I'm a speculative fiction author and lifelong aspirant, struggling with motivation and craft like us all. The skills of writing, the hope and the despair are all part of the beauty of art, so here I embrace them. Here I'll share my journey, everything I learn along this arduous hike for self-discovery up Mount Everest.
Whether you're after the rants of a once frustrated student, now frustrated author, or just the sound advice of a snide Canadian, Everest by Fog is here... and now so are you.
I have now discovered my new novel's soundtrack. Mostly System of a Down and Smashing Pumpkins. Now the words will flow.
This song does a great job of engaging with my book's themes and ideas. (I guess you'd have to put that the other way around, given that this was made ten years ago but... ahem...)
I'm a very musically oriented person, and I have extremely varied tastes, from Beethoven to Prodigy, but at heart I'm a grunge fan, which means metal, goth and punk are all perfectly acceptable. The subculture's music of the 90s was varied enough in tone and form that I find that generation (and I was really as young as one could possibly be to be part of that wave) generally has a pretty open mind to new sounds. Except most of us hate pop music, which is really just symptomatic of being raised by a powerful subculture.
Anyway, it's dark, gritty music for me, and sometimes blasting out a song, or grabbing my guitar, is exactly what I need to put myself into the emotion of a scene and get my words flowing. My only problem is that it seems to me like the industry wants everyone to be One Direction. I want to be Nirvana, and I'd settle for Marilyn Manson or something.
As for the choice of soundtrack, who says tragedies can't be angry? The things that make us sad should, when prevalent functions of society, make us angry too.
I've plotted out my next novel, Forget Me Not. It's about a brother and sister struggling to survive in a world that's torn itself apart. It's not exactly post-apocalypse. We wouldn't need an apocalypse. I forget who it was who said this before me, so I'll just go ahead and say it. Our society has no implicit morality. You can argue that's fine, or even a good thing, but it remains true that any such society is two losses away from tearing itself apart: food and shelter.
So that's my book, in extremely brief form. Ideas are simple, and cheap. The rest is nuance. So if the idea sounds crap to you, well... I can only hope, like, really hope, you read it anyway, because the book might surprise you and frankly I need an audience. Buy my book!
What's hard is, I spent so long writing in first person close POV for Paint the Angels Black that I'm struggling finding an authorial voice for this next book. It takes a while to get into the characters, know what they sound like, what it feels like to be them--various things you need to know/feel to write good prose, in my opinion.
First drafts are sometimes quite "bitty":
This happened. Then this happened. Then this other thing.
Once you get into the character, that wanes, and nuance starts coming out. I find the best thing to do is ask myself what my main character's immediate desire is in the scene. What they feel deep down, how they define themselves and the way they look at life, I've always found very easy and natural to keep hold of. I'd even argue that's what made me want to write in the first place. But what the character wants in a given scene, on the small scale, is another matter. Holding onto that is the only thing that makes the words bash their way out. I just hope it doesn't always feel like bashing! What was that word again...? Flow. Yeah, that's the word. And you can't force things to flow. You have to let that happen. So why does the fact I know that have no bearing on my day?
When you let something go untouched long enough, it becomes the elephant in the room. That illusion of difficulty is probably the best life lesson I've ever acquired, so I'm posting now in spite of that elephant. My study's not big enough for the both of us.
Meant to post this ages ago.
I had interesting news from my agent about my first novel, and it put me in a bit of a slump. I've worked like crazy since then, but when I feel far away from having books out, I wind up feeling like I'm just wasting your time by asking you to read my blog. Who cares what I have to say, right? I don't even have a novel out, yet. I know that's not the right way to feel, but sometimes I can't help it.
Anyway, my test audience loved it, all fellow writers I know loved it, and my agent thought it could still be better, and I should set it aside for a few months. After much soul searching, I decided a few months wouldn't hurt. Perhaps looking at it later with a clearer mind will reveal some things I can't presently see, so I got to work on another book.
I wish I had some wisdom to impart about any of this, but the truth is, I don't. All I know is, I'm really quite prolific, and rather than spending another year rewriting the old book, I'm going to spend it writing three new ones. And I'm going to start writing on the blog again, too. I'm sure my number of followers is modest now by comparison to two months ago when I last posted. Two months in internet years is almost a life time. I don't mean to imply my readers are fickle; just that there's a lot of choice out there. I'm not sure why you're choosing me at present, but I'll keep writing. Perhaps by watching my noobish, aspirant experience you'll get something useful for your own journey. I honestly hope so, for both our sake.
