Now I Know

A while back I had mentioned suddenly knowing the name of Cardinal Griswold, one of the Heirs to Cody, but without any history or background behind the name.

Now I finally know -- he was Heir to Cody at the time of the attack on Rock Island. With the Archbishop of Vaildai, he was instrumental in forcing their respective heads of state and government to come to terms and make peace.

And of course I'd love to write the story of that incident, but there's just no time.

Past History

One of the biggest questions in my mind is how Codyland's racketocracy came to be. After all, these people are supposed to be descendants of Americans, specifically from Chicago and downstate Illinois. Although the association of Chicago with gangsters has deep literary roots, and it's unsurprising that they might deliberately adopt motifs taken from the beer wars of the Roaring Twenties, it seemed odd that Americans would completely abandon the tradition of representative government and constitutional law in favor of one of hits and sit-downs, where being in famiglia can be as important as being right.

And today, as I was listening to the radio, I heard the old Who song "Won't Get Fooled Again." And immediately I've got images in my mind. I know that Peter Eisner, one of the early Heirs to Cody and source of so much of that particular tradition, was also a Who fan. So of course it's got to be during his lifetime.

Now if I just had the time to actually work it through and write it.

New Light on Old Stories

Almost a year ago I gave up on the second Anne story when I got well and throroughly stuck. I knew more or less how the story needed to end, but I couldn't see how to get there. Worse, it was already too long for the market I wanted to send it to.

Then, while I was at the meeting of our local science fiction club, I pulled it back out and started messing with it. Suddenly things started to click and I could see several interesting twists that would not only complicate the situation, but actually help carry it to the end.

So now I'm franticly jotting down notes when I really ought to be working. But I want to capture all these ideas before they slip away.

The Fourth Estate

I've been working on an article on the history of rotary printing presses, and as I was reading, I got to thinking about Codyland. They're the only truly industrial society in the Ixilon universe, and I know they have big daily newspapers, descendants of Chicago's daily papers.

And as I'm visualizing how they would adapt press and typesetting technology to their world, I began seeing how Anne (my half-arithrae detective) could become involved with it while one a case. And the next thing I knew, I was scribbling ideas down at a tremendous rate of speed. When I should've been working on my articles, too.

But now I have a fair idea for the story of what was going on as Cardinal Dautery lay dying. All I need is a chance to write it.

Better than Nothing -- Followup

I heard back from Clockwork Phoenix today -- rejection. I hadn't really expected to have much chance, since I wasn't able to finish the story that I'd been writing specifically for it, and everything I had on hand was at best a very wide match. Still, it's rather annoying to lose out because of purely extraneous issues that had nothing whatsoever to do with my writing ability. I still want to have had a real opportunity with it, which would require having had the time to write the story that was specifically designed to match the anthology theme.

There is a reason that linear time is very high on my list of "things to get rid of once I become dictator of the Universe."

Returning to a Work After Time Away

Recently I became involved in a discussion about students resubmitting work that had been done for an earlier class. I noted that even if there were no formal rule against it, I couldn't imagine resubmitting an essay without a minimum of one good polishing rewrite, and possibly some significant work to re-draft it. I find that if I have been away from a piece of writing for any substantial length of time, I start seeing all kinds of places where I could improve it.

For instance, over the weekend I was at a meeting, and it wasn't really feasible for me to take any of my articles with me. So I packed a story that I hadn't touched in several months. I'd figured I'd pick it back up where I'd left off, but as I reread the last page, I ended up tossing those last several paragraphs and rewriting the beginning of that scene entirely. As a result, I actually ended up writing only a couple of sentences of new text.

Of course it would be so much easier if I just had some more writing time. But unless we see some serious financial improvements, such that I can earn a lot more money in exchange for a lot less time, it's unlikely in the extreme that I'm going to have nice big chunks of writing time again in the foreseeable future.

Better than Nothing

I ended up finally having to send an old story to Clockwork Phoenix. When I first heard about the anthology, I developed a story that was going to be a great fit for the theme. But writing it proved to be a slow process, and I knew that I'd have to work hard to get it done by the deadline.

