Interesting survey

A month or two ago author Jim Hines invited published authors to participate in a survey that would look at how people broke into publishing. (I participated.) After approximately 250 responses, he has just published the first part of
his results.

I really like his approach to a subject that is fraught with rumor and recycled opinion. There is so much he said/she said that floats around the pub-o-sphere, I was happy to see something halfway scientific. Jim explains his methods which are certainly not Gallup quality, but certainly informative.

My take?

So far, the results meet my expectations. As one who finds it tough to capture the rhythm and pacing of short stories, I was very happy I could break in without writing them! (I am one of those data points.) And the Eragon story is not exactly an everyman kind of story.

There are some interesting comments after the posting as well. Read more of this post!

Science and Magic

One of the "themes" of my world in the new book is that of science overtaking magic. As I've been working on the grand finale - getting there S L O W L Y - I've had the need for some examples of the scientific revolution. The opening half of the seventeenth century is truly remarkable. Astronomy, physics, mathematics, optics...one discovery following on another...one theory proven, one debunked, ideas... I don't know that I ever appreciated it before. One guy figures out how to create a vacuum. Seems small, and yet, people hadn't really believed there COULD be such a thing as a vacuum. Another person figures out how to generate static electricity, not knowing exactly what it was. Another person realizes that balls rolling downhill accelerate at a uniform rate that can be calculated. One person starts thinking systematically and realizes the liver couldn't really produce enough blood as people had thought...and so develops the theory of the circulation of the blood...and does everything he can to find out if it's true. These things seem so simple and obvious now, but were like magic then. They required leaps of understanding.

And the most amazing thing to me...

...was the people who did this. It's easy to picture scientists who make marvelous discoveries as dedicated, focused nerdy people. But you look at the people who caused this great revolution and they are all writers, translators, clergymen, physicians, musicians, or any number of other things. Some made their own instruments. The guy who invented the barometer built telescopes and taught mathematics. And Isaac Newton...did everything from running the English Mint (and doing all sorts of things to reform the currency and punish counterfeiters) to laying the foundation of physics and calculus, to writing religious and philosophical works, corresponding and collaborating with other scientists and mathematicians, writing books, teaching, etc. etc. We really do stand on the shoulders of giants. As they did, too, of course, as much of what they started with came from Aristotle and all those others who asked questions and formulated some kind of answer.

Makes me feel like a real intellectual wimp! Read more of this post!

Treasure Hunts

I think I last wrote about research back when I was just beginning to work on Unholy Alliance. But I wouldn't want you to think that was the last time I went hunting the wonderful details that can make a fictional world real. Here are a few places I've visited in the past couple of weeks (not counting Chicago where I was visiting family over Thanksgiving!) I'll leave you to guess what mayhem I've conjured from them...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppice (A lot is written about the flaws of Wikipedia - not entirely correct info, amateurish, incomplete, unreliable - but it is a great jumping off point and often leads to other links.)

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/#letterI

http://www.cidpusa.org/blood_letting.htm

http://www.medicalantiques.com/medical/Scarifications_and_Bleeder_Medical_Antiques.htm

http://www.naturesongs.com/birds.html

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookdown.pl

http://paulcarlisle.net/mooncalendar/

Complete Mediterranean Wildlife Photoguide (Sterry)
English Through the Ages (Brohaugh)

And, as always, my treasured Roget - not an imitation thesaurus or word finder or synonym finder, but the real Roget's Thesaurus, where you can look up words by their semantics and find that word that's on the tip of your tongue but just won't come.

Enjoy!

And here are two more I just had to add

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art7783.asp

and

http://smallfarms.typepad.com/small_farms/2006/04/freerange_pigs_.html Who can resist an article called Free Range Pigs?

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Critical Mass

Astonishing how a week can change things. Has it already been a week? How time does fly when one is immersed in the Work. After almost a week of floundering, researching, consulting, analyzing, and cracking skull on keyboard, I got moving on the harbor scene. It flowed. I love it when I've gathered enough information, motivation, world building details, and plot elements that I can immerse myself in the scene without stopping to look things up. The worst thing I have to worry about is communicating how the tall, carved posts with the bird capitals form a great rectangle on the pleasure barge and that silk draperies and canopies are hung from them. I would like to make the posts curve outward so that when they fix new ropes between them to hang the celebration banners brought on board, the banners will obscure some of the silk draperies, but still leave space between. But I need to describe all this in a matter of a few words so we don't interrupt the action. Well, ok, I won't worry about the outward curve (though it would look really cool.)