I've been heartened by the backlash trophy hunters have received in the wake of what happened to Cecil the lion. Voicing disgust at such things is a tremendous step towards a more moral society, and as such, I feel an obligation to throw my voice into the crowd.
Let's look at this crazy video:
Ah, yes. Hobbies... You know what, that's so dumb, and easy to argue with, I'm going to leave it pretty much alone and move onto a more nuanced issue. In brief, hers is quite possibly the dumbest explanation for anything I've ever heard, let
alone as a justification for murder. "Oh, there's a connection, and I
have some personal issues which I feel are best dealt with by killing
animals. And also it could hurt me in a fair fight, which surely
justifies how I get my kicks out of killing it from a distance." Yeah...
well said.
The thing is, I understand the idea of a connection. I'm a fighter. I'm not saying I'm a UFC champion or an SAS officer or anything even close to that, but I've dedicated a lot of time and energy to the warrior arts, and I feel very connected to them. More importantly, I like fighting.
I'd enjoy a fight with Chuck Liddell, especially to gentlemen's rules (the ability to tap out, and stopping when somebody... well, me really... goes limp). Yeah, he'd kick my ass, but I'd treat it as a learning experience. Some of the best martial training you can ever receive comes in the form of an ass kicking, and I'd love every second of it.
And I'm certain he'd agree that there is a powerful connection felt with a person you face in HONOURABLE, AGREED UPON combat.
What this imbecile is suggesting is that I can feel that same connection with Chuck Liddell by stalking him through the streets and shooting him from a distance with a high powered rifle when he's not even looking. In fact, if he doesn't even KNOW he's being hunted, as far as these crazy bastards are concerned, I've done a terrific job. As far as Chuck is concerned, someone just turned the lights out. As far as I'm concerned, I just murdered someone who could have really hurt me up close, and that means I'm supposed to feel empowered? And I should feel a personal connection to him? An adrenaline rush? And that justifies my actions?
No. I'd just be a murderer, and a coward. Frankly, it's serial killer talk.
I understand the rush. I'd feel a connection with a lion up close and personal, and I'd feel adrenaline like I'd never felt before, but I wouldn't do it. Know why? Threefold:
1) The lion would almost definitely kill me. The best form of self defense is avoidance, and one should pick their battles better than starting fist fights with lions..
2) The lion never agreed to fight. Should I by some miracle kill the lion, I would be guilty of assault and murder.
3) Lions are endangered. Now, I must note that killing an endangered species should not be considered too much worse than killing any other animal. That's a slippery moral slope in which one might eventually conclude that sport hunting animals who are not endangered is basically okay. However, when you kill an endangered animal, in my view, you're killing part of the world. Regardless, all murder is, on a moral and philosophical level at least, equally wrong, for the exact same reason killing animals is no less morally wrong than killing a human: all lives must be treated equally. And that brings me to the final point.
Who am I to decide what life is more valuable than another? What gives me, simply for being a human being, the right to determine which creatures are more or less sentient? I am not a vegetarian. I am an omnivore, and I don't disparage carnivores for killing their food. However, killing for fun is an entirely different morality. Humans often justify this by claiming themselves to be somehow ordained as the most important species, but that is either religious doctrine stating that we have a superior soul (which in my view disparages animals for their innocence, and thus their beauty) or it is modernist doctrine, stating that we, as the creatures who can influence the world, are more important. By that logic, the lives of people of social and/or economic influence matter more than, say, children starving in Africa. I find that ideology disgusting.
And while you're considering the prevalence of that, remember that hunting endangered, and indeed dangerous game as sport has long been predominantly the pastime of the wealthy and cossetted.
In conclusion, the people who are capable of murdering Cecil the lion, or any other creature just for a trophy's sake, are guilty of more than murder. They are guilty of an ideology of superiority that is everything wrong with civilisation as we know it. This ideology is why nature is being destroyed. It is why religious wars and holocausts happen. It is why we have a ruling class. It is why too many American cops think it's alright to vilify black people. It is nothing less than the ability for one life to spit upon another.
Evils connect, because they boil down to a lack of empathy. And nothing points to a lack of empathy more than a lack of fundamental respect for life.
