Sure Fire Ways to Procrastinate

by Kendra Leigh Speedling

Writers write every day, they say. It makes sense; the thing that separates writers from People Who Have Ideas is actually writing, and it's easier to keep at it when it's part of a routine. Writing every day not only helps you improve the writing itself, but means that you finish things. It's the advice that comes up in every book, blog, or interview about writing. Write every day.

I would like to extol the virtues of writing every day, but since the most I've done this week is open a Word document before launching myself away from my computer with a wail akin to that of an injured baby manatee,* that would make me a hypocrite.

The usual excuses apply—day job, other obligations, frustration with everything I'm attempting to work on at the moment—but writers work past these things, I've been told. Writers power through scenes even when they feel like they'd get a better result letting the cat walk over the keyboard.

In this particular climate, write every day starts to feel less like advice and more like a rebuke. Where's your discipline? the malicious brain imps will whisper. Don't you know that real writers write every day? The subsequent spiral of guilt and recriminations generally culminates in a realization that I've spent the last three hours alphabetizing my bookshelves so I don't have to acknowledge the fact that I have a manuscript I haven't touched in two weeks.** It eventually evens out again, but I could do without the 3-4 day period where I feel like I'm the laziest person in the entire universe. I used to keep a spreadsheet to enter my word count for each day, but had to stop when each 0 started feeling like a reflection of my worth as a person.

So absolutely, make time for your writing. Try to write every day, or as often as you can. Enjoy those days when it's easy; sit down to write even when it feels your plotline and your life are having a contest to see who can collapse into a gooey mess first. If you really, really can't bear to look at your manuscript on a particular day, write something else: something short, something silly, something about your world, something you don't intend to ever see print. But if you, like me, find yourself sacrificing your sanity for the sake of a word count, don't beat yourself up if a few days pass without anything resembling productivity. You've had a break, and now you can get back to writing.

In the end, it doesn't matter if you write 2000 words a day or 100, write every day, every other, on weekends, in the mornings or evenings or under the light of a full moon. What matters is that you write, and keep writing, and remember why you wanted to write things in the first place.

*I don't actually know if manatees wail, so this may be horridly inaccurate. If you have identified it as such, you clearly know far more about zoology than I do, and can feel free to imagine the animal of your choice.

**The fact that there is an entire website dedicated to the concept of cat vacuuming assures me that I'm not entirely alone in this regard.

Kendra Leigh Speedling's short story "They Shall Know Us At the End" appears in the July issue of Penumbra. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a major in English and a minor in Asian Languages and Literatures. She is a 2011 Dell Awards finalist, and will someday master the art of productivity.

Write What You Love

by Shannon Fay

The one piece of advice I would give new writers is to not just to write what you know but to write what you love. Maybe you love astronomy and have a head full of constellations, or you have a gift for languages, or you’re an expert in some field or hobby. These things that interest you, that take up your idle time, use these things in your stories. Your knowledge on the subject will give your story more credibility and your passion will give it life.

And the things you love don’t always have to be so specific. Maybe you love unconventional narratives and finding new ways to tell a story. Maybe you love rousing adventures that make the reader forget their troubles here on the ground. Or maybe you think often about how men and women relate to one another, or how parents and children relate to each other, or how people in general relate to each other. Figure out what interests you and cultivate it.

There have been times when I’ve grown stuck while writing, working myself deeper and deeper into a rut the like a wheel spinning in the mud. The most frustrating thing was that there was nothing technically wrong with the stories I was working on: the plotting was sound, the words at the very least in the right order, but there was something missing. I didn’t care. And why didn’t I care? Because I just didn’t care. There was nothing I loved in the story. Usually this happens because I’m so focused on writing something technically good that I stop writing about things I care about. Instead of following my passions I end up following trends, tapping into the popular consciousness rather than my own. And that’s when I get stuck.

There are stories only you can write. They might end up being very weird and/or personal stories, and they’ll probably be rejected a lot. But that just means that when they do connect with someone, the connection is all the stronger.

Write what you love sounds like obvious advice, and it is. In fact, new writers usually have a better handle on it than writers further along the path (in which case maybe this post should be about advice I’d give to ‘old writers’ instead of advice I’d give to new writers, not that I feel overly qualified giving advice to anyone). But it’s something that’s easy to lose sight of. So, even after you’ve written thousands upon ten thousands of words, remember what you love.

Shannon Fay is a freelance writer/assistant bookstore manager living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has recently won the James White Award and has had several short stories published in a variety of genres.

Learn more about Shannon Fay on her website.

On Writing Advice

by Michael Hodges

Writing advice all tends to blend into wallpaper. And soon it becomes like that old peeling stuff in your kitchen you pretend isn’t there as you glance back down at your coffee cup. I could write about using too many “ly” adverbs, or not to use “and” too often in one sentence (Mr. McCarthy would disagree), or even suggest copies of On Writing or The Elements of Style. I could say “find your voice”…something I think is more about writing a lot and consuming stimulants than performing Jedi mind tricks. These are all fine things. But you probably know them.

Discussing one aspect of writing will almost certainly segue to others. There’s an ecosystem here, an unavoidable connection. We void these connections at our own peril.

In our daily paths, we try to make that separation. We are closer to the plump raccoon that sneaks onto our porch at night than we like to think. There are things out there—living, breathing things that share our space in this world. The raccoons, the bats, the geese, the frogs, this frenetic symphony amongst the soggy parks and brown rivers that we pass on our way to Costco or whatever the next big box store is. If we are holding coffee, perhaps we can avert our gaze once more.

We are slaves to the sun. We are forced to wake and sleep, wake and sleep in the rhythms that have brushed this planet for billions of years. But today, and maybe just today, you are free. The world is more than credit and bills and our paths amongst the strip malls.

What is real? What is important?

Writing is one of them. You know this or you wouldn’t be here. And I guess this leads me to pluck a single focal point for this piece:

Awareness.

It’s the writer’s best friend. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, in their classic song “Do You Realize” asked, Do you realize, we’re floating in space?

No shit. We’re floating in space. Once you are aware of this truism, you are already ahead of the game. The writer, at his or her desk is at that moment, floating in space. Your mind is the sun, your hands the rain, your writing software the caked plains of Northern Africa.

What is important? What moves you? Can you feel all of this about you? The violence and the love and the dying and birthing? There are few things we have control over. Writing is one of them.

So go. Create your own universes within universes. Today, you are the creator, and the characters in your stories will wake and rest to the sun of your mind.

Michael Hodges resides in Chicagoland, but often dreams of the Northern Rockies. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is represented by FinePrint literary, and hard at work on a new novel. You can find out more on his website.

Challenge Yourself

by Rie Sheridan Rose

There are plenty of answers I could give to the question “What is the most important piece of advice you can give an aspiring author and why?” Do your research. Read in your field. Write every day.

But above all of these, I would put “challenge yourself.” This is my new mantra, and it is what I would put at the top of the list.

It’s easy to say, but what does it mean?

When it comes down to it, any one with the will to do so can write a book—look at all the self-published authors on Amazon if you don’t believe me. It may not be a good book, but it can be a complete novel, just like you’ve always wanted. And, however good you are when you start out, with practice, you can get better. These things are given.

But just writing a novel or short fiction and staying in your comfort zone (writing what you know, for example) isn’t nearly as much fun as going outside that familiar world. Give yourself a stretch goal. Something that you never in your wildest dreams expected to do.

Are you a short story writer? Challenge yourself to write a novel.

Are you a novelist? Challenge yourself to write a collection of poetry.