Only I didn't get the time to finish it. In September our car's transmission went out on us, and it was going to cost more than the car was worth to fix it. So we ended up getting rid of the car and getting a new van for our business, and keeping our old van as a second vehicle. But that van came with one huge price tag, which meant that all my time had to go to non-fiction writing and to getting a teaching position. Thus my story still stands exactly where I stopped the afternoon of the day we actually bought the new van.

I'll still keep the half-written story, in hopes that maybe one of these days I can get my income to the level where I actually have some time to spare for writing fiction on spec. But it's frustrating to have to just look for something to send so that I can at least say I tried, when I had something so much better if only I'd had the time to get it finished.

Who Are You?

The name "Cardinal Griswold" came to me recently, and I know he's going to be one of the Heirs to Cody. Since I know the names of those who lived in four key periods of Codyland's history, I know he's got to be from one of the gaps between them. However, beyond the name, I have no real history, no events, nothing to tell me whether he's one of the people about whom stories are told, or just a name in the history books for students to memorize.

Normally I'd have time to tease out some background, to pull and tug on the history of Codyland to see where he belongs. But right now I have no time to do anything but struggle to stay abreast with all my obligations. I barely have time to even jot down the name lest I forget it, and I really shouldn't be writing here.

Gotta get back to work.

Sir, May I Please Have a Little More?

Time, that is. I've got some really cool ideas forming in my mind, but no time in which to write them. In fact, I really shouldn't even be taking the time to write this, because I have a whole list of things I need to get accomplished today and I haven't even gotten one done.

But it's so hard to have stories forming up in your mind and to have to tell them they will all have to just go stand in line. Heck, I'm even having to tell money-making projects to stand in line, for the simple reason that I have even more important projects that have to be allowed to cut in front of them.

Time to get back to work.

Stuck

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. It's just that all my stories are stuck, and I have no time to get them past those sticking points.

Basically, I've reached a point in every one of them where the storyline is no longer clear, and I really need to have a good stretch of uninterrupted time to work through those problems. Unfortunately, due to the other obligations in my life, all I have to work with are bits and fragments of broken time. A few minutes standing in line here, a couple more while waiting on hold there. Never enough to really hold a complex story in my head long enough to sort through the difficulties.

So from time to time I start a new story, only to have it to reach a sticking point as well. And then there are the six stories that I've finished, but would like to find another set of eyes to look them over, but just can't.

Which leaves my writing pretty much at an impasse.

Mirror, Mirror

As I'm working on Young Rene XIV, I'm realizing that the 708 Rebellion in Codyland is almost precisely contemporaneous with Sebastien's usurpation of the Cypress Throne and Rene's ouster of him. Which makes me want to work on Steam Heat in parallel with it.

There are strong parallels between the two novels, which make them an interesting study in contrasts. Both of them are about struggles against tyranny, and both stories are resolved by the restoration of a rightful leader. But what constitutes the rightful leader is very different in the two countries.

The Swamp Kingdom is a heriditary monarchy. Thus, Rene's primary claim to legitimacy rests upon his being the eldest son of the previous king. By contrast, Codyland traces its heritage to the United States and the tradition of popular sovreignty, even if formal republican government has been submerged. Thus, the legitimate ruler is the one who represents the people's will.

Entitlement

But not in the sense of "I'm owed this."

I'm currently in the process of rewriting a number of stories, and have come to the conclusion that their titles simply don't work. Some of them give away the conclusion of the story. Others sound like something out of a standard genre cliche list, or just plain clunky and stupid.

A bad title can actually prejudice an editor or first reader against a story to the point that it simply won't get a fair reading. But you have to have something in that "title" slot -- to send a story in without a title would be considered about as unprofessional as sending it written in crayon on brown paper bags. Leaving a story untitled because you can't come up with a good one will pretty well guarantee that it will not be read.

But coming up with a new title is often an exercise in frustration. Ideally, a title should perfectly encapsulate the story, yet not spoil any surprises or destroy the tension of the story. It should be catchy and memorable, but not trite or cliched. It should resonate on several levels, and not clash in terms of culture: ie, a fantasy set in a quasi-European medieval setting probably shouldn't have a title that is drawn from Buddhist philosophy or Eastern martial arts, unless there is a very good reason for it. Similarly, a title in Latin, drawn from or even suggestive of medieval Catholicism, probably wouldn't be a good fit for a story set in medieval Japan or an analog thereof.

