Hi.

If you’re a writer, then you’re my competitor. If you’re a Fantasy writer, then you’re my sworn enemy. Kind of. In a way, at least.

See, we’re all competing for readers and, without those readers, we don’t amount to much. Unless, of course, you’re content with only friends and family reading your work. That’s perfectly fine, but it doesn’t go far enough for those of us who want to break into the professional arena. Thus, competition.

This doesn’t mean that I want other people’s work to suck. In fact, I want to compete against the best. It’s not very worthwhile if I can’t.

So how does this relate to athletes?

Let’s take a look at football players. They don’t step onto the turf thinking they’re going to lose. Indeed, they spend weeks, months, and sometimes entire years in preparation for one single game. And, in the very depths of their hearts, they believe they will win. If they don’t believe that, then their opponents will smash their teeth into the grass. That’s not fun, and a losing team doesn’t have very many fans. Insert more not-fun here.

We authors need to believe that we’re the baddest mofo on the turf. We need to believe that our years of practice and training will allow us to insert grass into our opponent’s teeth. Is this a little arrogant? Hell yes it is. Is it required? Hell yes.

Now, we writers are a fickle, somewhat emo lot. We doubt ourselves, wonder if what we’re writing is worth a steaming pile of poo, and otherwise mock ourselves. Mock mock mock.

“It’s sooooooo hard to be badass!”
“I don’t wanna be an arrogant prick!”
“Hekp, hekp, gave me a bad review!”

Fuck it. If any writer wants to be the best, they need to be the best. Now, I’m not saying that those aforementioned doubts aren’t natural. They are. I’m telling you to find a way to combat it. Get a punching bag and smack the shit out of it every day before your writing hours. Jog or run. Or just scream into a pillow, maybe tear it a bit, and fling those feathers everywhere. Rarwrwrwrw! On that same note, cuddle a teddybear if that’s what it takes. Make that bear your cuddlebitch.

Find a way to convince yourself that you’re a badass, and go with it. Then write.

See, I want to compete against the best. I want my work to go against the people who put their heart and soul into it, people who believe, at the very center of what they are, that the world had better watch out.

Bring it!

And finally, due to the sheer awesomeness of this post, I shall raise my minion count to 20. I haven’t raised it lately, so it’s time.

National Novel Writing Month may not know who I am, but I’m declaring war on it.  That’s right, with big ol’ gnarly swords and axes ‘n shit.  A splash of gooey crimson, a length of pinkish-white entrails, smelling of iron and heat and death, and we’ll have a nice little battle.  Who cares if it’s one-sided?

Disclaimer:  My brand-new chair just dumped me on my ass, so I’m a little pissed.

Why NaNoWriMo is the Devil’s gift to writers:

Look at writing as a ladder.  At the very top—way up on the last possible step, where it’s terrifying to let go lest writer meet dirt in violent fashion—is where each writer could potentially climb.  Climb a little farther, grasp another wooden dowel, then another, and they’ll eventually reach it.  Hopefully.  The problem is that most writers never get off the first rung.

Why?

Because they don’t learn the fundamentals.  They never learn how to structure a sentence, when to properly use an adverb, the dangers of infinite verb-phrases, the boring depths of passive voice, the terrors of SOB verbs, or countless other bottomless pits.

Writing a good story isn’t half of the ladder.  Nope, not even half.  Yes, self-editing plays a part in there somewhere, but look at it this way—even with self-editing, our example writer only climbs ten rungs, or fifteen.  However, if they are at rung number fifteen when they start, then they’ll reach twenty or twenty-five at the end of their self-edits.  Add in an editor, and they may even reach to the thirtieth.

And this, folks, is where my problem with NaNoWriMo comes in.  The program doesn’t encourage writers to write well, it simply encourages them to write.  It reinforces bad writing habits that end up taking months or years to erase.  In many cases, those bad habits are never fully eradicated.  Let me be perfectly clear here, no editor, no matter how good, can clean up a manuscript that’s sloppy to begin with.  The better the base material, the better the end product.  That also goes for self-editing.