Do you submit to the same markets over and over? Send a piece to the biggest publication or press you can think of. For example, I sent a poem to The New Yorker this year. It was rejected, but that doesn’t negate the challenge.

I’ve just set myself a new challenge. I have started Book Two in a series for the first time. This provides its own exciting roadblocks to surmount.


Exciting roadblocks?
Yes.

Any job can get dull and routine if it doesn’t include challenges. The more you stretch yourself, the stronger your “writing muscles” will become.


Challenge yourself to write something requiring research if you haven’t ever written anything but contemporary fiction.

Challenge yourself to write a science fiction story if you only write romance.

Challenge yourself to write Steampunk, or Urban Fantasy, or a Young Adult.

The broader your abilities, the more likely you are to find your niche, your audience, and your “bliss” as a writer.

Once you have found what suits you best then you can specialize, but if you don’t challenge yourself to try new things, you may miss out on the one thing that makes you happy and successful.

I invite you to join me in a challenge that I have been set. My husband—wanting to jump start my career to the next phase—has challenged me to get three hundred rejections this year. That isn’t submit three hundred pieces, that is submit as many as it takes to get that many rejections despite acceptances. So far, I am standing at about thirty rejections to ten acceptances. That’s more acceptances than I even had submittals last year, I think.

Now, it is already May, so I wouldn’t expect someone starting now to get that many rejections, but I challenge you to shoot for one hundred. If you are a new or aspiring author and start with that goal in mind, just think what you can do!

Never stop challenging yourself.

Rie Sheridan Rose has pursued the dream of being a professional writer for the last ten years. She has had five novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and several stand-alone pieces published by over a dozen small presses in that decade.

Learn more about Rie Sheridan Rose on her website and blog. Stay connected with Facebook and Twitter.

A Moment with Lindsey Duncan

If you could give an aspiring writer any one piece of advice, what would it be and why?

The one piece of advice I would give an aspiring writer is to know yourself. Books on craft and fellow writers have a lot of theories about the best way to write whether insisting it is crucial you write first thing in the morning every day, requiring an outline, decrying outlines as stifling to creativity, telling you that humor or elaborate prose or stories about garden gnomes don't sell and it doesn't get any clearer with editors. More than once, I've had a story rejected by one venue where the editor cited a specific element of the story as their reason for rejection and the next place I submitted it, their editor loved the very same element.

To decide which advice to take and which to ignore, you need to know who you are as a writer and how you work. Do you need the discipline of daily sessions? Are you a night-owl and likely to get your best work done after midnight? After years of trying to push through writer’s block, I finally realized that usually, when I block, it’s my subconscious telling me I’m coming up on a plot hole I haven’t worked through yet – so now, rather than trying to force it or giving up, I stop and consciously analyze what’s going on in the work. Part of knowing your process, though, is not taking the easy route. If you know you need breaks to recharge and incubate ideas, take breaks – but don’t let the break itself become a habit.

The same applies to the style of your writing. Do you enjoy vivid descriptions and unusual metaphors, or do you prefer to write streamlined and to the point? As long as you’re not grinding the story to a halt to immortalize a patch of moss or conversely, not giving enough information to picture a scene, it’s almost a guarantee there are readers for whom your prose is just right. Knowing which you are can help you identify problem spots in your fiction. You’ll know to scan for places to cut or hunt for long stretches of barely interrupted dialogue to fix the dreaded talking-head syndrome.

Don’t worry about fads and should-nots. I’m reminded in reading an intro for Robert Asprin’s Myth series that he was told humor didn’t sell. His series took off – long before Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels dominated the public consciousness. Conversely, with the speed of publishing, by the time you latch onto a trend, it’s likely to have passed.

You might need a detailed outline before you begin, or you might need nothing more than a name and a core concept. If you’re the latter type – a pantser, as in “by the seat of your” – go into the process knowing the final draft will probably need more revision and rewriting. I’ve discovered I don’t need any kind of outline for novels, but what I do need is near-exhaustive world and character-building. With the backdrop and cast fully fleshed out, I can write as a pantser and still create a (relatively) smooth plot in the first draft.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is invaluable in analyzing critiques or editor comments – deciding what to keep and what to change. While it’s always important to pay serious attention to amassed evidence of a problem – when every reader / editor is saying the same thing – this self-knowledge helps you decide what to do with conflicting opinions or outliers. Otherwise, you’d drive yourself mad trying to edit to everyone’s liking.

Finally, the most unique part of any writer’s work comes from the individual. I’m not saying that you have to bare your soul in print or write solely based in personal experiences – disagreeing with both these concepts is part of my identity as a writer – but rather that no one else has your precise combination of opinions, beliefs, personal style … and a hundred other things, besides. I’ve always agreed with those who flip the old “write what you know” adage on its head and say that the real goal is to “know what you write” – and the most important subject for a writer to know about is themselves.

Lindsey Duncan is a life-long writer and professional Celtic harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in numerous speculative fiction publications. Her contemporary fantasy novel, Flow, is available from Double Dragon Publishing. She feels that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives, performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Learn more about Lindsey on her website.

What’s in a Name?

by Rie Sheridan Rose

“Tyrone, Tyrone…wherefore art thou, Tyrone?”

Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Of course, in the 1560’s in England, Tyrone wouldn’t have been a very likely name any way, but suppose Shakespeare had gone with something more recognizable to his audience—like William, or Henry, or Robert. These names still wouldn’t have conveyed the sense of place and status that naming his hero “Romeo” presented.

When creating your characters, their names are going to be the easiest, most convenient way for the reader to remember them. This is your chance to give your audience a cheat code, as it were, to have an instant recognition of who that person is and their place in the story.

Therefore, it is vital that you make sure your choice conveys the information you want to make sure is given. While it may be fine to give the characters in a short story the first name that comes to mind—after all, the reader won’t be spending too much time with them—when it comes to a longer work, like a novel or series, there needs to be something about that name that will help the reader remember who it belongs to.

For example, in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo (short for Josephine) is the tomboy. Her name is mannish by her own choice. She is a writer, who wants to succeed in a world where her sex is a limitation, and she does what she can to negate it by the nickname. Meg (short for Margaret) is practical, conforming, not a risk-taker. Her name reflects the practical, sensible side of her nature. Beth (short for Elizabeth) is the dreamy, musical child with a heart two sizes too big and a desire to help those in need. Her name reflects the softness of her character. Amy is the baby, the pretty one, the snob. She wants to be a painter, so she is also artistic, and her name is the most reflective of this, sounding almost exotic compared to the other girls.

Perhaps Louisa May didn’t put this much analysis into her name choices—but I wouldn’t bet on that.

In fact, when naming the characters for my new Steampunk series debuting in July, I downright stole Jo(sephine) as the name for my heroine because she shares characteristics with Jo March. The same reasoning went into her best friend Winifred, who goes by Fred because she wants to fit into a man’s world as a scientist.

There are certain other aspects to bear in mind when choosing a name that fits your character:

1) What is their location? Country of origin? (The characters in Romeo and Juliet were Italian, despite their English playwright, and needed Italian names.)

2) What is their profession? Many last names reflect the profession of the bearer or his ancestor.

3) What is their genre? Names like Stan and Pete may not adequately reflect your fantasy setting. Perhaps Bertram or Florescue are more appropriate.

4) Are they pronounceable? If you want to name your character Eeonathor, for example, provide an alternative, like Ravenwing, that he goes by so that the reader won’t just skip over it in their head…

These are some basic things to bear in mind as you write. Remember, however, that nothing about our profession is carved in stone. If they don’t work for you, feel free to ignore them. But you might find that “A rose by any other name” doesn’t smell as sweet.