As I write I do find myself changing some details as I go. Halfway through the scene I move the oarsmen from "belowdecks," when I realize from looking at every pleasure barge picture I can find, that yes, some barges have decks, but these are really shallow draught vessels and you can't necessarily fit men and oars underneath. All the pictures show them on the "main level." But this doesn't mean they are on the deck. They can be in an open hull part of the barge. OK. That works. I put them in the stern, because that seems like the "back of the bus" and the guests would be in the bow, but pictures show that lots of rowing barges put the rowers in the bow - facing backward for rowing, of course, with the bargemaster facing forward. I like the look of the picture I found. So I adjust the words and put them in the bow and the main "gallery" is in the stern. Move everyone around. It works. And then comes the disaster...

...in the story, not the writing (I hope!)...and then comes the magic
that was the reason for all this research and setup. And the magic doesn't come from the place Portier thought it would. And people die. And Portier's expectations, illusions, and hopes are crushed. Action only has meaning in the reactions of the characters.

Did you know that there are Naval Field Medical Manuals online, that tell about phosphorus burns and treatment? [I am smiling here.] Which leads into the "aftermath" chapter. Because when everything goes wrong/blows up/turns south, our heroes have to regroup. Which is another whole chapter!!

Portier is wounded - not something a librarian is accustomed to. It's only small, but leads to interesting revelations about our sorcerer. The character interaction is the most fun - I really have to be careful about too much talking heads in this story. With a mystery, there are clues and interconnections to be analyzed, especially when everything you think you've figured out is proved wrong. I'm going to have to figure out some different way to do this...

And so it goes. I know several things that have to happen next. A visit to Collegia Magica Seravain is one of the big ones. But I think...we may have to go ghost hunting first. Now where did that come from??????

Stay tuned...

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Sometimes It Takes a Village

It really chaps me when I hear an aspiring writer say,

I write fantasy because you can make your world be whatever you want. If you write science fiction, you have to learn all that science; if you write a historical or contemporary or mystery, you have to do so much research. Fantasy is so much easier.

Bite your tongue! It's no wonder so many readers (and other writers!) don't take fantasy seriously! So why does this strike me so hard at this point?

This has been a tough week. I am writing the culminating scene of my first arc, where the spooky music [I hope!!] we've been hearing bursts into action and leads us onward. I was delighted when I got the idea to merge this bit of excitement with the idea of a world on the brink of great discoveries--the launch of the Destinne, a ship of exploration. But after enjoying writing several little incidents and encounters that lead us to think Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, I had to actually write the big scene. And instantly, I got into trouble.

First, I woke up Monday morning with the realization that I was going to launch a ship of exploration, but the city where I've been working is in the middle of Sabria! Duh. Well, it does sit on a river. [World-building reminder: cities grow up in places where there are resources. Castles are built where there is something worth defending or someone you need to keep in or keep out.] I did not want to move Merona to the seaside, so I needed to learn something about river ports and ocean-going ships. Most rivers can't support that large a vessel. So count a day for hunting the internet for examples of inland ports - London is a great example. Hmmm...tidal influences on rivers...how far inland?

And then, of course, I needed to know what kind of ship this was. Fortunately a friend had given me a book called The History of Ships. This is a pretty dense little book that tells me a lot more about ships than I really want to know. My characters aren't going to sail on one...or are they? Where will we be as the Destinne sets sail...?

Anyway, I settle on a Portugese caravel as the model of the Destinne. Caravels were the ships most often used in voyages of exploration, as it happens. The Nina and the Pinta were caravels, as were Vasco da Gama's and Bartholomew Diaz's ships--the names take shape out of fourth grade history... But if Portier is going to be an eyewitness to this ship's launch as well as the Events surrounding it, then I need to know what he sees. It is time to call in help.

I am fortunate to know a small group of fellow writers, some published, some un-, who enjoy sharing information and expertise. One of these lovely people happens to have just done a lot of ship research for her own book. And another happens to be an expert on sailing, as well as a history major and Anglophile and avid reader of novels set in the Age of Sail. What is "warping" a ship? What is different about dealing with a river as opposed to a seaport? [Thank you, thank you, Susan and Di.]

