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Finding the Balance: Workshopping

Finding the Balance: Workshopping

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galahesh-cover-v2-medOver the past year, and as I prepare for the release of my second book, The Straits of Galahesh, I’ve been interviewed a number of times. I’m often asked about the process of writing and how I cut my teeth as a writer. I went fairly “workshop heavy,” and I thought this would make for an interesting discussion for those who are just getting into writing.

I started workshopping not with a local group (I was traveling too much for that), but with an online community—Critters, to be specific. After a few months with Critters I moved on to the Online Writing Workshop, which worked very well for me for years. In terms of instructor-led workshops, I’ve been to Viable Paradise, Writers of the Future, Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp, and Clarion. I took a bit of a break after Clarion, but then attended Starry Heaven I and II in Flagstaff, AZ, a peer-to-peer workshop run by S.K. Castle that was modeled off of Charlie Finlay’s Blue Heaven. I enjoyed those so much I started Wellspring, another Blue Heaven offspring. I ran the first last summer in Lake Geneva, WI, and I’m running the second this coming summer, just before WorldCon in Chicago.

If it wasn’t obvious from that list, I strongly recommend workshopping. If you come with the right attitude and the right expectations, it will take your writing much farther than you could have brought it on your own. The greatest strength of workshopping, in my opinion, is the wealth of knowledge that others will bring to the table, things your own set of experiences and knowledge haven’t led you to.

Strangely, when you workshop you’ll find that you’ll gain insight from what other writers find in your work, but you’ll soon learn that you get as much benefit or more from critiquing work that others have also critiqued. You won’t be working with your own material, where you will inevitably have blind spots. You’ll be working as a first reader, as will the other writers, and it’s in comparing how well (or not) you found issues in the writing that you’ll learn. And so, pay close attention to what others have said about work you’ve also critiqued. See what you missed and then start taking notes. Identify your blind spots and then create stories that expose those weaknesses. Actively work to strengthen those muscles, and soon you’ll find them becoming strengths, or at least not liabilities. What I said about experimenting earlier? This is why you experiment. To become stronger in your craft with targeted exercises.

In these early days, enter with an open mind and an open heart. Learn from the other writers. Try not to get defensive. Absorb. And for the love of all that is good, experiment. You may want to write a particular type of fiction—for me it was epic fantasy—by try other things on for size. It will only help you as you progress.

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Range of Ghosts

Range of Ghosts

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range-of-ghostsI’ve always wanted to write an epic fantasy.

A real epic fantasy, something with sweep and scope, tumbling empires, wizards and warlocks, monstrous fantastical beasts and horses of supernatural speed and stamina and crooked old gods vying for power. Something in the sword-and-sorcery mode, but not exactly a Leiberesque low fantasy… or a Tolkienesque high fantasy either. Rather, a book–a series of books, really, because what I had in mind wouldn’t fit in a hundred and fifty thousand words or so–in which the fate of kingdoms hung in the balance, but which wasn’t uncritical of the role of kings.

I wanted to write a book that had the sense of scope and sense of wonder of the books I loved as a young adult… but I kept running into the same problem.

There’s so much epic fantasy out there. And so much of it looks strangely similar. Not identical, of course… but like different chefs’ versions of the same recipe. The ingredients are all the same.

I’m a fan of Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar books, for all their slightly string-pulling manipulativeness. I love the way he takes every possible overplayed trope of fantasy and dumps them all into the same pot–and then pokes them with sticks and makes them fight. But I knew I didn’t want to do that. I wanted a narrative with elements of quest in it, but not simply a quest to reclaim or destroy the magic widget that makes the story go. I wanted a book that would shift scenes from city to city, from culture to culture — and I knew I wanted a world that wasn’t inhabited by nothing but Europeans.

In fact, I was pretty sure I wanted to dispense with the Europeans all together.

In the meantime, I was researching Central Asia and North Africa and their border cultures, and trying to come up with my own world inspired by those settings but not too derivative of them. I didn’t want to write a historical fantasy — or even an ahistorical fantasy, like Conan, which purports to take place in the antediluvian history of our own earth. I very much wanted a fantasy world, it’s own place, with a few thousand years of history as backdrop.

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Art of the Genre: Why and how I build a Kickstarter

Art of the Genre: Why and how I build a Kickstarter

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lyssa-lobby-card-kickstart-lockwood-serpent-2Yes, yes, I’m trying to keep up with my Kickstarter theme each Saturday, but as I’m releasing a new Kickstarter myself, and its progress will be tracked right here on Black Gate at the bottom of my posts, I thought I’d show you what I was thinking as I did it. Keep on sharing the knowledge, you know, because the more people I can help get onto this platform, the better it is for all those already using it. So, here is a run down of what goes on in my head as I start one of these projects.