Rie Sheridan Rose has pursued the dream of being a professional writer for the last ten years. She has had five novels, three short story collections, five poetry collections, and several stand-alone pieces published by over a dozen small presses in that decade.

Learn more about Rie Sheridan Rose on her website and blog. Stay connected with Facebook and Twitter.

If I Could Redo One Thing In My Life

What would I change?

by Julia Nolan

I wouldn’t have stopped writing.

Let me provide necessary context. From eighteen to twenty-four, I was convinced that I was meant to be a writer. Although I had a very sensible engineering degree and a good job in my field, I also had literary aspirations. To achieve them, I set some goals. I’d write for an hour a day, then submit my stories. I figured success was soon to follow.

The hour a day soon became an hour a few times a week. My goal to receive feedback was stymied by my conviction that critiquers “didn’t get it”. And the vast majority of my submissions came back with form rejections. So after six years, I gave up. I still hadn’t done more than publish in a few token paying markets. The evidence was clear; I was a terrible writer. Deciding this was not easy for me, I abandoned all aspirations for nearly a decade, before I started writing again with a more mature perspective.

And what perspective was this? Mostly the realization that I’d been lazy. I had assumed since I was reading at three and writing at five, the first time I tried my hand at fiction writing, I’d be genius. What I hadn’t taken into account was that I’d thrown myself into an incredibly competitive field without any practice or training. (Consider what would happen if I had decided to perform open heart surgery despite my lack of a medical background. After all, I’d been studying science all my life, and had even completed a high school biology class. Surely open heart surgery isn’t that much more difficult…it sounds ridiculous when put that way, and yet a similar arrogance infected me.)

The second time around, I looked at things differently. I sought critique, even when it hurt, from writers whose work I respected. I read short stories and novels with a critical eye, trying to figure out what made them worthy of publication. I gave critiques, hoping to improve my own ability to judge good from bad. Eventually I applied for (and received), a position at Allegory which allowed me to get a feel for what it is like to read hundreds of submissions and accept only a very few. In short, I learned patience and humility.

By doing this, I improved.

Now I suspect I’ll never be Shakespeare or Stephen King (they’re both one of a kind). And I doubt I’ll ever be able to support myself by writing alone. (Fortunately, I like my day job.) But…I’ve gotten two stories accepted in publications I love and suspect that if I continue working more success will follow. Probably not as fast as I’d like, but there’s no hurry, either. If I continue to practice, I will continue to improve. And good publications buy good stories.

Why do I regret my earlier arrogance if it did no long lasting damage? Because if I had not wasted all those years, I’d be a decade ahead of where I am now. More importantly, writing has always been a source of pleasure. It helps to ground my thoughts, and to stretch my mind and imagination. Giving that up for nearly a decade because I thought I wasn’t “good” was a self-destructive act. If we only did the things we instantly excelled at, we’d do nothing.

Julia Nolan is a project manager of epic proportions. The other ways in which she wastes time include making elaborate costumes, dancing, singing, and playing with chemistry. She had work appear in Mars Dust and will have stories in Penumbra and Stupefying Stories. She also edits for the ezine, Allegory.

MAKE ME CARE

by Davyne DeSye

“Mommy, how do you write a story?”

“One word at a time,” I answered – rather flippantly, I admit, but I was cooking dinner.

“A good story,” my daughter continued.

Ah. A more interesting question. I pondered how to answer as a chopped.

“I read a story Christina wrote for school. It was boring.” My daughter makes her guilt apparent in her furrowed brow – Christina is her best friend.

“Make me care,” I finally answered.

“You don’t care if her story was boring?” she asks, now perplexed. “Or you don’t care how to write a good story?”

Through my answering chuckle, I clarify: “I was answering your question. A story is a good one if you make me care.”

“Care about what?”

“What was Christina’s story about?” I ask.

“A boy who wrecks the neighbor’s flower garden,” she answers.

“Why did he do that?” I ask.

“I don’t really know. I guess he was mad.”

“What if he was mad because the neighbor killed his new puppy?” I ask.

“Oh. I guess I’d be mad, too. I’d feel sorry for the boy,” she answers.

“What if he was mad because his mother had just punished him?”

“I’d wonder why he got punished. Maybe he’s a bad kid, or maybe his mom is mean.”

“So, in one case, you would agree with him, and feel sorry for him, and in the second case, you’re wondering… is he mean, or is his mom? Is the story boring, now that you care? Now that you are trying to decide whether you like this boy or not?”

“Christina’s story wasn’t like that. It was boring.”

“She forgot to make you care. To write a good story, you have to make someone care what happens next, and you have to make them care about the people in the story. Like them, hate them, pity them, recognize them as someone you could be friends with, or someone who would scare you. Are you dreading what will happen next? Are you curious? Are you excited? If you can make someone care, then you’ve written a good story.”

As simplistic as my explanation was, it is true – at least as far as I’m concerned. When I write, I write for reaction. Any reaction. I call writing “bleeding on the page” or “vomiting on the page” – both conjured images rather vivid and disgusting, and thus, to my mind, rather apropos, if only because they garner a reaction. For each character, the question must be asked and answered: Why? Why is this character behaving in this way? What is she trying to accomplish, or to what from her past is she reacting? Then also, for each scene or setting, you must paint a picture that touches the reader’s senses in some way – the smell of fresh baked bread, the frigidity of the marble bench under thinly clad thighs, the grinding sound of a saw in the next room. Why has the character noticed these things? Why does she care?

Anticipation (of romance, of terror, of who is going to win the election, of how the new technology is going to change the way we interact) is what makes for good reading. Knowledge of why the character does what he does leads to wondering about how he’ll react when…

In short, if I don’t know that the boy was mad, or care why, it’s not a good story.

Make me care. That is all I ask. Thrust out the hook that will pull me along.

Davyne (pronounced "DAH-vee-ANN") DeSye was born to foreign royalty and spent her youth traveling among various countries assisting in her parents' efforts to acquire and refurbish old world castles. Davyne left her parents and their lives forever upon learning that she was born an orphan and was merely the subject of a nurture vs. nature experiment. She still loves to travel, although she tends to avoid visiting castles.

She now lives in Colorado with her husband and five children.

(Or at least that's the story this month...)

Davyne's stories have been published in, or will soon be appearing in Tomorrow, Daily Science Fiction, Penumbra eMag, MindFlights, Tales of the Talisman, Foliate Oak, and Nth Degree.

To learn more about Davyne, please visit her website.

Another Step Along The Way

by Jude-Marie Green

If writing can be likened to a staircase, which is a lousy metaphor but will do for this idea, there’s that important step between typing “the end,” and typing, “Dear Editor, Please consider my story,” the step of critique, of giving the story up to the writers’ group. The cold, grimy hands of the writers’ group. The ice-rimed hearts and acid-filled pens of the writers’ group. Family, best friends, acquaintances, professionals, and other strangers who take a gimlet eye to the words and deliberately misconstrue every nuance of plot, every turn of phrase, every poetical use of a semi-colon.

In other words, the writers’ group is invaluable. Mine saves me from myself all the time.

I’ve worked with writers’ groups since before I started writing. Readers are an important resource for critique, right? I’ve participated in workshop critiquing at conventions from Potlatch (a small, West Coast literary genre convention) to WorldCon (the World Science Fiction Convention.) I’ve been in Critters (online critique) and Speculations (online writers’ group with occasional critiquing opportunities, now sadly defunct.) I’ve attended workshops from the thre day weekend of the Borderlands Bootcamp (in Baltimore,) to the two week Center For the Study of Science Fiction workshop (in Lawrence, Kansas,) to the six week extravaganza of Clarion West. The experience of these workshops was invaluable. My story, written in intense privacy and passion, was exposed to others’ experience and reading prejudices and ability with grammar, plot, and characterization that I myself don’t necessarily have.

