Books as poems

I finished the first draft of my next novel. I took a week off from writing and now I'm working on some random stuff in between. While riding the train tonight I decided to start writing some poetry. Japanese style.

Car comes roaring forth

Rebecca rescues the girl

The Knights keep them safe

Flee from the Thralls to China

Confrontation in Scottland

Those of you familiar with my first novel ("Sorceress' Blood") will probably find the narrative of this poem familiar. Yes, I've summarised my novel in a five line poem called a 'tanka'. Why? Because I can!

Then I did it again with a book I read recently called "Storm Front".

Dresden needs some cash

Corpses with exploded hearts

A missing husband

Shadowman sends a demon

Chicago needs a wizard

"Storm Front" is by Jim Butcher and is the first novel in the Dresden Files series of books (Named for the main character: Harry Dresden). And while I'm sure everybody knew about these books before me, just in case, you should go read them. They're very good.

Note that these are tanka and not haiku. A haiku is a very constrictive three line poem focused on imagery, nature and the seasons. I wrote one of them too:

Cool winds bring Autumn

My ruffled notebook pages

Scattering my thoughts

If your haiku doesn't include imagery, nature and the seasons then it's not a haiku. It's something else. A senryu or a tanka missing its tail. We need a name for tanka missing their tail. Any suggestions?

I'm not usually comfortable writing poetry. I don't consider myself a poet and I acknowledge I'm not very good at poetry. But it's always good to challenge yourself and work outside your comfort zone if only for a little while.

It's also fun to reduce the plots of books down to five lines of verse. Have a go at it and see what you come up with.

What I Learned From Writing Sorceress' Blood

1. If you have passion for your story, it will be much easier to write. If you genuinely want to tell a story then you will tell that story and you'll know way ahead of time that the end is within your reach. There's no substitute for this.

2. Writing a novel is exciting, exhilarating, boring, difficult, painful, amazing, joyous, awe-inspiring and there is no feeling quite like it that I have ever known.

3. I could have kept writing, rewriting, editing, revising, updating, remaking, adding and subtracting for the rest of my life before I completed Sorceress' Blood and there are people out there who will think I should have. But there comes a time when you have to let go and see what happens.

4. On a similar note: Perfection is unattainable. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try, it just means that you need to know when you've hit your limits. With every subsequent novel and story, your limits should increase and you should come closer to perfection - I know I have. If I'd written Sorceress' Blood today, I would do it differently. But I didn't. I wrote it in 2009 and revised it and edited it between 2010 and 2012. Under those circumstances I am proud of what it is and what I did. But part of me will always wish I'd just done a little more.

5. You have to keep going. Grin and bear it, bite the bullet, roll with the punches - Nobody said it would be easy. And other cliches like that... There will be setbacks while writing - at least once my computer caused me to lose a big chunk of what I was writing. Oh that sucked. But I got back on the horse and kept on keeping on. There will be nay-sayers, critics, haters and those that just don't care. I think it's the ones that don't care that get to me the most. I know some people don't like me and some people don't and won't like Sorceress' Blood but at least I've made an impression on them. And you can't please everyone. The harsh critics make me want to try harder, the people who enjoy my writing make feel better and the ones who don't notice me make me want to shout and scream and cry. But no matter what, you just have to keep going. Keep creating, keep improving, keep selling. Your audience is there waiting for you.

6. I think a lot of the best parts of Sorceress' Blood were actually the result of working with Jim Parsons. He was worth every cent I paid him and more helpful than I ever could have imagined he would be. Sorceress' Blood is doubled in quality after he'd gone through it. The original version of Sorceress' Blood was just a little retarded in some parts and he did a great job of telling me when I was talking out of my ass. I know I caused him more than a little frustration, too, and I'm forever thankful for what he's done for me.

No matter how harsh you think you are - and trust me on this, I'm one of the harshest critics I have - you NEED professional help if you want to be professional. Find the money and get an editor.

So it's really no surprise that I should have learned less from Sorceress' Blood than I did before then. I look at Sorceress' Blood as a kind of practical application of everything I learned up that point. This isn't so much lessons in writing as it is being a writer. I didn't learn nearly as much as I should have about writing while working on Sorceress' Blood.

A lot of these lessons are about taking a chance, seeing it to the end and living with the consequences - good or bad. Whatever you do in life, come to terms with it and right or wrong, be at peace with your choices. I have no regrets about what I've done - that doesn't mean I think all my choices in life are good, only that I'm content to have made them.

I'm currently working on a book under the working title "Pilgrimage". I already know it's better than Sorceress' Blood and I have learned so much from writing this that I didn't take the time to learn from Sorceress' Blood. I look forward to the day it is done and I can look back and write all the lessons that have come to me with this project.