In other words, a title should fit. And that's what's hard.

Sometimes I'm lucky and the story comes with a clear and obvious title from the beginning. A few times, I've had the title come first and have to pull and tug at it until I was able to pull the story out. But far more frequent are the stories that languish for ages with working titles that are little more than the name of a major character, or a place. And when it comes time to get them ready to send out, the hardest part is often finding a suitable title for them.

Beginnings

Recently I'd pulled a number of old short stories and decided to do some work on them and send them out again. One in particular, which belongs in the same sequence as "Spiral Horn, Spiral Tusk" (it's about the son of the principal protagonists), seemed to be an easy fix.

However, as I got into it again, I began to wonder if I'd really started it too early, and whether the buildup to the shipwreck was really germane to the story. However, as I tried to find some way to excise it, I had the problem of creating a new beginning for it that would set up the situation sufficiently to make a reader care.

But then, beginnings are always tough, and beginnings of short stories doubly so. You've got to set up the situation quickly, yet not so much so that the reader becomes lost. Sometimes the hardest part is figuring out what bits of information are so critical they have to be presented upfront, and what bits can be saved for later without trouble.

On Writer's Block

Recently I've been pulling out some of my old short stories, trying to decide what I want to do with them. However, it's proven harder than I'd anticipated.

In particular, I'm looking at several of them and trying to figure out what I even want to do with them. I wonder if I should completely redo them, or even toss them out altogether and start over, telling the stories afresh with completely new words.

And at the same time, I'm wondering if I'm becoming hypercritical, to the point that nothing looks good. There are points at which our awareness of writing craft outstrips our ability to actually produce, so we're left feeling like all our work is hopelessly inadequate.

In The Steel Breeds True, Amanda Lordsley-Starcastle is struggling with just such a period. Her internal editor, which has become externalized in her mind as a sort of miniature Yezhov, is continually telling her that every single word she puts on paper is trash. She is a published poet, who even has had her works picked up by textbooks and anthologies that pay her money, yet she is struggling with an overwhelming sense of complete inadequacy.

Is it any wonder that I, who have managed only occasional sales, should be wondering if everything I've written is a load of horse manure.

Points of View

After years of letting it simmer on the back burner, I've finally taken The Dolphin-singer back out. It's an expansion of the short story "Spiral Horn, Spiral Tusk" (published in Sherwood Smith's anthology Beyond the Farthest Star), and I'd originally started it way back in 2000, when it became increasingly clear that the story of Rissa and Admiral Shayell simply did not lend itself to a series of linked short stories. It's set during the Isolation, perhaps a century or so before Codyland Reunion, although there is almost no overlap in the characters, so it can certainly be left ambiguous until I actually need to fix the relative chronology.

As I'm outlining Chapter 2, I'm realizing increasingly that the intricate web of misunderstandings that are so critical to the story really need access to the heads of both Admiral Shayell and Lord Benton. It's just as important to see what each man meant as what they misunderstand the other as saying and doing. However, to try to do it in tight third-person POV would mean a whole series of tiny scenes, switching back and forth.

However, I'm not sure to what degree I can get away with switching to omniscient POV, particularly given that omniscient is severely out of favor right now. An established author can do it -- viz. Sherwood Smith's recent novel Inda, which uses omniscient to great effect in several scenes. But a first novel already faces a major hurdle just getting past the "read to reject" first readers, and burdening it with an unpopular POV choice could be just one too many issues.

Hopscotch

Some people write novels by starting at the beginning and writing steadily through until they reach then end. Others jump around, doing the chapters that interest them, then going back and knitting everything together.

I find that different novels lend themselves to different approaches. Some, particularly those with multiple diverse threads that slowly draw together, are easy to write out of sequence. Others need to be written one chapter at a time, because I can only see each chapter as I come to it.