These workshops are a professional honing stone. What have I learned from them? I’ve had my faults as a story-teller revealed. This is invaluable knowledge. Once I know my faults I can learn to spot them myself and work on them. Plus, the audience is small enough and sympathetic enough that I don’t fear being told the story is worthless, even if I know in my heart that maybe it’s not an award-winner.

I’ve been with my long-term in-person writers’ group, The Writers’ Orbit, for several years. Once a month, we dedicate a Sunday to story critique. We spend the first hour around the table eating potluck and chatting. Once we get through announcements – who has sold what to or been rejected from which market, who has been invited to speak at what seminar, and similar writerly news – the critique begins. We use the Clarion method. The writer remains mute while critics have a few minutes each, in turn, to discuss individual impressions about the story. I sit there with my teeth gritted behind a plastic smile and write down the comments. They’re all valid. Some of the ideas I won’t be able to use, they won’t help the heart of my story. Some I’ll steal wholesale. At the end of the first round I get to do something a writer can’t do in real life: explain myself. Yes, there’s a reason the butterflies are yellow. I’ll try to foreshadow that more. No, I didn’t know about skunks and exuda, thank you for mentioning that.

In my group, there’s a second clarifying round of commentary and discussion, then the written comments are passed down the table to me. My story’s taken its first step up the staircase.

(My favorite critique I’ve ever garnered came from a first-timer with sharp eyes. She said, “Um, your first sentence? Where your character is watching the sun rise in the West? Doesn’t the sun rise in the East?”)

Jude-Marie Green has edited for Abyss&Apex, Noctem Aeternus, and 10Flash Quarterly. She has an interview with Larry Niven appearing in Michael Knost’s “Writers Workshop of Science Fiction,” coming in April 2013. Also, she has a Deadliest Catch In Space story appearing in MENIAL: Skilled Labor in Science Fiction, released January 21, 2013.

To learn more about Jude-Marie Green, please visit her website.

TRUST THE VOICES

by Davyne DeSye

My family thinks I’m nuts – the benign, harmless kind of nuts – because I hear voices in my head. It came to the fore one time when I was writing, madly banging away at the keyboard, when one of them interrupted me with mundane household question. I don’t recall the question. My response was, “Hush, hush, give me a minute. They’re talking and if I don’t get it all down, I’ll miss it. They won’t just come back later and say it all again for me.”

And then I was back to it, and it wasn’t long before I had managed to “transcribe” the conversation.

Yes, if you have developed a character well enough in your head, if you know what motivates them, they’ll do all the work for you.

This is true whether you are the kind of writer who starts writing a story with nothing more than an intriguing first line or idea, or whether you are of the plot/outlining ilk. If you have developed a character that will truly stand out from the page, he or she will do all the work. You won’t have to wonder what they will say, or how they will react under certain stimuli, or why they seem to misunderstand a situation. They tell you. They do it. You just have to get it down.

Thomas Harris described much the same process in his “Forward to a Fatal Interview” which appeared in a reprinting of his novel, Red Dragon. In that forward he explains how he first “met” his character, Hannibal Lecter.

The question then becomes how best or how most easily to develop your character to the point where they are bearing the load. One of my favorite tools for this is to “interview” the character – to ask questions about the character that will help you to understand who they are. Most of the information you garner will not make it into the story, but will help you transfer the workload from your shoulders to theirs. Of course, you have to ask questions like: What is your name? Age? Sex? Are you tall or short, brunette or bald, thin or fat? Do you walk with a limp? (Why?) But you can also ask more interesting questions, like: What was the happiest moment in your life? The worst? What fears wake you up at night (or do you always sleep peacefully)? What do you keep in your refrigerator? What do you use for transportation? What do you do with your hands when you are thinking/nervous/happy? What trinket (or piece of furniture, or tool) do you keep because it means something to you? What are your hobbies or phobias? What good or bad habits do you have?

When you interview your characters, be an investigative reporter – follow the leads your character gives you. You wouldn’t ask the same questions of a Hollywood star that you’d ask of an old woman living on scraps in an abandoned building. The character (and the story) will dictate some of the questions, or even the number of questions.

Once you’ve finished your interview, you’ll find that you are more interested in your character, that your character is richer than you initially imagined. You’ll find you can hear their voice in your head. When you set them loose, even within the framework you’ve constructed for them, you’ll notice that they do all the walking, thinking, jumping… and talking for you.

Trust the voices.

Davyne (pronounced "DAH-vee-ANN") DeSye was born to foreign royalty and spent her youth traveling among various countries assisting in her parents' efforts to acquire and refurbish old world castles. Davyne left her parents and their lives forever upon learning that she was born an orphan and was merely the subject of a nurture vs. nature experiment. She still loves to travel, although she tends to avoid visiting castles.

She now lives in Colorado with her husband and five children.

(Or at least that's the story this month...)

Davyne's stories have been published in, or will soon be appearing in Tomorrow, Daily Science Fiction, Penumbra eMag, MindFlights, Tales of the Talisman, Foliate Oak, and Nth Degree.

To learn more about Davyne, please visit her website.

Confidence as a Work in Progress

by Christopher Cornell

Ask most writers about self-confidence and be prepared for heavy sighs. The industry is set up to accommodate failure more often than not, and even the most confident artist or wordsmith must deal with disappointment on a regular basis. The road to every acceptance is paved with rejection slips. Judging by several conversations with well-established professionals, the struggle does not end with a bestseller or glowing reviews. And, in this most solitary of pursuits, the need for positive reinforcement is readily apparent.

This problem is near and dear to me as I make strides toward becoming a professional writer. Maintaining enthusiasm is often harder than turning out a good read. Here are a few things I’ve learned from thoughtful others (or am attempting to learn, in spite of myself):

Write, write, write. Submit, submit, submit. The more you write, the less attached you become to each individual word. The more material you submit to markets, the less those individual “no thank you” letters matter. (Also, the more chances you have for an acceptance. Sounds logical, but I have to remind myself every so often.)

Remember the good. Keep good feedback on hand to pull out when the sea of rejections and bad notices reaches a high tide.

Have confidence in the reader. When you’re creating an entire world on the page, it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to convey every detail. Readers appreciate bring allowed to figure things out for themselves. And it’s okay for the story to hold different meaning for someone else. Of course, too much/not enough is a delicate balance. But once achieved, they’ll respect you.

Constructive criticism for the win. When someone tells you what doesn’t work for them as a reader, they are helping you strengthen your work. As long as noted problems are specific and fixable, everyone wins. “It sucks” doesn’t help, but “I lost interest at this point” certainly does.

People will hate your work. This can’t be helped. As a colleague recently impressed upon me, wanting to be liked by everyone is the mark of an amateur. Do what you do, and find your audience. Everyone else can read something else, and it’s just fine.

The interwebs are best served with a grain of salt. It’s a fact that people who are dissatisfied with something are far more likely to express their feelings. And sometimes it gets ugly. The perceived anonymity of the internet encourages some to indulge in behavior they wouldn’t dream of in person. (As an artist friend noted, “Whenever I start feeling too good about myself, I read reviews online.”) You know the drill: don’t feed the trolls. And don’t stoop to that level in return.

Write what you enjoy. If you love your work, others will, too. Then the trick becomes finding those others.

Failing that, Scotch works well. In moderation.

Christopher Cornell is a writer, musician, interface developer and somnambulist in California's East Bay. He has also studied film and television, and is a graduate of the Viable Paradise writers' workshop.