Yes, there are exceptions.  Some writers start off with NaNoWriMo and go on to be published.  In fact, we’ve even got one or two at Evolved Publishing, and they’ve proven themselves as gifted and dedicated writers.  However, those are exceptions.  I don’t want to make up a bogus figure off the top of my head, but how many writers start with NaNoWriMo and then go on to be published?  Judging by the hordes of submissions we’ve received, I’d guess not many.

Learn the fundamentals first.  I mean seriously, a racecar diver doesn’t compete in the Daytona 500 without first learning how their car works.  Go slow.  A mechanic doesn’t attempt to swap an engine until he learns his tools, completes a brake job or two, and works his way up that ladder.

A new bloody writer shouldn’t try to write a novel in a month.

Yes, quality is more important than quantity, because it cuts down on those aforementioned bad habits.  I swear to the ever-living god, those things breed faster than a horde of zombie bunnies.  Kill them.  Kill them all!

Buy books like Strunk & White’s Elements of Style or Renni & Brown’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and study the crap out of them.  Go take a grammar class at a community college, or buy Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale.  It’s possible to teach yourself through experience, but only if you actually teach yourself.  Writing at break-neck speed isn’t learning.  Take this month to do that, instead of writing whatever pops into your skull.

And, if you do indeed decide to embark on NaNoWriMo, throw their goal out the window.  Writing as fast as possible isn’t a goal, it’s a death sentence, and these writers are only hurting themselves.

I’m not sure how professional this post is.  Perhaps I care but, if I do, it’s lost somewhere deep in the darkened pits of my soul.  That’s a scary place, and we won’t venture there today.  Instead, I’m going to talk about something much more lively–feces and Brandon Sanderson’s ‘The Way of Kings.’   See, the second one is a book.  This is a clean blog.  I’m sorry, but I’m not going to talk about how kings defecate.  I wouldn’t even know where to start, but I’d probably guess they do it the same as the rest of us.  If I had to guess.

Yes, yes indeed.

Instead, I’m going to discuss how to appeal to an audience.  A ton of far more noted and educated authors have discussed this same topic, but I believe, in my little heart of hearts, that I’ve uncovered an interesting take on it.  About a week ago, I perused a youtube interview conducted by Moses Siregar III.  He interviewed Brandon Sanderson, and somehow they got on the topic of why Brandon decided to write ‘The Way of Kings’.  The answer included many ideas that I’ve contemplated while working on my own novel.  I felt like I knew him.  We had a link, but not in the weirdcreepystalker way.  It was kinda neat.

Insert the wonders of Facebook here.  I decided to post my discovery to Facebook, just to see what my legion of 10 fans had to say about it.  One guy answered, another guy liked it, and the other eight must’ve hated me that day.  That’s okay.  We’re cool now.  I forgive you guys.

Names and pictures disguised to protect the innocent. Well, except that one picture. Oops.

There you have it.  Neat, huh?  Don’t worry Pat, I still love you.  You too, George.  And well, Mr. Jordan, I never blamed you for a thing.  Thanks, I had to get that off my chest.  It was heavy.

That was the first part of my story.  The second part begins here.

The day after I posted this tidbit of contemplation, I waited for the doors to my favorite Barnes & Nobles to open.  That’s where I write.  I was reading through the current issue of The Writer, and I glanced up to a black van as it drove past.  It was awesome–and I mean that in every possible sense of the word.  They’d painted it black, it had a neat red stripe down the side, red wheels, and someone had even carved an supercharger intake into the hood.

I yearned.

Ah, but there’s more to it.  I squinted at the white letters stuck to its tinted windows.  They said “A-Team plumbing.  I pity the stool!”  Perhaps that negated a touch of my awestruck fanboyism, but it still amused the hell out of me–so much so that I wrote another Facebook update.  This is where the story gets crazy.  This is where it taught me something.  This is where I learned.

I think I managed to hit all the pictures and names in this one. Doh, nevermind. I didn't. Sorry Kelly.

Fourteen people liked this update!  An additional two people commented, but they didn’t click the ‘like’ button.  That brought my total to sixteen people who commented/liked this.  I’m good at math.  I can also do division and multiplication.  For those of my loyal minions who can’t, eight times the number of people who liked Brandon Sanderson liked this.

