Process Notes

International Women’s Day and A Writer’s Woe

PETERMBALL Works in Progress ,

Today is International Women’s Day, which is one of those days that ought to be celebrated. I’m tempted to post more, but everything I come up with always sounds a little “yay for women” and/or overly patronizing, which isn’t really what I’m aiming for on a day that’s all about women’s causes and their achievements.

So, instead, I’m going to go find a worthy and appropriate cause to donate money to in celebration of the day. And later, possibly, I will attempt to write something doesn’t make me feel like a misogynist arse every time I touch the keyboard.

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I sent off the third story in the Flotsam series yesterday, after which I collapsed into bed and tried to sleep and eventually gave up and read all of The Hunger Games in one fell swoop because it was there and I was too lazy to climb out of bed and get something else to read and it was obvious that sleep wasn’t on the agenda. Then I just lay in bed and pondered things, like monthly deadlines and how slow I write and whether I ever really stand any chance of writing all the things I want to write before I run out of time to write them, especially when you consider the things I’ve already written which somehow didn’t quite work out the way I expected them too, and so I still want to write something to fill that raw spot that wants a specific thing written.

I mean, I want to write story that captures exactly what it is that I like about wrestling, which is kinda what the next installment of Flotsam is about, except I couldn’t really fit that idea into a short story. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a novella, at the very least, and so I still have big story about the grandeur and spectacle of wrestling on the to-do list. I want to write a story that splices the premise of Buck Rogers with vampire lore, because the whole Buck Rogers’ series makes much more sense if he’s a vampire, and because I think a series of short books with lurid pulp titles like The Fangs of Jupiter and Bloody, Bloody Mars could keep me entertained for months. Hell, I’m not even done with unicorns or dragons yet, and lord knows I keep hitting those tropes. None of these are on the things I’m doing next list, they’re not even things I plan on getting to in the next ten years, but they’re sitting there on my to-do list because I don’t have the heart to take them off or I think I’ll want to do them one day, or I want to have them handy in case I do finally break down and start epublishing novels and things like whether or not someone else will publish the damn things become secondary considerations.

And I always sit around thinking, if I just wrote a bit faster I could get through them all, or perhaps, if I just quit the dayjob and had more time to work on things, but neither of these things address the fundamental problem. I got marginally more done while unemployed than I do now, and if I wrote faster it’s entirely possible I’d just add more ideas to the to-do list.

And there are still the things at the top of the list, the ideas still kludging together because they demanded novel-type shapes instead of the stories and novellas I’m more familiar with. Black Candy and the Great Swashbuclky Lovecraftian Ghoul Wahoo novel and Gothic: A Love Story (which will, eventually, probably come around to a new name that references Oubliettes, because I keep tacking more stories onto that world after the first one) and the occult western I’ve been making notes on and Claw and the book that I convinced Ben to co-write with me that I’ve been summarily ignoring since worldcon and…and…and…

The truth is, there isn’t enough time. Ever. I can’t really foresee a point where I look at the list and everything’s done. Some days I’m utterly bewildered as to how I’ll even manage to finish one novel, let alone the twenty-eight currently sitting on my list. We don’t even speak of the short stories. The last time I poked the draft of The Unicorns of Suggragette Three a dozen or so other stories started making noise about being finished.

It’s noisy, sometimes, inside my head. I always want to doing the next thing, or the thing that comes after that.

And tonight there is write club, where I will quite sensibly work on the fourth Flotsam story until I’m far enough ahead of the deadline to think about what’s next.

Black Candy, most likely, or Claw. ‘Cause the only way I’m getting through the list is one thing at a time.

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And now I go clean, for it is three hours to write-club and my house needs a good scrubbing.

On the…

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , , , , , , ,

A few years ago I wrote a story titled On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves, which eventually found its way into Fantasy Magazine in 2008. About a year after that I wrote On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War Machines of the Merfolk, which showed up in Strange Horizons in 2009 and then went on to be reprinted in a years best collection and pod-casted and other such things.