I've heard it said that we shouldn't focus too much on this, that it's wrong we're giving so much attention to a lion rather than all the people who die everyday, but that's quite a callous argument, and flawed. We shouldn't have public outcries because there are things to have public outcries about? When you see a moral outrage, don't turn your nose up at it. Raise your fist and shout. When you see the moral outrages you deem to be more important, raise your fist and shout. Simple. And that's just the argument's logical flaw. The moral one is that Cecil the lion deserves to be remembered regardless of what else is going on, and there deserves to be an outcry. The sociological one is that outcries are good. One encourages the other, and outcry at a lack of fundamental respect for life surely leads to more outcries about, indeed, lack of fundamental respect for life.
Nothing could truly make this right, but if we acknowledge the depth and severity of the problem, perhaps we can take a few steps towards ensuring such things do not happen again. It is everyone's responsibility to remind our fellow humans that such actions, and such ideologies, are despicable. If enough of us agree, and are vocal enough, we might just overcome the evils that infect us.
A conversation with a student of mine made me think of an old post, from back when my blog was almost exclusively about creative writing advice.
As a teacher, I've met many brilliant kids, some of whom have been interested in writing, and some of whom haven't. One thing they make glaringly apparent is that it's enthusiasm that makes success. My job is to inspire people to use their minds. Excitement is what makes them want to absorb the information and practise.
The next step, after enthusiasm, is raw determination. Sometimes they don't feel like working, but if I can inspire the desire to push through, by offering a sense of how great it might feel in the end, the student will continue to practise even on those inevitable days when it's hard and/or boring.
I began teaching with an awareness of this because of my own experience. When I was a teenager, I was Holden Caulfield, almost exactly. Even some of the events in Catcher in the Rye happened to me in pretty much the same way. I learned the very, very hard way that life doesn't happen for you, and that no amount of ability will get you anywhere in life.
Just one of many similarities to Holden Caulfield: I wasn't stupid, but I got terrible grades. The better teachers would notice this disparity and tell me I had talent. Not to disparage their efforts--indeed without knowing that some adults believed in me I don't know if I'd have made it through highschool--but it never solved the problem. It's like telling a kid they could be a basketball star because they're tall. If they never pick up a basketball, indeed if they don't even like basketball, being tall won't mean they join the NBA.
My old "Talent Is a Poor Word for Passion" post was long, and I feel compelled to reiterate the points, but instead of posting it again, thus making this post so long no one would ever read it, I'll just link to it.
My purpose at the time was to convince, rather than inspire. Talent is a cultural conception. Any social scientist worth the air in their lungs believes that. Romanticism didn't believe it, but we're a good couple of centuries away from that notion. Being a cultural conception does not make a thing have no truth or validity. But it does make it impossible for the thing to be a defining force over someone's life, because we have the power to break free from, or at least help shape, our constructions. And I hope I go some way to prove the fallacy of relying on talent, and I hope people who need to hear it find the idea inspiring.
Just watched Blade Runner, the classic Science Fiction movie based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick.
And it struck me just how different our vision of the future was back in the Golden Age of SF.
In Blade Runner, hover cars soared above the traffic where the plebs milled about in their cool-looking, angular gas-guzzlers. A great zeppelin roamed the skies, shouting obnoxious advertisements from high above. And of course, genetics became capable of synthesizing humans.
The modern world is nothing like that. This era looks much the same as the 70s, except cars are more round at the edges, people dress differently, and corporations don't need a zeppelin or advertisements on the sides of sky-scrapers to infect our minds with consumerism. Instead, information technology means they just illegally download cookies onto our computers, manipulate our search habits, and convince children to spend half their lives on social media getting manipulated into a consumer-friendly cultural obsession. Even music today basically sounds like it did in the 80s. I hold out some hope that it'll turn on its head again, much like it did in the 90s.
Society lacked both the resources and the gusto necessary to affect real change. In the end, those with money did not want change unless it was in the direction of furthering consumerism. We do not live in the hyper-industrialisation that many writers imagined. The world simply couldn't sustain it, and regardless, no one has the power to build it. Money would never be interested enough in building it. We certainly do not live in the utopia some writers imagined, in which we could clone food for everyone and eliminate starvation. Instead, obesity and starvation are each epidemic, and rather than getting better, each problem continues to compound. We do not have a technologically fascinating infinite fuel source. Instead, people would rather destroy planet Earth in order to frack for oil, rather than use the infinite fuel resources that have indeed been at our disposal for over a decade. Which leads me to the main functional problem the SF writers of the day did not foresee: the world lacks the natural resources necessary to fly hover cars for more than a weekend.
