most replies I’ve had from agents are cordial, if somewhat generic. And certainly, anyone who aspires to be a writer needs to be prepared for rejection– countless rejections, in fact.

So why, then, should seeing that little “we regret to inform you” in our inboxes still sting?

My question is: why shouldn’t it? After all, we’ve slaved over our keyboards for hours carefully assembling our stories. We’ve endured the teasing of our friends and family about our projects. And then we sent them off to total strangers in the hopes that they might see something of interest, something that might be worth publishing.

If we didn’t think that we had a chance, we wouldn’t have queried. If we didn’t have any hope of success, we might not have even written anything in the first place. So yes, of course we will feel varying levels of dismay, disappointment, and dis- . . . hm, I can’t come up with another starting in “dis.” Dis-, dis-, dis- . . . dissed? Close enough.

(Note to self: buy a thesaurus.)

The next step

After your work has been rejected (by an agent, a competition, an editor, whatever), aside from picking up the pieces of our shattered egos, we need to do some critical evaluation by asking a few important questions.

1. Why was our work rejected?

Obviously there are many reasons, some of which are more problematic than others. For example, having too much description is an easier fix than having unlikeable characters. If possible, try to contact the agent (or whoever) with follow-up questions so you have a better idea what they were looking for that you were lacking.

2. What do you need to do to make it better?

The upside of rejection (or any criticism, for that matter) is that you have an opportunity to improve on your work. Identify the areas where your story needs work (snappier dialogue, faster pacing, or for me, less “narrative summary”), then go read some work by other authors who excel at the areas where you are weaker. What do they do differently? What can you emulate or adapt for your own story?

3. Is it time to move on?

This is the hardest question of all, and the one that you need to answer before you invest any more time and effort on a project. We writers can be our own harshest critics, but we can also be some of the least objective when it comes time to deciding whether to pull the plug. And although persistence is vital in order to be a successful writer, so too is the clarity to recognize when a manuscript, for whatever reasons, simply isn’t going anywhere. Perhaps the genre has changed since you wrote it, or maybe your subject isn’t topical anymore. What if you got scooped, so to speak, when someone else published a novel with a similar plot and thereby cornered the market? Maybe, and perhaps most dishearteningly, you simply couldn’t get the plot to work.

There are times when we need to be able to step back, take a deep breath, and remind ourselves that the end of a project, no matter how dear, is not the end of the world. Very few books ever get published, and if we spend all our time spinning our wheels, we might miss a great opportunity for another story that we have to tell.

4. Can you find something positive to take away from all this?

Whether you are going back to the drawing board or scrapping your project, try to find a funny story or a lesson you learned so that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t sting quite so much. Maybe you realized that you really prefer writing in a totally different genre, or maybe you learned that you’re best at creating engaging characters. Try to focus on and highlight those strengths the next time you write.

Most importantly, remember: even if you have decided to set aside a manuscript, that’s different than giving up as a writer. There are always more stories to tell!

Read Me Free Winners!

Ta-daa! It’s the moment you all (well, some of you . . . OK, four of you) have been waiting for: the announcement of the winners of the first ever Read Me Free contest!

I really enjoyed all of the entries. I think all of them have a lot of potential, and really made me want to read more! Oddly enough, all of them can be classified as imaginative fiction, which pleased me greatly. However, I do have to pick which ones resonated the strongest with me, so without further ado, the winner of the first Read Me Free is . . .

deshipley! The Ballad of Allyn-a-Dale has a mixture of intrigue, wonder, and humor that is rare in imaginative fiction. As the winner, deshipley will receive a reading of 5000 words of her choosing (hopefully consecutive words, although I didn’t specify, so I suppose that means I could be asked to read every article and preposition in the manuscript).

Now for the rest of the entries. I originally planned on selecting two runners up (runner ups?) but since there were only three others total, I decided to be magnanimous and make all the rest runner/s up/s as well! Congratulations to Barb, H., and L. These three awesome writers will receive a reading of their excerpt and commentary on both their excerpt and synopsis.

While this was not exactly the biggest turnout, I was very pleased with the quality of submissions. So if you were interested in participating but decided not to do so for whatever reason, I will be holding this competition again sometime in the future!