More information and inane anecdotes can be found on his website and on Twitter.

WRITE MORE

by Ken Liu

Aspiring writers often get this bit of advice from pros: "write more." In this post I want to explain, based on my own experience, why there is real wisdom in this simple suggestion.

First, writing more allows you to find out if you actually like writing.

A lot of people like the idea of writing. Many of us probably have had the experience of being inspired, feeling the flow, and banging out a bit of prose that we're proud of. And we think: I can do this. Being a writer is easy.

Unfortunately, being a writer means that you have to write whether you're feeling inspired or not. A pro has to produce under tight deadlines (such as when an editor suddenly expresses interest). To make a living, a writer sometimes (often) has to force herself to sit in a chair and put words on screen even when she'd rather do anything else.

Writing more is the only way to find out if you can write away from your muse.

Second, writing more is the only way to get better.

There are no magic books you can buy, no prestigious workshops you can attend, no writing groups you can join, no secret tricks from experts that you can copy, that will short-cut this process. All of these things will help, to various degrees, but nothing will be a substitute for putting in the hours and pounding out the words.

Writing is a skill that requires your brain to be rewired in certain ways. Persistent practice is the only way to discover your voice, to hone it, to learn how to wield it to say what you want to say.

Finally, writing more also starts a positive feedback cycle that makes more writing easier.

I think writing is really a way of thinking in slow motion. It is how I work out the implications of the fictional world, to get to know the characters and to experience their feelings. When I write, I must fill out the details that had only been hazy shadows in my mind.

So as I write, I tend to discover new things about my world, about the ramifications of the speculative "what if" question I asked, about the characters I put on stage. New ideas take shape, sparks created by the chiseling of words onto page. Sometimes these lead to new scenes, new plot twists, but sometimes they become the seeds of new stories, entire new worlds that I long to set the next story in.

Writing more is the best antidote for writer's block. It is when I'm writing consistently and regularly that I find myself constantly bombarded with new ideas, kernels for fresh tales. The more you write, the more likely it is that you'll be inspired, that you'll feel again the mythical flow.

If you want to become better as a writer, begin by writing more.

Ken Liu’s fiction has appeared in F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld, among other places. He has won a Nebula, a Hugo, a World Fantasy Award, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award, and been nominated for the Sturgeon and the Locus Awards. He lives near Boston with his family.

Learn more about Ken Liu on his website and blog. Stay connected on Twitter.

What I Learned About Writing

by Joyce Frohn

This story began during the proverbial ‘dark and stormy night’. Okay, so it wasn’t really night, but it was stormy and I was stuck in my Grandmother’s farmhouse. I did what many of us did when we were kids, went looking for a something to read. After thumbing three dog-breeding magazines, I found a ten-year-old copy of The Whole Earth catalog that had a serial story in it. I don’t know how it began or ended. What I had was a piece with a drug-addled guy, a girl, and a van crossing America. The van told the story. It complained a lot, especially that its carburetor was painted purple in an attempt to improve its feung-shui. The guy kept saying there was an invisible dragon in the backseat.

For some reason, this hippie mess fascinated me. For the first time in my life, I took a story apart in my mind. I liked the van, if it would shut up. I liked the girl and the invisible dragon. I jotted down some things and tried to figure out where I wanted to place these characters. Little did I know this was me becoming a writer. I was twelve and had already learned to read everything: the good, the bad, and the cereal box.

I had already learned one important lesson of writing; there is no story so bad that it can’t inspire something. I took those characters and popped them into various places which meant I threw away a lot of stories. The first one involved the girl being a ballerina and was set in Medieval Europe. Before burning it, I learned something else. There needs to be a balance of weird and normal to make a good speculative story. I also needed to get rid of that druggie.

Later, I spoke with a former drugged-out hippie. He said the strangest thing that ever happened was after he got sober. He went to a gas station for the first time in more than ten years. After that, everything fell into place and it only took a little more than thirty years.

There’s another important thing; don’t throw away all your early work, there maybe something worth salvaging. I recently had the shock of being paid for the scribbled notes that I put in my Jr. High Student Manuel where I fantasized about how much better the school would be if there were werewolves, vampires and other assorted monsters in attendance. Think about it, it would make Jr. High better wouldn’t it?

And from those dog breeder magazines, I learned that my version of a nightmare killer dog is a Rhodesian Ridgeback crossed to an English Mastiff. I still haven’t written that story, but the notes are saved.

Joyce Frohn has been writing since childhood and published since her research on slime molds ended. She is married to a man who says he never wants her to stop writing. Jouce has a nine-year-old daughter who envies how much time Mom gets to spend on the family computer.

Do Simple Ideas Ever Get Published?

by Daniel Ausema

The first thought that comes to mind is that there are no simple ideas. Any idea, no matter how simple on the surface, has the potential to become much more once you start looking at it more closely. So a part of being a writer is training myself to see that, to discern the wrinkles and crevices in that simple surface.

Beyond that, there are two seemingly contradictory impulses that I try to cultivate in myself. The first is not to dismiss any idea right away. A story kernel--or for that matter, any idea for creating depth and detail within the story--might initially seem too ridiculous to take seriously. Often those ridiculous things turn out to be just what the story needs, if I just look at them sideways. Whether you want to think of it as a muse or something mystic or the role of the subconscious, the story often benefits from taking what seems silly or simple and just accepting that for the moment, filing it back into my mind, and then asking the question, "And then what?" It's like the classic improv comedy guideline: you never say "no," but always say "yes, and..." Take what you're given or what you come up with and then run from there.

At the same time, the second impulse I try to develop is to reach for the second or third idea. Sometimes the obvious, first thought is a dead-end after all, one that will leave the idea as simple as it seemed at first. Always reaching, always asking one more question after I think that I've solved a plot tangle. This doesn't have to be an agonizing, second-guessing sort of slog. A writing group I'm part of will often have intense one-hour writing prompts, and often the stories that come from it that I'm most pleased with are the ones where I ignore the first thing that comes to mind and reach for that idea just beyond it, the one that pushes the story a little further and more unexpected than I'd first imagined.

And always beneath (or above?) it all is an open curiosity. It's where the ideas, simple or not, come from in the first place and where the development of those ideas finds its traction. I'm deliberately and insatiably curious about all manner of things--people and plants, social customs and geological structures--and that curiosity gives the raw material for all sorts of stories.

Daniel Ausema has a background in journalism and experiential education and is now a stay-at-home dad. His fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including two issues of Penumbra. He lives in Colorado, a land of micro-brews, river rafting, and mountain wildfires.

Learn more about Daniel Ausema on his blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

A Speculative Sense of Wonder

by Miriah Hetherington

Writing speculative fiction has influenced the way I read stories and changed the way I look at the world. In the same way I suppose a software designer can’t play a video game without appreciating the effort that went into developing it, or a chef can’t eat a meal without noticing the ingredients and considering what makes the recipe delicious.

I’ve learned that creating a story is different from consuming a story. Kind of like the difference between the compulsion to open every wardrobe door you see, and the drive to figure out exactly how to build a wardrobe from the wood of a magic apple tree.

Recently, I decided it was time to box up my children’s collection of picture books. My twins are entering middle school and a rapidly growing collection of chapter books and YA novels are stacked precariously next to, instead of inside, their full bookshelves like misshapen Lego bricks. Not that piles of books are an unusual sight around my house.

The initial organizational plan was to sort through them, keep my favorites, keep my children’s favorites, and donate the rest. Yeah, right. This task is so much more difficult than tossing out and donating the clothes my children have outgrown. Our so-called children’s books still fit.