But for all its technical oversights, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a brilliant story. I love the Sci-fi of that era.
In the old days, while it's true that, just before and just after the counter-culture movement, society was rife with modernist, and thus technological fetishism, the stories of those authors did not bear that mark. I must admit that every era of literature has had its share of trash, but the great writers of those days neither fetishised nor demonised technology. They wrote deep, human stories about the consequences of technology, about how society would change and what new moral dilemmas we would face.
But where does such extrapolation lead us now? Phillip K. Dick, and many others, asked where unfettered technological development would lead humanity, and what struggles, on every level, we might face.
I look forward to seeing SF evolve, because we all know where unfettered development leads us now. (At least, those too stupid to have figured it out shouldn't be able to read.) SF must find new philosophical questions to remain relevant. In my opinion, it must soften and look inwards to the Self, but that's just me. One thing most readers and writers can agree upon is that it can never be exactly as it was. In essence, the literature of change must itself change, because society has not changed in the spirit SF had foreseen. The dilemmas we face now, unless one simply writes of apocalypse, are human, social, and personal. As for social development, the question now is whether empathy will trump apathy before it's too late.
Readers who are writers! Below is an email sent to me by Scott Bradfield, my extensively awesome writing mentor. Long-time readers will know his name. I have sung his praises many times. He is a famously awesome craftsman--LITERALLY as famously awesome as it's possible to get without being dead long enough to have your work revered by English Literature professors!
There is honestly no better opportunity for help with your writing than to solicit his help. He is a phenomenal craftsman, and a superb and experienced teacher. He taught me everything I know, and the more I learn, the more I discover the many messages deeper within his advice. His advice has provided me signposts along this road, such that when a new enigma has presented itself, or a new answer just out of reach, a memory will sing in my ear and the answers will come. That's all thanks to Scott. I've paid for the Writer's Bureau Home Study Course. I've read everything on the Writers of the Future pages. I've viewed countless blogs and watched video lectures by writers both obscure and famous and I've paid thousands of pounds (like dollars only worth more) for university degrees and honestly, NOTHING has compared with what this guy has taught me. I would trade all of it (except the degrees) for another hour of his time, and here he's offering you several hours for, considering you'll get as much out of it as you would any university course, next to nothing.
I'm not just selling him here arbitrarily. I am willing to stake my entire reputation on this, and I say that with no hesitation. If you're struggling to get your craft up to the next level, Scott has answers for you. Open your mind and your ears, and Scott can change your life. He certainly changed mine.
Rather than fool about with my own advertisement, I've decided simply to re-post his Facebook message. Even if you're not interested yourself, I'd consider it a personal favour if you'd re-blog this, and any reader of yours who signs up will, I promise you, thank you for it.
Scott's message begins: Last year, I established some online CW courses at City Lit, and have
experienced endless problems making them available through City Lit
catalogs, or on the City Lit website - regions of information that are
fraught with peril. The three current City Lit courses can be found at
the following links - and they all start up for term three on 20 April
2015: http://www.citylit.ac.uk/…/novel-writing%3A-an-online…/hw362 http://www.citylit.ac.uk/…/short-story-writing%3A-an-online… http://www.citylit.ac.uk/…/advanced-writing%3A-an-online-co…
If you know anyone who might be interested in these courses - or in our
independent experiment in online creative READING (and writing) - the
Ultimate Beginners - could you please pass this info on to them? Here's my recent letter to current and past students in my online courses, summarising the programme, and its perils:
Two years ago I started these online courses at City Lit for several
reasons, but mainly to provide students the sort of one-on-one
manuscript comments that we can't provide in-class, AND to make it
possible for self-motivated students to work to their own schedules.