My conclusion?  That’s easy enough.  More people have something in common with the A-Team and poop than they do with Brandon Sanderson or ‘The Way of Kings.’  This fact saddened me for a moment, but then I had to delve deeper.  Not literally.  I thought back to all those Daily Kicks by David Farland, and the other various advice I’d read from books and magazines and interwebs.  It’s true, people are drawn to things they have something in common with.  Most of us grew up with the A-Team.  All of us–unless I’m missing something–grew up with poop.  Thus, I snagged a larger audience with the second post.

Isn’t that crazy?  So now I will reiterate the same point all those authors and scholars have tried to drill into my head.  Be aware of your audience.  Know what they like.  Know what they dislike.  If you tweak those strings, and do it well, hm, maybe you’ll prove successful in your craft, whether it be writing or painting or designing hallmark cards.  I’m not sure.  I’ll let you know how it works out for me.

One final point:  I’m now raising my loyal fan base from 10 to 16.  I think I deserve it.

That is all.

Because this happened, that happened.  But, it wasn’t only that.  Instead, two things happened because of the first, and four more things happened because of the second.  It’s an upside down pyramid, and it can’t be ignored when writing.  It must, however, be contained.  Keep the thread clear.  Keep the story concise.

But–but!–the cause and effect make it interesting.

That is all.

For the last few weeks, I’ve had my eye pinned to David Farland’s Novel Rewriting Workshop.  It was a little out of focus, a little hazy, as if somehow I couldn’t quite make up my mind if I wanted to apply.  Maybe it was just my damn eye.  Ah well.  He only accepts twelve students.  I experienced weeks of annoying hesitation–am I good enough, should I really send my manuscript for consideration, why am I pissing red?

Courage comes from many places.  For some people, it comes from the alluring taste of alcohol.  But, that’s never appealed to me.  Other people find their bravery through the encouragement of others.  Perhaps this applies to me–my family supports me, my friends support me, my editor does, too.  I’m a fairly encouraged fellow.  However, I’d like to think I find my own inner drive from the hamster that tumbles around in my chest.  Last night, the fuzzy little guy must’ve had a shot of cocaine.

Not literally.  Follow along with the simile, dammit.

I tossed my first five pages into a word document, wrote up a quick three sentence email, and clicked the send button.  It just happened.  After that, I watched some T.V., worked on an edit/critique for a buddy, and forgot about it.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Three hours later, I received my acceptance.  Mr. Farland enjoyed my writing, enjoyed it!  He accepted me into the class, and within twenty minutes I had registered.

He enjoyed it!

Now, at this point I considered squealing like a little girl.  I might have, actually, but please tell no one of this.  My readership of 10 must hold it close to their hearts.  Don’t even speak to each other about it.

For those of you who don’t know who David Farland is, well, I’ll tell you.  His career began in 1987 when he won the L. Ron Hubbard ‘Writers of the Future’ contest, and he went on to judge that competition four years later.  He’s been nominated for a Hugo.  He’s been nominated for a Nebula.  He’s a multi NYTBS author.  In addition, I hear he’s a pretty kickass teacher, and has names such as Brandon Sanderson on his past students list.

From April 18-22 I’ll be in Saint George, Utah.  Don’t call me.  Don’t write me.  I’m a gawna trai an lurn me sumthin.

So, I’m attempting to become a contributor at Adventures in SciFi Publishing.  They’re a neat crew over there, and they’ve done some interesting podcasts with some very notable names including Tracy Hickman and David Farland.  Moses Siregar is a buddy who contributes to their interviews, and he’s also writing The Black God’s War, an epic fantasy of epicness.  In the good way.

Industry experts all agree–the best way to break into the industry is to ignore those walls.  Start working with them.  Most people are kind, enjoy a bright, inquisitive mind, and they’re often thrilled to have someone help their website or blog.

I chose this one.  It’s mine.  You can’t have it.

Shaun Farrell, the head guy at AISFP returned my email within a day, asking me to provide a review of a book as a sample.  Insert heart sinking.  Insert panic.  Insert yikes.  I didn’t have a review of a book.  I’ve never reviewed anything literary.  Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted that to him, but I’ve never been very good at that whole lying thing.