Have you ever noticed how many picture books contain strong elements of speculative fiction? What would you draw with a magic purple crayon? How cool would it be to travel in a giant peach with insect friends as big as you? When the Cat in the Hat shows up, crazy wild terrifying and wonderful things will start to happen. He reminds me of Doctor Who.

I love short fiction that makes me think, that opens my mind and twists my understanding. I think the best speculative fiction also appeals to the child in us. We want to suspend our disbelief and remember that sense of wonder. We want to experience alternate realities. We want the thrill of being frightened by a scary story, because you’re never too old to sleep with the lights on.

The seed of my Dream Catcher story germinated in my head one night when I was putting my twins to bed. I foolishly caved to their desire to watch something scary on TV, and my penance included a good half-hour spent positioning and repositioning a dreamcatcher to my daughter’s satisfaction, directly over her pillow. She also asked me to repeat the familiar dreamcatcher legend several times. I complied with as much conviction as I could muster, hoping the power of suggestion would be enough to help her succumb to sleep. As I waited for her to slip into that angelic state, I thought about her questions. If the dreamcatcher worked, then what really happened to the bad dreams? Surely nightmares hold too much power and energy to simply melt away in the light of day. In fairy tales, dreams hold revelation, and no blessing comes without a price.

Reading and writing speculative fiction challenges me to move my point of view around until I see beyond what is in front of me. Can you see them? The fey folk that linger in your peripheral vision, but on direct inspection look like teenagers skateboarding in the park. You know as well as I do the bicycle-mounted police officer is wearing shiny plate armor and riding a white horse in an alternate reality.

So move your point of view around until you can see the speculative possibilities. Then write about them so other people can open the wardrobe door and see them, too.

Miriah Hetherington is a middle-aged stay-home mom residing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband and three daughters. Though she’s been reading speculative fiction stories for years, it wasn’t until relatively recently that she started to write them herself. Miriah is delighted that her very first published story, Dream Catcher, will appear in Penumbra’s September 2012 Native American issue.

Learn more about Miriah Hetherington on her website. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

The Things That Make Us Write—Muse or Music?

by Celina Summers

Usually, when I write something for Musa or Penumbra, I'm writing with my editor's hat on. Today is a little different; I have my writer's hat on. My agent and I joke about that in our emails—some are sent to Celina the Editor and others to Celina the Writer, and it's Celina the Writer who's here today.

I have a confession to make. I'm one of those writers who's inspired to write because of songs, plays, movies, and books. I don't need those stories; I need the way those stories and songs make me feel.

The first novel I ever wrote, a really horrid epic fantasy very much in the style (okay, fan fiction) of David Eddings, I wrote to the soundtrack of Return of the Jedi. One of the projects my agent is shopping now was written to Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera—but only a specific version of POTO, with a specific cast, and a specific and set lineup of songs that doesn't mirror the order in the show. Another of my current projects I am writing to Sheherazade by the nineteenth century Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov. But then, for fight scenes (I like to kill stuff), I always use the same playlist and the same songs, highlighted by "Battle of the Heroes", composed by John Williams for Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith.

So, yeah. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I have theme music for my books.

I'm not the only author to do this. In fact, I know quite a few authors who have theme songs or playlists they write to. I tend to prefer orchestral music without vocalists for most of my writing music. Phantom is the big exception to that, but after years of musical theater, I learned to block vocals from my mind. It's a defense mechanism if you get cast in three successive productions of The Sound of Music, believe me. But The Phantom of the Opera sparked an idea for me—not a riff of Phantom, mind you. But the play and its music inspired me to set my magical realism series in the world of professional American theater—a world I know very well. And why not? Phantom has plays within the play, and all the action of the plot takes place backstage. I've seen multiple productions of POTO, on Broadway with three different casts, the movie version with the best-looking deformed man in history (Gerard Butler—I would totally have picked your Phantom over Raoul! Totally.), and now the 25th anniversary London production DVD. Every time I have seen Phantom—and particularly as a member of the audience—I have left the theater in an uplifted kind of reluctance. I wanted the play to keep going. I wanted to know what happened next. I pictured my coloratura self in the lyric soprano lead and created new adventures in my head. The show, and particularly the music, made me want to create. On top of that, however, the music from Phantom ties me to a tragedy from my youth. A school friend of mine from the sixth grade on was killed in an accident, and at his viewing, the POTO songs Music of the Night and Journey to the Cemetery were played over and over.

So the music has a specific meaning to me, both with my history in the theatrical world and also with an event that even now, I look back upon in sorrow. Those emotions, those personal claims upon my history and psychology, are evoked by the music—and I use that to fuel my writing for certain projects or for certain types of scenes.

It's not just music, though. Occasionally, other things will strike a spark in my imagination. A passage from a letter written in the 1800s gave birth to an alternate history set in the Tudor era. A lighting direction from a new play festival a decade ago stuck in my head and birthed the Darkshifters of my dark fantasy series. If it weren't for a recurring nightmare, I'd never have been able to conceptualize a story based upon an evil Harlequin.

And Obi Wan Kenobi stating emphatically, "Only the Sith deal in absolutes" set off an entire satire based on a writer's lack of comprehension of absolutism that will probably never see the light of day.

What? A girl's got to make a living somehow. Sorry, Mr. Lucas—but the line was funny.

So why does inspiration work this way? Maybe some writers can sit down and say to themselves, "Today, I'm going to write a space opera about cats that fly space shuttles and shoot mouse-shaped asteroids out of the belt between Mars and Jupiter." I'm not one of them…although that sounds like a good idea for a YA. After a lifetime spent in the arts, I find my inspiration in the moods that art or literature or music create in me. I can put in my Les Miserables CD in and let the music from that show serve as an accompaniment to the story I "see" in my head—the story that unfolds like a movie in my mind's eye and graciously permits me to relate the characters and the plot in a Word document file that someday, after much revision, editing, and beta reading, might just become a book.

There's a reason why the Muses are the patronesses of the arts in Greek mythology. Their responsibilities encompass the arts as known to the Greeks, and whenever a writer puts pen to paper, we pay homage to the idea of the Muses—we credit them with inspiring our work. Our word 'music' is derived from the Muses—so for me, at least, it's an easy leap that wonderful music can motivate an author to create an equally wonderful story.

But then there's the down side. How many times have I heard a writer, frustrated and nearly desperate, waiting fruitlessly for the Muse to appear? How many times has a writer blamed the absence of the Muse for the silence of their pen, the stalling of their stories?

You can't wait for a mythical Greek goddess to show up in your office and open up the cupboard in your mind where your story is kept. Got some bad news for you—mythical means "doesn't exist", and the fact of the matter is that inspiration, regardless of how it's sparked, is internal. Music from Phantom doesn't make me write. The response that music evokes in me—that's what makes me write. The magic onstage during a production of the show make me leave the theater feeling like I, too, am magical—and that magic is released in the form of a story.

So the next time you're sitting at your computer, playing never-ending, mindless games of Spider Solitaire while you wait for the Muse to descend in a cloud of glitter and magic and lead you past the plot snag that's got you stymied, perhaps the answer isn't floating on Mt. Olympus. Perhaps the answer is in a song, a book, a film that makes you feel like a magical moment was created. Perhaps the answer is in the scene where Severus Snape finally reveals his heart and story to Harry Potter in a tear. Maybe, that last beat where Rhett Butler says, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" will evoke that creative response in you. Give yourself and your imagination time to relax in someone else's world—or words—creations that have always spurred that artistic synchronicity in your soul Because in the end, while the spark may be external, the fire that blazes in every writer is decidedly internal.

