I have found in my writing and in my life, that if I make a list, take notes, outline, plan – I will get whatever it is needs done just that much easier and quicker.

I’m talking about making a six month, one year, five year plan for your writing and for your life. They aren’t the same, although sometimes it may feel that way. As a sidebar – life is what feeds our writing, so don’t ignore it or you may find your writing drying up and getting stale from lack of fresh inspiration.

Family, friends, classes, the bowling league, hobbies, reading and the latest movie are not only food for your soul but food for your writing. Do you know how high a priority they are? Will you have that on your list in a year or five? Think about it…

My friends know my schedule is hectic, so if they want to have time with me, it has to be scheduled. I make time for my friends because they are important to me, but I also have to literally make time for them or they get lost in the craziness of my schedule. They are a high priority and on my master plan, so that is covered.

I recently had to turn down helping on an event in 2012 I really wanted to do because I didn’t have the time to commit to it. Is it now on my plan for 2013? You bet it is. I have a plan for it and other things will have to get sacrificed so I can participate, but that’s ok. I’m planning ahead so I know what’s coming up, what needs done, and when.

What about your writing? Will you have one book done a year, two a year, one epic and one novella? What’s your goal? What’s the plan to get there? How are you going to accomplish it? Do you write intently one weekend a month, a page a day, an hour a day? All this planning helps you accomplish your goals. It really does.

If you spend a little time planning ahead, you don’t have to think about it, you can just get on with what needs done. An hour of planning on Monday for the week can save you several hours wasted while you figure out what you needed to do each day.

In my writing, I’m a plotter not a pantser, but I recently tried pantsing a novel. I got a good start on it, about 30K and then I had no idea where I was going. I knew how it ended but I had no idea the route to get there. I was completely lost. Now, I’m having to map my course so I can finish my story’s journey.

I may be a little over-zealous on this planning issue, as I am the person who had a 47-page itinerary for a ten-day road trip from coast to coast, but maybe that’s just how I need to operate in order to get to my destination. Some of you may be able to jump in the car and drive with no plan, but I suspect most will fall in between the two extremes.

I’m just suggesting that you consider planning. See if it doesn’t make things run smoother. If you aren’t already a planner, try it as an experiment. Figure out the goal for the week, day by day, and follow it. Let me know if it helps.

My goals for the next year?

Writing – Do my regularly schedule blog posts on all three of my sites, write at least 4 hours a day/4 times a week with a goal of finishing two books during the year, and actively submitting.

Life – Do not take on any more commitments, schedule time at least once a month with my “best-y”, schedule my days so they are more productive, and ensure my writing time is held sacred.

Go forth and plan…Be ‘Fictorious!’

In Praise of the Queen’s English

December 28, 2011

David Carrico

Craft & Skills First Drafts Narrative Voice The Writing Process 7 Comments

First, a PSA: Grantville Gazette VI, edited by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books, is on the stands now. It contains my story Suite for Four Hands, which is part of a series of stories exploring how musicians of the early 17th century might react if the music of the late 20th century was dropped in their laps. Check it out.

Now, on with today’s post.

What do the following words have in common?

Slept, dreamt, leapt, burnt, dwellt, swept.

They are all representatives of a class of irregular verbs. Four of them are also examples of a trend by American publishers to ‘regularize’ many irregular verbs in American usage. You’ve seen it, even though it may not have registered with you. Dreamed instead of dreamt, burned instead of burnt, dwelled instead of dwellt. (Slept and swept have somehow managed to avoid being replaced with sleeped and sweeped.)

This is apparently an American movement. The rest of the English-speaking world seems to be doing fine being irregular with irregular verbs. Now, I am not particularly an Anglophile. (But I’m not an Anglophobe, either.) Outside of Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien, I’m not especially fond of English writers per se. (And I’m not sure why I like Dickens-I just do.) Most of the ‘classics’ of English Literature leave me in a state of vast ennui. I will even admit to having successfully managed to avoid reading Shakespeare throughout my high school and college careers.

That said, I must stand up and shout against this trend in American publishing. Author C. J. Cherryh probably described the background and circumstances better than I can in a post a number of years ago. But regardless of the whys and wherefores of the trend, the fact remains that by removing the usage of these irregular verbs, publishers and copy-editors are removing tools from our writers’ tool chests. They are removing richness and flavor from our writing. They are, in fact, reducing our ability to write in distinctive styles. And I find that deplorable.

