Why, oh why has this silly story gotten lodged in my head? Yet another snip from another unnamed snapshot in my head:
A tiny glint of gold caught the Castellan's eye. Amongst the knives, grenades, and various bits of soldierly hardware he could just make out a crucifix, blackened with paint that had begun to scrape away at the edges. Dimitri looked up at the soldier, a question on the tip of his tongue.
The look of quiet amusement on the soldier's face surprised him into silence. A black gloved finger slipped up to the crucifix and gently traced it.
"What better god for a soldier," the Hunter asked, "than the God of sacrifice and redemption?"
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The Dread Disease of Writer Vision
The act of snippeting a work-in-progress is a tempting thing to many of us, especially we the new writers. We create something that feels good, looks good, makes up happy with our talent, so of course we want to share. Thing is, there's this wonderful little law of nature regarding writing that states: The more excited you are about something, the more likely you'll see glaring errors in it as soon as you post it publicly.
That, my friends, is the dread disease of Writer Vision: being blinded to obvious errors by your own enthusiasm until you have thrown it out on the sidewalk for everyone to see.
Ouch.
I recently posted a Snippet to Julie Czerneda's SFF newsgroup just for fun. It wasn't a part of any ongoing story, other than as a brief, formless idea for an urban-fantasy short. The snippet hounds in the group made baying sounds aplenty, for which I was truly grateful, but on the second or third time through, I realized with a jolt that the first full paragraph was a complete train wreck of mishmashed jibberish. I'm quite certain that if an editor saw it, the MS would have been round-filed, physically or electronically.
Now I know I read that little snip through four or five times before I posted it, because I edited it every time. Yet, there it was, staring at me on the screen, a complete mess.
Well, that happens a lot with work-in-progress snippets, so I have not let it get me down. Still, it served as a good lesson: Always wait a bit before sharing.
As an object lesson, the paragraph was:
Arguile glanced at Timmots' shadowed form. His brother-hunter's cloak drankin the wan yellow light the streetlights cast into the fog. He could notdeny the observation. Only on a night such as this could the boundariesbe weakened. The curtain of mist tinged with scents of mid-summer and wrappedin the midnight silence of sleeping humanity would draw their prey as surelyas fresh meat drew lions.
I've been working on rewriting it, but I haven't gotten it quite where I want it to be yet. The whole scene was inspired by one of Lazette Gifford's photo-essay pieces about fog. What I want to capture is a sense of impending action coupled with a sense of the fey. I know both hunters wear enchanted cloaks that drink up light and render them as vague forms, almost unnoticable to human eyes, but I don't want to come right out and say that. The key with this bit, as with most story beginnings, is to involve the reader without core-dumping a buch of data in their face up front, i.e. Keep the mystery level and tension up so the reader just has to keep reading.
Anyway, that's a project for another day. This morning, I'm writing on Spell Weaver like a good boy (just as soon as I quit messing with this bloody blog).
Darwin
That, my friends, is the dread disease of Writer Vision: being blinded to obvious errors by your own enthusiasm until you have thrown it out on the sidewalk for everyone to see.
Ouch.
I recently posted a Snippet to Julie Czerneda's SFF newsgroup just for fun. It wasn't a part of any ongoing story, other than as a brief, formless idea for an urban-fantasy short. The snippet hounds in the group made baying sounds aplenty, for which I was truly grateful, but on the second or third time through, I realized with a jolt that the first full paragraph was a complete train wreck of mishmashed jibberish. I'm quite certain that if an editor saw it, the MS would have been round-filed, physically or electronically.
Now I know I read that little snip through four or five times before I posted it, because I edited it every time. Yet, there it was, staring at me on the screen, a complete mess.
Well, that happens a lot with work-in-progress snippets, so I have not let it get me down. Still, it served as a good lesson: Always wait a bit before sharing.
As an object lesson, the paragraph was:
Arguile glanced at Timmots' shadowed form. His brother-hunter's cloak drankin the wan yellow light the streetlights cast into the fog. He could notdeny the observation. Only on a night such as this could the boundariesbe weakened. The curtain of mist tinged with scents of mid-summer and wrappedin the midnight silence of sleeping humanity would draw their prey as surelyas fresh meat drew lions.
I've been working on rewriting it, but I haven't gotten it quite where I want it to be yet. The whole scene was inspired by one of Lazette Gifford's photo-essay pieces about fog. What I want to capture is a sense of impending action coupled with a sense of the fey. I know both hunters wear enchanted cloaks that drink up light and render them as vague forms, almost unnoticable to human eyes, but I don't want to come right out and say that. The key with this bit, as with most story beginnings, is to involve the reader without core-dumping a buch of data in their face up front, i.e. Keep the mystery level and tension up so the reader just has to keep reading.