In other words, don't be afraid to search for it in places other than the wall over your desk.

From the Editor's Desk

Comparison and Contrast
by Celina Summers

Over the last week, I've been glued to the television watching swimming. Once, every four years, Americans have enough interest in swimming to actually televise it. It's funny—so many people speak so knowledgeably about the sport when you know full and darn well they don't have a clue about what it takes to be an Olympic medal swimmer. I was a mediocre swimmer at best, and I spent 3-4 hours a day every day working out in the pool, running, or lifting weights. So I find it a little funny to hear people say, "Well, Michael Phelps looked really tight in the semi of the 100 fly last night."

Looked really tight? The man is six foot four inches, one hundred and ninety-four pounds, and has an arm span of over six and a half feet with abs you could slice ham on and legs taller than anyone who competed in gymnastics. I think it's anatomically impossible for a guy who put the lank in lanky to ever look tight.

That being said—

Right now, across the world tens of thousands of people like myself who swam competitively in their youth but gave it up are shaking their heads. Michael Phelps has been to—and won gold at—three Olympics. That's twelve years of international caliber swimming. It doesn't even count the years before that and how hard he worked to even get to that level. Hours upon hours of work seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, since the twentieth century. He didn't just wake up one day as the greatest swimmer who's ever lived. Nope, he worked for years to gain that status and earned every ounce of the eighteen gold and four silver Olympic medals that now hang around his neck.

So I always find it baffling that people think writing is easy.

You don't just wake up one day and write a bestseller. Writers spend a lot of long, lonely hours—sitting at their desks getting words down on paper, editing and revising, cutting and rewriting. We have to. I wish that the very first time I sat down and started to lay a story out on paper that it had been a perfect manuscript, that I landed the first agent I sent it to, sold it to the first publisher she sent it to, and sold out of the first printing before the book was released.

But that's not quite the way it worked out—for any writer that I'm aware of.

Just as an Olympic champion swimmer spends years upon years of his life in the water, swimming lap after lap, working on his stroke and kick, stretching his endurance to the longest possible moment, and gaining his top speed one thousandth of a second at a time—the writer must also work out intellectually, spending years upon years within their stories, consigning those stories to paper and reworking them until they are the best possible representation of their writing. You can't expect someone to jump into the pool for the first time at twenty-four and swim a world record time. Why, then, would you expect someone to write the next great American novel right out of the gate? Heck, for that matter, why would you expect your first draft to be the final draft?

Why expect gold right off the bat?

Writers' expectations should be more realistic. And just like a top athlete, achievement comes after you've established the daily repetition of exercise—word counts or scene goals, a set amount of work completed day in and day out with gradually increasing goal expectations. Sometimes, life conspires so you can just jump right in. In my writing life, for example, I started off as a full time writer because of an accident that kept me from working. Those long days after that accident, I sat alone in our apartment for eighteen hours a day while my husband worked two jobs to keep our heads above water—no internet, no cable television, not even a telephone to break up the monotony. Every morning, I woke and climbed into my recliner, powered up the computer, and wrote. I rarely went out, even more rarely found some other way to engage my mind. All I had was my story, and I steeped myself in that world. I cranked out six 150,000 word first drafts in three months.

And I look back at those first drafts and cringe.

Writing is a tough business. Whether you write epic or flash, you must be trained for success by constantly working to refine and improve your craft. And just like Michael Phelps has his coach, Bob Bowman, the author has her coach—her editor. Bob Bowman helped Phelps to trim seconds off his time; an editor helps a writer to trim the unnecessary and tighten up her manuscript. You may hate working with your editor at the time—God knows I've yelled at the computer screen a lot during edits—but the end result of that work makes you glad you did it.

See, the whole purpose of training, whether you're an athlete or a writer, is to make the very difficult look very easy. As writers, we're surrounded by tons of people in real life who confide, "I plan to write a book some day"—like it's an easy thing to do…like just anyone can do it. (Unfortunately, we editors rarely escape that person at the party, who then proceeds to pitch their story to us and talk confidently about how much money they intend to make. It's a conversation that never ends well.) But writing isn't easy. Writing is hard. Writing takes training and patience, meticulous attention to detail and the dedication to sit down at the computer every single day. Athletes like Michael Phelps have a big advantage, too. Phelps started swimming competitively at age seven. Writers, on the other hand, write competitively much later in life. Sure—I have trunk novels from when I was in my late teens, but I'll burn them before I let someone read them now.

So while we all sit back in admiration as the greatest Olympian and swimmer of all time finally hangs up his goggles, stop and think for a minute of writing as a sport. Sit down and set your goals, then determine the training you'll need to meet those goals. Take the guidance of your coach/editor, and use that knowledge to improve your work. And while you'll never get that national anthem moment on the podium, with the dedication and drive every successful writer needs you might get that quiet moment in the middle of the night when a new review comes out of one of your stories and you feel the triumph of a job well done.

And until Bravo comes up with a writing reality show (and I would so audition for it, by the way), that's the medal ceremony for people like us. Unless, of course, you play the Star Spangled banner every time you finish a story.

Kind of cheesy, but hey—if it works, it works. I'm not going to judge you for it.

A Shallow Recess?

by T. D. Edge

At the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, a well-known SF writer said to us, "The secret to success is to find your niche and exploit it." He's probably right.

During the SF conference earlier this year, a panel of book editors told an audience of mostly new writers that if they want to get published, they can't afford to write in different genres; and ideally they should have written the first 3 novels, all with the same characters, before even approaching them.

Well, I had no idea what my niche was when I wrote my first children's novel. It was about a 13-year old science nerd with no social skills who gets taken to what he thinks will be an academy for gifted kids. But when he turns up, the academy is a cottage in the Welsh hills and the two professors who recruited him are going to teach him to play table soccer instead. Apparently, a mad genius is draining the world of champion spirit via the game, and only our kid can save us. Niche that!

Okay, so that was back in the 1980s when a children's publishing house was more like Hogwarts than the law firm-ish offices of today. My editor didn't have a large beard and pointy hat, but she had the magical power to choose the books she wanted to publish, work on the cover design with the author, and put the book out without as much as a sneer in the direction of the non-existing marketing team.

By the time my next book was ready, however, the sales team had arrived. Everything changed, including the cover design she and I had created. On the sales teams' version, my two main characters were (un)magically changed from bright but girl-ignorant lads to cool, girl-magnet teen dudes. "But," I said, "it won't just be the girls who're disappointed when they read what these guys are really like." Apparently, though, it didn't matter if the cover was as genuine as a Nigerian funds transfer offer, if it drew in the punters, who cared?

Still niche-averse, I published a few more YA/children's books, but also had quite a few rejected by editorial committees, acquisitions committees, and probably the committees' committee, too.

Time for a change!

I decided to switch to my first love, Science Fiction. I thought I'd better start fresh so in 2006 I attended Odyssey, one of the six-week US workshops. It was great to just write stories and critique other people's, and to be in a classroom again, learning stuff from top writers and editors. Even if we got the niche advice there, too. It was also good, as an Englishman, to learn to hug without wincing.

After Odyssey, I started sending out short stories, now almost wilfully un-niche like. I found a new freedom with short fiction, to try different styles, different voices, genders, beliefs, and so on. I also carried on attending workshops, two in Oregon, for example, taken by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, who taught in the opposite direction to much of what I'd learned before. Damn that elusive niche.

I've sold around 30 stories now, no two of them really in the same niche. I might have sold more if they were, I don't know. All I do know is that if writing is fun and exciting and challenging for the author, I think it's likely to please readers, too.