City Lit provides REALLY affordable prices - AND concessions/senior
rates - that most schools can't provide. And, I can promise you, EVERY
other online writing course costs three or four times what City Lit
charges. And all of those other online courses (from what I can see) are
not very good. On the other hand, City Lit has been going
through lots of changes/difficulties in the past couple years, and they
have done a terrible job publicising these courses. They often leave
them off the catalog/online catalog altogether; OR they make it
difficult for students to enroll; OR, as I just learned this week, they
actually ERASE all the descriptive material from the catalog, so that
what the course is, and how it works, is extremely confusing. OR they
post misleading information. For the past few months, for
example, the catalog made it seem that students would have to "attend"
THREE one hour sessions each week, and at specific times. They also
managed to ERASE all the positive reviews these courses have been
receiving from students! AND they ERASED all of my descriptive material
for ALL of the courses! Jeez. And I only found out about these problems
by accident - when a prospective student wrote me trying to understand
what was going on. I'm sort of exhausted trying to keep ahead of
all these problems, and am asking all my students this term to do me a
favour: if you have found the course useful and/or a bargain (and I will
STRONGLY contend that it's a "bargain"), please let your friends and
family know about the courses, or promote them where you can - Facebook
pages, writer groups, whatever. OR provide reviews on the City Lit
website that help students understand how the courses ACTUALLY work. And
be prepared to have those reviews ERASED! I just can't keep up
with these problems anymore - and feel that City Lit's marketing
department is unable to make these courses available - or understandable
- to potential students. The courses will definitely die if we leave
things to City Lit. Sorry for that long-winded "favour"! And I promise
not to ask again or pester you about it. But if you would like to see
courses like this carry forward at roughly these current prices, do
please help get the word out! We now return you to the regularly scheduled broadcast! P.S. I google image-searched "angry writer" to illustrate this post - and here's what I got below!
That's right. I'm doing the whinging. But in a proud sort of way... if that makes sense.
I finished my book. Now it's all about chilling for awhile. It's important once a draft is complete to let it simmer for at least a few days. I always tell myself a week, but usually can't stay away that long.
I'm going to write something else, maybe a short story. Or maybe I'll clean up some combat scenes from a Sword and Sorcery book I wrote long ago back when my life consisted of reading Robert E. Howard and practicing martial arts.
It doesn't matter what I write. What matters is taking my focus away from the book so I can look at it with honest eyes for a final spit and polish.
And why is this post whingy, you ask? Because I'm finally allowed to admit to myself how tired I am.
So I'll see you, dear readers, on the flip-side. I'm off to play Xenoblade Chronicles. Friends and relatives shouldn't expect to see me for a week or so, and when you do, I'll be pasty-skinned, and I'll reek of pizza.
Reality and I aren't getting a divorce, but we're spending some time apart.
Recently, I had an almost-polite altercation with a friend about whether Interstellar is a good movie. His issue was basically that the theme was confusing, which made the movie listless. As many budding authors read this blog, it drew to mind a distinction that one should know:
THEME AND TOPIC ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
There. I said it.
My friend cited Alien as a movie with a simple, comprehensible theme: the theme of rape. It's hard to explain to people who aren't interested in making art, but Alien does not have a theme. A theme is an INTENDED EFFECT. An intellectual effect, mostly, but the attachment of that effect is achieved through emotional connections much as anything else in fiction. Theme is most certainly not something for people to write dissertations about twenty years after the film is made. It's an INTENDED EFFECT for the viewer/reader to walk away with upon completing the movie/book, much like everything else in good fiction.
Alien doesn't have a theme. It's a very simplistic horror movie. It's intended effect is to be afraid of scary monsters. It's excellent. It's a tight, gut wrenching narrative about death and fear and escape and, indeed, powerlessness in the face of a frightening monster. In fact, to say it's about rape simply because the main character is a woman has to be one of the most inadvertently sexist comments I've ever heard.
Even more importantly, rape can't be a theme. Why? Is it an INTENDED INTELLECTUAL EFFECT? Hell no. It's not an idea. It's an action. It's like saying, "The theme of American Sniper is shooting guns." Bullshit. The theme can be to make us think about how shooting guns, or rape, is wrong, but Alien made no such attempt. It made us think about how much it would suck to get chased by scary monsters.
Now, as someone who's taught women's self defense, I feel icky even writing that word, so I'll have to drop that subject now and move on.
The bottom line is, even if Alien were about that (which it isn't, just to be clear) there's a difference between what a movie's about and its theme. American Sniper is about shooting people. Is that a theme? No. Selma is about civil rights movements and racism. Is that a theme? No. "Racism is wrong" can be a theme, but racism itself is a topic, as are civil rights movements.
Let's give an example of something with a great theme: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Never judge a person before walking a mile in their shoes. That theme is reiterated over and over. In just about everything that happens in the book, even in most conversations within the book, we are given the idea of how judging a person is wrong. We are reminded of how people are intricate creatures who cannot be understood simply by staring at them from the outside. And once you understand someone, you'll never want to judge them.
A theme can make you reflect on other things. For instance, To Kill a Mockingbird has the potential to make someone reflect on racism. But is the theme "racism"? That's not a theme. Can it make us think about how racism is wrong? Yes, for the same reason you shouldn't judge a person without walking a mile in their shoes: all people are inherently equal.