But whatever kind of novel I happen to be working on, I've learned that I can't be too rigidly wedded to a particular approach. If a novel that I'm working on by doing chapters all over the storyline starts to unravel in my hands, I may have to go back and actually write some of those chapters that I've been skipping over. Equally, if I get balked by a chapter in a novel I'm writing sequentially, but I have a clear view of the chapter that follows, it's often best to simply jump over the offending chapter, then come back and work it out once I have a clearer idea just where the novel is heading.

Young Rene XIV is something of a mix. I've been doing it largely sequentially, but more than once I've jumped over a problematic chapter, or scene within a chapter, in order to keep from being left stuck. Recently Chapter 10, which deals with events in the hinterland of the Swamp Kingdom, was giving me trouble. I just couldn't seem to get a feel for where it needed to go. However, I had a much clearer idea of what Chapter 11 should look like, so I decided to jump ahead and write it. So now the novel's moving again.

Milestones

Today I broke 50,000 words on Young Rene XIV, which is a significant milestone. That's the number of words you try to produce in NaNoWriMo (although I have yet to be able to participate -- every November it seems some obligation always comes up to devour all my available time). I'm figuring that I'm somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through the overall storyline, although the overall form of the novel is still shaky in my mind.

Still, it was cool to add up all the chapter wordcounts and realize that I'd made the mark -- and I still have scenes I need to add to or complete in both Chapter 3 and Chapter 5, and may be adding one more scene to Chapter 2. Not to mention that I'm still extremely dissatisfied with Chapter 1, at least partly because significant parts of it strike me as idiot plot as written. So it's quite possible that the 50,000 word mark may shift backward somewhat before I get a complete draft written.

How long that may take will probably depend upon what other obligations come my way. Although right now it seems that non-fiction projects are rather scarce on the ground.

Looking for a Key

A key element, that is.

I'd been able to push the first scene of Chapter 3 of Young Rene XIV forward a few pages, only to run into a fresh block. This time it was a logical one -- I knew Benoit du Rocher needed a way to get a message to his wife, but couldn't take it himself. I'd originally thought to have him send a messenger, but if he did that, why didn't he order the messenger to accompany her and the children on the road?

Not to mention, if he couldn't get through, why did he think a messenger could get through in his place?

So I was stuck, trying to figure out how to logically bridge the gap. It was too short a distance for a carrier pigeon, but perhaps some other animal might be suitable -- and equally, not suitable for taking on the road, which would rule out a dog.

Did I want to go for something ordinary, if a little wild, like a raccoon? Or perhaps something exotic, like a small raptoral dinosaur or some really alien critter imported from the Outer Worlds?

And then I recalled that Ixilon's cats enjoy greater intelligence than those we're familiar with, and there are personal connections with a historical hero whom Benoit greatly admires. Suddenly everything came together and I knew how to take care of that critical juncture.

However, I'm now faced with the question of whether I need to have cats and their strange gifts in Ixilon figure again in the story.

Returning after Time Away from a Project

I was happily surprised when I recently picked up the young Rene XIV novel after having set it aside for over a month, and discovered that the time working on other projects did indeed allow me to get a fresh perspective on it. Things that had been insurmountable barriers suddenly came clear to me, and I was able to outline a large number of chapters.

Unfortunately, I'm now getting to the point where I need to actually write the chapters in order to get the necessary perspective to push the outline forward to the end. Which of course means actually having the time to write, not always a commodity in great supply. But I've just finished one major non-fiction project, and I'm hoping that will translate into some more writing time than I've experienced of late.

On the other hand, it's also possible that my clearing my desk will be rapidly followed by someone else writing me and asking if I'd like to pick up a project for them, on a very short deadline. And there will go my fiction writing time again, because we need that money.

Perspectives

As I'm working on Codyland Reunion, I'm having some serious misgivings on my choices for point of view in Chapter 7. Most of the book is written in tight third person, but in this one I've slipped out to something more closely approaching omniscient.

However, in this scene I really don't want to get too close to the two spies. Not only are they unsavory sorts that I don't want to bring too close to the reader, but I want to create a certain air of mystery and danger around them, which could be dispelled too early if I let the reader into their heads. At the same time, there's really no one else who will see them as they sneak their way into Crescent City for their meeting with Tony Yale.

This may end up being another of those things that I'll let stand until I finish writing the whole novel, then see whether it works in the matrix of the finished work.