A story of mine just won the New Scientist/Arc Magazine short fiction prize. It's about a town full of bio-toy Cockneys and talking animals, trying to save themselves from the encroaching electro-bio-mechanical sludge by helping their human master, Dave, to fall in love. I wrote the first few pages a couple of years back with absolutely no idea why or where it was going. I just loved the setting and the characters and the language. I went back to it several times, but couldn't see where to take it. Eventually, I got the rest of the story and finished it. But still no niche . . .

T. D. Edge won a Cadbury's fiction competition at age 10, but only did it for the chocolate. His short fiction has appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including Arc, Realms of Fantasy, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Flash Fiction Online. Terry has been a street theatre performer, props maker for the Welsh National Opera, sign writer, soft toy salesman, and professional palm-reader. He is also proud of being the youngest-ever England Subbuteo Champion, and one of his current writing projects is Subbuteo for the Soul.

Learn more about T. D. Edge on his website.

The Art of Writing Short Fiction

by Sarina Dorie

If a short story falls under a thousand words (1500 words in some markets), it is considered “flash fiction” or “micro fiction.” With a number of new markets out there publishing flash fiction; Penumbra, Daily Science Fiction, and Flash Fiction Online being a few among many, it is a plentiful market in which to submit. Because writing short, succinct stories is a skill I wanted to develop, there is a high demand for flash fiction, and it takes less time to write flash fiction than a long story (in theory) I decided I wanted to take a stab at it.

When Daily Science Fiction opened about two years ago, Wordos, my speculative fiction writing critique group in Eugene, Oregon decided we wanted to dissect flash fiction in order to hone our skills and see what makes a short, short story work. It isn’t surprising that because of our critiques and dissections, quite a few writers from our critique group went on to sell flash to Daily Science Fiction.

What we noticed about these stories is that they were tightly written, limited details, often had an interesting idea, a twist or punch line at the end, and were emotionally powerful or shocking or funny. The form of these stories were sometimes written as though someone was telling a story to a friend, might be in the form of a letter or letters in an epistolary fashion, were written like a fable, joke or essay or used some other unusual writing device to tell a story. Many of these stories weren’t even traditional stories in the sense that there was a character arc, plot or conflict. Still, there was something that happened in each “story” that made it catchy, edgy or worthwhile. These are just my observations, as well as some that I remember from members of Wordos.

My advice to someone genuinely interested in breaking into the flash fiction market is to read and analyze lots of flash fiction and decide what it is about each piece that made the editor choose it.

As a result of studying the market and trying to think in the “short” mindset, I wrote about twenty flash fiction stories in a few months. Some of them I submitted to my critique group and got feedback, some I later turned into slightly longer short stories, and some I left unfinished because there wasn’t enough there to create a story. I didn’t feel guilty about not finishing because they were so short and I considered them experiments.

Though I had been submitting stories to magazines for several years, it was my flash fiction stories that sold first. The first four pieces sold in 2011 were Zombie Psychology to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting Human’s which won the Whidbey Student Choice Award, Losing One’s Appetite to Daily Science Fiction and Worse than a Devil to Crossed Genres. From there I went on to sell slightly longer short stories as well as more flash. One of my favorite flash fiction pieces, Mr. Kick-Ass Werewolf President is in the July politics issue of Penumbra.

Sarina Dorie is a speculative fiction writer, artist and belly dance teacher who currently lives in Eugene, Oregon. She has been published
in a variety of magazines including Daily Science Fiction, Flagship, Allasso, Roar, New Myths, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, Penumbra, and Crossed Genres.

Her fantasy novel, Silent Moon, won two second place and three third place awards from Romance Writers of America. Silent Moon is now available on Amazon and Smashwords.

To learn more about Sarina Dorie, please visit her website.

Speculative Fiction: The Genre of "What if...?"

by SS Hampton Sr.

“Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.” (Speculative Fiction, Wikipedia)

Now that that’s out of the way, everything begins with “What if…?” What if something strange and mysterious found its way into our world? How? Where?

I remembered an article I saw on the Internet about one of the earliest trees—archaeopteris, from the Devonian Era. And, in the 1990s a hiker in Australia discovered a grove of trees whose physical appearance matched prehistoric tree fossils some 200 million years old. The newly discovered trees, proven to be descended from the prehistoric trees, were named Wollemi Pines.

Sooo… Where is this archaeopteris discovered? Some place remote, out of the way. I thought of Minnesota, overrun with lakes and forests, which has some of the oldest rocks in the world. On a map, I saw a mountain range called Mesabi, and thought the name sounded delightfully strange and mysterious. Add to that, the area is also known as the Iron Range. Thus, the Mesabi Iron Range was born. Giving the trees an ordinary nickname, such as Yarmouth Fern, was just yanked out of the air.

Aaand… I’ve lived in Colorado, and always wanted to grow a few Christmas trees.

The character of a crusty old Clint Eastwood-type sitting on the back porch of his home in the Colorado Rockies with an AK-47 across his lap was born. He watches the sun go down, and the valley that contains a branch of his Christmas tree farm is filling with shadows and mist. And he’s staring at a grove of Yarmouth Ferns in the marshy terrain across from his home.

But, I remember reading about fairy trees (ash and oak trees, and hawthorn bushes). Each one reputedly has magical properties, but when all three are found together…

Finally, I have the mysterious ferns, the location, the character, and the idea that where something “prehistoric” and alive, is growing, something else might happen. Maybe something like a doorway opening, especially during a full moon (I’ve always wanted to believe that there’s something magical and mysterious about the full moon).

I open with the sun going down and the old guy sitting on his porch having a beer. He knows there’s something in the Yarmouth grove across from his home. He hears stealthy movements.

Then, flash back to his first hearing of the Yarmouth Ferns, ordering a dozen, and planting them. Add to it the passage of time and (hopefully), a rising tension of something in the valley. His hired help senses something too, and they blame the ferns. The workers report “shadows,” and sometimes see something out of the corner of their eyes. The old guy discovers that the ferns have spread through releasing spores, and small, wild groves have taken root throughout the valley. Add that the weather doesn’t feel right—the clouds are grayer, darker, and the atmosphere is oppressive. Sometimes at night he wakes with a sensation that something is lurking outside his bedroom window. Finally, the workers quit and he’s left alone.

Back to the present. The full moon rises, an ocean of moonlit mist creeps into the valley, and something is moves in the grove. The story ends with gunfire and the old guy screaming in terror.

For me, there have to be enough facts to blend with fiction to create something believable. Add a believable character, and build the suspense—build the suspense—relying on what makes most people nervous, or even fearful—a gut feeling, something in the air, and shadows. Perhaps the most frightening thing of all is the feeling of being in danger, yet you can’t see what’s closing in on you.

My approach isn’t the only way—there are as many successful ways to write speculative fiction as there are writers. As long as you have a goal and map your route to that goal, the details will fill themselves in.

Good luck, and I hope I didn’t bore you too much!

SS Hampton, Sr. is a published photographer and photojournalist, an aspiring painter, and is studying for a degree in anthropology. His writings have appeared as stand-alone stories and in anthologies from MUSA Publishing, (The Lapis Lazuli Throne), Melange Books (Intimate Journeys; R.U.S.H.; Christmas Collectibles 2010; and Hearts of Tomorrow), Ravenous Romance (Back Door Lover), and Dark Opus Press (In Poe’s Shadow), and as stand-alone stories in Horror Bound Magazine, Ruthie’s Club, Lucrezia Magazine, The Harrow, and River Walk Journal, among others. In 2012 he has another story forthcoming in an anthology from Edge SF & Fantasy (Danse Macabre), as well as a stand-alone story releasing from MuseItUp Publishing.