First, I go back into my ‘nostalgia archives’ and find something I loved. In this case it was the old-school shared anthology. Considering what it would mean to bring something like this back, especially since I work for a short fiction publisher in Black Gate Magazine, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

To do this, however, I needed authors that filled the bill, so I promptly went out and got some, eight to be precise. With these creative folk in the fold, I then created a website to host as a kind of creative sand box for all the authors to help build a world in. I decided we’d start small, inside a single city, and work our way out from there as success allowed.

However, you know me, I couldn’t do this without art, so I got an artist to start doing conceptual work on the world using the ideas of the authors and myself. Then, once concept art was in play I found a cover artist who had no peer in the fantasy genre, and signed him on as well. [Note: You would be surprised how much creative people love the thought of working freely on stuff like this, especially after spending the bulk of their time doing what others want instead of what their own creative mind is telling them.]

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The Big Barbarian Theory

The Big Barbarian Theory

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the-sorcerers-shadowConan, King Kull, Cormac, Bran Mak Morn — characters often imitated, never duplicated. These creations of Robert E. Howard started the sword-and-sorcery boom of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Then there are the barbarian warriors inspired by Howard — Clonans, as one writer recently referred to these sword-slinging, muscle-bound characters.

A fair observation, but in some cases, not so true.

We prefer to think of these tales of wandering barbarian heroes as “Solo Sword and Sorcery” because the majority of these characters are lone wolves, without sidekicks or even recurring companions. This is a big part of their appeal, in fact.

We’ve read many, if not most, of the Conan pastiches, including the novels based on Howard’s other creations. Karl Edward Wagner’s, Poul Anderson’s, and Andy Offutt’s portrayals of the Cimmerian come within a sword’s stroke of Howard’s vision.

L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, in commodifying the character, arranged the long, informal saga of Conan in chronological order and, by extenuating these adventures with dozens more, made of Howard’s original vision a long-form series similar to the episodic success of a television show on a prolonged run of diminishing returns.

For some readers, however, the advantage of this development is that it provided a sort of character arc as Conan grows from a youth to an older man.

That said, however, it is better to read the Conan tales in the order in which Howard wrote them.

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INVADING FANTASY

INVADING FANTASY

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CONQUER THIS

Lebor Gabála Érenn — it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Literally: “The Book of the Taking of Ireland” or, as it’s usually rendered in English: “The Book of Invasions”, or even, “The Book of Conquests”. It’s a medieval history in case you hadn’t guessed. A full and not very frank account of every event that ever happened on the island of my birth.

Jim Fitzpatrick did some amazing illustrations for his version of the story.
Jim Fitzpatrick did some amazing illustrations for his version of the story.

People love to visit Ireland, apparently, and it’s even more fun when you bring an army with you. They’ve all done it, every horde and its crazy gods: Patholonians, Fomorians, Nemedians, Belly Men, The People of the Goddess Danú (who later fled underground to become the Sidhe) and *finally* — drum roll — The Gaels.

I say “finally”, because that’s where The Book of Invasions ends, but just as WWI didn’t quite live up to “the War to end all wars”, and the unification of Germany failed utterly to “end history”… well, Ireland’s attraction for blood-thirsty tourists only got stronger after that.

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When the Cover Blurb is the Kiss of Death

When the Cover Blurb is the Kiss of Death

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downtotheboneDown to the Bone by Justina Robson (Pyr, 2011) is book five of the Quantum Gravity series, so it must represent some sort of success. The first blurb on the back cover tells all, or maybe more than all:

“This isn’t SF for SF readers. This is SF for a generation raised on anime, manga, and MMORPGs.” — Ain’t It Cool News.

Presumably MMORPGs are some sort of role-playing game.

But seriously, have you ever seen a blurb which so explicitly told a large section of the potential buying public to go get stuffed? This (not to judge the actual book, which I have not read) is clearly marketed as post-literate SF for people who do not much read books.

I have never seen a blurb before which so firmly told me, “No, do not buy this one. You won’t like it.” Maybe I should appreciate the publisher’s honesty.

Is this suicide or a canny marketing strategy? Is the author cringing, or laughing all the way to the bank?

I don’t doubt that Justina Robson books sell admirably. There’s a kick-ass heroine with a pointy thing on the cover. It’s part of a generic series. Just what the market wants. It is very likely that the post-literate audience is in the majority now, and will rule mainstream publishing.

What I am remarking on is how explicitly the blurb tells me (and, I suspect, most long-term genre readers) to go away. Most blurb copy attempts to convince everyone that this is a great book they must have. This one comes right out and says that it is not SF for people who read SF or who are part of any literary culture.

Such breathtaking honesty.

Darrell Schweitzer’s last article for us was Selling SF & Fantasy: 1969 Was Another World.

Finding the Right Cover Artist for your eBook

Finding the Right Cover Artist for your eBook

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serpent-without-skin2When I resolved to publish the two novels in my Heart of Darkness series as eBooks, I figured I was all set. The books had already been edited and re-edited; I had the future plotlines mapped out in my head. That was everything, right?