And I learn that Elizabethan era river ports are not necessarily what we think of as harbors today, so I go online and find resources that tell me a lot about the history of the port of London. [Oh my gosh, there is so much! You can see maps of the port listing whose wharves were whose or you can read letters from American businessmen in the 1700s who come to London to buy stuff to ship home... Astonishing the resources that are out there!] OK, merchants' wharves exist. And when I need to place my characters somewhere not on the ship of exploration itself, but to watch it go, I start reading about pleasure barges that have been used on the Thames since before Elizabeth's day. Which also tells me something about what kind of river Sabria's River Ley must be - not rough and tumble, but wide and deep and placid.

If fantasy is so easy and needs no research, then how the heck am I going to put my reader vividly at Portier's side as he sees events unfold? And how am I going to devise a magical event to awe and surprise both spectators and readers, while feeling right? For as soon as I get a few nautical details on the page (not too much, even after several days of research, I want only just enough to make it real) I have to figure out the Event itself.

Two days of speculating, theorizing, woodling, rearranging, investigating motives, trolling through a book called Ancient Inventions [Did you know that hand grenades were used during the Crusades or that Aristotle wrote about divers using underwater breathing apparatus?] and the like lead me to the conclusion that I need science first, maybe science that looks like magic. That means I call in my primary scientific consultant, the Spouse. [He is worth an entire series of posts of his own, but let us say that this is a person of wide-ranging interests in all things mechanical, electrical, automotive, anatomical, and scientific - especially the odd.]

I present my problem. I need this under these constraints. I sort of thought maybe something like... An hour's discussion came up with a great way to cause the highly visible attack that I want.

Now it is Saturday and after tweaking the "gathering of all the people scene" yet again, I am ready to warp the Destinne, and unfurl the jib to bring her around, while Portier stands right under the artifact that will threaten to annihilate King Phillipe yet again. And then my broody sorcerer will... No, I'm not telling.

Thanks, everyone. I want my fantasy to feel real and I can't do it without you.

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Verse and Reverse

Wrong turns, wanderings, and reversals are a fact of life when you write like I do, beginning to end, no outline. I love the freedom this kind of writing gives me, and I've talked about how I feel it enhances my own creativity, but there is a price.

I've been creeping through chapter 4 [ok, I've already lopped off a two-page "prelude" that I was never sure of and made my five-page first chapter into the prelude, so this is really the chapter 5 I was worrying with last week.] I've got my three agentes confide into the palace where the nefarious assault took place...and I got Portier into the hoosegow for one night. I met Maura - did I mention I had plans for her? Not just because she hates lies and she is a cool lady and I enjoyed inventing her, but because I woke up two days ago realizing that she and an unnamed character in my proposal were one and the same. Not only do I have plans for her, but I even know what those plans are! [I LOVE it when that happens.] But then I got stuck.

What do you do when you have writers' block? This is one of the most common questions any writer is asked. And the answer is...

A working writer can't afford to be "blocked." You have to keep plugging, keep looking for something to move you forward.

I picked at the stack of books beside my writing chair and read one called "How Did They Do That" or something like, and it was a great overview of significant developments in various topic areas: Law, Medicine, Food, Science, Architecture, etc. Sort of like the science or food timelines you can find on the internet, only less comprehensive, but including cool pictures and diagrams. I found several VERY useful tidbits.

I read an internet piece about bloodletting [actually a Strange Horizons article called Misconceptions About Medieval Medicine]. Very interesting.

I dragged some descriptive phrases about the palace out of my head [this was truly like pulling a toothpick out of a tarpit]. Which led me into inventing a piece of history - this kingdom had long ago been ruled by the Fassid, a very sophisticated, dark-skinned race - think the Moors in Spain. Sabria's art and architecture reflects the confluence of several great civilizations. Fassid influence is especially pervasive in southern Sabria, and this tells me some things about family customs, too. The Fassid withdrew...disappeared...I have yet to figure out whether this is relevant to current Sabrian history, but it gives me some grounding when I'm writing description: is this a Fassid edifice? was it built to imitate Fassid art? was it built to "put down" Fassid art?

I invented a bit more magic - but it wasn't sufficiently "new" to make me feel accomplished.