Webcomic Sans

(I’m not even going to try and justify this one.)

I’ll start with a few brief updates. OK? OK.

UPDATE #1: Cover art for The End is up! Check it out!

UPDATE #2: Last chance to enter Read Me Free! Still plenty of spots left! Deadline extended until December 6th! I’m using way too many exclamation points in consecutive sentences!

UPDATE #3: There is no update #3.(!)

In the last post I mentioned that I wanted to look at imaginative fiction in alternative media forms, including webcomics and video games. But as I started writing this post, I realized I had too much to talk about to cover both subjects, so I decided to split them up. This does, however, leave one point unresolved.

Why webcomics?

Good question, bold-faced font. I’m glad you asked. I think there are a few reasons why it’s worth taking a look at webcomics. First, I’m primarily interested in IF as a whole, not just IF books, so given the amount of time I’ve devoted to literary forms of IF, it’s only fair.

Second, although much has been written about showing vs. telling in writing, it’s worth noting that unless your book has illustrations, you aren’t really showing anything. There’s only telling, although admittedly of different kinds– but that’s a subject for another post. Anyway, the point is that try as we might, writers are never able to replicate what  in the minds of their readers the images from their own heads with perfect fidelity. And while there is also ambiguity in images as well, at the very least everyone can have a pretty good agreement on what characters look like.

Third, the influence of comics on media and culture is present and growing. There’s a reason why we’ve seen a spate of comic-book movies in the past years (and good ones, too)– there’s a market for them. People have grown up shaped by the comics they’ve read, and webcomics are the latest incarnation.

I want to give a brief overview of what I think are some of the more interesting, influential, and involving IF stories in the webcomic format. These are not the best, nor is this an exhaustive list. If you have suggestions of your own, I’d be happy to hear them.

Steampunk’d

Title: Girl Genius

Status: Ongoing

Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio is a long-running webcomic that envisions a fantastic steampunk universe of mad scientists, dashing heroes, and, of course, lots of explosions. The illustrations are excellent– people familiar with Magic: The Gathering or the Myth series will recognize Phil Foglio’s distinctive artistic style, which manages to highlight the over-the-top nature of the story’s world while still being visually appealing. Tightly plotted and smartly written, each page of the webcomic pops with action, humor, and a huge cast of characters.

The plot follows Agatha Heterodyne, who quickly finds that she has inherited a surprising talent for mad science. She must go on a journey to uncover the mysteries of her past and take her rightful place as one of the Heterodynes, legendary figures in the story’s world. Although it has a steampunk feel, Kaja Foglio prefers that Girl Genius be classified as ‘gaslamp fantasy,’ to reflect that it generally more light-hearted in outlook than the ‘punk’ part of steampunk would reflect, and the presence of fantasy elements. It’s worth noting that the creators transitioned to a webcomic format from traditional comics, and the art, while beautiful is reflective of that origin.

Sword-chucks, yo

Title: 8-bit Theater

Status: Complete

Another long-running webcomic takes its inspiration directly from video game culture, so much so that it even directly borrows its artistic style. Brian Clevinger’s 8-bit Theater uses characters rendered in sprite form to recreate the look of the earliest incarnation(s) of the game Final Fantasy. Clevinger’s smart writing and use of dialogue allows him to create distinctive characters with their own quirks, eccentricities, and outright insanities.

The story focuses on the journey of four incredibly dysfunctional heroes who set out to save the world from Chaos, and instead manage to thwart themselves at every turn. The plot is mostly humorous, although there are a few serious moments. Clevinger makes use of a lot of genre play  in that the story is itself a loose parody not only of the inspirational game, but the role-playing game genre as a whole.

. . . and carry a big stick

Title: Order of the Stick

Status: Ongoing

From sprites to stick figures, the art takes a turn for the (even more) minimalist in the next webcomic. Whereas 8-bit draws on video games, Order of the Stick is grounded in the oft-maligned Dungeons and Dragons. Rich Burlew manages to envision a world in which characters operate under the myriad rules of D&D (complete with rolling virtual dice to determine whether an attack is successful).