People can walk away with different reflections based upon how the theme resonates with their own experiences. In America, readers tend to hone in on the idea of race, because of the racial issues that still persist in your country. No offense, but the rest of the 1st world isn't like that, and if you don't believe me, you've never lived in Canada.
The trial only takes up 1/3 of the book. To Kill a Mockingbird does not mention race on every page. But every page does ooze the idea that you shouldn't judge a person without walking a mile in their shoes. The movie, which did not feature that guy from the Superbowl commercial, focused on the trial because it's a big dramatic hinge-point. It's a thematic hinge-point too, and inherently so, because a well integrated theme will be in every way tied to the drama.
Reflection on the theme is an INTENDED INTELLECTUAL EFFECT. That's why everything in the book is so exquisitely tailored to it. Without that understanding, an artist can never create themes of their own, because they must understand that it's not a question of the topic you want to cover. It's a question of the thoughts and reflections you want your reader to walk away with.
My picture for Pinterest this time is chosen to illustrate why people grow up with misconceptions about themes. Namely, we're taught wrong. This picture is a sheet for school. (I teach English on the side.) It's basically forcing students to fail to understand what Harper Lee did, and fail to understand how fiction is made, and indeed, fail to attain good grades based upon your own honest reading experiences. School is, in essence, judging you intellectually without attempting to walk a mile in your shoes.
Note the word "themes", plural. Bullshit. Note also the focus on racial issues. Reflection as a result of the theme. Not the theme itself. (Intended reflections perhaps, but that changes nothing.) Note how, if you have any real insight into the truth of a subject, school will make every attempt to beat that out of you. Just a personal grudge, there, but you'll see that topic in my books frequently.
To far too many young people, their relationship with society looks too much like this:
One issue I had with my book was that readers were enjoying it in a highbrow, literary sort of way. They enjoyed delving into the ambiguities and wondering what was going on behind the surface. That's all well and good, so long as readers are interested, but it isn't really what I'd intended. The especially egregious ambiguity was as to whether my main character has telekinetic abilities, or if it's all in his imagination. For a couple of days, I couldn't understand how anyone got that idea. Then I read Carrie by Stephen King, a master of my weakness, plotting.
The first paragraph is about how much of a time bomb a telekinetic person can be. The second paragraph goes, "Of course what none of them knew was that Carrie White was telekinetic."
I laughed my ass off. My main character had been unsure of his gifts at the start of my book, and that meant my readers were unsure, too. Some readers were having trouble figuring it out.
But it doesn't mean characters can't be unsure. It means the author must find a way to make the reader sure. The deeper point is, the premise, and the hint of the dramatic, should be on the table right away. I don't want to write for highbrow people. I want to write for everyone. I'd love highbrow readers to enjoy my work, but I don't see the point of writing work designed to make self-congratulating, Oxford-cloth twits think I'm clever. The point of art is to impact upon people, as such, the amount of people it reaches is vital. Art happens every time someone listens to music, or reads a book, or plays a poignant video game. Art isn't simply in the artist. It's a gift from the artist, and a gift is just a colourful box until it's unwrapped.
Now, as it's necessary to post on Pinterest, I'll honour him with a picture.
You guessed it from the title. I saw a life coach. Sort of. You see, my martial arts teacher got a qualification in life coaching and wanted to help me out, so I got a few sessions for free.
One interesting thing we discussed: Imagine I'm a drone working in a company, and my boss wants to make money out of me. What would I, the boss, say to the guy sitting in the cubicle?
First, I'd obviously give him his own office, a booze cabinet and a snack bar. All those perks. Obviously.
But second, I'd send him on a training course. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I need to work on my plotting. I'm not the first author who had trouble learning how to plot. The list includes Roald Dahl, William Shakespeare, and various other names you might remember. Basically, it doesn't mean I'll always suck at it. And please, if you're thinking of commenting on that, remember that the earliest published story of a person's is not the first thing they wrote.
I'm sending myself on a six week training course. I've asked my old mentor, Scott Bradfield, for a list of some books he thinks are particularly awesomely plotted. I'm also looking at some great books that have some things in common with my own, e.g. Carrie and Matilda.
Six weeks, six books, and six book reviews. I'll post any major revelations here. It forces me to be accountable to myself--again being a boss. I might wind up posting more than once per week, but that'll remain the minimum.