When I write, I quite frequently use particular words to create specific effects in the reader; ‘aural’ effects, for lack of a better term. In my mind, and to my ear, ‘dreamed’ has a different effect than ‘dreamt’. And I’m not rigidly locked in to one form or the other, although I have noticed that I tend to use ‘dreamed’ forms more in science fiction and ‘dreamt’ forms more in fantasy. But regardless of the genre, if I use one over the other, it’s because I want the effect of that specific word in the passage at hand.

I guess I’m funny that way. People can criticize my plots or my characterizations and I’ll listen with an open mind. And most of the time I’ll take criticism of my narrative and dialogue without getting particularly upset. But for some reason, if after due consideration I choose a specific word to create a particular effect, to have someone object to the use of that word really rubs my fur the wrong way. Of course, as a new author, the state of my fur may not be the copy-editor’s highest priority. Which, while probably appropriate from the consideration of publishing as a business, is unfortunate from the consideration of the craft and art of writing.

But today, the rise of e-publishing and the freedom it provides for self-publishing is creating changes in the traditional publishing models, and some of these arbitrary rules may not be a factor much longer. One can only hope.

So I sing the praise of irregular verbs! Join the chorus when it comes around.

Fictional Holidays

December 26, 2011

Matt Jones

Craft & Skills Matt Jones The Writing Life World-building 2 Comments

With the holiday season passing us, I think it is a good time to look around us and figure out how we can put this in a fiction world. Looking at our own holidays is a great way to help world-build and create believable celebrations in your own world. A well designed world that includes holidays may also provide a look into the history and cultures that exist in the world.

Looking at Christmas, we can see different elements coming from different cultures with different priorities, the two that jump to the front being religion and harvest. Religion has been with us since the first cognizant person witnessed the first lightning storm or felt his first earthquake. To their primitive culture, such acts could only be accomplished via a supreme being. It’s not surprising then that many of the holidays surround the worship or appeasement of a god. Even the name holidays comes from Holy Days.

The date is centered around the Winter Solstace, or December 21st. The Norse celebrated Yule, which focused on the return of the sun. If you watched the sun in the sky, each day it would drop lower and lower as the days got shorter. On solstice, the sun would stop its movement and start rising as the days got longer. To celebrate, they would get large logs and light them on fire and feast until the flames went out. The Norse believed that each spark from these Yule logs, which could burn for around 12 days, symbolized a new life that would be born in the forthcoming year.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of Agriculture. Since farming and agriculture paused for the passing of winter, it provided time for celebration and feasts. Saturnalia also centered on the rebirth of the sun and the hopes of a good new year. One big part of the celebration was the day of Gift-giving on December 23rd. On this day, people gathered to give gifts to friends, family, and patrons.

Finally, with the coming of Christianity, many of these celebrations were converted in an effort to bring more people into the religion. As society progressed and became industrialized, the rebirth of the sun and the worry about growing crops for the next year subsided. Despite this, the history and concerns of our people in the past is still evident in how we celebrate now.

Looking back at fiction, you can put these same ideas into your holidays. If the people of your world never had to worry about food or the loss of the sun, then having them celebrate a Christmas like celebration wouldn’t make sense. Also, in a world where Gods are not only worshiped but actively walk and affect the lives of their followers, certain requirements may be demanded upon them. Think of how these requirements would change through the years. Perhaps a past god required one thing and was replaced with the current god who actively protested the celebrations. How would this effect the world and those living in it?

Even if you don’t tell the world of all the history, it can help give ideas and really give color to the world. If nothing else, it will give you, the author, a deeper understanding of your world and the people who live there. And that can only help improve a novel.

ANNOUNCING: The Book of Creation

December 22, 2011

Evan Braun

Evan Braun Publishing The Writing Life 3 Comments

In the wake of a discovery that rocks the archaeological world, three strangers meet for the first time in the mountains of central Switzerland. Under a cloak of secrecy, they’ve been gathered together by a ruthless billionaire whose goal is to harness unspeakable power by unearthing an artifact more ancient than civilization itself.

Their mission soon finds them on the chase of a lifetime. From the Great Pyramids of Egypt through the wilds of Antarctica, they circle the globe on the heels of a mystery thousands of years in the making, pursued by forces intent on their destruction, proving once and for all that there are some mysteries in this world too dangerous to be solved…

For in the dark waits a terrifying menace.

* * *

As a regular contributor to The Fictorian Era, over the last year I have shared with you my views on writing, publishing, and my general sanity. Well, obviously the goal of all that blood and sweat is to achieve the dream of being a published author. Slowly but surely, a lot of us Fictorians are starting to see the fruits of our labor pay off. As each of us comes out with a new book, we’re excited to share the news with you, our readers. Today, I have just such a piece of good news!