Anyway, that's a project for another day. This morning, I'm writing on Spell Weaver like a good boy (just as soon as I quit messing with this bloody blog).
Darwin
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Snippet of the day
Okay, I lied. I did write a little bit. Here's today's snippage:
The Lady and her castellan stood on a low hill overlooking the burning town. The rattle of distant gunfire and the muffled thump of explosions competed with the sound of songbirds perched in the cedars about them.
The Lady and her castellan stood on a low hill overlooking the burning town. The rattle of distant gunfire and the muffled thump of explosions competed with the sound of songbirds perched in the cedars about them.
The incredible excuse machine
I've come to the conclusion that lots of budding writers are very good at making excuses, and I'm no exception.
Maybe it's a function of guilt or maybe it's some misguided attempt to justify why words didn't get done during a particular day...or week...or month.
C'mon, folks. Let's have a little straightforward honesty here. I'll kick it off:
I didn't write anything today because: I didn't feel like writing.
There. I feel so much cleaner somehow.
All humor aside, unless you've somehow managed to buck the trend and become a full-time writer, odds are that you're squishing your writing time into the cracks that real life leaves behind. In my case, I have a full time job that I'm bloody well not going to give up to pursue a writing career until and unless my income from writing makes my normal salary seem silly. (Thank you Terry Pratchett for that little measuring post.) I have a wife, three kids, a cat, a dog, a house that needs repair, and two cars that are just this side of the wrecking yard. No way am I going to suddenly lark off and trust to the generosity and support of the American publishing industry. (Guffaw)
So, for me, writing is a creative outlet that has the bonus of being a self-worth reinforcer when people say nice things to me about it and publishers write me checks. Nice things are never in big enough supply and checks, no matter how modest, are never to be sneezed at.
Now, that all has to be balanced a bit since I actually have a story that got ::gasp:: accepted. Yes, yes. I am going to be officially published now. Zette Gifford not only said nice things about a story I wrote, but she also snagged it for one of her Illuminated Manuscripts fantasy anthologies due out from Dragon Tooth Fantasy, a Double Dragon E-Book imprint.
Okay, now it's serious.
Yeah, sometimes I won't feel like writing and I still have a real life with some pretty friggin hefty real bills, but play time, in a sense, is over. If I want to be published, if I want to be considered "pro", then I have to start exercising some focus and committment. And not feeling like writing becomes a luxury that doesn't fit anymore.
Oddly enough, feeling like writing is, for me, a function of being well rested and in decent condition. If I'm tired and draggy, then writing is an unassailable mountain of effort (along with just about everything else in life, ick.) If I get enough sleep, walk regularly, do some life-balance things with the kids and wife, then writing is a whole lot easier.
Anyway, enough rambling. I need to knuckle down and write. ;)
Darwin
Maybe it's a function of guilt or maybe it's some misguided attempt to justify why words didn't get done during a particular day...or week...or month.
C'mon, folks. Let's have a little straightforward honesty here. I'll kick it off:
I didn't write anything today because: I didn't feel like writing.
There. I feel so much cleaner somehow.
All humor aside, unless you've somehow managed to buck the trend and become a full-time writer, odds are that you're squishing your writing time into the cracks that real life leaves behind. In my case, I have a full time job that I'm bloody well not going to give up to pursue a writing career until and unless my income from writing makes my normal salary seem silly. (Thank you Terry Pratchett for that little measuring post.) I have a wife, three kids, a cat, a dog, a house that needs repair, and two cars that are just this side of the wrecking yard. No way am I going to suddenly lark off and trust to the generosity and support of the American publishing industry. (Guffaw)
So, for me, writing is a creative outlet that has the bonus of being a self-worth reinforcer when people say nice things to me about it and publishers write me checks. Nice things are never in big enough supply and checks, no matter how modest, are never to be sneezed at.
Now, that all has to be balanced a bit since I actually have a story that got ::gasp:: accepted. Yes, yes. I am going to be officially published now. Zette Gifford not only said nice things about a story I wrote, but she also snagged it for one of her Illuminated Manuscripts fantasy anthologies due out from Dragon Tooth Fantasy, a Double Dragon E-Book imprint.
Okay, now it's serious.
Yeah, sometimes I won't feel like writing and I still have a real life with some pretty friggin hefty real bills, but play time, in a sense, is over. If I want to be published, if I want to be considered "pro", then I have to start exercising some focus and committment. And not feeling like writing becomes a luxury that doesn't fit anymore.
Oddly enough, feeling like writing is, for me, a function of being well rested and in decent condition. If I'm tired and draggy, then writing is an unassailable mountain of effort (along with just about everything else in life, ick.) If I get enough sleep, walk regularly, do some life-balance things with the kids and wife, then writing is a whole lot easier.
Anyway, enough rambling. I need to knuckle down and write. ;)
Darwin
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