Today marks the beginning of a new novel, the last in a short series I’m writing at crackerjack speed for my own enjoyment and, I hope, yours! So here’s a post on some pre-writing work

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I spent this past week and weekend plotting a new novel. The method I use was first introduced to me by David Morrell in his excellent book THE SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST. Before I read this book, I hated outlining. It sucked the life out of the story. But the results of “writing by the headlights” approach often meant tons of drafts until I found the core theme or idea or emotional heart of the story I wanted to tell.

Morrell’s method, though, isn’t bullet points or index cards or other things I’d tried to no avail. Instead, you have a dialog with yourself about the story in prose, and you ask questions and challenge assumptions about the tale you want to tell. It feels silly as hell at first. But I’m a pretty chatty patty, so it works well for me. The questions help minimize the wasted drafts as you burrow deeper or avoid cliches or find that the story you wanted to tell isn’t the one you’re thinking of right now, but another one buried deep in a adjacent idea.

It works well for me most times. It reduces drafts, keeps my enthusiasm high, and allows me to use a tool of storytelling, dialog, to outline. All aces.

I have friends who can’t stand this method, so I wondered why it worked for me. A couple of things jumped up.

1. It’s like improv, a form of comedy storytelling that forces you to mine the moment and then dig deeper. You keep going until you get to the best material (and even the lesser stuff can become stories or poems or whatever later). I’ve absorbed so much comedy and have rehashed and riffed on it for years with friends that thinking on the fly to get a reaction, to tell a story, is almost second nature (even when the joke bombs). The immediacy of it, too, appeals to me, and that also comes through in story dialogs of plot, where making a point form list in short hand, or, heaven help me, making a graph of the rising action like Damon Knight suggested would be about as appealing as a knee to the jaw.

2. Story Dialogs reminded me of something I did as a kid and young man a lot, which was walk with my friend James and just talk about anything and everything about pop culture, usually in the form of lists (top ten scariest horror films, top ten strongest wrestlers, top ten beauty queen TV actresses). All arguments had to be defended. All points were subject to challenge. And you got more points if you dug up cooler info about lost classics, obscure flicks and books, bizarre historical figures, etc. This perpetual time killing in the suburbs as we walked everywhere and nowhere, I think, conditioned my mind to braimstorm in dialog form.

And, thankfully, after a rusty start, I’m back in the game and getting the pages done. Onward!

JSR

So, at around 230 am last night, I finished the draft sequel to DEATH MATCH.

Hurrah!

I’ve got revisions to do, but the beast is largely the way I like it and so the next Spar Battersea adventure will be coming to your town in a couple of months. It was fun to write, and you can rest assured that Spar become a tar baby for trouble in the next subculture I wanted to write about. Which one? Take a guess, True Believers. Take a guess. ‘Nuff said.

It also marks the third novel I wrote this year. And I’m planning to finish another one before Christmas. Now, the Spar books are shorter, but even still, it’s a lot of wordage and 2011 will end as my most productive novel writing year yet. I’m no Walter Gibson or Michael Moorcock, but I’ve upped my game by a factor of two. I’m working harder and I hope smarter and hope things start turning my way real soon.

I’ve got some other big plans and good news, too, but they still remain top secret. I’ve also been hit with some disappointments that are also confidential. But it’s funny that in the wake of the good and the bad, my solution to most of this stuff, after I’ve celebrated my victories or stewed like a rotten egg after defeat, is the same:

Write the next thing you want to write. Read the next thing you want to read. Try and keep your momentum fueled with more joy than anger and get on with it. Which reminded me of this quote

“Yell. Jump. Play. Out-run those Sons-of-Bitches. They’ll NEVER live the way you live. Go do it.” Ray Brabury

Oh. Hell. Yeah.

JSR

Buddhist monks invented tea thousands of years ago in what is today southwestern China. These monks lived atop the mountains and found the beverage improved their ability to meditate over long periods of time. Also it complimented their other super-powers. Soon the habit spread throughout the lowlands, and in the 7^th century Lu Yu wrote his now famous panergeric to the beverage, A Fistful of a Cup of Tea. People became ecstatic — so much so that when Lu Yu died he became God.