I didn’t write an On The… story in 2010, despite my best intentions to do so. This makes me a little sad, ’cause it’s one of those things that I meant to do and simply didn’t find the time for.  In my head they’re part of an ongoing series, albeit a rather slow-moving one, and there’s a file on my computer where I put notes regarding possible titles. Every now and then I’d open the file, pick a title, and start writing, and somehow the story would always mutate and become something other than an On The… story.

I know this, because the series has unspoken rules. First person narration, for starters. Non-linear or fragmented narrative arcs.  Stories about odd relationships, particularly once they’re over. Male protagonists who wish they were more heartbroken than they really are, ’cause really the entire series is me having a conversation with the concept of masculinity, and the interpersonal seems to be the site where rite-of-passage masculinity stories take place these days.

When I story doesn’t work out, I usually blame it on the title. The titles, after all, are the tricky bits.

Today I’m coming up with titles, trying to find something new that’ll work. On the Final Appearance of the Laundromat Fey. On the Week of Bad Dreams that Followed the Arrival of the Yeti. On the Arrival of Doctor Sabretooth in my Parents Downstair’s Flat. On the Discover of Certain Books in the Back of the Hallway Bookshelf. Thus far, none of them are working, but I’ll get there. All I have to do is keep verbing nouns until something sticks.

Saturday Morning

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , ,

Desk View: Coffee, Printer, Keyboard, and Mithrangorfaniel

It’s Saturday morning and I’m drinking instant coffee. Maccona Classic Dark Roast with milk and one sugar, for those who might be interested, although I have no earthly idea why you would be. In an hour or so I’m going to ignore the rest of the internet and start talking to the scattered members of my online crit group, who conveniently double as a group of good and articulate friends, so there’s still good reason to skype on the dates when we’re meant to be critting and no-one actually submitted things.

This, I suspect, is as close to being one of the hidden secrets of writing as I can think of – find people you enjoy talking too who happen to be writers, then talk to them as often as you can. Ideas will form, ambitions will solidify, and the day-to-day despair of being underpaid and frustrated by the blank page will gradually fall by the wayside. I remember this far less often than I should.

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The Friday issue of Daily Science Fiction containing my story appeared in my inbox overnight, delayed until Saturday morning by the magic of time zones. The online version isn’t up yet, but I’ll post a link when it is (I think the delay is about a week, but I subscribed to get the stories via email, so I’m not entirely sure).

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I’ve been up since five AM for reasons unfathomable to me, and spent most of that time re-reading parts of books I adore, because five AM on a Saturday is a good time to re-read and adore things all over again. The world wants you to sleep in on weekends, so the five AM start is like stealing time that doesn’t belong to you, and re-reading parts of books is the kind of sacrilegious activity that divorces language from the context of narrative and gives you the opportunity to appreciate things anew. Language as an art gallery, where you’re encouraged to examine the individual pieces of the whole.

It reminds you of things that have dropped from view.

I’d forgotten, for example, much of the raw power in Fitzgerald’s introduction of Tom Buchanan. I remember the tag-line – the final image of the body capable of great leverage – because it’s one of the great character descriptions that appear in modern literature. It’s the thing that sticks in my memory because that’s what it’s meant to do, but the set-up that makes that one line it’s impact? Forgotten. Lost. Until I sit down and re-read, and am reminded of how carefully that line is built up.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and give him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body – he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see the great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body. (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Too many people hate the Great Gatsby because it’s one of the books they were forced to read at school, because they were told to ask more of their fiction. I don’t begrudge them that, asking more of your fiction is a choice every reader should make on their own and there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘entertain me’ if it’s that’s the choice they’re making.

But Fitzgerald’s book deserves so much better. It deserves to be read by people who will love it.

Preferably in parts, on Saturday mornings, long after they’ve read the whole