Virtual Characters
by | posted in: On Creativity, Truth and Consequences | 1

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo this month, and you’re reading this post, you’re either so far along on your book that you have time to burn, or you’ve given up.
Please, don’t give up.

In 2011, John Scalzi wrote about “being fictional“, which was his take on Elizabeth Bear’s post regarding how she is, in the minds of fans who have not met her, essentially, a fictional person.  It’s an interesting thought, I think, that someone can think they know us so well from what we write.  It’s interesting to me because, of course, I realize that I do it all the time.  It’s also interesting because, well, I think that same mechanism is how good characters are made.  Earlier this year, Cory Doctorow wrote a piece for Locus, the speculative fiction trade mag, titled “Where Characters Come From“.  It’s quite good.

In it, essentially, he describes in clear, almost clinical, terms the process by which we come to know our characters.  He says, and I agree, that it’s the same basic process by which we come to anticipate what our actual, real-life friends will do.  Essentially, we spend so much time with them and get to observe their behavior so long that we develop a little virtual copy of them in our brains.  Copies that we can animate and throw into situations and use to predict how we think they might act.

Characters work the same way.
We may start with just the kernel of an idea for a character, maybe a habit or a style of dressing.  But, then we start to imagine things happening to that person and, as we imagine their response, we start to get an idea about who that character really is, much like a new friend.  And, as we explore that character’s world and how they respond to it, we discover more about that character until, eventually, we know them as well as our own flesh-and-blood friends.
And, that, I am told, is when the writing gets really interesting.

So, since I hope not many people are taking the time to read this post this month, because they’re hard at work on their NaNoWriMo novels, I do hope that your characters have become like close friends to you by now.
Good luck and keep writing!

Turkey City Lexicon
by | posted in: On Creativity, The Tools | 0

The infamous science-fiction workshop lexicon of “things to not do”.

Over the years, so much has been written about what to do and what NOT to do in fiction that it’s a little overwhelming sometimes.
Personally, when I write, I’m almost always trying to write fantasy or science-fiction, or what is sometimes referred to as “speculative fiction”.  On the surface, that seems easier, since, essentially, a writer can make up virtually every and any aspect of their fictional universe, but, good speculative fiction has some “do’s and don’ts” as well.  Some of the best are collected in the now somewhat infamous Turkey City Lexicon.

This document is the work of Bruce Sterling and regulars of the Turkey City Workshop in Austin, Texas, most of whom are now quite well known science-fiction writers in their own right.  This is, I think, the collected wisdom of some of the best minds in science-fiction today and filled with real gems.  For instance, it details the sins of the “info dump” wherein a writer throws a large volume of information at the reader completely breaking the narrative flow of the story and presenting the information in quite possibly the most boring way possible.  But, the Turkey City Lexicon also gives us the remedy for this in the “edge of ideas” entry.  Namely, the big, central technology is never actually described in excruciating technical detail, but demonstrated via the historical effects or visible side-effects described as part of the story.
And, if it’s not clear yet, I love this document for quick, easy to follow writing advice that makes good, practical sense, not to mention it’s hard-won information from some of the authors I admire most.

So, if you’re plugging away at your NaNoWriMo manuscript today and find yourself stuck, take a break and check out the Turkey City Lexicon for some helpful advice.
And, then get back to writing!

5 Random Writing Tools
by | posted in: On Creativity, The Tools | 1

So, in support of NaNoWriMo, this month, I’ve decided to serve up nothing but writing-related links.

At a week into the process of writing your novel, you should be well on your way.  But, maybe there are some back-story details you’d like to fill in.  Maybe a character who needs an odd name, or who’s pockets you need to fill with random stuff.  Maybe you need a fictional timeline for a fictional nation.  Or, maybe you need a wacky science-fiction invention of some kind to spice up part of your story.
Well, this week, you’re in luck!

In my spare time, I tend to teach myself the easier programming languages to mess with, just to help me keep my edge in my day job in the computer world.  The last two were Perl and PHP.  Now, that probably doesn’t mean much to most of you reading this, but Perl is the “duct tape of the internet” and both of these languages are often used on web pages.  What that translates to, however, is that I’ve created several tools which will give you random “stuff” based on a few parameters.  And, as a frustrated writer, it only made sense that they were made to be used to help other writers.

So, I present to you, direct from my slightly stale site, Fantasist.net, and my World Building Page;The Historical Timeline Generator, which serves up a random historical timeline,
The Daily Carry Generator, which generates a modern character’s “daily carry“,
The Fantasy Pocket “Litter” Generator, which is the fantasy equivalent of the Daily Carry Generator,
The “Funny” Proper Name Generator, for giving characters odd, random names, and
The Crazy Pulp Science-Fiction Invention Generator, which, well, sort of has to be seen to be fully understood.

So, there you have it!  Everything I’ve ever wanted to round out a character for a story or to add a little background to make a fictitious world seem more real.
Hopefully, it will help you add some flavor to  your novel.
But, now, get back to writing!

Let the writing begin!
by | posted in: Stimulus and Production, The Tools | 1

NaNoWriMo starts today, but I won’t be participating this year.

Maybe next year, after my life is just a little more settled and I’ve spent a year getting my writing chops back.
Writing here, or any non-fiction, is relatively easy for me these days, but writing fiction is another kettle of fish.  I used to write all the time and, especially right after college, it flowed easily and well.  I would say, in my own estimation, that I was writing fiction at a professional level.  Sadly, that time was almost twenty years ago now and those professional-grade fiction writing chops are flabby and sad.  So, it’ll take practice.