Authors can often trace their labors of love back through the years. Well, this week, after more than five years of hard work and tireless research, I am pleased to announce the release of the writing project I am most proud of.

The Book of Creation, a novel written by myself and Clint Byars, will be published in print this upcoming March from Word Alive Press. However, for those of you who own Kindles and other ebook reading devices, the book is being made available early. It is now available for purchase from the Kindle Store, and in the coming weeks it will pop up in all the major ebook venues. It’s priced at just $2.99. Even if you’re not a Kindle owner, there’s an option to purchase the book as a gift for friends and family who are Kindle owners. The book would make a great, inexpensive Christmas gift. Think of it as a digital stocking stuffer!

The novel is an exploration of the premise that our ancient history is fundamentally different from the prevailing historical views of our times. Similar in vein and style to Indiana Jones and The DaVinci Code, this novel presupposes that elements of the world’s greatest mythologies have a kernel (perhaps a large kernel) of truth… a truth which is finally coming to light after thousands of years hidden in the dark.

And now, without further ado, here is an exclusive preview of The Book of Creation:

* * *

Emery WÃ¶rtlich was disappointed. At this point in his career, he would have expected more than a half-empty lecture hall. And if this class went anything like the ones preceding it, the numbers would dwindle to a mere handful by the time he presented his more controversial theories. If he had learned anything as a professor, it was that students couldn’t be bothered to think for themselves anymore.

If I change even one mind, it will be worth it. Of course, he would have preferred to change several hundred at a time.

“Good evening,” WÃ¶rtlich said, a slight German accent clipping the edges of his words. He unzipped his bag and pulled out a laptop, placing it softly on the lectern. He double-clicked on his presentation file and turned back to the class as the screen lit up.

Sadness once again took hold as he counted the number of empty seats between filled ones.

“Today we look at the Giza pyramids,” he said. “You are all graduate students, so you think you know everything there is to know, but there is probably a lot you do not… things other instructors will not tell you because they do not think they are important. But they are. Vastly important.”

He opened the first slide, an overhead view of the pyramids. “But before we get to that, I want you to pay particular attention to the Queen’s Pyramids. These smaller structures surrounding the Pyramid of Khufu are like remoras on sharks. In and of themselves they are nothing special, at least not in comparison to the pyramids, and yet their proximity alone makes them worthy of study.”

He brought up a view that accentuated the difference in size between the Queen’s Pyramids and the Great Pyramid. “As you can see, these were not built by the same people, certainly not contemporaries of each other. The construction of the Queen’s Pyramids is so shoddy that it requires a staggering absence of intelligence to make such a leap. No joke, you must have borderline dementia to accept such a ridiculous hypothesis.”

Already three people in the back were gathering their stuff. WÃ¶rtlich wasn’t going to stop them. If their minds couldn’t take such a basic challenge, they weren’t worth his time.

“These minor pyramids all contain mummies-or rather, they did before grave robbers got to them. What I find most interesting, though, is that the main pyramids did not. Contain mummies, that is. There is very little evidence to suggest that.”

He changed slides again, but before he could return to his notes, he heard a voice from the front row.

“But isn’t that why the Egyptians built the pyramids in the first place? For burial?”

Surprised, WÃ¶rtlich glanced over the lectern and eyed the few students staring back at him. One of them raised her hand. She was an American; her look and accent was unmistakable.

“For one thing,” WÃ¶rtlich mused, “I do not accept the premise of your question.”

“That the pyramids were intended for burial?”

“Obviously. But what I mean is, the Egyptians did not build the pyramids.”

Skepticism blanketed the room in an uncomfortable silence, but it was nothing he hadn’t experienced a hundred times before.

Once again, the student put in her two cents. “Forgive me, sir, but that’s… well, that’s preposterous.”

“You are forgiven.”

“What he means,” said another student, a man, “is that the Egyptians made the Jews build them.”

WÃ¶rtlich furrowed his brow. “No, that is not what I mean, but I appreciate you putting words in my mouth. Now, I am sorry to contradict your eighth grade history textbooks, but this is a center for higher learning. If you want me to stand here and contribute to one of the longest lasting and most ridiculous lies perpetrated by modern academia-well, I regret you will have to go somewhere else for that. I hear Professor Gingrich hosts an excellent class on Fridays. If, however, you are interested in expanding your minds and hearing what I have to say, then by all means, pay attention.”

