Tag Archives: books

February 17, 2013 · 2:04 pm

Playing in Someone Else’s Playground

I’ve been working on a story to submit that takes place in an already established universe and the experience has been…interesting, to say the least.

When I’m writing for myself, it’s fairly speedy. I make up the rules for the world and away I go, only stopping because I saw something shiny on the internet. The story will be fully formed in my head and I’ll usually only change things based on the story itself.

But because I’m playing in someone else’s world, I have to abide by the rules. Which means research. Lots and lots and lots of research. Keeping in mind that I only have to write a thousand word sample, I would say that I’ve devoted a good three or four hours to just reading articles and books to make sure that what I’m writing makes sense within the confines of the world. And this is a lot for someone who never does research when they write.

I’ll write for a little bit, then wonder if I can actually do what I’ve done and then head back onto wikipedia. And then go back and erase three hundred words. It’s a jarring and jolting process, like riding in a car driven by someone who doesn’t know how to drive stick; I go forward a foot, jerk to a violent stop, roll back a few feet and start again.

But, in a way, it’s freeing. Most of the heavy lifting has been taken off of my shoulders. I can just focus on the plot and the characters without spending too much time on world building. Its a shift in priorities and a different type of writing that I’m enjoying and fits better into the time I have available.

So, maybe, in a few months I’ll be contributing to someone else’s universe and then I can take another whack at my own worlds.

-D-

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December 27, 2012 · 7:07 pm

The New Year

Every year, I’ve made a habit of trying to do more things for the next year. I’ll read more books, I’ll write more stories, drink more beers. I feel that if I don’t do more, than I’ve achieved less.

What generally happens is I accomplish less and feel depressed that I didn’t hit my arbitrary goal or I’ll accomplish what I wanted, but with lesser quality and higher stress. For example, in 2011, I wanted to read 100 books. I ended up reading a lot of shorter, badder books and still feeling worn out, like I was forcing myself to do something I was supposed to be enjoying. This past year, I tried to read 125 books, fell miserably short and now I’m angry.

In 2013, I want try for more meaningful goals. I’m tired of burning myself out to do something impressive. No more themed blog months, or reading five hundred books. I’m going to pick goals that mean something to me and goals that are obtainable, but still difficult.

And I’m doing half year goals too.

It’s hard to maintain something for an entire year or to pick a goal that’s literally going to take all year. Why not make it manageable? Pick a task and then reevaluate in June.

In some ways, I think I’ve grown as a writer. This year was the first time I continued a writing project for an entire month and managed to stretch a story out for more than 20,000 words (thanks NANOWRIMO!). In terms of stories that I’ve gotten published, I’ve still managed to maintain my record of zero. I’ve also managed to keep up my goal of ten blog entries a month for the entire year (if I manage to write a bunch more entries this month).

It’s time to re-evaluate. Not just because it’s the start of a new year, but because I feel ready to level up and maybe become some sort of half-adult, instead of the quarter-adult I currently am.

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to blog about goals; what I want to accomplish this next year in terms of writing and what you can expect to buy from me and enjoy.

We’re not jumping into this, by golly. We’re taking baby steps into maturity.

So, join me as I walk into 2013 and let’s help me become a better, wealthier, writer.

-D-

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November 30, 2012 · 9:15 pm

I Have Done It

It took me three tries and a lot of elbow grease, but I did it. I beat NANOWRIMO.

It’s hard for me to be ecstatic right off the bat. For the most part, I just feel tired. And I hate my book. I think it’s a dreadful thing, only fit for burning and as quickly as possible.

But, as the organizers of NANOWRIMO are so fond of saying, it’s not the quality that matters here. It’s about actually completing a novel. And I’ve done that. I’ve written 50,000 words of complete and utter terrible that will never see the light of day.

It’s an accomplishment that I’m not proud of. I will never mention it in polite company. I will not bandy it about in front of the relatives. It is my secret victory.

More important to me is the fact that I wrote something everyday for the last two months. I am very close to completing the 66 days necessary to form a good habit. It already feels very strange not to write. I feel a need to write now, a strong desire to sit in front of my computer and actually get some work done.

And my computer does not feel so much like a toy or an entertainment device. It feels like a place where I work.

So, thank you NANOWRIMO. I feel more like a writer, though not like a particularly good one.

Baby steps.

-D-

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November 1, 2012 · 6:28 pm

NANOWRIMO: Day 1

It is November 1st, which means it’s the first day for NANOWRIMO.

For those that don’t know, NANOWRIMO stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by November 30th. The goal is not to write a great novel, or a good novel or even an average novel. The goal is to finish writing a novel, period.

For people like me, who rarely, if ever, finish anything, just finishing a novel is a big deal.

So, once again, for the third time, I’m participating.

I have to write 1,667 words a day to accomplish the goal, which means that I won’t be updating the blog as much as I did in October, but I am re-instituting the three days a week update schedule. From now on, I’ll be updating the blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

But, right now, I have to get started on my novel.

If you’re participating this year too, chime in below. I’m going to try and not go it alone this year and participate in the community. We’ll see how that goes.

No more procrastinating.

