Babel Clash

It is almost time for Robin & Sara to wrap up their time on Babel Clash.  I don’t know about you guys, but I have really enjoyed their time here!  Excellent discussion, ladies!  Who knew that a conversation about setting would evolve into such a cool discussion of the practice of writing?  Do you have any last words of wisdom for our aspiring authors, posts about the ecology of your respective worlds, or just plain plugs for your books before we bid you a fond farewell . . .

. . . And welcome our next guests, Adrian Tchaikovsky & George Mann.

Adrian has promised that his first post might be a bit controversial and I, for one, can’t wait to read what he has to say.

Posting back and forth with Dane has led me to think about this. Vonda McIntyre would tell you that there is no wrong way to write, and I would tell you that Vonda is one wise writer.

So how do YOU write? I’ll toss that question to Sara and to any other writers out there. Some swear by long-hand and an expensive fountain pen. Some sit in a noisy cafe, and others have to have absolute silence. Some need a certain keyboard or Must Have Coffee standing by.

I remember reading somewhere a theory that so many writers smoked or became alcoholics because of the rhythm of writing: that you work for a brief stretch, get up, do some minor thing (have a cigarette or fix a drink or brew a cup of tea) and then come back to sit and type a few more lines. I thought it was interesting but hardly convincing.

Over my years as a writer, I’ve had all sorts of techniques. Ball point pen and spiral notebooks and a seat in the back of the classroom in highschool. I’d also go home and climb the ladder to the meat cache (little log house up high on a log platform, sometimes full of frozen moose or caribou haunches in winter) and hide out there to write.

By the time I was 18 and living as a new wife in Chiniak Village on Kodiak Island, I had graduated to a portable typewriter. Smith Coronamatic. Those were the days of typewriter ribbons and creating a carbon pack for every page so you’d have a copy to keep with you when you submitted your original. It was also the days of Wite-out to correct typing errors, and discard the page if you made more than three errors in your typing. There was no delete key!

Then came kids.

You can be a parent, a stay at home parent and still write. If anyone tells you it’s impossible, just give them a steely eyed look and whip your stenographer’s notebook out of your diaper bag! Moms can write. I went from a full size spiral notebook to a stenographer’s size because it was so much easier to fit in a diaper bag and also to brace on my knee while I was writing. I wrote on the bathroom floor while kids were taking long baths. I wrote while sitting on the edge of the sandbox. While waiting for a doctor’s appointment. I wrote almost a full novel at a sticky table in a roller-rink while the kids were whizzing around on skates. You know the WWII thing about ’smoke ‘em if you got ‘em’ for catching a cigarette when you could. The same holds for writing. You CAN write in five minute intervals. Yes. You can. It won’t be great writing, but when the kids are finally asleep, you can then transcribe it via keyboard, and fix anything that’s wrong with it. As you transcribe, it will grow and change.

Time passes. Kids grow. The hours when the kids are in school and you are not at your ‘real’ job are much too precious to spend on housework! Write. You can sweep the floor while quizzing kids on their spelling words. Write while you can.

And when your kids become teenagers and find you embarassing and annoying, don’t be irritated or hurt! Settle down to the keyboard and write. Trust me, it does them good to see that you have a passion and a life, even if it involves pretending that you a pirate in an alternate universe.

How do I write now? Well, my last ‘child’ is registering for her freshman classes today. I’ll be a ‘Greener Mom’! And I don’t have to pick up my grandkids from school until 3. So I’ll spend the hours at my full size keyboard in my basement dungeon office. And late at night, I’ll add a few more hours to that.

I tried a laptop. The shrunken keyboard made my hands hurt. I really like the curved Microsoft keyboard with a gel cushion under my wrists. When I travel, I revert to spiral notebooks and pencils. I like the feel of lead on paper. Worst scenario was when I had to talk my way back through Australian customs because I’d left my notebook on the wrong side of the barrier! They did let me have it back, thank Goodness!

I’d say the best way to write is with whatever you have when ever you can.

Robin

Robin talked about procrastination - yep, that’s me. A few years (yes, years!) into writing Song of Scarabaeus, I was still only two-thirds done with my first draft because… well, mostly because “there’s always time” to write later. In a last-ditch effort to finish this on-again, off-again manuscript, I grabbed a laptop and a change of clothes, and drove to Middle-of-Nowhere, rural Australia, to stay at a friend-of-a-friend’s empty cottage for two weeks.

No internet, no TV, and a broken heater in the middle of winter. I wrote for two weeks solid with one hot water bottle in my lap and another under my feet. The climax of the book takes place in an alien jungle, and while I had a general idea of its physical structure, my imagination dried up over the details.