Order of the Stick follows (you guessed it) a band of intrepid adventurers, looking for loot, glory, and (of course) experience points. I was struck by the depth and variety of characters that Burlew managed to create in his webcomic, despite their stick-figure forms.

Erf You

Title: Erfworld

Status: Ongoing

A trend seems to be emerging when one considers that the next entry is also influenced by gamer culture, although this time it is the genre of strategy and wargames. Erfworld, written by Rob Balder and illustrated by Jamie Noguchi (Book One) and Xin Ye (Book Two), follows a geeky loser whose only skill is wargames as he is transported from his humdrum life to a different universe altogether (reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland) where he has been summoned to be “the perfect warlord.” Balder sprinkles liberal references to online cultures and subcultures throughout in addition to his commentary on the nature of wargames, but the story is compelling enough to stand on its own.

Positively Dreadful

Title: The Dreadful

Status: Ongoing

Cross Hellboy with the Eastwood Westerns, and you get The Dreadful, a blend of fantasy and cowboy shoot-’em-up replete with devil-girls, centaurs, elves, dwarves, and bird-women. Sound crazy? It is. It gets off to a wild, rollicking start and maintains it with engaging characters, good (although occasionally anachronistic) dialogue, and a sense of mystery that makes the reader wonder: what more is there to this world that I have not yet learned?

Enter Kit, a devil-girl with a mean streak a mile wide. She’s just been shot and left for dead by her former partner-in-crime, Jeanne. Hijinks ensue, punctuated by the occasional tongue-in-cheek parody of period advertisements, starring Kit.

Let me tell you about Homestuck

Title: Homestuck

Status: Ongoing

Homestuck is relatively recent (April 2009), but thanks to an incredibly prolific creator (Andrew Hussie) it is already over 4000 pages long. Homestuck is also the webcomic that pushes the envelope the most on this list in terms of blending different genres and media forms.

If Girl Genius is at the “most traditional” end of the spectrum in terms of its presentation, Homestuck is at the other. Often successful webcomics will be published in print format, but I cannot imagine Hussie’s work on anything but a computer. Sometimes entries are static images, sometimes they are GIFs, sometimes they are flash movies complete with musical accompaniment, and sometimes they are fully interactive flash games where they reader “plays” out the story’s progression.

In this massive webcomic, four young teens find that a computer game they’re playing has implications not only for their world, but that of all existence. Homestuck alternates between sweet and sad, light comedy and black humor, wordy chatlog exchanges between characters and pure visual storytelling.

My take

Like I said, this is not intended to be a list of the best webcomics (although some would argue they are). They merely represent what I believe are interesting storytelling choices made within the IF genre. However, thematically speaking, it is impossible to ignore the influence of gaming (video and otherwise) on webcomics. Of course, you can argue that’s a selection bias on my part– as a gamer myself, I readily consume related media. However, these webcomics are, in general, very successful. Brian Clevinger parlayed his popularity with 8-bit into commerical success. Phil and Kaja Foglio have won or been nominated for numerous awards, including the Hugo award. Homestuck’s parent website (also run by Hussie) receives upwards of 600,000 unique views a day.

This leaves me with a nice segue into the next post, which will tackle IF in video games. Until then, (insert cheesy sign-off phrase probably cribbed from Anchorman here).

This one’s for you

I’m actually not certain what relevance the title has to what I’m about to say, but you know, sometimes a title hits you and you just go with it.

(WARNING: Do not actually attempt this. It is a terrible way to write blog posts)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that there are many spots left for the Read Me Free Contest, if you’re interested in participating. I mean, heck, right now there’s only two entries, so if you even have a rough synopsis and excerpt, you’ve got a pretty good chance of winning even if I randomly drew numbers out of a hat.

That being said, I’ve decided to sweeten the deal, so to speak. The first ten entries will receive feedback from me on both their synopsis and their excerpt.

(In this case, the sweetener is no-cal)

If you’re not interested, but still think the contest is a cool idea, I would be thrilled if you could mention it on your blog/facebook/twitter/random billboard on the freeway.

Good luck to all the contestants!