-D-

 

Check out my profile and my progress HERE.

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October 24, 2012 · 7:33 pm

31 Days of Spoooktacular: The Gauntlet

Way back in the beginning, you may recall that I said that 31 Days of Spoooktacular was part of how I planned to force writing to become a habit for me. Writing has always been something I do sporadically, intermittently and with no true pattern. Even over the course of this year, where I’ve given myself the goal of writing ten entries a month, which I have done so far, I don’t evenly space those entries throughout the month. Usually they’re all shoved in at the end of the month and then I go on another, three week long sabbatical.

But with 31 Days of Spoooktacular, you get one entry a day, every day, for 31 days. And that’s great for me and great for you and everyone is happy, except for people who aren’t so interested in me writing about horror day in and day out. But, if you remember, I said that in order to successfully form a habit, you have to do it for around 70 days. I need to continue to write every day for another 30 days (and some change) before it becomes rigidly locked in as something I just do as an impulse.

It just so happens that there’s an event for the entire month of November that dovetails so nicely with my needs. That’s right, I’m doing NANOWRIMO. Again. But this time, I’m picking up that gauntlet and I am slapping NANOWRIMO in the face with it. I am going to write a 50,000 word novel and then some. The way I see it, I’ve been in training for NANOWRIMO this whole month, a light workout to get me into shape for what’s to come.

And by the end of it, I’ll be the better for it, I think. I’ll have mastered a skill that has eluded me almost my whole life; the ability to stick with something through to the very end. I’ll work on a project, sometimes very close to the ending point and then just sputter out, within spitting distance of the finish line.

But not this year. I can feel it. I have the idea that I want to write about. I have the tools to write it. And here, on October 24th, I think I’ve managed to prove that I have the ability to sit down in front of the computer everyday and put words to screen and keep going long after the point in which I should have stopped.

I have never written a novel, though I have tried. For me, just finishing one, even it’s terrible, will be a triumph of sorts. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

31 Days of Spoooktacular, for all of it’s goofiness and beer tasting and horror conventions, is just the beginning.

-D-

PS Check out my profile here and cheer me on all next month. Or not. It’s fine.

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December 31, 2011 · 8:34 pm

The Death of a Year

Let’s see if I can remember how to do this.

We’ll start with an opening sentence and take it from there.

Oh hi! I don’t really know if there are people who still read this. It’s been about, oh, two months since I last updated. I’ll make the assumption that everyone who reads my blog assumed that I had died over that little break. Well, I’m not dead. Far from it.

I’m here to do what’s likely to become the annual tradition around here. I’ll weep about my failures over the last year and make promises to do better next year.

Actually, you know what, let’s do this up right. Let’s not talk about failures. It’s boring, it’s whiny and no-one likes reading that. Let’s do the opposite of that. So here it is. My top five list of awesome shit that I did.

5. I killed three bookstores and a nationwide bookstore chain in the process. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Dylan, that’s…not such a good thing.” But it had to be done and I made sure it gone done smoothly. No one died, product got sold and there are people all over the city with Borders bookcases in their homes cause I did my job like a ninja. A retail ninja. And I did while remaining sane.

4. I submitted a whole crapton of stuff to be published. None of it got published, but that’s not the point. After a few years of sitting around and not doing anything with my writing career, I actually got out there and started things up again. It’s awfully hard for me to get going once I’ve stopped doing something (see: this blog), but by God, I did it.

3. I read a metric-crapton of books. For those of you who use Imperial measurement, a metric-crapton is a lot of books. Every book I read helps me be a better writer. You know what else helps me be a better writer?

2. I started writing stories again. I hadn’t written a new piece of fiction in almost a year and I finally got back up on that horse. But! The biggest piece of news from the previous year?

1. I self-published a book. It’s still there on Amazon and for even cheaper now. You should go buy it if you haven’t done so already. And, if you want it in paperback, then, holy crap, you have that option now too. There’s people out there, right now, reading my work. Bam.

So that’s sounds like a pretty well seized year. Sometimes I’m pretty bummed about how a year went and I’ve been feeling that a little bit the last couple of weeks. But, you know, looking at that list there, I think I can live with how 2011 went. I’m ready for even bigger things next year.

Just…please, no more store closings.

Dylan

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July 6, 2011 · 7:38 pm

Angry Reading

It is very rare that I read something that makes me actually angry. Partly because I avoid books written by political pundits and partly because I very carefully stick to authors and stories I know will interest me.

Occasionally I’ll stray and try something new; something outside my usual parameters. Recently, when I’ve done this, it hasn’t ended well. I’ve been weighted down with eye-rolling moments of obviousness or dialog so stilted it could only be written or plot devices that make me want to strike the wall in a rage fit.

So, for any future and current authors, here are the things that make me so angry that I’ll feed a book to the guinea pig:

1. Stilted unnatural dialog that’s only there to prove a point: that the author is smart and has insights into the human psyche.

2. The points where I’ve figured out what’s going on long before the characters have, even when the characters have the exact same information that I have. It’s absolutely maddening if I spend 100 pages wanting to smack the characters and yell, “The diamond is in the goddamn dresser drawer you fools!”