Enter the coffee table book. Judging from the other books in the house, its owner had a keen interest in gardening and psychotherapy. But what caught my eye was a huge colorful book on machine embroidery (a craft I didn’t even know existed). The photos of what one could accomplish with a sewing machine, fabrics and threads were incredible. Intricate, beautiful, and best of all - despite being designed by computer chip - organic. Here was my inspiration.

Looking at the pictures and the brief paragraphs of accompanying text, I wrote a list. Thread, stitch, knot, weave, tangle, mangle, ripple, enamel, gossamer, crooked, knitted, patchwork, scallop, silk, feathery, vein, lace… As my alien jungle  became an embroidery project, I was starting to clearly see it in my head, and imagine how my characters might navigate it.

Next time you’re searching for inspiration, try something different. If an alien jungle can spring from a craft book, maybe inspiration for a spaceship design comes from looking at a cell under a microscope. Maybe inspiration for the sound of an alien language comes from… thrash metal?

Sara says it’s my turn to make a post.  So I think I’ll saddle up one of my favorite hobby horses and go on about writers and writing and procrastination.

Of course, before I can start, I need to go upstairs  and put a warm-up in my coffee mug.  And maybe finish the breakfast dishes in the sink.  My office is in the basement dungeon. I have a sparkling view of a window well full of dead leaves.  Hm.  Maybe I should go clean out those leaves before I do anything else. It’s possible they are rotting the window frame or making the window well more attractive to ants.

And that, you see, is how it starts.  It’s easy to put off writing.  That scene in your head is right there, so clear. It’s so much easier to keep replaying the sword fight, witty repartee, and that first kiss than it is to actually sit down, put fingers on the keyboard, and write the other sentences, the ones that set the scene and establish the characters.  All the stuff you have to write before you get to that one killer line.  Who wants to type all that?

And if you have a life besides writing, if you have a job or some children, a spouse, a floor that needs sweeping, a lawn that is overgrown, a dirty catbox, etc.  it’s so easy to say, “I can write anytime.  I’d better do those essential chores right away.”

Harder to say, “Writing is my essential chore, and I’m doing it first.”

So I think that if you want to be a writer, you should put a sign above your desk that says, “Right here, Write now.”  Or “Write here, Right now!”  Whichever you like.

Because in my opinion, you need to catch those stories while you can.  Ten years from now, no one will know if your lawn was mowed today or if your catbox reeked.  You and possibly your readers will remember if today is the day you started or finished that story you’ve been meaning to write.

Sometimes I help out with Writers Workshops.  Or guest lecture about writing.  I’m always sad for the people who come up afterwards and say, “I have this great idea for a story (book) and I’m going to write it right after I finish my thesis. ”  “I’m writing it right after this wedding insanity is over.”  “I’m writing it as soon as my kids are out of diapers.”  “Once I retire, I’m going to write my novel.”

No, my friends.  No, you won’t. 

It may happen that after the wedding or after the kids start kindergarten, you WILL write a story or book. But it won’t be the one you told me about today.

Stories and books have freshness dates.  The fifteen year old who tells me a wonderful synopsis of a sword and sorcery tale should write some of that story NOW, tonight. Stop twittering or putting entries on MySpace about the story you’re going to write.  Put words on a page NOW. Why?  Because the story you told me belongs to your fifteen year old self.  Your 25 year old self, or your 40 year old self cannot write it.  Not the way you would write it now.  Experiences in your own life will change you and your story.  Write it now, even if it’s badly spelled or mawkish or you never do get the ending write.  Write it now, and save it, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book.  Even if it’s not publishable now, you will come back to it later  and find there a voice and a freshness of experience that you will never have again.

And this is true if you are 45 right now and  just thought of your story last night. It won’t wait until you retire. Capture it now, even if it’s just one page a night. One page a night makes 365 pages a year, a respectable length for a tale. 

Sometimes teenagers say to me that they don’t ‘know’ enough to write a book yet.  I want to tell you that right now, you know more about living in this world, about being 16 in 2010 than I could ever know.  No research will give me that.  That is what ‘write what you know’ really means. Not that you must be an expert on horses to write that horse scene, but that you need to write from your own bones, right now.   Use getting cut from the team or that special kiss or even the deadly boredom of studying for a class you hate.  It’s all grist for the mill, and it belongs to you.

Sometimes, in my opinion, writers think too much.  More than once, I’ve met aspiring writers with bulging valises full of their research. They show me maps, time lines, sketches of the characters, a brief political history of the world, notes on geography and the gross national product of the kingdom . . . well, perhaps not that bad. But what I’m saying is that they’ve spent hours and days and months writing everything except the story!  It’s wonderful that your research is so detailed, but put your eyes on the prize and Tell Me A Story!  Your story, the one only you can write.