So, instead of returning his email empty-handed, I decided to smash together a review of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.  I’ve read the book once or twice or twenty times, and it’s one of my favorites in the genre.  In addition, it’s probably something he’s read, and thus serves well as an example of my particular style.  Maybe.  We’ll see.

Included below is my review.  Seeing as the book was published almost twenty years ago, I doubt Shaun will want to publish this particular piece on his website.  If he does, well, I’ll just delete this blog.  Snip snip, like the balls of your favorite racehorse.  My current readership of 10 would weep, I’m sure.  But you guys love me, and you’d get over it.

The Deliverator’s car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator’s car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car’s tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deliverator’s car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.

That’s an excerpt from the first chapter of Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson.  I think I lost my breath the first time I read that, like some monstrous, vile techno-nerd had ripped it from my chest.  Come to think of it, I may have never gotten it back.

Snow Crash is the type of book that ruins other books.  Some of them, you’ll never think of the same again.  It towers above them, peers down at them with beady little eyes, and laughs at their futile efforts.  Glance at the clock as the pages keep turning.  Glance at it again, and wonder where the last hour of your life has vanished to.

I’ll tell you where it’s gone.  Hiro Protagonist, the main character of Snow Crash, has sucked it into a void.  You’ll never get it back.  But then again, you’ll never want to.  This book contains, among other things, an amazing cast of characters.  They’re alive.  They breathe.

Stephenson demands you follow their lives through a vivid landscape of prose and characterization.  I’ve read many Science Fiction novels where the author throws random scifiish terms at their readers without thought or consideration.  They’re supposed to create atmosphere, believability, or some such.  Instead, many times those terms bounce from my forehead, splat upon the page, and I never really care to see them again.  Not so with Snow Crash.  Sure, Stephenson throws similar terms at his reader.  He probably giggles like a maniac as he does so.  But… but, they never feel forced, hackneyed, or out of place.  They’re in his world, and he owns them.

Written in 1992, Stephenson wields an incredible vision of what the internet would eventually become, what we could eventually become.  He examines ideas that, at the time, must have seemed as delusional as the first Tron movie did in ’82.  In addition to that, he examines fragments of neuro-linguistic programming.  Want to learn what it would be like if you could actually program someone’s brain?  What about if you gave it a virus?  Ah yes, my eager techno-punk reader, dive into this book to find out.

With all of that said, Snow Crash isn’t without its flaws.  Impossible though it may seem, even techno-nerds suffer from the occasional weakness.  Stephenson definitely isn’t shy about swear words, so it’s not all that kid friendly.  Also, the last third of the book ambles on a touch, kind of like the neighborhood dog that just won’t stop yapping.  It’s a cute little bugger, though, and I promise you won’t want to shoot its fuzzy little ratface.  This is because some of the concepts the book examines are, well, intricate, and they’re a touch hard to follow on the first run-through.  It does a great job of explaining said intricacies, but the whole batch together will probably take the average reader two reads to fully comprehend.  They won’t mind.

Ah ha!  So it’s flawed.  Well, yes, in a way, a very small way, but its sheer awesomeness will shine through that.  For the adult reader, the aforementioned strengths—atmosphere, prose, characterization, plotline, originality—overpower those shortcomings.

That is all.

I sent this to a buddy on Facebook, and I figured it may work as an introduction to my website, because that’s how I roll.

I’m pretty bloody burned out. My editor sent me some extra work this week, and I’ve hammered on the novel nonstop since Monday. I get up at 7am. I eat. I drive to the coffee shop, and I write for the next 6 to 8 hours, or whenever my brains drip from my ears. Then, I work on this blasted website. I edit some chapter files. I edit some MORE chapter files. I get to sleep at 11pm or 12am. Oh weekend, where are you?

This whole writing-a-novel thing is tough work.

Lane Diamond–another friend, I thankfully have more than one–once said, “To write well, you must work hard. To succeed in this tough gig, you mustn’t be lazy.“

He’s probably right.  He is right, but that doesn’t make me hate him any less–not at this moment of heavy-chested, eye-drooping weariness.  Ah well, but we struggle on, because that’s what little iron-clad soldiers do, with their polished swords and their sharpened axes.  I own none of those things.  I do, however, own a flail.  It’s heavy.