He replaced the slide with a profile shot of the Great Pyramid. In the margins, he had scribbled dimensions and proportions.

“In case none of you have seen it for yourselves-and I suggest you get around to it-the Great Pyramid is monstrous. Its base alone covers thirteen acres. It contains 2.3 million stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons. In fact, there are a few granite blocks higher in the pyramid structure that weigh over a hundred tons. Do not ask me how they got them up there; that is a question for much later. In any event, it is a hell of a lot of stone.”

He looked squarely at the American student. “If you need a point of reference, that’s enough stone to build a six-foot wall all the way from New York to Los Angeles.”

The student shrugged. “Couldn’t they have built ramps to get the blocks up?”

“Or a pulley system,” another suggested. “One of our professors even theorized that they might have built it from the inside out.”

WÃ¶rtlich nodded to the second student for at least doing her homework. “Well, certainly. I suppose those theories might be possible. But what traditional sources do not often admit is that for the Great Pyramid to have been built and completed during the timeframe suggested, the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, workers would have had to move one and half stone blocks into place every hour for twenty-three years, without stopping for nights, weekends, or bathroom breaks. And remember just how heavy they were. Still are, actually.”

“It could have happened. There were thousands of slaves.”

“Sure! Absolutely it could have happened. Let us consider for a moment that you are right. Also consider that the pyramids embody such a wealth of mathematical know-how and precision that its builders would have needed wisdom akin to the knowledge we have today.”

“The Egyptians of that period operated at the height of ancient civilization, didn’t they?” someone asked.

“That is highly arguable. But it is good of you to give them the benefit of the doubt. Let us look at some specifics now, so that you, all of you, can judge for yourselves. Begin with the impressive fact that the pyramid’s base is a perfect square with right angles accurate to one-twentieth of a degree. That is very precise. Also bear in mind that the sides of the pyramid, perfect equilateral triangles, face exactly north, south, east, and west. And I mean exactly. Now, if we take the Hebrew cubit to be 25.025 inches, then astonishingly we find that the length of each side of the base is 365.2422 cubits. Does that number sound familiar to anyone?”

WÃ¶rtlich gave them a chance to weigh in. Truth be told, he was delighted that this group at least had the gumption to speak up.

“That’s about the same number of days in a year,” someone answered.

“No,” WÃ¶rtlich said forcefully. “It is the precise number of days in a year, including the fraction that accounts for leap years. These builders placed a premium on precision, no? Is any of this starting to sound unlikely? In case there are any skeptics left in the room, and there always are, the numbers get even more interesting. Very juicy. If we multiply twice the length of a side, at the base, by the total height, at the apex-which is 232.52 cubits-we get pi. To within five decimal places! I must say, that is not bad for six-thousand-year-old Egyptians.”

“Okay, I get it,” the first student admitted. “It’s weird.”

WÃ¶rtlich rubbed his hands together excitedly. “And just to, how do you say, “make the deal sweet,’ bear in mind that the Great Pyramid stands at the precise center of the world, longitudinally between the west coast of Mexico and the east coast of China, and latitudinally between the northernmost coast of Norway and the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The Egyptians could not possibly have made such a calculation, what with not having discovered the existence of the Far East or the Americas. You cannot make this stuff up. If the Egyptians were so damned precise, why did the Queen’s Pyramids cave in on themselves after a few centuries while the greater pyramids continue to stand after several millennia?

“Now, Professor Gingrich and most of his peers would chalk all this up to coincidence, one piled upon another. But since I actually understand a thing or two about math, I know better. The odds of that happening are astronomical. I mean, truly and unfathomably massive.”

When he paused, the class was silent. WÃ¶rtlich was pleased to note that he hadn’t lost any more people since the beginning of his tirade. He couldn’t help but smile. He hid it by looking down and changing the slide again.

“So, to summarize what you have just heard, these builders had access to knowledge beyond the scope of their worldview. They somehow intuited that the planet was a globe, flattened at the poles, and also seemed to know its rate of rotation, not to mention the 23.5 degree tilt of its axis. And of course, they knew the precise number of days required for the Earth to orbit the sun. But I am sure all that is coincidental. After all, the Egyptians just barely had a firm grasp on the wheel.”

He returned the slide to the opening photo and waited for the inevitable response. Sure enough, they didn’t disappoint.

“So who did build the pyramids?”

WÃ¶rtlich smiled crookedly and closed the lid of his laptop.

“Finally, a good question.”

* * *

If you like what you’ve read so far, please visit our Amazon page and pick up a copy today (click here). You can also visit our official website. Happy holidays to all!