Speaking of that, you know what I need to go do right now?  Balance my check book, make a deposit, clean the cat box, fold the two loads of stacked up clean laundry and change the sheets on  my bed.

You know what I’m going to do instead of those essential tasks?

I’m going to go work on my book.

Robin

Time for me to pick Robin’s brains for a change…

I read the Liveships Trilogy several years ago and was totally sucked in by the “family saga” aspect of those books. From a writing perspective, can you talk a bit about point of view? My book has a single point of view because, as a new author, I thought that was the simplest way to go. (It has limitations, of course, but I also felt it had the immersive quality I needed.) How do you tackle and keep track of multiple points of view? How easy is it to write from a character’s POV when you don’t necessarily identify much with that character? I’m planning to attempt two POVs for my next book, but I’m not sure I can handle more just yet. Am I worrying about nothing?

On to your dragons in the latest two books. Did you base their behavior on real animals? To me the dragons come across as rather cat-like – bearing in mind that cats express all kinds of personalities. Some of the dragons are indifferent and arrogant, viewing humans as inferior servants, while others are friendly, even doting, and I can imagine them rolling over to have their furry – uh, scaly – bellies scratched.

I know your family moved to Alaska when you were young, with the intention of living self-sufficiently. This idea fascinates me because it makes me think about colonizing new worlds, starting with close to nothing, and also about long space voyages where the spaceship becomes a self-sufficient body. Can you give any pearls of wisdom about coping with this lifestyle? What are the pitfalls? What’s the balance between satisfaction gained from raising your own food, versus frustration at not having a microwave oven?

Because I haven’t known her long, and I’m always curious about what makes other writers tick!
So, as a writer, characters always come first for me. A character strolls through my mind first, and if I’m lucky, he’s dragging a plot behind him. But many SF writers I know tell me that a plot or a ‘what if’ comes to them first, and then they people the plot with characters. So, which comes first in your inspiration train? Characters or plot?

I liked the ending for Scarabaeus. It was satisfying, but left lots of room for the reader to imagine what might happen next. Do you think you’ll ever return to that world?

And the famous “What are you working on now?” question.

And finally: I broke into print over forty years ago, publishing my first short story at 18. (Go ahead, do the math! I’m old!) My first novel was sold when I was 30. So I’m from the age of carbon copies and SASE’s and studying Writer’s Market carefully. When aspriring writers send me an email these days, asking me the best way to break into print, I often wonder if my experience and advice are of any use to them. I was told to go for short stories first, and then after I’d published a few, use those credentials to approach editors. And it worked. A short story of mine called “Bones for Dulath” appeared in an anthology called AMAZONS! edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and published by DAW. It worked. It made a favorable impression on Terri Windling, who was then an editor at ACE books and led to my first novel sale.

So, how does it work nowadays, Sara? Did you self publish anything on line? Do you think new writers need an agent to begin the process? I’m genuinely curious how someone breaks into print these days.

Robin

Hi Sara (and everyone else!)

I had a curious thought (I know, sometimes it’s curious that I have thoughts at all, but still . . . ) I’m wondering how significant a writer’s home ’setting’ is to what he/she writes.

I do a lot of foresty backdrops, and a lot of swampy ones. Now, the first settings I can remember are Berkeley, California on Alston way near the railroad tracks. Not exactly foresty. But then we moved to Terra Linda. There I roved around the hills behind our subdivision a lot more than my parents knew. They were open grassy hillsides. We could sled on cardboard on the shiny yellow grass in summer. Sometimes I’d crest a hill and see an entire vista of bright orange California poppies. And down in the little valleys between the hills, there would be oaks. Some times of the year, the forest floor would be absolutely coated with shiny brown acorns that rolled under your feet. But what I remember best from that part of my childhood is the man made wetlands.
Again, my parents had no idea I did this stuff.
Behind our house, once you climbed over the tall wooden fence, was a strip of unclaimed land with brush and weeds. Then you came to a four lane highway. The opposing lanes of the highway were divided by a wide, flat bottomed concrete lined drainage ditch. There’s probably a word for this but I don’t know it. Anyway, run off from rain and silt and so on kept a layer of shallow warm water flowing through them. The silt built up enough that rushes and tall cattails grew in there and lots of other stuff. So, my friends and I would dash across two lanes of traffic and then slide down the sloping side of the ditch, and suddenly we were in a different world. The concrete ditch trapped the warmth as well as creating this odd pool of silence. We could barely hear the traffic rushing by. The water was always really warm and we waded in it with our flip flops on. And there was so much alive there. Lots of frogs, toads and blue bellied lizards. Salamanders. All sorts of birds.
Frogs were my favorite to catch and hold. Blue bellied lizards were harder to catch. Often I ended up only with a twitching tail in my hands. But if you caught one, it could be ‘hypnotized’ by stroking its belly. I love remembering those times.