Centuries passed.

The first westerner to have drunk tea was the north African traveler Ibn Battuta who traveled to India in search of a job. He was impressed by how the beverage invigorated the spirit and increased energy.

After watching one too many of his coworkers get torn apart by angry elephants, Battuta decided to return home. When he got there no one believed a beverage like tea could possibly exist.

It wasn’t until George Orwell wrote his seminal essay, Tea, after singlehandedly defeating the forces of Spanish Fascism, that the English stopped drinking boiled mud and adopted the habit.

The rest is more or less history.

My buddy Mike Deluca, (check out his mad talent at Beneath Ceaseless Skies) had some awful nice things to say about yours truly, DEATH MATCH, and the launch of the ebook front of my career. Check out the post “Watch Ridler“

I’ve had a few folks say similar stuff, all very nice and humbling. They want to see what kind of go I can make of the neo pulp frontier. They’re rooting for me, and lots think I can do some damage in this field. Which is great!

So, from time to time, I’ll drop some thoughts here about career junk. Not arguments. Not grand statements. No revolutionary tract. I don’t have the data to back up much beyond the cause and effect of what I’m doing, day in and day out. I’ve said before, the last thing on earth I want to be is a guru handing out Kool Aid, but the teacher in me also wants to help folks with their own stuff if I can.

So instead, I want to start by saying thanks.

Thanks to everyone who has bought DEATH MATCH or blogged about it or read it and blurbed it or laughed at the premise and told their friends to “check it out!” Thanks to all those who are cheering me on. Thanks to all those who’ve watched me fight the good fight in short stories for ten years, and novels for three.

I promise you this: I will work like hell, and try to write some great stuff for you and me. Fun stuff planned for Halloween and Christmas, but until then, I hope you get in the ring and enjoy DEATH MATCH to the fullest! For  $2.99, no less! Cheaper than your daily latte, and ten times as tasty!

Huzzah,

JSR

I’m not a fan of writing posts, especially those written by unpublished, self-published, and/or “neo-pro” writers. Nor am I fan of “celebrity slushreaders” going on about how they dream a story they select might win a Nebula like they were right there writing the story beside the author, or at the very least keeping their tea mug filled, as if reading slush wasn’t the equivalent of being so much human baleen.

Bullshit on all that.

But I’ve got two writing posts itching to get off my fingers so let me just get them done between now and next week and then I won’t have to write about writing or slushing for the rest of the year. I’m putting it here for my own benefit as much as anyone else.

People talk a lot about hooks and openings and grabbing the reader so they keep on reading. And yeah I use the word hook as well, but it’s not about that at all. (Rudy Rucker has a great bit on “hooks” in his Writer’s Toolkit, which everyone should download.)

Other folks talk about establishing trust between reader and writer, and I agree with them but wondered how that trust was gained because it has to be right at the start. Then I got a couple stories in the slush this week that helped me figure it out.

What it comes down to is control.

You can do whatever you want in your story. Write it lush or transparent. Climb Freytag’s pyramid or flip it on its peak and kick it in the rear. Anything goes as long as you’re in control.

As long as each word and sentence connects to the next word and sentence and the whole thing makes a pattern where there’s nothing more you can subtract from it. That’s control. Having pieces left in your hand at the end is control.

What’s not control is starting your story with a well-groomed hook and then piling on introspection, backstory, and/or setting details. What’s not control is leaving nothing out, but throwing it all in there and hoping for the best. Lush doesn’t mean overgrown or overwriting a story so thick it collapses under its own weight.

Every word must link together. They can be ugly or oddly shaped words, but they have to fit into the story’s overall pattern (and of course that pattern can be all freak-a-deak weird, but there has to be some discernable resonance there).

That’s it. Writing post number one is done. It’s all about control.

Next week 10 Bad Slush Habits. Until then here’s Spoek Mathambo’s disturbing cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control”. Don’t blame me if it gives you nightmares.

Shimmer Magazine included me in their “Five Authors / Five Questions” series. Question number one was “How do you begin a story? Does it start with the idea, a character, an image, a line of dialogue, or are all stories different?” Click here to read my answer.