Proof. Pen included for size reference. Mwahah!

I started writing around two years ago.  I could find the exact date, if I wanted to waste an hour or so scouring emails.  Sure, I’d written before–the English essay, the science paper, or the occasional angst-ridden masterpieces of a teenager.  I thought I knew more than I did, of course.

But I’d never written, not before two years ago.

At that time, I had typed up a little short story that I titled Meaning.  It’s odd that I named it that, because in truth it didn’t mean anything.  It’s like this: you know how you’re driving down the road, and you reach to the cup-holder, expecting to find a nice refreshing drink?  Instead, you’ve missed it in an attempt to swerve past granny.  Yes, you’ve latched onto a pile of sticky goop–the one from the other cup-holder, the one better left unused.  That was my first short story.

Thankfully, I feel–hope, wish, pray–that I’ve moved on from that catastrophe.  I missed granny, but it still bloody sucked.  I’ve learned some elements of dialogue.  I’ve learned some elements of body language.  I’ve even learned a touch about plot development and characterization.  Maybe.

So this first post will include two paragraphs from that short story.  Wallow in it.  You’ll feel better afterward, trust me.  The comments in red were from my editor, Lane Diamond.  That first year was a little touch and go.  I hadn’t yet decided if I actually wanted to write yet.  His assistance helped me make a decision, and I’m thankful for that despite my professed hatred a few paragraphs up.  He’s great.  Normally, he color codes all his highlights, but I haven’t included those tidbits here.  Instead, they’re simply in bold.

Meaning

By D.T. Conklin

The light attaches to the essence of the girl. It flies and swirls around her, brighter and faster.  The intensity increases until it is painful to examine with the naked eye.  Solidity occurs.  The little lights slow their frantic whirring and coalesce into a kneeling form.  Pale white skin is formed on the figure, its smoothness like a still mountain pond.  Nakedness is evident as she straightens her body and stares at her surroundings in bewilderment.  Delicate flowers grow at her feet and, as she turns, they catch tiny specks of light which fall from her shoulders and hair.  Trees with large dark branches stretch overhead.  A great ball of blinding light gleams in the sky; the heat slashes through the branches and warms the clay-like soil beneath her feet.  Shadows from the trees dance and writhe upon the forest floor as a light breeze weaves through the illuminated branches. 1- You open with a sentence designed to elicit immediate emotional involvement, which is great; however, your words and structure must work toward that end.  Consider this provocative alternative: The very essence of the girl is light. 2- The first few sentences are a bit choppy.  You can fix that by combining the 2^nd and 3^rd sentences: It flies and swirls around her, brighter and faster, until its intensity is too painful to examine with the naked eye. 3- Once again, you can economize and provide a better rhythm: The little lights slow their frantic whirring and coalesce into a kneeling form of pale white skin, smooth as a still mountain pond. 4- Be strong and direct: She straightens her naked body and stares at her surroundings in bewilderment. 5- Semicolons are okay where necessary, but not preferred.  In this case, you can change the semicolon to a comma, then add “and” before “the heat.”

She has no destination.  Never before has she had a tangible thought in what one would call a mind.  The girl sees what could be a small path that leads into the forest and begins to walk upon it.  Her bare feet glide over the grass covered ground with each balanced step.  Occasionally she hops along smooth rocks on the path, from one to another towards an unknown destination.  She smiles with tranquil innocence as she ambles along the forest avenue. 1- Alternative: Never before has a tangible thought formed in what one would call her mind. 2- Keep it tight.  Don’t TELL us what she sees; SHOW us.  Why “begin” to walk, when you can just walk?  Alternative: The girl walks upon a small path that leads into the forest. 3- Hyphenate “grass-covered” as a compound adjective.  4- “From one to another” is an offset in an otherwise continuous segment; therefore, place commas before and after.

I began at the very beginning, as dumb as that sounds.  Don’t use adverbs.  SHOW; DON’T TELL.  Be careful of clunky dialogue tags.  Some of those things are mentioned in the above paragraphs, but all of those things and more have been mentioned at some point or another.  I still haven’t managed to figure out what the hell a compound adjective is.

Ah well, everyone needs a bane.