When we moved when I was about ten to Alaska, I finally got to be near real forest. Very different sort of place. Fairbanks is a wide river valley. Not too far from our acreage there was a big slough. Again, the proximity of water meant an abundance of life. This time the life forms were bigger. Moose. Rabbits. Lynx, sometimes. Ravens. Owls. Not so many frogs. In winter it all froze over and the snow would be hip deep. Then, it would melt in spring and we’d have ‘break up’ where the water ran everywhere breaking the ice. And then everything bursts back into greenery.

Those foresty places have been the back drop for so many stories I’ve written, published and unpublished. Sara, I noticed a definite ‘desert’ feel to one of your stories, followed by a jungle. Are you, like me, writing your childhood impression of the natural world into your stories?

Robin

Writers of science fiction often create alien worlds, sometimes natural and sometimes not. Whether it’s landscapes or creatures, I think it’s better to include at least some familiar features like the ones Robin has talked about – then give them a twist. To me, the monster from the Alien movies is more scary and more interesting than the one in The Blob because of the parallels in its appearance and life cycle to Terran creatures.

In Song of Scarabaeus, I start with the familiar premise that alien life is based upon DNA and can be manipulated with manmade retroviruses. Humans use this technology to terraform other worlds for colonization. When the process goes awry, I feel my task as a writer is to describe the consequences in a such a way that the mutated landscape is unsettling without being so foreign that readers can’t even imagine it.

I’m reminded of my husband’s first visit to (urban) Australia, where he concluded that it was like “America in the Twilight Zone.” It’s that uneasy feeling you get when your environment is essentially familiar but something’s just… wrong. Imagine an alien jungle. We have vines and bugs – everyone recognizes those. But what if the vines are prehensile and the bugs act like schools of piranha?

I think that using the natural world as a jumping off point for fantasy or science fiction is a way of lowering the threshold of disbelief and inviting readers into the story. Despite the fact that most readers live in urban environments now, I think forests and other natural landscapes are very inviting to almost everyone.

Cities and other man-made environments always seem a bit foreign to me, even when I’m traveling in the US. “Oh, so that’s how they do it here,” I think, and try to adapt to the customs. But put me in a natural landscape, be it France or Australia or Japan, and I immediately feel more at home. Things make sense there on that primary biological level.

And that, I think, is one of the reasons why beginning with a natural setting can be so powerful. A writer can use it to chum the reader in; he will think that a tree is a tree, and a spring is a spring, right up to the moment that the oracle speaks to the protagonist or the tree whacks him with a branch. The very familiarity of such settings can be powerful tools for making people feel the strangeness of a fantastic or futuristic setting.

One technique that I use when I am writing is to employ familiar things to not only make the reader feel at home in my setting, but to convince the reader that I know what I’m talking about. If my character mentions in passing that a late frost has claimed the blossoms from the trees and there may be little fruit as a result, most readers will nod and say, “Oh, yes, that would be so.” And the more familiar cause-and-effect that I employ, the more familiar the world is, the more comfortable the reader feels. He relaxes into trusting me. Thus, when I introduce my fantastic element, being it a creature or a system of magic, I’ve already won the reader over into believing that not only do I know what I’m talking about, but that everything I say is true.
If what I’m writing about horses is correct and matches the reader’s experience,then he may more easily accept what I tell him about dragons.

Just a quick intro post from me before we get stuck into it. Firstly, thanks to Robin for helping me log in!

Secondly, today is the release day for my debut novel Song of Scarabaeus (from Eos) - so far I’ve resisted the temptation to dash over to my local bookstore and check the shelves, just to convince myself it’s real. But I did get my first fan mail, which I guess couldn’t have happened if the book wasn’t out there somewhere…

I’ve lived in southern Arizona for the last five years, home of the saguaro cactus and not the lushest of places. While I appreciate the lack of bugs in this desert climate, I miss the greenery and the flowers and the seasons (I grew up in SE Australia and the UK).

In my novel I played with the idea of taking the most natural thing in the world - a complex evolved ecosystem - and messing with it in increasingly unnatural ways. My inspiration for imagining and describing this strangeness came in part from an unrelated coffee table book - more on that later.