Incidentally, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is simple; write a 50,000 or better word novel in thirty days.   Why that length?  Well, according to the FAQ; “Our experiences since 1999 show that 50,000 is a difficult but doable goal, even for people with full-time jobs and children. The length makes it a short novel. We don’t use the word “novella” because it doesn’t seem to impress people the way “novel” does.”  But, also, as I recall, it was because one of the founder’s favorite novels was [amazon_link id=”0060850523″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Brave New World[/amazon_link] which is about 50,000 words.  You can read more about NaNoWriMo at their website.

But, as this is the day I normally link you to free stuff, I’m going to share a post at Apartment Therapy listing Six Apps for Writers doing NaNoWriMo.  I have to admit, some of these look like they’d have to be used on an iPad to be really useful, but they’re interesting in any case.  There is one for actually writing called “Drafts”, but the one called “Idea Store” for capturing random ideas looks promising.  From what it looked, most of these are available on either the IOS or the Android platforms, but you’ll have to follow all the links to be sure.  I know they all had IOS versions, which would have me covered.

In any case, if you’re going to participate this year, it’s not too late to get started!  And, my intention this month is to share weekly links of writing tools to help you in your work.
Good luck!

Find New Places To Shoot Photos
by | posted in: Photography, Stimulus and Production | 1

Wow, I almost forgot to post this week!

It’s funny, but I skip just a couple of times and all of a sudden I’m out of the habit of posting a Friday Fun Link.  Well, hopefully, I’ll get back into the rhythm of regular posting again, one step at a time.  Since getting married, I’ve decided I need to start doing more things like that, which I used to do when I first met my wife and we started dating.  Like exercise.  I used to be really healthy, actually, and exercise all the time.  I was in pretty good shape and very active, but now that I’m married especially, I feel like I never want to leave the house!  So, like getting back on an exercise plan, I’m starting in small ways to get going on some regular activities that I used to do.

One thing I used to do was go out almost every weekend shooting photos.  Whether it was with a group or by myself, I was always exploring some place new to take photos, or at least going to the Houston Zoo and shooting there.  So, maybe a good way to start would be to find some new places to shoot.  Luckily, I follow Haje and Daniella’s blog Photocritic, where Daniella recently wrote about a new service called ShotHotSpot.  The idea is pretty straight-forward; ShotHotSpot takes metadata information from photos on Flickr and Panoramio and aggregates the geo-location data in attempt to pinpoint photography “hot-spots” and then display them on a map.  You can search near you or somewhere you might be soon or whatever.  On the “Advanced” search page, you can even specify themes like Landscape photography or Urban or Nature or whatever and even specify how close to your chosen location you want to find “shot hot spots”, so you can find things a little more out of your normal path, if you want.

I can’t say for sure that this will help me get out of the house with my camera more, but at least if I do manage it, I can find someplace new to shoot!  And you can too!  The weekend is almost here, so why not click the link and find somewhere new to take your camera?

Photography 101 by Canon
by | posted in: Photography, Pressgram | 1

Well, I’m back.

Blogging, and writing in general, is like having a case of scabies; it’s a persistent itch that just will not go away!
In any case, I’m safely married and my blushing bride is hard at work on her business, so I’m back at the blog and other writing projects.  Right now, I’m working on some personal documentation off-line, in the privacy of my own directory structure, but that may eventually get shared with the larger world.  Until then, though, please know that I plan to get that fine old Canon 5D MKII out more often and shoot.  Not to mention cluttering up this blog with Pressgram shots from my iPhone.

But, I have to tell you, I am rusty with my “big” camera.
It really feels like I’ve almost started over.  But, you know, that’s okay.  I think I’ll take this opportunity to re-learn the basics which I forgot almost as soon as I learned them.  And, to that end, I’m going back to my camera manufacturer to learn not only my particular gear, but to learn their take on those basics.  On their website, Canon has a free, if brief, introductory photography course; Photography 101.  Their short course covers everything from ISO to aperture to shutter speed, not to mention metering for exposure and autofocus.  They don’t get into basics of composition, but they do talk about flash and different shooting modes and how those both can effect your photographs.  They even include some information about shooting video, which most DSLRs seem to be able to do now.  There is even some information about file types most cameras can handle, including how to download those from your camera.  Sure, some of this will be pretty specific to Canon cameras, but a lot of the basics are just that; basic information applicable to any camera at all.

So, if you’re like me, and getting back into photography after a long absence, or just starting out, check out Canon’s introduction to photography and get ready for a weekend of shooting!

Pretty SciFi Art
by | posted in: About The Author, Red Herrings | 1

No, not mine.

I got nothing this week.
I’m out of creative ideas and pretty much feel like a spent shell casing.
But, I have a good excuse.  In just over a week, I’ll be getting married.  So, this is the last Friday post you’ll see from me for a little bit.  Just kind of how that goes.  Next week, I’ll be busy with family and last minute details for the wedding.  The week after, I plan to be still recovering from the wedding.  Who knows what will happen the week after that?

Until then, though, go look at Simon Stålenhag’s art gallery.
He makes paintings of a beautiful and broken Sweden of the future, a place where derelict technology and dinosaurs share a frozen landscape.  It’s a future I want to write about one day.  Maybe a place in a different solar system, but someplace just like he paints.  It’s beautiful.

I hope to one day own some of his art.
Seriously.

Gettin’ Real Now!
by | posted in: About The Author, Pressgram | 0

Well, it looks like I’m going to call her bluff!

We’re officially licensed to get married now. Now, all we need is for the preacher and the BBQ to show up on time!

Seriously, I can’t believe how quick and easy it was to get a marriage license.  And how happy we both were getting it, while the clerk looked as bored and burned out as ever.  Poor thing.  You’d think that she’d be happier for people excited to start their life together!

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