Of course not. My wife — aka “Queen of Internet Research” — cautioned me, “Everything I’ve read says you need a great cover that really catches the eye.”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I’d always dreamed of being picked up by a major publishing house that had its own artists.

I mean, I like fantasy art as much as anyone, but I’m good with words, not pictures. I had no idea how to locate a good cover artist.

So I asked a friend of mine who is an artist to do it. He begged off, citing his current, non-artistic workload. Nor did any other personal connections pan out.

Ahead of me yet again, my wife told me about several options she’d read about on the internet. The most interesting was a contest where artists compete for the prize of being your cover artist. You are presented with several custom options and only pay if you accept one.

An intriguing concept, but I wanted to know more about my prospective artists. So my friend recommended deviantart.com. There, my wife and I posted a job description and waited, though not for long.

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Selling Shadow Ops: Control Point

Selling Shadow Ops: Control Point

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shadowopsFor my next trick, I’m going to give everyone a bunch of totally contradictory advice.

My novel Latent, which eventually became Control Point was ready for prime time (i.e. good enough to win the support of the biggest agent in the business) about 6 months before I sent it to my agent. I lost those months to a miasma of self-pity, low self-confidence and ennui.

In the end, the only reason I got up the gumption to send him the manuscript was that I was heading off to Iraq and I didn’t want to get zapped and never have him see the thing.

I’ve told this story before, but I told my agent not to tell me what he thought of it, figuring that his response (positive or negative) would distract me from what I need to be doing (like fighting a WAR).

Of course, he gets the manuscript, loves it, and spends the next four months sitting on his hands waiting for me to come home.

Add that to the six months where I was too scared to send it to him and I delayed my initial publishing deal by almost a year.

Here’s the point: You have to have guts.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Kickstarter

Art of the Genre: The Art of Kickstarter

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Abandon Hope... and yet we enter anyway... certainly one of the most iconic images from artist Jeff Easley
Abandon Hope... and yet we enter anyway... certainly one of the most iconic images from artist Jeff Easley

Kickstarter… the name in itself is evocative. I’m sure many of you have heard of this new website that supports creative people by giving them a place to ask for pledges in return for project assistance. It’s really an incredible took, and I blogged recently about a Kickstarter project done by former TSR artist Jeff Dee. His initial work with the fan-based pledge site got me thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in 2012.

I mean I had art contacts, right? In fact I had loads of them, so why not try to use some of the old school nostalgia I loved so dearly and market it toward others who felt the same way? In a sense, it’s kind of what Black Gate already does with each and every post on this site.

We get to relive awesome stuff from our past here all the time with stores about classic horror flicks, adventure movies, venerable series books, and comic book heroes. Black Gate, for all intents and purpose is a portal into a lost generation, or perhaps several lost generations.

So for all of you out there who have ever thought about doing something creative, and I mean anything, I’m going to run down how Kickstarter works and how it might apply to your dreams.

First, you have to come up with an idea, in my case I decided to do a project with legendary fantasy artist Jeff Easley. The concept was simple, I would write a short book like those found on dime store shelves in the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s that we all loved. You know the books I’m talking about, 45K words, 180 pages or so that you could read in 5 hours, and then get Jeff to cover it with an awesome old school Swords & Sorcery image. If we got enough pledges, he’d also do some original black and white interior work to help capture the tone. Simple, right?

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Steampunk Spotlight: The Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer with S.J. Chambers

Steampunk Spotlight: The Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer with S.J. Chambers

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steampunk-bibleOver the last couple of Steampunk Spotlight posts, I’ve focused on steampunk in games (upcoming board game The Kings of Air and Steam and the roleplaying game Victoriana), but it’s time to dive deep into the literary end of the pool, and there’s nowhere better to start than in Jeff VanderMeer’s gorgeous The Steampunk Bible (Amazon, B&N).

This book is a narrative and visual exploration of steampunk as a literary genre, a fan costuming phenomenon, and an artistic inspiration, certainly living up to its subtitle: An Illustrated Guide to the world of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature.

It’s hard to imagine an aspect of the steampunk movement that isn’t covered by this book full of full-color illustrations and photographs, mixed with interviews, anecdotes, lists, and analyses of steampunk-related themes.

Consider just a few of the fascinating articles/essays contained in this book:

  • Edgar Allen Poe: Perpetuator of the First Steampunk Hoax?
  • Brothers at Sea: Oshikawa Shunro and Verne’s Influence in Japan
  • A Young Steampunk’s Guide to Subgenres
  • Etching tins with Saltwater and Electricity
  • Steampunk Fashion: Four Styles
  • Eight Ways to Raise Your Steampunk Fashion Game
  • Can Airships Slouch Along? Can They Saunter?
  • Obscure Steampunk TV Moments

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