Until then, I've got a couple of other things in the works that I'll be talking about soon. I'll see you then.

Lessons In Being Better

Back in December I started a new project. I started writing guides on writing. I wanted to put in writing all the things I have learned over the years and make it clear for me and for others. I wanted to present practical, experience based advice on how to write a book or any other kind of fiction.

Writing is hard but anybody can do it if they take the time to learn.

I've written some more writing guides since then, aimed at the pre-writing work you should do. They are available on my deviantArt but I've also put them together as a project on figment. You can follow them here:

The Most Important Lesson

I like teachers. Teachers are cool. I have a lot of respect for teachers and the teachers I've had, especially the good ones, are the people I generally remember the most fondly.

I had a lot of teachers, growing up. Some bad, some good. Some were excellent and they had a huge impact on me. I'm thinking of one in particular.

But I do wish that somewhere along the line, one of them had said to me...

"Hey, you ever notice just how amazing EVERYTHING is? All this stuff we're trying to teach you is just to help you fully comprehend how absolutely awe inspiring both the universe and human condition is. Just the chance to be alive, even once, and get a chance at seeing a fraction of all there is to see is a huge pleasure and you'll be able to appreciate that, the more you know about, well, anything.

"This knowledge isn't just so you can get a job when you graduate, work for sixty years, retire and die. Education is so you can look at everything that's around you and understand the context of existence and be constantly mind-blown by what has happened to bring the world to this point, what is happening now to propel the world to places we can scarcely even imagine. And also by the trillions of little social, mathematical and scientific principles that are at work just to sustain a universe and a planet and a people that is here for seemingly no other reason than it can be.

"That is why you should pay attention and that is why everything - EVERYTHING - we go over in class is important and will be applicable to your life no matter who you are, where you live or what you do."

Actually, I don't mind if it was a teacher but SOMEBODY should be saying this to our children early and often

Belated New Years

Happy new calendar, everybody!

I'm still working hard on my next novel. It's at 42,000 words at the moment but I'm taking a break to say hi and check how things are going for all of you.

Sorceress' Blood, by the by, was 50,000 words. That's short for a novel. My current novel is nowhere near it's climax so that's kind of exciting for me. I'm probably 1/2 to 2/3 of the way done on the first draft. I really hope I can get it all out by early February.

So how's things? Looking forward to 2013 and all it has to offer? I know I am. This is going to be a very good year for me. How do I know? Because I've already decided it will be.

I don't usually go in for new years resolutions. I think every time of year is the right time to be resolute and make changes and commit to new plans. As it happens, though, the new year coincides with the resolutions I would have made, regardless so I'm calling them my new year's resolutions! Yay!

So, here's what I'm planning for 2013:
Write more, talk less. It is so easy to get distracted for anybody who is passionate about something. You just want to talk and talk and talk about what you love. But sometimes I find I am spending all my time talking about writing that I stop writing. So I need to shift that ratio around a little bit. I'm not abandoning dA or the forums and I'm still going to work on my series of writing guides but I just plan to spend more time actually writing.
Finish two novels. I've set my goal to be two completed novels by the end of this year. That's a huge leap from doing one novel in three years but I think I can do it. Hell, I'm half way done on the first one! Okay, so I started that before this year begun but I'm still counting it. When I say finished I mean written, edited and ready to publish. The second novel I plan for this year is in the planning stages but I already know what it will be. That makes it easier and gives me reason to be confident.
Stay optimistic and don't forget to be awesome The saying "Don't forget to be awesome" is the catch phrase of John and Hank Green - internet personalities I stumbled across this year and am immensely impressed by. It's not only their work that impresses me but their unstoppable commitment to being positive and optimistic and wanting the world to be more amazing. I think creative people are prone to being insecure (or maybe insecure people are prone to being creative) and the only cure for that is positivity. External affirmations are all well and good but the best kind of optimism is the kind you breed in yourself.

Those are my commitments from here on out. And you know, if I can do them then so can you! I'd like to see all my fellow writers striving towards a positive attitude, further dedication to their craft and the completion of a couple of big projects in 2013.

All the best, my brothers and sisters and don't forget to be awesome

Christmas Give Away

Haven't read Sorceress' Blood, yet? Missed out on the new release sale? Oh well. No worries.

For the next week, Sorceress' Blood is FREE on the Amazon Kindle store. You get it free and keep it forever. Consider it a Christmas present from me to you. Just click below...

Merry Christmas

A New Lesson

For everyone who is interested in the writing process and some ideas on getting better, there is a new Lesson In Being Better. This one is on developing concepts.

A Lesson In Being Better: What If...