At last yesterday, I squeezed out enough words so that Maura got Portier out of his overnight confinement and took him to where he was planning to go...and I realized that it was totally the wrong thing. His "plan" - the investigation I had sketched out in my book proposal, Would Not Work! That's why I was having such a difficult time moving forward. The place I was going to put him would not give him sufficient "cover" for making the inquiries he needed to make.

Once I saw this, I also saw where he needed to be. This is one I have to rework before I can move forward. So I backtrack. Remove a few incidental paragraphs that I can easily use later. Reword a few things. And the incident I wrote yesterday will still work, but Portier will now end up in a place he did NOT plan to be, rather than ending up in the place he planned to be all along. Which circumstance promises the most interest? And the payoff line I wrote in triumph last night still works!

"They found another mule*."

* mule, in this case, is not a sterile donkey offspring, but a person who has been repeatedly bled, his or her blood used for... No, No. That would be telling...
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Internet Magic

I'm back from visiting my mom in Texas and buckling down to some actual work on this book. I have a writers retreat in the mountains this weekend, and I hope to make real progress.

I am still mucking with the opening chapter, though I like the way Portier and Ilario are shaping. My rough beginning had Ilario acting too serious and clever - he is a ditzy young lord who carries a luck charm to protect him from crocodiles - and Portier too timid. Portier may be a failure in his chosen profession, but he has been charged with a serious task by his king, and he is smart and determined to make good. (And the king has chosen well!) I also gave these two too much room to get to know each other. Part of the unfolding structure of this book must be my three main characters learning to accommodate one another - or not doing so. Once I got these two guys straightened out in my head, I was faced with a problematical disconnect in the plot.

My opening action has these two new partners approaching a third person, feeling him out to see if he can help in the task the king has set, without revealing anything of the secrets that surround the task. Well, of course it all goes wrong. But the person they approach - a sorcerer - shows Portier something that shakes him. Only this early in the book, I've not laid the groundwork for why what the sorcerer demonstrates should shake him.

So, back up, Carol. How do I lay the groundwork for the structure of magic, the current belief system, its relationship to scientific discovery, etc - all that stuff I worked out week before last? If I do it right, then the reader can feel Portier's wonder when he says,

The green eyes stared at me. Watching. Waiting.
I stared into their fiery depths and felt the entirety of the world crumble.

You see the problem? We have to know what is crumbling before we can feel Portier's astonishment and distress. And this is tough to do so early in the story. So I think I need to stick in another piece.

So far, the king's charge to Portier has been off screen. We don't know what has caused,

the dread that settled in my bowels like Discord’s Worm, gnawing at the heart of the world.

I really don't want to show too much too soon, but if I do and Portier must place this threat within the context of magic, then we'll know what he believes. Thus when I shake him up yet again, we understand.

All of which leads to contrasting magic with science. King Phillipe has called upon someone familiar with magic to solve his mystery. But he embraces science, and gives Portier an example of what he loves - which led me to looking at 17th century scientific breakthroughs - which led me to this online copy of Robert Hooke's Micrographia. To be able to turn the pages of a book published in 1665 on my computer is just wizardly!

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WIP - Week 1

So what happens in the early stages of a new novel?

I have a few documents that I started as I began developing this new story.
Timeline - to help me keep the backstory straight leading up to my opening - ages and timing for who knew what will be critical.
Glossary - to help me list new terms, names of characters and places as they come up.
World Notes - where I am defining a few major components of the world, especially the truth and popular perceptions of magic - which is the essence of the series' conflict. This won't be comprehensive, as I like to leave many things so I can invent as I go along. Somehow when it is written down, it starts to solidify, and in many cases that's not what I want at this point in the process.

I start the day by reviewing these documents, noting the new ideas that have cropped up since this project got serious, and I immediately get sidetracked. Where?


My thesaurus and my English/Latin, English/Greek, and Babelfish online translators - because I'm trying to think of just the right name for a governing body. Phillip Pullman, darn his hide, has used Magisterium.

My name books - because I can't get into a character's head without knowing his or her name.
The internet in general. Today's wanderings take me to a neobyzantine web site that I can't figure out for a while. It had smatterings of history of Orthodox Christianity and its roots in the Byzantine Empire. But then I realized it was some sort of byzantine nationalist site - no kidding.

Geez - these things EAT UP time...

Colorado weather today: Brrrr...frosty.

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