3. The characters whose only defining characteristics are that they’re completely unlikeable. Oh yes, I would like to spend three-hundred pages with a whiny, indecisive protagonist. And she has friends who are equally annoying? Thank god!

4. Padding, oh god the padding. I am a writer and a reader who despises too much plot. I do not need to know the ins and outs of every aspect of a character’s life. I like things to progress briskly and without pause. So those books that decide to linger on the minutia of the everyday and the mundane make me want to cry bitter tears.

I think this is enough complaining. If I read a terrible book, then the fault is my own. I can always stop and move on to something else. Acknowledging that fact leads to a lot less anger and a lot more forgiveness for the errors of other writers.

Dylan Charles

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June 20, 2011 · 10:05 pm

Book Review: Un Lun Dun by China Mieville

In recent years, young adult fiction has morphed from Fear Street thrillers and gothic romances into books that transcend age. From books like The Hunger Games to The Book Thief, young adult books have attracted the notice of critics and people way too old to be shopping in a section that also peddles Gossip Girl novels.

I myself enjoy the Chaos Walking Trilogy and Leviathon and recommend them to people who like dark science fiction and steam punk, respectively. I also fervently recommend Un Lun Dun by China Mieville. I’ve mentioned Mieville before and he’s one of my favorite writers. He’s a bit tricky to recommend whole-heartedly however. His writing style can swing wildly between the gritty and fantastical, the hyper-descriptive and the dry and monochromatic. Most of his books end with the reader being both depressed and in awe.

Un Lun Dun is less depressing, but just as fantastic as his other works. It’s Mieville playing nice. While there are moments of darkness and despair, for the most part Mieville is not trying to crush all of your hopes and dreams. What he has done, however, is create a fantasy work that is fundamentally about thumbing your nose at convention.

And this isn’t just the theme of the novel, although Mieville is less than subtle about his anger at politicians and the businesses that drive them. The very structure of the novel tweaks the nose of every fantasy trope. Everything from the protagonist to the central quest she embarks on is a big wet raspberry at the cliches of the genre. The hero isn’t what you expect, the villains are monstrous in surprisingly realistic ways, and the world they inhabit is an original and novel place.

This is a good place to start with Mieville, a way to see his extraordinary imagination at work with less of the nightmare-tinged despair of Perdido Street Station.

A billion stars or something.

Dylan Charles

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May 9, 2011 · 8:16 pm

A World of Thrones

Only a week or two ago, I was writing about how hard it is for me to get emotionally invested and interested in fiction because I was always picking it apart. I can never really get too involved with what’s going on, because I see it as a piece of writing first and a story second.

And yet, so soon after that entry, I found one of those rare books that shut up that part of my brain. It has kept me paying attention to the story being told and not how it’s being told. I started Game of Thrones yesterday and I can’t stop reading it. It’s got pretty much everything I ask for in a book: well written, likeable characters that are also flawed human beings, multiple plotline, each one interesting enough on its own to hold my interest, politics and blood and violence and jaded cynicism and dark undertones and dark overtones. It’s just got everything.

It’s not just a great story, it’s a great story told well. I want to never stop reading it in fact, something that only happens occasionally with books like The Name of the Wind and anything China Mieville writes. I’m embedded in this world that George R.R. Martin has created and I’m glad that I decided to try it out. Now, I need to get back to it.

Dylan Charles

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January 28, 2011 · 5:06 pm

Where did all the bookstores go?

 

photo by Emily Wachtel

 

 

Bookstores, the ones built of brick and mortar anyway, are in serious trouble. The two big heavyweights, Barnes and Noble and Borders, are suffering and they’re struggling to survive.

Given that Amazon.com now sells close to 50% of all book sales in North America, it looks like the only place someone might see Barnes and Noble or Borders in ten years will be online, if at all.

Big name bookstores are looking less and less viable, at least, in their current incarnation.

This really isn’t news for anyone who’s been paying attention. Online bookstores, which cut overhead costs and cut book prices, and the popularity of ereaders are doing their damage. What’s shocking to me is how little emotion I feel about it.

It is sad that these stores are in trouble. I don’t want to see them go out of business, if only for the sake the employees who work there, but that’s about the extent of my emotional involvement. I believe it’s inevitable that the brick-and-mortar megabookstore will cease to exist at some point. Over the next ten years or so, they’ll exist in a very limited capacity, dotting the landscape like aging woolly mammoths.

The bookstores that will survive, I think, are those locally owned, used bookstores. They peddle in wares you can’t so easily get and they offer people the ability to browse in a more visceral way. That might be enough to keep them going.

My apathy comes not from a hatred of books. I love books. I want people to read lots of books, all the time. Society needs books and ideas and the written word to stay healthy. But, to that end, anything that gets people books is a good thing. Anything that makes the process easier and quicker is a good thing. Online bookstores mean you can find what you want quickly and get it (eventually). Ereaders cut that time even shorter.

There are changes, big changes coming to the book selling industry, but those changes are the result of more efficient systems taking their place. It’s not the death of books or the death of bookstores. It’s just the next step in their evolution.

Dylan Charles

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