Thanks to E. Tobler and the rest of the Shimmer crew for including me.

I’m posting this here for my own benefit. You are free to take, leave, or modify this rule as you see fit, but this is how I want to live.

The proper response to a book or short story* is not a blog post about the injustice of the book or story’s existence or why it is just so WRONG WRONG WRONG, but to write another book or story addressing the very issues bothering you.

If it’s a story that makes you angry then write a story fueled by that anger. If you think the author glossed over important details, then by all means create something that widens the scope or changes the perspective. If the story reduces the argument to simplistic terms, then write a story that forces the work back to address a wider spectrum.

Don’t write an angry blog post. Don’t leave a comment. Don’t rattle a saber because you like the way it sounds. Don’t put a chip on your shoulder just to have one there.

Yes. It may be difficult to place that story. It may run counter to prevailing tastes or whatever clique happens to be dictating what’s in fashion these days. Don’t let this stop you. Write the story anyway. Write it with that passion that your words need to be said. Write it like you would that blog post.

But write the story. Articulate your position in prose. And if you decide to post the story online, then make it your blog post.

The best reaction to a thing you disagree with is not a defensive reaction but to create another, better, thing. Explore the initial position, attack it, subvert it, twist it to your own ends, but make something new.

Let the emotion fuel better work, not add to the online noise.

* I’m keeping it limited to fiction because it takes a lot of time and money to make a movie/TV show, and if it’s a comment online that’s making you angry, well, take a deep breath, take a step back, maybe see if you need to clean out the hair-trap in your shower, walk the dog, do the dishes, go to a different webpage, because it’s an online comment and all you need to shoot one of those into the ether is a lizard brain and a twitchy finger hovering near the return key.

Make something new.

Make something better.

It’s news to nobody that comedians can be a tragic lot. Much of comedy is derived through pain, humiliation, anxiety and awkwardness. I took a course once that argued that a comedians job was to always challenge the powers that be, that comedy shouldn’t just make you feel good or laugh. That’s the first thing it should do, but the last thing a great comic should do is challenge your assumptions about the world around you.

I was thinking about this while watching an HBO special last night, featuring comedian Richard Jeni, called “A Big Steaming Pile of Me.” When we were searching for what to watch, and I saw his name, something triggered. But not something happy of funny.

Richard Jeni committed suicide in 2007. He was featured in a documentary on the tragic side of comedy. According to some sources, he had a history of mental problems, depression and schizophrenia being the biggies. So, I was a little concerned about watching the special. Until I also realized that I had seen it, years ago, when he was alive. I remembered thinking the guys was viciously good.

So, we watched it. And, damn it, what a talented man. Funny, smart, insightful, challenging, inventive. It was one of the most composed and well executed comedy routines I’ve seen, done at a time of high polarization in the US. It was a guy at the height of his powers, challenging norms of politics, social issues, and gross out humour. And two years later, he took his own life.

I’m always a little wounded when I hear these stories. I know there are links between depression and creativity, though the former can also be a prison for the latter, let alone a grave. To see a guy, a true artist of his form, just giving it all he had was powerful. I’d like to think his life, work, and contribution can mean more than his sad end. But I don’t have any answers on this front. Just a thought:

Richard Jeni was a master of his craft, and it was a real pleasure to watch him at his best. He will be sorely missed, because he will always be remembered.

JSR

“Over the town roamed the homeless moon, and I wandered along after her, warming up in my heart impracticable dreams and disordant songs.” – Isaac Babel

Elsewhere online some friends and I share a group blog. Since 2007 we have put out a chapbook each year at ReaderCon. This year’s no different, only all the stories are set in a shared universe. Copies will be available at ReaderCon or you can download them in PDF, PRC, and EPUB formats.

There’s a review and discussion of my story “Colonized,” from last year’s Homeless Moon chapbook, posted on the blog of my writer colleague Shara Saunsaucie. It’s a weird story, for certain, so if you’re curious about what I was trying to do, please take a look.  Thanks to Shara for reviewing the chapbook and all her LJ readers for taking the time to comment.